D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[Thomas Shey]

Modern d&d rejects the idea that characters & their players need to bring their A game to survive & triumph while making every effort to disarm the GM of tools in their toolbox to influence things. These methods all either conflict with those changes or worse provide the sort of power levels & resulting problems that occur when you add feats & a given level of magic items to a system designed to expect none of either. Without a meaningful set of crafting rules in modern d&d like 3.x & even asd&d 2e a character with weaker stats can not expect to have a crafting framework they can leverage to fill the gaps.

I'd buy this more but I'm a PF2e player, and it gives a generous set of attributes, but one of the biggest compaints you see about it is that it does demand players be on their toes to succeed. So there's got to be more than that to just having more attribute points to work with.

 

[Umbran]

What's the threshold for "statistically relevant"?

The devil is in the details, I'm afraid. Plus, that may not be the best way to approach the topic.

I ask because our crew have over the years, using char-gen methods similar enough for rock'n'roll

Statistics does not care if you find them similar. Details that seem to you to come out in the wash may matter. We developed Statistics specifically because humans are actually really bad at eyeballing this kind of thing.

generated well north of 1000 characters.

So, let's try for (what I think is) a more relevant way to approach this:

The real question here is, basicaly, is anyone getting repeatedly hosed by the system. Let us say your group of 5 players has generated 1000 characters. How many characters does one player have to go through before they can be reasonably certain they are not getting the short end of the stick? How many do they have to play through until they find their personal experience to be about average for the group?

Rough estimate - if they played 90 characters, they'd expect their collection of characters to overall be within about 10% of the average. Reducing that margin of error is hard - you'd have to play more than half of the thousand characters to get the margin of error down to 3%.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If you agreed to the method of character creation; it means you accepted the risks. It is fair. Luck can be a b**** sometimes.

As I've noted before, "accepting" it just can mean that you wanted to play depending on the time and place it occured in. Someone can have reasons to accept something that's intrinsically unfair. I think random character generation is intrinsically unfair because it forces winners and losers, entirely based on luck.

 

[Helldritch]

As I've noted before, "accepting" it just can mean that you wanted to play depending on the time and place it occured in. Someone can have reasons to accept something that's intrinsically unfair. I think random character generation is intrinsically unfair because it forces winners and losers, entirely based on luck.

And again, if a player get in a game and accept, then it is not unfair. It is totally and irremediably fair. It is the player that has been deceitful because that player entered a game that he/she did not agree with. That is hypocrisy at the highest degree. Did that player think he could change a rule or something to his/her advantage? Even more deceitful.

As for unfair methods...
We prefer the standard array in 5ed. We play 5ed with my two groups currently.
However.
Here is the method we use WHEN we roll.
6 players.
All roll 4d6 drop lowest once.
I roll 4d6 drop lowest once.
They choose the 6 highest attributes. And then place each attribute at random individually.
If my roll is higher than one of the rolls, then use that roll in your lowest attribute.

On the other hand, if I were to play 1ed. It would be
6 players roll 3d6 once.
I roll 3d6 once.
Place the six attributes randomly.
If my roll is higher than one of the rolls, then use that roll in your lowest attribute.

This way, no one is inferior. Everyone is equal and these rolls will be the rolls for all new characters during the campaign. (If it is needed.)

 

[JiffyPopTart]

If you agreed to the method of character creation; it means you accepted the risks. It is fair. Luck can be a b**** sometimes.


This is a philosophy in char gen. Again, if the DM presented a set of rules and everyone voted (this is what we do in my games whenever we start a new campaign) and the rules passed. Again the rules are fair. It is only when a rule is imposed or applied differently depending on the player that unfairness appears.

Being denied a choice because you have accepted a set of rules does not make the rule unfair. It makes the person appearing like an entitled person that just acts like a child. I said yes, I wanted to play at the casino, but I lost my money. That is unfair. No, you played and knew full well the possibilities.



Nope the paladin will still be rare. It is not because a paladin is at the table that makes it a common class. It stays rare. If you see a panda at the zoo and you go and see the panda everyday, it does not make the panda any rarer. It just makes you lucky to be able to see one.

Didn't someone earlier in this thread argue having two of X in the party makes X not rare even if X is super rare in the campaign world?

 

[Fifth Element]

It's fair if you understand and agree to it ahead of time.

Pleas don't pretend there's only one meaning of the word 'fair.'
If the DM's girlfriend magically gets all 18s and you agree to play anyway because you really want to play, that remains unfair in the meaning I'm using.

 

[Lanefan]

I can't trust a 3rd party Random Condiment Generator. I'll bet it hasn't been playtested AT ALL and half those condiments would ruin my hand crafted setting.

Dunno what it'll do to your setting but it'll sure play merry hell with your hand-crafted lunch...

 

[Fifth Element]

I can understand being disappointed, but paladins are supposed to be quite rare under those rules. It's very clear. If you don't like it, and your DM is unwilling to compromise, you are welcome to play any of the all other editions of D&D where this is less of an issue.

I'm also welcome to lay out why an argument that a particular design decision is inherenlty unfair has legs. There's a strong argument that gating poerwful character types with random rolls is inherently unfair due to the randomness involved. Randomness in play has the chance to even out because a character can make thousands of rolls in its lifespan. But rollng a paldin depends on only a single roll, making randomnes hugely more relevant to it.

People can argue that paladins were supposed to be rare as a philosophy. I don't think that's accurate, or at least incomplete. Paladins were supposed to be rare because they were simply more powerful. They had abilities that made them simply better than fighters, because they were fighters with a bunch of extra abilities. There's a good argument that this is inherently unfair, because not only does the character get the benefit that high abilities scores normaly provide - already an advantage provided by randomnes - they also get access to a class with flat-out better stuff.

The fact that you could choose not to play this game doesn't make the unfairness disappear. It just means some players accept it, if only because they didn't have any other options.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm also welcome to lay out why an argument that a particular design decision is inherenlty unfair has legs. There's a strong argument that gating poerwful character types with random rolls is inherently unfair due to the randomness involved. Randomness in play has the chance to even out because a character can make thousands of rolls in its lifespan. But rollng a paldin depends on only a single roll, making randomnes hugely more relevant to it.

People can argue that paladins were supposed to be rare as a philosophy. I don't think that's accurate, or at least incomplete. Paladins were supposed to be rare because they were simply more powerful. They had abilities that made them simply better than fighters, because they were fighters with a bunch of extra abilities.

Then explain Illusionists who, while generally seen as less powerful than standard MUs, were also gated behind tough rolls (Int 15 and Dex 16 I think) in order to make them uncommon.

Further, and barring manipulation of the odds between one player and the next, randomness in itself it is ALWAYS fair. Everyone who wants to try has exactly the same chance of achieving any specific result.

That one person achieves a desired result from a randomized process while another does not doesn't make the process itself any less fair.

 

[billd91]

The fact that you could choose not to play this game doesn't make the unfairness disappear. It just means some players accept it, if only because they didn't have any other options.

Or they’re persuaded that rolling fairly for stats and lucking into a paladin actually is fair. Some people have a different view of the game and what is fair within it than you or Thomas Shey do. For some people, the character generation mini game, complete with random elements, is part of the game and not the prelude. That’s particularly evident among Traveller players with its table driven character generation or R.Talsorian’s life paths.