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I played a crappy character...and it was great!
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6029385" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>That was something of a shorthand on my part - it was a comparative reference to the ability scores of the other PCs in the game; in other words, he was "crappy" as a quantitative judgment, not a qualitative one.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This one's a "sort of." If you look at rolling stats purely as its own thing (that is, divorce it from then actually playing the character after the stats are rolled), I find fun in that. There's an element of imminent anticipation there, a la "what's in this gift that I'm about to open?" sort of way.</p><p></p><p>Several times, purely for fun, my group has conducted "fake" 3d6 rolls, where we see what stats for characters we would have been playing, had the entire thing not been a fun "what if" exercise.</p><p></p><p>(<strong>EDIT</strong> - Fun fact: I once got into a debate with a guy who couldn't believe that there was any fun to be had in rolling dice for their own sake. He kept removing meaning from the equation, finally asking "but if the numbers themselves don't have any greater meaning, if even high or low doesn't matter, is rolling dice still fun?" He couldn't believe it when I said yes - since I find it fun in the same way spinning a top is fun - and disdainfully ended the debate by saying how to him "fun needs to be more than rotating polyhedrals," or something like that.)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In regards to playing up the aspect of the bad stats, that's part of it. It's honestly amusing, and somewhat refreshing, to play a character that isn't notably better than the "average NPC" in some areas. It's fun to portray some rather dramatic limitations on what my cleric can do.</p><p></p><p>I do think that I'd have been quite happy if I'd rolled all 18's though! </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'll admit, I do see this character as a challenge, and that's certainly boosting my enjoyment. </p><p></p><p>I do have something of a point to prove, but while my reason for doing this was my wanting to show the value of random stats to the other players, I want to stress that my doing so was done in good humor; I don't feel a drive or a need to "win" this particular difference in views.</p><p></p><p>For the most part, this was something I'd simply long wanted to try, since the first method of character generation that I'd initially read about when I started D&D was via the random method - specifically 3d6 in order. That's clearly much more stringent than point-buy, but as I said, I do enjoy the challenge.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's true also, but not quite so much. I'll admit there's a balance in terms of wanting to make my character useful, but at the same time not subjecting him to a situation which, due to his stats influencing his die rolls, he'd likely not survive. Luckily, as a support-based character, that's usually not a problem...but even so, I do see something of a personal victory with each session that ends with him still alive.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There's also the enjoyment that comes from having tried something I didn't think I'd like - a cleric PC, in this case - and finding out that I do in fact like it.</p><p></p><p>I won't say that I don't feel a sense of personal vindication there - a sort of "it worked!" fulfillment that comes from finding that something you'd long believed to be true actually is true when you finally try it. Likewise, it feels good to have that particular vista of future opportunities for cleric characters be open (e.g. I'm not mentally writing off all future ideas for cleric characters anymore).</p><p></p><p>There's a lot of disparate elements involved in why this makes me happy, like there is for anything that makes anyone happy, I suspect. But I'm just happy that I'm happy with what I tried. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 6029385, member: 8461"] That was something of a shorthand on my part - it was a comparative reference to the ability scores of the other PCs in the game; in other words, he was "crappy" as a quantitative judgment, not a qualitative one. This one's a "sort of." If you look at rolling stats purely as its own thing (that is, divorce it from then actually playing the character after the stats are rolled), I find fun in that. There's an element of imminent anticipation there, a la "what's in this gift that I'm about to open?" sort of way. Several times, purely for fun, my group has conducted "fake" 3d6 rolls, where we see what stats for characters we would have been playing, had the entire thing not been a fun "what if" exercise. ([b]EDIT[/b] - Fun fact: I once got into a debate with a guy who couldn't believe that there was any fun to be had in rolling dice for their own sake. He kept removing meaning from the equation, finally asking "but if the numbers themselves don't have any greater meaning, if even high or low doesn't matter, is rolling dice still fun?" He couldn't believe it when I said yes - since I find it fun in the same way spinning a top is fun - and disdainfully ended the debate by saying how to him "fun needs to be more than rotating polyhedrals," or something like that.) In regards to playing up the aspect of the bad stats, that's part of it. It's honestly amusing, and somewhat refreshing, to play a character that isn't notably better than the "average NPC" in some areas. It's fun to portray some rather dramatic limitations on what my cleric can do. I do think that I'd have been quite happy if I'd rolled all 18's though! I'll admit, I do see this character as a challenge, and that's certainly boosting my enjoyment. I do have something of a point to prove, but while my reason for doing this was my wanting to show the value of random stats to the other players, I want to stress that my doing so was done in good humor; I don't feel a drive or a need to "win" this particular difference in views. For the most part, this was something I'd simply long wanted to try, since the first method of character generation that I'd initially read about when I started D&D was via the random method - specifically 3d6 in order. That's clearly much more stringent than point-buy, but as I said, I do enjoy the challenge. That's true also, but not quite so much. I'll admit there's a balance in terms of wanting to make my character useful, but at the same time not subjecting him to a situation which, due to his stats influencing his die rolls, he'd likely not survive. Luckily, as a support-based character, that's usually not a problem...but even so, I do see something of a personal victory with each session that ends with him still alive. There's also the enjoyment that comes from having tried something I didn't think I'd like - a cleric PC, in this case - and finding out that I do in fact like it. I won't say that I don't feel a sense of personal vindication there - a sort of "it worked!" fulfillment that comes from finding that something you'd long believed to be true actually is true when you finally try it. Likewise, it feels good to have that particular vista of future opportunities for cleric characters be open (e.g. I'm not mentally writing off all future ideas for cleric characters anymore). There's a lot of disparate elements involved in why this makes me happy, like there is for anything that makes anyone happy, I suspect. But I'm just happy that I'm happy with what I tried. ;) [/QUOTE]
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