My players said no....

[Hypersmurf]

I tried this just recently as an experiment. We just started playing D&D again after a stint in Darwin's World and I told the players to go ahead and pick what they wanted for attributes. The all just sat there for about 10 minutes looking uncomfortable. Writing stuff, erasing stuff, and finally one of the guys turned to me and said, "I'm just going to use point buy." The others did the same. There was no fear of DM second guessing or anything, they just did not feel comfortable with picking their stats.

That's pretty much what I did last time a DM told me to pick stats, too

-Hyp.

 

[Rel]

With thier backgrounds even if they are not motivated by money, they can be pushed in the right direction. Its B5 so the players decided to create characters that have links to the different governments. This makes it wasy since I can have an NPC order them to do it. B5 does a great job of getting characters from various backgrounds to the adventure. They do a great job of getting characters motivation from the different races.

And I understand that it may not sound as free as the game really is. My players are a bit odd and make it easy especially at the beginning. So, they will motivate their characters to the adventure becasue they know that is were the fun resides for the most part.

No worries then. I wasn't trying to bust your chops. Plus I figured the exchange we had would help to bolster your post count.

 

[Will]

Honestly, if I was in a game like that? F it. I'd pick all 18s.

It'd be nice to play Mr. Universe.

What? I'm not RPing right? Cake and eat it to, guys.

 

[Crothian]

Honestly, if I was in a game like that? F it. I'd pick all 18s.

It'd be nice to play Mr. Universe.

What? I'm not RPing right? Cake and eat it to, guys.

And I'd have been fine with that. I think it could be fun to show that a character with straight 18's can be challenged alongside the rest of the players. As a player it'd be fun to have a high stat character and explore the potential and role play it.

 

[kirinke]

even when i do fun characters and go with the 4d6 rules... i look cross-eyed when i occassionally roll something like a 21-24 range. and say... woah. ummm.... ok... no one is going to believe i rolled this. let's go with a +4 ECL race. yeh. that'd make it believable.

 

[Allura]

I vastly prefer rolly for stats. Heck, I don't even particularly like point buy - I just sorta stare at it, and end up dividing the points by the number of stats and giving everything the same number. Makes all my characters seem the same. Biggest flaw in NWN, imho.

 

[Wombat]

I came up with a new way to roll stats one campaign back and now my players love it:

Roll 21d6

Drop the three lowest

Take the dice that are left and arrange them into six groups of three

Place these in your characteristics

It is sort of a compromise position between Point Buy and Full Roll -- the players are able to "massage" characteristics a bit. And there is an obvious trade-off -- if you want that 18, you are going to have to short another stat pretty heavily.

It's an idea at least

 

[jollyninja]

i've played in one where the dm just let people pick their stats and honestly, i'm not doing it again if i can avoid it. the group had been together for awhile and allways done this, where i had come from more of a point buyish background. i gave myself what i considered "good" stats because my social class was recently freed slave paladin and i was entering the game with a board with a nail in it and a loin cloth (i got shoes around level 3!). well one guy had 3 18's at lev 8 and i was down by at least ten to the next lowest character in all stats totalled (my low stat was 12). as a dm i just went back to the 4d6 and do it in front of me. just 'cause i'm a bastard.

 

[Buttercup]

Everytime this discussion comes up, I find that I'm one of the few people who actually prefers to just pick my stats. If I have a character concept, by extension I know what I want my ability scores to be, and I hate it when I have to roll and end up with something completely different.

In one of the games I'm playing in, I actually asked the DM if I could lower the wisdom score of my bard, because it was essential to her character development that she not have common sense. Fortunately he let me change her wisdom from a 12 to an 8.

 

[shilsen]

Everytime this discussion comes up, I find that I'm one of the few people who actually prefers to just pick my stats. If I have a character concept, by extension I know what I want my ability scores to be, and I hate it when I have to roll and end up with something completely different.

In one of the games I'm playing in, I actually asked the DM if I could lower the wisdom score of my bard, because it was essential to her character development that she not have common sense. Fortunately he let me change her wisdom from a 12 to an 8.

I'd prefer to just pick my stats too, but haven't played with a DM who allows that. I'm thinking that the next time I DM I'm going to let the players pick the stats any way they want (point buy, roll, just write down whatever they want, etc.), as long as they all agree on the method. In fact, I'm tempted to let them just pick their starting levels too. That should freak them out a bit