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Community
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Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7260654" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>'Pure chaos' would be modeled pretty well by making everything random.... but point taken. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> The standard of realism, though, is RL, it's reality. The degree of realism is how close it gets. RPGs don't generally get very close, to begin with, edging them a little closer at the cost of imbalance, bad play experiences, and general suck often doesn't seem worth it, but for those of us willing to pay the costs, it can be. It's all a matter of general preference. </p><p>The default random-or-array-and-arrange chargen method isn't that realistic, people don't get to re-arrange their stats nor choose to conform to a minimum standard as an alternative to accepting inborn potential. Random-in-order is more realistic, random-in-order using a system representative of the whole population rather than just the population of adventurers would be more realistic, randomly determining other aspects of the character beyond its control - race, assigned sex, circumstances of birth, etc - would be that much more so, as well. A 'build' method, where the player chooses /everything/ his character from the campaign's parameters, is really only a little less realistic than the methods offered by D&D. The point-buy variant in 5e doesn't even go quite that far. </p><p>It's just a matter of where to draw the line, for yourself, personally, or for your campaign, as DM. </p><p></p><p>Having typed all that out, I'm thinking 'realism' isn't really a credible advantage of the 5e default array-or-roll-and-arrange method. It's too easy for the player to step in and thwart what passes for realism. Yes, in theory it's /slightly/ less unrealistic than the point-buy variant, but both of them are decidedly less realistic than roll-in-order with randomly-assigned backgrounds &c.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7260654, member: 996"] 'Pure chaos' would be modeled pretty well by making everything random.... but point taken. ;) The standard of realism, though, is RL, it's reality. The degree of realism is how close it gets. RPGs don't generally get very close, to begin with, edging them a little closer at the cost of imbalance, bad play experiences, and general suck often doesn't seem worth it, but for those of us willing to pay the costs, it can be. It's all a matter of general preference. The default random-or-array-and-arrange chargen method isn't that realistic, people don't get to re-arrange their stats nor choose to conform to a minimum standard as an alternative to accepting inborn potential. Random-in-order is more realistic, random-in-order using a system representative of the whole population rather than just the population of adventurers would be more realistic, randomly determining other aspects of the character beyond its control - race, assigned sex, circumstances of birth, etc - would be that much more so, as well. A 'build' method, where the player chooses /everything/ his character from the campaign's parameters, is really only a little less realistic than the methods offered by D&D. The point-buy variant in 5e doesn't even go quite that far. It's just a matter of where to draw the line, for yourself, personally, or for your campaign, as DM. Having typed all that out, I'm thinking 'realism' isn't really a credible advantage of the 5e default array-or-roll-and-arrange method. It's too easy for the player to step in and thwart what passes for realism. Yes, in theory it's /slightly/ less unrealistic than the point-buy variant, but both of them are decidedly less realistic than roll-in-order with randomly-assigned backgrounds &c. [/QUOTE]
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