Point buy

[genshou]

If you don't want to play a realistic character, then how does rolling stats help realism?

Demanding that we all use 3d6 in order because it is "realistic" is really missing the point of realism.

That's what I was responding to. I didn't bring realism into it and never intended to. I simply responded to your statement which had initially brought realism into the discussion. That's why I'm asking you to explain what this "realism" is and why it matters. Still, since I did say that assertion was missing the point of realism, I'll explain.

This is not a game about playing peasants who till the fields until they die. That's what I do in the real world, metaphorically. A character with a 50 point-buy is no more or less "realistic" than a character with a 15 point-buy. Using a higher value for the PCs, or using rolling methods more likely to generate more heroic characters is simply a method of "selecting" only certain individuals from the gene pool.

Every person in this world is "realistic", but that doesn't mean the "PCs" who do all the heroic stuff are just as likely to have a 3 Constitution as the average person. Those people don't end up being heroes. They end up living in a hospital their entire lifespan of 3 weeks.

 

[prosfilaes]

I simply responded to your statement which had initially brought realism into the discussion.

Actually, it didn't; it was a response to someone who claimed that rolling was more realistic.

Still, since I did say that assertion was missing the point of realism, I'll explain.

This is not a game about playing peasants who till the fields until they die. That's what I do in the real world, metaphorically. A character with a 50 point-buy is no more or less "realistic" than a character with a 15 point-buy. Using a higher value for the PCs, or using rolling methods more likely to generate more heroic characters is simply a method of "selecting" only certain individuals from the gene pool.

That doesn't help me finish the sentence "the point of realism is..." at all.

 

[genshou]

That doesn't help me finish the sentence "the point of realism is..." at all.

I don't know what to tell you about what it is (I already attempted to explain that and clearly failed), but from where I stand the point of realism is not to force players to play average characters. In the sense that D&D is a game about heroes who are something more than the average of their race, that would actually be unrealistic. Representing heroes in a way that is accurate and true to life can involve point-buy or rolling on a scale likely to generate heroic characters. The difference is that with rolling everyone isn't going to be "equal" unless they all happen to roll the same way. I guess that's what the person who originally mentioned real life was trying to say.

I went back and re-read a lot of the thread and I think I found where you got into realism. I can't put words in DerHauptman's mouth, but after reading post #181 I didn't get any sense of "realism" either way. It's just a method of selecting individuals of a certain power level or range of power levels, nothing more and nothing less. One person used a real-world example is what brought up the whole debate about the realism issue, but I don't see the point in continuing arguing about realism if that's the only reason it started in the first place.