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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hillsy7" data-source="post: 7248661" data-attributes="member: 6689191">Sooo….a nice block of replies and some interesting spreads of replies too. Some quick observations about the numbers.I should’ve put “Role First” as one fo the options as judging by a number of the replies saying “Mix”, there was a definite theme of looking at the party makeup and picking a handful of mechanics/classes that would fill that role….So I think probably mehcanics first is a little higher than 5% because of my own poor wording.Another interesting point was the vague blurring of race and class – a lot of people seem to put the two together in their replies. I’d be interested to find out if this is a more visual thing (I am envisioning an Elf with a spear), or if it’s a natural lean actually towards stats (I am envisioning a high STR character – so large and martial). Again, I think perhaps the stats lean is a little higher and the class a little lower mainly down to my poor wording.Also interested how few people equated rolling a random stat block with taking a Stats first approach – I think this is part because I used a poor example, but also how much people don’t see Stats and Character operating in sympathy with each other – this is slightly supported by the number of replies that seem to treat the concept and the mechanics as a distinct two stage process (“I pick a narrative, background and class – flesh that out a bit – then I pick the mechanics”). This, possibly as much as anything else, highlights the slight conflict between D&D’s two halves: The Role playing, and the Game.Overall though, I’d probably weight the replies about 2:1 Mechanics Vs Story as the main driver for character creation (considering the survey and adjusting for replies to mitigate my poor wording choices), which as much as anything else tells me there’s a large contingency of players in numerous styles of games (Mechanics Vs Story is not a dichotomy, rather two non-parallel continuums producing a vast range of game styles). I might have to think on how to do a survey that would highlight differing players approaches to stats and skill and how they drive or react to character – I think that would be very enlightening…..</blockquote>

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