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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 6862339" data-attributes="member: 5100">This is, essentially, my way of handling cases where players really, really want to roll for stats. It can still cause problems, though....When we started 5E, we recognized the "old school" feel to the system and decided to roll for stats. At a five person table, three had unremarkable (i.e. equivalent to point buy), one had an average of about 15, and one had an average of around 10. Compared to the "normal" characters, the low character was somewhat under-powered, but made a passable one-trick pony (sneak). Compared to the normal characters, the high character was a bit annoying and overly competent, but not really disruptive if you're fine with a single hero and his sidekicks. When you compared the high-score halfling wizard to the low-score rogue, the halfling was an above average wizard but incidentally about as good of a sneak as the rogue. This completely removed any real opportunity for the low-score player to shine and totally took the wind out of his sails. This may not have been as big of a deal in 1E, where the wizard couldn't even try to sneak, but the flexible skill system and addition of backgrounds has some serious side effects.That said, I don't see a problem with rolling stats. You just have to define the style of game you're playing and what you want out of it. Recognizing that it is a gross oversimplification of a lot of things, the GNS breakdown works for this.A strong Narrativist bent would lead a group to wanting characters who a differentiated, but balanced, so that 1) no one character regularly outshines the others and 2) no one character has a lousy story.A strong Gamist table would be open to random stats because it's part of the challenge of the game. Part of that is also the game restriction of minimum scores, etc. It's the same rush as drawing random races in Cosmic Encounters, or any number of other games.Yes, a Narrativist group might like the organic story that forms around ad hoc characters or a Gamist group might want to see how everyone does given an even start. Maybe it's safest to say those are the two scenarios where I'd gravitate to one or the other.Additionally, it drives me nuts when groups that roll end up with frequent re-rolls for low scores. That's just a way of saying "We want higher stats." There really are some unplayably low score characters (all 3s), but a character with all 18s could be just as disruptive. I guess it's not really that the groups want higher scores, it's when there's the illusion that the rerolls and minimums don't raise the averages -- especially if the rolled characters are played next to point-buy.</blockquote>

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