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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6862452" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Let's break this argument down to its abstract logical form.As I perceive your most recent argument, you're arguing that A =&gt; B. (Player jealousy leads to played characters being above average.) A &amp; B =&gt; C. (Escalating spirals.)I acknowledge that B. Not because A, but because Darwin.!A &amp; B !=&gt; C.In the post that I took exception with, you simply stated that B =&gt; C. That doesn't hold without your hidden assumption, A, which I don't share.I've been away from (A)D&amp;D for a good couple of decades until recently, so I'm not contradicting your observation that A (player jealousy drives escalating stats) at your table. I haven't seen any sign of A so far though, nor is it plausible to me that you can't hold very firmly to a baseline by grounding the game in the reality of what the stats actually mean. In short, I don't believe that it is in any way impossible to impress upon players that a 13 Str is rather high compared to most people, e.g. by requiring them to generate five NPCs on 3d6-in-order (donated to the DM for future usage) for every new PC generated on 4d6-drop-lowest. You're asserting an impossibility which looks prima facie non-impossible to me, and which does not seem to be impossible in practice.A year in to 5E, and my players are still rolling 4d6 drop lowest exactly per PHB (sometimes in front of me, sometimes between sessions--I don't care), and some of them are using point buy, and the stat distributions look mathematically plausible with no evidence of cheating (I wouldn't tolerate cheaters anyway), and about half the rolled 18s that I know about were rolled in front of me. I see no evidence of creeping &quot;ever-more-elaborate dice rituals&quot; that drive averages continually upwards, as you've hypothesized. But I have observed that characters which are played for months at a time usually appear to be in the top 50% of what you'd expect from 4d6 drop lowest, and that neither surprises nor disturbs me.If I roll six times on BrockJones.com and get:9&nbsp; &nbsp; 15&nbsp; &nbsp; 9&nbsp; &nbsp; 17&nbsp; &nbsp; 8&nbsp; &nbsp; 1217&nbsp; &nbsp; 10&nbsp; &nbsp; 9&nbsp; &nbsp; 10&nbsp; &nbsp; 14&nbsp; &nbsp; 1113&nbsp; &nbsp; 15&nbsp; &nbsp; 14&nbsp; &nbsp; 16&nbsp; &nbsp; 7&nbsp; &nbsp; 139&nbsp; &nbsp; 13&nbsp; &nbsp; 13&nbsp; &nbsp; 14&nbsp; &nbsp; 15&nbsp; &nbsp; 1015&nbsp; &nbsp; 12&nbsp; &nbsp; 9&nbsp; &nbsp; 9&nbsp; &nbsp; 16&nbsp; &nbsp; 1410&nbsp; &nbsp; 13&nbsp; &nbsp; 10&nbsp; &nbsp; 12&nbsp; &nbsp; 7&nbsp; &nbsp; 11and then I realize that row #6 doesn't look like most PCs that have been played at my table (he does look like two PCs, one of whom didn't get much screen time), that doesn't bother me.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6862452, member: 6787650"] Let's break this argument down to its abstract logical form. As I perceive your most recent argument, you're arguing that A => B. (Player jealousy leads to played characters being above average.) A & B => C. (Escalating spirals.) I acknowledge that B. Not because A, but because Darwin. !A & B !=> C. In the post that I took exception with, you simply stated that B => C. That doesn't hold without your hidden assumption, A, which I don't share. I've been away from (A)D&D for a good couple of decades until recently, so I'm not contradicting your observation that A (player jealousy drives escalating stats) at your table. I haven't seen any sign of A so far though, nor is it plausible to me that you can't hold very firmly to a baseline by grounding the game in the reality of what the stats actually mean. In short, I don't believe that it is in any way impossible to impress upon players that a 13 Str is rather high compared to most people, e.g. by requiring them to generate five NPCs on 3d6-in-order (donated to the DM for future usage) for every new PC generated on 4d6-drop-lowest. You're asserting an impossibility which looks prima facie non-impossible to me, and which does not seem to be impossible in practice. A year in to 5E, and my players are still rolling 4d6 drop lowest exactly per PHB (sometimes in front of me, sometimes between sessions--I don't care), and some of them are using point buy, and the stat distributions look mathematically plausible with no evidence of cheating (I wouldn't tolerate cheaters anyway), and about half the rolled 18s that I know about were rolled in front of me. I see no evidence of creeping "ever-more-elaborate dice rituals" that drive averages continually upwards, as you've hypothesized. But I [I]have[/I] observed that characters which are played for months at a time usually appear to be in the top 50% of what you'd expect from 4d6 drop lowest, and that neither surprises nor disturbs me. If I roll six times on BrockJones.com and get: 9 15 9 17 8 12 17 10 9 10 14 11 13 15 14 16 7 13 9 13 13 14 15 10 15 12 9 9 16 14 10 13 10 12 7 11 and then I realize that row #6 doesn't look like most PCs that have been played at my table (he does look like two PCs, one of whom didn't get much screen time), that doesn't bother me. [/QUOTE]

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