Man in the Funny Hat said:
I've tried PB and methods like it as far back as 1E. I've found that because I can create characters with any and all ability score generation methods, and can fathom no reason that other players would be unable to do likewise, that the method of character generation I prefer is one that fosters, even demands greater creativity from players. And that means a method that is random, and which also does not allow the player complete freedom to arrange the scores.
No - that method fosters creativity
at the table, under time pressure. Which is a skill, and a useful one, but generally not a good way to create deep and compelling characters. Especially if you don't HAVE that skill, or if you happen to be having an off night.
I've yet to play with a character created immediately before play that had 2-5 pages of background, a detailed explanation of how and why he had the abilities he had, and a strong understanding of how to play him to achieve those goals.
Or, frankly, a character created immediately before play whose player ever seriously treated him as anything other than an avatar.
All that stuff came from somewhere, and unless the players were hiring thesis ghostwriters to pump out character studies for them, they apparently used their own creativity.
Man in the Funny Hat said:
Scores are random so that characters ARE of different power levels and capabilities as this, too, is a matter of creativity (how you play a character that lacks inherent strengths as well as how an inherently powerful character interacts with other PC's and NPC's. Arrangement of the random scores as the player wants is also limited so that players are prompted, even required to play characters that DON'T rely on always eliminating the most likely flaws and always enhancing the most common strengths.
That's not creativity, that's PLAY SKILL - which can, to be fair, INVOLVE creativity. It's min/maxing your play rather than the minigame of character creation, but it's still a completely gamist exercise in overcoming challenges. Not that there's anything wrong with that - I happen to like a large helping of 'game' in my 'role-playing game' - but it's certainly not synonymous with creativity.
Man in the Funny Hat said:
Characters that are always designed and planned tend to irk me. A player who has already decided his characters development from inception to retirement is often (not always) signalling to me that he has no interest in seeing his character develop as a result of the events that unfold in my campaign, but only according to their pre-concieved plans. If anything the campaign is likely to be only an irritation to such a player because it can only result in delay, and interference with the intended course of the characters fruition.
What it signals to me is a player who is probably playing D&D because it's a) what he knows or b) what he can get a game of, but who might prefer a system that lets him play the character he wants, who might actually fit the epic fantasy or sword and sorcery genres, without waiting and hoping the GM doesn't steer the campaign in a wildly different direction.
In any case, if the pre-planned PC and the campaign take wildly divergent courses, it indicates a) you and your players have no common ground established regarding the campaign's theme and style and b) you believe people (or at least PCs) shouldn't plan their training regimen and set clear personal goals for themselves. I can't remember who said it (maybe Buzz?) in a previous thread, but the quote sticks with me: "I know plenty of people who developed organically; they work at McDonalds."
Man in the Funny Hat said:
Not quite. Balance is a myth. Always has been because there are just too many variables. Even if things are balanced according to what I think is balanced, it's surely going to be intolerably whacked for the next guy. And balance is as balance does; which is to say that what's balanced for me right now I can discover is horribly IM-balanced next week.
So because 'balance' is imperfect, it's mythical? Nowhere in the PHB or DMG does it claim that the races, classes, statistics packages, spells, feats, skills and equipment contained therein are perfectly balanced.
As has been repeatedly demonstrated mathematically in this thread, of all of those elements in the core books, the default stat generation method is the *least* balanced part of the core rules. That doesn't mean that either the alternative is perfect or that the rest of the books are; it simply states the *fact* that nothing in the core rules allows your character's power to be further above or below another character's than rolling for stats.
Randomly generated ability scores are LESS balanced than other aspects of the core rules. They are potentially UNbalanced.
Balance is not a Platonic ideal. A squirrel perched on a wet metal railing that slips and slides and scrambles and manages to stay atop the rail is balanced atop it - but only just. The squirrel at rest atop the railing is better balanced. The squirrel who slipped off and is now breaking for the trees was not balanced. The first two squirrels differ quantitatively from each other (MORE balanced, LESS balanced), but the third differs qualitatively (NOT balanced at all).
I really don't care that much about game balance in something like D&D - but 'not caring' and 'discarding out of hand' are not one and the same.
Man in the Funny Hat said:
Honestly, I think a lot of that is simply because we STILL have this deep-seated need, largely inherited from earlier editions that you MUST ALWAYS have a high primary stat or your character is hopelessly outclassed. A character like a monk does indeed need several equally decent scores to be as powerful as say an equivalent level fighter. Excuse me for waxing rhetorical - but why do we feel that a monk DOES need to be as powerful as any other character? Why can't we just take the monk for what it IS and enjoy making of it what we can? Why can't we just take the ability scores that we happen to randomly get and enjoy making of it what we can? 3E was supposed to be about providing choices and tools, not providing rights and privileges. Okay, maybe that's pushing it
How is being given a random suite of abilities and asked to make a character with them before play begins 'providing choices and tools?'
My desire to use point buy is a 'holdover' from playing games that actually allowed me to make the character I wanted, not the character the dice decided to give me. Games that felt the players didn't need to 'work' to get their 'fun' and that player skill was not as important as player enjoyment. D&D and MMORPGs both follow the 'work to get your fun' model, and both seem to do pretty well, so apparently it holds some inexplicable appeal. Nonetheless, there ARE alternatives to this model, and I for one have no tolerance for it. Making me play Frodo now in the hopes of playing Conan later completely misses the point of both characters. Making someone who wants to play Frodo play Conan, or vice versa, because their dice dictate it, completely misses the point of a game, IMO.
Balance is a myth. Always has been because there are just too many variables. Even if things are balanced according to what I think is balanced, it's surely going to be intolerably whacked for the next guy. And balance is as balance does; which is to say that what's balanced for me right now I can discover is horribly IM-balanced next week.
He has had leadership, but he did not actually get a cohort until 11th level, and the cohort was promptly captured by a shadow spider. The PCs are still trying to complete the spider's quest to get the cohort back. And yes, he has a keep, not that it gives him anything but the ability to say he is a dwarven lord. It adds a nice roleplaying schtick, but it hasn't had any mechanical effect so far at all. So basically, I have given him some extra roleplaying options. They hardly make him more powerful than a traditional 3e fighter, although the title of nobility might be giving him some level of "prestige" among the group to make them want to listen to him.
