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Message: <blockquote data-quote="airwalkrr" data-source="post: 3069812" data-attributes="member: 12460">Seriously. What is the big deal? Every time I talk about starting up a campaign and I make plans for character creation, people ask me how I will be doing ability scores. When they find out I make them roll their ability scores (using the standard 3e method: 4d6, drop lowest, repeat total of six times, must have positive net modifiers and at least one score above 14, arrange as desired) they always complain. Here are the more common complaints."I have the worst luck at rolling dice so it's unfair to make me roll my ability scores."(There is no statistical evidence that luck exists. I recognize bad dice exist, but they aren't as common as everyone thinks. Usually flaws on a die have an unremarkable effect upon the randomness of that die's rolls.)"Whoever rolls the highest is going to end up dominating the whole campaign. That's not fair at all. I want to be able to have the spotlight sometimes too."(Ability scores are not the be-all, end-all in 3e. Although they are arguably more significant at lower levels, the higher you get in level, the less ability scores matter because things like magic, skills, class abilities, and feats easily make up for those deficiencies. A well-built character with average ability scores will be better in most cases than a poorly built character with better ability scores, but two equally well-built characters with differing ability scores rarely have an appreciable power difference.)"That's so horribly broken! You mean if I roll five 18s I get to play a character with five 18s!?"(The statistical probability of this happening is so ridiculously low that it is hardly worth mentioning. Your character might get a higher than expected roll, but it is unlikely to be THAT good, and as I said above, ability scores aren't everything, nor are they the most important part of the equation.)"Characters who roll high steal other characters' niches."(See above. A wizard with an 18 Dexterity is not going to be better at Hide than the rogue with max ranks unless the rogue has a negative Dexterity modifier.)"If I don't get the ability scores I want, I can't play the character I want."(This might have been valid in AD&D when there were ability score prerequisites. But no character class is unplayable with any set of ability scores as long as there is some kind of safety net like the PH recommends. As long as you create a solid build, you will be a valuable member of the party. Your character might not be uber-1337, but if that is what you mean by having the character you want, then I find that to be a very spoiled attitude.)And so on. Quite frankly, I am very disappointed in the attitude most gamers have towards rolling dice. I mean, dice is what the game is about. There is an element of luck in almost every other aspect of the game from height and weight to saving throws to attack rolls to skill checks.Do you make your PCs roll or do you use point buy? It seems like every other DM I know uses point buy and I cannot help but feel that point buy has spoiled a lot of players into thinking they can create a character with no holes. This isn't chess. It's D&D. There is randomness in the game and I think players need to get over it. Call me old fashioned, but I don't think point buys are as great of an "equalizer" as people seem to think they are. To me, the only advantage to point buy is that you can allow PCs to create more powerful characters if you want to run a more powerful campaign. I recognize the need for point buys in massive campaigns such as living campaigns where it is impossible to police everyone's rolls, but for my home campaign, I think a point buy is needless.</blockquote>

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