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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeapThaumaturgist" data-source="post: 3083773" data-attributes="member: 12332">But is power disparity better?  I mean ... the argument states that there's no real disparity, but that the disparity that exists in the "luck" adds "flavor"?  I've BEEN the guy with the great stats.  They weren't all 18s, but they were plenty high ... and the disparity REALLY DID EXIST.  Everybody there who played in that game agreed that my character, and the things the GM was trying to do to "challenge" that character, directly led to the death of another character in the game.  He, essentially, took a bullet meant for Das UberDwarfen and got smoked.  Heck, the GM had already purposefully nerfed my character by giving me a special background "relic weapon" made from obscure Forgotten Realms metal that cost an absolutely unbelievable sum.  Left to me, I'd have taken a +1 Holy Waraxe ... I got a +1 Keen Warhammer that hit as silver and cost the same amount.  (Some ability from FR that's keen for bludgeoning).I never see rolling systems that really have a regular "average" with a benign chance for "luck".  People always seem to hedge their bets in the rolling circle ... mulligans and hand-tilty-definitions for "hopeless" ... rerolling 1s or rolling two sets and taking the one you want or rolling an extra group and trading in or 5d6-drop-2.  Making sure everybody has the same point-total as the guy that rolled the best.  Not even "Oh, it fell off the table" cheating, which I've seen blatantly allowed at tables as well ... and, of course, there are always those crappy players that just Ho-Hum along with their not-the-best-at-the-table character and let him get killed off as quickly as possible to roll up another one hoping for Das Ubercharacter.It's just human nature that, rolling, everybody there is hoping he's the guy that gets "lucky" and gets to play the character who is better than everybody else's character for that campaign.  Those bet-hedging rolling systems lets everybody feel like they're special ... and usually somebody is ... not as big a disparity as my character had, which has, I freely admit, happened only one time ... but there's usually AT LEAST one guy who has, added up point-style, 3-4 more points than everybody else.It would be an interesting thing, I think, to have numbers in a hat ... like -3, +1, -1, +2 or whatever, and an equal number of +/-0 ... and play point buy and everybody gets to draw out of the hat and their point total is adjusted by their luck "at the hat".  Same general idea.  Luck=Flavor, right?  I still maintain that a crappy player is a crappy player with dice or point buy.  And that a good player is going to have fun and be successfull doing whatever.For a weekend bash-fest dungeon-plunge I think it would be great to play a totally randomized game.  Nobody gets any choice about their character ... before the game the GM makes pregens with strict 3d6-in-order and rolls randomly for treasure for each character.  Then they're numbered on the back, placed face down on the table before the session and everybody draws a folded piece of paper from a hat with a number.  Especially if there are at least 50% more characters than players so that there's bound to be a gem or two and a stinker or two.  --fje</blockquote>

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