Worlds of Design: Rolls vs. Points in Character Building

Let’s talk about methods of generating RPG characters, both stochastic and deterministic.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

"Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will." Jawaharlal Nehru

When creating character attributes, there are two broad approaches to generating them: stochastic and deterministic. The stochastic method involves chance, while the deterministic method does not. Most any other method is going to be one of the other, whatever the details. The pros of one method tend to be the cons of the other.

Stochastic
The classic method is rolling dice, usually D6, sometimes an alternative like percentage dice. There are various ways do this. For example, some of the old methods were to sum the roll of 3d6 six times in a specific order of six character abilities. A variation was 3d6 and change the order as desired, another was roll 4d6, don’t count the lowest die, and then you might be able to change order or not; and so forth.

What are the pros of rolling the dice? First of all and primarily, variety (barring cheating). You get a big range of dice rolls. Dice rolling promotes realism, you get a big variation in numbers so you get some 3s, in fact you get as many 3s as 18s, and with some methods you have the opportunity to play characters with “cripplingly bad" ability numbers. Further, it's always exciting to roll dice, whether you like it or not. (Keep in mind, when I first saw D&D I said “I hate dice games.”)

One of the cons of rolling dice is that it's unfair in the long run, a player can get big advantages lasting for years of real-time throughout the campaign just by getting lucky in the first dice rolls. This can be frustrating to those who didn't get lucky. Perhaps even more, rolling dice encourages cheating. I've seen people roll one character after another until they get one they like - meaning lots of high numbers - and then they take that to a game to use. That’s not possible with point buy. Another con is that you may want to play a particular character class yet the dice just won’t cooperate (when you’re rolling in specific order).

Deterministic
The other method which I believe has been devised independently by several people including myself (I had an article for my system published a long time ago) is the one used in fifth edition D&D. A player is given a number of generic points to buy ability numbers. The lowest numbers can be very cheap, for example, if you are using a 3 to 18 scale, when you buy a 3 it may cost you one point, while an 18 may cost 20-some points. You decide what you want, for which ability, and allocate until you run out of points.

Point buy is very fair (FRP is a game, for some people). No one need be envious of someone who either 1) rolled high or 2) rolled many characters and picked the best one. It prevents the typical new character with sky-high abilities, it prevents cheating, so the player has to supply the skill, not rely on bonuses from big ability numbers. Of course, the GM can choose the number of points available to the players so he/she can give generally higher or lower numbers on average as they choose.

But point buy lacks variety for a particular class. The numbers tend to be the same. It's not exciting, it’s cerebral, and as such it takes a little longer than rolling dice. That's all the cons I can think of. Keep in mind I'm biased in favor of point buy. It's clean, fair and simple.

I haven’t spent much time trying to figure out yet another method of generating a character. The only other method I can think of that isn’t one or the other is to have some kind of skilled contest determine the numbers, such as pitching pennies or bowling. Then the question becomes why use one kind of skill over another?

Do you favor one method over the other? And has anyone devised a method that is not stochastic or deterministic?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Ahh, ye olde ad hominem. How I missed thee. Particularly in view of this:

Ad hominem is not an accurate description here unless someone here is known to have frequent cookie disputes with someone named Timmy. A particular conception of fairness where everyone has to rigidly receive the exact same things at all time is typical of children. There are certainly times for adults to adhere to it as well, but I think people sometimes do so reflexively because it was ingrained in childhood. I am sorry if I have inadvertently attacked someone here, I didn't read every post that carefully and was also just being flippant.

It's pointless and typically a way for powergamers to powergame without raising any complaints of powergaming, but, no, it's not game breaking or unfair.

Well then we're agreed that there is no fairness issue. Some people enjoy playing deeply flawed characters as well, and some people just enjoy gambling or just some randomness. I roll my 5e hit points most the time and that means on average -.5 hitpoints per level. I find the randomness more exciting and more interesting and value it over having two more hitpoints on average at level five. Rolling stats is totally favored by a large number of powergamers, but that's not what seems to excite the people I typically play with (with, I suspect, one exception), and the overwhelming majority are into rolling. If the standard array or point buy got a boost a lot of us still wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. But once again, there are also plenty of people who really just want to munchkin it up, and if I'd played with more than a couple of them I might be proselytizing some sort of point buy.

And powergamers are also often attracted to nonrandom systems, as they have spent hours thinking out the perfect character build and don't want to risk it.

 

[prongbuck]

For me, the title of this article says it all: Worlds of Design: Rolls vs. Points in Character Building. There isn't much room for debate here; when building characters fairness and equality is a requirement, random rolling is not a valid option (edit: I realized this came off to strongly of course there is room for debate, everyones table is different so of course its debateable.).

I read an article years ago that put into words something I knew but had never fully realized, that when it comes to creating player characters for an RPG ,there are two main methods*: character generation and character building.

Character generation is sitting down with no, or very few ideas, about the character. You let the dice guide you and do the deciding for you. You randomly roll your stats, 3d6 in order perhaps, you see where your strengths lie and then you select or roll for a race and class. If picking race and class then you have the option of selecting a combination that enhances your strengths or maybe tries to mitigate your weaknesses.

This is my preferred method. I prefer total random attribute generation but I think most types of players need the ability to exercise at least a small level of control over their characters attributes so we generally now do 3d6 in order and replace your chosen classes primary ability score with a 15.

For my table, I make it clear the character generation method will include inequality in the characters and everyone participating has to be ok with this. It helps if the game system supports this through things like a compressed range of attribute bonuses, low or no requirements for races and classes, etc.

Character building is coming to the table with a character concept in mind. You don't want random generation for this because random results usually mean a players concept is thrown out of the window whn their rolls don't allow them to build the character they envision. There isn't much more to say about this method because its fair, you pick an array of attributes or spend points as you see fit and every character is equal at the attribute level.

All this boils down to is that the method you choose has to support the game you want to play and has to work for the players at your table.

*There are other methods of course, games without attributes or where attributes are determined based on other selctions of traits, race, class, etc. but I am assuming we are talking about D&D like games here.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

With the Random method I've never had a DM say "THOSE are your scores? Too high! You cheated!" ...and I've never had a DM say "THOSE are your scores? Too low! Roll again!".

I've had someone watch me roll scores with their dice and still think I had somehow cheated.

I've also gone through the fun moment of watching all the players in a campaign roll their scores and then when one player found out what another player had rolled they accused me of letting that player cheat because their scores were high.

And I've been in more than a few situations where a player didn't roll well and outright asked "can I reroll?" because when they said "I wanna roll scores" they didn't actually want random scores, they wanted high ones. Including a player that roll all 1s on the dice for one score and said "Can I count that as an 18? It's the same odds" and the rest of the group lobbied to alter the die-rolling rules so that rolling a 3 was actually also rolling an 18.

And there there are the groups I've been in that didn't just roll scores, they had some specific scheme like 4d6 drop lowest, re-roll 1s and 2s, make 3 sets and choose your favorite (that is the most extreme I've seen, but it's an actual example, not an exaggeration) that actually takes all the purpose (and fun in my opinion) out of rolling because it makes it take a lot longer than it needs to and the result aren't all that random either so just doing a high-pool point buy would check all the same boxes except "I rolled dice."

 

[atanakar]

OD&D FUN FACT : Random rolls. The DM is supposed to roll the six abilities of each character. The player notes them down in order.

I guess Gary was worried about cheaters too !

Source OD&D reprints:

 

[MGibster]

In one AD&D campaign (1st edition) the DM decided we'd all roll 2d6 and multiply the highest by 3 for each stat. I managed to roll an 18 for each attribute except for Charisma which was merely a 15. I didn't qualify for the Paladin. :-(

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Gary's writing bounced around a bit when it came to the topic of ability scores. In that source he's giving a strict rule that's entirely in the DMs control, and then in AD&D he mentions how a DM should make sure that players have ability scores high enough to keep them interested in continuing playing.

 

[dragoner]

For our Classic Traveller campaign, in the first session the players rolled their PCs - stats, then the dice-driven lifepath system that is one of the centrepieces of that RPG.

I've done quick and dirty chargen for a CT: A quick build is 42 points for characteristics, 7 to be used for characteristics or skills, and 11 for skills. Make them 34 with 4 terms, 5 MO bennies.

It works. Also compares with the character generator programs, mostly though, whatever way someone generates a character, it should be someone the player wants to play. I can't be the sole motivation, it wears me out.

 

[atanakar]

Gary's writing bounced around a bit when it came to the topic of ability scores. In that source he's giving a strict rule that's entirely in the DMs control, and then in AD&D he mentions how a DM should make sure that players have ability scores high enough to keep them interested in continuing playing.

Player control over ability rolls was given in the Holmes edition (1977). They are rolled in order, then class is chosen. Holmes introduces «adjusting ability scores» to raise the Primes by lowering others. A first step at mitigating randomness.

 

[atanakar]

In 1977 Gygax wrote:

Quote: AD&D : As AD&D is an ongoing game of fantasy adventuring, it is important to allow participants to generate a viable character of the race and profession which he or she desires. While it is possible to generate some fairly playable characters by rolling 3d6, there is often an extended period of attempts at finding a suitable one due to quirks of the dice. Furthermore, these rather marginal characters tend to have short life expectancy — which tends to discourage new players, as does having to make do with some character of a race and/or class which he or she really can’t or won’t identify with. Character generation, then, is a serious matter, and it is recommended that the following systems be used. Four alternatives are offered for player characters:

Method I: All scores are recorded and arranged in the order the player desires. 4d6 are rolled, and the lowest die (or one of the lower) is discarded.

Method II: All scores are recorded and arranged as in Method I. 3d6 are rolled 12 times and the highest 6 scores are retained.

Method III: Scores rolled are according to each ability category, in order, STRENGTH, INTELLIGENCE, WISDOM, DEXTERITY, CONSTITUTION, CHARISMA. 3d6 are rolled 6 times for each ability, and the highest score in each category is retained for that category.

Method IV: 3d6 are rolled sufficient times to generate the 6 ability scores, in order, for 12 characters. The player then selects the single set of scores which he or she finds most desirable and these scores are noted on the character record sheet.»

So, as stated by Gygax, D&D is not a game in which you have to play the character you don't want to play and characters that are barely viable because of quirks of the dice.

Again, if you are going to go through all kinds of dice shenanigans the push towards to upper end of the median, to create viable and interesting characters for the player to engage with, just use Point Buy and be done quickly and fairly.

Have a good day.
/mic drop.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I have found two exceptions to my tendency to use points buy.

DCC and other funnel games. You get what you get and don't throw a fet. Since your character will die probably soon, it's actually fun to lean into the poor scores.

Old School play. Here, since player skills matters as much or more than character abilities, part of the appeal of the game is to "win" in spite of the poor odds given by the random whims of fate. Again, leaning into the poor scores is part of this - when my thief with a 10 Dex manages to steal something and survive, in spite of himself - that's tale for the ages!

I think really, if I am playing heroic play that is based on character skill not player skill, then I'd like point buy attributes (how my 5e games are played).

If I am playing gritty or slightly comedic play, then I'm ok with rolled up characters (Freebooters on the Frontier, DCC, other).