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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7984825" data-attributes="member: 42582">D&D can be many things to many people - but at least through the classic lens as I read those books the fundamental element of PC build is class. Stats are a soft funnel into a class, and I suspect that very few players build their first or even second classic D&D PC as a low-STR high-INT fighter or a vice versa MU.So rolling for stats is, in a real way, rolling for class. The power variation, especially in the earliest versions with almost flat stat-mods, is modest. It gets greater in AD&D and Moldvay Basic, but the latter also has rules for boosting your main stat at the expense of two other stats.What distinguishes different instances of the same class in classic D&D tends not to be stats but (i) how they are played at the table, and (ii) what their gear (and, for casters, spell) load-out is.In contemporary D&D stats aren't just or even mainly a soft funnel for class, if only because there are multiple classes with the same prime requisite, and they are also the foundation of non-combat resolution. Using random generation would be a bit like, in classic D&D, rolling for potency of class abilities. AD&D has a bit of this - percentile strength and chance to know spells - but I don't know many people who point to these as highlights of that system!It depends on the point, flavour, focus etc of play. Part of the appeal of Classic Traveller is that the characters are (in some relative sense) ordinary - they have ordinary origins, they age, they had careers and have bank accounts and pensions, etc. Rolling for stats, for lifepath, for skills etc is part of this. A big part of PC gen is finding out who you are going to be in the world of the far future. Probably no one is going to buy Steward skill, but with random rolling you might discvoer that your character is really good at waiting tables and keeping passengers happy!At least in my experience one result is a degree of distance or 3rd-person persepctive between player and PC. Though we also use multiple PCs, and while I tend to think that works becusae of the distaincing, maybe I'm confusing cause and effect!Another thing about stats in Traveller is that they are not super-important in resolution. The standard consideation in resolution is skill level - each skill has its own resolution framework (not as clunky as it sounds, I assert!) and stats often don't factor in at all and even when they do are not normally determinative.In Burning Wheel first the GM after consulting with the players sets a lifepath limit. (Typically 3 to 6.) Then you choose your LPs - this determines your skill options and skill points, your trait (roughly, feat) options and feat points, your starting wealth (wizard spells are something you have to buy with this), and your starting age. Startig age plus modifications from LPs determine your starting physical and mental stat pools, which you then allocate to your stats. Stats are sometimes used in resolution (at different frequencies for different of the 6 stats), and for untrained checks; if you're trainined in a skill then your starting value is derived from the relevant stats but checks are made off your skill rank and your stat is now irrelevant.It just woudln't make any sense to even look at injecting random rolling into that framework.In Apocalypse World your playbook gives you four options to choose from for your five stats (Cool, Hot, Sharp, Hard, Weird). Each of those options will set one of those stats (the one that is most important for that sort of character) at +2 (+3 for a couple of playbooks) while the rest will be set between -2 and +2 depending on which option you choose. Character improvement can include raising stats.Given that most resolution in AW involves rolling 2d6 and adding the appropriate stat, it would be silly - game-breaing - to roll randomly. And the idea of (say) a low-Hard Gunlugger would be even more ridiculous than the low-INT MU that some D&D player somewhere has surely built and played.But the idea that every Gunlugger is the same because they all have +2 Hard (or +3 if a particular starting move - Insano like Drano - is chosen) is silly. An AW character is not defined by his/her stats, nor even by his/her moves although the latter start to at least establish an outline.of who the character is</blockquote>

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