Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 5390399">Sure, Bob may always play a cleric, maybe he likes the mechanics, the lore, the theme, or he just likes wearing a man-dress.  But the problem with not arranging your stats, choosing your class based on your rolls, is that you are highly likely to end up with a party with poor roles. Certainly this is less of an issue in some older, looser D&D systems, but the problem still exists. 2 mages, a cleric, a ranger and a rogue don't exactly make for a functioning adventuring party without a whole lot special tuning JUST for them. It may make for an interesting adventure, I'll give you that, but overall, it would seem like a good excuse for a group of bandits to close-range them all to TPK. That, and while pushing people outside the happy bubble is useful in SOME occassions, it rarely makes life better. Bob plays the cleric because healing is his thing, he knows when to use it, what spells to use, how much of it, how injured someone need be when they need healing. Joe, the "I just hit things" fighter, does not, he plays a fighter because he likes simplicity. When you suddenly hand him a wand, he has no idea what to do. Hard as he tries, he just "doesn't get it", Joe is not having fun, Joe isn't healing as well as Bob did, Bob doesn't understand how his rogue works, and the party dies. People are angry, people are upset, overall, the end result was...not fun. For people who are sure to understand any role they're given, great! This could be a fun way to do things. But if even one person in your group doesn't, I wouldn't reccommend it, because you're bound to cause issues.  Which is why I've gotten into the habit of setting up a "pre-game meeting" with any DM whose game I want to join, or with any players who want to join mine. Surprise is NOT a good tool outside of the story. Doesn't ensure he'll listen though. But of course, if players don't speak, he CANT listen. I agree, though overall I think the key is playing.  I like to write what are more commonly known as "character bios", a short, 3-5 page story about a "day in the life" of a character.  And I admit, I've written some interesting stuff based off random dice rolls.  However, none of those characters would be any fun to actually play.  Oh, they're unique, they're interesting, but they're not really functional.  The 20-str wizard is interesting....but his 5 int makes him...less than playable. In theory, it should.  How does your character differ if they are 5'2 instead of 6'4?  How is their world-view changed if they are 15 or 51?  Why does he use a hammer and a sickle, instead of two shortswords? At the end of the day, I agree that characters created based on dice rolls are less creative than those that are not based on random chance.  Yes, by fate or by fortune you COULD be any person in the world for your aventure, but that begs the question, you're supposed to be an above-average adventurer, why would you want to be "just anyone"?</blockquote>

Verification