What do you guys think of rolling for character creation instead of point buy / standard array? Is it fun?

Is it better when you drop the whole "drop lowest" thing?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;836892What do you guys think of rolling for character creation instead of point buy / standard array? Is it fun?

Is it better when you drop the whole "drop lowest" thing?

IMO it's a bad idea when combined with "arrange as desired" but "roll in order, discard set if really bad" works well to create organic looking characters. I don't use it in my 5e game though, which uses default array. I do use drop-lowest.

In my Pathfinder game the player rolls in order, then can swap any one pair of stats around, eg STR with INT, to put a high number in a preferred location.

In my Classic D&D game the player rolls in order but can choose to put a roll in an unfilled slot (STR INT WIS etc). Once a number has been allocated to a slot it's locked in. This works great IME.

Yeah if I was going to have players roll for their characters, it would be in order and no dropping the lowest.

But what happens if they get a 1 or something? Do you use a minimum range? Like 4?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;836892What do you guys think of rolling for character creation instead of point buy / standard array? Is it fun?

Of course it is better to roll for chracters. Always. No exceptions. For any system. If the system you are going to play doesn't have a way of including random results in the character creation process, it is a good idea to create one. The results are less formulaic, cookie-cutterish characters and less focus on character optimisation. The players gain additional input from an outside source and as they have to integrate these excternal inspirations in their concept and thus are required to think outside the box and get to be ore creative.  As a result, the characters are  almost universally more dynamic, less stereotyical than in a pure point-buy creation system. Besides, not paying any tribute to the filthy lie that characters in an RPG could or should be balanced eliminates a few problems from the very start.
For D&D 5e, it should also be completely mandatory to roll on all these nice little tables for your background.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;836892Is it better when you drop the whole "drop lowest" thing?

The drop the lowest die system isn't better or worse; the results are just more likely to have higher average abilties, and depending on the campaign the Gamemaster imagines, this can be more or less appropriate. The system gets significanlty better though if you roll the abilities in a fixed order though instead of cherry-picking, creating unique characters who are not straightjackeded into a fixed character concept from the start.

I really like what you guys are saying so far.

Doesn't this NOT work in a game with dungeon crawling though? It's like the opposite. If you have a chance to die, then getting stuck with a guy with like 6 STR means you're pretty much screwed right?

In my games, characters have a chance to die in pretty much any environment. I don't like pulling punches or cheating to keep characters alive; it diminishes the actual triumph of the characters if they do not survive and succeed through their accomplishment but solely due to a sense of entitlement.
And yes, entitlement is the key issue in both cases: the idea that the player has the right to be at least this awesome (without any requirements) and this successful (by default) and deserves to see his characters survive (by due to the blessing of his mere presence) is pretty close to the root of both the idea of point-buy, and the concept of  characters who are supposed to not die. And this sense of entitlement is actually quite bad for an activity like RPGs that require pretty constant and active contributions and effort from all involved actors to be truly great.

Quote from: Beagle;836895Of course it is better to roll for chracters. Always. No exceptions. For any system. If the system you are going to play doesn't have a way of including random results in the character creation process, it is a good idea to create one. The results are less formulaic, cookie-cutterish characters and less focus on character optimisation. The players gain additional input from an outside source and as they have to integrate these excternal inspirations in their concept and thus are required to think outside the box and get to be ore creative.  As a result, the characters are  almost universally more dynamic, less stereotyical than in a pure point-buy creation system.

Very well put.

Quote from: Beagle;836895Besides, not paying any tribute to the filthy lie that characters in an RPG could or should be balanced eliminates a few problems from the very start.

Randomness doesn't mean you have to be wildly unbalanced though. In White Box OD&D the characters are unbalanced but only a little. AD&D/Greyhawk with its percentile strength makes some Fighters wildly better than others, and for me sounds the death knell for random character generation.

Quote from: Beagle;836895The drop the lowest die system isn't better or worse; the results are just more likely to have higher average abilties

Indeed, you still end up with some characters being wildly better than others.
I’m using straight 3d6 in order for white box D&D, but for B/X I use my random system for D&D which gives random stats with the same distribution as 3d6 but always with a total of 63 so the total bonus is near to zero (It's a bit long to post here - you roll 9 d6 in a 3*3 grid and derive your 6 stats from those rolls). It’s an alternative to point buy systems (cookie cutter) and 4d6 drop the lowest (just raising the bar).

Quote from: Beagle;836895Of course it is better to roll for chracters. Always. No exceptions. For any system. If the system you are going to play doesn't have a way of including random results in the character creation process, it is a good idea to create one. The results are less formulaic, cookie-cutterish characters and less focus on character optimisation. The players gain additional input from an outside source and as they have to integrate these excternal inspirations in their concept and thus are required to think outside the box and get to be ore creative.  As a result, the characters are  almost universally more dynamic, less stereotyical than in a pure point-buy creation system. Besides, not paying any tribute to the filthy lie that characters in an RPG could or should be balanced eliminates a few problems from the very start.
For D&D 5e, it should also be completely mandatory to roll on all these nice little tables for your background.

.

What about Amber Diceless?

What about a Sci Fi game where you play a clone?

Any consideration of genre? Dungeondelve vs Marvel Superheroes vs Star Wars?

Any consideration of styles of play? Gritty, heroic, cinematic, superheroic?

Wouldn't it be more aposite to say something like,
"Random character generation is suitable for certain games and play experiences. Sometimes you want more heroic characters for certain genres so you may want to introduce elements of adjustments to the random roll based on point buy or allocation of additional bonuses. Some systems have excellent character generation mechanics that don't rely on random generation as all such as the Attribute auction in Amber Diceless and associated games.
In effect you are best picking the type of character generation that best suits the type of game experience you want to have."

Though I guess you could caveat that with "in general I prefer random generation for a number of reasons ... etc"

Quote from: jibbajibba;836905What about a Sci Fi game where you play a clone?

Best counter example ever!

Quote from: JoeNuttall;836910Best counter example ever!

I wrote a Sci fi game when I was a kid.

The idea was there were hundreds of races but rather than detail them all you had a race design template. You had a pool of 25 d6 and 8 stats and each race had different numbers of dice on each stat.
The exceptions being robots who had 90 points to spend entirely point and the population of GR3X8 who were all clones and all had to pick one of 3 stat arrays based on their occupation type, Scientist, Warrior, Specialist.

was okay if all not that original (game play was basically replicating the 2000ad comic strip Ace Trucking ) but I was 13 so ....

Quote from: JoeNuttall;836902Indeed, you still end up with some characters being wildly better than others.
I’m using straight 3d6 in order for white box D&D, but for B/X I use my random system for D&D which gives random stats with the same distribution as 3d6 but always with a total of 63 so the total bonus is near to zero (It's a bit long to post here - you roll 9 d6 in a 3*3 grid and derive your 6 stats from those rolls). It’s an alternative to point buy systems (cookie cutter) and 4d6 drop the lowest (just raising the bar).

Looks interesting. However, isn't having a greater variation in stats the entire point of using random gen? If everything is fixed so it is always going to be in the 9 to 11 range then it seems like it just creates a ton of standardized bland characters.

I like using 3 full sets of 4d6 drop lowest and arrange how you like in each set, then choose a set you like the most.

So far I've not seen any ridiculous stats and in general I'm pretty happy with that.
For me it's just a game and I don't take much of it very seriously.
If people (including myself) are having fun then it's all good.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;836921Looks interesting. However, isn't having a greater variation in stats the entire point of using random gen? If everything is fixed so it is always going to be in the 9 to 11 range then it seems like it just creates a ton of standardized bland characters.

There's exactly the same spread of stats for each stat. For example you have exactly the same chance of an 18 or a 3 for any given stat - 1 in 216.

Chance of 9-12 for one stat is 48%, just like standard 3d6.

Chance of all stats 9-12 is 2.1% - with standard 3d6 it's only 1.2%.

So by the very nature of removing the extreme results there's a slight increase in bland results.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;836894Yeah if I was going to have players roll for their characters, it would be in order and no dropping the lowest.

But what happens if they get a 1 or something? Do you use a minimum range? Like 4?

Has character creation in D&D changed this much that you can roll a 1 now? It's not a randomly rolled range from 3-18 anymore? My word.

If you roll a 4 you explain it in your character's background and then roleplay it. Or so we used to do.

Quote from: Matt;836929Has character creation in D&D changed this much that you can roll a 1 now? It's not a randomly rolled range from 3-18 anymore? My word.

If you roll a 4 you explain it in your character's background and then roleplay it. Or so we used to do.

No you're right, I double checked and it's 3 to 18. I just picked 1 out of a hat to mean "ridiculously low number," but 3 works too.

Is 3 even functionally human? Someone with 3 INT, for instance; I'm pretty sure a dog would have higher.

But yeah, if everybody just roleplayed it out then it's fine.