I think it depends on expectations and system.  I played a LOT of CHAMPIONS in the 80s and 90s.  But we also played Villains & Vigilantes.  It was a different experience, but both were enjoyable.

I recently ran my young (~30) 5e players through Lion & Dragon, using 3d6 for stats in order.  They actually really enjoyed it, with one of them describing it as "D&D Hard Mode".  In 5e, since they were mostly completely new to RPGs, we used the standard array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 ) plus racial mods, for each.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 17, 2023, 06:52:49 PM
Strength 9 is needed for a Fighter. Damage bonus of +1 doesn't appear until Str 16, and a to-hit bonus of +1 at Str 17. But even with 18/xx Strength being common, the character's level was always a bigger factor. The best possible bonus is with 18/00 strength, giving +3 to hit and +6 damage. But a fighter gets effectively a +1 to hit each level (the chart has +2 every 2 levels, but we can assume that was more to keep the chart a sensible size, and simply interpolate it as +1 each level). Damage does not increase with level, but while the Strength to-hit bonus is limited to +3, the level to-hit bonus is not. And so in just a few levels, the level of the Fighter is a far bigger factor than their Strength.

I disagree with the fighter analysis, specifically because you brought up percentile strength.  There's almost no reason for that to have been in the book, the one merit is that it prevents the strongest woman from being as strong as the strongest man, a piece of realism that all later versions have left out.

The issue is that +3/+6 is absolutely monstrous compared to no bonus.  Fighters get multiple attacks, and that +6 to damage applies to all of them, so that distortion starts high and then gets a multiplier later.  Additionally, fighters don't gain access to bigger damage dice as they level- the damage is mostly tied to the weapon. The +3 to hit is also quite substantial, and if one character has +8 to hit and the other has +11, you know that second character is dealing a lot more damage.

Anyway if you're dealing 1d8 damage and hitting 60% of the time, adding +3/+6 to that is nearly triple damage.

Of course, other stats don't have this problem.  You're correct about them.  But adding all this nonsense to strength specifically and then pretending that it will only happen some vanishingly small percent is extremely weird.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 17, 2023, 06:10:27 PM
For newbies, your two points also combine with my third. If someone's new to our game group, especially if they're new to gaming, we want to things to be accessible. Rolling for everything is accessible, having to choose is not. That's because the choices require knowledge of the game system and/or campaign world - but the newbie, by definition, does not have this knowledge. So if you want to get new people in your game group and expand the hobby generally, you want systems which lean towards random roll.

Sounds like a skill issue.

I've never had problems teasing a player concept out of the player, and guiding them with ways to build what they envision.

"What looks good? Soldier eh? Do you see them as a sniper, infantry, heavy weapons?

Sniper? Cool. There's a feat for having improved vision, interested? Would you rather have a rifle with a lower calibre but semi-auto, or a hard hitting bolt action?" Etc.

If the GM knows the system well, asking the player questions and then guiding them with suggestions is no big deal. You get to see the character emerge before your eyes.

Quote from: Venka on December 17, 2023, 07:52:31 PMI disagree with the fighter analysis, specifically because you brought up percentile strength.

It's not usually an issue with the most common generation method of 4d6 drop lowest. There's only a 9.34% chance of even getting a single 18 with that method, and that'd still require the DM allow rearranging, otherwise it becomes a 1.6% chance of getting Str 18.

Further, there is only a 1% chance of that percentile Strength being 00. 50% will have +1/+3, 25% +2/+3, 15% +2/+4, 9% +2/+5, and only 1% +3//+6.

Putting these two together, and you're concerning yourself with the instance of 1% of 1.6 to 9.3% of characters, or 1 in 1,000 to 6,000 of all characters. However serious an issue, it just wouldn't be that common.

QuoteThere's almost no reason for that to have been in the book, the one merit is that it prevents the strongest woman from being as strong as the strongest man, a piece of realism that all later versions have left out.

Ah, you're one of those guys. Realism in a game about... dungeons and... dragons. Rightyo. Start shaving your neck, mate, and please discard the fedora.

In my experience, any male bringing up this "issue" (and it's always a male, though rarely a very masculine one) has nothing else intelligent to contribute to the conversation. And further perusal of your comments confirms this is so, that you are speaking more from reading AD&D1e than playing it.

QuoteFighters get multiple attacks, and that +6 to damage applies to all of them

All fighters get level attacks per round against monsters of fewer than 1 hit die. Most of them will have fewer than 6 hit points, vs the 1-6 or more of even a non-magical weapon wielded by a Fighter with Strength 9, and so the Strength bonus is neither here nor there.

Fighters of 1st to 6th levels get 1 attack per melee round. Those of 7th-12th, 3/2. 13th and up, 2/round. As noted earlier, it will take quite a while to achieve something like 7th level, and there are few campaigns where anyone has gone from 1st to 13th level (I realise that 20 year campaigns are as common on the internet as men who can bench 400lbs, but back in the real world, both are rare). Somewhere along the way the fighter is going to acquire magical items making a +1 or +2 here or there from their attributes rather a moot point.

But let's assume for a moment your concerns about high Strength are valid. If that is so, then it is better to have random roll than point-buy - because the problem will be far less common. And random roll vs point-buy is after all the point of the thread, though apparently you have other more important concerns, like the idea of fictional wimminz in a fictional game world with fictional physics being stronger than your puny self.

Quote from: migo on December 17, 2023, 06:34:55 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on December 17, 2023, 05:59:22 PM*snip*

With random generation, you're not expecting to be able to make a character according to your wishes. So the second point is automatically a non-issue. The first point, yeah, you can have character imbalance with random generation, but there you only have one issue to solve, not two.

Even with random generation, you might still want to build a character a certain way, it's just that the system doesn't allow you to, or limits your options. So it can still be an issue (which I've personally had, or dealt with player who had it), it's just you can do nothing about it. Ever.

But with point buy you at least have more control over your character, even if you can't get 100% what you want out of the gate. But you might still get it eventually. And the GM might even make adjustments or concessions to get it right away.

Sometimes you have to manage your expectations. And it's unrealistic to expect a system to automatically accommodate every conceivable concept out of the box without adapting it to a particular setting or circumstance (maybe the GM could hand out extra points specifically for non-combat/adventuring "background" abilities, for example). Or waiting till you have enough points to get every ability you want.

The "issue" here is ultimately that you want something that you can actually eventually have. But you want to have it right away. That's a much better issue to have than not being able to get it ever.

Quote from: Venka on December 17, 2023, 07:52:31 PM
I disagree with the fighter analysis, specifically because you brought up percentile strength.  There's almost no reason for that to have been in the book, the one merit is that it prevents the strongest woman from being as strong as the strongest man, a piece of realism that all later versions have left out.

The issue is that +3/+6 is absolutely monstrous compared to no bonus.

Quote from: Venka on December 17, 2023, 07:52:31 PM
Of course, other stats don't have this problem.  You're correct about them.  But adding all this nonsense to strength specifically and then pretending that it will only happen some vanishingly small percent is extremely weird.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 17, 2023, 10:03:59 PM
But let's assume for a moment your concerns about high Strength are valid. If that is so, then it is better to have random roll than point-buy - because the problem will be far less common. And random roll vs point-buy is after all the point of the thread, though apparently you have other more important concerns, like the idea of fictional wimminz in a fictional game world with fictional physics being stronger than your puny self.

That reads like you're thinking that the issue is "PCs shouldn't have high stats". But that isn't inherently a problem. I've had plenty of games (especially point-buy ones) where the PCs all are exceptional with high attributes - and it hasn't been a problem.

A potential problem for point-buy is mini-maxing - where the PCs are boring because they're all narrowly focused on only the most useful skills and abilities. Like the killer swordsman who puts all his points into stats and Sword skill. And I've seen this in a few games, but I've also been in plenty of games where this wasn't a problem - because the GM and the players reined in power-gamers by saying "no" rather than allowing rules hacking.

An issue specific to random-roll is the possibility that one player rolls terribly, and another player rolls great - and the high-rolling PC then overshadows the other PC for the rest of the campaign. I've also seen this, but I've also seen plenty of games were it wasn't a problem. I don't particularly like rules that gives even greater advantages to lucky rollers, like qualifying for special classes (like Ranger) and getting a 10% boost on experience in addition to the ability bonuses themselves. I think a bit of flexibility of DMs allowing some rerolling for unlucky players can soften this enough though.

With random-roll, I prefer it to be genuinely random - like Traveller or HarnMaster. (I also in theory might prefer roll-in-order OSR or basic, but I haven't tried that much. My old-school D&D was AD&D1, where we usually did Method I.)

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on December 17, 2023, 02:41:56 PM

The less likely death is to occur, the more useful point buy is. Likewise, the more likely death is to occur, the more useful random gen is.  This isn't only in the negative sense of getting your lousy generated character killed, though even that has a positive aspect. I've never seen someone suicide a character with bad stats.  I have seen multiple times a character with bad random stats get played aggressively on the grounds of "make something of this character quickly or die trying."  This has interesting side effects on party dynamics, and is seldom the kind of notion you'll see in a crafted concept with point buy.  Moreover, the statistical likelihood of death also relates directly to the time you are likely to spend with the character.  A rough edge that you can't do much about is more palatable if you know you may not keep that character forever, and if you do happen to live, it even takes on kind of a badge of honor.

This is so true.  I'm running an AD&D game right now.  In the game there are two warriors:  A ranger who rolled an 18/40 Strength and a Fighter with a Strength of 12 (none of his stats are higher than 12).  I allowed 4d6 drop the lowest and reroll 1s.  His stats still sucked.  I offered to let him re-roll the guy, but he decided to keep it, after his last PC- a character with awesome stats, died due to poison the previous adventure.  He thought maybe this guy would be lucky.  The player wanted to make a bard, but he couldn't qualify for bard.

So, that was months ago.  He's liking the character and it has been a "badge of honor" for him to play this character, with the worst ability scores in the group, who is the 2nd best warrior in the party- and kills a ton of things regardless.  It's created an interesting dynamic!

Quote from: Venka on December 17, 2023, 07:52:31 PM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 17, 2023, 06:52:49 PM
Strength 9 is needed for a Fighter. Damage bonus of +1 doesn't appear until Str 16, and a to-hit bonus of +1 at Str 17. But even with 18/xx Strength being common, the character's level was always a bigger factor. The best possible bonus is with 18/00 strength, giving +3 to hit and +6 damage. But a fighter gets effectively a +1 to hit each level (the chart has +2 every 2 levels, but we can assume that was more to keep the chart a sensible size, and simply interpolate it as +1 each level). Damage does not increase with level, but while the Strength to-hit bonus is limited to +3, the level to-hit bonus is not. And so in just a few levels, the level of the Fighter is a far bigger factor than their Strength.

I disagree with the fighter analysis, specifically because you brought up percentile strength.  There's almost no reason for that to have been in the book, the one merit is that it prevents the strongest woman from being as strong as the strongest man, a piece of realism that all later versions have left out.

The issue is that +3/+6 is absolutely monstrous compared to no bonus.  Fighters get multiple attacks, and that +6 to damage applies to all of them, so that distortion starts high and then gets a multiplier later.  Additionally, fighters don't gain access to bigger damage dice as they level- the damage is mostly tied to the weapon. The +3 to hit is also quite substantial, and if one character has +8 to hit and the other has +11, you know that second character is dealing a lot more damage.

Anyway if you're dealing 1d8 damage and hitting 60% of the time, adding +3/+6 to that is nearly triple damage.

Of course, other stats don't have this problem.  You're correct about them.  But adding all this nonsense to strength specifically and then pretending that it will only happen some vanishingly small percent is extremely weird.

Exceptional STR was the scourge of TSR D&D since the publication of the Greyhawk supplement in 1975. I don't care about the male vs female STR issue just the concept of exceptional STR at all. The mere inclusion of it in the PHB means that players will see it and want to have it, just as they do the classes that require qualification. Despite the fact that the odds of rolling exceptional STR are low if a fair chargen method is used, players will still feel entitled to it simply because it exists. This leads to players of fighters feeling useless if they do not have it. It is even worse when you have one fighter character with a 17 STR and another with an 18/96 in the same party. The lower STR fighter might feel like a henchman.

In addition, these huge bonuses throw off the math considerably. For some reason, a PC gets a monstrous STR that not even the monster it is based on gets. A fighter with 18/00 is considered to have Ogre STR and gets a +6 damage on all melee attacks, meanwhile an actual Ogre gets 1d10 damage. Now where did the ogre's +6 to damage go?

All of this crap is why I prefer OD&D (sans GH), or classic B/X.

Quote from: jhkim on December 18, 2023, 02:57:33 AM
because the GM and the players reined in power-gamers by saying "no" rather than allowing rules hacking.

I don't mean to pick on you in particular, but there needs to be a name for this general form of argument - that problems can be resolved by the GM or players mitigating a problem via the social contract as opposed to the rules. Even in a dysfunctional group, a sufficiently authoritative GM could simply quash any debate and resolve an issue by fiat to keep play moving. My perspective on that argument is that it doesn't really go anywhere. Pointing out that there are intentional gaps or unforeseen situations in the rules or in the fiction which need GM arbitration is fine. Suggesting that the group can figure out a solution to a problem the game itself introduced is not an acceptable answer for a ruleset, in my view. See PVP Combat rules and the related controversy regarding Candela Obscura.

Some rulesets avoid or mitigate their issues in their fundamental structure rather than inviting these kinds of disputes in the first place. The rules can serve many purposes and one of these might be to establish a sane initial consensus (or provide options for sane starting points) or even to design the problem away in the first place. The better the ruleset, the less weight falls on the shoulders of the GM to establish and maintain that consensus (a major problem in D&D).

Modern D&D introduces the attribute problem by making attributes central to a character's competency in everything they do, while limiting the situations where min-maxing is a real liability. It then blows up any established consensus and invites controversy by providing a dozen different attribute generation methods, each with wildly different characteristics. If these at least orbited around some kind of core assumptions that the rest of the design was built atop, we could reason about what identifies a sane generation method.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on December 16, 2023, 04:52:34 PM 1. character creation can take forever depending on the concept,

2. it can sometimes be prone to jank or powergaming depending on the group.

1: Point buy should not take forever. You only have so many points to spend and you are going to have to prioritize.

2: With 5e not as much as it has some built in limiters.
 
2e RPGA used a point buy system. I'd have to dig out my old booklet but if recall right it used a 1 for 1 system and gave you a freakishly high amount of points. More than one would ever expect. Think it was like 75 or more points. Enough to get 12s across the board. Sufficient to start with 3 stats 18 and 3 at 6 if went full on about it.

Theres nothing wrong with point buy. It evens the field and with a proper system like 5e has, curbs the worst of min/maxing. Older systems not so much so.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on December 18, 2023, 08:56:46 AM
Modern D&D introduces the attribute problem by making attributes central to a character's competency in everything they do, while limiting the situations where min-maxing is a real liability. It then blows up any established consensus and invites controversy by providing a dozen different attribute generation methods, each with wildly different characteristics. If these at least orbited around some kind of core assumptions that the rest of the design was built atop, we could reason about what identifies a sane generation method.

As time has gone on I've grown rather negative towards attributes that only serve as base modifiers for the actual checks and think a lot of issues could be solved if you just replaced them with more "skill" points and higher level 1 caps for the skills.

Want a strong fighter? Put your skills into Fitness and Melee. Want a smart wizard? Put your skills into Arcana and Lore. Etc.

If you must have Racial attribute-like adjustments, just make them at the skill level; Dwarves get bonuses to Fitness and Engineering, Halflings to Acrobatics and Stealth, Elves to Archery and Lore. etc.

The best RPGs I've played all used point buys. The worst RPGs I've played also used point buy.

I am not a huge fan of rolled stats. They encourage all sorts of bad player behavior, it's not that fast, the characters which come out of it don't actually feel that different from point buy or standard arrays, and the needless exposure to RNG consistently goofs with game balance and quite often with party composition, too. I don't understand why anyone would play this way beyond one-offs, but if you insist on being a fool, it's your game to ruin.

Point buys (especially non-OSR point buys) can wind up going off the rails level of crunchy. The biggest problem a point buy system can have is that it takes ice ages to put a character together and you either need to have a dedicated Session Zero or players just bring completed characters. However, this is by no means a universal problem in point buy systems (in fact, it's the exception). Good point buy systems are some of the fastest and most flexible character creation systems out there. It's not that hard to not goof them up, either; a unified point pool is usually what sinks these games, so you just don't take Attribute Points and Skill or Feat points out of the same point pool.

Problem solved.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 18, 2023, 10:01:06 AM

Quote from: Old Aegidius on December 18, 2023, 08:56:46 AM
Modern D&D introduces the attribute problem by making attributes central to a character's competency in everything they do, while limiting the situations where min-maxing is a real liability. It then blows up any established consensus and invites controversy by providing a dozen different attribute generation methods, each with wildly different characteristics. If these at least orbited around some kind of core assumptions that the rest of the design was built atop, we could reason about what identifies a sane generation method.

As time has gone on I've grown rather negative towards attributes that only serve as base modifiers for the actual checks and think a lot of issues could be solved if you just replaced them with more "skill" points and higher level 1 caps for the skills.

Want a strong fighter? Put your skills into Fitness and Melee. Want a smart wizard? Put your skills into Arcana and Lore. Etc.

If you must have Racial attribute-like adjustments, just make them at the skill level; Dwarves get bonuses to Fitness and Engineering, Halflings to Acrobatics and Stealth, Elves to Archery and Lore. etc.

There is a big advantage to such a system though:  it provides a measure of niche protection.  If you have a high strength, frex, it makes sense to get mostly strength based skills because you have a bonus to all of them.  Lack of niche protection is often cited as a disadvantage of skill based vs class based games.  This is one way to get around that.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on December 18, 2023, 08:56:46 AM

Quote from: jhkim on December 18, 2023, 02:57:33 AM
because the GM and the players reined in power-gamers by saying "no" rather than allowing rules hacking.

I don't mean to pick on you in particular, but there needs to be a name for this general form of argument - that problems can be resolved by the GM or players mitigating a problem via the social contract as opposed to the rules. Even in a dysfunctional group, a sufficiently authoritative GM could simply quash any debate and resolve an issue by fiat to keep play moving. My perspective on that argument is that it doesn't really go anywhere. Pointing out that there are intentional gaps or unforeseen situations in the rules or in the fiction which need GM arbitration is fine. Suggesting that the group can figure out a solution to a problem the game itself introduced is not an acceptable answer for a ruleset, in my view. See PVP Combat rules and the related controversy regarding Candela Obscura.

Some rulesets avoid or mitigate their issues in their fundamental structure rather than inviting these kinds of disputes in the first place. The rules can serve many purposes and one of these might be to establish a sane initial consensus (or provide options for sane starting points) or even to design the problem away in the first place. The better the ruleset, the less weight falls on the shoulders of the GM to establish and maintain that consensus (a major problem in D&D).

Modern D&D introduces the attribute problem by making attributes central to a character's competency in everything they do, while limiting the situations where min-maxing is a real liability. It then blows up any established consensus and invites controversy by providing a dozen different attribute generation methods, each with wildly different characteristics. If these at least orbited around some kind of core assumptions that the rest of the design was built atop, we could reason about what identifies a sane generation method.

The issue with this is that there are certain problems that are going to exist regardless. And the only way around them is GM fiat and/or establishing their own campaign guidelines to fit their circumstances.

In the specific issue jhkim was addressing, for example, power disparities are going to exist regardless of whether point buy or random generation are used. The idea of "pOwEr GaMeRs" is also extremely subjective, and there's next to no objective measures to properly anticipate exactly what ability combinations might be an "issue" in actual play, or which combinations any given group will take issue with. The designers can't determine that for the group. All they can do is try to mitigate the most egregious and obvious examples as best they can. Which admittedly they don't always do well—for any system, including random gen+class & level ones.

Otherwise the only way around it is for the GM to step in and set their own limits for their game. Cuz the game designers can't anticipate what every game group's peeves are going to be when it comes to ability selection. Or what sort of standards any GM might want for their campaign when it comes to players building their character. Some might focus more on "background skills", while others might handwave them. But how important background skill vs combat/adventuring/power gamey skill selection is considered to be (and how many points they might need to round those out in a point buy game) is going to vary from game group to game group.

Quote from: Mishihari on December 18, 2023, 10:23:57 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 18, 2023, 10:01:06 AM

Quote from: Old Aegidius on December 18, 2023, 08:56:46 AM
Modern D&D introduces the attribute problem by making attributes central to a character's competency in everything they do, while limiting the situations where min-maxing is a real liability. It then blows up any established consensus and invites controversy by providing a dozen different attribute generation methods, each with wildly different characteristics. If these at least orbited around some kind of core assumptions that the rest of the design was built atop, we could reason about what identifies a sane generation method.

As time has gone on I've grown rather negative towards attributes that only serve as base modifiers for the actual checks and think a lot of issues could be solved if you just replaced them with more "skill" points and higher level 1 caps for the skills.

Want a strong fighter? Put your skills into Fitness and Melee. Want a smart wizard? Put your skills into Arcana and Lore. Etc.

If you must have Racial attribute-like adjustments, just make them at the skill level; Dwarves get bonuses to Fitness and Engineering, Halflings to Acrobatics and Stealth, Elves to Archery and Lore. etc.

There is a big advantage to such a system though:  it provides a measure of niche protection.  If you have a high strength, frex, it makes sense to get mostly strength based skills because you have a bonus to all of them.  Lack of niche protection is often cited as a disadvantage of skill based vs class based games.  This is one way to get around that.

The trick there is you need to have the attributes hold equal value.

When all Strength does is melee attacks and lifting things with just the Athletics skill associated with it, and then the system also allows you to use Dex for melee attacks for just a net -1 to damage, and also applies to Ranged Attacks, Armor Class, Acrobatics and Thievery and Stealth, and avoiding some of the most common spells... and the lifting things is almost never important because they set the Encumbrance values so that even average Strength can carry 150 pounds of stuff without being slowed down because most players can't be bothered to track equipment...

Why the heck would you ever take Strength in such a system? (yes, this is exactly how 5e handles it which is just one of the reasons 5e sucks).

By contrast if instead, Melee, Ranged, Agility, Fitness, Thievery and Stealth were all separate skills and, say, fighters get proficiency in Melee, Ranged, Fitness and a choice of one other skill, while Rogues get Agility, Thievery, Stealth and a choice of one other skill... you'd still have the niche protection without having to worry about entire categories (attributes) needing to be balanced with each other. The fighter doesn't need a High Dex in addition to Strength to be good with both melee and ranged attacks... his skills take care of that for him.