Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 18, 2023, 11:58:46 AM


This kind of problem stems not from a point buy system but rather from player desires not aligning to the power level of the campaign. If a player is told to create a 150 point character, but the super duper character they have envisioned requires 275 points to build then the player has to adjust the desired concept to something 150 points will buy. Some players always want more than the campaign starting level gives their characters regardless of creation method. In point buy they never have enough points. In random generation the rolled stats are not high enough for the character that they envision. NO creation method will help with that.

No. It's not that. Certain abilities only come presented a certain way, so a concept ends up being quite expensive even if the character concept wasn't that powerful.

Quote from: migo on December 18, 2023, 11:10:42 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on December 17, 2023, 10:34:20 PM

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.

Sure it's an inherent problem of random generation, but it's not an inherent problem of random generation failing at its stated goal. Point buy, on the other hand fails at its stated goal. You move from random generation to point buy being expected to create the exact character you envisioned, and you still can't.

Except that you can have the character you want. You just can't have 100% the entire laundry list of abilities that you want right out of the gate. Same way you can't have a level 20 (or whatever) character out of character creation in D&D.

So you're now framing it as some fundamental failure of point buy as a design concept. As opposed to your own inability to wait a few sessions to get 100% every single ability you want.

And while I'm sure that there might be some point buy game out there making some hyperbolic claims about the customization potential of their system. That doesn't make getting 100% without fail the precise character you envisioned right out of character creation the "stated goal" of point buy as a design concept. The point of point buy is having a la carte character creation and progression, with greater control over your ability selection. Getting the exact "character you envisioned" might at best be described as an aspirational aim of that type of system. But that doesn't mean that your dream character is gonna be handed to you the moment you show up at session 0.

The most I'd give you about the point (I think) you're trying to raise here is that most point buy games suck at giving you enough points to get BS background skills that are of limited use in an adventure. Because they're too stingy with their character creation budget, and make you weigh the limited points you have for actual adventuring skills against limited use secondary skills that are mostly picked for color and rarely come up in play. Which at most can be said to be a design oversight in terms of implementation (to the degree that it can be blamed on any particular system, rather than your own impatience), as opposed to a complete failure of point buy as a concept.

But as I already tried to explain, it is extremely easy to get around that oversight by simply giving characters extra points specifically for background skills, like crafting, languages, lore, etc. But how many points exactly those should be can vary a lot depending on the group and their campaign standards.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on December 16, 2023, 04:52:34 PM
Now from personal experience with GURPS, The Fantasy Trip, and Mutants and Masterminds I've played a couple games that featured point buy character leveling.

the two biggest complaints I personally have is that they 1. character creation can take forever depending on the concept, 2. it can sometimes be prone to jank or powergaming depending on the group.

These seem like valid complaints, but typically at least from RPGPundit and other OSR blogs and videos I see, there seems to be an implied but never described inherent "badness" as though there is some fundamental violation of game design that it incurs and must make up for in other game design choices?

To me at least the way I've handled my core complaints with point buy is I simply made character generation randomized with templates that are roughly equal point value or effectiveness (like The Fantasy Trip)

But I was wondering if there was more to this?

I don't think it is bad. I like Point Buy. But I do think it isn't suitable for certain things and 1&2 are both likely issues. I would just add that I think the two types of players I see gravitate towards it are A) players who are competitive and want to do a little power building, B) players who like compete control of building a character concept. Often A and B can be in conflict so that is another thing to be mindful of depending on the system. 

Every time someone spouts something hyperbolic and ignorant about point buy systems:

Quote from: jhkim on December 18, 2023, 05:26:17 PM
Comparing to Strength 10 isn't relevant, though. Basically zero PC fighters will have a 10 Strength.

My point was to highlight the force multiplier that attributes represent in 3e/4e/5e vs. AD&D, but I think 10 is a good benchmark. 10.5 is the average on 3d6, 10 is the stated baseline for average/default humans, and 10 isolates the magnitude of impact attributes can have in either system. In the 3e attribute system, you can gain 4 levels of impact vs. AD&Ds 1 level of impact. That impact is mostly washed out in AD&D by level 12, whereas in 3e a +4 (or +7 if they pump the stat with level increases) is still a big chunk of the character's overall efficacy. Min-maxing your DEX in 3e can get you: 4 or more levels of improved accuracy, derived bonuses which meet or exceed the equivalent of 2 feats (improved initiative and catlike reflexes I think), and ~800 GP worth of material (chain shirt vs. full plate). You won't find anything even remotely close in AD&D so the whole question of generating the stat block is less significant.

As a thought experiment, imagine there were no attributes at all but everything else remained the same. There are two systems: one where you roll on a table and sometimes you get a +1 magic sword. Another, your roll can get you a +4 sword. Now imagine there's an alternate option where instead of a roll you can just pick your result in exchange for the best prizes imposing a -1 penalty on some vestigial reaction rolls and some other stuff that just isn't important to your class role. Why should the roll and the choice co-exist?

As for percentiles, they're only relevant to random generation whereas I was trying to highlight that the ability to guarantee an 18 in a system with 3e attributes (or a 16 or whatever you'd like) is way more impactful than luck in AD&D either way. I agree with you that the 10% experience boost is significant enough to be annoying and I dislike that rule.

Quote from: jhkim on December 18, 2023, 05:26:17 PM
Having played with point-buy in 5E for many years, I don't recall ever needing to say "no" to any attribute buy as GM. Under point-buy, an 18 starting stat is very expensive and many players don't go for it, because they want to have more total bonus in other stats.

Well, there's nothing to object to because the system functions as-intended if somebody pumps one stat and tanks another. You can buy 15,15,15,8,8,8 prior to racial bonuses in 5e and it's valid. Is that stat block min-maxing or is it trying to fit the stats to the character concept? When exactly could the GM ever legitimately reject the player's choices in a point buy system when the underlying goal is to let the player make those choices? The ruleset offers no real solution because the ruleset doesn't really consider it a problem. Min-maxing is an acceptable and even intentional part of the modern game (along with builds and character optimization culture).

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 18, 2023, 05:58:56 PM

Quote from: jhkim on December 18, 2023, 05:26:17 PM
Comparing to Strength 10 isn't relevant, though. Basically zero PC fighters will have a 10 Strength.

Nowadays, and with most game groups, yes. But it needn't be so. I rolled up 4d6 drop lowest, and ended up with Strength 10 (or maybe 12, I can't remember - it wasn't enough to get a to-hit or damage bonus, anyway) but Charisma 17. The DM said I could swap it around, I said no. "He will be Fabio, the Most Beautiful Fighter in the Cosmos." Fabio hired men-at-arms, and between his generous pay and Charisma, they were insanely loyal. They made a very effective first rank going through the dungeon.

OK, fair enough - my specific quoted statement was off. Still, on the bigger point, this doesn't dispute the statistical analysis about the effect of luck in attribute rolls. You rolled a 17 that by the rules could have gone to Strength, but you chose to put it in Charisma instead - and assigning it there was highly effective. So you got effectiveness out of your assigned high attribute score, which suggests that high attribute scores are important in AD&D.

Obviously, real campaigns are different than mathematical analysis of stats, and characters are more than just their stats. In my current 5E campaign, one of the players went for a high-Charisma fighter as noblewoman Purix Hultin.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 18, 2023, 05:58:56 PM
Fabio perished at 7th level after meeting the gaze of a medusa. The other players were intent on bringing him out and recovering him somehow. I said, "No - that Fabio is immortalised in stone, that is the way. A later party of adventurers will find him and admire his beauty."

I'd never have had that story to tell with point-buy.

I haven't made exactly that character, but I've made plenty of other oddball characters in point-buy systems. I made a cunning social-focused old lady for a Burning Wheel campaign, say, or my half-orc cleric Thokk the Holy in 5e D&D, who wasn't especially wise but was very zealous and forceful, or my Dungeon World character Rat who lied about being a halfling. (He was actually a really short human.)

It's fine for you to choose random-roll out of personal preference, but it's not universal. I've had lots of weird and/or suboptimal characters in point-based systems.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 18, 2023, 05:58:56 PM
What I've found over the years is that high attributes can actually be dangerous for a character in combat - it makes the player over-confident with their character, they charge in. After all, thinking of 1st level Fighters, one with 10 hit points who gets hit twice has the same chances of being knocked down as a 5 hit point one who gets hit once. If you have 5 HP and leather armour you're more likely to just stand in the doorway and wait for them to come at you one-by-one, compared to having 10 HP and banded mail.

And so in practice, higher attributes are dangerous. Game design has to take into account human nature, thus for example understanding that point-buy will take longer than random roll, given the same level of complexity in the game system otherwise, which means players will be more pissed off if their character dies, so point-buy systems tend to encourage hero point or other systems reducing lethality, etc. Human nature.

But point-buy doesn't have higher attributes than rolling. It guarantees a median level of luck, but particularly in 5E, you're more likely to get a high primary attribute by rolling than by point-buy.

As for quick chargen and lethality, standard array is even faster than rolling. For experienced players, all three methods take roughly the same time. It's arranging the scores that takes the most time. As for lethality, Call of Cthulhu has point-buy skills, and other high-lethality horror games like Dead of Night are fully point-buy. They just have fairly simple point-buy choices.

If I may wade into the fray here...

Isn't it a question of preference to some extent? 

Rolling adds an element of randomness which allows for the possibility of overpowered and underpowered characters.  This allows for greater potential for role play in some ways. It is at least, dynamic role play.

Point buys add a sort of generic element to characters as it brings a certain conformity to scores.  Most characters will be created within certain predictable thresholds with a bounded limit on deviation.  This adds some consistency and makes it easier to DM.  It means class designs will more or less apply equally as (someone said) players are unlikely to venture out as 10 Str fighters.

To sum up... neither is "bad."  It's just a matter of preference.

Quote from: Captain_Pazuzu on December 19, 2023, 04:40:58 PM
Rolling adds an element of randomness which allows for the possibility of overpowered and underpowered characters.  This allows for greater potential for role play in some ways. It is at least, dynamic role play.

Point buys add a sort of generic element to characters as it brings a certain conformity to scores.

While random rolling methods do traditionally result in a range of possible outcomes in terms of power level, that is not necessarily the case: distribution can be random while power level is constant.

So for me those are separate concerns: I like random not because it results in a power distribution, but because it challenges me to conceive and play of a character within the parameters defined by the roll. I like point-buy because I can wholly determine the character to play from my imagination alone.

I don't like systems that result in (much) power difference between characters actually, because that's not really fun in my experience. But I love randomness in character generation, and my players prefer it too.

Quote from: Zalman on December 19, 2023, 05:36:03 PM


So for me those are separate concerns: I like random not because it results in a power distribution, but because it challenges me to conceive and play of a character within the parameters defined by the roll. I like point-buy because I can wholly determine the character to play from my imagination alone.

I actually miss that part, looking at the scores and seeing what would work.  Going from there.

Quote from: Zalman on December 19, 2023, 05:36:03 PM
While random rolling methods do traditionally result in a range of possible outcomes in terms of power level, that is not necessarily the case: distribution can be random while power level is constant.

So for me those are separate concerns: I like random not because it results in a power distribution, but because it challenges me to conceive and play of a character within the parameters defined by the roll. I like point-buy because I can wholly determine the character to play from my imagination alone.

Can you (or anyone) suggest games that have randomness without a power distribution? Mathematically, it seems straightforward have random rolls but the total of all attributes stay fixed -- but I can't think of any games offhand that do that.

I like the randomness especially of lifepath systems where you roll for different background and other details of the character. For example, I recently tried out and got a copy of _Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation_ which has a lot of random tables of interesting background of characters. However, I don't find just attribute scores very inspirational.

This can even be used in point-buy systems. Roll up some ideas and then buy them.

Quote from: Zalman on December 19, 2023, 05:36:03 PM

I don't like systems that result in (much) power difference between characters actually, because that's not really fun in my experience. But I love randomness in character generation, and my players prefer it too.

I don't like differences in power levels that start stark and never get any better (or in some cases, even get worse).  What I don't mind, and actually prefer, is difference in power levels due to randomness and characters of different "levels" adventuring together, and then it tends to smooth out over time.  Early D&D's experience point track is a great example of the latter, because of the exponential costs of the levels combined with not much difference in any two adjacent levels (notwithstanding exceptions such as B/X levels 4 to 5). 

This is why my own system uses some fairly strong randomness early, but fixes the scale and adjustments such that people who start weak get more oomph out of the adjustments.  For example, ability scores are 3d6, in order, but scale is -3 to +3 (in that range, with the +0 off center at the 8-10 values). Then a character will typically get a couple of chance to improve scores of their choice early, and then several more as they level. The higher your score, the harder it is to improve. Net effect is that the gap narrows considerably as the levels are gained.  However, unlike point buy, some of the effects of randomization are still there. A character that starts with great stats gets the advantage of them longer. A character that starts with lousy stats gets more say in how their stats improve.

Quote from: jhkim on December 19, 2023, 06:06:57 PM
Can you (or anyone) suggest games that have randomness without a power distribution? Mathematically, it seems straightforward have random rolls but the total of all attributes stay fixed -- but I can't think of any games offhand that do that.

My own homebrew is the only one I'm aware of, in my limited knowledge.

People think point buy is tedious because they only have experience with shitty, inelegant systems that think you need to simulate the rate at which your toenails grow. A good point buy system lets you make ten characters in the time it takes you to make one in 3.5.

Quote from: jhkim on December 19, 2023, 06:06:57 PM


Can you (or anyone) suggest games that have randomness without a power distribution? Mathematically, it seems straightforward have random rolls but the total of all attributes stay fixed -- but I can't think of any games offhand that do that.

Reign does it. It also lets you mix and match random generation with point buy. If you don't like a random result you just change it and it doesn't break anything.

Yes
No
Maybe it depends

No but it is inherently evil.