I give my players options, Standard Array, Point Buy or 4D6D1 and if you don't have two 15's then raise your two highest to 15's.  No one wants to play a character of all 10's to 12's.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 20, 2023, 04:33:54 PM
I give my players options, Standard Array, Point Buy or 4D6D1 and if you don't have two 15's then raise your two highest to 15's.  No one wants to play a character of all 10's to 12's.

Doesn't the Standard Array have only one 15 (and point buy basically only lets you get two at significant cost to your other scores)? Or do you use a different array and enough points to be roughly equivalent to the average rolled results?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 20, 2023, 04:15:08 PM
Yes
No
Maybe it depends

No but it is inherently evil. 

Indeed. And to beat the devil out of sinners at my table I forbid point buy, make you roll 3d6 straight down the line, and accept that first roll as your PC. Then we'll watch you roll HP, Money, and other things publicly to make sure the anguish squeezes out the last temptations you have lingering.  I oppress you because I love you. It makes you a better person. 

I prefer point buy to random rolling. However, I also restrict what options players can take (e.g. no characters with super powers because they chose blindness and crippled as hindrances). I also don't allow social hindrances that are too disruptive on the game.

I like a character generation system that gives me the illusion of competence. If I want to portray a character who is weak, forgetful, lazy, uncoordinated, sickly and unlikeable, and who doesn't qualify for any of the cool jobs, I have the real world for that. 

You'll always get that guy who says: "I played a 10 STR fighter and I loved it!". You can build that character with point buy.  It's called: "playing against type" and it's been a thing since the dawn of RPG's. 

If you want randomness, then you can take the standard array and randomly determine where the 15,14,13,12,10, and 8 go. At least your character will have aptitude in some field.

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.

You certainly can make exactly the character you want with point buy, assuming you're not playing d&d.

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.

That's the statistics of AD&D1e - 3-5 fighters of 0-1st level doing their 3-5 attacks each round will on average do more damage than 1 fighter doing his 1 attack, even if he has exceptional Strength. That's why everyone dreads pissy little monsters like rats, and why MUs can be horribly effective with darts - lots of attacks!

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.

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.

This doesn't follow. Point buy characters can be petrified. I've also never seen a player get upset because of defeat. Why would they? It's part of the game.

Quote from: Domina on December 21, 2023, 11:13:50 AM

You certainly can make exactly the character you want with point buy, assuming you're not playing d&d.

No you can't. If you have no particular concept in mind you have a great deal of flexibility with point buy, but if you had a concept first, then point buy can fail you.

Quote from: migo on December 21, 2023, 12:42:02 PM

Quote from: Domina on December 21, 2023, 11:13:50 AM

You certainly can make exactly the character you want with point buy, assuming you're not playing d&d.

No you can't. If you have no particular concept in mind you have a great deal of flexibility with point buy, but if you had a concept first, then point buy can fail you.

You're being unnecessarily pedantic.

"I want to build Superman" and being unable to in a fantasy game is not a failure of point buy. It is a failure of the concept to meet the game's parameters for what a starting PC should look like. It would fail equally hard if things were rolled.

Perhaps to clear it up to account for your excessive pedantry, "using point buy you can make exactly the character you want within the constraints of the genre and mechanical options."

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 21, 2023, 04:42:44 PM

Quote from: migo on December 21, 2023, 12:42:02 PM

Quote from: Domina on December 21, 2023, 11:13:50 AM

You certainly can make exactly the character you want with point buy, assuming you're not playing d&d.

No you can't. If you have no particular concept in mind you have a great deal of flexibility with point buy, but if you had a concept first, then point buy can fail you.

You're being unnecessarily pedantic.

"I want to build Superman" and being unable to in a fantasy game is not a failure of point buy. It is a failure of the concept to meet the game's parameters for what a starting PC should look like. It would fail equally hard if things were rolled.

Perhaps to clear it up to account for your excessive pedantry, "using point buy you can make exactly the character you want within the constraints of the genre and mechanical options."

No, you're making a strawman. No point buy system lets you create any character concept, and no the reason is not that the concept is too powerful. Perfectly reasonable concepts end up not working because they need a combination of abilities that are priced arbitrarily to begin with, and those abilities contain aspects that aren't necessary for the base concept.

Quote from: migo on December 21, 2023, 05:08:32 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 21, 2023, 04:42:44 PM

Quote from: migo on December 21, 2023, 12:42:02 PM

Quote from: Domina on December 21, 2023, 11:13:50 AM

You certainly can make exactly the character you want with point buy, assuming you're not playing d&d.

No you can't. If you have no particular concept in mind you have a great deal of flexibility with point buy, but if you had a concept first, then point buy can fail you.

You're being unnecessarily pedantic.

"I want to build Superman" and being unable to in a fantasy game is not a failure of point buy. It is a failure of the concept to meet the game's parameters for what a starting PC should look like. It would fail equally hard if things were rolled.

Perhaps to clear it up to account for your excessive pedantry, "using point buy you can make exactly the character you want within the constraints of the genre and mechanical options."

No, you're making a strawman. *snip*

Says the guy insisting that you can't build the character you want with point buy (despite ALL objective, verifiable evidence to the contrary), because you can't get your dream character out of the gate without putting any work into it. And that this is a failure of the idea of point buy itself, and not your ABSURDLY unrealistic expectations.

I feel like as with any game, a codified point buy system will have limits in what it can effectively make based on authorial creativity. That and players may just not have enough points to make what they want. Still, that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. My favorite character creation system is Ascendant, which uses point buy but with attribute caps based on total point budget to avoid folks going too far with a single attribute or ability. Keeps things interesting, and there's a lot of freedom in character concept and the like, without things going super incredibly off the rails balance-wise.

Point buy is cool in that it can allow and account for more variety of character builds, I'd say. As well as guaranteed clarity of concept if you want to pursue it even if the dice aren't feeling kind. The mini game aspect of character creation can even add connection/personal value to your build.

That said, there are arguable downsides as well. One is that build mistakes are very possible, whereas with random chance or even standard arrays, less so. This cost hits newbies and folks who aren't as invested in the game hardest, too. I guess also there's strategy as opposed to just chance in character creation, which on average is a bit slower, though of course it will depend on the system in question. I also feel like it's easier to make calculation mistakes, should that matter, though for me the math and meta-concerns of making a build fit are part of the fun. Characters may mean more to folks, which decreases interest in seeing them die, usually. Also, there's opportunity cost for all the perks that different methods like random rolling and the like can bring into play.

I'd say it depends on what you're looking for, and the circumstances at hand, whether one wants to go for point buy or not.

One thing I also find amusing is the assumptions that seem to go along with decrying point buy as if every variety of it uses points for everything (ex. HERO or M&M) instead of say, point buy of attributes for the old RPGA and similar organized play campaigns (Living City used point buy from its inception in 1987 and is standard for virtually all organized play groups).

"You can't express your concept in point buy" makes ZERO sense in relation to a level/class system where you point buy your attributes. Being able to put your points where needed to let you run what you want is precisely what it facilitates.

Something I've only seen touched on a bit is that these two things do accomplish different goals.
For instance, lets assume your table wants to generate stats and then play the character that the stats have.  As jhkim says, you could be choosing between several stats with the same totals or similar values.  I'll go further- you could, as DM, build several stat matrices, each one capable of being at least one powerful character, and then simply have the characters roll 1dN, where N is how many you made.  Now everyone is guaranteed to be able to make equally powerful characters AND they don't know ahead of time whether they will get something that qualifies for paladin in AD&D 2e, or something that would make a good charisma caster in 5e, or whatever.  It would work in every version.

The real question is, is this what you want?  Point buy always gets you what you want (within the bounds of the budget), and things like "4d6 drop lowest arrange to taste" will get you much stronger characters than "3d6 down the line", and will generally allow you to play most things that you want (you may not qualify for every class in every edition, but unless you got balls rolls, you'll have something you want).

So that's our first axis:  Should the Players be able to roll dice and then see what fits for their rolls, or should they come with a character in mind, roll dice, and try to make the best version of that character than they can??

Second, do you want different power levels at the table?  This is much easier, because everyone knows how it works.  Older editions have this problem in much smaller amounts.  If an 18 is +3 and a 10 is +0, then the average table is going to have a runt and an alpha and the difference won't be huge.  Play that in 3.0 and it will be a larger difference.  Play that in 5e and it will be totally wild, with one guy having basically two or even more extra feats that no one else gets.  There's millions of ways to get around this too- you could have everyone at the table generate part of the stat block, and then everyone gets that exact stat block but arranged to taste.  On reddit, 5e players mention everyone rolling and then everyone can take any stat block generated (this is obviously an incredibly huge buff compared to point buy, as one guy will roll good and everyone will feast on those stats).  So the second axis is Should the Players have significant power differences amongst themselves?  Note that a fine answer is "who cares".

Am I missing an axis?  Rolling is obviously more old school, and much more authentic to the older editions, but that's not a statement about whether it's good or bad, that's also a big preference thing.  You definitely miss out on stuff when you point buy.

Personally I have run point buy almost exclusively in every edition (I didn't actually run 4e though, so not that one), with some mild variance about how many points are available, and I did so with the idea that I wanted players to be able to instantiate an idea.  This obviously made the characters generally stronger than the book stated- though of course, I didn't make every stat available (IIRC I didn't let players dump below 5 or pump above 17 normally).  But I did all this knowing it was a buff compared to rolling, even when I was a kid, because you had control and could always, for instance, make a paladin, if you wanted to.

GURPS is point buy, their source books are top notch bar none.

The thing that drives me away is the time it takes to build a character.

There's worst offenders (HERO 6th edition I'm looking at you).

I want a system with fast chargen.

Those other systems could benefit from having prebuilt characters (classes by any other name).