Quote from: Spinachcat;954499Is it a biggie when a point buy PC gets geeked?

No, it is not.

Character death is character death, regardless of the game system used or the style of play preferred.  It's a game.  I don't flip the board in anger when I lose at chess or look to cause trouble when I lose at poker.  I don't get upset over the imaginary death of an imaginary character.  I don't think anyone should either, but that's just my opinion.

Which is what this really is about.  Opinion.  The OP asked about defending point-buy systems.  Point-buy systems no more need to be defended than strawberry ice cream does.  And I hate strawberry ice cream.*

I genuinely see the appeal of the random system; it does solve some of the problems that come up with point-buy.  But I find the notion that it's somehow objectively superior to point-buy, because reasons, silly.  It's personal preference, and that's all.

* Seriously.  It's like strawberry flavoured mucus.  A waste of perfectly good strawberries.  Dip that shit in chocolate, or put it on some cake, or something.

I didn't think one could make a dick measuring contest out of options of rolling up characters for an RPG... I guess I was wrong.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;954502One additional caveat--attributes mean different things between OD&D an B/X.

And point swapping in OD&D functioned differently. Clerics just got a potential EXP bonus if they could qualify by swapping STR for WIS. Which was because in OD&D stats didnt do much. INT got you +1 languages per point over 10, DEX got you +1 ranged bonus at 13+, CON got you +1 HP bonus if 15+, CHA granted more potential hirelings, better loyalty of hirelings and better reactions from encounters.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;954511I didn't think one could make a dick measuring contest out of options of rolling up characters for an RPG... I guess I was wrong.

Wait till you see the anti-Module brigade in action. This thread is pretty mild so far.

Quote from: Omega;954487Yeah well Gronan tends to omit that point shuffling is in OD&D whenever he mentions 3d6 in order. Yes. It is different from BX. But the systems are overall the same.

Gronan omits a LOT of stuff in his 'You're doing it wrong' cane shaking rants as long as it makes him seem wise and grognardy.  He's so full of shit I'm surprised he doesn't walk bow-legged.  I take nothing he says beyond his claims of being at Mr. Gygax's tables, seriously.  He's been spouting the same drivel since my time on TBP.

And I knew about Cyclopedia shifting of points, but a 'true Scotsman' doesn't use it.  I took what I got anyway in the now three times I've played it, because the dice were too fickle.  When you get a 15, in a stat you can use for a class, you stick with it, even if everything else might not be so glamourous, like 8-9s.

One last thing, this?

Quote from: Tequila SunriseIt eliminates the temptation of "Let's see how fast I can get this lame set of stats killed" and "See ya lucky guys, let me know when the next campaign starts."

I've actually seen.  And never in a malicious way.  If the stats are so low that the player doesn't feel he can contribute, or feels like he's going to drag the team down, the few that have done this have stepped back. And again, this is anecdotal.  But it's always been from a spirit of cooperation:  If I can't help the party in a meaningful way, then why am I here?  I've had a couple players explain it to me in that way, back in my AD&D 2e days.  It's what makes me prefer arrays and point buys.

I like my players to be heroic, you know a point or three above the norm, because nothing and I mean nothing has killed my enjoyment of the game when after spending 15 to 45 minutes (depending on the game/edition/what have you) in character creation and then watching my players TPK to five Kobolds with spears in about 5 minutes in.  At that point, we broke out a couple of boardgames to wash out the bad tastes in our mouths.  Yeah, yeah, I get it, "That's how the dice rolled, Binky."  But this is a game, not real life.  Hell, one can make an argument that in real life, none of those who go into a dangerous job, Firefighting, Police, Emergency work in general, are the base normal.  After all, they all train their bodies as well as their skills.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;954533At that point, we broke out a couple of boardgames to wash out the bad tastes in our mouths.  Yeah, yeah, I get it, "That's how the dice rolled, Binky."

It sounds like you and your players need a new hobby.

A party with straight 18s can suffer a TPK. All the point buy bullshit guarantees nothing. The D20 is swingy. Its quite possible for players to roll like shit and the DM to roll like a boss. It happens. A few years ago, I ran a 4 hour combat heavy game where none of my monsters damaged a single PC. It was hysterical and I even switched out dice. The joke was the next event where I was dropping murderous crits like mofo.

Until you remove randomness from combat, you are going to have bad dice days.

Your TPK by Kobolds is a feature, not a bug of the RPG hobby.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;954396It puts every character on an even playing field, stat wise.

Yeah, sure... if you have a perfect system and it's properly calibrated for your specific campaign.

But there aren't a lot of those around.  My experience has been that "build"-oriented systems (of which point-buy chargen is one type among many) tend to have optimal builds and inferior builds, with the end result that, instead of enforcing a level playing field, they reward system mastery.  There's also a tendency to produce cookie-cutter characters, with everyone putting just enough points into a stat to reach a certain breakpoint, and not a single point more.  While pursuing system mastery and optimal builds is a valid play style, enjoyed by many, it's not what I enjoy, nor something I care to encourage in the games I run.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;954396It's super-convenient for con adventures, and for friendly adventures where there's limited IRL time to play so you want to just be able to say "Show up with a level X (or X amount of XP) character, use point buy Y."

The GM bringing an assortment of pregens for the players to choose from is even more convenient when time for play is limited.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;954396It makes DMing easier.

Depends on how you run your game.  Personally, I never tune anything to fit a specific group of PCs or PC level(s), so neither style of chargen is easier or harder for me to GM for.

Quote from: Spinachcat;954499Fritz is a GREAT character. He is x100 more interesting than yet another point buy min/max by the numbers Paladin.

Fritz is a roleplaying gem. And nobody is going to make him in a point buy system.

Agreed.

Quote from: Spinachcat;954499
THIS is the #1 reason hands down for random rolls.

Fritz is a GREAT character. He is x100 more interesting than yet another point buy min/max by the numbers Paladin.

Fritz is a roleplaying gem. And nobody is going to make him in a point buy system.

Here's the joke. STR 8 is -1 to hit and DEX 8 is -1 AC. That's 5% off norm. Considering the swing of a D20, it is laughably possible that Fritz could level up again and again, becoming more memorable with each session.

My players very possibly would. In my homebrew, I have optional disadvantages. They don't get you extra purchase points or anything like that, it is strictly there for character flavor. One player took a fear of being underground giving -1 to any rolls while underground (where you start with rolling a single d6 to succeed in your best area) in a dungeon focused game. Another player decided her character thinks she's stealthy but has a -1 for all stealth moves.

My 4 year old rolled up a character in DCC last night. 3d6 straight down the line with random race generation. She ended up with a gimp halfling gypsy 8 strength(-1); 8 agility (-1); 6 luck (-1). 3hp.

She drew a great stick figure halfling on the front. My wife told me I was in no way to allow that tear fest waiting to happen anywhere near a real game or I get to deal with the sobbing.

Point array it is, I guess...

I'm experimenting right now in my homebrew... its random stats, skill points, and hit points, but if you roll below average you get 1 or 2 mutations which can only be achieved by rolling poorly.  We'll see how it works.

Random generation or Point Buy...why not both and make nobody/everybody happy?

http://dndgenerator.mygamesonline.org/pointbuy.php

I've been using this tool for a while now. My players seem happy with it.

Quote from: Spinachcat;954499THIS is the #1 reason hands down for random rolls.

Fritz is a GREAT character. He is x100 more interesting than yet another point buy min/max by the numbers Paladin.

Fritz is a roleplaying gem. And nobody is going to make him in a point buy system.

Here's the joke. STR 8 is -1 to hit and DEX 8 is -1 AC. That's 5% off norm. Considering the swing of a D20, it is laughably possible that Fritz could level up again and again, becoming more memorable with each session.

Fritz is at -1 for everything he does.  He can't hit Easy DCs half the time.

Why would the rest of the group want to be dragged down by Fritz?

Quote from: Sommerjon;954607Fritz is at -1 for everything he does.  He can't hit Easy DCs half the time.

Why would the rest of the group want to be dragged down by Fritz?

Because it gives Fritz incentive to find alternatives: talk to the orcs, stampede the mammoths into the goblins, or hire henchmen and shout advice.

It seems to me there's a big difference between games that like D&D emphasize class & level as the primary way to determine abilities and chances of success (with maybe +/- 1 or so for particularly high/low attributes), and games that like TFT/GURPS have no classes or levels and use attributes + skills to determine abilities and chances of success.

PCs are one thing, but if attributes are needed to resolve action with NPCs too then you need them for the NPCs, and if the values all characters should have determine their power level and reflect what kind of a person they are, then the attributes for any character of a known type should practically never just be rolled up. (At least not over the whole range of possible values. Maybe if you had very limited-range tables of values appropriate for the type of character, but otherwise you'd get a fearsome knight... who's a complete wimp and/or clutz, etc. etc.) One of the best features of TFT & GURPS is that the characters (PC & NPC) should have values that reflect the abilities those people should have, which too much randomness would bork.

In GURPS I tend to only half-use the point totals anyway, and instead design characters to have values that make sense for the type of person they are. The point totals I mainly use to check if I've made someone more or less gifted than I really intended. I also do sometimes use random rolls (especially for NPCs) but only to pick specific values within an appropriate range for the character.

I tend to offer a range of options for players wanting to come up with new PCs, and usually I do have a random option or two.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;954511I didn't think one could make a dick measuring contest out of options of rolling up characters for an RPG... I guess I was wrong.

Well, for dick measuring, I ALWAYS go with point buy.:-)