TheRPGSite

Random: No choices or as few as possible (gender and overall 'class' for example)

Random: some choices (Attributes are randomly rolled but players chooses where to put them for example)

Random: Lifepath: Character's mechanical aspects are determined by rolling/choose from tables that describe elements of their background.

Allocation: Set number of options but player chooses

Point Buy: structured costs for various attributes (GURPS, for example)

Other

4D6 take the best 3, swap 2

I said "other" because my ideal method is options (including some options for randomness) usually with some sort of constrained point-buy with lifepath (either a system, playing it out, or just taken into account).

Random: Lifepath for me. It gives hooks for backstory and how the PC is integrated into the world.

Depends on the system.

Select race and profession, record cultural skill ranks, roll for points, spend points on temporary attribute scores, roll maximum attribute scores based on temporary scores, spend background option points from race on stat gains, talents and items with option to roll for a lower cost, calculate development points, purchase training packages rolling for items and recording skill ranks, spend remaining development points on skills, total bonuses.

Depends on what we're playing.

For D&D and castles & Crusades 3d6 in order..., re-roll ones or twos exactly once, keeping what you roll. This is for all editions. Point buy and picking attribute values sucks, and is for milk drinkers.

For Traveller 2d6 straightup

For Chivalry & Sorcery, 1d20 straight up

Star Wars 3d6, in order, re-roll 1's and 2;s just once, keeping the best of what you roll.

Fudge & Fate 4df straight up, Both by the book...

The others pretty much as written in the rules, leaning towards highly random, instead of chosen or scripted.

People like to say, Oh, you like to play with gimped or substandard characters. No, I like to play with characters that are mostly normal, with a few being really heroic or capable, and with a few being really weak, and not so heroic, who have to compensate using their wits, skilled, or trained abilities instead of natural abilities. Both are equally valid methods of roleplaying, and WHile I'm sure there are some fantasy worlds with superheroes everywhere, you won't find that in most of my game worlds. In most of my Worlds, you have to learn how to be heroic!!! That's part of the fun!

For anything with a long campaign - I hate randomized character creation.

It's okay for one-shots - like CoC (at least I've only used it for one-shots).  But part of what I enjoy about TTRPGs are the tactical elements, and randomization at creation generally throws all balance out the window.

Random-Lifepath and/or Allocation, which is why I chose other.  But I'm a filthy new schooler.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1026021For D&D and castles & Crusades 3d6 in order..., re-roll ones or twos exactly once, keeping what you roll. This is for all editions. Point buy and picking attribute values sucks, and is for milk drinkers.

To me this doesn't make even a bit of sense, because different editions have different ranges for bonuses. Some are fine for 3d6 because bonuses start at 13. But in AD&D, they start at 15 or 16

Quote from: JeremyR;1026060To me this doesn't make even a bit of sense, because different editions have different ranges for bonuses. Some are fine for 3d6 because bonuses start at 13. But in AD&D, they start at 15 or 16

The only stat that I know of that starts at 15 for AD&D is Con.  No, wait.  Hold on, Charisma starts at 13 with a reaction bonus of 1.

Always lifepath, whether random or not.

I prefer random mixed with choices. The randomness element I find often leads to inspiration which, in turn, takes me away from stock choices I might make or inbuilt biases that guide me too firmly.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1026016Depends on what we're playing.

But if you have your druthers or if you were designing a perfect system what would you use? Or do you mean you don't have strong feelings for any particular method?

Mongoose Traveller chargen all the way, no matter the setting.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1026074Mongoose Traveller chargen all the way, no matter the setting.

...Mongoose Traveller in King Arthur Pendragon:D?

I let my players custom build their characters. Always have. It's their character after all, they should play the one they want. Some insist on rolling, buying or whatever. That's fine too, it's up to them. Makes no difference to me as GM.

Quote from: AsenRG;1026080...Mongoose Traveller in King Arthur Pendragon:D?

Dark Albion.

Whatever the GM feels is appropriate for his/her gampaign. #TrustYourGM

Since I've never been that interested in the mechanical aspect of chargen, I would say 'Make a freeform description of your character, the GM will assign stats based on that' is my favourite.

While I went point buy, there's also something to be said about non-random Lifepath as seen in games like Fading Suns or Eclipse Phase 2e.

My ideal mix would be about a 50/50 mix of random and choices (somewhat restricted by the random), as in "Roll randomly, get category X, then pick from 3 or 4 options."  Mainly, I'm motivated by giving choices to players without freezing them in analysis paralysis.  Which is why my usual replacement is to ask them what they want in general, then make it for them.  

I think I'd also like a system where everything was random, but with a few outs allowed.  That is, maybe you make 10-12 rolls to see what you get, but a couple of times, you can forgo the roll and pick.  Decide what is really important to you, and make sure you get that, but otherwise live with how the dice fall.  If I ever get my own system off the ground, this is the way it will work, in part to see if that idea does work. :)

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1026082Dark Albion.

I don't think it would work like that, but if it works for you, great, lifepaths are great in either case:)!

Quote from: Certified;1026088While I went point buy, there's also something to be said about non-random Lifepath as seen in games like Fading Suns or Eclipse Phase 2e.

True, but it's the lifepath part that matters to me. The random part I can take or leave, though I find it's best when the game mixes some choices with some randomness;).

Quote from: CarlD.;1026073But if you have your druthers or if you were designing a perfect system what would you use? Or do you mean you don't have strong feelings for any particular method?

The particular method I have strong feelings for is anything quick and simple.  If it takes more than 15 minutes to create a character, that's too long.

I'm fine with OD&D's 3d6 in order, but I'm just as fine with TFT's "allocate 35 points" and West End' Star Wars "take a template and add some points."

Quote from: GameDaddy;1026021For Traveller 2d6 straightup

Well, Traveller is 2d6 straight-up for stats, but then it has decision (decide career, decide how long to press your luck), but then random, lifepath. I think it is a wonderful system for modeling a real-ish person's career journey. I like that one a lot, and like it in fantasy so much as it appears in Beyond the Wall.

Random everything, Lifepath, race, class, skills/attributes, starting equipment, spells...combine Beyond the Wall's playbooks with Ancient Odyssey: Treasure Awaits' random everything else.  I love getting a random character and then figuring out why and how they got that way.

It depends on the game.

But, if I must pick one option... Lifepath.  They make character creation interesting, provide adventure hooks and npcs.

I have successfully refereed Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. campaigns begun with nothing except the lifepaths of my players' characters.  It is easy and fun.

Alright!  Someone other than moi finally voted for allocation. :p

As a DM I like point buy but I almost never use it because when character generation happens, the players just pick up the dice and start rolling so I just go with it. :D

Two things I hate:
1. Roll and assign. Combines the worst of random and non-random chargen.
2. Point buy chargen that uses different systems for chargen than for advancement. So for example in WoD if you make a specialized starting PC and then pick up a random grab bag of skills later it's a lot cheaper to get the exact same final PC than if you start out generalized and then specialize later. That's annoying.

Anything else is fine. Lifepaths and utter randomness are probably my favorites, but being able to dive into the nitty gritty of point buy is fun in some games if it's set up well.

Quote from: Daztur;10261652. Point buy chargen that uses different systems for chargen than for advancement. So for example in WoD if you make a specialized starting PC and then pick up a random grab bag of skills later it's a lot cheaper to get the exact same final PC than if you start out generalized and then specialize later. That's annoying.

I'm with you there.  I hate that with the burning of 1,016 suns!  Especially WoD - which tells you that specializing at creation (which their system incentivises) means that you're having badwrongfun.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1026179I'm with you there.  I hate that with the burning of 1,016 suns!  Especially WoD - which tells you that specializing at creation (which their system incentivises) means that you're having badwrongfun.

Yeah, am playing a WoD campaign in which the GM allows replacement PCs to come in with the same XP as the original ones. So there is literally no reason not to min-max the everliving hell out of a starting character and then spread the XP around. But then you get an unfair advantage over starting characters so I restrain myself from doing that but it's annoying that I have to intentionally handicap myself like that.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1026179I'm with you there.  I hate that with the burning of 1,016 suns!  Especially WoD - which tells you that specializing at creation (which their system incentivises) means that you're having badwrongfun.

I always wondered if that was poorly thought-through design, or a secret trap. Trap in that yes by total character points spent, putting 5s in a few skills/attributes/everything else and then picking up the others later might make sense, but there might not be a later if you start out with a 0-1 in a given ability.

Eh, sometimes I like to roll for stats (4d6, drop the lowest; best of 7). And sometimes I'd rather people make their  characters at home and so I just use Point Buy. I find that some editions, Point Buy is slightly more advantageous like in 3.5 or 4E due to the math but 5E has allowed a bit more variation without seemingly terrible problems.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1026117The particular method I have strong feelings for is anything quick and simple.  If it takes more than 15 minutes to create a character, that's too long.

I'm fine with OD&D's 3d6 in order, but I'm just as fine with TFT's "allocate 35 points" and West End' Star Wars "take a template and add some points."

This is a good sentiment, though I do like Burning Wheel character creation, which can take longer than 15 minutes.

I've definitely moved past GURPS/Hero type complex build, and I'm not so keep on D&D 3.x style where the "build" extends through play. One of my feelings about too complex a build is that it encourages and enables players to have a "complete" character that can't be messed with in play. I think the most important thing is to break this attachment to character so we are actually playing to find out what happens to the character (whether death is realistically on the table or not). If death is realistically on the table, quick chargen means you can quickly get back into play which is a good thing.

So, for me my list:

3d6 in order, pick a class, roll social standing, roll hit points, roll gold, pick gear from a list of 100 items or less (OD&D)
2d6 in order, pick and qualify for a career (or submit to draft) walk through career, pick equipment from a list of 200 items or less (Classic Traveller)
Pick stock, pick birth life path, pick 1-4 more life paths depending on campaign pitch, tally up points, spend points on attributes, skills, gear (from a list of less than 100 items), social connections, and write up some goals for your character (Burning Wheel)

Since fully joining the OSR, I haven't actually tried to run RuneQuest, so I'm not sure if I'd go with 3d6 in order style chargen for it, or use the scheme I last used (assign N points to attributes, distribute skill category bonuses [not tied to attributes, but informed by them - one goal: make it so everyone doesn't pick INT 18 because INT affects EVERY skill bonus and isn't changeable], pick background from a small list, distribute skill bonuses).

Let's see, that covers the games on my main list. If I chose to try out other games in my library, I'd follow these ideals (and those ideals would also inform my choice of game).

I have played in some Mongoose Traveller, and honestly, the chargen for that, while inspired by Classic Traveller, is WAY too complex. To the extent that one game I was going to play in, I haven't even generated a character for after several months...

Frank

Random, no choices.

Well just recently I would have said the one in Beyond the Wall playbooks.

After that, Traveller (Classic)

After that DCC funnel RAW

After that 4d6 drop lowest and choose for ADnD 1st or 2nd edition or Fantastic Heroes and Witchery.

Rock bottom is point assign. I find that dull, tbh. YMMV.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1026640Random, no choices.

No choices at all? For D&D (or OSR clones) do you use tables to randomize race and class decisions?

For Classic Traveller, there's http://www.mindspring.com/~ffilz/Gaming/travellercharacter.html which generates a completely random character (though I have added URL options to allow some control over the randomness).

Frank

I hate anything random in character creation. I'm a craftsman by trade. I love to build things using my skill. I prefer playing classic story archetypes and enjoy tactical/problem-solving challenges where the skill of the players managing resources is the determining factor in who shines, not who got some lucky rolls at char-gen and so has twice the resources as the guy who rolled crap (and I say this as someone who tends to have fairly phenomenal luck with random attribute generation).

I also have precious little free time to actually game and its a drag when I'm stuck with something I have zero interest in actually playing. I have zero interest in playing a half-orc wizard or a gnome thief or a kenku anything.

My preferred method would be allocation. Point buy systems (ex. Champions or Mutants & Masterminds) encourage my craftsman brain into trying to eke out maximum efficiency of every last point. But choose race/class and assign ability scores from an array (ex. 16, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8) gives me the degree of control over making a character I prefer without the total freedom of point buy that drives me to distraction with worrying about whether I'm getting the absolute best efficiency out of my points.

I like a "mixed" approach... "random with balance" if you will.

Two examples: yin-yang (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2016/07/old-school-d-and-yin-yang-method-of.html) and "random point buy (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2018/01/random-point-buy-abilities-for-d-5e.html)".

Yin-yang:

You basically roll randomly but the results are more or less balanced. Here is how I described it in my Dark Fantasy Basic (which certainly didn't please everybody, but...):

1. Generate your six ability scores using the yin-yang
method: roll 3d6 for your Strength and subtract that
value from 21 to find out your Intelligence (for example,
if your Strength is 15, your Intelligence is 6). Do the same
for Wisdom and Dexterity, and then Constitution and
Charisma.

2. Change your highest ability score to 17 (if lower than 17)
OR one ability score of your choice to 8. Then swap abilities
around if you wish, provided no more than half your abilities
are changed.

Why? Characters are more archetypal, fits some unspoken assumptions of early D&D (high STR meaning low INT, for example), but still leaves room for choice and balance.

Random point buy:

Looks like this (for 5e):

d100

Ability scores

1
15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8

2
15, 15, 14, 10, 8, 8

3
15, 15, 14, 9, 9, 8

4
15, 15, 13, 12, 8, 8

Etc.

Personally, my order of preference is:

Point Buy

Allocation

Random with some choice (the more choices the better), grudgingly
With totally random as a deal breaker.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1026016Depends on what we're playing.

Good answer.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1026117The particular method I have strong feelings for is anything quick and simple.  If it takes more than 15 minutes to create a character, that's too long.

I'm fine with OD&D's 3d6 in order, but I'm just as fine with TFT's "allocate 35 points" and West End' Star Wars "take a template and add some points."

This too isn't a bad answer.

Quote from: ffilz;1026664No choices at all? For D&D (or OSR clones) do you use tables to randomize race and class decisions?

He'd also need tables for random spells (some D&D versions already have that) and for what equipment your character starts out with. None of this spending gold pieces to pick what you want (like a good weapon or useful armor) from an equipment list. So maybe your fighter gets a bastard sword, composite bow, and good armor or maybe he gets a wooden club, tattered clothing, an old donkey, a rickety cart, and 12 crates full of chickens.

Quote from: ffilz;1026664No choices at all? For D&D (or OSR clones) do you use tables to randomize race and class decisions?

Quote from: Bren;1026908He'd also need tables for random spells (some D&D versions already have that) and for what equipment your character starts out with. None of this spending gold pieces to pick what you want (like a good weapon or useful armor) from an equipment list. So maybe your fighter gets a bastard sword, composite bow, and good armor or maybe he gets a wooden club, tattered clothing, an old donkey, a rickety cart, and 12 crates full of chickens.

It's not quite that extreme, but 'here's pile of pre-gens, pick a sheet, any sheet' is effectively pretty close to this.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1026970It's not quite that extreme, but 'here's pile of pre-gens, pick a sheet, any sheet' is effectively pretty close to this.

That's a good method for one-shots and convention slots.

Quote from: Bren;1026972That's a good method for one-shots and convention slots.

It certainly is (just from a practicality perspective). It also highlights the value of random generation--making a winning hand out of what you are dealt.

I totally get those people who want point buy, array, roll and allocate, etc. It's hard to explain why anyone would ever want to play 3D6 in order or the like to someone who didn't start with it. It doesn't seem to make sense, and I'm sure can sound like some pathetic old fart talking about how they played the game in hard mode, uphill, both ways, in the snow, with no shoes, etc. etc. etc. And I want to step away from that and highlight that it has some actual value other than posturing-- it makes you play things outside your expectations. Either not playing the class/build/whatever you normally would, or doing so but with attributes or the like that are dis-synergous (so a high Wisdom, low Strength fighter, for instance, to default to a D&D-like game). It opens up the opportunity to be surprised by how things turn out, and I think that has some value.

Quote from: Daztur;1026165Two things I hate:
1. Roll and assign. Combines the worst of random and non-random chargen.
2. Point buy chargen that uses different systems for chargen than for advancement. So for example in WoD if you make a specialized starting PC and then pick up a random grab bag of skills later it's a lot cheaper to get the exact same final PC than if you start out generalized and then specialize later. That's annoying.

Anything else is fine. Lifepaths and utter randomness are probably my favorites, but being able to dive into the nitty gritty of point buy is fun in some games if it's set up well.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1026179I'm with you there.  I hate that with the burning of 1,016 suns!  Especially WoD - which tells you that specializing at creation (which their system incentivises) means that you're having badwrongfun.

I get what you're saying about WoD (though I have no knowledge of it other that what you're saying).

However I have used an preferred using different systems for chargen and advancement, but in GURPS, which I expect is different enough that at least some of what you guys hate about that in WoD doesn't apply.

As usual, my preference is about wanting things to work like I feel makes the most sense. I want players to be able to pick or design their characters, and I think that what characters have been raised and trained to do should tend to be a big chunk of ability in whatever that is, and reflect that training, which will tend to be different from what they learn during play unless they re-enroll in training programs. And there's also the difference between people's intrinsic nature/gifts/talents/genius/aptitude etc and what can be learned and trained. And while during chargen I want to let players pick the sort of person they want to play, after chargen I don't want the players to be able to arbitrarily add things that don't reflect what's happened in the game world. Not really what you were talking about with WoD, except yes in my case it would make sense to specialize at chargen (so you can be someone with certain innate aptitude, get that upbringing, lifetime training (say as a knight) and appropriate status etc), and then you'll learn various bits of things later and get some knowledge in whatever that turns out to be during play. You could also create a dabbler from the start, though that might tend to be sub-optimal since you're less likely to gain many years of professional training in a new field during play. But unlike WoD I would encourage focusing on particular talents and training at the start so you'll actually be good at some things.

Quote from: Skarg;1027058I get what you're saying about WoD (though I have no knowledge of it other that what you're saying).

Mind you, it's been 20-25 years, but I think I still have it down:

At start, you just put pips in things. So your attributes start a 1 (of 5), and you have pools of pips to add. For example, the low allocation is 3 amongst 3 stats. So if you picked physical stats (strength, dexterity and stamina) as your low pool, you could put all 3 into one stat and start with 1,1,4; or divvy them up so that you had 2,2,2; or any other combo (although I chose the low pool to limit the # of combos).

Advancing them, however, you pay xp based on the current stat. If you wanted to get all 3 stats to level 4, with the 1,1,4 you would have to pay 1 ( to raise a 1 to a 2), plus 2 (to raise a 2 to a 3), and 3 (to raise a 3 to a 4) for each of two stats for a total of 6x2=12 points*. With the 2,2,2 situation you would pay 2 (to raise a 2 to a 3), and 3 (to raise a 3 to a 4) for each of three stats for a total of 5x3=15 points*. So same end result, different costs.
*all multiplied by some number because you are raising an attribute rather than a skill, etc. But I am simplifying the situation.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027061Mind you, it's been 20-25 years, but I think I still have it down: ...

Thanks.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027061Mind you, it's been 20-25 years, but I think I still have it down:

At start, you just put pips in things. So your attributes start a 1 (of 5), and you have pools of pips to add. For example, the low allocation is 3 amongst 3 stats. So if you picked physical stats (strength, dexterity and stamina) as your low pool, you could put all 3 into one stat and start with 1,1,4; or divvy them up so that you had 2,2,2; or any other combo (although I chose the low pool to limit the # of combos).

Advancing them, however, you pay xp based on the current stat. If you wanted to get all 3 stats to level 4, with the 1,1,4 you would have to pay 1 ( to raise a 1 to a 2), plus 2 (to raise a 2 to a 3), and 3 (to raise a 3 to a 4) for each of two stats for a total of 6x2=12 points*. With the 2,2,2 situation you would pay 2 (to raise a 2 to a 3), and 3 (to raise a 3 to a 4) for each of three stats for a total of 5x3=15 points*. So same end result, different costs.
*all multiplied by some number because you are raising an attribute rather than a skill, etc. But I am simplifying the situation.

Two thoughts on this; one in accord and one opposed.

First, in my own home games I switched over to point buy via XP for my World of Darkness games. So instead of 7/5/3; 13/9/5; 6 spheres/3 disciplines; 15 freebies... they got 500 XP to spend on improving the base concept. The results were pretty close to a standard starting character but it removed the disparity between starting array allocations and XP costs.

Second... that said, there is such a thing as crippling overspecialization in that method and in the example 1,1,4 vs. 2,2,2 array. If the GM makes a point of targeting your weaknesses instead of your strengths that glass cannon with a 1 Str, 4 Dex, 1 Stamina might not live long enough to take advantage of its XP savings.

For example; Throw the PC's in a room with a gas leak that requires a Stamina check difficulty 6 to avoid damage (double damage on a botch) and a means of escape that takes one minute (20 rounds) to open... Stamina 2 will pass that 9 rounds out of 10 and might take 2-3 health levels of damage before they escape, but Stamina 1 has a 50% chance of failing every round and a 10% chance of taking double damage meaning they'll likely be dead by round 15).

Yes that's a dick move but WoD kinda encouraged their GM's to pull things like that when someone min-maxed like that.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027046It's hard to explain why anyone would ever want to play 3D6 in order or the like to someone who didn't start with it.

Hmmm....I suppose that might be true.

It seems pretty obvious to me that random generation is intended to be play the hand you drew while point by is buy/build what you want. The two methods appeal to two different desires. Point buy almost always assumes everyone gets the same starting number of points, which I suppose appeals to those who want everyone to start out equal, or theoretically equal. And of course you don't really get to build what you want in most point buy systems since you don't start out with enough points to build what you really want, only enough points to build a first step towards what you want. But at least with point buy if it really matters to you that your PC starts out as a wizard, a really strong warrior, an agile starship pilot, a dwarf, a Jedi, or something else specific than point buy is one way to get there.

Something I never did, but would have enjoyed had it occurred to me early in college, was something I heard rumors of later:  Use a point-buy system, particularly GURPs or Hero, to embed the setting constraints in a fantasy game about as limited as AD&D as far as options. Then let people build random characters from that.  Basically, this harnesses all the power-gaming, point-crunching expertise in the group towards defining the setting parameters.  Once done, you surrender control to what you've all agreed.  By the time I heard of the idea, I was no longer around a bunch of number crunchers with time on their hands.

We did do a one-shot game where we built some specific Fantasy Hero powers on index cards, sorted by point totals, and then dealt them out to make semi-random characters for a one-shot game.  There were some ground rules that I don't fully remember for trading cards before the game started.  Only problem with that was that making the cards as a group, then seeing what we got, then constructing a concept for the character--was all more fun than the resulting sessions was.  We really should have had the session a week later, to give the GM time to make something appropriate to that extremely esoteric party.

Steven could you elaborate on what you mean? I think you are talking about something beyond simply creating setting specific packages or templates or whatever HERO and GURPS calls such things, but I'm not sure what beyond that you intend. Did you mean that people would number crunch something like a multi-level progression for a set of fighter, MU, thief, cleric, paladin, etc. analogues so that rather than using the underlying point buy for character creation and for improvement the starting points and the path and levels would be point calculated and then accessed via some kind of non-point buy XP system? Or did you mean something else entirely?

I've never had any trouble with people who started with a different D&D system going with 3d6 in order.  The usual comment is "Cool!  Old school!"

No, I lie.  One person didn't like it.

In 46 years.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1027128I've never had any trouble with people who started with a different D&D system going with 3d6 in order.  The usual comment is "Cool!  Old school!"

No, I lie.  One person didn't like it.

In 46 years.

Lucky you.  But you anecdotes are not fact.  Maybe not even majority.  Learns to accept that.

Quote from: Bren;1027119Steven could you elaborate on what you mean? I think you are talking about something beyond simply creating setting specific packages or templates or whatever HERO and GURPS calls such things, but I'm not sure what beyond that you intend. Did you mean that people would number crunch something like a multi-level progression for a set of fighter, MU, thief, cleric, paladin, etc. analogues so that rather than using the underlying point buy for character creation and for improvement the starting points and the path and levels would be point calculated and then accessed via some kind of non-point buy XP system? Or did you mean something else entirely?

You've got the general idea, with the number crunch for levels thing, though also extending to creatures, magic items, etc.  As I understand it, it was popular with a group or three where the idea was a shared world, with multiple GMs.  Part of the concept was that embedding the decisions into GURPs or Hero was a way to record their collective decisions.  It was also, I think, in the case I directly talked to a player about, a situation where the group really enjoyed the number crunching and really enjoyed having a custom world, but did not like doing that after the game started.  Setting up the parameters of the game was one kind of fun.  Then when they got done with that, they wanted to have something a lot more like D&D in play style, but using the widgets they had made.  

Though I only heard about this second hand.  So I may have a twisted view of the whole thing.

Thanks for clarifying. :)

Intellectually I can understand the idea, but aesthetically and emotionally I don't get the appeal.* One of the advantages of most point-based systems is that they are both more versatile and more granular than level-based systems. The down side tends to be the front end complexity of fiddling with buying stuff with the points. What they wanted to do sounds like the worst of both systems rather than the best of both. To me, that is.

* I could see how in the early days of RPGs that method might be appealing as a way of designing computer-based RPGs.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1027136Lucky you.  But you anecdotes are not fact.  Maybe not even majority.  Learns to accept that.

What's that got to do with "It's hard to explain why anyone would ever want to play 3D6 in order or the like to someone who didn't start with it."

Not everything I say is about you.  Learn to accept that.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1027158What's that got to do with "It's hard to explain why anyone would ever want to play 3D6 in order or the like to someone who didn't start with it."

Not everything I say is about you.  Learn to accept that.

I have no problem with any of the character creation systems listed.  Yes, I have preferences, but I don't limit myself to them.  I like trying new things, learning new systems, even at my age.  Learning has always been cool to me.

And, luckily for you, there are a ton of different systems out there.

And, luckily for me, nobody is forcing me to use any of them.

Isn't that nice?

Also, as I said above, time is a bigger constraint than anything else.  Making a Hero System character is my idea of Hell.  Other people probably like it.

Quote from: Chris24601;1027093Second... that said, there is such a thing as crippling overspecialization in that method and in the example 1,1,4 vs. 2,2,2 array. If the GM makes a point of targeting your weaknesses instead of your strengths that glass cannon with a 1 Str, 4 Dex, 1 Stamina might not live long enough to take advantage of its XP savings.

For example; Throw the PC's in a room with a gas leak that requires a Stamina check difficulty 6 to avoid damage (double damage on a botch) and a means of escape that takes one minute (20 rounds) to open... Stamina 2 will pass that 9 rounds out of 10 and might take 2-3 health levels of damage before they escape, but Stamina 1 has a 50% chance of failing every round and a 10% chance of taking double damage meaning they'll likely be dead by round 15).

Yes that's a dick move but WoD kinda encouraged their GM's to pull things like that when someone min-maxed like that.

I kinda touched on that before.

QuoteI always wondered if that was poorly thought-through design, or a secret trap. Trap in that yes by total character points spent, putting 5s in a few skills/attributes/everything else and then picking up the others later might make sense, but there might not be a later if you start out with a 0-1 in a given ability.

I think, on some level, that is a real thing. If the overall attitude from WW at the time those rules were invented didn't seem to scream 'rules barely matter, we're here to make interesting characters and interesting stories' (ignoring the fact that there was very little support of that playstyle), then I might even think it was deliberate. However, this just makes people have characters that die/fail. If this were D&D 3e or other games where system mastery was considered part of the games' charm, I might think that was intended. I would think that WoD as it was marketed would be the wrong medium for secret trap options.

Quote from: Bren;1027154Thanks for clarifying. :)

Intellectually I can understand the idea, but aesthetically and emotionally I don't get the appeal.* One of the advantages of most point-based systems is that they are both more versatile and more granular than level-based systems. The down side tends to be the front end complexity of fiddling with buying stuff with the points. What they wanted to do sounds like the worst of both systems rather than the best of both. To me, that is.

* I could see how in the early days of RPGs that method might be appealing as a way of designing computer-based RPGs.

Now, it sounds like the worst of both worlds to me, too.  There was a time--about 4-5 years before I'd ever heard of such a thing--where I would have enjoyed that immensely, as the best of both worlds.  Though I think the only way that really clicks is if you have several people in the group that think the same way and want to collaborate, but then deliberately want something relatively simple to use once play starts.  That's not a very common set of circumstances.  The GM doing all of that work by themselves is the epitome of pointless.

At heart, it is just a more formalized way of "making up stuff you find fun".  in D&D that might be something like, "Hey, I want to play a court jester.  So we throw together a jester class, try it out, and tweak as need as we go."  In the more formal version, it is more like, "Hey, we all kind of agree that we want these types of characters in the game, with very particular limits.  We want all that set using some common rules."  After all, in a point-buy system, the group already has to come to some kind of agreement on point totals, amounts that can be spent in certain categories, maximum attack bonuses, etc.  

Nor does it need to be a pure method, either.  If I recall correctly, the version that I heard about left some small amount of points for minor customization on skills.  You have your "warrior class" in Hero with its range of abilities, attacks, defenses, etc. that are set.  Then you pick from a few typical skills.  Then you use those last few points to get the oddball things you want.  If I'm doing an old school dungeon crawl, with characters dying left and right, that's a way to get replacement character generation down under 15 minutes, but use the system that the people at the table want to use.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1027223If I'm doing an old school dungeon crawl, with characters dying left and right, that's a way to get replacement character generation down under 15 minutes, but use the system that the people at the table want to use.

And not just replacement characters. Experience tells me that there are a lot of players who aren't interested in spending much more than 15 minutes statting up a new character. One of the things I like about WEG D6 Star Wars is the templates. Under the hood, D6 is a point buy system, but the Brash Pilot, Failed Jedi, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler...templates allow everyone to skip over agonizing over point by point expenditure so character creation can be faster.

Quote from: ffilz;1026664No choices at all? For D&D (or OSR clones) do you use tables to randomize race and class decisions?

Well, actually, in Lion & Dragon you can choose your class. Ability Scores and social class are random.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1027761Well, actually, in Lion & Dragon you can choose your class.

The player gets to decide what his character's background was? You are such the story gamer. :D

Quote from: Bren;1027114Hmmm....I suppose that might be true.

No, it's not true, and I'm pretty sure you know it:).

Either way, it pays to remember that "understanding why people like it" does not automatically equate to "the player liking it him/herself". So you might explain it, and the player, while understanding your arguments, might still find the idea about as fun as a vegan who's been offered steak, after receiving an explanation of the nutrient qualities of meat.

Quote from: Bren;1027774The player gets to decide what his character's background was? You are such the story gamer. :D

Let's be fair to Pundy, Bren. In his game, you only get to pick a class you wanted if you rolled a 9+ in the controlling attribute, so it's still random to a degree;)!
Granted, he didn't explain that part, but it's true nonetheless.

You also get to pick gender and, to a degree, race. (At least one of the classes seems like it's named after a group from a different race to the rest of the setting's inhabitants, if I'm getting his sources of inspiration right. Then again, you can be a child from a different race who was brought up with said race!)
And, gasp, you get to pick equipment, within starting funds:D!

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1026970It's not quite that extreme, but 'here's pile of pre-gens, pick a sheet, any sheet' is effectively pretty close to this.

Quote from: Bren;1026972That's a good method for one-shots and convention slots.

Because I run my own games at conventions, Fractured Kingdom, and Metahumans Rising, typically I do something like ask people what roles they like to fill. For Fractured Kingdom, someone tells me they prefer to be the sneaky rogue, I toss them a pre-gen and say you're a half feral child, if it's they play wizards, here's your pompous artist. Of course, this half feral child can turn into a rat, and can virtually disappear in a fight, while the artist can craft illusions of anything, that can interact with world, I don't tell them that up front because both games do not use classes and I want them to get a feel for their character. Metahumans Rising is a superhero game so things get even weirder, I like monks, I like rangers. Here's your lawyer, and park ranger... ex-super solider and master archer respectively. When someone says they play anything, I pass out the characters for people who know what niche they want to fill then go with random selection of what's left.

This has almost always worked out well, and generally gets a laugh. Weirdly, the issues I've had with this are generally around character gender, and not wanting to play a different gender. What's interesting is seeing how people adapt to these characters. Generally, people don't know the system so I encourage people to simply tell me what they want to do, instead of trying to figure out if they can do it. That, I think, is part of the fun of con games. (Also, why I try to hunt down at least one game I haven't played when I go to a con.)

Quote from: Bren;1027774The player gets to decide what his character's background was? You are such the story gamer. :D

Well, no, actually. He doesn't get to pick which social class he was born into. He also doesn't get to decide his prior event, or background skill. His family (if you're using those rules) is also randomly rolled. Even his name is rolled (unless the GM rules otherwise).

The only thing he gets to pick is what career he gets into. Which makes sense, because we do that in real life too.

Quote from: AsenRG;1027813Let's be fair to Pundy, Bren. In his game, you only get to pick a class you wanted if you rolled a 9+ in the controlling attribute, so it's still random to a degree;)!
Granted, he didn't explain that part, but it's true nonetheless.

True. If you don't have a high enough basic level of talent, you can't get into certain careers even if you'd like to. That's also like in the real world.

QuoteAnd, gasp, you get to pick equipment, within starting funds:D!

You actually start with equipment, in terms of what arms and armor you have. You get a tiny bit of spending money. And in some cases you might be able to use some of that money to pay for a better class of armor.

I have to ask, Pundit, "how often have you been on the player side of the screen when using this its all random pitch?"

Because it sounds way better from the perspective of "I want to see how random characters interact with my oh-so-cool/authentic campaign world" than from the player side of "you're going to be handed a random pile* that you don't even get to name yourself."

From the player side it sounds like a near perfect avenue to ensure that players would not be able to care less about either their ostensible avatars or the campaign world they inhabit. I don't know of a single player in my area who would willingly play in a campaign with that premise. The players I know game either to escape real life and/or to experience the life of a character they care about, not play out a simulacrum of real life where you have just as little control only set in a different time period (that's what the SCA is for).

Unless I have some real degree on input into what is essentially my avatar in the campaign world then I don't give a damn about how awesome that world might be, because I'm not invested in random piles handed to me. I'm invested in things I've created myself, even if the pool of resources used to do so is limited, because its my creation and an expression of what I value and care about exploring in the campaign world (I choose point buy or array stats over rolling, even if the array/point buy would result in lower scores than an average batch of rolled scores would).

"You're going to have everything about the character you're going to spend hours upon hours playing this game with, even their name, determined by random dice rolls" is legitimately the absolute least appealing game pitch I've ever encountered in my thirty plus years of roleplaying. Picking something to watch on Netflix holds more appeal to me (at least with that I'll be sure that what I choose will be something I think will be interesting... and can drop it for something else if it bores me).

* Frankly, the fact that you get to determine your sex feels a bit hypocritical to me... if your character's sex can impact the quality of roleplay and therefore needs to not be random, then why are names and social classes they could be stuck with determined by a random roll when they can play just as big a role in how well someone can get into their character's headspace?

Quote from: Chris24601;1027966* Frankly, the fact that you get to determine your sex feels a bit hypocritical to me... if your character's sex can impact the quality of roleplay and therefore needs to not be random, then why are names and social classes they could be stuck with determined by a random roll when they can play just as big a role in how well someone can get into their character's headspace?

Maybe the setting has advanced gender reassignment magic, and no stigma of changing one's gender identity. It's so prevalent that there is no need to even roll or mention having changed genders because everyone just accepts that.

Joking aside, this seems like a fine creation method for a one shot or con game. If character creation is fast enough, you might be able to use something like DCCs funnel to weed out some of the trash. Or, if you are in that medium range of honest, just keep rolling characters until you land on something you feel is playable. With the old Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP), we would roll a few dozen characters just to see what we churned up then pick something. To clarify that,  we rolled a ton of d% then sorted out what that meant later, as in fill a page with just dice rolls before seeing what characters got made.

I prefer random creation over all other character classes.  I'd willingly play a game where social class, etc, was all random.

But I play the game to see what happens, not to have a bunch of people telling me how awesome I am.

My dinkie is mighty.

Quote from: AsenRG;1027813Let's be fair to Pundy, Bren.

I think it was fair. The comment was intended as a simple "taking the piss out" type of remark.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1028023My dinkie is mighty.

So you're saying it's mighty dinkie, eh? You know I really didn't need to know that.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1028023I prefer random creation over all other character classes.  I'd willingly play a game where social class, etc, was all random.

But I play the game to see what happens, not to have a bunch of people telling me how awesome I am.

In all the years I've run games and I've never had anyone, except on guy who none of us ever actually wanted to play with, ever do that.  Even when the players were allowed to build their characters as they wanted, within the system, like HERO.  None have ever cared about being emotionally validated since they were 14.  They were awesome by their actions, not by their descriptions.

I'm sorry your tables suck so bad that you have to make it random so it doesn't happen.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1028023My dinkie is mighty.

*Must resist 'Fooled us' comment* :D

Quote from: Bren;1028105So you're saying it's mighty dinkie, eh? You know I really didn't need to know that.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028115*Must resist 'Fooled us' comment* :D

I've taken so many points in "Craft Disturbing Mental Image" I've lost count.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1028121I've taken so many points in "Craft Disturbing Mental Image" I've lost count.

It's kinda charming that you think this, but I game with sailors.

Quote from: Chris24601;1028133It's kinda charming that you think this, but I game with sailors.

Oh you innocent child.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1028121I've taken so many points in "Craft Disturbing Mental Image" I've lost count.

Quote from: Chris24601;1028133It's kinda charming that you think this, but I game with sailors.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028189Oh you innocent child.

Okay, a one-upsmanship contest over who is more jaded and disturbed can't just be called "a pissing contest." That's too clean and nearly polite. What do we call this?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1028194Okay, a one-upsmanship contest over who is more jaded and disturbed can't just be called "a pissing contest." That's too clean and nearly polite. What do we call this?

I vote "dick stapling contest" after a competition some drunk sailors had over who had the highest pain tolerance. It was exactly what it says on the tin (using a staple gun).

Quote from: Chris24601;1028200I vote "dick stapling contest" after a competition some drunk sailors had over who had the highest pain tolerance. It was exactly what it says on the tin (using a staple gun).

Oh that's nothing. Try getting a colonoscopy without sedation or painkillers. :D

Quote from: Chris24601;1028200I vote "dick stapling contest" after a competition some drunk sailors had over who had the highest pain tolerance. It was exactly what it says on the tin (using a staple gun).

I think all branches of the armed forces have their own versions of those.

Quote from: Chris24601;1027966I have to ask, Pundit, "how often have you been on the player side of the screen when using this its all random pitch?"

Because it sounds way better from the perspective of "I want to see how random characters interact with my oh-so-cool/authentic campaign world" than from the player side of "you're going to be handed a random pile* that you don't even get to name yourself."

From the player side it sounds like a near perfect avenue to ensure that players would not be able to care less about either their ostensible avatars or the campaign world they inhabit. I don't know of a single player in my area who would willingly play in a campaign with that premise. The players I know game either to escape real life and/or to experience the life of a character they care about, not play out a simulacrum of real life where you have just as little control only set in a different time period (that's what the SCA is for).

Well, my players over multiple campaigns love it. We ran something around 1000 hours total of the original Dark Albion campaign, and there was certainly HUGE investment in the characters they played with that format.  Likewise, my DCC game, which has run for about as long now, but is less serious.

When you get players to understand that the point is to be able to get into the head of someone else, like acting a challenging role; when they actually experience that immersion, they love it, because that's the actual point of RPG play.

Quote"You're going to have everything about the character you're going to spend hours upon hours playing this game with, even their name, determined by random dice rolls" is legitimately the absolute least appealing game pitch I've ever encountered in my thirty plus years of roleplaying. Picking something to watch on Netflix holds more appeal to me (at least with that I'll be sure that what I choose will be something I think will be interesting... and can drop it for something else if it bores me).

Then you'd probably be unqualified to play in my games, due to lack of imagination.  Dozens and dozens of players of mine have been able to do it over the years to varying degrees. None of them were 'boring' characters, because the point isn't "you have to play this boring character", it's "this is the character you have, now figure out what makes them interesting".

Quote* Frankly, the fact that you get to determine your sex feels a bit hypocritical to me... if your character's sex can impact the quality of roleplay and therefore needs to not be random, then why are names and social classes they could be stuck with determined by a random roll when they can play just as big a role in how well someone can get into their character's headspace?

The point being immersion, there's one thing that tends to be a bit harder for a lot of gamers than others, and that's realistically playing a member of the opposite sex. The characters also don't start out as paraplegics, geriatrics or children, either.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1028023I prefer random creation over all other character classes.  I'd willingly play a game where social class, etc, was all random.

But I play the game to see what happens, not to have a bunch of people telling me how awesome I am.

That's the point, exactly. It's not to punish the players somehow; it's to offer them a chance to access avenues of ideas to play characters they would never have been capable of thinking up on their own.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028416Then you'd probably be unqualified to play in my games, due to lack of imagination.  Dozens and dozens of players of mine have been able to do it over the years to varying degrees. None of them were 'boring' characters, because the point isn't "you have to play this boring character", it's "this is the character you have, now figure out what makes them interesting".

The point being immersion, there's one thing that tends to be a bit harder for a lot of gamers than others, and that's realistically playing a member of the opposite sex. The characters also don't start out as paraplegics, geriatrics or children, either.

This feels rather hypocritical to say someone who can't handle the randomness of the character creation both is unqualified and lacks imagination but defend the idea of choosing gender over a random role because it breaks immersion. The point  Chris24601  seems to be making is that having a lack of agency in their own character is immersion breaking.

QuoteThe only thing he gets to pick is what career he gets into. Which makes sense, because we do that in real life too.

Clearly, if you are going to be true to your goals there needs to be a roll for gender, birth defects and uncontrollable childhood tragedy.

Edit: Or, include that sidebar on the abundance of Gender Reassignment magic and lack of social stigma for swapping gender.

Quote from: Certified;1028542This feels rather hypocritical to say someone who can't handle the randomness of the character creation both is unqualified and lacks imagination but defend the idea of choosing gender over a random role because it breaks immersion. The point  Chris24601  seems to be making is that having a lack of agency in their own character is immersion breaking.

Which is bullshit. Players choose to play. They have agency.

Again, what I've found is that point-buy is great for:

-Autistic Rules-Lawyers

-People who want to play a fantasy version some aspect of their conscious or sub-conscious borders of self-concept

-People who only want challenges that they can control, and are thus not really challenges (this is especially bad in systems where you can pick and choose your own disadvantages, where character-creation gets turned into this betting game of players choosing the disadvantages that give them the most possible extra points to min-max the powers they most want, while picking only the disadvantages that they think won't actually bother them in play)


Now, can tremendously creative people think up awesome and unique characters in point-buy games that aren't tired repetitions of the playing the same thing with slightly different facades every time? Yes, sure. But people that creative also tend not to be scared of taking a bunch of randomly-determined traits and turning that into an awesome and unique character.


The people afraid of random character creation are either:

-People who are afraid that they're too bland or untalented to actually handle a character that is outside their normal range

-Powergamers afraid of having a character that won't be the "best" one in the party

-Rules Lawyers who are upset that they won't get to manipulate the system to get their way

Hm... I'm definitely thinking that a mix of random rolls (eg stats, lifepath) & chosen (eg race/species, sex, class) tends to make the best characters. But for ease of play with large numbers of players I like "choose race, class, assign default array stats or point buy - or just turn up and I'll give you a pregen".

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028784The people afraid of random character creation are either:

-People who are afraid that they're too bland or untalented to actually handle a character that is outside their normal range

-Powergamers afraid of having a character that won't be the "best" one in the party

-Rules Lawyers who are upset that they won't get to manipulate the system to get their way

-People who have badly burned by the random chance that life has thrown at them and play because they want to escape the randomness of life for awhile and have some degree of control over something, even if its just the form their avatar in a fantasy world takes.

-People who build things in real life and take that passion for building into their entertainment where a good chunk of the fun is seeing what you can build within set limits.

I'm more the latter and like helping people with their characters so they're as well built as mine, but I have players who are the former... like the couple with young kids who got screwed over by a business partner and are struggling to get by... they game because its one of the few forms of entertainment they regularly afford (because everyone else owns the book and we play at their house so they don't need a sitter).

I think you're being a pompous unimaginative ass and one-true-wayer who is insulting anyone who doesn't agree with you in lockstep on the issue. Are you one of those people who takes any attack on one of their ideas as an attack on them personally? Because that's the response I saw. When someone says "I don't find that idea appealing and don't know anyone who does" you don't reply with "people have different tastes" or "agree to disagree" or even keeping it to "I think point buy sucks"... nope, if you have to attack the person who disagrees with you like you're a fucking snowflake.... if someone doesn't enjoy how you play you're either a no-talent, a power-gamer or a rules-lawyer.

To think I ever had some degree of respect for your opinions and let it influence my game design.

I'm glad you enjoy your game. I'm going to go enjoy mine. See how easy that is?

Edited to Add: Forgot options C... enjoys the tactical wargaming aspect of the games and setting up interesting tactical scenarios is a lot easier when the PC's fall within a controlled range (array or point buy) instead of the vagaries of random ability scores and the like.

And D... enjoys organized play; which requires some degree of point buy so that the players are transportable from one table to the next with a minimum of difficulty or chance of cheating by players the GM has never met before and may not meet again.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028784Which is bullshit. Players choose to play. They have agency. ..

That's a whole lot of words from someone scared of a random gender.


Or, are you ready to explain the abundance and ease of gender reassignment magic?

People who can't imagine why other people might enjoy, or not enjoy, any particular method of character creation lack some fundamental element of creative imagination or they are very, very afraid of something. And probably both.

Now someone please pass me the popcorn. :D

Quote from: Bren;1028822People who can't imagine why other people might enjoy, or not enjoy, any particular method of character creation lack some fundamental element of creative imagination or they are very, very afraid of something. And probably both.

Now someone please pass me the popcorn. :D

How so? I mean, the lack of imagination is easy. But what does it have to do with being afraid?

Quote from: Bren;1028822People who can't imagine why other people might enjoy, or not enjoy, any particular method of character creation lack some fundamental element of creative imagination or they are very, very afraid of something. And probably both.

Now someone please pass me the popcorn. :D

I can understand why someone might enjoy random generation; it's practically a staple of certain genres of play.

For a really oldschool dungeon delve where the whole point is to see how far you can get before dying and when you do die you just spend 5 minutes dicing up a new piece to try again its basically a requirement. Some people like the improv of not knowing what you'll get or the challenge of overcoming a set of crap rolls.

But those aren't the only reasons to play RPGs and other reasons mesh better with point buy or array style character generation. Games where the PCs are expected to be more adversarial are more fun when the players start out on a level field, for example, because the satisfaction of beating your fellow player is more genuine when you legitimately outplayed them than stomping them because you rolled great for stats and they rolled crap.

Living campaigns work a lot better off arrays or point buy because its a lot easier to judge when a player you don't know cheated on their chargen when there's no randomness in the process (I've watched a player score a 17, 18, 16, 13, 14, 16 on straight 3d6 in order... but good luck proving that to the jaded DM who's caught players lying about their die rolls multiple times).

Games where the whole point is to play your favorite superhero work a lot better off point buy than random rolls ever could.

My preference and those of those I know are for arrays/point buy. That doesn't mean we're uncreative power-gaming rules lawyers. It just means our preferences are different than Pundit's.

Quote from: Chris24601;1028839My preference and those of those I know are for arrays/point buy. That doesn't mean we're uncreative power-gaming rules lawyers. It just means our preferences are different than Pundit's.

Yes, I'm aware. I really wasn't directing that particularly at you. Other than the request for popcorn which was directed at everyone generally.

Each method (random, point allocation, life path, mix of 2 or more) has its pros and cons (clearly which aspect is a pro and which is a con is often in the eye of the beholder). Different methods of character creation work for different needs. I don't think that should cause anyone to get their small clothes all twisted in a knot.

Quote from: AsenRG;1028830But what does it have to do with being afraid?

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to Internet feuds among fans of different flavors of RPGs, Internet feuds among fans leads to dismissive comments about how somebody else prefers to create their character.

Quote from: Bren;1028841Each method (random, point allocation, life path, mix of 2 or more) has its pros and cons (clearly which aspect is a pro and which is a con is often in the eye of the beholder). Different methods of character creation work for different needs. I don't think that should cause anyone to get their small clothes all twisted in a knot.

Well put.

My favorites are very random where you get to discover the character (Traveller, Lion and Dragon, Zak S's odd charts, even OD&D to some extent) or very points based (GURPS).  The stuff in the middle usually ends up less fun, overall.  

Back in the day, it was things like 4d6, order to taste that started to put a sour taste in my mouth.  Some rolls were just objectively better than others so it became a power thing.  Before, the high ability score could not be planned.  So if it was where you most wanted it then you felt like you won the lottery.  3d6 in order created interesting dilemmas.

But 4d6 ordered to choice would make me prefer point buy

Quote from: Chris24601;1028793-People who have badly burned by the random chance that life has thrown at them and play because they want to escape the randomness of life for awhile and have some degree of control over something, even if its just the form their avatar in a fantasy world takes.

Oh Christ... Point-Buy as Therapy, really?

Quote from: Certified;1028808That's a whole lot of words from someone scared of a random gender.

If any player of mine wants to randomly roll their gender, they're more than welcome to do so. It's as easy as rolling 1d2.

QuoteOr, are you ready to explain the abundance and ease of gender reassignment magic?

What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

Quote from: Chris24601;1028839Games where the PCs are expected to be more adversarial are more fun when the players start out on a level field, for example, because the satisfaction of beating your fellow player is more genuine when you legitimately outplayed them than stomping them because you rolled great for stats and they rolled crap.

If your definition of "Adversarial" is anything other than rolling up characters and having them fight in a gladiatorial arena, the actual stats they have should matter very little.

QuoteLiving campaigns work a lot better off arrays or point buy because its a lot easier to judge when a player you don't know cheated on their chargen when there's no randomness in the process (I've watched a player score a 17, 18, 16, 13, 14, 16 on straight 3d6 in order... but good luck proving that to the jaded DM who's caught players lying about their die rolls multiple times).

Yeah, sure, Organized Play does have an extra reason to not allow random character generation, I agree.
But of course, Organized Play sucks massive ass.

QuoteGames where the whole point is to play your favorite superhero work a lot better off point buy than random rolls ever could.

If the point is to literally play your favorite superhero, as in "I'm going to literally be Captain America", then there shouldn't be any point-buying or random rolls at all.
Otherwise, point buy is just as ineffective as random-rolls.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1029080If any player of mine wants to randomly roll their gender, they're more than welcome to do so. It's as easy as rolling 1d2.




What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

You mean 1d14, right;)?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1029080What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

Abundant and accepted gender reassignment magic is a clear extension of your prior statement.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1027942Well, no, actually. He doesn't get to pick which social class he was born into. He also doesn't get to decide his prior event, or background skill. His family (if you're using those rules) is also randomly rolled. Even his name is rolled (unless the GM rules otherwise).

The only thing he gets to pick is what career he gets into. Which makes sense, because we do that in real life too.

Since you cannot pick your gender at birth, clearly there must be some easy and acceptable means to change gender prior to the start of the game that has no social repercussions.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1029079Oh Christ... Point-Buy as Therapy, really?

Again with the hyperbole. It can't be a legitimate difference in preferred playstyle... if you don't like Pundit's way to game, you're mentally ill.

You sure you're not a snowflake? You're sure sounding like one. You must march in lockstep to the One True Way.

Here's a Newsflash. RPGs are supposed to be FUN.

If you spend your days getting screamed at by a crappy boss... how much fun do you think it would be to roll a hapless peasant where you get to be crapped on with an extra helping of floggings if you dare talk back?

Letting people make what they want to within set guidelines means how much fun they get to have and how much they want to push their own boundaries in pursuit of fun is up to each individual... not the whims of a random number generator.

Letting my players (because 90% of the time I'm the GM) play what they want and explore what they want to is what I find fun.

Some players push their boundaries because they want to explore different facets via essentially improv acting. That's cool.

Some make a slightly fantasy version of themselves because they're more interested in the problem-solving aspects of the game than exploring different headspaces (i.e. the type of player who names their character "M Elf"). That's cool too.

Some people just want to vent after a bad day at work by having their super-badass PC cleave through armies of orcs. Also cool (and a healthier outlet than many other alternatives).

There is no One-True-Wayism in RPG's. Everyone's allowed to have fun in their own way or what's even the point?

For someone who spent a whole lot of time criticizing the the SJW Storygamers for their efforts to shut down any alternative, you seem bound and determined to be just like them in decrying any form of play that doesn't match your preferences. No one is making you play in the games I'm playing in. I have no interest in playing in yours. Why be an asshole about it?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1029081If your definition of "Adversarial" is anything other than rolling up characters and having them fight in a gladiatorial arena, the actual stats they have should matter very little.

Okay, let's play Chess. You get no queen or knights. Go.

Or how about this...

- I get a Character of the Middle Upper Class (using the UA rules for Social Class) with a Str 17, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 14, Cha 16 (this is an actual set of rolls for a straight 3d6 in order that I saw someone roll up... very unlikely, but possible).

- You get a Character of Lower Lower Class with a Str 13, Dex 12, Con 11, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 8.

We have mutually opposing goals. How do you overcome me?

I am better than you in every possible way. If I get even the slightest whiff that you are plotting against me (and let's face it you're not that bright or likeable... someone will rat you out for the reward) then I have the local constabulary round you up, flog you half to death and lock you in the dungeon until hunger and exposure finishes the job. If you resist they'll just beat you to death in the streets. You have no rights. I am a High Lord. You are a serf plotting treason. End of adversarial challenge.

Or we could do something where its a bit less random than what real life might give two random people in the world and say we're both nobles of roughly equal stature and ability who are each attempting to gain a region of rich farmland or at least keep our rival from getting it. You each get an array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 you can arrange to taste and equivalent starting resources. How you achieve your end goal is up to you. Do you form alliances in the king's court? Do you win battles for the King to try and win his favor? Do you try to assassinate your rival or use foul sorceries to impede him?

Isn't that scenario a bit more challenging and satisfying to beat than curb stomping a hapless serf?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1029081Yeah, sure, Organized Play does have an extra reason to not allow random character generation, I agree.
But of course, Organized Play sucks massive ass.

I'm glad you live someplace blessed with an overabundance of potential players that you can be so selective and judgemental about your RP opportunities.

I know some people who, due to circumstances beyond their control, find that organized play is the only opportunity they even get to be able to play face-to-face RPG's at all. But sure, go ahead and insult them because its not your ideal approach to gaming.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1029081If the point is to literally play your favorite superhero, as in "I'm going to literally be Captain America", then there shouldn't be any point-buying or random rolls at all.
Otherwise, point buy is just as ineffective as random-rolls.

I think substituting random dice rolls for actual creativity might rot your brain if your favorite superhero is anyone other than one you've created yourself.

But to express that hero you can't have random rolls determining their capabilities... so using Point Buy is the way to go.

I occasionally use "random" when I need something to spark my creativity, but once its been sparked I prefer to build and create like the artist and craftsman I am.

Random rolls are a crutch for true creativity, not a replacement.

(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xAnDfVFN820/Wqc50_kWKlI/AAAAAAACt00/YoDJtP43N3cPGRfza0NGNRggunRYTB9DQCLcBGAs/s1600/dip_blue_20180312.png)

If rolling a poor character gives your dinkie a sad, I don't want you playing with me.

That's right up there with "I attacked the big bad evil guy and I rolled a one and MISSED and it ruined the whole campaign."

If your ego is that fucking fragile, you need therapy, not a point buy RPG.

Yes, I do play point buy games, but not for protection against the evils of random rolls.  Crom's hairy nutsack.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1029079Oh Christ... Point-Buy as Therapy, really?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029137If rolling a poor character gives your dinkie a sad, I don't want you playing with me.

That's right up there with "I attacked the big bad evil guy and I rolled a one and MISSED and it ruined the whole campaign."

If your ego is that fucking fragile, you need therapy, not a point buy RPG.

Yes, I do play point buy games, but not for protection against the evils of random rolls.  Crom's hairy nutsack.

Show us on the doll where Point Buy touched you.

I mean seriously we got Gronan with a false strawman and Pundy with an aversion so hard it rivals diamonds.

Some of us have concepts we want to try out.

Superhero game:  Speedster who throws lightning.  Not too smart, not too strong, his powers are kind Flash like, except he throws lighting blasts at the bad guys.  Most random based roll games don't really work in this regard.

And then you have the players who, in a D&D game, roll no more than 8 in any one stat wondering what class can they take and how well the can help the party, when all they have to add to say a 5e game, is minuses to each stat check.  In D&D is about being part of a team, and I don't know about you, but when I was in school and used to play games like dodge ball during recess, being chosen last usually meant you were the fat kid with no strength or speed, and likely no accuracy.  (And yes, sometimes I was that kid.)

'But low stats are part of life' some will say.  Well, yes, but true friends would not bring a mentally retarded, physically handicapped friend with them into danger.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1029146Show us on the doll where Point Buy touched you.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029137Yes, I do play point buy games, but not for protection against the evils of random rolls.  Crom's hairy nutsack.

Show us on the doll where READING COMPREHENSION touched you in a bad way.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1029146'But low stats are part of life' some will say.  Well, yes, but true friends would not bring a mentally retarded, physically handicapped friend with them into danger.

I'm reminded of Heroes Unlimited a bit where it was possible to roll a character up who's highest stat is an 8, has only a high school education and whose only powers were Static Electricity Control (or as it was generally known "control static cling") and Extraordinary Sense of Taste (not of the Queer Eye version, which would have been FABULOUS with Control Static Cling; the lame version that lets you detect arsenic by putting it in your mouth) while another rolls up a character with 16's and 20's before skills, is a PHD and has Control Elemental Forces: Air (i.e. Storm) plus Alter Physical Structure: Metal (i.e. Colossus) as their powers.

That first character has no business at all going out into the field to stop muggers, much less supervillains. There's no way Dr. Steelwind drags Static Boy with them to go fight The Living Inferno (unless they're Miscreant or Diabolic and then only to laugh as they burn alive). At least Batman has maxed out stats, extensive training and NIGH-INFINITE MONEY to deal with that stuff.

I feel the same way about D&D characters. It takes a certain level of ability and initiative to be willing to throw yourself into the lightless depths in pursuit of treasure and other adventurers aren't going risk their lives on a weak link who might get them killed because they're too weak, clumsy, stupid or clueless to deal with a hazardous situation that comes up. At best some of those get to come along and watch the horses and help carry stuff out after the dangerous work is done (or be made to jump up and down while 30' ahead of you in the hallway to set off any traps if you're evil I suppose). But those aren't fellow PCs. They're sidekicks (and not the skilled ones like Robin... more like Robin's Minstrels).

I'll play a character with randomly rolled stats from time to time if that's what the GM insists upon (if I still get to make the rest of the choices); but its certainly not my preference by any stretch. I'd probably not play in a game where I have to randomly roll my species or profession though; that's actually more immersion-breaking for me than playing the opposite gender is (at least a female human is still a human, not something with a potentially completely alien mindset... plus I'm the group artist and human women are certainly fun to draw if nothing else); and I absolutely draw the line at being forced to randomly roll the character's name... I'll go read a book before I surrender that degree of creative control to random dice results.

Those are my personal preferences. I don't begrudge others having different preferences. I don't insult them for having different preferences (though I will express my disinterest in those preferences if relevant). I don't make them play in my games and I'm not interested in playing in theirs and the world doesn't end because we have different preferences.

You're proceeding from mistaken information.  In OD&D the only advantage to a high prime requisite is an XP bonus, and the only disadvantage to a low prime requisite is an XP penalty.  A very low CON gets you -1 per HD, and a very high CON (15+) gets you a +1 per hd.  Each point of INT over 10 lets you learn a language.

A character with all stats between 9 and 12 is perfectly viable for any class, and low stats simply don't penalize you all that much.  A fighter with a STR of 7 is perfectly viable if you don't mind the XP penalty and absolutely must play a fighter.

Random lifepath with death in char-gen.  Though really, it does depend a lot on game system.

I've done 3d6 in order in a dungeon crawl game.  I had fun!  But I couldn't help notice we died a lot at first, and the characters who survived to level had above average stats, not too far off 4d6 drop lowest.  Then we'd get new or drop-in players, and they'd roll their 3d6 in order and be outclassed both by level and stats.  Sometimes we'd manage to keep them alive anyway, but it was a mixed blessing for them - the GM was inspired by West Marches but wasn't actually running multiple nights, so new players could never mount their own delves to catch up or perish trying.  The regulars were always there on game night.

Now I'm more okay with 4d6 drop lowest, though I still like in order and no point swaps to keep characters feeling organic.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029164You're proceeding from mistaken information.  In OD&D the only advantage to a high prime requisite is an XP bonus, and the only disadvantage to a low prime requisite is an XP penalty.  A very low CON gets you -1 per HD, and a very high CON (15+) gets you a +1 per hd.  Each point of INT over 10 lets you learn a language.

A character with all stats between 9 and 12 is perfectly viable for any class, and low stats simply don't penalize you all that much.  A fighter with a STR of 7 is perfectly viable if you don't mind the XP penalty and absolutely must play a fighter.

Rules Cyclopedia, an edition that you are out of touch with, but is older than most of the posters here:

Bonuses and Penalties for Ability Scores
Ability  Score  Adjustment
2-3       -3  Penalty
4-5       -2  Penalty
6-8       -1  Penalty
9-12  No adjustment
13-15   +1  Bonus
16-17   +2  Bonus
18        +3  Bonus

So one poor shmuck doesn't get any higher than 8, decides he wants to be...  Pick any class, he'll suck worse than the guy whose highest stat is 14.  Again, not the type of person heroes (Grecian classical or American) take along with them into danger.

Okay, so it varies with edition.  I did specif OD&D, though it's interesting that Rules Cyclopedia is so old.

Honestly, that stat table is brutal.  It reminds me of Pathfinder, and that's one of the reasons I hate PF.  In PF don't even TRY to function outside your specialty.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029164You're proceeding from mistaken information.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029137If rolling a poor character in OD&D gives your dinkie a sad, I don't want you playing OD&D with me.

Had you actually said the bits in red you would have been more clear and less contentious.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029191Okay, so it varies with edition.  I did specif OD&D, though it's interesting that Rules Cyclopedia is so old.

Honestly, that stat table is brutal.  It reminds me of Pathfinder, and that's one of the reasons I hate PF.  In PF don't even TRY to function outside your specialty.

That is definitely one of the issues of later games that made the attributes more important. Even in OD&D where I do roll 3d6 straight across the board with no extra dice or rearranging. If the attributes are pretty much all below average, I do give the OPTION to the player of rolling a new set (note that for my play by post games, I actually roll all the dice, so I roll the attributes, which actually is supported by the rules...).

For Traveller, there's always the option of trying to kill off a character with poor attributes. I also allow players to roll a few characters and pick their favorite. They can keep the others as backups (and in some cases players even play 2 PCs to have a backup PC already in the situation).

I haven't actually sat down and contemplated running RuneQuest since my shift to original games. I would actually contemplate straight rolling there also. Point buy DOES NOT work with RQ1/2, Intelligence is WAY to important an attribute, everyone would take it as high as they could possibly do while having any points left for anything else. The last time I actually ran RQ, I let the players spend points on attributes, but instead of figuring their skill bonuses from the attributes, they got a standard array of skill bonuses and were encouraged to consider their attribute values in placing them. With that, Intelligence became more on par with the other attributes. Actually, the first PCs created under the system I just had the players pick attributes, they happened to wind up with a similar point total so I just gave that point total for subsequent characters. So I dunno. I haven't actually contemplated running RQ, when I do I'll decide what to do.

The only other game I really play is Burning Wheel which is totally non-random chargen, but it has a totally different feel from other point buy systems and the way life paths work in Burning Wheel, it puts constraints on characters, you can never get exactly what you want.

Frank

D&D variants: Either 4d6 use the highest 3 results, allocate as player wishes or stat array.
After using stat arrays in 4th and Pathfinder, I rather like them.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029191Okay, so it varies with edition.  I did specif OD&D, though it's interesting that Rules Cyclopedia is so old.

Honestly, that stat table is brutal.  It reminds me of Pathfinder, and that's one of the reasons I hate PF.  In PF don't even TRY to function outside your specialty.

Rules Cyclopedia is under 30. But that stat distribution existed for BECMI (1983) and B/X (1981) as well. I think it's less attribute dominant than any of the other non-oD&D (-GH) editions, although whether it or AD&D/OD&D+GH is more or less is something one can debate (ex. non-fighters can get more of their HPs from constitution in RC rules than AD&D, but fighters can get more).

But here we are back at the point that of course no one would care too much about stats in oD&D because they just don't matter that much.

Quote from: Chris24601;1029163I'm reminded of Heroes Unlimited a bit where it was possible to roll a character up who's highest stat is an 8, has only a high school education and whose only powers were Static Electricity Control (or as it was generally known "control static cling") and Extraordinary Sense of Taste (not of the Queer Eye version, which would have been FABULOUS with Control Static Cling; the lame version that lets you detect arsenic by putting it in your mouth) while another rolls up a character with 16's and 20's before skills, is a PHD and has Control Elemental Forces: Air (i.e. Storm) plus Alter Physical Structure: Metal (i.e. Colossus) as their powers.

That first character has no business at all going out into the field to stop muggers, much less supervillains. There's no way Dr. Steelwind drags Static Boy with them to go fight The Living Inferno (unless they're Miscreant or Diabolic and then only to laugh as they burn alive). At least Batman has maxed out stats, extensive training and NIGH-INFINITE MONEY to deal with that stuff.

[video=youtube;zFuMpYTyRjw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw[/youtube]

QuoteI feel the same way about D&D characters. It takes a certain level of ability and initiative to be willing to throw yourself into the lightless depths in pursuit of treasure and other adventurers aren't going risk their lives on a weak link who might get them killed because they're too weak, clumsy, stupid or clueless to deal with a hazardous situation that comes up. At best some of those get to come along and watch the horses and help carry stuff out after the dangerous work is done (or be made to jump up and down while 30' ahead of you in the hallway to set off any traps if you're evil I suppose). But those aren't fellow PCs. They're sidekicks (and not the skilled ones like Robin... more like Robin's Minstrels).

To be fair, most editions do have a clause for 'useless' characters or the like.

Allocation mixed with point buy, but as point buy is a kind of allocation even if free, i took allocation.

Quote from: Certified;1029104Abundant and accepted gender reassignment magic is a clear extension of your prior statement.



Since you cannot pick your gender at birth, clearly there must be some easy and acceptable means to change gender prior to the start of the game that has no social repercussions.

I don't see at all how that logic follows.

Quote from: Chris24601;1029110Again with the hyperbole. It can't be a legitimate difference in preferred playstyle... if you don't like Pundit's way to game, you're mentally ill.

It was YOUR statement, that point-buy is something preferred by people who feel like they  have no control over their own lives or whatever.

QuoteIf you spend your days getting screamed at by a crappy boss... how much fun do you think it would be to roll a hapless peasant where you get to be crapped on with an extra helping of floggings if you dare talk back?

You'd be surprised.

QuoteFor someone who spent a whole lot of time criticizing the the SJW Storygamers for their efforts to shut down any alternative, you seem bound and determined to be just like them in decrying any form of play that doesn't match your preferences. No one is making you play in the games I'm playing in. I have no interest in playing in yours. Why be an asshole about it?

I'm not stopping anyone from playing a point-buy game. I just personally think point buy usually sucks ass.

QuoteOkay, let's play Chess. You get no queen or knights. Go.

D&D doesn't play like chess. Unless you're a ridiculously bad GM.

QuoteOr how about this...

- I get a Character of the Middle Upper Class (using the UA rules for Social Class) with a Str 17, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 14, Cha 16 (this is an actual set of rolls for a straight 3d6 in order that I saw someone roll up... very unlikely, but possible).

- You get a Character of Lower Lower Class with a Str 13, Dex 12, Con 11, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 8.

We have mutually opposing goals. How do you overcome me?

I am better than you in every possible way. If I get even the slightest whiff that you are plotting against me (and let's face it you're not that bright or likeable... someone will rat you out for the reward) then I have the local constabulary round you up, flog you half to death and lock you in the dungeon until hunger and exposure finishes the job. If you resist they'll just beat you to death in the streets. You have no rights. I am a High Lord. You are a serf plotting treason. End of adversarial challenge.

Or we could do something where its a bit less random than what real life might give two random people in the world and say we're both nobles of roughly equal stature and ability who are each attempting to gain a region of rich farmland or at least keep our rival from getting it. You each get an array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 you can arrange to taste and equivalent starting resources. How you achieve your end goal is up to you. Do you form alliances in the king's court? Do you win battles for the King to try and win his favor? Do you try to assassinate your rival or use foul sorceries to impede him?

Isn't that scenario a bit more challenging and satisfying to beat than curb stomping a hapless serf?

The fact that you envision scenarios like this, and having these results, just tells me you're incredibly unimaginative.
You know what? You're partly right. YOU certainly shouldn't play random-generation games. You're not up to it.

QuoteI think substituting random dice rolls for actual creativity might rot your brain if your favorite superhero is anyone other than one you've created yourself.

But to express that hero you can't have random rolls determining their capabilities... so using Point Buy is the way to go.

If you're not talking about playing canon superheroes, then what you get from point-buy is a bunch of carefully min-maxed superheroes, with a selection of powers meant to be carefully crafted to be as effective based on the RULES as possible, and chosen from a limited range of experiences.

QuoteI occasionally use "random" when I need something to spark my creativity, but once its been sparked I prefer to build and create like the artist and craftsman I am.

Random rolls are a crutch for true creativity, not a replacement.

Oh yeah, I'm sure you're quite the artiste.

Quote from: Chris24601;1029163I'm reminded of Heroes Unlimited a bit where it was possible to roll a character up who's highest stat is an 8, has only a high school education and whose only powers were Static Electricity Control (or as it was generally known "control static cling") and Extraordinary Sense of Taste (not of the Queer Eye version, which would have been FABULOUS with Control Static Cling; the lame version that lets you detect arsenic by putting it in your mouth) while another rolls up a character with 16's and 20's before skills, is a PHD and has Control Elemental Forces: Air (i.e. Storm) plus Alter Physical Structure: Metal (i.e. Colossus) as their powers.

That first character has no business at all going out into the field to stop muggers, much less supervillains. There's no way Dr. Steelwind drags Static Boy with them to go fight The Living Inferno (unless they're Miscreant or Diabolic and then only to laugh as they burn alive). At least Batman has maxed out stats, extensive training and NIGH-INFINITE MONEY to deal with that stuff.

You mean like in the Legion of Superheroes, where you have four characters that have superman-level powers (two of them BEING superboy and supergirl) and then you have the girl who can split into three parts, or the guy who can eat anything, or the girl who has prophetic dreams she can't really control?

And where all of them get overshadowed by the guy who's only superpower is having a 31 INT?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1029186Rules Cyclopedia, an edition that you are out of touch with, but is older than most of the posters here:

Bonuses and Penalties for Ability Scores
Ability  Score  Adjustment
2-3       -3  Penalty
4-5       -2  Penalty
6-8       -1  Penalty
9-12  No adjustment
13-15   +1  Bonus
16-17   +2  Bonus
18        +3  Bonus

So one poor shmuck doesn't get any higher than 8, decides he wants to be...  Pick any class, he'll suck worse than the guy whose highest stat is 14.  Again, not the type of person heroes (Grecian classical or American) take along with them into danger.

You mean like Richard Crookback, or Ivar the Boneless?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1030143And where all of them get overshadowed by the guy who's only superpower is having a 31 INT?

Don't forget plot armor.

Quote from: Bren;1029195Had you actually said the bits in red you would have been more clear and less contentious.

Maybe.  If rolling a poor character in ANY game gives your dinkie a sad, I don't think I want to play with you.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030229Maybe.  If rolling a poor character in ANY game gives your dinkie a sad, I don't think I want to play with you.

Well, you're OK with it, because you preferred game doesn't actually care about stats, it doesn't really give much beyond XP bonues past a certain digit, and you need to get really lucky to actually get a +1 in anything.  But when you're holding the party back, because your rogue/thief can't really do anything successfully because of the penalties...

I've been in games in which TPK's happened because someone had a low stat.  And it made the DM's dinkie sad, because he wanted his game to last more than one session.  It's like making a train set, finding out you did one thing wrong, and then you have to tear it all down, all of it, because of it and start over.

Now imagine having to do that multiple times, and barely getting further than the first attempt because of one small part that just doesn't want to fit in, it's too small.

This is what sometimes happens with the newer D&D games.  A -1 to -3 can sometimes derail an entire adventure because the one person who can pick or kick the door's lock, simply cannot.  And then you have to restart over, because everyone is trapped in a small room with more baddies that are in the only exits, because they can't fit, thus trapping the entire party.  Simply because the map only had two ways in or out and one is blocked, the other permanently locked.  So everyone makes new characters, and suddenly someone else is the buttmonkey that's got the penalties and even though you decide to somehow magically know that going that first way will lead to a bad end, have another because the die roll is much higher than it otherwise would be.

I don't know about you, but having to restart the same dungeon 3 or 4 times and not really getting all that far, I get a little bored.  And so do my friends who are much older than I am.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1030142If you're not talking about playing canon superheroes, then what you get from point-buy is a bunch of carefully min-maxed superheroes, with a selection of powers meant to be carefully crafted to be as effective based on the RULES as possible, and chosen from a limited range of experiences.

  True, some gamers just don't have the imagination and sense of responsibility to go with the power that point-buy systems provide. :D

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1030266This is what sometimes happens with the newer D&D games.  A -1 to -3 can sometimes derail an entire adventure because the one person who can pick or kick the door's lock, simply cannot.  

I would agree that comparing being 'OK with' stats in a game where they just really don't matter that much to one where they matter a great deal is pretty apples to oranges. That much is clear

But the example seems dissimilar. If you are creating a dungeon where the entire night's adventure is predicated on an open locks check (or find secret door check) that people can reasonably fail, that's poorly thought through design. You don't require rolls that the party cannot recover from failing. If the only way to proceed is making a dice roll, then eventually someone will roll poorly enough to fail (or else why are you rolling?), and then you will be in that position regardless.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030269I would agree that comparing being 'OK with' stats in a game where they just really don't matter that much to one where they matter a great deal is pretty apples to oranges. That much is clear

But the example seems dissimilar. If you are creating a dungeon where the entire night's adventure is predicated on an open locks check (or find secret door check) that people can reasonably fail, that's poorly thought through design. You don't require rolls that the party cannot recover from failing. If the only way to proceed is making a dice roll, then eventually someone will roll poorly enough to fail (or else why are you rolling?), and then you will be in that position regardless.

I'm basing it off the experiences I had with a Rules Cyclopedia and several 2e games I once played in.  And we were using premade dungeons, from bought adventures.  I know the Rules Cyclopedia game had 3 restarts because one player couldn't get higher than a 8 on his character sheets.  It was B2 Keep on The Borderlands, the original 1979?  Or was it 78?  I forget... version.  And some of the rooms only have two ways in or out.  Or have ambushes that can trap players in a single location, and a bonus of 0 in their prime stat would have helped survive.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1030266Well, you're OK with it, because you preferred game doesn't actually care about stats, it doesn't really give much beyond XP bonues past a certain digit, and you need to get really lucky to actually get a +1 in anything.  But when you're holding the party back, because your rogue/thief can't really do anything successfully because of the penalties...

I've been in games in which TPK's happened because someone had a low stat.  And it made the DM's dinkie sad, because he wanted his game to last more than one session.  It's like making a train set, finding out you did one thing wrong, and then you have to tear it all down, all of it, because of it and start over.

Now imagine having to do that multiple times, and barely getting further than the first attempt because of one small part that just doesn't want to fit in, it's too small.

This is what sometimes happens with the newer D&D games.  A -1 to -3 can sometimes derail an entire adventure because the one person who can pick or kick the door's lock, simply cannot.  And then you have to restart over, because everyone is trapped in a small room with more baddies that are in the only exits, because they can't fit, thus trapping the entire party.  Simply because the map only had two ways in or out and one is blocked, the other permanently locked.  So everyone makes new characters, and suddenly someone else is the buttmonkey that's got the penalties and even though you decide to somehow magically know that going that first way will lead to a bad end, have another because the die roll is much higher than it otherwise would be.

I don't know about you, but having to restart the same dungeon 3 or 4 times and not really getting all that far, I get a little bored.  And so do my friends who are much older than I am.

Well, as has been discussed many times, if they HAVE to do a single task, either redesign the adventure so they don't, or let them accomplish it eventually.  (This is, I suspect, where Take 10 and Take 20 come from.)

But in my opinion that's shitty game/adventure design.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030275Well, as has been discussed many times, if they HAVE to do a single task, either redesign the adventure so they don't, or let them accomplish it eventually.  (This is, I suspect, where Take 10 and Take 20 come from.)

But in my opinion that's shitty game/adventure design.

Yep, in spades. And having an 18 in all 6 attributes still leaves the possibility the thief can't pick the lock. So straw man...

Frank

Quote from: ffilz;1030281Yep, in spades. And having an 18 in all 6 attributes still leaves the possibility the thief can't pick the lock. So straw man...

Frank

Yeah, it is a strawman you're using.

There's a difference when have a +3 and the player not being able to roll higher than 10 when all he needs is a total of say...  14, when a player needs to beat the same number needs to roll a 16 to make the same roll, and he's the only one who can do it, without killing himself as easily as say the Fighter kicking a door down, which would end up gassing the place and possibly killing all the players anyway.  The first is just bad luck and happens.  The second is making the 'job' harder than it needs to be.

And again, if you have any other choice, would you take Buck the Toothless (who doesn't have any real capacity to survive a dungeon) with you?  Assuming of course, you like Buck with his bumbling mannerisms and good heartedness, and don't want to murder him by sending him first.

If you have to have characters with high stats, then set up a character creation system that gives high stats.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030229Maybe.  If rolling a poor character in ANY game gives your dinkie a sad, I don't think I want to play with you.

I think you are being a bit silly and hyperbolic on this point, but that is your prerogative. And frequently your shtick. But I'd still be willing to play with you even if you are sometimes hyperbolic and silly.

Anything other than 3d6 in order feels like cheating.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1030138I don't see at all how that logic follows.

Just following your logic to it's clear conclusion. If players cannot select anything they could not chose in real life, then clearly the setting has some mechanism to allow the character to select their gender. Because it's not discussed this means it must be common enough that swapping gender is a casual event that anyone can do.

Quote from: Bren;1030304I think you are being a bit silly and hyperbolic on this point, but that is your prerogative. And frequently your shtick. But I'd still be willing to play with you even if you are sometimes hyperbolic and silly.

Well, "giving your dinkie a sad" does not mean to me saying "Boy, does THIS guy suck!" with a laugh.  Nor does it mean saying, "You know, I'm worried about this character's usefulness/survivability" in a reasonable tone.  To me "giving your dinkie a sad" implies pouting and/or whining, and yeah, I don't want to play with somebody who pouts and/or whines.  And that bit I think is neither hyperbolic nor silly, and oh brother, have I met pouters and whiners over the years.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1030267True, some gamers just don't have the imagination and sense of responsibility to go with the power that point-buy systems provide. :D

See, the thing is, it's the player's role to try to do the best they can with the resources the system offers them. It's part of the job. If a system let's them pick and choose every tiny detail of their character creation without any structure, then the player doing the best job is the one that optimizes most effectively.

That doesn't mean he'll end up with the most interesting character, or the one that will provide the most challenges, or the one that will be best for the campaign to be interesting. That's just another reason why point-buy isn't as good as randomization.

Quote from: Certified;1030353Just following your logic to it's clear conclusion. If players cannot select anything they could not chose in real life, then clearly the setting has some mechanism to allow the character to select their gender. Because it's not discussed this means it must be common enough that swapping gender is a casual event that anyone can do.

So you're either claiming physical sex is a matter of choice (in which case you're completely out to lunch vis a vis biology) or that gender identity is a matter of choice (in which case you are in complete disagreement with the dominant LGBT narrative of being born that way and that gender identity is NOT a choice).

Which is it?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1030704So you're either claiming physical sex is a matter of choice (in which case you're completely out to lunch vis a vis biology) or that gender identity is a matter of choice (in which case you are in complete disagreement with the dominant LGBT narrative of being born that way and that gender identity is NOT a choice).

Which is it?

I don't know that I buy his point, but you've got it reversed. He is stating that since gender isn't a choice, it would flow from your logic of "The only thing he gets to pick is what career he gets into. Which makes sense, because we do that in real life too" that the player ought also not be able to choose their character's gender.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030732I don't know that I buy his point, but you've got it reversed. He is stating that since gender isn't a choice, it would flow from your logic of "The only thing he gets to pick is what career he gets into. Which makes sense, because we do that in real life too" that the player ought also not be able to choose their character's gender.

This is correct. However, since players are allowed to select gender in the system, then clearly something within the game world allows them to do so without repercussions.

Quote from: Certified;1030743This is correct. However, since players are allowed to select gender in the system, then clearly something within the game world allows them to do so without repercussions.

And, like I say, I'm not sure I buy it. Can't it just be an exception?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030773And, like I say, I'm not sure I buy it. Can't it just be an exception?

Apparently not.  Designing a game to be a good game and letting the "in game justification" worry about itself has been getting Gary Gygax in trouble since 1974.

See also, "most people are booger-eating morons."

Went with "some choices"

In my preferred system, ACKS, if you do RAW chargen, you could even end up with a eunuch, should you choose the mage class :p

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2352[/ATTACH]

My current project has only one race, no classes, no feats or proficiencies, no skill system, and stats that all start at 0 for everyone. Also, gender is ignored. You're still free to choose different equipment though.

Roll a string of numbers equal to 6x the number of stats (so usually 36 or 42 numbers).  Use either 3d6 or 4d6 depending on power level desired.

Start your stat array on any number in the string you choose, but then it must go in order from that point.  So you could start on the 33rd number and your characters stats would be nos 33 though 2.  (end wraps with the beginning).

This allows players to pick the one thing that's most important to them, or perhaps the string that has the best overall numbers even if not having any 18 if they're trying to qualify for a class that has multiple requisites.  

But you end up with 18 STR fighters that have their 2nd best score in WIS, or magic users with a 2nd best score in STR.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030773And, like I say, I'm not sure I buy it. Can't it just be an exception?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1026640Random, no choices.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1027942

Quote from: Bren;1027774The player gets to decide what his character's background was? You are such the story gamer. :D

Well, no, actually. He doesn't get to pick which social class he was born into. He also doesn't get to decide his prior event, or background skill. His family (if you're using those rules) is also randomly rolled. Even his name is rolled (unless the GM rules otherwise).

The only thing he gets to pick is what career he gets into. Which makes sense, because we do that in real life too.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028416Then you'd probably be unqualified to play in my games, due to lack of imagination.  Dozens and dozens of players of mine have been able to do it over the years to varying degrees. None of them were 'boring' characters, because the point isn't "you have to play this boring character", it's "this is the character you have, now figure out what makes them interesting".

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028416The point being immersion, there's one thing that tends to be a bit harder for a lot of gamers than others, and that's realistically playing a member of the opposite sex. The characters also don't start out as paraplegics, geriatrics or children, either.

Since we've established that you only pick what you can choice in real life, but we don't want to break immersion that leads us to the only clear option that allows a qualified player to immerse themselves, and that is free or greatly inexpensive gender reassignment in a world with no social stigma attached. I mean, since you can't pick this before birth, it has to be possible to change genders after birth. This seems to be a clear, logical progression of these statements.

Quote from: Certified;1030863Since we've established that you only pick what you can choice in real life, but we don't want to break immersion that leads us to the only clear option that allows a qualified player to immerse themselves, and that is free or greatly inexpensive gender reassignment in a world with no social stigma attached. I mean, since you can't pick this before birth, it has to be possible to change genders after birth. This seems to be a clear, logical progression of these statements.

And I am saying, isn't it a more... I don't know... 'relevant to anything other than pedantry' to say that he is making an exception (which he explained), perhaps opening up his model to the critique that it conveniently is 'no choices, except this one choice, because I don't want to deal with that,' rather than say that he has, against any and all knowledge he has about what he has done, secretly made a society with presto magic sex changes.

This entire argument seems like something off a bad media fansite where someone opines that there must have been, let's say, a 900 year long puritanical government pogram which disallowed the creation of new art in the universe of Futurama, because how else do you explain why everyone is so knowledgeable about late 20th century pop culture? And that's the only possible explanation, because it being because it is a sitcom written by 20th/21st century writers couldn't possibly be the explanation.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030883And I am saying, isn't it a more... I don't know... 'relevant to anything other than pedantry' to say that he is making an exception (which he explained), perhaps opening up his model to the critique that it conveniently is 'no choices, except this one choice, because I don't want to deal with that,' rather than say that he has, against any and all knowledge he has about what he has done, secretly made a society with presto magic sex changes.

This entire argument seems like something off a bad media fansite where someone opines that there must have been, let's say, a 900 year long puritanical government pogram which disallowed the creation of new art in the universe of Futurama, because how else do you explain why everyone is so knowledgeable about late 20th century pop culture? And that's the only possible explanation, because it being because it is a sitcom written by 20th/21st century writers couldn't possibly be the explanation.

I thought it more an exercise in taking a statement to an absurd but logical extreme to illustrate an issue with it. It is an odd line in the sand to draw (If you extend the idea that things you can't control in the real world are randomly determined there are practically endless rolls to make) when the game is otherwise so hardcore on Random Uber Alles and its creator  has stated it not as merely a preference but the obectively right way to play and those who don't wish to play that are somehow deficient.

BTW: I assume by choosing your name it means as far titles, inheritance and other legal matters. You can have your character call themselves whatever you wish?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1030142It was YOUR statement, that point-buy is something preferred by people who feel like they  have no control over their own lives or whatever.

As one reason among many and probably more conductive to your long term health than going to a bar and getting wasted while bitching about your crappy job. There's a reason that roleplaying is actually used by mental health professionals after all. Dealing with your issues by playing a game is a hell of a lot healthier than a lot of alternatives. You might also have fun doing it.

I also note that you also ignored all the other possible reasons I listed (craftsman mentality or having specific avenues of play they wish to explore that random rolls make far less likely to provide them for two example); probably because its harder to make strawmen out of them. You're as bad as the SJW story gamers you hate so much; you just preach your version of OSR as the One-True-Way and insult anyone who doesn't agree.

The point though is that not everyone plays games for the same reasons you do. Some aren't playing to for the opportunity to explore what the random dice rolls tell them to... some are there because they like solving the puzzles/problems the GM throws at them. Some want to immerse themselves in the lore and events going on. Some are just playing because they want to slaughter orcs by the thousands.

Some people feel that creativity is an ACTIVE pursuit that starts from the shape their avatar in the game world takes, not a passive exercise in accepting random rolls. They'd rather build something they feel expresses themselves than try to make the incongruous results of a bunch of random rolls try to make sense. Some people don't even care if their concept is creative... they just want to play it because they find it interesting.

And none of those answers is wrong.

QuoteD&D doesn't play like chess. Unless you're a ridiculously bad GM.

You are either being deliberately obtuse or are an actual ignoramus if you can't grasp the concept of argument by analogy.

QuoteThe fact that you envision scenarios like this, and having these results, just tells me you're incredibly unimaginative.

A) Rhetorical hyperbole. Look it up if you're not familiar.

B) My day job is creating artwork for people using unusual mediums. I have people asking me regularly to run games for them because of the richness of my settings. I'll be sure to tell them that a guy who's claim to fame is copying game systems other people actually developed and slapping a bit of Wikipedia history/mythology on it thinks I'm unimaginative.

QuoteIf you're not talking about playing canon superheroes, then what you get from point-buy is a bunch of carefully min-maxed superheroes, with a selection of powers meant to be carefully crafted to be as effective based on the RULES as possible, and chosen from a limited range of experiences.

Or you can play with adults instead of man-children. Its amazing how all the crap you say you need random rolls to prevent just drops away when you do.

You get people who take super-leaping even though flight would be faster and cheaper in the rule set because their concept was of a character who's only power is superstrength (playing the fourth generation of a heroic line where each member represents one of the ages of comics; gold, silver, iron, mercury). They paid points for things like being able to shore up building foundations using found objects (just like you see them do in comics), 'entangle' foes by wrapping steel girders around them and interpose themselves between an attacker and their target, but didn't take 'impervious defense', even though it would be cheaper and more effective to just have bullets automatically bounce off because super-strong muscle isn't the same as invulnerable to them (indeed, though unlikely, they could even take damage from a small caliber handgun... not much relative to their total health, but it made every time they jumped into a hail of bullets to protect people a gamble and, to them, more heroic than just being invulnerable and doing the same) and deliberately tanked their dodge score because the hero was so used to jumping into the path of fire to protect people, his muscle memory actually worked against him.

Perhaps its not all that creative, but its far more nuanced and therefore interesting than what random rolls will typically produce (because in super-hero games it usually leads to a random mix of unconnected powers). They're taking the time to really think about the implications of how the character fits together.

Then there was the shapeshifter who could have built themselves a couple of very efficient combat forms with a 'disguise' ability and fluffed them as all the animal forms they could take; but instead went the much less efficient route (about 60% more expensive) of taking the full shapeshifting power (limited to animals) because it felt more true to the concept.

Or the ghost of a murdered girl who built herself a body made of unwanted toys and hunted those who preyed on children; show me where on the random tables you get THAT power combo.

Hell, we can even play Rifts where, despite the GM allowing every possible book and no one really discussing what everyone else was playing, there wasn't a Godling, Cosmoknight, Dragon, Glitterboy or even a Juicer in sight and the one non-human member of the party was a Dog Boy. The strongest member was a human Ley Line Walker right out of the core book who didn't take Carpet of Adhesion because they felt that was too broken a spell.

Also, from my experience the people who's primary concern is how absolutely "optimal" their character is using point-buy are actually pretty freaking bad at it. The one man-child we had like that always built cripplingly overspecialized builds that were extremely easy to put down the moment you figured out their one trick and what they had to tank to get it. If you looked at their sheet in some games everything was right out of the gold/sky-blue lists of some easy to find charops guide and those almost never take into account actual table play (where you need to be able to do more than just one thing), just theoretical white-room 'how to get the most X' crap.

My advice... play with more married couples, preferably ones with kids. There is nothing like having kids to make you grow up and kill the man-child behavior.

Even better, play with their 10-13 year old kids. They're more creative than you, me or just about any other adult in the room (and also don't care about charops).

My goddaughters play a one-eyed snake dragon that spits acid (named Hazel... that is quite important), a mermaid warrior princess with a sea-lion companion (not seal; a lion front with a fish tail) who grow legs on land, a winged elven magical girl who summons monsters to fight her enemies, and a mad-genius steampunk inventor. Random rolls aren't going to get them anything more creative than that AND they're playing what they want to (and enjoying the heck out of it), not what some random table told them to play.

QuoteOh yeah, I'm sure you're quite the artiste.

So you DO understand sarcasm. If you get that then you surely get analogy or hyperbole too. So you were just being a "Shitlord." Which is great and all... if you're twelve.

Have fun with your random rolls down there. My godkids and their parents will continue to have fun doing what we do.

My favorite method of character generation?

A pretty girl with REALLY big tits strips to the waist, hauls off, and smacks me on the side of the head with her tits.  I measure how far my glasses fly, in inches, and that's the stat number.

Years ago (at least a decade) there was a website where you could type in the UPC code of whatever snack foods were laying around and it would use those numbers to randomly generate your character.

Alas, I just looked and couldn't find it with the Goog.

Weird, I remember that UPC thing too.

FWIW, I prefer random gen. Bottom line, if you go point-buy, sooner or later everyone min-maxes, and there's little need for two players to have the same character class in the party because if you're doing "the bestest possible thing" with your character, you should do another class, and if you are, then you're identical in every way to the other character.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030732I don't know that I buy his point, but you've got it reversed. He is stating that since gender isn't a choice, it would flow from your logic of "The only thing he gets to pick is what career he gets into. Which makes sense, because we do that in real life too" that the player ought also not be able to choose their character's gender.

I agree with you about the logic and contradictory point and that it seemed clear that Pundit made gender choice an exception to the rule that you can't select anything during character creation that your character couldn't pick to accommodate the preferences of some players. The diatribes from either side about who is more or less imaginative are just so much tripe designed to try to attach some sort of intellectual or moral superiority to play preferences. Personally I'd be fine to play an RPG where choice of gender, initial career, and character name* are all out of the player's hands. But I don't think my willingness to play that character means I'm more imaginative than someone who is unwilling. And to be fair I wouldn't want every RPG I play to work that way.

And elaborating on what a character can really choose, if one really wanted to eliminate choices that the character can't choose than allowing career choice is also a bit of an exception to the rule. In real life (now or historically) many people have restrictions, sometimes severe restrictions, on their career choices. People often don't get to choose any career they want. Believe me I've tried to choose the the idle rich or the wealthy dilettante career for many years now with absolutely no success.



* Because in many cultures parents select the child's personal name, family names follow birth, and nicknames get chosen by friends, rivals, enemies, and bystanders.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030455To me "giving your dinkie a sad" implies pouting and/or whining

That meaning was not clear to me. Thanks for clarifying.

Quote from: Bren;1031140I agree with you about the logic and contradictory point and that it seemed clear that Pundit made gender choice an exception to the rule that you can't select anything during character creation that your character couldn't pick to accommodate the preferences of some players. The diatribes from either side about who is more or less imaginative are just so much tripe designed to try to attach some sort of intellectual or moral superiority to play preferences. Personally I'd be fine to play an RPG where choice of gender, initial career, and character name* are all out of the player's hands. But I don't think my willingness to play that character means I'm more imaginative than someone who is unwilling. And to be fair I wouldn't want every RPG I play to work that way.

And elaborating on what a character can really choose, if one really wanted to eliminate choices that the character can't choose than allowing career choice is also a bit of an exception to the rule. In real life (now or historically) many people have restrictions, sometimes severe restrictions, on their career choices. People often don't get to choose any career they want. Believe me I've tried to choose the the idle rich or the wealthy dilettante career for many years now with absolutely no success.



* Because in many cultures parents select the child's personal name, family names follow birth, and nicknames get chosen by friends, rivals, enemies, and bystanders.

Clearly you can pick your name, even if you're not a DJ.

(http://brickultra.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/lego-movie2.png)

So there seems to be a lot of confusion around how I was able to so clearly deduce the abundance of gender reassignment magic in the worlds of Punditry. The answer is simple, when you make sweeping statements about how games should be played and if you don't play them just like me then you are less of a person then it's time to start doling out some fun. Part of the definition of the word game is a form of play and playing means to engage in an activity for recreation or enjoyment.

Early on, I said that I'd be willing to play in a setting of completely random, or limited character choices, albeit, mostly at conventions or when a funnel is used to weed out a battery of random characters. At the same time, I also said I'm a fan of selected life paths and point buys. None of these methods are perfect, the question is what's right for the game, and what's right for the player. A number of games even include multiple ways to generate characters, because the designers realize that role-playing and character creation is not a one size fits all category.

Where things get really fun for me is when statements like, if you don't do things my way then you're not as imaginative, but, it's too hard to play a different gender. Why's that, are you not that imaginative? If you want to call something authentic with no choices you couldn't otherwise make yourself, then gender is one of them. There's a number of other things as well, such as birth defects, childhood illness, famine, plague, disease, all the things that made the middle ages great one should incorporate as well, I mean, if you're staying authentic.

Otherwise, accept that it is just a game, and people are playing for fun. They just might not want to play your way, and that doesn't make them any lesser of a gamer, or person.

Quote from: Certified;1030863Since we've established that you only pick what you can choice in real life, but we don't want to break immersion that leads us to the only clear option that allows a qualified player to immerse themselves, and that is free or greatly inexpensive gender reassignment in a world with no social stigma attached. I mean, since you can't pick this before birth, it has to be possible to change genders after birth. This seems to be a clear, logical progression of these statements.

Oh christ, you ridiculous cunt, I've already explained this: most players are SHIT at playing the opposite gender. They usually have no problem handling being of a different social class, or playing a character who's way stronger than they are, or dumber than they are, or even wiser than they are to a certain extent. But most players will fuck up playing outside their sex. I'll let anyone who wants to try the chance to do it, but making people do it is a stupid idea.

And no, you ridiculous little shit, that doesn't prove anything about anything else. It's a hangup of the interpretive limitations of most gamers, especially male gamers (I'll note that usually in my experience women are somewhat better at playing men than vice versa; though even then, it's only in the sense that they play their characters as women with a penis, but that's still better than making your character some kind of comedy relief or fantasy-fulfillment). It's a product of cultural conditioning. It doesn't mean anything regarding the larger point that RANDOMIZING EVERYTHING ELSE MAKES PEOPLE ROLEPLAY BETTER.

In fact, it's an extension of the point, because the REASONS why many people tend to be shit roleplayers when they try to play a woman is the same reason why many people tend to be shit roleplayers when they get to pick every tiny detail about their character thanks to shitty point-buy systems.  Because these same people default into the most facile option possible of roleplaying if allowed to. Given total freedom to choose, they will rely on their very limited imagination to create a caricature.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030883And I am saying, isn't it a more... I don't know... 'relevant to anything other than pedantry' to say that he is making an exception (which he explained), perhaps opening up his model to the critique that it conveniently is 'no choices, except this one choice, because I don't want to deal with that,' rather than say that he has, against any and all knowledge he has about what he has done, secretly made a society with presto magic sex changes.

This entire argument seems like something off a bad media fansite where someone opines that there must have been, let's say, a 900 year long puritanical government pogram which disallowed the creation of new art in the universe of Futurama, because how else do you explain why everyone is so knowledgeable about late 20th century pop culture? And that's the only possible explanation, because it being because it is a sitcom written by 20th/21st century writers couldn't possibly be the explanation.

yeah, it was such a sloppy and idiotic attempt to create a completely ABSURD rhetorical framework in order to then try to spring the cheapest, saddest most pathetic of 'gotchas' I'd seen in years, that was so badly constructed that I couldn't even understand what he was trying to get to.

It was the rhetorical-combat version of intentionally shitting your own pants in the middle of a knife-fight in a pathetic attempt at distracting your opponent into letting his guard down.

Quote from: CarlD.;1030946BTW: I assume by choosing your name it means as far titles, inheritance and other legal matters. You can have your character call themselves whatever you wish?

Regarding names: In my first Dark Albion game, my players had no idea what to call themselves.  In Arrows of Indra, they wouldn't have had the slightest chance of figuring it out. So for campaigns where the setting really matters, and isn't just Fantasy Setting #689, you want the characters to have names that fit the setting correctly.  And some players really want to be able to do that but need a way to know, while others are just morons who if allowed to do their own thing will fuck it up in a way that ruins everything.  In my second Dark Albion campaign I had to stop one guy (a fully adult person) from naming his magister PC "Gandalf", knowing full well this was meant to be a heavily immersive virtual recreation of 15th century England.

So, again, if you're playing the fucking forgotten realms or some meaningless fantasy setting, there may be no real need to have names be randomly determined. Though even then, if you have some guy insist that he wants his character to be named 'Conan the Barbarian', or "Fuckface Groinstabber" or whatever, it could really damage the immersive credibility of the campaign.
But if you're playing a game that's in a historical or quasi-historical setting, it can be much more useful to have random name tables based on actual research of credible names for the setting.

Quote from: Chris24601;1030998Some aren't playing to for the opportunity to explore what the random dice rolls tell them to... some are there because they like solving the puzzles/problems the GM throws at them.

That's fucking hilarious, given how in a lot of these other games where you're allowed to pick down to the last 0.25th of a point exactly every detail about your character with total control and zero randomization of what your character is, you then have a bunch of die rolls in actual play that control how your social interactions go.

In my games, you randomize character creation, forcing you to be better than yourself, and then in ACTUAL PLAY you have to FUCKING ROLEPLAY IT, rather than rely on the 260 points you invested in "intimidate" to get around having to actually RP your character.

QuoteOr you can play with adults instead of man-children. Its amazing how all the crap you say you need random rolls to prevent just drops away when you do.

There are some hopeless cases of man-children out there. None of those are in my groups. They don't get into my groups, they never get past the waiting list. If they somehow bluff the way through, they don't last, because in my games they never get their way.

On the other hand, I have a lot of people who are very good at being players, doing what players are meant to do, which is to maximize their own personal advantage as a player.
For some people, that will mean, entirely without going to the extremes of breaking the rules, trying to get away with everything they can get away with using the rules.  If the rules are badly designed so that the "smart" player is actually the one gaming-the-system, it means that smart players will game the system.  There's even a whole school of thought in RPG design (which took over D&D in 3e) where "Character Optimization" that rewards players who've carefully studied how to manipulate the rules to get the most powerful or capable possible player is somehow a laudable model to be based on. And you see this in virtually EVERY major point-buy system. You see it in GURPS, in Shadowrun, in Champions, etc, where players who have carefully read and studied every detail of the game system (especially character creation) will have a definable advantage over players who don't know the system and that's thought of as perfectly fine.

QuoteAlso, from my experience the people who's primary concern is how absolutely "optimal" their character is using point-buy are actually pretty freaking bad at it. The one man-child we had like that always built cripplingly overspecialized builds that were extremely easy to put down the moment you figured out their one trick and what they had to tank to get it. If you looked at their sheet in some games everything was right out of the gold/sky-blue lists of some easy to find charops guide and those almost never take into account actual table play (where you need to be able to do more than just one thing), just theoretical white-room 'how to get the most X' crap.

This is often true. There are a lot of point-buy players who end up creating these 'one hit wonders'.  But first off, it's a PROBLEM that you'd need to then be having to think that way in terms of how to beat him. Where you end up with a player who has that one attack that he'll always use because if he pulls it off he ends the fight every time in seconds, and then you as a GM have to invent ridiculous scenarios where he isn't able to do that one move, or where opponents who shouldn't necessarily be able to figure out that one move can always end up getting around it, or whatever. It's like how in badly-written Superman stories you end up  having Kryptonite just conveniently end up being around just to stop Superman from wiping the floor with everyone.

That's bad design.

Second, though, there's a lot of more experienced point-buy-abusers who will not end up doing that. They'll instead end up very carefully crafting characters that have a generally superior character to people who haven't carefully read all the character creation rules in order to optimize themselves, who have made good rather than bad bets about just how many points of disadvantages they can take that won't actually disadvantage them in terms of what they want their character to be able to do well (versus what they have no interest in their character doing well), and who will thus end up creating a character of a certain model (the fighter, the skill-master, whatever) who is just heads and tails above everyone else in the group at that model to the point that they'll feel utterly inferior in comparison.
This ends up being much WORSE than what you and others here were complaining about, the mythical nightmare scenario of one character having ended up with no random stat lower than 15 while some other guy has no ability score higher than 10.  The difference in those character is much, much less of a disparity than that between a carefully-purchased character in point buy by a Character Optimization Expert compared to a character created by someone who has not spent hundreds of hours carefully studying the character-creation system.

QuoteMy advice... play with more married couples, preferably ones with kids. There is nothing like having kids to make you grow up and kill the man-child behavior.

Well, this is utter and total nonsense. Some of the worst fuckups as players I've had in this regard have been adult players with kids. The guy I mentioned above, who demanded he get to play a middle-earth-type wizard named Gandalf in a historical-themed Medieval-Authentic campaign, was a 50 year old man with 3 children. The player in my regular group who would be most prone to try to engage in any Character Optimization he can get away with is a married man with a daughter.

Having popped out a baby can sometimes change some people's lives, particularly if they were already looking for an excuse to sort themselves out, but for the most part the notion that it magically turns you into a mature human being is complete drivel.

Case in point: adult men with wives and children being terrified of having to play a character that isn't created by their TOTAL CONTROL.

Quote from: Certified;1031153So there seems to be a lot of confusion around how I was able to so clearly deduce the abundance of gender reassignment magic in the worlds of Punditry. The answer is simple, when you make sweeping statements about how games should be played and if you don't play them just like me then you are less of a person then it's time to start doling out some fun. Part of the definition of the word game is a form of play and playing means to engage in an activity for recreation or enjoyment.

Yeah, like I said, we get it now. You shit your own pants in the middle of a fight in a sad, desperate attempt at causing a distraction.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1031375That's fucking hilarious, given how in a lot of these other games where you're allowed to pick down to the last 0.25th of a point exactly every detail about your character with total control and zero randomization of what your character is, you then have a bunch of die rolls in actual play that control how your social interactions go.

Or, you know, they're guidelines. They're also for people who really suck at interaction and don't want to go deep into their character's psyche... not everyone who plays is a massive extrovert who has no trouble thinking up what to say. Some people don't get much into their character's head beyond "I try to persuade the guard to help us." Their character is an avatar they use to interact with the game world just like they would in say "Dragon Age" or "Legend of Zelda."

That is perfectly acceptable if that's how you enjoy yourself.

QuoteIn my games, you randomize character creation, forcing you to be better than yourself, and then in ACTUAL PLAY you have to FUCKING ROLEPLAY IT, rather than rely on the 260 points you invested in "intimidate" to get around having to actually RP your character.  

Good for you.

Not everyone plays games to better themselves. Sometimes they're just playing to have fun after a long day at work.

That you crap on anyone who doesn't play like you do is once again why I say you're just like the Storygamers you so despise. You've got your "One-True-Wayism" on and are accusing anyone who doesn't play your way of not being a real role-player.

I guess you really DO become what you hate.

QuoteOn the other hand, I have a lot of people who are very good at being players, doing what players are meant to do, which is to maximize their own personal advantage as a player...  You see it in GURPS, in Shadowrun, in Champions, etc, where players who have carefully read and studied every detail of the game system (especially character creation) will have a definable advantage over players who don't know the system and that's thought of as perfectly fine.

And I have players who, if they're good at something, help the rest of the players to get better at it and deliberately don't take the best options so they don't outshine newer players. Its called being an adult and realizing that you have more fun when EVERYONE is having fun.

Also I am well aware of CharOps... I even mentioned it in the text you're quoting. Its not all its cracked up to be in actual play because it is such a white room endevour that focus on combat performance it ends up usually crippling them in games where you might have one combat a night and spend the rest of the time exploring or interacting.

On the other hand, I pretty easily stole the night in the 5e game we just started (with random rolls for ability score generation... *gasp*) where I finally get to play for once with just three lines of backstory;

- Jack Knave is almost certainly not his real name.
- His most prized possession is an item (for the DM to determine -he chose a pendent) that was left with him at the orphanage bearing a sigil no one recognizes (for the DM to determine -he hasn't said one way or the other).
- His best friend is a tiny invisible dragon named Pidge (who may or may not be imaginary).

He's a Human Bard with the Magic Initiate feat (sidebar, it was a real struggle whether to take the standard or variant human because every score I rolled except one was odd; +1 to all would have been amazing). I picked Create Bonfire and Mage Hand cantrips from the Sorcerer list (both VS spells) so sometimes when I shout "Pidge! Pidge! Get that thing!" or "Pidge, blast him!" objects get picked up by invisible forces or people get doused in lingering fire.

Clearly that is the work of a tiny invisible dragon... or my character is insane and talking to himself (this is also left for the DM to determine). Regardless, there are some very un-bard-y things going on around him that reply to being called Pidge (and his bard magic is very much on the subtle side).

QuoteSecond, though, there's a lot of more experienced point-buy-abusers who will not end up doing that. They'll instead end up very carefully crafting characters that have a generally superior character to people who haven't carefully read all the character creation rules in order to optimize themselves, who have made good rather than bad bets about just how many points of disadvantages they can take that won't actually disadvantage them in terms of what they want their character to be able to do well (versus what they have no interest in their character doing well), and who will thus end up creating a character of a certain model (the fighter, the skill-master, whatever) who is just heads and tails above everyone else in the group at that model to the point that they'll feel utterly inferior in comparison.

The one player we have who's really good at that actually helps everyone else when we sit down to make characters in a point-buy game and self-limits himself a lot (he's the one who didn't take carpet of adhesion as a mage in Rifts).

We also use Mutants & Masterminds for our Superhero game of choice since you only get "flaw" points for actual physical handicaps (like having to spend actions to physically transform before you can use your powers or not being able to use your legs) and any sort of social or personality flaw is labeled a "Complication" that awards you Hero Points (basically action points) in play if that complication comes up in a session. You can dump all the complications you want on yourself, but the GM only awards Hero Points if the GM invokes the complication and the player roleplays in line with the complication.

QuoteCase in point: adult men with wives and children being terrified of having to play a character that isn't created by their TOTAL CONTROL.

You REALLY can't leave things without insulting people who play in a different way than you, can you?

As I noted above, I do play in games with random generation (the 5e game I just mentioned above and the Rifts campaign for just two examples), but this isn't a thread about what we PLAY... its about which option we PREFER.

And the funny thing is that, for all your railing at strawmen, I didn't even vote for Point-Buy as my preferred method (I think I mentioned it in my first post in the thread), but for Allocation. My preferred method for games is Ability Score Arrays (ex. 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8) since it forces you to make choices about priorities for your character concept and gives them a weakness (or as I like to call them, a heroic flaw) that can be played with.

If someone else perfers Point Buy or Random Rolls... those are perfectly valid ways to play too; just not my preferred methods. I'll defend the right of people to play those ways though from One-True-Wayers though.

And that's what you're coming off as here. The exact same thing you claim to hate just with OSR held up as the "One True Way" instead of Storygames. You're THAT GUY who has to insult and belittle anyone who doesn't agree with you. You can't abide someone out there even defending a preference that is different than yours and invent reasons why their opinions are invalid; they're insane, they're stupid, they're unimaginative and now "they're terrified of trying anything outside their comfort zone."

You're actually quite a pathetic creature if you can't admit that its okay for other people to prefer different things than you.

I find it amusing that there is some pretense that character optimization only exists in point buy generation. Unless everything, literally everything is determined randomly, the system can be gamed. Some of the biggest most dedicated min maxer and power gamers I've had seen where in D and D and other random generation based systems.

IAs "real roleplayer" bullshit except say its oddly similar to "role play" vs "roll play" arguments I've seen so called story gamers toss out. And most of the "real role players" I've seen aren't role playing at all. At best, they're playing themselves, at best at worst their character's are depicted as iron will automatons with no emotions, drives or weaknesses that are completely immune to any persuasion aside from being convinced to do what they were going to do anyway.  GM's of that stripe let any social actions succeed at their whim, the dread "Mother May I" applied to interaction.

Everyone that doesn't like social mechanics is like that, far from it but claiming one way is the true way and everyone that does it differently is lacking or not a true gamer or whatever is elitist crap. Taking the worst examples of the other POV and posturing like its the general case. Posturing like a preference is Let's Pretend makes your dick bigger or small is inane and juvenile.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1031372... most players are SHIT at playing the opposite gender. They usually have no problem handling being of a different social class, or playing a character who's way stronger than they are, or dumber than they are, or even wiser than they are to a certain extent. But most players will fuck up playing outside their sex. I'll let anyone who wants to try the chance to do it, but making people do it is a stupid idea...

Let me try to sum this up succinctly.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;1026640Random, no choices.

Clearly, you are just trying to distract people form the magical gender reassignment fairies that live in your game worlds.

I picked random lifepath, but my Lifepaths include choices as well.

If the game setting has cultures with names other than modern, I'll give the characters their names. "You can call yourself whatever you want, but this is what your parents (or whoever) named you."

Gender and Sexuality is too personal to make someone play an identity they don't feel comfortable playing.  I did have one player who wanted to roll that though.

For things like Species, Race and Culture I'll usually have one or two default options you can take based on setting and location if you don't want to roll.  Social Class you roll for. (One guy in the current campaign rolled a minor Corinthian noble).

Roll stats randomly and allocate them.

I'm currently running Mythras, which is a skill system that has character creation broken down into phases of the character's life prior to starting the campaign, so it makes it easy for me to add little things here and there in a combination of random rolls and 'choose your own adventure' type events.

Quote from: Certified;1031395Clearly, you are just trying to distract people form the magical gender reassignment fairies that live in your game worlds.

  No, it's just Pundit's condescension to mortal weakness for those who, though trying, have not yet achieved to True Roleplaying, the Transvaluation of All Values, the Triumph of the Will, and the Embrace of the All-Powerful, All-Determining Self. :)

I might be odd but I'd feel more uncomfortable with the GM choosing my character's name than rolling their gender but my groups cross gender play pretty frequently.

Quote from: Bren;1031141That meaning was not clear to me. Thanks for clarifying.

No problem.  You may now reward me with a beer.  No, no need to thank me.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1031372Oh christ, you ridiculous cunt,

Now hold on.  Don't use "cunt" as a bad word.  Cunts are friendly, warm, fuzzy, smell good, taste good, and feel good.

(Note for the fussy:  Pundy did NOT blaspheme by using "christ," because non-capitalized it is just a descriptive noun meaning "anointed one."  So Pundy is calling him a cunt slathered with fragrant oil.  Which is one of the nicest things you could call somebody!)

Quote from: RPGPundit;1031374Regarding names: In my first Dark Albion game, my players had no idea what to call themselves.  In Arrows of Indra, they wouldn't have had the slightest chance of figuring it out.

Phil Barker ran into this on Tekumel.  Early players had names like "Xerox," "Abilene," and "Hashish."

And you're also right about some worlds are more tolerant.  "Gronan of Simmerya" worked fine in Greyhawk, but "Hlych'ptu" didn't work well in Tekumel.  So after a couple of years my character adopted a Tsolyani name.  Fortunately, Tsolyanu had a bureaucracy perfectly capable of registering a name change to "Korunme."

Long story short, after the first six months or so, people just asked Phil for help.

Quote from: CarlD.;1031427I might be odd but I'd feel more uncomfortable with the GM choosing my character's name than rolling their gender but my groups cross gender play pretty frequently.

I don't find that odd at all. Everyone in our group (men and women) has played cross gender at some point or another (the latest game where I'm actually getting to play has a guy playing the half-elf grandmother of another PC and a gal playing a male bounty hunter). To be fair a lot of us are also GM's and so have to play all manner of NPCs of every gender so its just not as big an issue for us.

I find much more discomfort with having my name picked for me; particularly when in many settings anyone with the courage to go be an adventurer would have no problems changing to a name they're more comfortable with as soon as they hit the first town they'd never been to in their life (which even makes sense if your new life could run afoul of the law and don't want any repercussions to fall on any family you left behind... there's a reason my new character's name is etymologically "Young Man (Jack) Young Man (Knave)" and comes from elsewhere... its practically like saying his name is "John Doe").

Given my long experience with 3E, Champions, and other similar systems, I've abandoned point buy in exchange for modeling, schtick protection, and spotlight management mainly because "system mastery" often make any assumption of balance irrelevant.

As for where I stand on random character generation, after playing with a cast of ... characters ... on a reoccurring basis for a number of years, I'm beginning to see the light having grown to despise seeing the same character over and over again with different dashes of paint. The fact that said individuals often play women as caricatures has just further nudged me in said direction.

Quote from: Chris24601;1031443I don't find that odd at all. Everyone in our group (men and women) has played cross gender at some point or another (the latest game where I'm actually getting to play has a guy playing the half-elf grandmother of another PC and a gal playing a male bounty hunter). To be fair a lot of us are also GM's and so have to play all manner of NPCs of every gender so its just not as big an issue for us.

Something that cracked me up is when playing online I'd hear complaints about someone not playing a woman right directed at players that I knew for a fact (having met them, dated in one case, them in real life) were woman. I've long since come to believe those complaints are more because the character doesn't fit the griper's idea of a "real woman" like they come from a factory somewhere and there's only certain models or part of an Estrogen fueled hive-mind. It seems a little silly given the breadth and variety of being players can depict drawing the line at another human being with different genitals than they have in real life seems like a weird spot.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1031442Phil Barker ran into this on Tekumel.  Early players had names like "Xerox," "Abilene," and "Hashish."

And you're also right about some worlds are more tolerant.  "Gronan of Simmerya" worked fine in Greyhawk, but "Hlych'ptu" didn't work well in Tekumel.  So after a couple of years my character adopted a Tsolyani name.  Fortunately, Tsolyanu had a bureaucracy perfectly capable of registering a name change to "Korunme."

Long story short, after the first six months or so, people just asked Phil for help.

This is an issue that arises every once in a while. I think the best thing for players to do is check in with the GM before naming their PC. Do you have a list of appropriate names? Are silly names acceptable? What Earth cultures are appropriate for drawing names from?

In most campaigns, I'm open to a certain degree of silliness. Gronan of Simmerya would be totally acceptable in almost any game I would currently run (even Traveller, we might have to decide where Simmerya is in a few games - I might have to add Simmerya to my Traveller setting just in case... :-) It actually would be fun to take a variety of places that are part of well known RPG characters names and populate them into whatever setting is in play... And yea, if I ran Tekumel, I think I'd even be ok with Gronan of Simmerya there too...).

Frank

The interesting thing is that after six months or so, "Gronan" was just a name; nobody really thought about the lame pun any more.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1031375That's fucking hilarious, given how in a lot of these other games where you're allowed to pick down to the last 0.25th of a point exactly every detail about your character with total control and zero randomization of what your character is, you then have a bunch of die rolls in actual play that control how your social interactions go.

In my games, you randomize character creation, forcing you to be better than yourself, and then in ACTUAL PLAY you have to FUCKING ROLEPLAY IT, rather than rely on the 260 points you invested in "intimidate" to get around having to actually RP your character.

Okay, this seems to be mixing issues a bit. Mechanical social resolution mechanics are a completely separate issue than random, semi-random, or point-buy character creation. The existence of game-based skill-check-style social rules is a relatively separate tangent. Sure it, like everything else, can be gamed (especially in a point-buy game), but it isn't in particular more or less true than any other mechanic. As both of us have pointed out, OD&D and other OSR mostly-random systems HAVE a 'bunch of die rolls in actual play that control how your social interactions go' -- it's called the reaction table. Yes, it specifically states that real role-play and/or saying what you say is supposed to modify the results, but so do many of these other games.

QuoteOn the other hand, I have a lot of people who are very good at being players, doing what players are meant to do, which is to maximize their own personal advantage as a player.
For some people, that will mean, entirely without going to the extremes of breaking the rules, trying to get away with everything they can get away with using the rules.  If the rules are badly designed so that the "smart" player is actually the one gaming-the-system, it means that smart players will game the system.  There's even a whole school of thought in RPG design (which took over D&D in 3e) where "Character Optimization" that rewards players who've carefully studied how to manipulate the rules to get the most powerful or capable possible player is somehow a laudable model to be based on. And you see this in virtually EVERY major point-buy system. You see it in GURPS, in Shadowrun, in Champions, etc, where players who have carefully read and studied every detail of the game system (especially character creation) will have a definable advantage over players who don't know the system and that's thought of as perfectly fine.
...
This ends up being much WORSE than what you and others here were complaining about, the mythical nightmare scenario of one character having ended up with no random stat lower than 15 while some other guy has no ability score higher than 10.  The difference in those character is much, much less of a disparity than that between a carefully-purchased character in point buy by a Character Optimization Expert compared to a character created by someone who has not spent hundreds of hours carefully studying the character-creation system.  

This. Stick with this. This, without the other invectives you have brought forward, is a good argument for why a mostly random character generation model has a place in the universe of potential games. Random character generation, particularly in the mechanical bits and bobs, removes a players ability to, but also the burden of, building an mechanically powerful character (which, as you correctly point out, many players feel obligated to do). The play style of making the best of the situation fate presents is a different challenge, and one worth exploring.

QuoteYeah, like I said, we get it now. You shit your own pants in the middle of a fight in a sad, desperate attempt at causing a distraction.

And don't stick with this. Or do whatever I guess. But you know, I wouldn't suggest it. Once we get to the point where people try to outdo each other telling each other how sad, immature, or pathetic each other is, the opportunity to actually convince each other of anything is long gone.

Quote from: Certified;1031153So there seems to be a lot of confusion around how I was able to so clearly deduce the abundance of gender reassignment magic in the worlds of Punditry. The answer is simple, when you make sweeping statements about how games should be played and if you don't play them just like me then you are less of a person then it's time to start doling out some fun. Part of the definition of the word game is a form of play and playing means to engage in an activity for recreation or enjoyment.

Yeah, no. We got it. Pundy pissed you off and you responded in kind. Mind you, your grievances are reasonable. Pundy has never been shy about demeaning other people for what are generally different choices than he thinks best. Straight up calling him out would have worked. The whole reducto-ad-absurdum thing on his game's set-up (which at worst is hypocrisy if you hold him to his 'no choices your character wouldn't get to make' policy) just seemed ridiculous (how hard is the concept of an exception?) and a little bit of high school 'My First Philosophy course'-y. I don't feel that it added to the conversation. You might have actually gotten a meaningful discussion from him if you'd tried a different tact.

Quote from: Certified;1031395Let me try to sum this up succinctly.

That was uncalled for. It was the one thing Pundy said that makes absolute, inarguable sense. Mind you, you can disagree with it, but it is completely coherent and a valid position. I don't know if I believe that most players "usually have no problem handling being of a different social class, or playing a character who's way stronger than they are, or dumber than they are, or even wiser than they are to a certain extent. But most players will fuck up playing outside their sex," but it is a reasonable position to take. And if one wants to design a game where a player makes no background choices a character themselves couldn't make, except for their gender (because of concern that the burden of that bit of role-play would impede the ability to perform other shifts in imagination/perspective), that seems completely reasonable. Again, for a purpose-driven game. If you weren't already pissed at Pundy, I doubt this point would be the hill you would die (or make him die) upon.

Oh whatever, we're all going to walk out of this thread smelling terrible. Where's Black Vulmea and his poo-flinging monkeys reference when you need him?

I still like my favorite method of character generation better.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1031458The interesting thing is that after six months or so, "Gronan" was just a name; nobody really thought about the lame pun any more.

That's actually the beauty of it I think and what would make it a totally cool name in any of my games.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1031461Okay, this seems to be mixing issues a bit.
...
This. Stick with this.
...
And don't stick with this.
...
Yeah, no. We got it.
...
That was uncalled for.

You may just be entirely too reasonable to be posting on this forum.

Quote from: Bren;1031542You may just be entirely too reasonable to be posting on this forum.

Never thought of it as reasonable, or even mature. Just don't have my ego tied up in making someone else 'lose' on a discussion board. It serves no purpose.

I use a super-simplified point-buy method, mostly for the sheer sake of speed. At my table a character can be generated without rolling dice in 5 - 10 minutes. That said, my attribute system is bonuses-only (no associated stats), and I haven't much liked any of the point-buy systems I've encountered that generate stats. I think it's maybe because stat numbers are large enough to allow too much flexibility with point-buy, leading to awkward min/maxing (or awkward rule clarifications to prevent it).

Before I switched to point-buy, I had a lot of players who were frequently pretty meh about their characters. As a player I like the challenge of adopting to die rolls, but as a GM my players don't enjoy that particular exercise. I find this is true especially with newer players, who are more likely to become immersed in a character that closely matches their preconceptions of a fantasy hero.

My preferred method of character generation is simply making up the character I want.

No rolling.  No point build.  Just stat it up.

Marvel Super Heroes calls it "modeling."  I don't think it's ever been given another name.

Quote from: Gabriel2;1031759My preferred method of character generation is simply making up the character I want.

No rolling.  No point build.  Just stat it up.

Marvel Super Heroes calls it "modeling."  I don't think it's ever been given another name.

I don't mind this as long as everyone is on the same page.  Trust is important, but as long as you the GM vets it, there's no real issue here.

Quote from: CarlD.;1031390I find it amusing that there is some pretense that character optimization only exists in point buy generation. Unless everything, literally everything is determined randomly, the system can be gamed. Some of the biggest most dedicated min maxer and power gamers I've had seen where in D and D and other random generation based systems.

No, certainly, you're right that Character Optimization is something that can occur in any number of systems, many of which are far from complete point buy. D&D 3.x is an excellent example of a system that was crappier on account of being intentionally designed to reward character-optimization; Monte Cook stated as much, that it was meant to reward players who obsessively studied the rules and learned all the feats etc to create superior combos vs. players who were not that way and 'wasted' their feat selection.

But the general point is that the more choices you have control of during character creation and character advancement, and the more options available in each choice, the more the possibility exists to game the system.  That is to say, "you get x" or "you roll and what you roll is what you get" is zero choice and thus in essence zero opportunity to game the system. Saying "you get to choose either x or y" is slightly gameable but it's a very limited choice. While "you have 30 points and can choose to use those points to purchase things from a list of 300 possible options" is hugely gameable.

So if you are playing really old-school games, where often the vast majority of character creation and character advancement is either random or presents you with no option, your ability to game the system is mostly limited to some very specific selections (in some versions of the game, pretty much just which class you play and nothing else; in others things like spell selection to a certain extent).

Quote from: Certified;1031395Clearly, you are just trying to distract people form the magical gender reassignment fairies that live in your game worlds.

Shitting yourself in mid-fight didn't work the first time, dude. It won't help you now.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1031442Phil Barker ran into this on Tekumel.  Early players had names like "Xerox," "Abilene," and "Hashish."

And you're also right about some worlds are more tolerant.  "Gronan of Simmerya" worked fine in Greyhawk, but "Hlych'ptu" didn't work well in Tekumel.  So after a couple of years my character adopted a Tsolyani name.  Fortunately, Tsolyanu had a bureaucracy perfectly capable of registering a name change to "Korunme."

Long story short, after the first six months or so, people just asked Phil for help.

yeah, that's a good example. In certain settings you can get away with almost anything. In others, there's an immersive experience that requires that people buy in to the context.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1031461Okay, this seems to be mixing issues a bit. Mechanical social resolution mechanics are a completely separate issue than random, semi-random, or point-buy character creation.

Not when the claim is that point-buy is meant to generate better and more active roleplaying. Making that argument opens the door to pointing out that the same mentality that allows one to carefully create a character through bean-counting is what then removes any aspect of roleplaying in social situations in lieu of having to roll checks with the skills you either optimized or didn't optimized in the former bean-counting procedure.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032124Shitting yourself in mid-fight didn't work the first time, dude. It won't help you now.

While I may be guilty of a bit of  reductio ad absurdum, what I find telling is that you focus only on this and not on the other aspects of my posts, I mean, aside from the obvious and abundant nature of magical gender reassignment fey that clearly populate your worlds. Is this because it's easier to focus on the joke than actually exploring the idea that there is nothing wrong with playing a character that isn't mostly random?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032126Not when the claim is that point-buy is meant to generate better and more active roleplaying. Making that argument opens the door to pointing out that the same mentality that allows one to carefully create a character through bean-counting is what then removes any aspect of roleplaying in social situations in lieu of having to roll checks with the skills you either optimized or didn't optimized in the former bean-counting procedure.

I've not seen any claim made here that point buy is better or worse at creating better roleplaying.

The only argument I've seen made is that some people prefer the point buy method (or allocation or modelling or selections from a lifepath) to random generation. You're the only one claiming that one particular method is the only path to good roleplaying.

Frankly, from my experience the method of character generation has almost nothing to do with the quality of the roleplaying; good roleplayers have interesting characters (usually because they'll creatively interpet whatever aspects of their character they DO have control over) regardless of the method used and crappy roleplayers have crappy characters (the guy who RPs exactly one personality regardless of what they're playing isn't suddenly going to improve when handed a random character) whether rolled or allocated or point-bought.

You also seem to be erroneously conflating resolving social situations using rolls with point-buy, when it is entirely possible to have a point-buy game where social interaction can only be resolved only with roleplaying (heck, I've seen some point-buy systems that don't even use non-physical stats; you have to roleplay any mental/social task out with the GM).

I've also seen games with random generation that had entirely mechanized social interaction... lest we forget it was 3e that was home to the infamous 'Diplomancer' and its default character generation was 4d6 (drop lowest) and not point-buy.

There's certainly a discussion that can be had about best practices for social interaction resolution, but its a completely separate issue from what methods of character generation someone might prefer.

This thresd demonstrates how futile it can be to try and argue subjective tastes as they're objective facts. Conversations about tastes are fine but trying to prove is generally just an exercise in shit flinging, hyberpole, reductio ad absurdum,   and the furious construction of strawmen.

Over the best way  for adults to play "Let's pretend to be elf" games.

No character generation scheme appear to be driving any of the others out of existence. If you enjoy social mechanics and find them fun to use, use them, plenty of have them. If you find the a distraction at best, a crutch at worst don't play games with them or just ignore if they're there. For most rpgs, that's not hard.

Quote from: Chris24601;1032138I've not seen any claim made here that point buy is better or worse at creating better roleplaying.

I was directly answering to someone who had claimed that point-buy systems led to superior roleplaying.

QuoteYou also seem to be erroneously conflating resolving social situations using rolls with point-buy, when it is entirely possible to have a point-buy game where social interaction can only be resolved only with roleplaying (heck, I've seen some point-buy systems that don't even use non-physical stats; you have to roleplay any mental/social task out with the GM).

Sure, but by default any system that does have social skills (and most of them do) will have to put an emphasis on the mechanical resolution of social situations.  Otherwise, the guy who invested 75 of his 250 points in social skills will be completely ripped off when the guy who spent 0 points on social skills but is just better at roleplaying routinely shows him up by better speaking and better social approaches in actual roleplaying.

QuoteI've also seen games with random generation that had entirely mechanized social interaction... lest we forget it was 3e that was home to the infamous 'Diplomancer' and its default character generation was 4d6 (drop lowest) and not point-buy.

Yes, that was a very serious problem. It was a very serious problem because skills in 3e, including the social skills, was point-buy.

Quote from: Nexus;1032141This thresd demonstrates how futile it can be to try and argue subjective tastes as they're objective facts..

There's some arguments here that are absolutely objective fact.

FACT: if you're using point-buy, then the person who has studied the game more thoroughly and has expertise in what point-buy choices are superior versus what builds are inferior will have a real advantage over a newbie who has no such research experience.

FACT: if a game includes point-buy social skills, then either those social skill point-buys will have to give them a vastly superior edge over just roleplaying in social situations, or those social skills will all be horrible point-buy optimization choices and the game will thus be badly designed.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032383Sure, but by default any system that does have social skills (and most of them do) will have to put an emphasis on the mechanical resolution of social situations.  Otherwise, the guy who invested 75 of his 250 points in social skills will be completely ripped off when the guy who spent 0 points on social skills but is just better at roleplaying routinely shows him up by better speaking and better social approaches in actual roleplaying.

And the point-buy system which doesn't even include social skills as things that can be bought (as was the case one system I mentioned) would NOT have the problem. Ergo, the problem you have is NOT with the point-buy but with the fact that it uses mechanical resolution of social interactions.

The only difference that Random Rolls for abilities makes with mechanically resolved social interactions is that who gets to be good at resolving them using those rules is random. The underlying problem with the rules that you have remains.

QuoteYes, that was a very serious problem. It was a very serious problem because skills in 3e, including the social skills, was point-buy.

Again, the problem would exist whether skill bonuses were determined by random roll or if proficiency gave a net X+1/X levels. The problem was not that people could put points into diplomacy; the problem WAS that the resolution table allowed high rolls with that skill to instantly turn enemies into fanatical allies and that the designers included means of gaming the system to gain bonuses to diplomacy well above what ranks in the skill alone would provide (indeed, unimproved Cha+4+level that max ranks would provide would not have been able to hit the needed DC's until late game when casters are throwing around 7th+ spells like candy).

It was the synergy bonuses, stat bumps, magic item enhancement bonuses to Charisma and relatively cheap skill bonuses to Diplomacy from magic items that pushed the Diplomacy bonus into the stratosphere and enabled the system to break; not the fact that you got points to improve your skills with every level.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032385FACT: if you're using point-buy, then the person who has studied the game more thoroughly and has expertise in what point-buy choices are superior versus what builds are inferior will have a real advantage over a newbie who has no such research experience.

Unless that player is not an asshole and helps the Newbies make their characters too; then they're all on an even field and able to face the challenges that the GM throws at them better than just having one shining star. That's how it happens here. Then there's the aforementioned can't help hyper-specializing himself into uselessness 'expert' in point buy.

QuoteFACT: if a game includes point-buy social skills, then either those social skill point-buys will have to give them a vastly superior edge over just roleplaying in social situations, or those social skills will all be horrible point-buy optimization choices and the game will thus be badly designed.

And if the game vastly rewards people who roll well on certain stats (ex. Charisma's effect on Reaction Rolls and number of henchmen/hirelings you can retain) it will give them a vastly superior edge over just roleplaying in social situations.

Again, you are conflating two separate problems... probably because doing so lets you try and lash the self-percieved millstone of mechanical resolution for social interactions around the neck of your disfavored character generation method. The problem is NOT the point buy... its the mechanics of the social interactions.

And that problem will vary from group to group. Not every group wants to roleplay out haggling with every merchant in the marketplace for a discount while stocking up on rope, pitons, rations and lamp oil. They just want to roll a Diplomacy (or Bargain if that's the skill in that system) get the result and move on.

Hell, I've seen one group where they make the Diplomacy skill check before they even speak and then use that as the basis to actually roleplay out the results ("Well, I botched that... [proceeds to give a speech to the Lord trying to win him to their cause where the character inadvertently implies the Lord's wife and daughter are whores]."). It requires the players to not just think about their character's headspace as they succeed, but also how they would fail.

I've also seen Diplomacy used as essentially a more instinctive "knowledge: etiquette" check where success has the GM tell the player what the proper manners, customs and 'best practices' are for trying to achieve what they want to do, but then leaves it to the player to actually roleplay the use of that knowledge and judges the results based on how well they roleplay the task. They typically also throw in an Insight check to inform the player of what it seems the target of their diplomacy wants and how he's reacting to the efforts.

Those may not be your preferred styles of play, but there's nothing wrong with those approaches either so long as everyone is having fun.

Nor is it wrong for someone who's NOT good at being a smooth talker to play a high Charisma character with lots of skill in social situations. Even if the player is stumbling over their words, any GM who doesn't treat their in-character words as magnetic and always taken in the best way possible in all situations is a shit GM deserving only of mockery and derision because they can't separate player ability from character ability. That holds true whether the high Charisma well trained at social task character got handed to them by the result of random rolls or was built using points as an avenue of wish fulfillment.

Which, frankly, is the whole reasoning behind mechanical resolution for social situations; to keep the naturally outgoing and charming players from being able to basically ignore the fact that they rolled a 5 Charisma and have no proficiency in anything related to etiquette or similar... but know they can get away with it because the GM uses only what the players say as their means of resolving situations and they're very good as a player at being persuasive.

One can argue the implementation of those resolution systems, but the reasoning that the player is not their character and so characters with smarter/more insightful/more charismatic players shouldn't get benefits over characters with dumber/more oblivious/less charismatic players is at least a worthwhile problem to attempt to tackle.

And different groups find different angles that work for them. I know one GM who flat out said that the Int/Wis/Cha scores would only be counting for mechanical widgets (i.e. save bonuses, spells known, etc.) and to not waste any points on non-physical skills because those elements would all come down to roleplay. That's valid.

So is the group who follows the Feng Shui approach of "Think up cool fight scenes, then wrap a plot around them" and the only point of social interaction is to move you to the next possible fight scene. So long as everyone's having a good time that's valid too.

As much as you want it to be true, there is no one right and true way to play roleplaying games and your "truths" are just, like, your opinion man.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032385There's some arguments here that are absolutely objective fact.

FACT: if you're using point-buy, then the person who has studied the game more thoroughly and has expertise in what point-buy choices are superior versus what builds are inferior will have a real advantage over a newbie who has no such research experience.

Objective perhaps, but requiring context. A point-buy system that is simple enough for its pros and cons to be taken in at a glance does not exhibit this "fact". Ditto for a game in which the ability scores so bought don't play enough of a factor in character advantage to matter .

QuoteFACT: if you're using point-buy, then the person who has studied the game more thoroughly and has expertise in what point-buy choices are superior versus what builds are inferior will have a real advantage over a newbie who has no such research experience.

Knowing the rules better makes you better at any game that isn't dirt simple and/or totally random. Well, yeah, that's called experience.

Take some players that have never played before and other who are veterans. Hae them roll up characters. I'll bet you a fair sum that experienced characters will be more effcient and well constructed in at least the options the player controls. Having been the noob among a group of pros in a DnD game I've seen that in action. A player that gone through the various splat books, Complete Guides to X,  equipment lists, etc, and picked out the best combination is going to create a more mechanically optimum character that some new guy that rolls up attributes and picks things that look cool. Sometimes substantially better if they pull stunts like rolling attributes until they get a set they like (can even 'play' the character and get it killed off) The margin of difference can be wider than I've generally seen in point buy set ups but I've heard stories.

Unless you advocate everything, down to equipment be randomized being a more experienced player is going to make difference regardless of hoe attributes are generated. Why is someone that's played longer is better at the game than someone that hasn't suddenly a Bad Thing when it comes to rpgs. I thought Old School was big on Player Knowledge counts .

Not sure why you seem so driven to prove chocolate ice cream and Star Trek are Objectively Superior to Strawberry and Star Wars. Its a preference.

"Just roleplaying" does not create an even field, far from it. Some people are just more socially oriented, better performers, better at reading the GM (which, IME is usually what
"Just role playing" is, working the gm not the NPC in question) including having a better relationship with the GM, thinking along the same lines as they do, etc.  Nothing wrong with that at its base, gaming is a social activity. But like real life, things are rarely even, they're just biased by more out of game aspects.

For me, social mechanics allow for more objectivity and IC consideration coming into play and less metagaming. Good social mechanics are like good combat mechanics in a way. They allow the player to work within them and exercise creativity to influence the out come which isn't a forgone conclusion or purely random, like good mechanics should, IMO.

Personally, I like systems that let me codify my characters personality including their limits mechanically yet there is a chance something might surprise me. Some of the most engrossing rp I've experienced has stemmed from 'losing' in some form of social contest, dealing with the repercussions and contextualizing what it meant about the character. But I can accept others have different preferences for how to go about it or don't care for it at all.

An yes, sometimes social contests an mechanics can be a short cut for those moments in a game that people just aren't interested in role playing out in detail or have no idea how to if they did. Which I feel is fair, players aren't required to be able replicate every physical or mental feat their characters can pull off.

Finally, with point buy, yes you could sink almost all your character creation resources into social skills but there's only so many which means you've shorted something else and a glib tongue isn't going to solve every problem. Depending on the style of game, maybe few to none of them.

Quote from: CarlD.;1032493Take some players that have never played before and other who are veterans. Hae them roll up characters. I'll bet you a fair sum that experienced characters will be more effcient and well constructed in at least the options the player controls. Having been the noob among a group of pros in a DnD game I've seen that in action. A player that gone through the various splat books, Complete Guides to X,  equipment lists, etc, and picked out the best combination is going to create a more mechanically optimum character that some new guy that rolls up attributes and picks things that look cool. Sometimes substantially better if they pull stunts like rolling attributes until they get a set they like (can even 'play' the character and get it killed off) The margin of difference can be wider than I've generally seen in point buy set ups but I've heard stories.

It doesn't even need to be character build stuff. Just having a player more versed in D&D-isms provides advantage. Knowing that there are rust monsters so bring a wooden weapon, but there are also druids with Warp Wood so bring a non-wooden one, and search for traps when you can afford the time (but watch out for ear seekers), and yes bring silver weapons for werewolves but not garlic for vampires... you can have serious discrepancy in PC success based on player experience even in games with limited character-creation min-maxing.

Which is not to say that the minmax potential of games like D&D 3e, GURPS, HERO System (note that this includes both point buy and mostly-not-point-buy) is significantly higher than other games. They are. It can be annoying. You really need to play those games with everyone on the same page about what level of minmaxing is as Pundy puts it "doing what players are meant to do, which is to maximize their own personal advantage as a player," and what level is unacceptable cheeZe.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032383Yes, that was a very serious problem. It was a very serious problem because skills in 3e, including the social skills, was point-buy.

No, it was because:

1. A single d20 v. DC roll is a moderately terrible skill check engine.
2. 3e included a table with objective DCs to hit to achieve predetermined effects in predetermined conditions, plus had tons of feats which could be used to goose your bonus way up.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032505Which is not to say that the minmax potential of games like D&D 3e, GURPS, HERO System (note that this includes both point buy and mostly-not-point-buy) is significantly higher than other games. They are. It can be annoying. You really need to play those games with everyone on the same page about what level of minmaxing is as Pundy puts it "doing what players are meant to do, which is to maximize their own personal advantage as a player," and what level is unacceptable cheeZe.

I think there are caveats to the above. As far as basic attribute generation goes, yes, there are more choices involved in, say GURPS, for example than "Roll X number of dice in order" But there are plenty of min max and optimization choices available after that step and for GURPS and Hero while there are allot of options, I've found they're balanced against each other. You load up on one, you've left yourself weaker in another. There's few omni-character builds that have all their basis cover.

There are options that synergize effctively with each other and smart choice, but IME I've seen the same things in D and D and other random systems. Picking classes, feats, spells, etc. Some of comes down when a game has literally hundreds of supplments scattered across years by different authors everything is not going to be well balanced and someone dedicated will find tricks. It applies to GURPS, Hero, D and D, etc. If the game doesn't make the player randomly determine everything the character, some are going to make effecient choices, some are going to pick what they thinks is fun or cool, some won't give a damn, etc and experience is going to show.

But yeah, more rules and choices means there's more to work with. Generally there's more strategy and gamesmanship of various kinds in chess and Go than checkers which has more that Tic-tac-toe or Chutes and Ladders. What I don't agree with is that one format makes someone more likely to game that system for power and unfair advantage in role playing games. I've found that's tendency players have to begin with (its fun for them,the way their minds work or for whatever reason) or sometimes develop as an adaptation if others players or more so the gm has it to keep up. Certain types of games or styles of rules don't create power gamers from my experience, certain types of game will attract them but any game is going to drae people who like the ply style it supports. More hack and slashers are going to play D and D or Rifts than Fiaso but that doesn't mean those first two make people play that way.

Again, it comes to preferences. People play to have fun and people have fun in different ways. There's no Objectively correct way to enjoy RPGS as much as enthusiasts like us to argue and bash on each other about it. And Wille_the_Duck brings up an excellent points. One group's minmaxing and power gaming is another's smart play. Its mainly a problem when members of the same group have radically different approaches and preferences but that applies to many things.

Speaking for GURPS:

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032505... Which is not to say that the minmax potential of games like D&D 3e, GURPS, HERO System (note that this includes both point buy and mostly-not-point-buy) is significantly higher than other games. They are. It can be annoying. You really need to play those games with everyone on the same page about what level of minmaxing is as Pundy puts it "doing what players are meant to do, which is to maximize their own personal advantage as a player," and what level is unacceptable cheeZe.

Yes experience lets you build more effective characters in GURPS and it's possible to minimax and build silly characters (either subhuman, nonsensical, or unrealistically focused munchkin designs) and I don't think GURPS runs well without a reasonably experienced GM, and unless an experienced GM wants silly characters, he can and should help players make characters, spot problems and not allow characters to be inappropriate, which can and should include making everyone's PC be reasonable for the game style he wants to run. Therefore, not an actual problem unless the problem is the GM.

And, most experienced GURPS players I (have) known are also not excessively optimizing their characters, both because they know the GM can/will/should correct them, and because they have experienced that it's more fun and interesting if they make appropriate characters.

Quote from: CarlD.;1032769I think there are caveats to the above. As far as basic attribute generation goes, yes, there are more choices involved in, say GURPS, for example than "Roll X number of dice in order" But there are plenty of min max and optimization choices available after that step and for GURPS and Hero while there are allot of options, I've found they're balanced against each other. You load up on one, you've left yourself weaker in another. There's few omni-character builds that have all their basis cover.
...

That too. The potential for silly munchkinism exists though if there are enough points allowed and not enough guidelines & limits. The silly munchkinism will be balanced in some sense but I think GM guidelines/limits/oversight still is wanted except when players are experienced and on the same page.

Quote from: Zalman;1032439Objective perhaps, but requiring context. A point-buy system that is simple enough for its pros and cons to be taken in at a glance does not exhibit this "fact". Ditto for a game in which the ability scores so bought don't play enough of a factor in character advantage to matter .

There are a few point-buy games that are notable for their abject simplicity.  These usually manage to avoid many of the pitfalls of the sort I'm talking about.

But the most notable point-buy games (GURPS, Shadowrun, Champions, WoD, etc etc) are not this sort of simplicity.

Quote from: CarlD.;1032493Knowing the rules better makes you better at any game that isn't dirt simple and/or totally random. Well, yeah, that's called experience.

In RPGs, it's also called bad design.

QuoteTake some players that have never played before and other who are veterans. Hae them roll up characters. I'll bet you a fair sum that experienced characters will be more effcient and well constructed in at least the options the player controls. Having been the noob among a group of pros in a DnD game I've seen that in action. A player that gone through the various splat books, Complete Guides to X,  equipment lists, etc, and picked out the best combination is going to create a more mechanically optimum character that some new guy that rolls up attributes and picks things that look cool. Sometimes substantially better if they pull stunts like rolling attributes until they get a set they like (can even 'play' the character and get it killed off) The margin of difference can be wider than I've generally seen in point buy set ups but I've heard stories.

Yes, these are all problems of versions of D&D where point-buy subsystems have been introduced. It's why 3.x eventually became a gigantic mess, for example.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032520No, it was because:

1. A single d20 v. DC roll is a moderately terrible skill check engine.

Actually, it's very elegant if handled correctly.

Quote2. 3e included a table with objective DCs to hit to achieve predetermined effects in predetermined conditions, plus had tons of feats which could be used to goose your bonus way up.

Yes. That was a big problem. Because both 3.x skills and feats were point-buy systems.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033093Yes. That was a big problem. Because both 3.x skills and feats were point-buy systems.

Fearsome is pointing out that the defined DC to achieve certain effects (without any real understanding of how easily those DCs could be obtained) is what caused the problem. You have not laid out the evidence for the claim that point buy is the actual culprit here. You are not bringing the audience along with your line of thinking.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033092In RPGs, it's also called bad design.

Then no RPG ever has been well-designed, Pundit;).
In all RPGs knowing the rules will make you better, even if it's only by a slim margin. Yes, even in Lion&Dragon:)!

Simple example from 3d6 in order OD&D that almost happened: the player gets a statblock of 16 Str, 9 Dex, 11 Con, 12 Int, 4 Wis and 5 Cha...and a player who didn't even have a copy of the rules decides to play a Cleric instead of Fighter. Why?
Because he checked that it's possible by the rules, but had no idea (and didn't think to ask) that attributes give XP bonuses and penalties, that's why:D. So, instead of a bonus from high Strength, the player almost took the class that gets a penalty from his low Wisdom. That's rules ignorance for you.
(Of course, it was quickly pointed out. At the end, the player made a religious Fighter who served the church, just without being a miracle-worker. And he still wielded a mace, because he'd trained with a clerical order).
Would it have been a better character as a Cleric? Unlikely, IMO.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033093Yes. That was a big problem. Because both 3.x skills and feats were point-buy systems.

So characters can't even select what to focus on as they advance (i.e. selecting feats and devoting points to skills, representing effort to master those skills vs. other skills) or it's bad rules design?

Are gold pieces point-buy because characters can choose how to invest those too (like say a wizard into crafting magic items that could boost someone's Charisma or skill at Diplomacy)?

I'm guessing you also think ability score improvements as you level up in systems like 5e are also point-buy since you don't roll randomly to see which ones improve?

Are levels point-buy if a system has multi-class rules too?

At a certain point your definition of point-buy gets so broad that it ceases to have meaning.

The other problem is that your arguments about the Diplomancer being rooted in the "evils" of point-buy are simply not connecting anywhere outside your own head. It should say something when you now have to expand point-buy to mean "feat selection." Its why asking if ability score improvements, leveling up via multi-classing and spending gold aren't next in your Ahab-like quest to link point-buy to the White Whale of bad game design doesn't feel completely out of left field.

The fundamental disconnect is that the problem with Diplomancers would still exist even if you rolled for stats and used one of the Unearthed Arcana options like "Level Based Skill Checks" where you don't get skills, just bonus to class skills (and only class skills) equal to your level.

The only difference is that the "Diplomancer" trick would just be available to random players who rolled really well on their Charisma score and then picked Bard, Cleric or Paladin as a class (all three of whom gain benefits from a high Charisma, making them natural choices if the player rolls a good Charisma score). i.e. literally everything random except your choice of career, just like you're saying is the Platonic ideal of game design... and the Diplomancer would STILL be a problem.

And that's why your attempts to foist the millstone of Diplomancers around the neck of point-buy just isn't working. Its like arguing that a car that won't start needs to have its engine replaced because the gas tank is empty. You can replace the engine all you want, but it won't solve the actual problem keeping the car from starting (the empty gas tank).

Quote from: AsenRG;1033112Then no RPG ever has been well-designed, Pundit;).

Indeed. A player's knowledge and experience are always going to have an impact. Impartially, the so called Even Player Feild stems from the rules. In point buy, all players generally start with the same resources, in random everyoe has the same chances.

Which you prefer depends what you want out of the experience and enjoy. More experience with either is going to provide some level of advantage in character creation or in play. The players innate ability isn't considered an unfair edge in other aspect of gaming. For those that prefer non mechanical "Just role play it" handling of social interaction, player ability is the basis, for example. Nothing evens the playing field. This often but fourth as a feature not a bug in that case.

In a point buy frame work that has social mechanics, its a somewhat different story. Again, comees down to what the individuals likes and wants out of play.

Quote from: CarlD.;1033241Indeed. A player's knowledge and experience are always going to have an impact.

Yes. I just try to make sure that my players get more impact out of skills that aren't crunch-related:).
But that's me, not the rules;).

QuoteImpartially, the so called Even Player Feild stems from the rules. In point buy, all players generally start with the same resources, in random everyoe has the same chances.

Yes.
But, you know, it might not be an Even Playing Field if all players have the same resources. That's why a chessmaster playing with you will remove one of his pieces before you start...and then trounce you soundly while you thought you were winning:D!
The gift benefits the master, not you. He has to actually put some thought behind evening out the disadvantage, while if you were playing with the same resources, the outcome would never be in doubt.

Similarly, that's why some systems advise you to give less XP for the same achievements to player with better skills. They still achieve at least as much as the others, anyway, you just up the ante for them, and they usually earn the same amount;).

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1033107Fearsome is pointing out that the defined DC to achieve certain effects (without any real understanding of how easily those DCs could be obtained) is what caused the problem. You have not laid out the evidence for the claim that point buy is the actual culprit here. You are not bringing the audience along with your line of thinking.

The problem I'm talking about had nothing to do with that. It had to do with people gaming the system. For skills being exclusive rather than inclusive (just like feats did the same even to things in combat that everyone should be able to do). For social skills being used as an alternative to roleplaying.

And the problem with all of that at its core was that players made CHOICES to invest in certain skills. If the GM turned around and said "those skills don't do what the rules say they do" or "other people who didn't put points into skills can also do those things" or "player b who has no skill points in diplomacy but actually just fucking said the right thing in the right way gets to succeed and you, who said the wrong thing or said nothing but has a +10 bonus to your diplomacy roll will fail", then it is not only that it will have a sense of 'unfairness' but that doing so will then compound the problem.  Because now the people who DIDN'T invest in those skills that are problematic (say, because they knew how this GM operates) were the smart ones.

That's the problem I'm talking about. I don't give a twopenny fuck about whatever personal conundrum you guys are talking about. I'm talking about why point buy is shit.

Quote from: AsenRG;1033112Then no RPG ever has been well-designed, Pundit;).
In all RPGs knowing the rules will make you better, even if it's only by a slim margin. Yes, even in Lion&Dragon:)!

Simple example from 3d6 in order OD&D that almost happened: the player gets a statblock of 16 Str, 9 Dex, 11 Con, 12 Int, 4 Wis and 5 Cha...and a player who didn't even have a copy of the rules decides to play a Cleric instead of Fighter. Why?
Because he checked that it's possible by the rules, but had no idea (and didn't think to ask) that attributes give XP bonuses and penalties, that's why:D. So, instead of a bonus from high Strength, the player almost took the class that gets a penalty from his low Wisdom. That's rules ignorance for you.
(Of course, it was quickly pointed out. At the end, the player made a religious Fighter who served the church, just without being a miracle-worker. And he still wielded a mace, because he'd trained with a clerical order).
Would it have been a better character as a Cleric? Unlikely, IMO.

That's also an example of bad design.

That's why in Lion & Dragon, you can't play a class if you don't have a 9+ in the class' connected ability score.

Anyways, YES, in non-point-buy games there can also be instances of bad design, and in non-point buy games there can still be ways to game the rules. But Point-Buy games:

a) Make that sort of thing MUCH WORSE

and

b) implicitly ENCOURAGE (in many cases) that kind of situation

Quote from: Chris24601;1033136So characters can't even select what to focus on as they advance (i.e. selecting feats and devoting points to skills, representing effort to master those skills vs. other skills) or it's bad rules design?

It's less bad design than point buy.

A system where you get told "you don't get to choose stuff at character creation mostly, but when you hit level 2 you'll get a choice between option A or option B" is much less prone to abuse than a system that says "here's 400 points, you get to pick between 2300 different potential choices, plus every time you level up you'll get another 25 points to put into that same number of choices".

QuoteAre gold pieces point-buy because characters can choose how to invest those too (like say a wizard into crafting magic items that could boost someone's Charisma or skill at Diplomacy)?

No, gold pieces are part of immersion into a setting. If you really don't understand the difference you're a fucking moron. Unless you're talking about something where in complete defiance of emulation people get x amount of gold pieces for no reason every x period of time with no in-setting justification, in which case that's abysmal design.

QuoteI'm guessing you also think ability score improvements as you level up in systems like 5e are also point-buy since you don't roll randomly to see which ones improve?

Well, they're less problematic than "here's 400 points, go nuts and wank all over the entire fucking rulebook".

QuoteAre levels point-buy if a system has multi-class rules too?

Multi-classing is very often a clusterfuck of problematic rules. Still not nearly as bad as your favorite point-buy game, though.

QuoteThe other problem is that your arguments about the Diplomancer being rooted in the "evils" of point-buy are simply not connecting anywhere outside your own head.

"I spent 8 of my 20 skill points on diplomacy. Therefore I must now be better at winning in social situations than other players who spent their set of POINTS to BUY other skills. If that is true it means it doesn't matter how badly I roleplay, I SPENT THE POINTS TO BUY SUCCESS.
If it is not true, then that means that other people who BOUGHT things with POINTS are getting a better deal than me, meaning that there's ways to manipulate the system to min-max POINT BUY of skills"

QuoteIt should say something when you now have to expand point-buy to mean "feat selection."

You get four POINTS to BUY feats from a list of 200 feats, at a cost of 1 feat per point.

QuoteIts why asking if ability score improvements, leveling up via multi-classing and spending gold aren't next in your Ahab-like quest to link point-buy to the White Whale of bad game design doesn't feel completely out of left field.

No, it's just more of your retarded shitting-your-own-pants school of debating that you clearly learned from some obscure keyboard-fu monastery that trained you wrong as a fucking joke, Wimp Lo.

QuoteThe fundamental disconnect is that the problem with Diplomancers would still exist even if you rolled for stats and used one of the Unearthed Arcana options like "Level Based Skill Checks" where you don't get skills, just bonus to class skills (and only class skills) equal to your level.

Yes, that's true because ALL SOCIAL SKILLS ARE SHIT. They're all garbage. But the COMBINATION of Social Skills plus Point Buy are a fucking disaster of epic proportions.

Social Skills should not exist in a ROLEPLAYING GAME at all, and Point Buy is still garbage. That's the problem with your argument, Wimp Lo, as soon as one concedes that social skills are shit what you're saying does nothing to change the fact that point-buy is also awful. Social Skills combined with point buy is just one of the best examples, but all the same problems exist in a skill system that doesn't include social skills.

Its just that games designed with point buy are usually designed by control freaks, who want to be able to bean-count their way through the gaming experience, so the same putrid impulse that leads them to create a system where every step of character creation is completely under the total control of the creator is likely to lead them to also have a set of social mechanics where no one can take away their precious control by actually fucking roleplaying in a way that's unfair to autistics and the socially retarded.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033465That's also an example of bad design.

What, the OD&D example? Or just the rule that you get more XP for having a high "connected" attribute, and a penalty for a low one?
I disagree either way, but I'd like to know what I'm disagreeing with.

QuoteThat's why in Lion & Dragon, you can't play a class if you don't have a 9+ in the class' connected ability score.

Which is its own share of issues when it comes to worldbuilding. Come on, Pundit, what happens to Cymri or Scotman guys who are born in the society with no way out, but don't get 9+ on the connected attribute?

QuoteAnyways, YES, in non-point-buy games there can also be instances of bad design, and in non-point buy games there can still be ways to game the rules.

Of course:)!

QuoteBut Point-Buy games:

a) Make that sort of thing MUCH WORSE

and

b) implicitly ENCOURAGE (in many cases) that kind of situation

Nope, they don't. In the above scenario, a point-buy game would have simply required someone to hold the guy's hand while he (or she, it was an online game and I never cared to know) is creating a character.
Anyway, you're missing my point: your earlier statement that if a game rewards knowing the rules, it's a bad RPG, is simply wrong. All RPGs reward some amount of rules knowledge - like knowing how many people with what weapons fit in a 3-meters corridor (2 with swords or axes, but three with spears).

And in what pertains to your "war against the point-buy", I'm not interested. To me, point-buy, random, and lifepath generators are simply different, each with their own set of issues and advantages. Some will appeal to a given subset of gamers, others, to a different one. And some gamers, myself included, would be able to enjoy all of them for what they are, and hopefully would know enough to mitigate the disadvantages;).

Quote from: AsenRG;1033291But, you know, it might not be an Even Playing Field if all players have the same resources. That's why a chessmaster playing with you will remove one of his pieces before you start...and then trounce you soundly while you thought you were winning:D!
The gift benefits the master, not you. He has to actually put some thought behind evening out the disadvantage, while if you were playing with the same resources, the outcome would never be in doubt.

Similarly, that's why some systems advise you to give less XP for the same achievements to player with better skills. They still achieve at least as much as the others, anyway, you just up the ante for them, and they usually earn the same amount;).

I think I failed to make myself clear; please allow me to restate myself: It was that the mechanics start players out on an equal basis or with equal chancces. Points, random, neither is inherently unfair. In both modes or almost any gaame really Player experiene, understanding and talent will be different and effect the outcome.

IMO, that's not undesirable or unreasonable.

Quote from: CarlD.;1033503I think I failed to make myself clear; please allow me to restate myself: It was that the mechanics start players out on an equal basis or with equal chancces. Points, random, neither is inherently unfair. In both modes or almost any gaame really Player experiene, understanding and talent will be different and effect the outcome.

IMO, that's not undesirable or unreasonable.

And I agree with that:).
My point is that even the "Even Playing Field" might not be the best way. In some games, it's sometimes better to put the more experienced players at an additional disadvantage, and that's not "unfair", it just makes for a more interesting game that's not dominated by one person;).

For 5e, random point-buy, choose race & class. My random point-buy proceeds by rolling 2d6. First die is the score to increase, second is how much to increase it by. Start with 27 points, follow the rules for increasing your scores. Continue until you've spent all 27 points.

This guarantees a usable set of scores.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033468No, it's just more of your retarded shitting-your-own-pants school of debating that you clearly learned from some obscure keyboard-fu monastery that trained you wrong as a fucking joke, Wimp Lo.

I prefer it to the "I'm Right! I'm Right!! I'm Right and if you disagree you're a poopy-head!!!" school of debate. You've already lost this and you know it or you wouldn't need to resort the personal attacks to try and save face.

QuoteNo, gold pieces are part of immersion into a setting. If you really don't understand the difference you're a fucking moron.

I asked because you seem to attribute anything that might increase your ability to pull the 'Diplomancer' trick in 3e as point buy (first skill points, then feats) and the number one tool for abuse isn't skill points or even feats but MAGIC ITEMS; all of which are capable of being crafted by a 3e wizard using only their class features and gold pieces. Cloak of Charisma +2/4/6 and a magic item to give you +5 to +20 or more to a skill check will contribute more to being able to hit the DCs on the Diplomacy Reaction table than all twenty levels of spending skill points ever will.

But the setting allows it so, as you just stated, that can't be immersion breaking point-buy. So how can point-buy be the reason for the Diplomancer problem if something you say is definitely NOT point-buy is one of the primary contributors to it?

Or have you changed your mind and now are going to state that 3e's gold pieces are obvious point buy?

QuoteWell, they're less problematic than "here's 400 points, go nuts and wank all over the entire fucking rulebook".

You do understand that the system with the Diplomancer problem is 3rd Edition D&D right? The system where the default ability score generation is 4d6 drop lowest? The one where your skill points you receive are based on your class and your randomly rolled Intelligence score, and which has hard limits on how many skill points you can put into a skill at every level?

Because you're currently railing at an imaginary point-buy system that doesn't even exist as part of the actual game that has the problem with its mechanics. You are claiming that the imaginary system is the root cause of the problem instead of the problem being a badly designed Reaction Roll table. This is why your line of argument feels nonsensical to others.

QuoteYou get four POINTS to BUY feats from a list of 200 feats, at a cost of 1 feat per point.

I don't know what game you're referring to but a starting character in 3rd Edition (the one with the Diplomancer issue) only gives you one feat at first level (two if you're a human because that IS your racial feature). Similarly, even a Human Rogue with an 18 Intelligence (52 skill points) can only spend 4 points on the Diplomacy skill at level 1 and can only spend one additional point on it per level.

Inventing rules system that don't exist in order to rail against them is straight up Straw-manning; not a very convincing debate technique, though slightly above name-calling at least.

QuoteMulti-classing is very often a clusterfuck of problematic rules. Still not nearly as bad as your favorite point-buy game, though.

Again, you're confusing me for someone who prefers point-buy. I've said several times already that my preferred method is Allocation (i.e. assign stats from an array, pick X of Y listed skills/traits), but again... that's just my preference not an objective best method. I don't believe there to be a single best One-True-Way method of character generation (which is why I've included allocation, point-buy and two different random roll methods of character generation; including random tables for species, background and class; as options in the game I've been developing... so people can play what they like to play).

You're the one arguing a "One True Way" path of character creation. My argument is that people should play whatever is most fun to them.

Quote"I spent 8 of my 20 skill points on diplomacy. Therefore I must now be better at winning in social situations than other players who spent their set of POINTS to BUY other skills. If that is true it means it doesn't matter how badly I roleplay, I SPENT THE POINTS TO BUY SUCCESS.  If it is not true, then that means that other people who BOUGHT things with POINTS are getting a better deal than me, meaning that there's ways to manipulate the system to min-max POINT BUY of skills"

Or it means they get better results on the Reaction Roll table; you know, that thing in the other thread you tout as the height of good RPG design where you randomly roll how the NPCs you populated an area with react instead of actually thinking about how they would react in character?

The only difference is they chose to give their character that benefit instead of having a high roll for the Charisma stat determine that they get a better modifier to Reaction Rolls (because that's all the 3e Diplomacy table is... the best core result is friendly) than the guy who rolled crap on Charisma. Or are you now claiming that Reaction Roll tables (which are modified by Charisma scores) and Morale checks are now bad game design?

Because even Basic D&D had you roll multiple times on the Reaction tables (page 22 in the Basic Red Book), modified by the Charisma of the speaker at each stage to mechanically resolve whether a group of monsters would attack, negotiate or behave in a friendly manner towards the PCs. Claiming Mechanical social resolution sucks while simultaneously espousing the virtues of Reaction Rolls... which are almost entirely the same thing mechanically (right down to the second check, if needed coming after another minute of interaction... just like 3e's Diplomacy check required at least a minute of interaction before you could make a check to improve their initial reactions) is utter hypocrisy on your part.

Here are the actual words used in the Basic Rules...

QuoteReactions
Monsters may have nearly any reaction to the appearance of a party, unless the monster description says otherwise. To find the monsters' reactions, roll 2d6 and find the total on the left side of the Monster Reaction Chart. Use the chart to find the monsters' actions and any further rolls needed.

MONSTER REACTION CHART
2 Immediate Attack
3-5 Possible attack, roll again*:
___2-8 Attack
___9-12 Uncertain, roll again*:
______2-5 Attack
______6-8 Leave
______9-12 Friendly
6-8 Uncertain, roll again*:
___2-5 Attack
___6-8 Negotiate, roll again*:
______2-5 Attack
______6-8 Leave
______9-12 Friendly
___9-12 Friendly
9-11 Possibly friendly, roll again*:
___2-5 Uncertain, roll again*:
______2-5 Attack
______6-8 Leave
______9-12 Friendly
___6-12 Friendly
12 Immediately Friendly

*Wait 1 or more rounds, and consider character actions, the speaker's Charisma, and the overall situation before rolling again (as explained below).

Character Actions
The actions of the PCs may affect the monsters' reactions. The characters may talk (negotiate), or may use hand motions if the creatures don't understand the PC languages. Your Reaction Roll may include an adjustment to account for the actions of the
characters. Adjustments from PC actions could be a - 2 or - 1 penalty, or a + 1 or +2 bonus, or no adjustment.

Effects of Charisma
If the monster or NPC encountered can understand what is said by the PCs, the bonus or penalty due to Charisma is applied to the result, in addition to bonuses or penalties due to Character Actions.

So the GM is supposed to to consider the PC's words and actions, which give a bonus or penalty to the check, but ultimately its a RANDOM DIE ROLL modified by the speaker's mechanical Charisma score that determines whether the monsters are hostile, neutral or friendly to the PCs... and even if they do something completely inappropriate (short of attacking... which is when you're supposed to stop rolling) an 18 Charisma will still leave you with a net +1 after the maximum possible penalty for actions so they could still end up immediately friendly anyway.

How very MECHANICAL.

You must HATE Old-School D&D with a passion for not handling social situations correctly.

ETA: I just noticed above that it is LITERALLY impossible for a character with a positive Cha modifier to get "Immediate Attack" unless they're literally coming in with weapons drawn and screaming for blood. This means that by virtue of their high mechanical score they'll always have at least 1 round/minute to use actions to improve their odds for the second check and the odds of the follow up "Uncertain Roll Again" results are about 50% of avoiding an attack even if they don't do anything to get a better modifier by their actions.

Further a character with an 18 Cha (+3 modifier) only scores a "possible attack" on a 2 on 2d6... and even then needs another 4 or less on 2d6 to actually result in an attack just by staying neutral (virtually non-existent if they take actions that earn them a +1 or better modifier over the next minute). Those are HUGE odds in their favor playing by the rules.

I'd always kinda taken people at their word that the older rules didn't allow things like the Diplomancer. But actually reading the rules as written the old Reaction Roll tables are RIDICULOUSLY mechanistic in their resolution and allow outcomes every bit as crazy as the 3e Diplomancer rules allowed. The only difference was that who got the Diplomancer ability was a random roll instead of something that could be chosen.

Quote from: Chris24601;1033528* snippity doo dah *

Here are the actual words used in the Basic Rules...

* snippity  ay *

You must HATE Old-School D&D with a passion for not handling social situations correctly.

"Basic" is not old-school.  OD&D is old school.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033093Actually, it's very elegant if handled correctly.

Disagree. This is because a single roll of a d20 does a terrible job of distinguishing between levels of skill in a way that anywhere close maps onto human experience. Just meeting these two conditions:

1. Model tasks that are difficult for novices, easy for journeymen, trivial for masters
2. Model tasks that are impossible for novices, difficult for journeymen, easy for masters

means die modifiers have to have at minimum a 20 point spread. If you throw in a 3rd sort of task:

3. Nearly impossible for anyone who is inexperienced, but not very difficult for anyone trained.

now you can't handle it. The reason d20 isn't an issue in combat is you roll it several times in the course of a battle. Not only does the fighter have a better chance to hit than other players, he also makes more attacks (both because he picks up extra attacks and because other classes often do things other than attack on their turn). So the bell curve you need to model task resolution emerges. But I can capture all 3 kinds of tasks pretty easily with a dice pool system. (Notably, the thief skills in 1e work this way.)

QuoteYes. That was a big problem. Because both 3.x skills and feats were point-buy systems.

If you converted the 3.5 NPC interaction table into 5e, it would still be a disaster waiting to happen. The more you have hard and fast rules about "if you roll over X, Y happens" the more likely you'll get silly results, even if there is no way for players to game the system by choosing things like class archetypes or racial bonuses.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033546Disagree. This is because a single roll of a d20 does a terrible job of distinguishing between levels of skill in a way that anywhere close maps onto human experience. Just meeting these two conditions:

1. Model tasks that are difficult for novices, easy for journeymen, trivial for masters
2. Model tasks that are impossible for novices, difficult for journeymen, easy for masters

means die modifiers have to have at minimum a 20 point spread. If you throw in a 3rd sort of task:

3. Nearly impossible for anyone who is inexperienced, but not very difficult for anyone trained.

now you can't handle it. The reason d20 isn't an issue in combat is you roll it several times in the course of a battle. Not only does the fighter have a better chance to hit than other players, he also makes more attacks (both because he picks up extra attacks and because other classes often do things other than attack on their turn). So the bell curve you need to model task resolution emerges. But I can capture all 3 kinds of tasks pretty easily with a dice pool system. (Notably, the thief skills in 1e work this way.)

This is correct. About the only good thing you can say about the d20 over, say 3d6, for non-combat resolutions (particularly for actions that succeed or fail on a single check or which fail on the first failed check (ex. climbing) is that the math is slightly easier since you're only adding die result and the modifier while 3d6 is adding three die results plus a modifier. Yes, its easy math, but it IS longer math due to the three operations instead of just one.

d20 task resolution systems generally uses the kludges of Take 10 (allows consistent performance at a certain skill level so long as 10+modifier hits the target number while those whose modifiers aren't up to must roll and hope for a better than 10 result) and labeling some tasks as Trained/Proficient Only (meaning even if the actual target number is low, those without the right training can't even attempt them), but those are not actual bell curve distributions, just thresholds that, once met, do not require rolling to achieve.

Personally, I've always wanted to try something akin to attack/damage rolls for skills. The "attack" part would be a d20 check to determine whether or not conditions would even allow you attempt the skill this turn (with the ability to 'take 10' outside of combat or with certain abilities inside of combat) while a "damage" roll would determine how much progress was made with the skill that turn. Outside of combat you'd take 10 and have a nice bell curve by making the "damage" part of the skill say 3 dice + modifiers; inside of combat you'd use d20 check first to see if the Orc and your buddy going at it and moving for position doesn't completely confound your ability to reach the trap or make the leap across the crevice that turn.

QuoteIf you converted the 3.5 NPC interaction table into 5e, it would still be a disaster waiting to happen. The more you have hard and fast rules about "if you roll over X, Y happens" the more likely you'll get silly results, even if there is no way for players to game the system by choosing things like class archetypes or racial bonuses.

The funny thing is you can actually lay most of the blame for 3.5e's bad interaction results on bad GM calls as to Diplomacy's effects, the epic level material adding the "Fanatic" category to the Diplomacy table, and additional splats adding in tons of options to push your Diplomacy check to ridiculous levels (because the DC 50 needed to move initially hostile to friendly doesn't happen reliably without a +40 check modifier and only 23 of that comes from having maximum ranks in the skill and only at 20th level).

Used as the designers wrote it, the best result possible was helpful... not a virtually mind-numbed fanatic who agrees to everything you say... just that they'll treat your words as coming from a friend they're inclined to help out; but the player still has to supply the words and they have to be something a friend would be willing to do (i.e. turning on their own family and other friends isn't very likely).

Further, within the more realistic realm of checks without being loaded down in magic items tailor made to the task, a starting PC with a 16 Cha and 4 ranks in Diplomacy would have a 40% chance to talk an initially hostile foe down to "unfriendly" (i.e. "wishes you ill; will mislead, gossip, avoid, watch suspiciously and/or insult you) with a 15% chance of getting a Reaction of "Indifferent; will engage only in socially required interactions with you." Friendly won't even happen on a natural 20 if they start out hostile.

It further notes...

Try Again

Retry: Optional, but not recommended because retries usually do not work. Even if the initial Diplomacy check succeeds, the other character can be persuaded only so far, and a retry may do more harm than good. If the initial check fails, the other character has probably become more firmly committed to his position, and a retry is futile.

So its almost always a one-and-done check... no, "I got him to unfriendly, lemme try it again."

As written, its not that much different than the Basic and AD&D reaction roll results, just using a d20 instead of 2d6 and allowing experience to impact the results instead of just raw Charisma (where +3 has a much bigger effect on 2d6); not nearly the bug-a-boo of virtual mind control that Pundit makes it out to be.

Skills IMO were the biggest missed opportunity in 5e. The band-aids are:

1. You only roll skills when the DM tells you to, so a smart DM won't have you roll for trivial crap.
2. You can pretty trivially get Help, i.e. roll with advantage, nearly all the time.

d20 vs DC has been with us since 2000, though, so people probably would have screamed if there had been a different method. IMO they should have just dumped d20 and had a dice pool system...like have N d6s up to your proficiency, or stat + proficiency. Come on, Mearls, isn't a little complexity okay?

Quote from: Chris24601;1033559Personally, I've always wanted to try something akin to attack/damage rolls for skills. The "attack" part would be a d20 check to determine whether or not conditions would even allow you attempt the skill this turn (with the ability to 'take 10' outside of combat or with certain abilities inside of combat) while a "damage" roll would determine how much progress was made with the skill that turn. Outside of combat you'd take 10 and have a nice bell curve by making the "damage" part of the skill say 3 dice + modifiers; inside of combat you'd use d20 check first to see if the Orc and your buddy going at it and moving for position doesn't completely confound your ability to reach the trap or make the leap across the crevice that turn.

If I ever get my current homebrew system working, you might be interested in taking a look, as that is more or less the basis of how it works. I'm actually using a slight curve (not bell) for the "test" as well (for other reasons).  

The tricky part is exactly where to make the conceptual split between "test" and "effect" (replacing "attack" and "damage").   I've been gradually moving towards the "test" being more about speed than anything else, but we'll see how it goes.

Quote from: AsenRG;1033502Which is its own share of issues when it comes to worldbuilding. Come on, Pundit, what happens to Cymri or Scotman guys who are born in the society with no way out, but don't get 9+ on the connected attribute?

They're 0-level Cymri or Scotsmen, like most other Cymri and scots men throughout the world.

QuoteAnyway, you're missing my point: your earlier statement that if a game rewards knowing the rules, it's a bad RPG, is simply wrong. All RPGs reward some amount of rules knowledge - like knowing how many people with what weapons fit in a 3-meters corridor (2 with swords or axes, but three with spears).

There is a GARGANTUAN difference between a system where a guy who knows how to make the most of the 'reach' quality of a spear gets a slight advantage over player characters who haven't figured it out yet, and a system where you get 400 points and carte-blanche to create every tiny detail of your character from it.

Quote from: Chris24601;1033528I prefer it to the "I'm Right! I'm Right!! I'm Right and if you disagree you're a poopy-head!!!" school of debate. You've already lost this and you know it or you wouldn't need to resort the personal attacks to try and save face.

Bitch, please. I don't need any excuse to engage in personal attacks. I'm the motherfucking RPGPundit.
How could I "lose" when you haven't made a single relevant argument?

QuoteI asked because you seem to attribute

No, you asked because it was yet another of your ridiculous rhetorical pants-shitting diversions that you seem to have been taught is how to build an argument, in lieu of actually having one, Wimp Lo.

(https://78.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lov0qvtzWM1qh6fqvo1_500.jpg)

QuoteYou do understand that the system with the Diplomancer problem is 3rd Edition D&D right?

There's all kinds of systems that have that problem. Almost all of them involve some degree of point buy (though again, in theory a game with no point-buy but hard-coded social mechanics could also have that problem).

QuoteThe system where the default ability score generation is 4d6 drop lowest? The one where your skill points you receive are based on your class and your randomly rolled Intelligence score, and which has hard limits on how many skill points you can put into a skill at every level?

Yes. That's point-buy. You literally get points, and then buy things with them.

QuoteBecause you're currently railing at an imaginary point-buy system that doesn't even exist as part of the actual game that has the problem with its mechanics.

Editions of GURPS, Shadowrun and Champions are all literally "here's X number of points, now go splooge all over the rules with it".


 

QuoteYou are claiming that the imaginary system

It's literally all of the most popular pure point-buy systems in the world.

QuoteI don't know what game you're referring to but a starting character in 3rd Edition (the one with the Diplomancer issue) only gives you one feat at first level (two if you're a human because that IS your racial feature). Similarly, even a Human Rogue with an 18 Intelligence (52 skill points) can only spend 4 points on the Diplomacy skill at level 1 and can only spend one additional point on it per level.

Yes, those are all POINTS that you use to BUY things.

QuoteInventing rules system that don't exist

Shadowrun
GURPS
Champions
countless others.

QuoteAgain, you're confusing me for someone who prefers point-buy. I've said several times already that my preferred method is Allocation (i.e. assign stats from an array, pick X of Y listed skills/traits)

That's technically a type of point-buy as well, albeit a very restrictive variety.

QuoteOr it means they get better results on the Reaction Roll table; you know, that thing in the other thread you tout as the height of good RPG design where you randomly roll how the NPCs you populated an area with react instead of actually thinking about how they would react in character?

If a reaction table was used to determine the result of diplomacy rather than to determined the predisposition of characters, you'd have a point. It would then also be utterly awful just like all result-determining social mechanics are. With the exception that if there weren't social skills besides that, at least there would be no restriction on the GM to just ignore it as a subsystem entirely. You see, the problem is that with games that have social SKILLS, you can't do that, unless you remake the entire skill system.

QuoteI'd always kinda taken people at their word that the older rules didn't allow things like the Diplomancer. But actually reading the rules as written the old Reaction Roll tables are RIDICULOUSLY mechanistic in their resolution and allow outcomes every bit as crazy as the 3e Diplomancer rules allowed. The only difference was that who got the Diplomancer ability was a random roll instead of something that could be chosen.[/I]

Well then you're a first class imbecile. You're willfully misreading the worst possible interpretation of the reaction roll table, and assuming that in actual play that's how the old-school style handles it. And again, all to try to score a cheap rhetorical point, because that's all you amount to, a chump that thinks his diversionary moves are the same as having a solid left hook.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033546Disagree. This is because a single roll of a d20 does a terrible job of distinguishing between levels of skill in a way that anywhere close maps onto human experience. Just meeting these two conditions:

1. Model tasks that are difficult for novices, easy for journeymen, trivial for masters
2. Model tasks that are impossible for novices, difficult for journeymen, easy for masters

Roll a D20 plus skill modifier plus ability score modifier plus level.
1. DC15; a 1st level character with a +1 skill and no modifier will fail the check most of the time. If he had a +3 ability score modifier (the maximum) he'd at best succeed half of the time because of amazing talent.
A mid-level character will succeed most of the time.
A character with level 10+ will succeed almost all of the time.

QuoteIf you throw in a 3rd sort of task:

3. Nearly impossible for anyone who is inexperienced, but not very difficult for anyone trained.

"If any of your characters have training in X lore, they will automatically know this fact. Anyone without training will not know it"




There.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033808Roll a D20 plus skill modifier plus ability score modifier plus level.
1. DC15; a 1st level character with a +1 skill and no modifier will fail the check most of the time. If he had a +3 ability score modifier (the maximum) he'd at best succeed half of the time because of amazing talent.
A mid-level character will succeed most of the time.
A character with level 10+ will succeed almost all of the time.

For DC 15 to be easy, your mid-level character bonus needs a modifier of at least 12 (failing 1 in 5 attempts isn't easy!). Master skill level would be +15. So you have to have rapidly rising bonuses like in 3.5. And, of course, you still have the problem that low-level characters aren't particularly "good" at anything. And if Master is only +15, there are no significant differentiators between journeyman and master, so master probably needs a bonus more like +25, and now we're back into "roll a d20, add a number bigger than 20" absurdity.

Quote"If any of your characters have training in X lore, they will automatically know this fact. Anyone without training will not know it"

Right, you need to start introducing ad-hoc rulings like in 5e. Kind of a band-aid IMO, and it's not been received that warmly by many of the fans.

A dice pool system has neither of those problems. You can get significant distinctions among all skill levels without shooting numbers to the moon or ad-hoc rulings.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033806There is a GARGANTUAN difference between a system where a guy who knows how to make the most of the 'reach' quality of a spear gets a slight advantage over player characters who haven't figured it out yet, and a system where you get 400 points and carte-blanche to create every tiny detail of your character from it.

Exactly.  And the difference is "knowing something about the basics of the historical period the game pretends to be set in."  If you know a damn thing about ancient or medieval warfare, you'll have the second rank using long spears in OD&D even if you've never played any sort of RPG or wargame before.

Quote from: AsenRG;1033504And I agree with that:).
My point is that even the "Even Playing Field" might not be the best way. In some games, it's sometimes better to put the more experienced players at an additional disadvantage, and that's not "unfair", it just makes for a more interesting game that's not dominated by one person;).

I think we may have wandered into the odd state of "aggressive agreement".

Fortunately, I haven't run into the problem. More experienced players have been happy to help noobies, or they aren't interested in power gaming min maxing the ultimate campaign ruling pile of number but creating an interesting character and enjoying the game. I've heard some horror stories (who hasn't?) but that's been with any game with mechanical complexity beyond Twerps (cue member with power gaming stories about twerps). Ass gonna be assholes regardless.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033806They're 0-level Cymri or Scotsmen, like most other Cymri and scots men throughout the world.

That's how your book says PCs are supposed to start as well. But they can't choose the class unless they'd rolled 9+ in the controlling attribute. Why can the NPCs:)?

QuoteThere is a GARGANTUAN difference

Only in degree;).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1033849Exactly.  And the difference is "knowing something about the basics of the historical period the game pretends to be set in."  If you know a damn thing about ancient or medieval warfare, you'll have the second rank using long spears in OD&D even if you've never played any sort of RPG or wargame before.

And if you know a damn thing about ancient or medieval warfare, but the GM thinks that "this is cheating to get more attacks":D?
True story, BTW.

Quote from: CarlD.;1033860I think we may have wandered into the odd state of "aggressive agreement".

It totally beats "aggressive disagreement";).

QuoteFortunately, I haven't run into the problem. More experienced players have been happy to help noobies, or they aren't interested in power gaming min maxing the ultimate campaign ruling pile of number but creating an interesting character and enjoying the game. I've heard some horror stories (who hasn't?) but that's been with any game with mechanical complexity beyond Twerps (cue member with power gaming stories about twerps). Ass gonna be assholes regardless.

It's not exactly a problem. As in, it wouldn't break the game if you don't do that.
But it might make it better if you do;). And that's regardless of whether the more experienced players help the noobs, or not.

Quote from: AsenRG;1033887And if you know a damn thing about ancient or medieval warfare, but the GM thinks that "this is cheating to get more attacks":D?
True story, BTW.

See the underlined sentence at the bottom of my sig.

Quote from: AsenRG;1033887It's not exactly a problem. As in, it wouldn't break the game if you don't do that.
But it might make it better if you do;). And that's regardless of whether the more experienced players help the noobs, or not.

I meant more system adept folks dominating the game.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1033896See the underlined sentence at the bottom of my sig.

I'm glad to report that I did exactly that, despite it being nominally my first "official" RPG campaign:).
But I digressed, and the whole episode is irrelevant. My point is, if players don't understand the first thing about warfare in the period OD&D is using as a model, will put long weapons in the second rank if they read and understand the rules.
Therefore, with systems that aim for this, system mastery can contribute to better roleplaying, too. The two need not be opposed;)!

Quote from: CarlD.;1033902I meant more system adept folks dominating the game.

And I mean giving the more adept players less system resources. Note: I'm not talking about the players more adept at using the system, but the better players, period.
It's been over a decade since, but other people still refer to the time when two excellent players killed a Dragon-Blooded warrior* with calligraphy, poetry, embroidery and a pillow:D.

Quote from: AsenRG;1033999And I mean giving the more adept players less system resources.

Oh, no,  I understood that's what you were talking about I've haven't found that to  be necessary or desirable step myself but I can where it might be in some situations. Different experiences and all.

Quote from: CarlD.;1034110Oh, no,  I understood that's what you were talking about I've haven't found that to  be necessary or desirable step myself but I can where it might be in some situations. Different experiences and all.

Well, it was kinda obvious in one of the last campaigns:).
One PC achieved all her goals, or almost, and seldom even got hurt. Another gained much XP and was a killing machine by the end, but achieved little of her goals before the campaign ended. And she's the reason I remembered the healing rules by heart.
And then I realized the former had forgotten to spend her XP after the first dozen of sessions or so. She was, figuratively speaking, playing Batman in a team with Hulk, and outplayed Hulk without being hurt;).
I admit it might not be relevant to all groups, but that's where I'm coming from.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1033820For DC 15 to be easy, your mid-level character bonus needs a modifier of at least 12 (failing 1 in 5 attempts isn't easy!). Master skill level would be +15. So you have to have rapidly rising bonuses like in 3.5. And, of course, you still have the problem that low-level characters aren't particularly "good" at anything. And if Master is only +15, there are no significant differentiators between journeyman and master, so master probably needs a bonus more like +25, and now we're back into "roll a d20, add a number bigger than 20" absurdity.



Right, you need to start introducing ad-hoc rulings like in 5e. Kind of a band-aid IMO, and it's not been received that warmly by many of the fans.

A dice pool system has neither of those problems. You can get significant distinctions among all skill levels without shooting numbers to the moon or ad-hoc rulings.

It sounds like you're defining "easy" here as something anyone who has moderate level of training should be able to accomplish almost ALL the time (assuming no outside complications).

So in a roleplaying game, the right way to do that is to say stuff like "anyone with training should always know/succeed-at this, anyone without the skill can't/has-to-roll-it".

That's not ad-hoc, that's the direct and obvious method to handle how you do it. I mean, if you have "horsemanship" you should have to roll every time you get on a horse on a basic ride, right?

It sure sounds like you're just trying to prove something you're determined to make into a problem that isn't actually a problem.

Quote from: AsenRG;1033887That's how your book says PCs are supposed to start as well. But they can't choose the class unless they'd rolled 9+ in the controlling attribute. Why can the NPCs:)?

Seriously, dumbass? Because NPCs don't roll attributes. They're created by the GM and have stats assigned to fit the character.

QuoteOnly in degree;).

It's like saying "the guy who could theoretically claim his alcohol purchases as a business expense on his taxes" is exactly like "the guy who can steal $4.2 Million by manipulating tax law".

Quote from: AsenRG;1034242Well, it was kinda obvious in one of the last campaigns:).
One PC achieved all her goals, or almost, and seldom even got hurt. Another gained much XP and was a killing machine by the end, but achieved little of her goals before the campaign ended. And she's the reason I remembered the healing rules by heart.
And then I realized the former had forgotten to spend her XP after the first dozen of sessions or so. She was, figuratively speaking, playing Batman in a team with Hulk, and outplayed Hulk without being hurt;).
I admit it might not be relevant to all groups, but that's where I'm coming from.

Understandable...

A character creation system I really like, that is a slightly different way of doing point buy, is Agone's system (I know there are several who would disagree, but I'll explain).

I like how it balances points among Attributes, Skills, Spells, and Advantages, so that you are in many ways "forced" to spread out your points to some degree, since you cant just spend everything on your focus. After maxing it out, you usually have points left over to buy up your other attributes and skills, to flesh out your character, instead of being able to dump those points into extra spells or advantages as you can in other point buy systems.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1034586Seriously, dumbass? Because NPCs don't roll attributes. They're created by the GM and have stats assigned to fit the character.

Did you forget the post you were arguing with, Pundit:)? Let me refresh your memory.

QuoteWhich is its own share of issues when it comes to worldbuilding. Come on, Pundit, what happens to Cymri or Scotman guys who are born in the society with no way out, but don't get 9+ on the connected attribute?

"When it comes to worldbuilding" is the keyword. One of my first requirements is that I should be able to create all the NPCs by the character generation rules for PCs.
I can do that in GURPS, with point-buy. I can do it in Traveller with random lifepaths. You're telling me that I can't do that in your game.
That basically confirms my statement. (And yes, having to amend my usual worldbuilding procedures is a problem, of course. I can do that, but you have to persuade me that I'm gaining something from it).

QuoteIt's like saying "the guy who could theoretically claim his alcohol purchases as a business expense on his taxes" is exactly like "the guy who can steal $4.2 Million by manipulating tax law".

Yes, except for the word exactly. They're both being dishonest, but one of them is much more capable.
Which is a difference of degree, not of quality.
The difference between knowing more about the reach and shieldwall rules, and having memorized the GURPS: Martial Arts supplement is also one of degree, not quality;).

Quote from: CarlD.;1035309Understandable...

Yeah, I realize other people might never encounter the need for this option.

Quote from: AsenRG;1035522Did you forget the post you were arguing with, Pundit:)? Let me refresh your memory.

"When it comes to worldbuilding" is the keyword. One of my first requirements is that I should be able to create all the NPCs by the character generation rules for PCs.
I can do that in GURPS, with point-buy. I can do it in Traveller with random lifepaths. You're telling me that I can't do that in your game.
That basically confirms my statement. (And yes, having to amend my usual worldbuilding procedures is a problem, of course. I can do that, but you have to persuade me that I'm gaining something from it).

You can do it in GURPS, sure. It's probably even part of the Autistic Super-Fun Time.
You can't do it in Traveller. You can't say "I'm going to make an NPC who is a 50 year old ex-marine turned merchant" if the lifepath has him failing to enter the service. Which is the same stupid argument you're trying to make here, that somehow if you want to make a master Thief NPC in Dark Albion you need to roll 3d6 in order for that NPC and what would you do if you rolled less than 9 in DEX?

But here's the thing: that's a fucking retarded way of making NPCs. What would be the point of that?
Your "first requirement" is moronic. You're not "Worldbuilding", you're obsessing about mechanics.

QuoteYes, except for the word exactly. They're both being dishonest, but one of them is much more capable.
Which is a difference of degree, not of quality.
The difference between knowing more about the reach and shieldwall rules, and having memorized the GURPS: Martial Arts supplement is also one of degree, not quality;).

I don't give a fuck about that, as it's irrelevant to the topic at hand. What you're arguing has nothing to do with what you're talking about, doesn't help your argument or hurt mine. It just shows how fucking incoherent you are.

The only thing that matters in terms of the discussion at hand is not some demagoguery about whether the 'degree' is the same or not, it's what the practical EFFECTS of a system being prone to abuse is.
And in terms of EFFECTS, a system where the worst the worst rules-optimization abuse that can happen is that a dude knows how to attack from the second row in a corridor is MILLIONS of times less shitty than a system where rules-optimization virtually allows them to do anything.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1035762Which is the same stupid argument you're trying to make here, that somehow if you want to make a master Thief NPC in Dark Albion you need to roll 3d6 in order for that NPC and what would you do if you rolled less than 9 in DEX?

But here's the thing: that's a fucking retarded way of making NPCs. What would be the point of that?
Your "first requirement" is moronic. You're not "Worldbuilding", you're obsessing about mechanics.

I believe the main desire is to make NPCs that are, more or less, balanced against the party.

In that regard, it is usually easier to approximate that balance if the system uses a means of character building that provides a greater degree of control over important aspects of a character (like attributes).

while i do like some random elements in character creation (I really like the Fate Spreads in 7th sea for example), having it determine important aspects of a character, like attributes, obviously makes building NPCs impractical using that system if you want to make specific characters and have them balanced against your PCs. Point buy systems tend to allow for this to a much greater degree of specificity.

when you have to guess what is fair by plugging in attributes, it often makes building those characters more difficult. Also, having some restraint in building something tends to encourage a more inventive attitude towards making that concept work, like choosing options you might not otherwise have considered.

So its possible to make balanced interesting and interactive characters that aren't random..and with an effectively unlimited "point budget" but only if you're a GM? If players do the same with a limited budget included why the default assumption that it will lead to abuse? That's the gist I'm getting from some posts.

I'll say again, any system or set of mechanics can be abused or can be use to have fun implementing player intelligence and creativity be it from utilizing equipment bonuses, feat, skill, mechanical synergy, etc or constructing the character (neither of which are mutually exclusive or the only points they can occur in a system). Why exploiting equipment or other mechanics which can be OOC as Hell, frankly is more corrupt  and/or than using a creation system to make a character or why that's somehow "cheating" and a source of unavoidable meta game driven issues, when gms are expected to select attributes and create characters to suit their role in the world or scenario instead of just a preference (as I asked in the thread subject) is an oddly combative stance to take.

Quote from: CarlD.;1035775So its possible to make balanced interesting and interactive characters that aren't random..and with an effectively unlimited "point budget" but only if you're a GM? If players do the same with a limited budget included why the default assumption that it will lead to abuse? That's the gist I'm getting from some posts.

The reason is because Pundit is projecting what he would do onto every other player.

HE would abuse a point-buy system to dominate play in the game over newer players and presumes everyone else will too. He's a small man who bullies others to make himself feel big. He doesn't get that not everyone else has his psychological hangups and so don't have to play games like he does in order to enjoy themselves.

He doesn't comprehend that there are far more effective routes to having your ego stroked than hogging the spotlight in-game so that everyone else resents you. For example, you could instead have everyone at the table appreciate and respect your knowledge and command of the rules by helping them make equally effective characters in the system.

He's just the flip-side of the snowflake storygamers he so detests; an intolerant bully attacking anyone who doesn't adhere to his own personal One-True-Way. If you don't play make believe exactly like he says you should, you're an incompetent mouth-breathing retard.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1035762You can do it in GURPS, sure. It's probably even part of the Autistic Super-Fun Time.

No idea, I'm not on the spectrum - but glad you agree you can do it in GURPS.

QuoteYou can't do it in Traveller.

Bullshit:). Been there, done that.

QuoteYou can't say "I'm going to make an NPC who is a 50 year old ex-marine turned merchant" if the lifepath has him failing to enter the service.

No, Pundit, I can. Maybe you can't, but that's not my problem. I have two different ways of doing that, for different goals;)!
1) I can estimate the odds of the dice rolling this way, and thus derive what's the likelihood of a merchant being ex-marine. The reasons why I'd do that should be obvious. Again: I'm talking worldbuilding, not making an NPC.
2) I can just generate 1001 characters automatically, prioritizing Marine and Merchant careers, and pick one of the 50-years-old ones who passed through both careers, if I need an NPC.
And before you say there's no way you should generate 1001 NPCs, I present to you the 1001 characters (http://members.ozemail.com.au/~jonoreita/SupplementOne/Cepheus_Engine_1001_characters.html) automated generator:D! Takes me all of a few clicks, and gives me whole organisations with NPCs.
Here's your Marine-gone-Merchant, I generated 100 characters.
Crewman Chua-guo Roshan (Male Human) 977365 Age 50
Marine(3), Physician(0), Merchant(3)   Cr11000
Admin-0 Battle Dress-0 Bay Weapons-0 Comms-0 Demolitions-0 Electronics-1 Energy Rifle-0 Jack o' Trades-1 Medicine-1 Piercing Weapons-2 Shotgun-1 Social Sciences-0 Spinal Mounts-1 Steward-1 Zero-G-1

QuoteWhich is the same stupid argument you're trying to make here, that somehow if you want to make a master Thief NPC in Dark Albion you need to roll 3d6 in order for that NPC and what would you do if you rolled less than 9 in DEX?

But here's the thing: that's a fucking retarded way of making NPCs. What would be the point of that?
Your "first requirement" is moronic. You're not "Worldbuilding", you're obsessing about mechanics.

...Pundit, do you really confuse worldbuilding (i.e. creating the setting and adapting it the rules to it) with creating NPCs? Really?
I have a better opinion of you.
As to "what's the point" - adapting the setting to the rules or (usually) vice versa is part of how I prepare my sessions. If it helps me, it's not moronic, because it's useful to me, when running my games.
From your rules, I can only make the conclusion "circa 30% of all Cimri and Scots Men aren't really Cimri and Scots Men, because they got 8- in the controlling attribute". Not a really useful conclusion, I'm telling you, unless I'm running "Medieval Authentic Discworld-style":D!

QuoteI don't give a fuck about that, as it's irrelevant to the topic at hand. What you're arguing has nothing to do with what you're talking about, doesn't help your argument or hurt mine. It just shows how fucking incoherent you are.

You started arguing with my "difference of degrees" example, Pundit. Which, as I said in the post, was deliberately an extreme example, just to show that some measure of impact remains at both of extremums. Or did you forget that post, too?

QuoteThe only thing that matters in terms of the discussion at hand is not some demagoguery about whether the 'degree' is the same or not, it's what the practical EFFECTS of a system being prone to abuse is.
And in terms of EFFECTS, a system where the worst the worst rules-optimization abuse that can happen is that a dude knows how to attack from the second row in a corridor is MILLIONS of times less shitty than a system where rules-optimization virtually allows them to do anything.

Are you, like, serious?
I give you an example where I say I'm deliberately giving an extreme example, and you try to discard it because the differences are too extreme?
...well, that's the fucking point of the example, duh!
If you're not aware why, when discussing a principle (like "rules mastery will have an impact regardless of how much customisation the rules allow") it's useful to check the extremums...well, you should go back to 8th grade and learn the damn reason!

Quote from: CarlD.;1035775So its possible to make balanced interesting and interactive characters that aren't random..and with an effectively unlimited "point budget" but only if you're a GM?

...of course no, not only if you're the GM. Where did I say that only the GM can do that? (And for that matter, I've never said the GM shouldn't make random characters - quite the opposite, I create those all the time).

Or do you mean Pundit's statements?

QuoteIf players do the same with a limited budget included why the default assumption that it will lead to abuse? That's the gist I'm getting from some posts.

Ask Pundit, not me:p!

Quote from: Chris24601;1035846The reason is because Pundit is projecting what he would do onto every other player.

HE would abuse a point-buy system to dominate play in the game over newer players and presumes everyone else will too. He's a small man who bullies others to make himself feel big. He doesn't get that not everyone else has his psychological hangups and so don't have to play games like he does in order to enjoy themselves.

He doesn't comprehend that there are far more effective routes to having your ego stroked than hogging the spotlight in-game so that everyone else resents you. For example, you could instead have everyone at the table appreciate and respect your knowledge and command of the rules by helping them make equally effective characters in the system.

He's just the flip-side of the snowflake storygamers he so detests; an intolerant bully attacking anyone who doesn't adhere to his own personal One-True-Way. If you don't play make believe exactly like he says you should, you're an incompetent mouth-breathing retard.

OK, that's probably untrue...but the image of Pundit as a "reverse Luke Crane"* is deeply entertaining:D!

Also, I most certainly don't play exactly like Pundit says I should!

*The author of the Burning Wheel RPG who explained that he made his rules in a certain way because they should prevent his own bad tendencies when GMing.

Quote from: AsenRG;1035864...of course no, not only if you're the GM. Where did I say that only the GM can do that? (And for that matter, I've never said the GM shouldn't make random characters - quite the opposite, I create those all the time).

I quoted you by mistake. I'm sorry if I looked like I was putting words in your mouth. :o

Quote from: CarlD.;1035881I quoted you by mistake. I'm sorry if I looked like I was putting words in your mouth. :o

No problem, it happens:).

Quote from: CarlD.;1035775So its possible to make balanced interesting and interactive characters that aren't random..and with an effectively unlimited "point budget" but only if you're a GM? If players do the same with a limited budget included why the default assumption that it will lead to abuse? That's the gist I'm getting from some posts.

Yes. That's because the Player agenda and the GM agenda are different. The GM (unless he's a shit GM) isn't making an NPC with min-maxing in mind, it's not in his best interest; while it is a part of the player's own best interest to make the most effective character the rules will allow him to get away with.

Quote from: Chris24601;1035846The reason is because Pundit is projecting what he would do onto every other player.

I think the one projecting here is you.

Quote from: AsenRG;1035864No, Pundit, I can. Maybe you can't, but that's not my problem. I have two different ways of doing that, for different goals;)!
1) I can estimate the odds of the dice rolling this way, and thus derive what's the likelihood of a merchant being ex-marine. The reasons why I'd do that should be obvious. Again: I'm talking worldbuilding, not making an NPC.
2) I can just generate 1001 characters automatically, prioritizing Marine and Merchant careers, and pick one of the 50-years-old ones who passed through both careers, if I need an NPC.
And before you say there's no way you should generate 1001 NPCs, I present to you the 1001 characters (http://members.ozemail.com.au/~jonoreita/SupplementOne/Cepheus_Engine_1001_characters.html) automated generator:D! Takes me all of a few clicks, and gives me whole organisations with NPCs.
Here's your Marine-gone-Merchant, I generated 100 characters.
Crewman Chua-guo Roshan (Male Human) 977365 Age 50
Marine(3), Physician(0), Merchant(3)   Cr11000
Admin-0 Battle Dress-0 Bay Weapons-0 Comms-0 Demolitions-0 Electronics-1 Energy Rifle-0 Jack o' Trades-1 Medicine-1 Piercing Weapons-2 Shotgun-1 Social Sciences-0 Spinal Mounts-1 Steward-1 Zero-G-1

So what you're saying is:

a) You could do this if you were allowed to make unlimited numbers of characters and pick one; instead of the standard method of making only one character.
b) You would accomplish this by using a randomizer

Oh yeah, you really got me there.

QuoteFrom your rules, I can only make the conclusion "circa 30% of all Cimri and Scots Men aren't really Cimri and Scots Men, because they got 8- in the controlling attribute". Not a really useful conclusion, I'm telling you, unless I'm running "Medieval Authentic Discworld-style":D!

No, actually, 90% of all Cymri and Scotsmen are 0-level characters, just like 90% of everyone in the setting.

QuoteAre you, like, serious?
I give you an example where I say I'm deliberately giving an extreme example, and you try to discard it because the differences are too extreme?
...well, that's the fucking point of the example, duh!
If you're not aware why, when discussing a principle (like "rules mastery will have an impact regardless of how much customisation the rules allow") it's useful to check the extremums...well, you should go back to 8th grade and learn the damn reason!

You should go back to take Rhetoric 101. The extreme difference between your example of the potential abuse of old-school D&D rules and mine of the potential abuse of point-buy only serves to prove my point about how point-buy is much more problematic.
If I'm trying to argue that coffee is just as dangerous as cyanide, and I say "well, if you have someone who is deathly allergic to coffee beans, that person would die if he drank it", it just makes me look like a moron.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1037000Yes. That's because the Player agenda and the GM agenda are different. The GM (unless he's a shit GM) isn't making an NPC with min-maxing in mind, it's not in his best interest; while it is a part of the player's own best interest to make the most effective character the rules will allow him to get away with.

Shouldn't the agenda of both sides be to have fun?

I know most Rpg's are just miniature combat games with extra steps, but surely you can see why this doesn't always hold true, especially in other point buy systems, especially when more social elements are added and available for purchase, like ranks of mobility or military command.

QuoteYes. That's because the Player agenda and the GM agenda are different. The GM (unless he's a shit GM) isn't making an NPC with min-maxing in mind, it's not in his best interest; while it is a part of the player's own best interest to make the most effective character the rules will allow him to get away with.

If that's how you play that's your choice but don't generalize that to everyone. I've had some players with similar ideas but they didn't last long in groups I've been over the years; their goals, their agenda weren't compatible. People came for many different reaons. There isn't winning an rpg as I like to play, or losing. Trying to 'beat" the game or the gm or the other characters isn't the focus I play for.

My agenda as you to put it is to have fun playing a role playing game and facilitate my players having an enjyable time. Their agenda is have fun and facilitate my and there follow players enjoyment of the game, not to make the 'best' character. Which is extremely difficult to impossible in anything but narrowst premise since there will always been some area where a character is not optimized in a game setting that has more than a very few activities.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1037133I know most Rpg's are just miniature combat games with extra steps, but surely you can see why this doesn't always hold true, especially in other point buy systems, especially when more social elements are added and available for purchase, like ranks of mobility or military command.

It hasn't been my preferred mode of play, but I know some that look at rpgs in that (more in depth miniatures combat games) manner. I don't get them, but don't begrudge their enjoyment we just mostly wouldn't enjoy gaming with each other. There's many styles and ways to play, but not a One True Way, IMO.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1037000Yes. That's because the Player agenda and the GM agenda are different. The GM (unless he's a shit GM) isn't making an NPC with min-maxing in mind, it's not in his best interest; while it is a part of the player's own best interest to make the most effective character the rules will allow him to get away with.

It sounds to me like you don't trust your players.  I find that very sad, if that's true.  Because for me, I know I can trust my friends with Point Buy systems.  After all, I run Mutants and Masterminds 3e.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1037200It sounds to me like you don't trust your players.  I find that very sad, if that's true.  Because for me, I know I can trust my friends with Point Buy systems.  After all, I run Mutants and Masterminds 3e.

I've always preferred M&M 2e myself, though I guess to be fair we did include some 3e-mails like tradeoffs for the saves (total modifiers for the three saves equal 3x Power Level) and the affliction levels. But I've never experienced any of the problems Pundit sees with point buy (which according to him is apparently so broad that it includes everything that isn't 100% random; picking feats as you level up is point but in his world).

As I said previously, Pundit is projecting his experiences onto all players and groups. He's a proven paranoid internet bully, projects that everyone else is just like him, and proclaims a One True Way that works for that worldview.

He apparently can't wrap his brain around the concept that people are different, like different things and that, especially when dealing with leisure activities, there actually isn't any one true way, just what works best for you.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1037003So what you're saying is:

a) You could do this if you were allowed to make unlimited numbers of characters and pick one; instead of the standard method of making only one character.
b) You would accomplish this by using a randomizer

Oh yeah, you really got me there.



No, actually, 90% of all Cymri and Scotsmen are 0-level characters, just like 90% of everyone in the setting.



You should go back to take Rhetoric 101. The extreme difference between your example of the potential abuse of old-school D&D rules and mine of the potential abuse of point-buy only serves to prove my point about how point-buy is much more problematic.
If I'm trying to argue that coffee is just as dangerous as cyanide, and I say "well, if you have someone who is deathly allergic to coffee beans, that person would die if he drank it", it just makes me look like a moron.

Rhetoric is when I'm trying to persuade you of something. When I'm pointing out a problem with a game to the designer, I present the information, and let him deal with it, because it's in his interests:).

OK, you don't understand checking the extremums. Duly noted for eventual future conversations, however likely they might be;).
I'd advise you to take Logic 101 again to cover for not understanding that, but I know the odds of you listening. In fact, one might say that not listening is part of your public image:D!

Quote from: Chris24601;1037273He apparently can't wrap his brain around the concept that people are different, like different things and that, especially when dealing with leisure activities, there actually isn't any one true way, just what works best for you.

To be fair, Pundy is not the only one on this board.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1037133Shouldn't the agenda of both sides be to have fun?

Of course, but in practice their roles in having fun are different from each other. Part of a player's context of having fun involves their own character's success. This is not the case for the GM, who will in fact be a bad GM if he focused, say, on his NPCs being successful.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1037200It sounds to me like you don't trust your players.  I find that very sad, if that's true.  Because for me, I know I can trust my friends with Point Buy systems.  After all, I run Mutants and Masterminds 3e.

It's not about a lack of trust. It's about players actually buying into what their part of the game is. Of course, there can be players who take this to an extreme that is harmful. But a player who truly doesn't care about his own character at all would be an unbelievably shitty player.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1037635Of course, but in practice their roles in having fun are different from each other. Part of a player's context of having fun involves their own character's success. This is not the case for the GM, who will in fact be a bad GM if he focused, say, on his NPCs being successful.

Firstly, saying PCs try to make the best character the rules allow them "to get away with" implies they are creating their character in bad faith.

Secondly, it is the GMs job to challenge his players, so that they have to actually work to get that success they want. Usually, making a worthy challenge takes a degree of min-maxing.

Admittedly, in the game I run, PCs are nigh unkillable if they're at full strength, so I can make pretty much any ridiculously specialized enemy and, as long as I use roughly equivalent points values, they will most likely win, and only die if they are supremely incompetent or unlucky, though they are likely to get crippled in the process (but that's just because they lost their primary healer).

The villains that outsmarted them in games of politics, or intrigue where more memorable than the combat monsters anyway.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1037642Firstly, saying PCs try to make the best character the rules allow them "to get away with" implies they are creating their character in bad faith.

That's what I was thinking. It also puts things in more of competitive light than I want when I play. The 'best' character for the people I've game with is the character most like the one they want to play, not the one with the most mechanical edge(s). Having a powerful character can be fun. I've played and ran allot of high powered games. RPGs can be power fantasies; nothing wrong with that. Success is fun but 'beating' the setting isn't the end goal for every player or every group. Success might be measured in how enjoyable the session was.

If nothing else, experience from years of playing point buy games has not born out that players are going to driven inexorably to bend the rules over to make the best character they can get away with. Some will, just like some will ruthlessly work other chargen methods and other rule systems, other won't. Its not innate to any particular method, IME.

QuoteSecondly, it is the GMs job to challenge his players, so that they have to actually work to get that success they want. Usually, making a worthy challenge takes a degree of min-maxing.

Admittedly, in the game I run, PCs are nigh unkillable if they're at full strength, so I can make pretty much any ridiculously specialized enemy and, as long as I use roughly equivalent points values, they will most likely win, and only die if they are supremely incompetent or unlucky, though they are likely to get crippled in the process (but that's just because they lost their primary healer).

The villains that outsmarted them in games of politics, or intrigue where more memorable than the combat monsters anyway.

Just out of curiosity, what game do you run?

Quote from: CarlD.;1037643Just out of curiosity, what game do you run?

It's the one I mention in my Sig: Agone ;)

It's a bit old and obscure, but it's a point buy system for a really cool fantasy book series.

Chargen wise, it's point buy, but it's not just one pool you use to buy everything, you have an attribute pool, a skill pool, an advantage/disadvantage pool, and if buy magic skills, a spell pool. I find it helps encourage players to make reasonably balanced characters (though I've had players make horribly under-powered characters by refusing to specialize).

Don't be fooled by the "nigh unkillable" though, there are much worse fates than death for a character in Agone... (It has a really fun set of corruption mechanics, a sort of cross between CoC sanity and first edition 7th sea reputation).

In my long experience, with point-buy and pick systems, there is a tendency for players to optimize upfront and then try to auto-play their way through to success. Of course, when they encounter hardship despite their preparations, those who are really egregious about it then to crow about the unfairness the loudest.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1037642Firstly, saying PCs try to make the best character the rules allow them "to get away with" implies they are creating their character in bad faith.

This is what I mean by lack of trust.  It's an assumption that they WILL try and screw the game over.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1037642Secondly, it is the GMs job to challenge his players, so that they have to actually work to get that success they want. Usually, making a worthy challenge takes a degree of min-maxing.

I have a love-hate relationship with Min-Maxing.  On one hand it's necessary to a certain degree in certain games, like D&D.  Which is a game of niches and specialists, which need to be good at their thing, and it's better if they're the BEST at their thing.  But it also tends to create one-note characters.  But if you don't make those one-notes, TPK's happen and that tends to kill enthusiasm for a lot players.

On the other hand, they're the bane of my existence because as a GM, you now have to create scenarios for said experts in a way that doesn't either bore the other players (see Cell Phone thread) or make it so easy that it doesn't matter which of the specialists take the challenge on.

Also, S&S heroes (my favourite type of Fantasy) are generalists, which require a broad spectrum of skill and ability.

Apart from some more time-consuming-but-still-cool character generation systems (like Artesia), I often like my quick house-ruled BRP system best.

Tell the players about the setting. Let the players roll their stats (or give them the option to buy stats, but the average will be somewhat lower), and ask them to come up with a character concept. Then give them a specific number of points to allocate to skills (number of points, and highest possible score depending on power level in the setting). Give them some items that suit their background, make sure the points are added up correctly, and you're done.

Quote from: Trond;1039984Apart from some more time-consuming-but-still-cool character generation systems (like Artesia), I often like my quick house-ruled BRP system best.

Tell the players about the setting. Let the players roll their stats (or give them the option to buy stats, but the average will be somewhat lower), and ask them to come up with a character concept. Then give them a specific number of points to allocate to skills (number of points, and highest possible score depending on power level in the setting). Give them some items that suit their background, make sure the points are added up correctly, and you're done.

Sort of a combination of random and modeling?

Quote from: CarlD.;1040040Sort of a combination of random and modeling?

I sometimes give the players the option of point buy vs random stat rolls, yes. E.g. for a relatively high power game I have used 2D6+6 (avg. 13),  and the point buy equivalent could be an average of 12 per stat. That gives an incentive to try the random rolls if they want. And the skills are allocated using point-buy.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1037642Firstly, saying PCs try to make the best character the rules allow them "to get away with" implies they are creating their character in bad faith.

What it really implies, if 'what they can get away with' is somehow 'bad faith', is that the rules you're using is shitty design.

Roll the dice, marvel at the results, roleplay the hell out of them.

The only time I want to put the dice in any order is when the player group needs X class for the PC team. AKA, "would you play the cleric?" or "nobody made a fighter again."

Quote from: Trond;1040150I sometimes give the players the option of point buy vs random stat rolls, yes. E.g. for a relatively high power game I have used 2D6+6 (avg. 13),  and the point buy equivalent could be an average of 12 per stat. That gives an incentive to try the random rolls if they want. And the skills are allocated using point-buy.

Interesting compromise! I'm not really familiar with the system in question so I can't make a detailed response but it sounds like it's been working for you. How does character generation work in the base system?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1040331What it really implies, if 'what they can get away with' is somehow 'bad faith', is that the rules you're using is shitty design.

I'm talking about the concept of "Bad Faith" in the sense of adopting false values and disowning one's innate freedom, thus acting inauthentically.

The idea that a player making a character to "get away with" something means they are acting under values that are contrary to the purpose of an RPG. They feel a need to focus on making a powerful character instead of a character that they actually want to play, with meaningful character choices. The point of the game is not to "win" by being better than everyone, and if a player doesn't understand that concept then they are building their character in bad faith.

If the GM and the players are working together to make a mutually enjoyable experience, then they shouldn't need to "get away" with anything because there is nothing to subvert. Their choices are all being made for their personal enjoyment of a character option, an the Gm should use those options to make the story of their campaign more detailed.

Now, I know there are games that make it easier for players to act in bad faith, but that isn't really a failure of the system itself. Yes, playing certain games with the wrong players can lead to munchkinry (much like the wrong GM can lead to a game of authoritarian Mother May I), but with the right players, who build characters in good faith, these same games allow for a great deal of potential in many ways.

Now, I am lucky enough to have developed a group able to place their desired story over any need to "win" but I know not everyone is so lucky. Assuming you need to treat all players as these players, however, is just acting in bad faith.

Crap. I left Modeling off the poll. In my defense I'e seen it officially mentioned in two games, both supers games as it happens.

The Bidding-War/Auction method in Lords of Olympus/Amber is another awesome method of character creation; as I remembered this weekend when we did one.

It's got no dice, but it absolutely ends up with almost every player ending up with a Character different from what they would have originally envisioned, and adapting their original concept in really awesome ways.

My preferred method has varied a lot over the years.

For attributes, I highly dislike rolling with wide variance (you'll never catch me using 3d6 for ability scores if I can help it), but systems that use a narrower spread I'm fine with. Point buy has been gradually falling out of favor for me, since I've noticed that it tends to result in cookie-cutter characters, and seems to lead players into the mindset that they're "not playing right" if they don't put at least X into Y stat. Stat arrays have overtaken point buy for me by a wide margin.

Beyond base attributes, I'm game for pretty much anything. I'm a large fan of Burning Wheel's lifepath system, where characters with fewer lifepaths are less powerful out of the gate, but are quicker to pick up new skills in play. I've convinced my players to try semi-random character generation in other games by allowing them to roll twice and choose their preferred option, which went over well. I've actually taken to the idea of having them roll for race on a d20, with different options weighted by their prevalence in the world.

Quote from: Broken Twin;1040973My preferred method has varied a lot over the years.

For attributes, I highly dislike rolling with wide variance (you'll never catch me using 3d6 for ability scores if I can help it), but systems that use a narrower spread I'm fine with. Point buy has been gradually falling out of favor for me, since I've noticed that it tends to result in cookie-cutter characters, and seems to lead players into the mindset that they're "not playing right" if they don't put at least X into Y stat. Stat arrays have overtaken point buy for me by a wide margin.

Beyond base attributes, I'm game for pretty much anything. I'm a large fan of Burning Wheel's lifepath system, where characters with fewer lifepaths are less powerful out of the gate, but are quicker to pick up new skills in play. I've convinced my players to try semi-random character generation in other games by allowing them to roll twice and choose their preferred option, which went over well. I've actually taken to the idea of having them roll for race on a d20, with different options weighted by their prevalence in the world.

If I didn't say so yet, welcome to theRPGsite!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1041703If I didn't say so yet, welcome to theRPGsite!

Thanks! Been lurking for a while now, finally decided I wanted to start joining the conversations.

Quote from: Broken Twin;1040973My preferred method has varied a lot over the years.

For attributes, I highly dislike rolling with wide variance (you'll never catch me using 3d6 for ability scores if I can help it), but systems that use a narrower spread I'm fine with. Point buy has been gradually falling out of favor for me, since I've noticed that it tends to result in cookie-cutter characters, and seems to lead players into the mindset that they're "not playing right" if they don't put at least X into Y stat. Stat arrays have overtaken point buy for me by a wide margin.

Beyond base attributes, I'm game for pretty much anything. I'm a large fan of Burning Wheel's lifepath system, where characters with fewer lifepaths are less powerful out of the gate, but are quicker to pick up new skills in play. I've convinced my players to try semi-random character generation in other games by allowing them to roll twice and choose their preferred option, which went over well. I've actually taken to the idea of having them roll for race on a d20, with different options weighted by their prevalence in the world.

You may like to look at this then. Oh and welcome to the forum from another newbie.:)

http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/02/career-paths-for-3d6-fantasy.html

I think my favorite is picking a few templates assigning a few points, and picking from a few simple options.

Something like the Numenera system. Pick a descriptor, focus, and type, distribute 6 bonus ability pool points, then pick a couple of features from your type. It's fast, takes about 5 minutes, but still has a lot of player choice in what you make.