Is rolling for stats bullshit?

This is a good post.

OD&D, your stats barely matter. They sorta matter for skill rolls (since you are rolling under) where each stat is point is 5% more chance of success, but you aren't really meant to do that too often. But otherwise you are very unlikely to get anything aside from a +/- 1.

And there's some ways they are "forced" to matter, like stat requirements and XP bonuses, but they are kinda silly and have been eliminated since.

If you want to generate a character randomly in modern D&D (& spinoffs), where stats actually matter quite a bit, roll random race/class combo. Or randomize an array. Defending random stat rolling as "it forces you to be creative with character building" is trash when those much more interesting options exist.

Not really. It has more to do with players today, more than ever, being focused on absolute control over their game and characters. There is certain charm in playing whatever your stats let you play, but I understand perfectly most people come into a game with an idea of what they want to play and will stick to that.

It depends. If the GM is the kind of person who likes to make players roll over every little thing, then yeah I'd say it's bullshit because one player could just sit there and not be able to make any roll the GM throws at him. If the GM is the kind of person who will let a couple of rolls slide in favor of good roleplaying then I'd say it's great because it can help you to flesh out your character by playing into the strengths and weaknesses in the stats. The player should be allowed a mulligan and be allowed to reroll everything again as long as the second roll is accepted regardless.

Depends on the player. I personally will take what I get my way. One time in a Hackmaster game I ended up with an array of single digits except for somehow one of the rolls being a lucky 18.

I chose to play a magical malnourished autistic Steven Hawking. But i'd understand if people would want a play a bit more a well rounded character that can contribute a little bit to any task or challenge if needed.

>b-but it can lead to bad stats

People always assume their characters are actually GOOD at their job.

>Is rolling for stats bullshit?
I'd say so, but I can understand wanting more randomness in character creation.
There's nothing really wrong with it if everyone's on board with the idea, but it's not something I'd like to use on a general basis. Seems like it would be a better fit for a oneshot over a full campaign.

I can sorta appreciate the novelty for one time games to create a sort of "roleplaying outside your expectations" challenge but even in that scenario its better to have a pool of premades and to roll randomly to see which one you get, as that way the personality and traits you have to try to show are random too.

Not really. It's just like real life. Your genes are a crapshot inherited from your parents plus random mutations. As such, you can say it's more realistic.

If they aren't good at it, what the hell are they doing campaigning? Unless this is a horror campaign (as another user suggested) this idiot would be better farming potatoes than trying to explore dungeons.

Suppose you have a party with a guy with 18 in every attribute, another with 3 in every attribute. The guy with 3 will be obsolete in almost every encounter. Without adding the fact that in world that guy is unbelievable weak, dumb, stupid, frail, clumsy and repulsive. It would be better for him to commit suicide and recruit a normal human with 10s.

You just have to use a proper rolling system.
For dnd, 3d6 anything below 8 is fixed to 8 and anything above 16 is fixed to 16 works wonders. I've had maybe a bit over 20 player characters rolled in campaigns like this across several editions, and they've all been fine.

Generally speaking, I feel like these groups have had a bit more fun at character creation than my point buy groups.

>Generally speaking, I feel like these groups have had a bit more fun at character creation than my point buy groups.

Which is sort of a who cares thing.

Unless your character creation session take a significant amount of time compared to the actual playtime of the campaign...

Oh, you were playing 3.5, weren't you?

This. The only system where I think rolling for stats is acceptable is Call of Cthulhu, and even then its still a little iffy.

I've GM'd a couple of 3.5e games but I moved on to 4e briefly, then back to a retroclone and later on 5e+a retroclone.

In either case, having fun at character creation generally makes for better characters which makes for a better campaign down the line.
I like to spend a normal session with character creation / background interweaving and introductions.

While it's realistic in real life, it's also realistic that a subpar dude wouldn't be the one chosen to kill the red dragon.

So if you 'birth' character with bad genes, the correct thing is to retire him and then keep 'birthing' until a character with good genes is born.

>Is rolling for stats bullshit?
Depends on the system. Not every game is as focused on combat as D&D, and because of that imbalance between character stats aren't as detrimental.

You also need stats for all sorts of things through.

Have fun falling on your back because you failed to jump a fence or going to jail because you failed to bluff.

Yeah, but rolling just makes it moderately more fun and isn't the source of the entire fun, is it?

I mean, capping it at 8-16 is a good solution if you must roll, but otherwise it seems like a chance for a long term detriment for short term benefit.

Not everyone agrees that there isn't fun to be had in failure and tension.

Depends entirely on the tone of the game.

If it's a group of ragtag survivors trying to make a life, or an occult game with suffering and horror, then yes. It's fine. As long as it fits with the tone of the game.

It doesn't fit the tone of a fantasy epic.

Great tension! You have a fucking -1 to your rolls!

My party is just fine with randomized stats.
It's quick and I think it is fun to have to adapt your rollplay.
That being said if one of my players roll a garbge character I tend to let them roll again on few stats.
This.
The game becomes pretty dull when the pcs can succeed at just about any roll in their specialized stats.

>The game becomes pretty dull when the pcs can succeed at just about any roll in their specialized stats.

Then make the challenges harder. That has nothing to do with randomly rolled stats. You can roll an 18 for your main stat just as easily (or even more easily) as point buy..

I can see that, but there's a vital difference.
I often play shitty characters (compared to the rest of the party) in GURPS because I like the idea of being kind of an amateur. But the thing is that I get to choose to suck, I don't have to. And I can choose what I'm bad at. For example I don't think being bad at combat is nearly as compelling as being bad at other skills, so I can choose to be competent in combat and just kind of trash in most other regards.

I get why people roll for stats, it's fine, but it's not like rolling for stats is the only way to experience tension or the only way to play a bad character.

>forgetting the player experience is entirely customized by the DM

Stats don't mean shit, guys.

>Stats don't mean shit, guys.
>forgetting that not even the DM can save a party with bad rolls, unless of course he starts bending several rules of nature and breaking the immersion

It depends on the system for me, so I don't really have an objective preference. I like stat rolling in the 40k RPGs, but I also like other systems with point buy, like SoS

I haven't played many RPGs, but when I did we'd roll a for stats, but each player would record his stat rolls in a "pool" and then assign those rolls to the stats he favored.

SimpEx: I'm playing Warrior. I have 4 stats:
STR
VIT
AGI
INT
I roll d12 four times, get: 11 / 8 / 7 / 4.
I assign:
STR: 8
VIT: 11
AGI: 7
INT: 4

Now I'm the dumbshit Tank.

This system allowed some played control over stats while also adding an element of randomness.

The trick is to roll 6 numbers, then choose which number goes to which stat.

That way you still have some control over the kind of areas you want to be good at, and can still plan a bit.

I always do this when we roll up Traveller characters, and there's never been a problem. If every score is below 6 or 7 I allow people to re-roll (stats being rolled on a 2D6 in Traveller), but that's never happened.

In D&D we always points-buy so I guess some systems suit points buy more. D&D can be straight up powergaming and total control when you roll a character, wheras Traveller is more like influencing someones life and seeing where it goes - you may not end up as the kind of character you initially wanted to play, but you will always have an interesting back story and some skills. D&D characters start with no back story at all - they're purely numbers, class and race. All the backstory has to come from the player or DM (or both). In Traveller you almost don't need any additional back story as character generation provides your whole life story.

what if the DCs are always really low?

a good DM could make a party work even if no one had a stat over 8

The problem isn't that EVERYONE has a stat lower than 8.

That's very unlikely. What is more likely is that you'll get the occasional superpowered or underpowered character in a party of otherwise average characters.

With a large character turnover rate, or pool of characters, or stats just plain not mattering as much (OD&D is all of the above) this'd be fine.

Modern D&D is none of those.

>>Which is sort of a who cares thing.

Generally my players like it when the game is fun...

>>Unless your character creation session take a significant amount of time compared to the actual playtime of the campaign

>>Ok, this is gonna be the shitty point buy system phase but afterwards everything is gonna be WAYYY better, trust me!

Eh not everything is a stat check, or a will or fort save.

Casters can still cast with low stats, skill points can make up for poor stats etc.

A good DM would also allow someone to re-roll if they got really shit stats.

The game is about fun, if people want to roll stats, let them, if they want points-buy, no problem.

What is the best stat spread for 5e?

I don't even advocate pointbuy, I just think that there are better/fairer random generation methods than rolling, if you want the fun of randomly generated characters without the chance to screw up, one way or another.

It's balanced towards the standard array.

Only if characters are disposable

>Rolling for stats works in one and ONE GENRE ONLY - horror games. Everywhere else it's a stupid design mistake inherited from completely different era of playing, when "RPG" was pretty much equal with "that minature game where you fight dragons" and the idiots in tune of modern "git gud" pushed random stats into it.
I don't know anywhere in the phrase Role Playing Game that implies that the person playing the role MUST be allowed to have total freedom in the role they are playing.
Retard.

Sounds like bullshit. Just do a pointbuy if you're going to punish someone for being lucky, and coddle them if they aren't lucky.

its not for everyone, but it works at my table
i also roll 6 times, and let them distribute, to combine chance and agency

I like rolling for stats because it makes for more unique characters. If I cared about the numbers more than I did about the character I'd play a video game not a TTRPG.

>the downside is agreed upon between the DM and player, something that will prevent someone from making all encounters trivial for everyone else
If I can't theorhetically start play with six 18's due to having amazing luck, I don't really see the point of rolling stats over using a point buy.

Rolling for stats is RNG based, RNG is based off of luck, and if I'm going to get fucked over by a shit roll then I should benefit from an amazing roll.

The funny thing is that most narrative focused systems use point buys instead of rolling while most games that roll for stats are games were character death is expected.

i let people point buy if they want, but rolling for stats is always an option, but they dont play in a vacuum, there are other people to consider, and things have to be fun for all

i try to approach this softly as possible, so that nobody goes home unhappy

If Timmy over there plays a character with 3 in every stat, that's his fucking problem for playing a shitty character in the first place.

If you're going to allow rerolls to offset bad luck, why not just use point buys then since you're obviously dealing with babies who can't handle shit luck in a game full of RNG?

well, i do allow for point buy if they want

but everyone is supposed to have fun, and id someone isnt having fun, i let them have fun in their own way, not force them into anyone elses idea of having fun

they may or may not die, and rolling 6 bad stats will hasten that, but they should never feel left out

My rule is players can choose between rolling or array. Once you made your choice its locked, can't change your mind after the fact.

Because Timmy is a retard and likes rolling dice even when it is inappropriate.

This is basically what it comes down to. There's no logical reason to roll for stats in modern D&D.

Absolutely none. The only reason it's still a thing is because some people just like rolling for stats, because that's how they always done it, or how they saw it should be done.

It's the same shit as the chimpanzee with the ladder.

So, 6 + 2d4? And then apply race bonus for a max of 16 (14 + 2)?

I used to mildly dislike it and now I've caught the Veeky Forums meme and get mad when anyone uses it. I hate it with all my guts now. And it's all your fault, Veeky Forums.

>tfw literally everyone I play with are retarded and roll for stats

>b-but I need to throw dice for any reason I find, even if the stats are basically default after the adjustments!

>Is rolling for stats bullshit?
>Seeing how stats are one of the most important things in a RPG, I don't think it's right for a player to be favored or unfavored through an entire campaign just for being unlucky.

Is rolling for skill checks bullshit?

Seeing as skill checks are one the most important things in a RPG, I don't think it's right for a player to be favored or unfavored through an entire campaign just for being unlucky.

A far better system is simply letting a player do whatever they want whenever they want while facing no real challenges.

>letting the player do whatever they want whenever they want
yes
>facing no challenges
no

>they may or may not die, and rolling 6 bad stats will hasten that, but they should never feel left out
If they don't want to feel left out then they should've bitten the bullet and gone with a point buy system.

When you roll, but allow rerolls whenever they roll shit, it sets a precedent of "I can make any stupid decision I want and the DM will save me if I'm in over my head."

I wont save people if they do something dumb like drink 330 ml of mercury, or are struck by lightning bolt and dont have enough HP

but i dont want people complaining their guy is useless, even if he is

>but i dont want people complaining their guy is useless, even if he is
If people bitch about being useless, just remind them that they had a choice and that they chose to let RNGesus take the wheel.

It'll prepare them for the moment their special snowflake rolls a "1" and falls off a cliff due to a shitty acrobatics roll.

>Seeing as skill checks are one the most important things in a RPG, I don't think it's right for a player to be favored or unfavored through an entire campaign just for being unlucky.

You fucking idiot.

You roll for skills each time you need to use a skill.

You roll for stats once, at creation.

This is the problem. One unlucky roll at creation can impact your entire character throughout the game. One unlucky skill roll will impact your character for that roll... and he probably chose to make that skill roll, he knew the risks, while you are kinda forced to have stats.

And if rolled stats don't have such an impact... then why roll for stats?

>I don't think dice should be in this dice game.

They need more "Roll for name" charts instead! THAT is something that's hard to do point-buy.

Depends on the game. If it's a high-mortality gritty dungeon crawl in 1st or 2nd ed d&d then yes, roll for stats, it's part of the fun. If not, then fuck no.

Because that's *exactly* what OP meant.

>comparing something that happens only once to something that happens several times
Kill yourself before your stupidity spreads.

I make players roll 3d6 down the line, no special treatment. They fucking like it because they aren't all bitch babies like you folk.

You could do it point-buy

1 point for names like Chungledore and Flimspoth

2 points for Biblical and other common names

3 points for names that sound like they'd go in LOTR

4 points for names like Fuckslayer and Lord Humungus.

Lew Pulsipher was designing RPGs while your parents were still in diapers. Here's a little bit of what he has to say about the current crop of TTRPG players:

"In olden days you had to “train” players to accept limitations. I suppose that’s true today as well, but contemporaries strongly dislike constraints, and often want this kind of game to be a playground, not a game where you have to earn something."

Whether you can understand it or not is another question.

Personality should flow more or less naturally from mechanical choices (class, skill set, etc) and character motivation. For example, if being a Wizard requires years of rigorous study and training, then it requires someone with patience and self-discipline. Adventuring is dangerous, so the character is doing it because of a sense of duty, or because he wants to get rich, that goes a long way towards building that character's personality.

I once saw a ruleset where each player rolled up six entirely random, expendable characters who were supposed to be ordinary townsfolk, adventuring in dungeons for whatever reason. The idea is that you could very well roll characters with bad stats, profession, etc. but they would be weeded out by the highly lethal nature of the game. It might have been good for a laugh or two, but there's a reason most RPGs skip that step.

>here, roll up a cavalcade of ordinaries who get slaughtered until you get someone who actually has business adventuring

Snore. This is basically encouraging everyone to be that guy who commits suicide by monster because his rolled stats were poor. I even saw someone who rolled up a shit array make a Commoner who tried to murder the party in their sleep with deliberate ineptitude on the first day when they were all complete strangers.

They should succeed at routine things in which they're specialized. Too many games go the other way I found. In D&D 3.5 random ass village blacksmiths have to be level 7 just to have enough skill ranks to have a high enough Craft Blacksmithing roll to be taken seriously in his trade and not fuck up constantly. Savage Worlds characters who push one skill all the way to d12 still fuck up routine checks 1/3 of the time, and those with d4's chain explode often enough that they succeed challenging checks by sheer luck fairly regularly. And then they put in the Benny system to patch over the randomness overload with generous amounts of rerolls.

>had one DM who hated point buy and was proud of rolling in order like a proper old school gamer
>had a roll system so lenient that most people end up with great stats anyways
>one guy still manages to roll a shit array (on his third try because the first two were absolutely horrible) while everyone else is rocking 16-18 in four stats

Not an argument.

The old "previous generations weren't such coddled brats and actually worked for things" meme, that's an old meme but I'll give you it, it's one of my favorites

>The old "previous generations weren't such coddled brats and actually worked for things" meme, that's an old meme but I'll give you it, it's one of my favorites

It's only a meme because it's partially true.

I remember playing "Steading of the Hill Giant Chief", the 1st Against the Giants module, soon after it came out. We had a TPK about 20 minutes in thanks to completely overmatched characters. What did we do? Why laugh, roll up characters at a higher level, and start again.

This fall I ran the same module at a FLGS game night and had two players quit in tears when their PCs were merely wounded. I had another stormed off during "Caverns of Chaos" when I imposed encumbrance penalties because he wanted to collect and carry around the heads of all the creatures he killed. I could list dozens of other anecdotes but you'll claim anecdotes aren't evidence.

When you essentially "learn" how to play TTRPGs from playing Super Mario Brothers and First Person Shooters, you really don't learn how to play at all. Couple that with the infantile narcissistic mindset of many millennials - not all and not most, mind you, just many - and you've a group of people who simply don't play well with others and within constraints.

I'll leave you with this one last thought: Many people playing TTRPGs today think they are SUPPOSED to succeed and succeed no matter what. They never learned to lose as children so they're unable to do so as adults.

>roll up characters at a higher level
>implying random stat GMs would allow that

Is the game a one-shot? Then rolling may be appropriate for silly fun. Certain games like Maid make great use of random chargen.

Is the game meant to be longer and ongoing? Probably use another stat generating method. Players don't want to be stuck with weird stats for months at a time, especially if it prevents them from playing what they want to play, or they rolled very poorly. Fairer all around to use a more consistent method.

>>roll up characters at a higher level
>>implying random stat GMs would allow that

You'd be surprised, my little greentexting sperglord. The real world doesn't fit neatly into your "boxes of irony".

We rolled random stats because that's what the game said to do and that's what we always ddi. We then applied the various bonuses and bennies accrued at each level. So, random stats with a bit of "point build' slathered on top.

IIRC, the TPK party had been on the low side of the recommended levels so we aimed for the middle in round two and began playing again.

As a player, I definitely prefer rolling for chargen. Sometimes I come to the table with a character concept, and then have to adapt it to the stat's I'm given. I think this results in more organic-feeling characters than just making the character I want with the points I'm given. Of course, some systems do this better than others. One character for Traveller that I made was going to be a clumsy swabbie, but then got into university on the lifepath charts, studied computing, and became |_33+#@>

What system was this?

Just asking because OD&D is lenient as shit with stat rolls as explained in and To the point where it's basically all but pointless, compared to your class and level (with the exception of having a shitty CON, that's rough).

So yeah, old systems where you were supposed to die handle stat rolling better. This is not an issue. The issue is that new systems that aren't built with getting killed and rerolling every 5 minutes handle them badly.

>One problem I have with point buy is that it introduces a charop challenge into the game right from the get-go. When you're rolling for stats, nobody is going to feel the responsibility to make sure their character is as competent as possible.

Nah.

>munchkin feels like playing a Cleric
>stats don't support it so he makes a Wizard instead
>munchkin pores over the material looking for ways to offset bad stats

I use character creation to set the tone of the game.
Since I prefer highly lethal situations and open rolling, my players roll 3d6, six times. They have the option of re-rolling up to three dice in an attempt to boost their score(s). After that, they can assign the six scores to whatever stats they want.

I've met too many point-buy players that "end" the game at character creation and just roll dice through every encounter. Playing a suboptimal character either forces them to think, or forces them out. I'm good with either.

This is true in that players shouldn't associate the character with themselves so much all the time and instead try to fucking roleplay.

They force people to adapt. There's a series of combinations and values that people would never have, unless the fair hand of luck handed it down to them.

I'm not saying it's always the right thing, but there is value to "working with what you're given"

>Playing a suboptimal character either forces them to think, or forces them out.
Or they do stupid shit to purposefully get themselves killed, even if it ends up fucking everyone else over at the table.

see

Your are conflating two issues.

A person rolling for stats is okay with unfairness.

A person okay with characters dying is okay with challenging/punishing gameplay.

The two overlap, but just because you spend an extra minute rolling your stats instead of using an array doesn't make you more hardcore, it only makes you less concerned with fairness.

Which is fine. It's okay to take it easy sometimes, and it fits some type of games with a more unfair tone.

These are called funnels, they are common in OSR games.

In which case you're playing with cancer, and there's no point in playing with them from the get go.

>(with the exception of having a shitty CON, that's rough).

Guess what rolling random stats occasionally gave you? I played a low CON PC for many times. Having a "glass jar" forced me to think about my actions and choose my fights.

>So yeah, old systems where you were supposed to die handle stat rolling better.

You weren't supposed to die as much as you were supposed to think and be challenged. Death or, more accurately, the possibility of losing has to be a credible threat if there is to be any real challenge. As Lew Pulsipher explains"

"Much of this tension is lost in single-player video games because you can save your game, and try over and over again until you like the result. In a board game, you can LOSE, and (in most cases) you can't call "REDO".

When you can reboot without penalty or construct precisely what you want, you aren't challenged at all.

>Itt we turn this game into even more of a hugbox

This. You guys don't want challenge. You want to have your hands held during the entire game because you just might lose! Oh no!!

>Guess what rolling random stats occasionally gave you? I played a low CON PC for many times. Having a "glass jar" forced me to think about my actions and choose my fights.

*glass jaw

Having a challenging game should do that regardless of your stats.

If you need a low con to be forced to think about fights, your game is weak.

>A person rolling for stats is okay with unfairness.

Life is unfair, Skippy. Tension and challenges are unfair too.

Focusing on "fairness" means you're like the kindergarten teacher who says no one can have gum unless everyone has gum.

set of cards, faggot
checks the archives

>Is rolling for stats bullshit?
Absolutely not. The only people that cry about 'bad' stats are whiny millennial types that feel that they have to be given everything for nothing.
Bad stats add role play and character development opportunities, and more importantly add verisimilitude to the game world

>Life is unfair, Skippy.

But games don't have to.

Or if they have to, they don't have to be in a way that can only be remedied with the character getting killed off to roll a new one.