So rolling is shit because someone with really high stats in everything is always going ti be better than someone with...

So rolling is shit because someone with really high stats in everything is always going ti be better than someone with really low stats in everything, right?

Why not just make it so that having high stats has its own set of drawbacks, and having low stats come with advantages? Ex:
>high STR people need to eat more, and are bigger and bulkier
>high INT people are worse at social interaction
>high WIS people are more likely to be driven mad by horrors man was not meant to witness
What are some other advantages that someone with low stats might have?

I agree, let's get rid of the concept of better.

Is this bait? Or do you really believe that even in your imagination everyone deserves a medal?

>>high INT people are worse at social interaction
tfw to smart too talk good

This is a good start OP but I think you should take it a step further.

>High STR needs to eat more, sleep more, counts as being overburdened, and cannot squeeze through tight spaces

>High DEX must move every turn and take attacks of opportunity, has disadvantage on perception checks, and gets no bonus to damage on attacks.

>High CON characters don't know when they are taking ongoing damage. You mark it in secret and roll their damage saves for them. They are also overburdened.

>High INT characters automatically fail social checks with NPCs who have less INT than them. High INT characters also need to eat more. They take a penalty to speed and all WIS checks.

>High WIS gets disadvantage on all INT checks and can't resist illusions. Also a penalty to CHA checks to convince people of anything.

>High CHA gets a penalty to CHA with anyone who has a lot less CHA than them or anyone with more CHA than them. They are too intimidating to people with really low CHA and people with higher CHA aren't affected by them. They also lose CHA whenever they take damage in combat.

I think this would make the game more balanced and realistic.

While this is mostly a stupid idea, Through the Breath, the Malifaux RPG, actually had some really interesting ideas on this front.

The system enforces balanced stat arrays, everyone has the same total value, but has some randomised variance in how you assign the total you have access to, so you'll almost always end up with at least one stat at -1 or lower.

However, the system also included various talents that gave advantages to people with negative stats, in one way or another. One, IIRC, let someone with a negative intelligence stat have greater resistance to some social effects, being too dumb to tell that they're being manipulated.

I should look those up again, it was a weird but kinda cute idea.

Also infinitely better than OP. Nothing is worse for creating an enjoyable experience than penalising people for doing too well.

Or, instead of inventing penalties for high stats, you could just use a point-buy system and not roll for stats. Honestly this issue is so easy to work around, and the OP's idea is so bad, that this smells like bait.

Congratulations. You managed to misunderstand both the concept of stats and the concept of rolling.

But OP, the equalizer between a guy with a +5 str bonus and a guy with a +1 str bonus is the d20

Just like in real life you have to grind for your stats and they slowly crawl back down if you don't keep them. So no, you can't have 20 INT and 20 STR because to make either go even close to 16 you have to live in the academy or the gym..

High CON means lowered CHA, because fat people usually aren't charismatic.

I mean with you playing them, yes. And that style of play is okay.

Other people like to approach role playing as puzzles on how to achieve a goal using their characters skills, sometimes in novel or tangential ways.

For instance a Bard might be too weak to fight a Bugbear on his own. But he could lull the beast to sleep with music and kill it. Or use his oratory skills to whip the locals into a frenzy about it and get them to charge the bugbear.

Even a truly average character could spend some time preparing a trap to lead it into. Or hire some help. Or simply choose a less dangerous task to pursue. Or provide a key support role to ensure other characters can succeed.

At worst, you fail as a player and your character dies and you roll up a new one.

Rolling for stats implies that you recognize the character is going to possibly be flawed or handicapped in a way that presents a challenge to you, the player. Trying to find ways to effectively support the team is one goal you may have, or maybe the GM works with you to create opportunities for your character to improve their stats by growing from their experiences, or searching for stat-altering equipment, or being offered faustian bargains or situations where they have to choose a stat increase at the cost of something else be it treasure or sacrificing a goal of the party etc.

Of course if you view it as playing an individual in a group and not a team, and can't handle other players getting the Glory, then you should point-buy. If you can't handle character death then you should point buy. If you're playing a linear game with structured tactical combat that requires certain roles to be filled by each player, you should point buy.

Or play a game like the one you described which is valid but doesn't imply anything is wrong with rolling stats.

Pretty sure what you want is called "Point Buy" where the positives are increased capabilities in the areas you invest in, and the negatives are reduced capabilities in the stats you don't have points invested in

Hey OP, instead of making more convoluted house rules that nobody likes, why not just use point buy?

Or, if you really need randomly-assigned stats, a stack of cards. For example, for D&D you have four Aces, four 2s, one 3, one 4, four 5s, and four 6s. Shuffle, then draw three each, in order, for Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. This is equivalent to 3d6 ironman, except with everyone having equal combined totals. For the equivalent of 4d6 drop 1, use one Ace, one 2, and four each of 3, 4, 5, and 6.

>High WIS
>can't resist illusions

>high WIS people are more likely to be driven mad by horrors man was not meant to witness
Except high Wis gives you high Will saves

Or why not use point buy or arrays?

You should check what equalizer means

>rolling
>really high stats

Let me explain something to you idiot. Do you know what the probability of rolling 18 on a straight 3d6 for all your stats are?
It's (1/6)^18... Do you know how slim that chance is? It's about 10^-14. In comparsion, the odds of winning in the big lotteries is on the order of 10^-6 or 10^-7. This is like winning in the lottery twice in a row,

Rolling is only bad in systems where there is not an option to pick your stats for lower risk but lower return.

The fun of having roll options is that you can always come out shittier than the point-buy/pick options, which means that in systems where these things are absent, a roll system is considered irritating.

High Edge points.
who needs high stats when i rolled 4x more dice than that elf ninja or that troll streetsam

FPBP

Listen to Harrison Bergeron here.

But honestly, nearly every reply makes a better point on OP's topic than OP.
Haven't seen that in a while.

>tfw too intelligent to understand OP

>The probability is low as fuck therefore never happens
Let me explain something to you, idiot. It happens, It happened to me several times, both in favour and against me, is not fun when your total modifier is +1 or +2 and another dude has a fucking +15 (yeah, it happened) and he outclasses you in absolutely everything you can imagine

Two games ago for example, I was playing a Scout/Ranger with a total modifier of +3 (then died at level 1 so I lost -2 to Con rendering my total modifier to +2) and then this guy comes and rolls a warblade with total modifier of +14, and the other players had a dude with +10 and another a dude with +9. Literally felt like a fuking comic relief good for nothing character.

Actually the odds are 1/54

And that's in one roll, you have 6 rolls at char creation.

I prefer to call it "Power and responsibility are proportionate"

I've never read into their lore so I wouldn't know but can someone explain to me why bretonnians are fatties?

>you could just use a point-buy system and not roll for stats
I don't understand????????????

... I don't think you understand the appeal of rolling

>LAWL let's punish someone for getting a good thing! That'll surely go over well!

Stop.

>Having a higher CHA grants a penalty to CHA.

Yeah man, don't you know? Wisdom is all about how in touch with the world you are, and the greatest illusion of all is the world itself afterall. Or something like that. The point is, since the world is an illusion, all your abilities would be counterproductive, since the better you are at something, the worse you are at it. Right?

Some people are just more capable than others, but that just makes the underdogs more interesting.

LotR wouldn't have been as great a story if Elrond just did everything himself instead of giving the Ring to a hobbit.

Underdogs, by their definition, are people who have no reason being in the situation in the first place.

A level X Player Character is not an underdog because either they *can* overcome the obstacle (since the DM is ultimately the one who decides the balancing) or they can't and they're forced to either flee or perish.

Honestly though, you can't really be an underdog in tabletop because of the nature of the game, the world isn't a large and impartial entity that doesn't care about your success and failure, it is an entity that will generally only throw bullshit at you if you're able to tackle it because if it ever does go ham, the story is over.

It's actually kinda funny in a way, you can beat some video games through self-imposed challenges like "low level" runs or "bombs only" runs but you cannot defeat a creature that's CR (Level+3) simply because of the way the numbers work.

>but you cannot defeat a creature that's CR (Level+3) simply because of the way the numbers work.

Says who?
CR only means something if you just stand still and use your class abilities to trade licks with the thing.

Using the environment to your advantage, exploiting the specific nature of the creature, and other circumstantial tactics are all perfectly viable ways to overcome a challenge. A DM who forces these tactics to fail because he has already decided the character can't defeat the creature based on level and CR is a cheating hack.

You can do things that shouldn't be possible in video games if you're skilled enough, and you can do things in tabletop games that shouldn't be possible if you're creative enough.

How about don't play shit systems/editions.

Play b/x

>Says who?
Math, monster abilities, the book itself, etc.
>Using the environment to your advantage
Situational at best and may or may not be moot depending on what the wizard casts.
>exploiting the specific nature of the creature
Knowing that a troll is weak to fire and acid will not make the actual fight any more or less difficult. As a party of level 1's with fire out the wazoo, you're still probably gonna get fucked because it's just that much stronger than you.
>A DM who forces these tactics to fail because he has already decided the character can't defeat the creature based on level and CR is a cheating hack.
Or he's actually trying to make the players feel like underdogs without realizing that there's no way for a level 1 adventuring party to defeat a CR4+ foe.
>6
So if you win in vidya, it's because you won in spite of the deck being stacked against you while in tabletop, you won because the DM felt like throwing you a bone?

Why feel accomplished at all really?

>6
Damn, I forgot I deleted a point, it should say ">5" instead.

Except in D&D trying to plan tactically and use the environment is worse than useless because of HP bloat.

Anything powerful enough that you would want to try something against it has so much HP that anything clever you try doesn't matter

A nonstandard approach to a problem is not the DM "throwing you a bone." On the contrary, if the system and the dice allow it, the DM must as well, and he's being a railroading fuck if he doesn't.

It's not HIS game, it's the players'. His only purpose is to facilitate fun based on the pre-agreed idea of what the group considers to be fun. That's the whole point of tabletop gaming. In addition, the whole point of using dice is that everything has a chance to succeed, even if sometimes it's only a 5% chance. Why even roll dice at all if the DM has already decided what can be successful and what cannot?

While it's true that, for most people, success is not fun without the possibility of failure, the reverse is also true that failure is not fun without the possibility of success. For most people, I assume.

Because it's a game and not Soviet Russia.

>It's not HIS game, it's the players'.
If it's the player's game then how can they lose? If you only lost because you chose to lose, can you honestly call it a loss? Can you really call any victory an achievement when player skill plays second banana to luck and DM fiat?

I mean, even the easiest video game has a greater than 5% chance of failure, yet in tabletop, you can only lose if the DM stops playing nice and decides to dick you over with something way out of your league.

Think about it, would you honestly expect a party to accept fighting an adult dragon at level 1 like they would accept fighting the first boss in a dark souls game?

Of course not, because short of the DM throwing the match, it's an automatic TPK through no fault on the player's part, which is why underdogs in tabletop cannot exist.

in the grand scheme of things "winning" or "losing" at playing pretend doesn't really matter. It's only worth it if you have fun.

If winning and losing doesn't matter then how can there be an underdog? Underdogs are people who aren't likely to win, so if winning and losing doesn't matter, wouldn't that mean that underdogs no longer have a purpose?

Also, it's called a "Role-Playing Game" user, so if the "Game" isn't challenging and has no stakes, wouldn't it be more honest to just play freeform and obfuscate outcomes based off of description rather than rolls?

>tl;dr RPGs are ableist because people with better attributes are better

So basically communism. Pic somewhat related.

Point buy... Fixed, all have 27-points to spend + racial. I like the idea and concept but balance is hard to achieve, so going with a base set seems better than changing a lot of things.

we're just about to play that. one of my players decided to have a stealth toolkit, be a forgotten, and grabbed the negative charm talent for a net /+//+//+/ to his stealth flips.

I make players roll for stats, and adding weaknesses to good stats would defeat the purpose of rolling in the first place. The purpose in my games is to make stats less of a 'build' and more of 'a hand you are dealt'. Some people are just straight up better, some are worse, some are balanced, some are specialized, some have a deep flaw, some are average across the board, etc.

Many players don't like this sort of thing, and that's okay.

If your DM is shit and doesn't reward creative combat sure, environment sucks.

For example, you're in a cave with some baby bullshit whatever monster. There are stalactites, so the wizard blasts one down. It hits the monster.

A good DM will reward the use of the environment with maybe pinning the creature down, having it miss a turn of combat, stunning it, taking away one of its attacks because of a wounded limb or what-have-you.

Sure it's not gonna end the combat but it'll give you an advantage and let you get to the end quicker, or, depending on the enemy type, may lead to other RP opportunities or whatever.

Basically you're retarded if you can't figure something out along those lines.

>You can't read a book and pump iron at the same time
I bet you can't walk and chew gum simultaneously either, retard.