Point buy is more likely to be less fun then dice roll

[JarlFrank]

1. It is worse for Role-playing.

Yea okay maybe you can just keep dicerolling to get the outcome you want but there is a hidden joy to having to roleplay an uncertain stat table. Table top players know.

if randomness was fun to roleplay, that would apply to everything, not just stats.

"Gee, I rolled a wizard... I actually wanted to play a fighter though, but computer says no." "Let's see what I got for alignment... chaotic evil. Hoo boy. I had come up with this Minsc like character with an ineffective but loyal animal companion and sort of good alignment. Neutral would have been ok, but this is actually going to be hard to roleplay in my group with the paladin." "Race die says I'm a faerie now. That's a new one."

You just described the official character creation rules of FATAL

 

[FritzedProcess]

1. It is worse for Role-playing.

Yea okay maybe you can just keep dicerolling to get the outcome you want but there is a hidden joy to having to roleplay an uncertain stat table. Table top players know.


2. Min-max and perfect information playthroughs are BORING

lets face the reality of the situation.

Point buy is designed for the min maxer or even the munchkin.

It is in a players best interest to become as powerful as possible so he can beat the game. This incentivizes players to always go for the min max playstyle. A dice roll start eliminates that and can FORCE the player to make perhaps even somewhat creative decisions at the start. Assuming this is a competent rule-set of course.

I mean sure i guess if you just want to do the same thing then go ahead. I personally find repetitiveness really unenjoyably.


3. initial dice roll Randomness is not overbearing and can create emergent game play

I mean come on this isnt like a unplayable thing to get a less then ideal stat sheet. Its early in the game so all the munchkiners can just rereoll or quit to their hearts contents. Also it being early makes it able to be played around.



I personally believe that point buy is very deceptive in nature and actually can make the game less fun then a random dice start.

Yeah, man, it was so fun re-rolling characters in Wizardry VII to get the party you wanted... not.

Also, with points you have to make a compromise. With dice rolls, you can reroll until you get an überman. Or hex edit. Powergamers gonna powergame and all that.

 

[Neanderthal]

Sounds unbalanced.

 

[Sykar]

I always thought that a base of 8 with let us say 10 point to distribute to a max of 12, reducing 2 points from the base value giving you 1 extra point, and then rolling 1d6 six times would be really good system.

 

[Sacred82]

1. It is worse for Role-playing.

Yea okay maybe you can just keep dicerolling to get the outcome you want but there is a hidden joy to having to roleplay an uncertain stat table. Table top players know.

if randomness was fun to roleplay, that would apply to everything, not just stats.

"Gee, I rolled a wizard... I actually wanted to play a fighter though, but computer says no." "Let's see what I got for alignment... chaotic evil. Hoo boy. I had come up with this Minsc like character with an ineffective but loyal animal companion and sort of good alignment. Neutral would have been ok, but this is actually going to be hard to roleplay in my group with the paladin." "Race die says I'm a faerie now. That's a new one."

You just described the official character creation rules of FATAL

well that looks like shit, but not due to randomness.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Point buy is for people who hate fun.

Stats are set to 256 / 99 / 20 anyway.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Should feats be randomly chosen too? What about class? Spells? How is deliberate character design negative in a game heavily reliant on character development?

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Ah, another retarded thread, where OP trying to pretend that his opinion is absolute and he some kind of God to decide for others how should they play games. This time though, our new "prophet" managed to gather support from other arrogant and hypocritical assholes who think that their opinion should be above others "cuz D&D and shiet". Idiots, there shitload games which based not on D&D, why the fuck these RPGs should have dice roll system? And this fucking mumbling about "evul min maxers ruin my experience", is absolutely idiotic, since we talking about single-player RPG, not PnP.

Speaking about PnP, dice rolling there is fine because stats generated by dice rolling can create funny situations and if you died - you sometimes can use back up character. In CRPG you fight against computer and computer don't give a shit about you and your shitty stats, if you die - reload or new game with normal stats. Btw, point by is more democratic in case creating character - you can create shitty character/party and suffer through whole game, surviving on easy mode only by sheer generosity of game designer who made monsters much easier to cater to casual players or you can put thought in your character and feel confidently on higher difficulties. Choice is your.

I bet my left shoe that people who trying to enforce dice rolling on other while hiding behind "it's role playing guys" re-roll stats for hours only to get AT LEAST two 18 their character, because all their whining about point buy system is sheer envy to people who can have fun in games without rolling dices with computer.

Maybe I went to emotional on this one, but all these "points for dice system" so fucking subjective, it's fall in category "It's good because i said it's good" and sounds so selfish.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Ah, another retarded thread, where OP trying to pretend that his opinion is absolute and he some kind of God to decide for others how should they play games. This time though, our new "prophet" managed to gather support from other arrogant and hypocritical assholes who think that their opinion should be above others "cuz D&D and shiet". Idiots, there shitload games which based not on D&D, why the fuck these RPGs should have dice roll system? And this fucking mumbling about "evul min maxers ruin my experience", is absolutely idiotic, since we talking about single-player RPG, not PnP.

Speaking about PnP, dice rolling there is fine because stats generated by dice rolling can create funny situations and if you died - you sometimes can use back up character. In CRPG you fight against computer and computer don't give a shit about you and your shitty stats, if you die - reload or new game with normal stats. Btw, point by is more democratic in case creating character - you can create shitty character/party and suffer through whole game, surviving on easy mode only by sheer generosity of game designer who made monsters much easier to cater to casual players or you can put thought in your character and feel confidently on higher difficulties. Choice is your.

I bet my left shoe that people who trying to enforce dice rolling on other while hiding behind "it's role playing guys" re-roll stats for hours only to get AT LEAST two 18 their character, because all their whining about point buy system is sheer envy to people who can have fun in games without rolling dices with computer.

Maybe I went to emotional on this one, but all these "points for dice system" so fucking subjective, it's fall in category "It's good because i said it's good" and sounds so selfish.

Found the guy who plays with pregenerated characters.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Found the guy who plays with pregenerated characters.

Damn, I thought that people will accuse me in min-maxing, but this is just funny, because I have (some might say unhealthy) behavior of spending hours during character creation just to make somewhat unique character.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Found the guy who plays with pregenerated characters.

Damn, I thought that people will accuse me in min-maxing, but this is just funny, because I have (some might say unhealthy) behavior of spending hours during character creation just to make somewhat unique character.

Hey, do as you will. As long as you roll barbarians.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Hey, do as you will. As long as you roll barbarians.

You mean a Barbarian.
If you need more than one, that's because your barbarians are little bitches.

 

[laclongquan]

:shakehead:

Pen and Pencil gamers~ Why would they keep on harping pnp mechanic in any COMPUTER game thread is beyond me~

Well, not beyond me. They just desperate to keep the genre alive, is all~

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Hey, do as you will. As long as you roll barbarians.

You mean a Barbarian.
If you need more than one, that's because your barbarians are little bitches.

Multiple games lad.

 

[J1M]

Living with the consequences of poor stat roles becomes less and less appealing as game length increases.

I would rather experience the interesting parts of game systems. More games should make an effort to expose those interesting parts without making the player guess what they are at character creation time.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

One man's less appealing is another man's interesting. Some say "minor" or mundane aspects like inventory limits, traveling on the map itself etc. are not interesting, but done right they can be (see Outward for a recent example of the traveling aspect). I think dealing with less-than-optimal stats is fun as long as the game keeps letting you level up like Kingmaker does. Character building continues to be interesting as you level up your less-than-optimal characters.

 

[Ismaul]

I think the most important point is that flaws and suboptimal characters are fine and all, when the player has chosen to play that.

Random character creation doesn't care for what a player wants to play, and that sucks, especially if you're stuck with a character you don't like for a long while. If someone wants to play a randomly character and roleplay what comes out, great! But he's chosen that. I always want to play flawed characters, but I've often got a clear idea of the character I want to roleplay, so I want to chose their flaws and strengths, because I am building the character. Other times I'm willing for my flaws to be randomly determined, but I chose first to abide by the dice result.

The way I favor it is that an RPG ought to have a way to determine by choice what a player's character's stats and flaws are, and a way to determine it randomly, so the player can choose what he wants, depending on if he has a clear concept or wants to be surprised. Ideally, both methods of character creation would be fair.

 

[anvi]

less fun then dice roll

You mean than not then. Then is relating to time, than is used when comparing things.

 

[Funposter]

1. It is worse for Role-playing.

Yea okay maybe you can just keep dicerolling to get the outcome you want but there is a hidden joy to having to roleplay an uncertain stat table. Table top players know.

if randomness was fun to roleplay, that would apply to everything, not just stats.

"Gee, I rolled a wizard... I actually wanted to play a fighter though, but computer says no." "Let's see what I got for alignment... chaotic evil. Hoo boy. I had come up with this Minsc like character with an ineffective but loyal animal companion and sort of good alignment. Neutral would have been ok, but this is actually going to be hard to roleplay in my group with the paladin." "Race die says I'm a faerie now. That's a new one."

You just described the official character creation rules of FATAL

"But I wanted a normal anal circumference measurement."

"Sorry pal, the dice say you have a gaper."

 

[J1M]

One man's less appealing is another man's interesting. Some say "minor" or mundane aspects like inventory limits, traveling on the map itself etc. are not interesting, but done right they can be (see Outward for a recent example of the traveling aspect). I think dealing with less-than-optimal stats is fun as long as the game keeps letting you level up like Kingmaker does. Character building continues to be interesting as you level up your less-than-optimal characters.

This is incorrect. I am not referring to "features". I am referring to systems. How different aspects of the whole interact.

As an example, consider some form of JRPG battle where you could combine abilities like "block", "thorns/reflect damage", "taunt", and a "berserk" spell. Normally you might berserk your ally, so they attack faster at the cost of lower defense, but with those other passive abilities in place "berserk" can be cast on enemies to make them hit more times and thus take a great deal of thorns damage while your character deftly blocks. Suddenly, a focus on physical defense becomes a good offense. To keep things interesting this probably doesn't protect against spells, etc.

A game could contain all of these abilities, but unless they can be combined for novel results, the system is less interesting.

Some of the most classic examples of this are things like casting heal on an undead creature or attacking a party member with a cure staff.

 

[Serus]

You just described the official character creation rules of FATAL

"But I wanted a normal anal circumference measurement."

"Sorry pal, the dice say you have a gaper."

Was there ever a computer adaptation of FATAL though?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You just described the official character creation rules of FATAL

"But I wanted a normal anal circumference measurement."

"Sorry pal, the dice say you have a gaper."

Was there ever a computer adaptation of FATAL though?

Corruption of champions

 

[Darth Canoli]

I always want to play flawed characters, but I've often got a clear idea of the character I want to roleplay, so I want to chose their flaws and strengths, because I am building the character. Other times I'm willing for my flaws to be randomly determined, but I chose first to abide by the dice result.

The way I favor it is that an RPG ought to have a way to determine by choice what a player's character's stats and flaws are, and a way to determine it randomly, so the player can choose what he wants, depending on if he has a clear concept or wants to be surprised. Ideally, both methods of character creation would be fair.

Makes me think about Shadowrun PnP; other RPG probably do the same but that's the one i played the most as well as being a DM; picking flaws that get you bonus points.
I find this system very interesting and mostly because you know the DM will make you pay for it (if he's for real), specially if you pick too many of them.

I wish cRPG did the same, with repercussions as well, throwing at you at least 2 situations per flaw where you wish you didn't take this particular flaw and curse the game designer.
But i don't think it has been done, at least not in a good TB cRPG; even shadowrun "cRPG" doesn't do it.

It would be nice if it was added in future or currently in dev CRPG like Realms beyond, KotC 2, next Vigilante dev's cRPG ...

 

[Incendax]

Best compromise is either an Array, or rolling for stats but everyone uses the same rolls (arranged to their taste). Which is basically just a more random Array.

Of course, every group has a preference. But Array/Random Array seems to please or at least content the largest number of people.

 

[thesheeep]

I love how this discussions keeps coming up, and all it really proves is that DnD stats suck.