"Would you ever do this?" Topic

1. Yes!
2. No!
3. Not saying – and you can infer what you like about that although obviously it's yes but I'm too ashamed to say so, even to myself!
4. Other – although what other option there can be I don't really know.

Of course! It's a game. No point in having a rubbishy character. No rolls of less than three allowed. At least one 5 or 6!

4
No – I would never play a game where you "Roll Up" a character. GURPS and HERO for me!

I thought that was what I was supposed to do, when told, "just roll the flipping dice!"

No. In my experience the characters that result from the die rolls and how one explains those results are for more interesting and fun to play than the min/max "I have such a cool idea" characters.

We did something similar. We had 4d6 drop the lowest and if you didn't like the results of all of them you could re-roll all of them but had to re-roll them all.

It prevented total rubbish characters without making superheroes.

As a DM I have told players to reroll a set of bad stats before. Most of the games I play these days use some sort of points system for stats though so no cheating.

Bad stats don't automatically make for a bad character. One "wizard" I once played had a high stat of 12 on 3d6. In the old days of 2nd Ed. D&D he retired as an 11th level wizard.

There was a phase when my old group tried to outdo each other with horrible characters.
We would roll 5 D6 and discard the two highest.

But with straight rolls, I loved the challenge of strength 4 and intelligent 17. An elderly wizard of course. Named him Appledore.

I thought it was pretty standard to roll multiple dice and discard the lowest these days, or to have a pool of attribute points and allocate them between stats.

When I really did roll a Paladin back in the old White Box/Greyhawk days, we were amazed.

Time is short, and rolling up a duff character is a waste of everyones time.

As a DM I have told players to reroll a set of bad stats before.

That's reasonable – the DM's discretion.

Yes, those pioneering D&D players were some tough chaps.

A compromise system I have always liked is after your roll your stats, you can bump any one up one point by reducing your current highest stat by one.

This still allows chance a good hand (you keep the same overall total rolled and you don't totally control the distribution), but moderates things toward the middle.

That approach doesn't help much if you roll six stats at 10 or below on 3d6. Since the point of these games is that the party is heroic, we figured characters should be in the top half. So if it ended up in the bottom half, we would dole out a few bonuses, depending on how far below that the stats were. Stuff like shift up one column/row for something in your class, or add an ability from outside your class. We considered these to be "unlikely" people with aptitudes that made them above the norm.

Playable heroes should ideally (you can be a hero without superman stats) have one stat in the 13+ range but I have played characters where all the stats were 8 – 12 and found it reasonable especially for fighters and thieves back in the white box/Blackmoor supplement days. Nothing says your character has to be stupid or suicidal with normal statistics. Your character may be first level but nothing says you as a player are ever first level beyond the first time…

4: Never been in a situation where I've needed to.
No DM I've ever played with ever stipulated 3D6 for stats. 4D6 & discard the lowest has been pretty much universal in my experience.
The longest-running group I've played with used 4D6 & discard the lowest, plus roll seven stats & discard the lowest, PLUS allocate those stats by choice.
Another DM I gamed with allowed players to automatically max out in their prime requisite, if they accepted strict 3D6, rolled in order, for their other stats.
In short, various ways to avoid being lumbered with a clunker, none of which produced game-breaking results, and all of which precluded any temptation to fudge.

Yes, those pioneering D&D players were some tough chaps.

It was actually pretty tedious sometimes, a party with a lot of boring average characters.

On the opposite end I watched a friend roll 3D6 in order for stats for a character and get 18 in strength, constitution, and dexterity. The rest were around 8 to 11. Straight up Fighter…

This was before the Greyhawk paperback in the white box days when classes were very limited.

Given his tendencies as a player this was a fun character to watch in action.

Of course those were the days when a player might have his own party of 2-4 fighters, two mages, two clerics, and when they became available a ranger and a thief. Frequently you had one player in the dungeon with 8 -10 characters playing head with the DM. DMs tended from Character Killers to Monty Haul types. Those were skirmish war games more than roll play FRPGs honestly.

I've often wondered why people roll in the first place. Given that this is to generate 'character' I think that anyone turning up with 'supposedly' straight 18's would be murdered by his fellow adventurers for being a smug X. Most people I think, would give themselves the best attributes for the character and compensate by down rating (to average) the rest – possibly with a quirky low.

This genre is not the kind of thing for 'real'. DMs should (get over themselves) allow super heroes. I wouldn't want to play a game where I was me, I am me, for the rest of my life, for Christ's sake.

Only scuzzbag cheaters do things like what the character in the comic did. I wouldn't want to play with a guy like that.

I get the gag.

Not for a character who was supposed to be incorruptible.
I'd make his crappy stats roll an integral part of his backstory.