Do most people prefer rolling or point buys for ability scores?

[Talya]

I noticed in the game advertisments for PF1e games, most of them use rolls to determine ability scores.

 

I largely thought this was a thing of the past so it surprises me -- what do most of you prefer using? Why?

 

(Personally -- I don't like them. I prefer to put every player on a level playing field and eliminate the randomness as much as possible. I also prefer higher point buys, i like more heroic player totals. For PF1e, the 25 point buy is the lowest I'd go -- not that I've ever gone higher either.)

Edited November 23, 2023 by Talya (see edit history)

[RedRajah]

I prefer point buy systems too in this day & age.

[matt_s]

heavily depends on the system. d20 systems like dnd and PF where your character's competence is heavily affected by high or low rolls, yeah I'd rather point buy. Some systems like Crawford's Without Number (coin for the coin jar!) have stuff like a free 14 if you roll stats to guarantee that at least your main stat will be decent and many OSR style games have flatter math as well. I think generally high or low rolling should not grossly affect character competency and a little variance can make character creation more interesting. Probably a bland opinion but it's what I got...

[Butchern]

I've only played one game that had the possibility of rolled ability scores (D&D5e) and we used point buy, so I guess I prefer point buy, but I don't have much to go on. 😬

I can see the randomness being fun in its own way.

[Kelb_Panthera]

3e player here.

 

I very much prefer point-buy most of the time. The importance of base abilities gets a bit oversold but they do matter and rolling low hurts more than rolling high helps. Then there's the danger of leaving any element of building your character to the RNG. It's not such a big deal if you're comfortable playing just about anything and you choose your class and race after determining stats but if you have a particular character design in mind, a bad stat set can put the kibosh on it pretty quick.

 

That said, rolling it out every once in a while for a one-off can be interesting. Even go a step further and roll it in order -after- choosing race and class. Might end up the comic relief that way but it's a one-off so why not?

 

I will also state a certain distaste for tables that "roll for it" but have such absurdly generous rolling conventions that they might as well just assign whatever they feel like having since the probability of not getting exactly that is approaching nil.

[Lord Foul]

I'm going to buck the trend here and go for rolling stats... with a caveat.

I like the additional randomness that comes with rolling dice for ability scores, and the increased scope it gives for exceptional characters (be that exceptionally good or bad, in certain ways). I've always felt that point buy systems tend to end up with every character being pretty much the same, with everyone having ability scores that all work towards the character concept and no serious or debilitating effects from poor scores, because they only ever occur in places that don't matter.

Having said that, I do want some kind of safety net to prevent some player ending up with a totally lame character compared with everyone else, so I prefer systems that allow multiple arrays, discards, swaps and a full race and age modifier system, to give a large degree of flexibility within a rolled system. Just roll once and take what you get is very much a step too far to my mind.

 

[TheFred]

Yeah rolling is very much a thing of the past, it makes very little sense and is super-dated IMO.

Perhaps it makes more sense in a 1e style world where stats matter less, characters are more throwaway, everyone's sitting down to roll them all up all at once, and you expect to make another one before too long anyway. When you're advertising for a game here, though, you're basically saying that some players get more resources than others - for no real reason. We don't (usually) roll for things like starting level, so the fact that people want to do it for ability scores and usually pretty much just ability scores (maybe HP, I guess) is pretty weird if you actually think about it.

[Stygian]

Hard disagree. There’s nothing wrong with standard array. But I personally loathe requiring a stat that you will be substandard at until the end of time.

PF2e does a pretty good job of this, in that I can make sure that I have no mod lower than a +0 to start without gimping myself. But otherwise, yeah. I hate having a forced dump stat.

The way I always liked it was to roll three sets, allow players to pick between any of the three, arrange to taste. Allows for randomization, while making sure everyone has a fair shake at getting the character they picture in their head. Also sharply reduces the chance of one character overshadowing the others just off stats alone.

[cailano]

I'm almost always the GM so take anything I say about character generation with a grain of salt, but I very much prefer rolling. My favorite method is 3D6 down the line, allowing one stat swap at the end.

But I do like it when PCs can increase their attributes over time. I add that to almost all my games. 3D6 stats feel right at first level. Not so much at fifth level. Definitely not at 10th.

I don't like point buy because so many of the characters end up the same. Here's a fighter for you:

Str: 16 Dex: 14 Con: 14 Int: 10 Wis: 10 Cha: 8

Sometimes a player will swap Str and Dex for fun. If more points are allowed, Charisma won't be as low.

Do they play their character as actually having a low Charisma? Often no. They ignore it. That's part of what makes Charisma such a good dump stat. Easily ignored.

As a GM, I get tired of seeing it. I like it when players have to get creative. Heck, in a BECMI game, I'm in right now, my Fighter doesn't even have a strength bonus. Her highest roll was for Dex, but we already had a Thief. And, yeah, I could have taken the safe route and played her as an archer, but instead, I imagined her as a firey, slightly undersized warrior. With some decent armor, her AC bonus to Dex, and a good roll for hit points, our group had a new tank.

 

[Melkar]

Point buy systems, particularly if I'm GM'ing a game. I often find that players tend to say "I would much prefer to roll dice than point buy but if I get low scores I want to reroll", which often puts those who roll for stats on an unfair ground because they get to leave it to chance without taking the risk that comes with it.

Got to be point buy, I agree with the poster above in that it puts everyone on an equal footing.

[Actana]

I'm gonna go with neither, and say I prefer set arrays that give a little bit of customization.

[Primeval Stasis]

I strongly prefer rolling character gens. But then again, I also like games that don't require having optimized builds or good scores to be fun. I can see why people would prefer point buy for that kind of game.

[Eric]

Put me down for "it depends". Rolling for stats came from the thought process that the characters start from nothing and become something, and while not always true, a certain degree of "A died, time for B!" was part of the story. That's great if you are going to have a long-running game with frequent sessions around a table and the advancement can be felt, but often in PbP something is going to derail that. For PbP, customizable arrays, a set of arrays, or point buy makes sense to get everyone to a more heroic point at the start of the "adventure".

(That said, if I'm running an OSR-type game on the Weave, it's going to be rolled stats, since the players will expect it. 😀)

[SMARTAgentKC]

Point Buy is my main method of stat generation when it comes to D&D 5e.

I'll roll if requested but I'll often hope for something else like rerolling ones so that the scores can't be lower then say 6 or if the rolled stats give less then point buy then reroll

I also like it when a DM says, here's your array arrange how you like

[MrAndrewJ]

It depends on the game, the intended narrative tone, and the out of character mood.

If everyone involved enjoys the randomness then rolling can be a lot of fun. The positives can be less stress, a "beer and pretzels" environment on the fun end, and even quality improvisation on the narrative side. The downsides can be complete chaos and a group who isn't prepared to make the best of it.

I've been finally looking at Pathfinder 2e this year. The way they handled stats was really enticing.

I was also a big Shadowrun & World of Darkness fan a long time ago. Shadowrun had its priority system, which feels like an advanced point buy method. World of Darkness just had the one single system that could be quickly mastered to create fast characters. I admit, it was nice to have one common sheet then mostly fill in a set number of dots.

Every method has a place. The variety can offer more fun, with the right groups of people.