What's my counterpoint for this observation about advantages/disadvantages?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

On 3d6, probably not. Odds of an 18 on 3d6 are 1/216, there are 6 stats, so 100 characters you expect to have a total of 3 18s, probably not on the same character. Odds of any two specific stats being 18 are 1/46,656, there are 15 possible combinations of 2 stats, so there's about a 3.2% chance to have a double 18 in 100 fair die rolls.

More likely with things like 4 keep 3, of course.

Roll 4 keep 3 seven times and drop the lowest was by far the most common method IME.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Roll 4 keep 3 seven times and drop the lowest was by far the most common method IME.

On 4d6 keep 3, the odds of an 18 are 21/1296, or 1.62%. The odds of getting double 18s on 2 rolls are thus 0.002626%; with 7 rolls there are 21 different ways of getting 2 18s, so about 0.55% chance that any one character has two 18s. On 100 rolls you probably don't get double 18s, but it won't be very surprising if you do.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

On 4d6 keep 3, the odds of an 18 are 21/1296, or 1.62%. The odds of getting double 18s on 2 rolls are thus 0.002626%; with 7 rolls there are 21 different ways of getting 2 18s, so about 0.55% chance that any one character has two 18s. On 100 rolls you probably don't get double 18s, but it won't be very surprising if you do.

I knew people with far more than 100 rolls in those ridiculous notebooks. If you wrote compactly you could easily fit more than that on each page.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

With the 3d6 method, yes. Though I once (yes, back in the 80s) wrote a program to generate character stats (on a DECwriter printing terminal, no less), and surprisingly it only took a bit over 10,000 characters to score one.

I whipped up a quick program to try it and gave up after 100,000 characters.

I also wrote a program to try it with 4d6-drop-lowest. Also gave up after 100,000 characters.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by trooper6

Also, if a character were killed, the DM's would destroy the character sheet she that the player couldn't play the same character in a different campaign.

And I'd have never played with that individual again.


I have all* my old characters. It sometimes amuses me to go back and try to figure out what some of those archaic numbers and hastily jotted notes meant.


* All but the third one which was destroyed in the Great Jolt Disaster of '86, which started me on the policy of making copies and only bringing the current copy to game night, and leaving the master copy at home in my Character Folder. I have a 'copy' of the one destroyed by Jolt spillage, but even when I rewrote it I wasn't sure about all the notes on the back. The ink had been devastated (I also stopped using erasable ink after after that).

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

And I'd have never played with that individual again.

Indeed. That was my possession. Destroying other peoples possessions is a criminal act, called vandalism, for a reason: people hate it when someone does that. Doing it to display dominance over someone else makes that person worse house-trained than my cat, and means they belong outside, with the rest of the animals.

If I weren't a dedicated pacifist, that kind of behavior would merit them a punch in the nose. As is, they might still get whapped on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

[dcarson]

Many years ago we all watched a player roll up a Empire of the Petal Throne character after his got killed. EPT uses 1-100 for the six? stats, he rolled at least two 100s and none were under 90 I think. The GM had him switch percentile dice twice during the process.

[Bruno]

I've seen someone roll 18 18 18 17 15 12 on 3d6s with someone elses dice. Not in that order or anything, but we weren't playing "and use in that order" anyways. Just because it's staggeringly unlikely doesn't mean it's impossible. Player responsible looked shocked.

[Anthony]

Note that humans are actually not very good randomizers either. Better to use a dice cup if it actually matters.

[dcarson]

There is a reason that casinos require the dice to bounce off a backboard for a roll to count. People can even if they aren't doing it on purpose bias the way dice land by how they throw. A dedicated gamer that throws dice many times a week gets lots of practice at getting the numbers they want.