Rolling stats - Page 3

Jerron · 06-19-2009, 05:05 PM

Yeah. It's more like "What're we gonna play today, Pinky?" "The same thing we play every time, Stubborn Guy doesn't have a GURPS character." (And hitting him upside the head does nothing but hut my hand.)

Anyhow, I was thinking of allowing a certain number of dice, and taking points off the character to compensate. Say I figure for an 8 + 2D6 (I know, it's pretty high, but that's just a number to start at. I'm talking around 250 points, and 12-14 is probably going to be fairly mundane) for each stat. Average of 15, so that's 200 points on average, and if he rolls low, he doesn't gt them back (but they don't count toward disads either) and if he rolls higher he doesn't pay more than 200. That unfortunately leaves him only 50 points for ads and skills, but he's the one who wants to roll.

Then, he rolls in order of choice, but he gets all 8D6 to do with as he wants. ST not high enough? Roll another die, but you get one less for the other three stats. Want a 20 IQ? Keep rolling, you'll probably use up half, if not all, of the dice to get there.

I might see him this weekend, we'll see how it works out. I'll let you guys know how it does, since you're so interested. (BTW, that 8 +2D6 does seem a lot now that I look at it, it'll probably be a lot lower.)

Landwalker · 06-19-2009, 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerron

Anyhow, I was thinking of allowing a certain number of dice, and taking points off the character to compensate. Say I figure for an 8 + 2D6 (I know, it's pretty high, but that's just a number to start at. I'm talking around 250 points, and 12-14 is probably going to be fairly mundane) for each stat. Average of 15...

As you pointed out towards the end of your post, 8+2d6 is pretty... well, "dangerous". To reiterate what I was saying earlier, consider "shrinking" the dice. Otherwise there's a not-unreasonable chance that this guy could walk away from character creation with at least one 20 and everything else no smaller than 13 or so. Given that the guy (and presumably your group as a whole) is obviously experienced with D&D, you should have plenty of d4s lying around, so think about 4+4d4 (although I'm still not comfortable with an average result of 14) or 5+3d4 (average result of 12.5, or 13.5 with 6+3d4). As much as I would love for the guy to roll stats and bust, and I know that the best chance of that is with large dice, large dice also give the best chance for him to end up putting the other characters to shame, and at the end of the day I would rather err on the side of the enjoyment of the majority.

The guy's obstinacy about rolling makes me assume that he's a bit of a munchkin, so you might also consider planning ahead for this contingency: He wins the "let me roll for attributes" battle and you agree to let him take that shot. Then, before he rolls, he decides that his character has the Luck advantage. You can probably figure out from there the scenario I'm foreseeing.

The "You get X dice total, allocate them as you will" idea seems good, but it also has some pitfalls. If the guy is one of those "be better than everybody at everything" types, then it might not be much of a problem since he'll want all of his attributes to be equally amazing, but if he has half of a brain and you let him allocate dice to roll stats, he'd be almost foolish not to choose a character who can "dump" at least one of his stats and focus dice everywhere else.

When you see the guy this weekend, I still favor trying to impress upon him the fact that GURPS doesn't do stat-rolling. If the guy tries to play that ridiculous "real RPG" card, ask him for a compelling reason why stat-rolling makes an RPG more "real" than point-buying, because I doubt he can provide one.

Cheers.

Xplo · 06-16-2009, 01:27 PM

Real men roll 3D6 for each attribute, in order, with the GM watching. No rerolls for bad scores. No points. If he still wants to do it, let him.

Or, you know, you could just tell him "no". What's he going to do, skip out on a game you've practically sold him on if you won't let him cheat his way to better attributes? If so, good riddance.

06-19-2009, 05:05 PM	#1
Jerron Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Detroit	Re: Rolling stats Yeah. It's more like "What're we gonna play today, Pinky?" "The same thing we play every time, Stubborn Guy doesn't have a GURPS character." (And hitting him upside the head does nothing but hut my hand.) Anyhow, I was thinking of allowing a certain number of dice, and taking points off the character to compensate. Say I figure for an 8 + 2D6 (I know, it's pretty high, but that's just a number to start at. I'm talking around 250 points, and 12-14 is probably going to be fairly mundane) for each stat. Average of 15, so that's 200 points on average, and if he rolls low, he doesn't gt them back (but they don't count toward disads either) and if he rolls higher he doesn't pay more than 200. That unfortunately leaves him only 50 points for ads and skills, but he's the one who wants to roll. Then, he rolls in order of choice, but he gets all 8D6 to do with as he wants. ST not high enough? Roll another die, but you get one less for the other three stats. Want a 20 IQ? Keep rolling, you'll probably use up half, if not all, of the dice to get there. I might see him this weekend, we'll see how it works out. I'll let you guys know how it does, since you're so interested. (BTW, that 8 +2D6 does seem a lot now that I look at it, it'll probably be a lot lower.)

06-16-2009, 01:27 PM	#3
Xplo Join Date: Apr 2006	Re: Rolling stats Real men roll 3D6 for each attribute, in order, with the GM watching. No rerolls for bad scores. No points. If he still wants to do it, let him. Or, you know, you could just tell him "no". What's he going to do, skip out on a game you've practically sold him on if you won't let him cheat his way to better attributes? If so, good riddance. Last edited by Xplo; 06-16-2009 at 01:35 PM.