|
I can't find it any more, but back in the 3.5 days when I was still posting on the GitP forums, I came up with a weird stat generation rolling system that intentionally created a non-smooth stat distribution. Someone actually wrote a script to generate distribution plots so we could see how it came out. Anyway it worked like this: Roll 24d61 and arrange them in order by value. For example, 111222223444445555666666 Drop the bottom and top three values2. For example, 222223444445555666 Group the remaining results by threes, and total them. For example, 222, 223, 444, 445, 555, 666 = 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 18. Assign the resulting values to attributes as desired. 1. You can roll as few as 18 dice, dropping none in the next step, or roll more than 24, dropping more in the next step. Fewer tends to result in more variation, while more tends to smooth the variation. 2. You can skew the results higher or lower by shifting which dice you drop. E.g., drop the bottom six results for a character who will almost always have an 18 plus usually another 18 or 17, and rarely anything under 6. The intent of this rolling system was to guarantee a character with at least one very good stat (to qualify them for almost any class), a few stats that are in the normal human range, and (depending on how you do #2) at least one stat below the "average human norm" - potentially a very low stat, to force the player to deal with some significant deficiency in their character's abilities. This was to contrast with the more usual systems that tended to skew all of the numbers in the set higher: 4d6 drop lowest, rolling a bunch of 3d6 and dropping the bad rolls, etc. You can use this system to ensure one or two good stats without producing characters with a lot of good stats and without preventing characters with one or two bad stats. The noneven distribution arises from the likelihood of chains of the same number, or with no more than two different numbers, appearing for stats. E.g., you are very likely with this method to have a 12 (from a string of fours), and substantially less likely to have a 14 (requires a 4-5-5 chain to land in the right place to be assigned a spot, or else to roll a series that skips some values completely, e.g, getting a 4-4-6 or a 2-6-6). Theoretically you could build additional game mechanics around this distribution plot: e.g., adjust the "bonus" you get on certain skills etc. so that it's distributed evenly across each of the mini bell curves you get within the whole wavy distribution plot. I never had the opportunity to try this system out with an actual party and real players. I'm not sure it would be worth doing - around this time I also became convinced that rolling for stats was pointless and stopped doing it in any fashion. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Apr 21, 2017 |
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 20:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 11:26 |
|
|
This is the dumbest thing in BECMI:
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 20:23
|
|
|
death... to ability scores?
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 21:45
|
|
|
character creation systems, ranked: copper tier: randomly rolled ability scores down-the-line with classes (OD&D) silver tier: randomly rolled ability with mitigation and classes (D&D onwards) gold tier: class-based stat arrays (* World games) platinum tier: point-buy systems (GURPS) god tier: point-buy, nonrandom lifepath systems (Burning Wheel, REIGN)
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 21:47
|
|
|
*Glowing brain level
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 22:01
|
|
|
Point Buy is poo poo, limitations imposed classes FTW.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 22:02
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:Point Buy is poo poo, limitations imposed classes FTW. Agree with everything above except the part about for the win. Lets keep it hipper, its gucci.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 22:03
|
|
|
2d6 + 1d12 + 3, drop the highest d6, add 1d8 if below 8, subtract 1d4 if above. Roll 6+1d3 total stat arrays, discard any whose point total is divisible by 3. Pick any array and assign ability scores in backwards order. You may lower any score by 1, but no more than 3 times.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 22:08
|
|
|
Your artisinally crafted stats are randomly generated with a secret method used for generations and mailed to you 3d6 weeks later.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 22:16
|
|
|
I randomly decided to try reading the AD&D1e DMG, and like 15 pages in I'm kinda blown away by how adversarial it gets. Weirdly, the section with the alternate ability score generation methods says that it's preferable for a player to have a viable character of a race and class they want to play. Of course, even with that, the idea of making a character without rolling dice doesn't seem to have come into the picture at all. Also it's making me feel pretty good about my tastes in friends, since Gygax says the DMG is meant to prepare you as thoroughly as possible to be a DM "so that you will be as completely equipped as possible to face the ravenous packs of players lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce upon the unwary referee and devour him or her at the first opportunity."
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 22:15
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:This is the dumbest thing in BECMI: This is a rule that would have made perfect sense in OD&D but makes absolutely no sense outside of that context.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 22:19
|
|
|
Back when I was playing D&D 3.5, I believe it was for my group roll 4D6 six times, and you can assign to each stat as you like. I think 1s were re-rolled as well. You were allowed to re-roll the whole batch, but I think you could only go back to the last roll set. I don't remember if there was a set limit of number of batches you could roll.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 22:40
|
|
|
Can someone suggest a system with multiple rolls of different kinds of dice, dropping the highest and lowest numbers, using d20s with d2s modifying them when certain conditions are met, and so on and so forth, but the actual scores always end up being 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8? Ideally, the process would take 30+ minutes, use multiple charts, and require a scientific calculator.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 23:15
|
|
|
Ewen Cluney posted:I randomly decided to try reading the AD&D1e DMG, and like 15 pages in I'm kinda blown away by how adversarial it gets. Weirdly, the section with the alternate ability score generation methods says that it's preferable for a player to have a viable character of a race and class they want to play. Of course, even with that, the idea of making a character without rolling dice doesn't seem to have come into the picture at all. I started in 1975 or so and us original D&D players came out of the ranks of hardcore wargamers remember. Games that had a winner and a loser. Adversarial gaming, was a direct spinoff of that, but by and large most of us grew out of it. What pisses me off is 'kids today' who didn't come from that background and still think it's the one true way. The only reason we did it was because it was what we were used to. This was a brand-new thing with this 'role-playing' and we were making this poo poo up as we went along. It's why I hated 4e so much actually, you really couldn't make poo poo up because the balance was really good and if you pushed too far it would collapse and they made an effort to patch edge cases so you couldn't house rule. 3e, 3.5e and PF? The balance is hosed at the start, so go crazy with house rules. It isn't going to get worse after all...
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 23:37
|
|
|
Humbug Scoolbus posted:I started in 1975 or so and us original D&D players came out of the ranks of hardcore wargamers remember. Games that had a winner and a loser. Adversarial gaming, was a direct spinoff of that, but by and large most of us grew out of it. What pisses me off is 'kids today' who didn't come from that background and still think it's the one true way. The only reason we did it was because it was what we were used to. This was a brand-new thing with this 'role-playing' and we were making this poo poo up as we went along. It's why I hated 4e so much actually, you really couldn't make poo poo up because the balance was really good and if you pushed too far it would collapse and they made an effort to patch edge cases so you couldn't house rule. 3e, 3.5e and PF? The balance is hosed at the start, so go crazy with house rules. It isn't going to get worse after all... And now I know you're nuts, because no one in their right mind who had lived through the Bad Old Days would have thought 4e was bad because it was 'too balanced'.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 23:41
|
|
|
Every fantasy game should just use the Ars Magica system. Point buy based on age, and getting old isn't great. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 23:57
|
|
|
Lord_Hambrose posted:Every fantasy game should just use the Ars Magica system. Point buy based on age, and getting old isn't great. I've been reading Tales From the Loop and this is actually how their point-buy system works. Five attributes, you get points equal to your age, all characters are between 10-15. Max of 5 in any stat, with at least 1 in all of them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 23:59
|
|
|
Lord_Hambrose posted:Point buy based on age, and getting old isn't great. The ultimate char-op: Play an elf 
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 00:11
|
|
|
Kwyndig posted:And now I know you're nuts, because no one in their right mind who had lived through the Bad Old Days would have thought 4e was bad because it was 'too balanced'. It wasn't fun to play around with 4e rules and modify. Things are clearly delineated. It's a great ruleset and that was my problem with it. I really enjoy the effort to make game systems work., the crunchier the better.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 00:15
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:This is a rule that would have made perfect sense in OD&D but makes absolutely no sense outside of that context.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 00:45
|
|
|
Humbug Scoolbus posted:It wasn't fun to play around with 4e rules and modify. Things are clearly delineated. It's a great ruleset and that was my problem with it. I really enjoy the effort to make game systems work., the crunchier the better. I mean, whatever, but: 4e had plenty of flaws. I've seen lots of attempts to make a worthwhile skill challenge for the game, but never one that was really good. The rituals system needed a lot more attention. Characters in epic tier had too many moving parts, too many powers and feats and stuff. The game worked really well as a heroic and maybe paragon tier combat sim, but its' not like there was no room for improvement.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 00:50
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:BECMI also prescribes 3d6-down-the-line, not what you might expect from the relatively freewheeling Basic. It makes sense insofar as "3d6-down-the-line" is easy to learn and something you don't have to "think" about, and being based off of OD&D means that the +2 and +3 bonuses at the higher range of 3d6 isn't "needed"
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 01:00
|
|
|
3d6 down the line means something totally different when you have quick chargen and disposable characters and you can parley your underwhelming statted char for heroic sacrifice and replace them next session. This is totally fine for BECMI under those pretenses. Either long chargen or a goal of having long heroic narrative make it unsuitable.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 01:34
|
|
|
I mean some people prefer car kits and such, and that's fine. I just don't think "you have to build the car yourself" should be the given average experience.  Tuxedo Catfish posted:death... to ability scores? This is the correct response. Ability scores and rolling stats have so much contention because of how overwhelmingly important they are.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 05:10
|
|
|
Rolled stats are a lot of fun in theory, but in practice they just don't work. If they're important enough to matter, it becomes really frustrating if someone gets particularly bad or particularly good luck. If they're unimportant enough that good or bad luck doesn't make a real difference... why have the stats in the first place? I think Paolomania really hit on the only workable method for them, where what a character with lovely stats is for in the larger metagame sense is different from what a character with good stats is for.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 05:11
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:This is the correct response. I mean I can imagine theoretical game design scenarios where having a bunch of numbers that represent different levels of aptitude make sense, but it would be something like "okay as a fire wizard you have a number for how hot, how hard to extinguish, how long it burns, and how smokey it is, use this to customize your build." None of this bullshit where you try to encompass all the universal features of a
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 05:30
|
|
|
My favorites are the real early superhero RPGs where you'd randomly roll to determine your powers and so you could wind up with nigh-literal Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit situations. I remember one story about a guy whose only power was Radio Hearing (Technology)...aka he owned a radio.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 05:33
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:My favorites are the real early superhero RPGs where you'd randomly roll to determine your powers and so you could wind up with nigh-literal Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit situations. I remember one story about a guy whose only power was Radio Hearing (Technology)...aka he owned a radio. The Rick Jones option. Nice!
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 05:36
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:death... to ability scores?
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 05:51
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:My favorites are the real early superhero RPGs where you'd randomly roll to determine your powers and so you could wind up with nigh-literal Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit situations. I remember one story about a guy whose only power was Radio Hearing (Technology)...aka he owned a radio. This was how Kwyndig did the orignal Paragons M&M pbp back in the day and it was wonderful. I know I never would have chosen super speed for a power set on my own, but it really went well with the character I had created.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 06:15
|
|
|
Soonmot posted:This was how Kwyndig did the orignal Paragons M&M pbp back in the day and it was wonderful. I know I never would have chosen super speed for a power set on my own, but it really went well with the character I had created. Depending on the game, that doesn't necessarily mean they all have to work in a fight. There are powers that aren't as ever going to be good in a fight, but give you immense narrative pull when used correctly. There's also possibilities like The Paper from Read or Die, who has a power that sounds silly but is immensely strong. Figuring out how to maximize the potential of a "weak" power is really cool. The issue with a lot of supers games - especially older ones - is that some of the powers really were basically useless. In many cases this was because instead of just saying "you can receive radio waves," a concept rife for clever exploitation, they spell out in exhaustive mechanical detail just how it functions. Also you've got to make sure it doesn't allow for really absurd combinations, because I know the game Kai Tave is talking about, and that combination of abilities and tags literally does mean "owns a radio."
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 06:54
|
|
|
Comrade Gorbash posted:Also you've got to make sure it doesn't allow for really absurd combinations, because I know the game Kai Tave is talking about, and that combination of abilities and tags literally does mean "owns a radio." A genius GM would roll with it and place the characters in a setting where radios are illegal for citizens to own, transmit arcane secrets from other dimensions, or can let you talk to God.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 07:50
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:A genius GM would roll with it and place the characters in a setting where radios are illegal for citizens to own, transmit arcane secrets from other dimensions, or can let you talk to God. And to be fair, without the (Technology) tag it's still a somewhat interesting ability. Being able to listen in on radio conversations without needed the actual equipment has potential. But the (Technology) tag is also spelled out in explicit detail, and the combined definition results in... literally a standard radio. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Apr 22, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 08:21
|
|
|
Yeah, these were early supers RPGs and were published at a time when games were big on A). exhaustive detail and B). a general attitude that people would be playing by the rules-as-written. You could absolutely get a lot of mileage out of a game with less restrictive, more freeform powers where you determined exactly what shape your powers took by rolling for random keywords/tags and using those to inform the nature and type of your superpowers, but this was literally a situation where the game coughed up a dude whose supposed superpower was literally Owns A Radio in a game where someone across from you could roll up someone on par with Superman. RPG designers have always been fascinated by random chance but it's a real mixed bag how good they've been at employing it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 08:24
|
|
|
yeah I played RIFTS
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 08:28
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:My favorites are the real early superhero RPGs where you'd randomly roll to determine your powers and so you could wind up with nigh-literal Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit situations. I remember one story about a guy whose only power was Radio Hearing (Technology)...aka he owned a radio. Other fun combinations include: Detect, Unlimited Range, Usable Only On Self
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 09:25
|
|
|
The radio hearing (Technology) was for Villains and Vigilantes, and if nothing else, the dude got a good codename out of the deal: "Walkman." I once rolled up a dude in the original Marvel RPG that was basically "Slightly worse captain America" in that all his stats were better than average human, but not peak human. The one actual power he had was Plant control (Feeble) which was just good enough to like, not get stabbed by walking through crab grass barefoot.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 11:19
|
|
|
Random superhero power generation is so extreme it wraps around into amazing. I enjoyed the poorly run 1 shot of masks I was in but it would have been better if I had 3 extra arms and laser skates.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 11:21
|
|
|
I've played V&V within living memory, where I got to see stuff like "Superman from Beyond the Hollow Earth" and "Kinetic Energy Absorbing Zatanna" alongside characters like "Character That Is Pretty Agile and has Claws" and "Shoots Sonic Beams, That's Pretty Much It". But then, last time I played Heroes Unlimited I rolled a character whose only power was "Is Very Smart" and then asked by the GM not to try and make skill rolls in combat.  There are ways to do that kind of random character generation without being overly punishing - I think ICONS does it, sorta - but most of them come from the era where you were supposed to play whatever hand you were dealt.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 11:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 11:26 |
|
|
Yeah. I would never want to be in a long-running game of Icons run RAW, but it's fun for a one-shot.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2017 12:04
|
|
