Would you chose the point buy system for selecting stats?

[Alesan]

Back when I played muds on an abacus, gemstone used to let you re-roll to your heart's content. 

I could see additional re-rolls being granted here as well if the maximum achievable stat was lowered each time after the first.  So, if you had some really bad stats and got hosed on the next re-roll?  It'd still be worth trying again, but you couldn't just spam re-rolls to all exceptional stats.

That sounds like a good idea to me.

[RogueGunslinger]

What if it narrowed things on both ends with each roll. So you would basically always have a good chance of average stats. But if you get a mix of high and low, you may want to keep it. Still leaves possibility for having bad stats, but not all of them being low(which I admit is already somewhat rare. And then people could still have godly stat rolls as well, as long as they don't re-roll more than once.


Also I think this would probably mean no more reroll undo.

[BadSkeelz]

Get 2 rerolls as normal. Reroll a third time and you get average stats across the board and that's it.

[Delirium]

Just to clarify, I totally get the emotional reaction.

I don't roll up a new PC, see two poor's a below average, and an average and get super excited at all the role play possibilities that's gonna generate either.

I wince and go: shit ... ok shit ... what can we do with this?

But after the initial sting wears off, I enjoy the character all the same. And those downs make the ups of rolling AI's all the more sweet.

People make fun of the whole "oh yeah, well, my favorite character had shitty stats" trope but... what if that's actually true?

Seriously. The character I still miss the most to this day had horrible stats.

Shatuka had barely above average strength... mediocre everything else... and she's still my second-favorite PC.

Just... I dunno, guys. Get over it. Play your character, warts and all. If you take some risks, get involved where appropriate, or at the very least, tell a compelling story, even if it's just for yourself... you are gonna have fun. If you feel like you need to win your scenarios as opposed to simply presenting and representing your scenarios... well you're gonna have a bad time.

Downing on people who are trying to say "just friggin' roleplay" and acting like that's somehow elitist in a roleplaying game.. is self-defeatist at best.

[wizturbo]

Get 2 rerolls as normal. Reroll a third time and you get average stats across the board and that's it.

Yeah, I like this the most.  A break the emergency glass, oh shit button you can press if both your roll and re-roll are abyssmal....  You get stuck with average stats, but that should be playable.

If coding that button is difficult though, a 3rd re-roll without the option to re-roll undo could work too.... the odds of getting 3 "unplayable" rolls would make the chances of this happening extremely low.  There's even some merit to having that 3rd "I feel lucky" button to push if you just wanna roll the dice some more, without a safety net to go back

[Delirium]

I should clarify I'm not against a point-buy system. But I am against the idea that somehow people deserve all-good stats all the time.

A point buy system would actually make it insanely difficult to get all-awesome stats across the board so - whatever.

[RogueGunslinger]

Just to clarify, I totally get the emotional reaction.

I don't roll up a new PC, see two poor's a below average, and an average and get super excited at all the role play possibilities that's gonna generate either.

I wince and go: shit ... ok shit ... what can we do with this?

But after the initial sting wears off, I enjoy the character all the same. And those downs make the ups of rolling AI's all the more sweet.

People make fun of the whole "oh yeah, well, my favorite character had shitty stats" trope but... what if that's actually true?

Seriously. The character I still miss the most to this day had horrible stats.

Shatuka had barely above average strength... mediocre everything else... and she's still my second-favorite PC.

Just... I dunno, guys. Get over it. Play your character, warts and all. If you take some risks, get involved where appropriate, or at the very least, tell a compelling story, even if it's just for yourself... you are gonna have fun. If you feel like you need to win your scenarios as opposed to simply presenting and representing your scenarios... well you're gonna have a bad time.

Downing on people who are trying to say "just friggin' roleplay" and acting like that's somehow elitist in a roleplaying game.. is self-defeatist at best.

Coming to a coded discussion thread to talk about how everything is fine if you roleplay without regards to the code seems a bit... I don't know? Silly?

[Delirium]

This is an RPI MUD. You can't, or shouldn't, totally divorce code from roleplay. Vice versa.

[CodeMaster]

Some disorganized thoughts:

1. If the NPC world was ten times deadlier, the effect would be that PCs would be squashed into a narrower effective range.  People don't care about that though, they care about how they measure up to other PCs.

2. Not against point-buy, but I appreciate people pointing out how it would be difficult to combat "sameness".  Point-buy also actually seems like huge challenge in this game because all the stats are so idiosyncratic.  For instance I think strength and endurance suffer far less from diminishing returns than wisdom does -- so how do you accommodate for that in a simple, unified points system?

3. I especially wouldn't mind point buy if some unpopular stats (hey you wisdom) got buffed up a bit.  If wisdom above a certain threshold allowed you to learn from "successes" and decreased the costs/lags associated with using the Way, you can bet it would be hard not to buy some up to that threshold.

[edit: whenever I write something like point 3, a couple months later I discover how wrong I was and that stat X is actually awesome if you know factoid Y about it.  So I'm ready to eat my words]

4. Some see the time they put into strengthening their PC as an investment.  I know roleplay is central to this game, but nevertheless this viewpoint is totally reasonable to me.  So I sympathize when I hear stories about new characters with better stats coming along and cheapening that sense of investment.

[Majikal]

The more I think about it, the more we could definitely break up some of the stats. I saw a few people suggest it.

Wisdom could definitely be split into Wisdom/Perception. Currently I see Wisdom more like Perception anyway in terms of code. I'm one of the players that don't RP my character based off my WIS and it's GENERALLY my dump stat. As far as skills that benefit from high wisdom it's fairly obvious, psionic stuff, magick stuff, and then perception stuff. This could easily be split down the middle.

Agility could be broken into Agility/speed or Dexterity or whatever. Agility being more combat defense, speed and defensive skills skills while dexterity appeals more towards steal/lockpick/climb/sneak/hide/archery. Currently the code kind of suggests that if you can run really fast, you'd be good at shooting a bow and picking locks.

[Bogre]

No point buy.

[Majikal]

No point buy.

Point buy.

Checkmate Bogre.

[Hauwke]

I dont think I have ever suicided a character because "lulz bad stats" I usually play for a bit and end up dying anyway cos I suck at code knowledges.

[Lizzie]

I dont think I have ever suicided a character because "lulz bad stats" I usually play for a bit and end up dying anyway cos I suck at code knowledges.

Yeah I've never suicided because of bad stats. I did suicide because I made the stupid newbie mistake of rolling up an Allanak burglar and walking to Red Storm right before a 4-day "tremendous storm" rolled in. That's 4 real days. I suicided the 3rd day and it was still raging when I rolled up a ranger the day after

[Harmless]

I like that some characters are just better.  They won the genetic lottery.  They have greater potential.  All the other chumps have to work harder, kill them, or accept living in their shadow.  It's exciting when you play such a character and thematic when you don't.  Equality has never been a theme of this game, after all.

this I like too, but we can have this with point buy also. You ended up with less total points, distribute accordingly.

[Qzzrbl]

I'm all for a point-buy system.

I'll admit I've sent fresh boots off to a bath in the Silt Sea (who hasn't? let's be real) in the past because of some unfortunate rolls, and I've played with a <poor-stat-that-isn't-wisdom> glaring at me from the score command and had fun with it. The determining factor that decides whether or not I go AFK in the salt flats is something along the lines of "do these stats fit my character?".  It really comes down to that. Building my character the way I want my character to be built, free from the tyrannical rule of RNJesus.

As far as arguments towards "optimal builds" with a point-buy system-- let's not kid ourselves here. Anyone who's played long enough has at least some idea of what "optimal prioritizations/age/guild/race/etc." are, depending on what kind of role you're going for.

Hell, let's just have both? Point-buys for folks that want it, and the current system which would allow chances for a bit more or a bit less points overall allowed by the point-buy system?

Leave the gambling to the gamblers.

[ShowClear]

What I prefer would be to leave it for staff to assign appropriate stats during approval based upon race/desc/background of your character and keep that hidden to view from the player. And skills should also stay hidden, only there should be an echo to indicate  when improving or branching.

[jstorrie]

I don't mind at all that characters vary in overall statted-ness. I just want fine-grain control over whatever sum of stats my guy does get, whether he's mediocre or elected-by-destiny.

[boog]

A 'range' of points you start with would be fine with me. I just like being able to allocate them myself. I'd rather be average across the board than have an above average and like, two poors.

Anyway! Points.

[Majikal]

What I prefer would be to leave it for staff to assign appropriate stats during approval based upon race/desc/background of your character and keep that hidden to view from the player. And skills should also stay hidden, only there should be an echo to indicate  when improving or branching.

Tall muscular men EVERYWHERE!

[Saellyn]

What I prefer would be to leave it for staff to assign appropriate stats during approval based upon race/desc/background of your character and keep that hidden to view from the player. And skills should also stay hidden, only there should be an echo to indicate  when improving or branching.

You... you MADMAN!

[Delirium]

What I prefer would be to leave it for staff to assign appropriate stats during approval based upon race/desc/background of your character and keep that hidden to view from the player. And skills should also stay hidden, only there should be an echo to indicate  when improving or branching.

Heh, if some people's staff persecution complexes are bad now...

[Synthesis]

1.  You get a certain number of base points in each stat based on your PC's age (basically the minimum stat possible for that age and stat).
2.  You get a roll, a reroll, and a reroll undo for extra points.
3.  You distribute those extra points how you like.

There will still be awesome PCs and shitty PCs.  Barring a wildly low double-whammy roll/reroll, there will be no more hulking men with average strength.  I really don't see what the problem is.

[wizturbo]

1.  You get a certain number of base points in each stat based on your PC's age (basically the minimum stat possible for that age and stat).
2.  You get a roll, a reroll, and a reroll undo for extra points.
3.  You distribute those extra points how you like.

There will still be awesome PCs and shitty PCs.  Barring a wildly low double-whammy roll/reroll, there will be no more hulking men with average strength.  I really don't see what the problem is.

Pretty simple to see the problem.   Random rolls create significantly more scarcity than point buys because of "dump stats".   In a point buy system, you can have an AI strength with just about any roll you get, if you're willing to sacrifice another stat to pay for it.  

That means people will optimize their characters, and we'll see a massive number of AI strength warriors, AI wisdom magickers, AI agility Pickpockets, etc...  Essentially the new normal will be maxxed core stat.  If we go with the "you roll to see how many points you get" methodology, then the only variation will be how many extra points you managed to roll to boost your other non-core scores.

No matter how you slice it, if you take the RNG out of achieving max scores, you're going to see max scores significantly more often.  This happens in literally every D&D game I've ever played with a point buy system, and I don't see any reason it would be any different in Armageddon...  

I for one want an AI stat to mean that character is actually absolutely incredible relative to other characters.  If 30% of all warriors have AI strength, then it isn't AI strength anymore, it's just slightly above average...



This is true even if you give players relatively few points to allocate.  
For instance, let's say stats range from 1-10 points, with very poor being 1, and 10 being AI.   All players start with this:

Code Select Expand


Strength - 1
Agility - 1
Endurance - 1
Wisdom - 1

You may allocate 16 additional points, up to a score of 10 (AI) in a given stat.  


If players allocate all 12 points evenly, they'd have average scores, and would suck pretty badly at combat:

Code Select Expand


Strength - 5 (Average)
Agility - 5 (Average)
Endurance - 5 (Average)
Wisdom - 5 (Average)


If they allocate it like this, however, they'd be pretty damn formidable.

Code Select Expand


Strength - 10 (Absolutely Incredible)
Agility - 4 (below average)
Endurance - 5 (average)
Wisdom - 1 (very poor)


Guess which point buy players are going to choose?  Of course, you can create systems where there are diminishing returns, but depending on how you tune those systems you create a situation where either no one chooses a max score because it's too expensive, or many still chooses a max score, because unless literally every stat is equally balanced for combat there is going to be an optimized distribution to be the best.  

[Synthesis]

1.  You get a certain number of base points in each stat based on your PC's age (basically the minimum stat possible for that age and stat).
2.  You get a roll, a reroll, and a reroll undo for extra points.
3.  You distribute those extra points how you like.

There will still be awesome PCs and shitty PCs.  Barring a wildly low double-whammy roll/reroll, there will be no more hulking men with average strength.  I really don't see what the problem is.

Pretty simple to see the problem.   Random rolls create significantly more scarcity than point buys because of "dump stats".   In a point buy system, you can have an AI strength with just about any roll you get, if you're willing to sacrifice another stat to pay for it.  

That means people will optimize their characters, and we'll see a massive number of AI strength warriors, AI wisdom magickers, AI agility Pickpockets, etc...  Essentially the new normal will be maxxed core stat.  If we go with the "you roll to see how many points you get" methodology, then the only variation will be how many extra points you managed to roll to boost your other non-core scores.

No matter how you slice it, if you take the RNG out of achieving max scores, you're going to see max scores significantly more often.  This happens in literally every D&D game I've ever played with a point buy system, and I don't see any reason it would be any different in Armageddon...  

I for one want an AI stat to mean that character is actually absolutely incredible relative to other characters.  If 30% of all warriors have AI strength, then it isn't AI strength anymore, it's just slightly above average...

There's a simple solution to that:  make every point above "average" cost progressively more points to get the increase, then make sure the RNG very rarely rolls you enough points to even get a single AI by that method.  So if you really want an AI, you have to either a) get a godly roll or b) get an awesome roll and cripple your other stats.

I mean, it wouldn't be difficult to code whatever distribution you want to see, and player choices are more or less predictable, so...it's just a technical problem.  It's only an absolute problem if you lack the imagination to implement it properly.

For example:

Let's say the stat range for human everything is on a 20-point scale.
Poor=1-2
Below=3-4
Average=5-8
Above=9-10
Good=11-12
Vgood=13-14
Egood=15-16
Exc=17-18
AI=19-20

As an adult human warrior, your minimum stats are:
4 str
1 wis
2 agi
4 end

Now, the RNG should be able to give you any roll from zero extra points to (enough extra points to AI every single stat).  However, we want an AI in -any- single stat to be difficult to achieve...so, first, we have to figure out how many points it should take to get from below to AI.  This will be at -least- 15 points on the RNG, if we simply do a 1:1 extra-point:stat-point ratio with linear progression.

For example purposes, let's make it so that every additional stat "level" doubles the number of points it takes to advance within that level.

So to get from adult-warrior-minimum 4 str to the lowest AI (19), it would take 4 points to get to max-average, plus another 4 points to get to max-above, plus 8 points to get to max-good, plus 16 points to get to max vgood, plus 32 points to get to max egood, plus 64 points to get to max exc, plus 64 points to get to 19.  That's 192 points! And your final roll will be:
AI str
poor wis
poor agi
below end

That creates a rather large incentive not to even attempt to max out a single stat, unless your character concept really requires it, because you're essentially wasting points.  Obviously there will still be dump stats, but for a warrior, agility and endurance are not so useless that you could completely ignore them to such an extent, especially if you only got 50 extra points on your roll and reroll.

For example, if you got exactly 192 points, you could spend:
64 points to get to max egood (15 strength)
66 points to get to max egood agility (15 agility)
48 points to get to min egood end (14 endurance)
And you still have 14 points you can throw into  wisdom, which gets you to above-average wisdom.

If there's anyone who would rather play:
AI str, poor wis, poor agi, below end
Than:
egood str, egood agi, egood end, above wis

...you're either supremely dedicated to your concept, or you're being newbish.