While my esteemed colleague, Ben, touts the benefits of a point buy system for character generation, I must disagree. Personally this author finds the randomness of rolling the dice to create my character to be a thrilling aspect of not only character building, but also of playing the game. It provides a thrilling moment from the first roll of character creation to the last roll in a long running campaign. Nothing is known and everything is random. That is exciting and one of the reasons I, and so many others, sit down at the table.
While I do not deny in the least the control point buying provides the player, and it can be fun, I find it can be counterintuitive to the idea of a roleplaying game in general. The whole “point” of a roleplaying game is to tell a shared story with characters that vary in style, ability and aptitude. Add in the randomness of monsters, effects, traps and dangers along with an unpredictable GM/DM and that is an incredible experience.
And let’s not forget the fact the dice themselves dictate what happens during the game! And what is more random than dice?!
Sure, you can roll up some pretty suspect characters, but isn’t that part of the fun? Not knowing what you’re going to create? What character you’ll be using for the next session, module and/or campaign?
Rolling character stats is akin to reading a story about a team; not everyone in the team is equal. I don’t think anyone would say Hawkeye is Thor’s equal in any way. Hawkeye might be slightly more intelligent or perceptive, but certainly not more powerful. What about Frodo to Gandalf? Or even Frodo to Aragorn? Yet they are on the same team. The less “powerful” characters are still effective in situations and, frankly, grow faster than their more powerful allies. Having a point buy creates an unrealistic level playing field and “must have” party roles.
Think about it for a moment.
How many times does your party “have to” have the following:
-the Face
-the Intelligence
-the Ranged
-the Meatwall
-the Power
-the Healbot
Doesn’t filling all of these roles all the time really just create the same party every single time? I applaud my groups for leaving one or more of these out. In a recent game I ran there is no healer and no super-intelligent member either. In fact, most of them are ranged stealthed PCs and the Halfling Ranger is the meatwall. (Yes, you read that correctly. It’s hilarious!) But they make it work. They use their strengths and weaknesses to create interesting encounter situations for me, the GM/DM to deal with.
What I’m trying to get at is if you, as the player, find yourself in a situation where you are less powerful than your allies, find something to make your character stand out. What did you roll well? Get equipment to help increase your abilities. Maybe be the heart and soul of the team, causing them to protect you and always want you around. Get clever and get creative.
Additionally, work with the GM/DM out of game on things (s)he can do to ensure you’re not feeling useless. One thing a good GM/DM must always do is provide the ability for PCs to feel useful in situations. Useful and needed. It might not be obvious to the players at first, but they should strive for it.
I was in a game recently and my character was not a combatant. Not in the least. And we were getting trounced. So I got clever. My PC took out his giant suction cup and slammed it on the BBEG’s face. I rolled extremely well, and nothing stops an encounter like a BBEG not being able to breathe. It took the baddie out in roll. It was awesome, but again, I got clever. I used what was at disposal and didn’t whine about my poor stats and abilities, etc.
Lastly, point buy is great if you have a concept for a character already in mind. If you want to make Batman and roll a crappy melee stat, then you probably won’t be making Batman. This can be disheartening to players. And while I do use point buy systems and will use them again in the future, I don’t think they are the end-all-be-all.
And, I just really like to challenge Ben. 😉
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