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Any D&D/D20

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[Yoink]

Also, our telekineticist seems to enjoy picking up turtles and hurling them at enemies, which is a good running joke.

If he paints them red, do they become homing missiles?   

[Harry Baldman]

I'd almost say that's a reason not to roll, you can have a high point buy to produce strong characters, but a roll, especially a roll where you keep the stats in the order rolled like you seem to be saying, is a great way to produce very weak characters. Not to say it's not a perfectly legitimate way of playing the game, just that your stated reason for liking it seems to be largely the opposite of reality.

You often might get really terrible rolls for a character. But then there's those times when you hit the jackpot and get some truly amazing things. I mostly know the feeling from Stars Without Number, where random rolling tends to be 3d6 (with the caveat that you can reroll the array if you get more minuses than pluses).

Of course, SWN also has some ability score replacement (such as an automatic +1 in one of the two primary ability scores in your class to help offset really terrible rolls when they come into play) and the ranges don't get nearly as ridiculous as they do in D&D (3 is -2, 4-7 is -1, 8-13 is 0, 14-17 is +1 and 18 is +2).

Rolling your ability scores is, of course, anything but fair and balanced, but at least it's unfair by way of cruel fate rather than differing levels of skill. Of course, the greater trouble with rolling is that it produces things that are merely average more often than not, especially if the rolling is poorly implemented.

[NullForceOmega]

And thus I allow my players to assign those rolls however they like, or roll a whole new set, that may then be assigned however they like, as many times as it takes for them to feel satisfied that they have a reasonable stat block, or I until get irritated that they're holding up the game and tell them to pick one.

[Harry Baldman]

But that's not really any less exploitable than if you simply personally vet whatever point buy is in place. The whole appeal of random rolling is gambling for your unbalanced stats. I mean, assigning your rolled 4 to CHA and your 18 to STR isn't any less minmaxing than doing the exact same thing with point buy. Granted, if you luck into having properly unbalanced (rather than merely disappointingly mediocre) stats, I suppose they may feel more 'earned', so to speak.

[NullForceOmega]

The probability of them ending up with all above average rolls is rather slim, and given the general power levels of my games, survival with scores below 9 is nearly impossible, so having the players roll several sets, then assigning the rolls with respect to their needs hardly qualifies as min-maxing, tho' it does have a definite degree of optimizing.

Min-maxing is a point buy term, that has become incorrectly assigned to the popular lexicon of gaming.  The point of min-maxing is to have the minimum necessary points allocated to 'dump' stats, and the maximum assigned to 'core' stats, so as to make your character 'perfect' for their chosen role.

The reason my roll system isn't min-maxing is because someone without the basic attributes to be a fighter is unlikely to become one, either by failure to achieve that status or lacking desire to do so, this still allows players with sub-optimal stats to choose such a role for story/characterization purposes without being so handicapped that they cannot function.

This ultimately ends up being about what a group wants from their game, as DM I want the game portions to move smoothly without large interruptions due to bad rolling, so the story portion can have more impact, and so that player decision is more effective.

[sjm9876]

I go down the middle and use the grid method that used to be up on invisible castle - 9 lots of 3d6 arranged in a 3x3 grid. physical stats along the top, mental along the side, each can be assigned a value from the corresponding column/row - but each value can only be taken once. makes for random stats but still gives players a decent amount of control, I find.

[My Name is Immaterial]

I think that I like 5e's default array. It's balanced, fun, and prevents minmaxing.

[GiglameshDespair]

To be honest, I think 5e in general is pretty good.

[BlackHeartKabal]

Why don't people play as LE characters?

[Gentlefish]

One of the players in the game I play regularly runs lawful evil characters.

In other news, I'm playing the shackled city, and I've contracted the vanishing. Oops. Time to dispose of literally all of those magical goods I was hoping to use. Except the spellbook. I can study that. That's not using it. What's funny is the list of spells in the book reads like some sort of PUA's kit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(Ench)Bungle
(Evo) Ear-piercing scream
(Ench)unprepared combatant
(Ench)delusional pride
(Trans)Youthful appearance

2nd
(Ill) ghostly disguise
(Ill) haunting mist
(Ill) mad hallucination
(Ench)oppressive boredom
(Ench)unnatural lust

[GiglameshDespair]

Why don't people play as LE characters?

People do.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Why don't people play as LE characters?

Lawful Evil is the only Evil I ever play as, and the most common Evil I see played. NE is undriven or ineffectual, and CE is like wearing a button that says "I'm a muderhobo."

[BlackHeartKabal]

Why don't people play as LE characters?

NE is undriven or ineffectual

huh

[kilakan]

Pretty sure Nullforce doesn't want alignement discussions in here.

[TheBiggerFish]

Pretty sure Nullforce doesn't want alignement discussions in here.

Aye.

There's a thread for that apparently.