(Or: why rolling the dice is better than working the numbers)
In today's installment of "Why I'm always right," I'd like to talk a moment about the Point Buy System used in many Role Playing Games (RPGs). The concept behind these systems is that all characters can be kept relatively equal in standing with each other by preventing them from getting a lot of attribute points at high levels. Attributes are issued a certain number of points, and the players can choose how many points are assigned to each attribute to increase that number.
My distaste of this system can be best expressed by a quote from the Neverwinter Nights 2 Forums (nwn2forums.bioware.com):
"Normally Fighters don't get above 12-14 Intelligence in a Point-Buy system so it's not like they have a lot of excess skill points to spend." (SIC)
Intelligence is not an ability that fighters necessarily *need* to be good fighters. They could need Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution to make themselves better warriors, but Intelligence does absolutely nothing for the fighter - that is, until the fighter becomes a person's *character*. You see, in a video game and all too often in the pen-and-paper version of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), players don't act out their character, so they don't have to make the character interesting in any way. As long as the character can beat stuff up, or cast the best spells to destroy everything, that's all that is required to finish the game.
However, when people actually act out their character, and try to play the *story* surrounding the character, then they need to make the character a real person. Few real people have low ability scores in all their mental attributes and still make awesome fighters. In fact, the best fighters are also going to be intelligent enough to know when not to rush in to fight the dragon, or how to read their opponents and wait for an opportunity to strike. Role-played, story-driven characters need decent mental attributes to match their physical abilities.
But, in a video-game environment, not everyone can be counted on to build their character with good role-play intentions, even in role-play servers. There will always be someone taking advantage of the points to maximize the attributes that are key to their class. And, because other people feel the need to be useful in combat as well, others who want to be good role-players will find themselves maxing their important attributes and minimizing their unimportant attributes in order to be competitive.
A dice-roll system eliminates this. It makes people use attributes they might not otherwise have used. The fighter may be handsome. The wizard may be strong. The rogue may be clumsy. The bard may be frail. It's entirely left up to chance, and it teaches us to become heroes despite our downfalls. Random is beautiful.
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Monday, April 24, 2006
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2 comments:
The problem with point-buy systems isn't that they're not random. In fact, random sucks when you're trying to build a certain type of character.
"Oh, you wanted to play a Dwarven cleric? Either you're going to be playing a horrible Dwarven cleric that no adventuring party would want to have anything to do with, or you're going to be playing a Dwarven barbarian."
The problem with point-buy systems is that they artificially limit what the attributes can be. A good point-buy system would allow a player to give the character max in all attributes if need be. This way, the player could be the character as needed and not have to make strategic rules-based sacrifices and descisions.
That's not really a point-buy system then, is it :)
Because a person with higher attribute points is likely going to have *higher* skills, not lower. And with point-buy systems, if you are able to max out all attributes, you can't spend your points on anything else at all.
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