POINT BUY IS NO FUN: ROLL A CHARACTER

 

Welcome back nerds to the DnD world, wherein today I will explain why people who use point buy are a bane to all things fun and that rolling dice remains the premier form of entertainment the world over.  To give my uncultured reader a quick crash course here: Dungeons and Dragons has you take on the role of a character (hence a “role playing game”) with basic abilities divided into 6 categories: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution (hardiness/endurance), Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma.  When you initially build a character, these scores will range from 3-18 barring modifications, with 3 being almost but not quite completely useless and 18 being the peak of performance before getting into superhuman levels.  Going into a different nerd category here, Captain America would have 18 strength: the greatest a human could ever achieve, while anyone with superhuman strength would have to be 19+, and meanwhile enraged Hulk is probably scratching around a 4 on the intelligence score (but a whopping 30+ on strength, so that’s cool).  Already this intro is long, but DnD players love to talk about this stuff at length, so let’s get down to why it’s 3-18 vs a more satisfying base-10 approach of 0-20: it’s because (traditionally) one rolled 3 six sided dice to determine scores, hence you could roll three 1s and get an awful stat or three 6s and be a god. …and then someone came up with the brilliant idea of point buy.

This is what happens when you take all the points out of DEX and put it into STR

 

What is point buy?  Point buy is a system where, instead of rolling dice, one is told they have a fix amount of “points” to invest toward stats on their character.  Everyone starts at 10 in all stats, with those being what an “average” citizen of the world is like, and from there they can spend points to improve stats OR take away points from stats to have more points to spend.  Points scale: the closer you get to 18, the more points you need to spend.  So much cleaner, so much more “equal”, no element of luck involved at all: everyone gets to have the same chance.

 

How boring!  Already in a game about imagination and wonder you’ve slapped down rules, limitations, by-laws and regulations.  We literally haven’t even played yet and already the Dungeon Master has ruined my fun.  But let’s get to the crux of the issue here: point buy encourages “min/maxing”: the practice of trying to achieve maximal outcome with minimal input.  Also known as “munchkin-ing”, or just plain ol’ “gaming the system”, or god forbid “optimization”, once you implement a system of checks and balances and trading you will inevitably have players with “dump stats”: dudes walking around with a charisma score of 3 so that they could put all of their points into intelligence and become the greatest nose-picking wizard of all time.  In what would be considered a fitting twist of irony, the character that is built tends to be an accurate reflection of the player playing it.

Holy cow, apparently I'm not alone on this

 

Lest we forget: Dungeons and Dragons is a GAME.  The point is fun, NOT winning.  “It’s not whether you win or lose: it’s how you play the game”, was such a simple lesson taught to us, and for those of you chuckleheads who can’t have fun unless you win OR those of you overdramatic blowhards that love comparing a game to warfare: stuff it, no one likes playing with you and your black and white memes on facebook are trite.  In fact, being “built to win” frequently REMOVES the fun from the game, as suddenly the element of challenge is gone, and what should have been a unique and interesting encounter requiring much problem solving and creativity instead turns into a six second suckfest solved with an overinflated fireball from the dude whose character can lob level 8 spells as a level 1 character due to loophole shenanigans but has to have someone carry his spellbook for him because his strength score is effectively in the negative.  Are we having fun yet?

 

When you roll a character, you inevitably end up with a SUB-optimal character.  I know that term “sub-optimal” just sent shivers down the spine of several readers, as we seem to exist in a society where anything less than optimal is considered worthless garbage not even worth taking into consideration, but the reality is that ALL of us are sub-optimal beings living sub-optimal existences…which is what makes us unique, interesting and, dare I say, entertaining and fun!  A character with 18s in all stats is simply not a fun character to play: the solutions are too obvious and there is no need for strategy.  But when you roll a character that’s a bunch of 12s, some 8s and a 16, you suddenly find yourself having to think on your feet, strategize, and maximize the strength YOU have.  And, in turn, victory is ALL the more sweeter.  There is no applause given to the bio-engineered supersoldier that obliterates the cavern of goblins in 1 round: that is the expectation for such a ridiculous specimen.  But when the gnome-ish fighter draws his blade across the throat of an orc that he had absolutely NO business going toe-to-toe with due to his limited strength and constitution, he is a true hero, and a legend among his people. 

If this fight went the other way, no one would care

 

In your training, in your nutrition, in your life: roll a character.  Quit trying to point buy your existence: not everything needs to be optimized, min/maxed and tricked out.  You’re missing out on the “fun” of it all, and you’re spending SO much time tweaking your character sheet that you’re not actually playing the game.  When you roll your stats, you can move on with your life and actually PLAY.  And from there you can wing it as needed: you can adapt your sub-optimal stats to your sub-optimal situation and try to come up with a nearly optimal outcome.  And you get to have your own unique experience among the way, giving you your own stories to tell when you and your fellow adventurers (read: nerds) get together to share.