From: seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Point Allocation vs Random Generation
Summary: I must be crazy, getting into this even once...
Date: 10 Nov 92 14:18:35 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Originator: seawasp@unixd1.cis.pitt.edu

In article <17315@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:
>dfn@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Nalle) writes:
	[either Nick or MadChris says:]
>>+ Second, you have hit on one point that some people seem to have trouble
>>+ understanding: some players don't have a particular character concept they
>>+ want to play.

>> Aren't roleplayers supposed to be imaginative?  I would think that
>> something as simple as thinking up an interesting character from scratch
>> would be second nature to any decent roleplayer.

>*sigh*  Another example of Dave's inability to comprehend the way other
>gamers think.

	What? You cast doubt on the Holy Nalle's infallibility? All TRUE
gamers must obviously think in the ways he decrees. :)

	But, seriously...

  Wanting a particular character concept or not wanting any
>particular character concept has nothing to do with imagination.  It is
>simply a personal preference, just like some people prefer hot dogs with
>"everything", and others prefer the simple taste of just mustard.

	If we're going to do food-based comparisons here (ignoring the
WINGS debate a while ago), this argument is more akin to someone [Dave]
accusing another person of lack of imagination when that person says that
they have no immediate preference in what they're going to eat.

	In this case, Dave would be the kind of person who ALWAYS knows
what they want to eat, when, and how. Nick would be the sort of person
who looks at a menu and says "gee... I'd like to eat all ten of these!
I like them all equally. Or maybe I should try something here, that I've
never tried before..."


	Me?

	I've often come out arguing against Point Allocation. However,
it's not really PA that I'm against; it's the hardass attitude that
most of the PA players I've encountered had.

	So instead I'll use a more general concept: Character Build
(CB) versus Character Roll (CR). Character Build means that you start
with the concept and create it -- by PA if you have such a system, by
simple stat and skill assignment otherwise. CR means that dice play 
a fairly large part in determining the character.

	When I have a specific character that I want to play, that character
and no other, then CB is obviously the way to go.  The vagaries of the 
dice might require me to either keep rerolling or keep tweaking for hours
if I tried a CR method to create this specific character.

	But I don't always HAVE a specific character I want to play, or
I may have too many that I want to play -- and you can't in most games
play either ten characters or one character who's great in ten things...
So then I hand the choice to the winds of fate.

	The other thing that CR allows, as Nick's pointed out, is that
no matter HOW imaginative a person is, in most cases there are habits
or patterns they fall into. A CR character can break out of these habits
and make you look at a completely different kind of character than the
ones you play by choice.

	But if, like Dave, you believe that your mind is completely open
to your penetrating introspection and that you would never find anything
beyond your boundless imagination, no ruts or habits, well, then, of course
CB is always the way to go.

	However, I don't believe ANYONE really knows everything about 
themselves this way.

                                 Sea Wasp
                                   /^\
                                   ;;;