Point Buy System: A Communist Plot?

One of the many things around which emotions tend to run high is character generation in role playing games. Say, Dungeons and Dragons.

One of the primary features here is that you have some stats, which are a series of attributes (for example, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma), each with a number attached, where a high number is better.

And one of the primary things you do to start building a character is assign the numbers to those attributes. The attributes themselves are generally fixed--it's getting the numbers that makes things interesting. If you have a high number in Intelligence, and a low number in Strength, then your character will be better at think-y challenges than at punch-y challenges, so obviously the stats have a lot to say about what your character is like.

There are various ways to get numbers. The most old-fashioned and stern that I know of is to roll dice a number of times equal to the number of attributes and put the first number you get into the first attribute, the second into the second, etc.

You take what you get, and like it! Or, if you don't like it, you deal with it. (Whining is allowed.) Because it was good enough for your grandpappy, by gum. If your grandpappy played role playing games, and liked gum.

In this case, you pretty much have to make a character based on how the numbers come up. If you wanted to be a dashing sword fighter but have low strength and dexterity, you're basically out of luck. You'd better be a wizard instead, if you have a high intelligence. (Or you could always be an ineffective sword fighter. No one's ordering you to play to your strengths.)

This is, as noted, the sternest method I've used, and is also very random. You could get a lot of high numbers, or a lot of low ones, so you could easily have some characters in a game who are gifted in every attribute, and some who really don't excel at anything.

Another common method is to roll dice a number of times equal to the number of attributes, but to choose where you want to place each score. So if you wanted to be a dashing sword fighter, you could put your highest numbers in strength and dexterity to make sure you had a good chance at it.

This lets you customize your character, but it's still quite random, since you are just rolling dice. Being able to put your high number where you want it doesn't help much if your high number isn't very high.

And again you have the possibility that some characters will, simply through the roll of the dice, have much better stats than others. But hey, you take what you get and you work to make it playable and you like it! Because it was good enough for your pappy. Probably. If your pappy played role playing games, which I'm pretty sure mine didn't. Also, he doesn't like gum.

The point is, it's all about working with your luck: taking what fortune gives you and making something of it. The character is born from the whim of the dice and your own creativity! It's like magic!

If magic was made of shiny plastic dice, pencils, rule books, and imagination. Which it totally is.

And then there's the third common method: the point buy system. This method gives every player a certain number of "points" to spend on "buying" attribute scores (see where the name comes from?). Since everyone has the same number of points to start with, everyone has equally good (or bad) stats at the end.

This means that, unlike with dice, you won't have one character who excels at everything, and one who's no good at anything. Everyone will be able to be good at something, and no one will be good at everything. It's very equitable.

Hence, it must be a Communist plot. This whole "level playing field," "we must ensure that everyone has an equal chance to succeed," "accidents of birth (or dice rolling) should not determine fate"...very suspicious, right?

I do see the advantages of point buy, but there's something about rolling dice and waiting to see how the numbers come up that's just more exciting to me.

And sure, sometimes they all come up lousy, but those characters die quickly. It's natural selection at work!

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