Cogollo,

Perhaps instead of randomising the numbers you get in the stats, you could simply randomise which stats get improved.

For example, you've got your basic Human: S2, T2, A2, I2, W2, F2. You've pulled Dockhand as your career and so S and T get boosted to 3. At this point you roll for 3 increases using a D6 (1 = Strength, 2 = Toughness, etc.). You roll 2, 5, 6 so you increase T a further point to 4 (costing 4 CP's), and W and F to 3 each (costing 6 CP's). You've now got your random statline of S3, T4, A2, I2, W3, F3 and another 10 CP's to spend on the other aspects (including further stat changes).

Additionally you could do the following:

• Draw talents randomly - you simply choose whether you want Focus, Tactic or Reputation and draw from one of three decks (you need to prevent people having talents they can't use).
• Insist that players have to buy the typical trappings (or a close approximation) from the back of the career card.
• Assign careers a minimum or maximum wealth level (Dockhand can't begin higher than poor, Envoy can't be lower than comfortable).

Bertolac,

The ideas you propose are very interesting. As in your example, one could have the players roll for 3 random advances in their stats, then let them spend the rest of their points as they want. This way all characters get the same total creation points without necessary being a purely point-buy system and a min-max situation will probably be avoided. Maybe I'll even make them roll for 4 random advances, including the 6 characteristics and the 4 extra stats (using a d10).

Another advantage is that the Human will usually have more points to spend than the other races after rolling for the 3-4 random advances. This compensates a bit the fact that they get 1 less creation point and, roleplaying wise, it makes humans a bit more in charge of their "destiny", which makes sense from the point of view of the world (in v2, Humans had more Fate Points).

I must say I prefer the system you propose to the one I initially proposed, so I'll give it a try for my first campaign! Thanks a lot for the idea!

Bertolac, as some one who does not like traditional random character gen, I think your idea is pretty cool.

What if, instead of rolling for three random advances, you get a d4's worth? That adds another level of randomness, and might use a lot of a player's creation points, so what if the random advances were discounted slightly, say whatever you rolled on the d4-1? That way there is some trade off for the random advances - you might get stats you don't necessarily need for your character, but they were cheaper.

On the one hand, you say that maybe you want to create a soft noble's son or a witty mercenary... ok, but why not with 5 Strength? The noble's son can be a whiner, still with Strength 5;

Because some people put their character stats to represent how they envision their character. If I don't envision my noble's son to be brawny, he's not going to have a 5 Strength (at least not to start), I'll give him a 5 Fel because he's such a good talker and always talked his way out of problems instead of fighting, and give him a 3 S because he's just average (actually, 3 is still above average, it's a dwarf starting S). So to answer your "If I can create a fighter with 5 Strength, why would I create him with 3?" I have to respond "because that isn't the character I'm making".

On the other hand, you state that you don't like someone getting stuck with Strength 2 and a Fighter career and then the player gets frustrated... why? why should someone get frustrated by this?

Again, because my vision of my character was Conan, not pee-wee herman. A 2 strength does not represent a conan-esque character concept, just as a 5 strength does not represent a pee-wee herman character. Not everyone will min-max, and those that do will min-max to varying degrees. Is a player who puts 4's into all his physical stats, rather than a "min-maxer" who put 5 into Strength and having the others at 3, really any less guilty of min-maxing? He's still attempting to make his Fighter the best possible fighter, trying to max out the fighting potential. Regardless of that, not every player will max out a stat just because the rules allow them to. That is my point. Know your players. Yes, if you game with known min-maxers and don't want that to happen, then you should indeed come up with something else. If your players create characters based upon concepts rather than 'to be the best', then the point-buy should work just fine.

I too like Bertolac's suggestion as a reasonable randomization process (if you feel you must ). I would be leery of lumping both stats and table advances into a series of single d10 rolls, though. The problem becomes that, if you retain the point buy after rolling, the chances of a character having points unused after the rolls are pretty good. For example, if a player rolls 4 times and gets rolls of 7,8,9,10 (so 1 in each table column), he's only spend 4 of his 20 points. That's worst case, of course, but just as likely as any other set of 4 rolls. Any 4 rolls on the table will spend far fewer points than rolls on the stats. In fact, I don't think 4 rolls can ever equal 20 creation points period. (hmm, 2x 3 stats up to 5's is 18. That's probably the closest) So, you'd need more rolls, which starts leading to issues of spending too many points if too many stat increases are rolled.

Nah, I like it the way it was suggested better. The 5 extra points that humans have will apply mainly to skills, talents, actions, and wealth (since they'll have more points left after rolls) ... which makes a sort of weird sense to me, and allowing the player to point buy on the table ensures they can use up all their allotted points exactly.

Foolishboy said:

indeed : ) and no worries : ) ive taken heat before lol im really enjoying these forums!! healthy debate and reasoning is always a good time

dvang said:

You see, that's where our points of view diverge a lot. I am not interested in having people play Conan-style characters in my Warhammer campaigns only "because they want to", I've seen enough of them already, specially in D&D and they become boring after a time...

I find it's easier to get inspiration when you get handed some random stats and have to concoct some story out of the stats... gives you more interesting characters than just copying the same stereotype over and over...

And you don't answer to my question of what does frustration about stats have to do with roleplaying... OK, so you are a pee-wee herman, still you can roleplay and make the story advance, I don't see why the character would be less enjoyable... It may be that I started playing when most games had random stat generation and I saw how it worked where some people got frustrated because of bad rolls but then accepted the flaws in their characters, then played point-buy and I saw how they regularly became exercises at character optimization where people got frustrated because the choices they made were not optimum, then were even more frustrated because they could not blame the dice...

About Bertolac's suggestion, I see your point. I'll have my players roll 3 times for stats and once on the extra table, then spend the rest of their points as they want. I'll also have them choose their career before rolling their random advances...

dvang said:

Also, it's interesting to see that in most conversations I've had about this, this comparison always pops up... so it seems that not many people have pee-wee herman as a character concept, or maybe not many people get frustrated when getting a Conan character when all they wanted to play was a pee-wee herman

So, you see, either one or the other does not add up: either you feel ashamed about playing a pee-wee herman or you can (not only in a hypothetical physical way, but as in a real "psycological free" way") create it with a point-buy system...

The real truth is that point-buy systems don't give as results pee-wee hermans but only (or mostly) Conans (in Strength, Agility, Wisdom or you name the skill)... once this idea of "we have to balance all characters in a party" gets a grip on your players, then everything around them will have to be balanced: the XP, the loot, the times each of them kills a monster,... because, you know, you can also feel a pee-wee herman if someone is going around with some cool item and you are not... and then you get a step closer to D&D (a great game for Munchkin evenings) in a very difficult players' state of mind in which to roleplay effectively.

Glad to have helped.

I've had another couple of ideas if you want to step away from point buy almost completely.

When rolling for stats, each stat can come up only once (to prevent the silly S6 and 2 in everything else). This limits Humans to 4 in their starting stats, which from a V1/2 perspective seems fine. However, without knowing V3 I've no idea whether this will make them too weak.

Also after you make your three rolls you have four more areas to consider: Wealth, Skills, Talents and Actions. You have to give these each of these 0-3 CP's - however, the trick is that you can only give one of the areas 3 points, one 2 points, one 1 point and one 0 points. This would mean that intrinsically you have to weaken you character in one area and can only max out in one. This will make character that have the feel of V1/2 random characters (limited choice from the PC) who are somewhat weaker than the norm - simulating the beginning 'adventurer' rather than the hardened 'hero'.

This way, you won't be terrible at your career related stats, you might have some odd combos to explain, and you'll have aress of strength and weakness in the rest of your character creation.

For what it's worth, however, I'm playing with these ideas in the dark. I'm guessing that 3 is still the baseline stat for humans given that 25 creation points means that you can have a S3, T3, A3, W3, I3, F3 (2 career advances and 4x3 CP increases) as well as maximums in Weatlh, Actions, Skills and Talents. The moment you push anything up to 4 you're starting to make sacrifices in terms of skills, resources and other stats.

cogollo said:

Well, most people don't want a pee-wee Herman character when they are making a fighter, which is what I was referring to. Similarly, I could have a character concept for a minstrel/protagonist that was indeed pee-wee herman-esque. If I rolled and got a high Strength and low Fel, it would completely ruin my concept too. It is one thing to take an average or slightly above average primary stat. It is a whole nother thing to purposefully handicap your character by taking an obviously below-average primary stat. A pee wee Herman fighter is handicapped with a below average strength, and so would not make a good fighter concept except for roleplaying purposes, and the player might find the handicapping a difficult obstacle to overcome (so much as to be unfun or unplayable without special considerations). Thus, there is a typically a bare minimum value for a primary stat, which is usually that it is at least average.

So, no most point buys won't give pee-wee Herman results for characters that have physical attributes (S, T) as their primary ones, because players aren't typically willing to seriously handicap their PCs at the start of the game. You could very well see pee-wee hermans, though, for wizards, rogues, bards, etc, for players looking to create a PC who is less concerned about Strength and Toughness and more towards other stats.

Now, after re-reading your comments it seems you slightly misunderstood me in my preiovus post. If my above comments did shed more light on what I mean, I'll try to resolve the confusion here. When I mentioned Conan and pee-wee herman I was referring to those actual images/concepts. The player says "That's what my character looks like, lets build a character to fit it!" It seems to me, when you are referring to Conan, your intent is that it refers to 'max the stat' or "the best at what they do", while pee-wee is 'min the stat' or "useless" (or something close to those). That was not my intent, obviously. So, I referred to Conan because (in my example) I want an iconic muscled barbarian character. If I roll a minimum, sub-average strength for my character, it in no way jives. A sub-average strength, in my head, was represented visually by pee-wee herman, thus I mentioned it. Indeed, as I said just above this, only a hard-core player that wants a real challenge will take a character with a sub-average (handicapped) stat in their profession's primary. So, to an extent you are correct; There won't be many characters that have "pee-wee" (sub-average) values in their main stats with a point buy. I don't agree, however, that most characters will be "Conan" (max stat) in their primary. In my experience it hasn't happened often.

Foolishboy said:

I find this statement coming from you Foolishboy quite laughable. When I dared to state that I believed the dice pool to be superior to the d100% roll, you responded that this was only because I was a bad roleplayer blaming the system for my inadequacies. If this is not a personal attack I don’t know what is. Treat people with respect when you post and they hopefully will reciprocate. I did not pursue your response at the time, as I just thought it not worth it ,but to now seeing you saying things like this I could not let it pass.

Oh and just so you know I have also played WFRP for over 20 years despite the fact I have only recently signed up to post on these forums. With a wife and family I now have limited time for my hobby, only one night a week and do not have the time to commit to internet forums. Excited by a new edition I did and now regret it.

Amketch said:

It isn't a personal attack if it's true, and your taking my responce out of context. I don't mind anyone thinking that a symbolic dice pool is better than a percentile system. However, I do not like it when people attack the percentile system because of their inability to use it as anything more than a Pass/Fail system. Your complaint about the percentile system was not that it simply did not tickle your fancy, rather your complaint was that the percentile system provided you with no information beyond Pass or Fail. It is not the systems fault if you choose not to use the DoS mechanics, it is not the systems fault if you chose not to add narrative to the game.The percentile system will provide you with as much information as you take from it. If you chose not to put any effort into playing do not blame the system. As to being a Bad Roleplayer let's be honest If you don't put any effort into playing it hardly makes you a good player does it? WFRPv2 did not suddenly become a bad game just because WFRPv3 was announced, it still is at this moment the best roleplaying game available. The setting and system lasted 23 years attracting a very passonate following and only ended because FFG decided to create a new game rather than continue the existing system, so WFRP can't have been as bad as you make out. Black Industries shutdown not because they were losing money but because they were not making as much profit as they wanted to. FFG games could only make the sort of money they wish to by starting a new game and selling everyone Core Sets.

Well as far as dice pool vs percentile ... the dice pool *does* provide more information. Even with DoS.

Percentile with DoS tell you: Pass and by how much, or fail and by how much.

The dice pool tells you: Succeed by how much, fail by how much, succeed but with negatives, fail but with positives, was the result that the task was too challenging (lots of challenge dice against you)?, was it just bad luck (lots of misfortune dice against you)?, was it your skill that allowed you to succeed (got a success on skill die)?, Did your cautious/reckless nature help you?, Did your cautious/reckless nature cost you (delay/fatigue)? And I'm sure there are a few more. (probably how much damage and if a critical hit was caused too, for example)

This isn't saying that the percentile dice system is bad. However, when we are talking about information that the roll provides, the dice pool is clearly superior in that regard. You'd need to come up with an awful lot of screwy custom rules to try to add even a fraction of the same information to a percentile roll.

So, no it isn't really the player's/GM's fault for the lack of information from a percentile roll. It's a 'fault' of the percentile mechanic itself. It wasn't designed to provide more information than pass/fail, or pass/fail+DoS/DoF.

Also, no one pro-v3 is saying that 2e was a bad game, as far as I can tell. All they are pointing out is some things in v3 seem to be better, at least in some regards.

dvang said:

exactly! and ive never played V2....im sure its a great game!! it has such a great and loyal following....but we that are pro V3 are saying that we like it...thats all! the dice pool really does add SOO much more then just pass fail.

Foolishboy said:

You just can't help yourself can you. Now I don't put effort into my roleplay. But it not a personal attack as you know it's true!! Been to one of my sessions. I think not.

I have never said the old system is bad just I belive the dice pool to be superior

This really isn't worth it, I don't have the need to validate myself on an internet forum as you seem to.

Happy gaming to all.

Amketch said:

well put! i agree the dice pool really AIDS to the roleplay....and when people say you cant roleplay and have NEVER been to a session of yours....well yeah......um...shush

Amketch said:

Sorry to say but I agree with Foolishboy if you hate the percentile system because you cannot use it that does in fact make you a bad roleplayer or at least a lazy one. No I have not played with you, but your comments led me to think that is your style. As for admonishing someone to treat others with respect after the kind of comments you make? Everyone me included is being just as disrespectful as each other. This stance appears to be the default approach to FFG's forum, at least as far as the new fans of WFRPv3 go. The inability to discuss this game without senseless fanboy attacks is the main reason that I have not registered earlier, but much like Foolishboy I could not stand by and let people rubbish all other roleplaying just because they have a hard on for shinny toys with little substance.

The basic mechanic of percentile and dice pool systems is the same: Roll the dice and attempt to reach a target number.

In the percentile case you can see how close you were to success or failure in increments of one one-hunderedth.

In the case of a numerical dice pool you roll against a target number and see how much you failed or passed by. The increments that you can see in depend on the number and type of dice used. If you used a dice pool of six d6's your range is between 6 and 36 so each increment of success/failure would be roughly 3.3%.

In the symbolic dice case you can see how close you were to success or failure in increments of I don't exactly but it would seem that most of the time you will roll about 4 or 5 challenge dice, so on that basis each increment of succcess or failure will be roughly 20-25%. Leaving far less room for interpretation based on success/failure.

However with the symbolic dice comes the option of adding some extra detail. The stance dice, fortune/misfortune dice etc.. In order to make up for the large succes/failure increments. The downside of the extra symbolic dice is that they are set. If you roll a conservative dice and roll an hourglass the GM MUST tell the player yes you succeeded but it took longer. A numerical dice pool or the percentile dice do not have this problem any result can be interpreted as the GM sees fit.

That's funny, the inability to discuss this game without senseless anti-version 3-attacks is the main reason I refrained from posting earlier, but I just cannot stand by and let people rubbish a new and different type of game before it's even been released :-)

Besides... Since when is anyone a bad or lazy roleplayer because they don't like a particular dice system? So if I construct a great character and play it believably but I don't enjoy the dice system, I'm a bad roleplayer?

I don't hate the d% system at all by the way, I like it better than some other systems but I, for one, do prefer a symbolic system over a numbers system because that's just the way my mind works. I guess that makes me an idiot who is not worthy of playing roleplaying games.

Ludlov Thadwin of Sevenpiecks said:

RIGHT ON!!! ive played d20 systems and d6 systems and this symbolic system seems alot better.....so i guess im not a good roleplayer....even though i have been rated as one of the better GM/DMs in my area....not on top but around top 20....so i guess i can be a good roleplayer? no no no thats not the case at all....ANYONE WITH AN IMAGINATION CAN ROLEPLAY but i do believe we have gotten of topic.........

@ SumoBandit
Hmm, I'm not sure where to start with this post. You have some things correct, in a sense, but are way off in your analysis. Let me try to break it down for ease of reading.

The basic mechanic of percentile and dice pool systems is the same: Roll the dice and attempt to reach a target number.

Well, yes and no. Yes, both are trying to determine success or failure. Percentile has a target number from 1-100, and the roll of the dice must be lower than that target number. The 3e dice pool requires more hammers showing than swords. The target 'number' itself isn't a fixed number, so it isn't remotely the same as percentiles. For example: On one roll a single hammer could be a success (no swords rolled), whereas with another roll (exact same modifiers et all) that single hammer is a failure (because a swords was rolled). So they are pretty different, even at the basic level. Only the most basic "did I succeed or fail?" is the same. Your assertion that they both "attempt to reach a target number" is incorrect.

In the percentile case you can see how close you were to success or failure in increments of one one-hunderedth.

True

In the case of a numerical dice pool you roll against a target number and see how much you failed or passed by. The increments that you can see in depend on the number and type of dice used. If you used a dice pool of six d6's your range is between 6 and 36 so each increment of success/failure would be roughly 3.3%.

Perhaps, but the individual 'increment' amount does not necessarily make for a more diverse result. See my note below.

In the symbolic dice case you can see how close you were to success or failure in increments of I don't exactly but it would seem that most of the time you will roll about 4 or 5 challenge dice, so on that basis each increment of succcess or failure will be roughly 20-25%. Leaving far less room for interpretation based on success/failure.

Again, a flawed premise because the 'target' is to have more hammers than swords. You could roll no swords, or all swords. As well, the number of dice vary (add in fortune dice), as do the number of sides of the dice (should the characteristic dice get swapped for stance dice). Consider in your scenario your percentile target is 75% and you roll 01, then you've succeeded by 74%. Whereas, if you roll no swords and 4 hammers you've succeeded by... oh, umm 400%? Granted, if you are looking at percentage interpretations of the dice pool (which in itself isn't appropriate), then you won't calculate out a minutia degree. 3 hammers and 2 swords means does not equate out to a true percentage (see my example earlier). You're probably better off thinking like each hammer more than sword is a degree of success, rather than trying to stick percentages where they don't belong. It is true, though, that in a success the possible number of hammers to swords will be a fewer number than percentage rolls to target number. In my previous example, there were 74 possible rolls which could equate to success with a target percentile of 75%. In the 3e dice pool, you could have 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, maybe 10 more hammer dice than sword dice (possible more with fortune dice, but I agree it still doesn't comes close to the 74 of the percentile). Of course, there isn't much of a difference between succeeding by 74 and succeeding by 73, either. Most percentile systems use DoS, which sets every 10 as a threshold to signify something different. Now, you are looking at 7 degrees of success with rolling that 01 (vs 75% target) ... which matches nicely with the number of 3e hammers to swords.

However with the symbolic dice comes the option of adding some extra detail. The stance dice, fortune/misfortune dice etc..

Yes...

In order to make up for the large succes/failure increments.

As I explained, there's isn't a significant difference between a few percentage points of success/failure. These incremements you are referring to don't provide any tangible difference, and do not make a percentile roll provide more information. Rolling a 73% success might as well be a 72% success rolls since nothing changes between them. Percentile systems that use DoS consider every 10% to reflect a difference, which severly reduces your argument about success/failure increments (being 1%, and therefore 'better') as I've shown.

The downside of the extra symbolic dice is that they are set. If you roll a conservative dice and roll an hourglass the GM MUST tell the player yes you succeeded but it took longer. A numerical dice pool or the percentile dice do not have this problem any result can be interpreted as the GM sees fit.

A GM always has the option to do as he pleases, although there are guidelines given in the rulebook so the players know what to expect. Sure, the GM must (well, if he feels like it, anyway. The GM is all-powerful) tell the player that he has been delayed (whether he succeeds or not) if he rolls an hourglass. A numerical dice pool can't tell even you that you've been delayed. Only on a GM Whimsy can numerical/percentile dice roll give the information that the symbol dice pool can (whats really to stop GM Whimsy from altering the dice pool results?). I've already listed it, but I'll do it again:

"Percentile with DoS tell you: Pass and by how much, or fail and by how much.

The dice pool tells you: Succeed by how much, fail by how much, succeed but with negatives, fail but with positives, was the result that the task was too challenging (lots of challenge dice against you)?, was it just bad luck (lots of misfortune dice against you)?, was it your skill that allowed you to succeed (got a success on skill die)?, Did your cautious/reckless nature help you?, Did your cautious/reckless nature cost you (delay/fatigue)? And I'm sure there are a few more. (probably how much damage and if a critical hit was caused too, for example)"

With banes, boons, comets, chaos symbols, hourglasses, blood drops, skulls, hammers with pluses, double hammers, etc, plus different number of sided dice, you have a large potential for a large variety of rolls. A single percentile roll is limited to a possibility of 100 outcomes (1-100). All it can tell you is whether you succeeded or failed, and by how many percent. A 3e dice pool roll has the possibility for more than that amount due to the sheer amount of combinations the various dice can make with each other.

A percentile system is nice and simple and easy to use for determining success/failure and by how much. There is nothing wrong with it for doing those things. What is being pointed out is that the 3e dice pool provides much more information from a single roll than from a single roll of percentile dice. If all you want from your roll is pass/fail and by how much a percentile roll can (assuming individual percentages mean different things) give you that information in a goodly amount of detail, and is perfectly reasonable to use. If you want more information than those two things, though, then the 3e dice pool is significantly better in performing that role.

Everyone me included is being just as disrespectful as each other. This stance appears to be the default approach to FFG's forum, at least as far as the new fans of WFRPv3 go. The inability to discuss this game without senseless fanboy attacks...

First, please point out a post where I was disrespectful to someone else? I'd like to know, as I've never been angry while writing on here. I've also seen quite a few good, respectful, posts (on both sides of the argument). So no, not everyone is being disrespectful to each other, and yes, unfortunately, occasionally things get interpreted as more personal than they should be, which leads to intentional personal attacks. Blanket statements just tend to cause more problems than they solve. I would also suggest refraining from throwing around the useless 'fanboy' word. People are entitlted to like the game, without being a 'fanboy'. In the words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I will also point out that in modern times the term fanboy is itself approaching a derogatory term, and as such should probably be used more infrequently by people attempting to keep a respectful tone.