🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov10.202253.13230@crd.ge.com> (Spike) writes:
>Posts of late seem to indicate that people in this sub are trying
>to design a unique new game system. Many of the comments 
>I've seen thus far seem to be degenerating into the same old
>"is point alloc or random generation better?"

...and falling into the same idiotic logical foolishness.  People
aren't arguing anything relevant to point allocation or not, they're
arguing selection versus randomness.  Any idiot can generate a
character randomly under a point allocation system -- although the
reverse is not true -- so why are they objecting to point allocation
systems on the grounds that they prefer randomness?

There are *other* reasons one might dislike point allocation; the need
to number-crunch and the imbalances between supposedly equal characters,
to name two.  But to object to point allocation systems on the grounds
that one likes one's creative juices inspired by a little randomness
seems specious to me.

Unfortunately, the other side -- most notably David Nalle -- have been
countering with accusations that any decent roleplayer should be able
to come up with 6 creative characters before breakfast, and thus
those who resort to dice are weenies.

The choice for the rules systems isn't selection versus randomness --
it's point-balanced versus random variance.  The two are *not* the same.

>The better approach is dictated by what the *player* wants.

But the GM dictates the base system.  If he/she dictates point allocation,
the randomness preferrer can get out his/her dice.  If the GM dictates
random rolling, however, and you prefer point allocation, you're out of
luck.

   -Andrew Bell
bell@cs.unc.edu