by B. Ender

Created on: May 03, 2009

Dice rolls to determine player attributes in D&D have been around since before D&D was even made, from the times of Chainmail, the game that eventually led to the D&D we know today. Most of the time you roll 3d6 (3 six-sided dice) to determine attributes. Some people roll 4d6 and then pick the best 3 just to have a higher average score. Rolling does have its disadvantages, however: a player who rolled very good scores might be much more powerful than the unlucky player who rolled bad scores, thus causing the unlucky player to think he isn't as important to the group as the other player. This will get rid of the fun of D&D, and D&D is supposed to be fun!

The alternative to dice rolls are point buys: the Dungeon Master or Game Master tells everyone how many points are available to "buy" attributes and then the players determine what scores they want for each attribute. This solves the balance problem dice rolls have because no matter what all players all got the same amount of points to buy their abilities. This also improves the role-playing portion of the game, because of randomized scores players are able to choose what scores they get (to an extent), causing them to think about what they want to be good at and what they might have to sacrifice to achieve that greatness. For example, if a player wanted to be a fighter with a really high strength he might decide to buy a below average intelligence attribute to have more points available for his strength.This also means that you won't end up with players who wanted to be a certain class but didn't get the ability scores needed to perform well in that class, because they decided their ability scores.

Point buys do have problems of their own, of course. Certain players could take advantage of their superior knowledge of the game rules and be able to give themselves abilities far above the others despite having the same number of points as everyone else. This kind of person is known as a min-maxer and uses all the knowledge of the game he or she has to create the "perfect" character. Whether choosing a race that will give him the greatest bonuses to his or her abilities or finding a rules loophole to allow him to be good at just about everything, this can hurt the game experience for the others. If one player has great ability scores and is good at just about anything, then how are the other players supposed to think their characters are special and important to the game?

If you are the Dungeon Master in a game of D&D, the choice of rolling scores or buying scores is completely up to you. This choice is mostly based on preference and probably also what your gaming group wants to do for the character generation process. Just remember that whatever you choose you should carefully consider the options and recognize the possible consequences that come with each one.

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