r/RPGdesign • u/unconundrum • 5d ago
Point Buy
My system is based around point-buy, but I'm wondering if that's putting too much of a requirement for initial time investment. They were reasonably popular back in the day but are they still?
Does point-buy seem like too much work for the average TTRPG player these days? Or do enough folk still find thrills in finding ways to manipulate the points just right?
I'm also wondering about doing a 'quicker-start' with a handful of arrays and lists of how many abilities you can take, and then a quickest-start with just full pre-gens.
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u/InherentlyWrong 5d ago
I feel like asking if point buy is too much for the average RPG player is missing the goal. You're not trying to appeal to every RPG player, you're trying to appeal to your specific audience.
So, does the crunch of point buy appeal to the kind of players you're structuring the rest of your game towards?
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u/SardScroll Dabbler 5d ago
Point buy is still fun. They are a barrier to entry, but I'd argue alongside u/TalesFromElsewhere that any one picking up your gain has already passed by harder barriers.
If you are worried about it turning people off giving it ago, you can split the difference and have themed starting packages, like a half-build pre-gen, potentially with limited choices or a small number of customization points, and then go full point-buy for future progression.
Alternatively, you could have a life-path system, earning perks and customization points before the start of the game, and doing point-buy progression after that point.
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u/flamfella Dabbler 5d ago
This is the way!
OP. If you make it easy for players to understand or just pick something right out the gate you'll be fine even if your point-buy is complicated. Those who want to engage with it will, those who don't will be able to use whatever pre-gen/array thing you have in store for them.
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u/writerguy731 5d ago
I like point buys but yes, I’d also endorse you having a pre-made quick start version where you, the game creator, just use your own system and make a recommended setup for a certain playstyle type. It’s a faster choice for a new player, and it’s a CHOICE - if they want to engage with the point buy system, they can, or use your premade as a jumping off point to edit. No downsides of including it.
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u/Steenan Dabbler 5d ago
Point buy is very rarely worth it as a part of character creation. Not only is it more time consuming than it's worth, it is also hard to balance in terms of how specialized the characters should be.
In my opinion, every character a game allows one to make should be a viable character in a typical instance of this game. In other words, too much freedom isn't good. Character creation rules should ensure both depth and breadth that are necessary for a playable character.
In most cases, wherever you'd like to use point buy, giving the player a set of values to assign achieves the same result while being more balanced and faster to use.
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u/Plus_Citron Designer 5d ago
D&D is „popular.“ Point Buy has a very distinct appeal, and either that’s the way you want your game to go, or it’s not.
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u/SuperCat76 5d ago
I have had the idea of something similar.
My concept of a system had people select 2-3 core aspects, and a variety of point buy extras around them.
And a thing I was thinking I would do is to add "classes" which basically are, This is a default wizard. Take this core aspect, a second core aspect that is either A or B. and here is a sub list of the point buy options that are particularly wizard-y with an example set.
So this allows a number of different levels of character creation complexity:
- One can just play the class and take the example point buy options, down that list.
- One can choose to play the class but choosing freely from the class option list
- The player can mostly pull from a class, but use it as a base to tweak and throw in a non class ability here and there.
- A player can multi class, pulling things from a couple classes, but mainly stick to the classes.
- The player can go wild and just combine whatever options they want to make the character they want. completely ignoring the classes.
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u/Runningdice 5d ago
For one-shot type of games then maybe point buy could be considered a bit to much investment.
For long games then you really don't need quick-start. As the start is just a small part of the whole game.
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u/PineTowers 5d ago
GURPS solved point buy with kits - pre-built thematic packages, so a player can easily make a doctor or firefighter by taking the kit, tweak it, use it as inspiration and so on. And remaining points were used to flavour more the character.
And off course, full pre-gen are also nice for quick play
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u/unconundrum 4d ago
you know, the one and only time I got to play GURPS the GM said "Tell me what you're aiming for and I'll build the character." We played maybe 5 sessions or so. Never got to engage with that side, unfortunately.
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u/pruhfessor_x 5d ago
I'm fairly new to DnD, been playing for about 4 years, and in my experience point buy is still super common. As a lot of people have pointed out, what the average dnd player can or can't do shouldn't be your number one concern, but for what it's worth, it shouldn't be a huge barrier to entry for most dnd players.
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u/APurplePerson When Sky and Sea Were Not Named 5d ago
i would have a healthy roster of pregens and see how it shakes out in playtesting with new players.
in a single group/party, it is likely you will have a diversity of enthusiasm for (or tolerance of) point buy chargen. for a lot of new players, any character creation is a barrier to entry. if point buy is your jam, keep it but also trumpet the availability of pregens to give people another path to start playing.
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u/Cryptwood Designer 5d ago
Your primary concern should be making the game you want to make, but if you do worry about anyone else the people you should think about is your regular table. If you want to run your game for your friends, will it be too much for them?
For any given indie TTRPG there is a very real possibility that the only person who will ever run it is the creator of that game, so the only players you can be sure of trying out your game are your own players.
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u/unconundrum 5d ago
I've run a full campaign with them, and it worked smoothly for that. Made occasional adjustments for things not working, but by and large they enjoyed it, and a few said I should look into publishing it. The system is very flexible and very easy once your character is made. But even with printed off sheets detailing point cost for various abilities the actual chargen session was trickier than anything else in that campaign.
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u/archpawn 5d ago
I prefer point buy. I want to be able to make my character, not select from a number of pre-made classes.
I'm also wondering about doing a 'quicker-start' with a handful of arrays and lists of how many abilities you can take, and then a quickest-start with just full pre-gens.
Definitely do that. Note that the quickest-start option isn't just to save time. It shows people examples of how character building works.
If you want to keep things simple for first-time players, I recommend picking just the most important abilities and having a core ruleset with just that, then add expanded rules that give a bunch more. That way, people can play without reading through the whole rulebook, and if you want to charge for it, you can charge only for the expanded ruleset so people have a chance to try your game and only buy it if they're really into it.
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u/RPG-Nerd 4d ago
I do a different type of point buy for initial build. You buy the skills at character creation, or you can use those same points as xp in an existing skill.
Character progression is not point buy. You earn XP in each skill through use. Its a lot simpler and gives aire natural progression where the adventure and how a player solves problems, determines how the character progresses
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u/unconundrum 4d ago
I've played some systems like that (Burning Wheel, Delta Green) and really enjoy those sorts of things personally. BW in particular has a lot of paperwork since it's every roll, while DG is a bit simpler. (D100 system, check any roll you failed, at the end of the session it can get increased by 1d4.)
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u/RPG-Nerd 4d ago
I have basically 0 paperwork. Attacks and defenses end up being 2d6+X in most cases, with all situational modifiers being advantage/disadvantage dice that are kept on your sheet. No HPs to manage or fiddle with. Ammo is tracked by taking an arrow (die) from your quiver (dice bag) and rolling it as part of your attack. Since there is 1 die per arrow, ammo is 100% accurate without any extra work to track it.
The learn only from failure bothers me as much as rewards being random (1d4) and artificially bounded (d%). Its extra work and extra steps because you throw away half your info with pass/fail mechanics
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u/BlackTorchStudios Designer 4d ago
My advice: use whatever system serves the experience. I've allowed point buy, standard array, roll for stats when playing Dnd, and never seen it be an issue regardless. Its far more important to know what the numbers are procedures are trying to accomplish and making sure whatever method and math you choose reinforces that
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u/Dom_Nation_ 5d ago
I'm anti attribute scores in general. 90+% of players of a each class will have the same attribute scores, because min maxing your attributes is essentially saying I want a competent character. The only thing attributes do is give players that don't know what they're doing the opportunity to make incompetent characters.
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u/damn_golem Armchair Designer 5d ago
Better question: Does tweaking the probability of random dice rolls actually help players embody their character or add fun? If yes - do it!
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u/MidSolo 4d ago
Point Buy is fine, but I find it's too disjointed from your other options.
I find Pathfinder 2's character creation to be the best. Your attributes are defined by a combination of Ancestry, Background, Class, and some you are free to assign. You can also replace your Ancestry's assigned 3 bonuses and 1 penalty with any 2 boosts of your choice, which allows for any ancestry-class combinations to be viable, if not perfectly optimized.
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u/Fun_Carry_4678 4d ago
I generally use point buy for my WIPs. But I try not to let the points get out of hand. CHAMPIONS was the classic point buy game, and it worked for superheroes. But ordinary folks don't need that many points. Allocating a dozen or so points is fine, allocating hundreds takes a while.
I would definitely have your quicker-start and quickest-start.
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u/Digital-Chupacabra 5d ago
Does point-buy seem like too much work for the average TTRPG player these days?
Yes. Remember the average TTRPG player plays D&D, or if you are looking at national averages D&D OR what ever that nation's most popular RPG Call of Cuthulu in Japan, The Dark Eye in Germany etc., and hasn't read the rules.
This isn't something new, it's been this way for multiple decades now.
That out of the way, design the game you want! If you design for others you're guaranteed a disappointment.
Most folks who are willing to play an indie RPG, will have no issue learning new mechanics or handling a point buy system.
I'm also wondering about doing a 'quicker-start' with a handful of arrays and lists of how many abilities you can take, and then a quickest-start with just full pre-gens.
This is always a good idea! The faster you can get people playing the better.
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u/Alcamair Designer 5d ago
It depends; my system is Point-Buy, but you can create a character in 5 minutes, simply by purchasing the values of 3 Attributes and 9 Skills (plus any Peculiarities, but they're optional). I think even the least gifted player is capable of such an effort.
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u/darklighthitomi 5d ago
Point buy is actually more popular, for terrible reasons if you ask me, but more popular.
Now many have said that rolling for stats feels unfair since someone might get better stats than someone else, but I do not believe that to be accurate because none of the people who told me that had even a shred of interest in any method that would randomly determine their stats while guaranteeing equality between players, such as having a number of points and randomly rolling where those points go, and most of them flat out rejected any idea that took away their absolute control of every point. That means that even though they claim fairness as motivation, it is actually control.
They're being shortsighted of course, but whatever.
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u/MrXonte Designer 5d ago
as someone whod never touch a rolling for stats system, i think its not only about control (which it definitly is also) but in generell about the character creation process. I want to play a specific fantasy, and either there are so many rng mitigation mechanics in rolling that its not far from point buy, or it can fuck my vision from my character up significantly. Thats why im always doing point buy and dont see the appeal of randomness in char creation.
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u/darklighthitomi 5d ago
The appeal is needing to work with what you get. Like in poker, you don't get to choose your hand, you just have to work with it. It also adds variations which feel more natural and "realistic" (for lack of better term). You might be a bookworm but be blessed with size and strength you didn't ask for, how does that affect your character?
Further, it also holds the appeal of avoiding problems that inevitably show up with point buy. With point buy, folks tend to see any stat less than OP as insufficient and weak. In a point buy game, there is no room for being smart but not Einstein. In a point buy game, if you don't spike your intelligence to be at least as high as Einstein if not better, then you get bashed for having a weak character that is worthless and not helpful in combat regardless of whether it is actually true. And it very quickly becomes the dominant thinking, which drives an attitude of minmaxing and twisted horrible sense of what numbers mean.
For example, if you want to play a talented mage, that becomes an excuse to spike intelligence super high, because you are not talented if your numbers are not big enough, nevermind the fact that Einstein would be considered on the less talented side of things if anyone bothered to run the numbers, and that is absolutely ridiculous.
I play DDO right now, built on DnD 3.5 mechanics. Einstein had an Int score between 18-20. That means a 14 is fairly intelligent and more than suitable for being a renowned master of magic. But players dismiss 14 as being too weak and just crippling yourself. Other players claim a mere 14 is not suitable for a primary stat.
So it is a vicious cycle of minmaxing setting the bar for "good enough" really high, which drives minmaxing even harder, which raises the bar, which drives minmaxing even harder, etc.
And people won't even call it minmaxing. They just say they need to be effective.
Same applies to any stat.
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With rolling, your expectations are set by the rolling method, and getting a high roll feels like it is a good number even when it is a fraction of what a point buy player could easily get.Do you see what I'm getting at here?
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u/MrXonte Designer 2d ago
I definitly get your point and see the issues with point buy, especially minmaxing. its a huge issue with some players, or sometimes with DMs that balance for minmaxed chars.
I think the main issue is it just requires a character creation approach that doesnt fit how i want to play. i come with a very concrete idea of what i want to play, while rolling requires the opposite approach, like you said, having to make what you have work.
This issue i have also scales with the rolling mechanics, unmitigated rolling (roll once per stat in order, no switching, shuffling, rerolls, etc) is pure horror to me. It can break any character idea and create huge party differences. Thats why there is usually some rng mitigation and this can vary from "i can rougly do what i want but have to improvise a bit" to "its effectivly point buy".
For someone with my playstyle it makes rolling unattractive and generally inferior to point buy, but i thankfully have good experience with my players and as a Player where people try not to minmax. If i had to deal with minmaxers id likely also lean more towards rolling
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u/TalesFromElsewhere 5d ago
Worry yourself not with a nebulous idea of an "average TTRPG player". By numbers alone, the average TTRPG player only plays D&D and doesn't touch the greater hobby or subculture around it.
Make a game with design choices that serve its intended play experience, rather than attempting to appeal to an imagined market.
Long story short: point buy in the D&D sense isn't challenging at all and there are much crunchier/heavier games out there that are played all the time. Be as weird as you want!