Posted by Nat on November 02, 1999 at 15:40:59:
In Reply to: Hi...thanks for hitting this nerve for me. posted by Shokai(IMM) on November 02, 1999 at 14:49:20:
> heaven forbid you have to spend time working on your character...try thinking of a history and background for him while you roll. > it's possible, but why bother? Part of the reason you roll stats is to see if you're willing to stick it out and put the time into having a near perfect character from the start. Be glad a lot of people have made rollers more avaiable, at least you don't have to hit 'n' for 2 hours now. > want us to pick your names, and give you a description too? Since obviously that's a waste of time you could be killing people.
I really doubt that someone who would not otherwise devise a history would do so just because they have to wait for their stats.
Requiring the rolling of stats is really not an effective way to require that people put time into their characters. I've had programs roll me nice characters who suffered deletion before rank 5 due to my mercurial temperaments more times than I count.
Furthermore, the published CF rules actually contain a clause against spending hours rolling to get good stats, saying that this increases lag. (Does *anybody* follow that rule? How could they?) The rolling of stats just rewards people who don't mind increasing the lag a bit if that's what it takes to get an advantage.
Names and descriptions have nothing to do rolling stats. Names and descriptions are creative efforts requiring thought. (The good ones, anyway.) Rolling stats is twiddling thumbs for an hour while a program does its mindless work.
> > In an ideal world you'd be able to say I want 18 str/18int/18wis/18dex/18con/18chr and you go right into playing, but we all know that the imms are like the dominatrix in an S&M relationship...dishing out the pain and getting their rocks off because of it :)
> Getting our rocks of, eh? It is with great personal restraint I hold back the stream of profanity I'd love to spew at you. Being an immortal is probably the most under appricaited thing I've done in the past few years. Why do I do it? Because I enjoy it, I enjoy the role, and I enjoy helping people who need it. When I see little comments like this, whether meant to be amusing, or serious it does one thing...it pisses me off. If you were making a joke, yippie. If you weren't, piss off.
I have to disagree with you again... I wouldn't have held back the profanities. You imms have done an astounding job for which you are rarely thanked. Thanks. ;)
To sum up:
I think it would be better if every character started out with stats that were 3 below their racial maximum, or something like that. (Number picked off the top of my head.)
If you really want people to have to wait for their characters to increase their dedication, then put in a one-hour delay between the creation of the character and allowing the character to be played, or something. This would decrease lag a little and not benefit the thoughtless.
As far as decreasing individuality goes (I think someone below offered that as a reason not to abolish rolling), how much variation is there now, really? Everybody begins within a few points of each other, and what diversity there is regarding stats is just a better-worse scale resulting from luck or lagging the MUD.