3d6 is not an "Old School" method, its very specifically a 1st edition B/X method. Its the only place it has ever appeared or been used in D&D as a method at all with exception to the White Box.
As a player, i'm okay with point buy, standard array or even dice rolling methods. I even welcome the challenge to assign them in order if the DM use it!
As a DM, i usually use point buy ot standard array for online gaming and one shots. For campaign in person i usually use dice rolling method.
As someone said on the first page back in February, there's a lot more that goes into making a character unique than just your starting stats. And it's not likely you're locked into min maxing your point buy stats either. Or that there's no variation. You can either get creative with your stats or not, it applies to all dice rolling.
For example, my rogue has a strength of 8 and a con of 10, because I imagine her as toothpick, slender sniper type. Agile but not able to take hits super well, relying on range. I got this character via rolled stats but could have just as easily made her with point buy favoring dex and int and making str and con her dump stats.
I mostly prefer point buy for long term games because it puts people off on the same playing field. Rolling can be unfun if you have a big disparity between peoples rolls, and if you allow people to keep rolling until they like what they got it kind of defeats the purpose, just let them point buy or standard array but with more points/higher numbers to go around. Worst of all, rolling could stick you with rather boring, average scores like having several 12/13 scores without any defined strengths or weaknesses.
If fun for you and your table is standard array, 3d6 in order, 4d6 drop lowest, point buy, or anything else, then fine, play the way you want. No one is stopping you or judging you for doing that. But likewise, don't belittle, denigrate, demean, mock, or gatekeep when others do things differently. The only "correct" way to play D&D is the way that allows people and their tables to have fun doing it.
Yeah, this is the most important part.
Although I have not been in a lot of online D&D communities (mostly Beyond and occasionally Reddit), it seems like roleplayers are the most toxic, judgmental, and authoritarian people around as they are the ones whining and shitting on powergamers. I know not all of roleplayers are like that, but the behavior of a few not only reflects poorly on roleplayers as a group, it also reflects poorly on the entire D&D community to outsiders as well. They make power gamers look like saints, and honestly, issues of metagaming seem pretty trivial to deal with once you browse DMing guides and how-to's a bit. I have collected plenty of tools to deal with power gaming on the fly if I really need to up the challenge (my personal favorites are fluctuating monster HP, enemy reinforcements, and the classic fudging of dice rolls). Out of session, I can just pull a player to the side or have a session zero for the group and reexamine our expectations if things really get out of hand. At worst, I can always just kick a player or end the campaign and restart with fewer players.
On the other hand, I am not sure I have the tools to deal with killjoy and unpleasantness outside of screening, talking, and kicking, but those are all out of session tools. If the first thing a person spouts is "I hate powergamers", "I hate Tasha's", "I hate this", and "I hate that" 99% of the time, I guess filtering them out during sessions zero is not going to be that difficult, or if I am a player, I would just simply run as far away from those kinds of tables.
if you think the anti-power gamers (or Real Role Players as they often refer to themselves) are bad you should peek in on the Rules Lawyers, the Munchkins, the Min-maxers, and the power gamers themselves. It has nothing to do with the faction but with the nature of humans and the anonymity afforded by the internet. In my pre-retirement occupation we called them Radio Rambos always big bad bully boys when you couldnt look them in the eye.
if you think the anti-power gamers (or Real Role Players as they often refer to themselves) are bad you should peek in on the Rules Lawyers, the Munchkins, the Min-maxers, and the power gamers themselves. It has nothing to do with the faction but with the nature of humans and the anonymity afforded by the internet. In my pre-retirement occupation we called them Radio Rambos always big bad bully boys when you couldnt look them in the eye.
I never had an issue with munchkins, min-maxers, and power gamers, and I still have not encountered any problematic players from that group. I have an infinite army at my finger tips, and I can even clad each of my soldier with plot armor on a whim, so powerful PCs are not a threat at all.
What I do have an issue with are jerks and ******** who talk shit about others and shove their narrow view of the game down others' throats. I have seen this coming from a few vocal roleplayers, but I have not seen this from powergamers.
Then clearly we are not visiting the same forum sites. Cause that vitriol is endemic to a portion of all the factions of the hobby. Yes at the table none of them are a threat if you are half decent GM. But... I have personally seen just as many "my way is the only correct way to play" garbage come from optimizers because someone refused to optimize their character for combat. From Rules Lawyers because a GM had the temerity to restrict access to just 3 books and another was attacked just a viciously for refusing use an optional rule. Same from munchkins because rather than deal with their blatant imbalanced rules mutilation a GM flat out said no you cannot have that, but I will allow this much saner and more balanced variant in its stead. And seen tantrums from powergamer sites that put the rest to shame because they were asked to tone it back a bit so they didnt out shine the rest of table. The problem is not isolated to any one "faction". Hell take look at the "discussions" (assuming they havent been locked/deleted yet) between the more "vocal" adherents in the eternal Linear Story vs Open World debates on other forums.
Here on DDB we dont see as much (if at all) because they have a decent mod team and over all the posters are fairly level headed. But there are some true cesspools of fourms out there too.
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AD&D 1st and 2nd Edition had 3d6 too
As a player, i'm okay with point buy, standard array or even dice rolling methods. I even welcome the challenge to assign them in order if the DM use it!
As a DM, i usually use point buy ot standard array for online gaming and one shots. For campaign in person i usually use dice rolling method.
Point buy 100%
I tend to prefer point buy for the customization.
As someone said on the first page back in February, there's a lot more that goes into making a character unique than just your starting stats. And it's not likely you're locked into min maxing your point buy stats either. Or that there's no variation. You can either get creative with your stats or not, it applies to all dice rolling.
For example, my rogue has a strength of 8 and a con of 10, because I imagine her as toothpick, slender sniper type. Agile but not able to take hits super well, relying on range. I got this character via rolled stats but could have just as easily made her with point buy favoring dex and int and making str and con her dump stats.
I mostly prefer point buy for long term games because it puts people off on the same playing field. Rolling can be unfun if you have a big disparity between peoples rolls, and if you allow people to keep rolling until they like what they got it kind of defeats the purpose, just let them point buy or standard array but with more points/higher numbers to go around. Worst of all, rolling could stick you with rather boring, average scores like having several 12/13 scores without any defined strengths or weaknesses.
if you think the anti-power gamers (or Real Role Players as they often refer to themselves) are bad you should peek in on the Rules Lawyers, the Munchkins, the Min-maxers, and the power gamers themselves.
It has nothing to do with the faction but with the nature of humans and the anonymity afforded by the internet.
In my pre-retirement occupation we called them Radio Rambos always big bad bully boys when you couldnt look them in the eye.
I never had an issue with munchkins, min-maxers, and power gamers, and I still have not encountered any problematic players from that group. I have an infinite army at my finger tips, and I can even clad each of my soldier with plot armor on a whim, so powerful PCs are not a threat at all.
What I do have an issue with are jerks and ******** who talk shit about others and shove their narrow view of the game down others' throats. I have seen this coming from a few vocal roleplayers, but I have not seen this from powergamers.
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Then clearly we are not visiting the same forum sites.
Cause that vitriol is endemic to a portion of all the factions of the hobby.
Yes at the table none of them are a threat if you are half decent GM.
But...
I have personally seen just as many "my way is the only correct way to play" garbage come from optimizers because someone refused to optimize their character for combat.
From Rules Lawyers because a GM had the temerity to restrict access to just 3 books and another was attacked just a viciously for refusing use an optional rule.
Same from munchkins because rather than deal with their blatant imbalanced rules mutilation a GM flat out said no you cannot have that, but I will allow this much saner and more balanced variant in its stead.
And seen tantrums from powergamer sites that put the rest to shame because they were asked to tone it back a bit so they didnt out shine the rest of table.
The problem is not isolated to any one "faction".
Hell take look at the "discussions" (assuming they havent been locked/deleted yet) between the more "vocal" adherents in the eternal Linear Story vs Open World debates on other forums.
Here on DDB we dont see as much (if at all) because they have a decent mod team and over all the posters are fairly level headed. But there are some true cesspools of fourms out there too.