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Who let the nerds out? Who? Who?

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A. I have some new players starting in this campaign that have been playing for around 10 years. I grew up on 1st edition through AD&D, stoped playing for many years, then recently learned 3.5, 4th, and Pathfinder.

B. The new players all play MMORPG's. As have I....way too many I'm afraid to say. I understand the general nature of those games. :-)

I know, for a fact, that a players age and his/her point of reference have a huge impact on what type of game they will enjoy. I was merely trying to determine your point of reference to gauge how my game might be accepted by a group of younger players. And, I think I've accomplished that, but I'm sorry if I offended you. Please accept my apologies.

@legallytired - Of course...randomly. That's just the old school gamer in me I suppose. I'm not a big fan of min-maxing to the nth degree so I can have the best, most optimized character for combat. I think these drawbacks/limitations do add the game a great deal...it's just not in the form of more bonuses and extra damage. It adds to the challenge, thus making each victory more rewarding....not just another group of mooks the party mowed through. <yawn> Just curious, how long have you been playing D&D? Do you play MMORPG's?

@WarforgedGardener - 10 point buy....one thing I didn't mention was that I would probably give each player (at some point in the game) rewards for good role-playing (not funny voices or dramatic dialog per se, but good solid tactics and use of the other non-combat aspects of the game...like actually perfoming like your avatar "should" based on the character concept and alignment). The rewards would be something like a +1 or +2 bonus to an attribute. They would see these no more than once or twice throughout their career though. All other stat increases would be per RAW. Of course, if things get too dicey, I can always increase their power level to suit....easier than taking power away after they have already had it. Besides, stat increasing items are available in the game, so this will just put a cap on the max stat increases before they get out of hand.

I'm planning to start a group of 5-6 players this weekend, and I'm doing things a bit differently with starting characters.

They will start as a random NPC class at -1000 experience. I've given the NPC classes certain bonuses that reflect the rules for NPC boons...for instance, the Commoner class gets a +2 bonus to Heal checks (+4 for disease and poison). Aristocrats get bonuses to Knowledge (Nobility) and Bluff. Things of that nature, just to keep things interesting. Likewise, I will be rolling for a random bane and a random boon. An example bane might be that the character is Clumsy and drops his weapon on a roll of 1 or 2. Or they could have the shakes and suffer a -2 to ranged attacks and -1 to ranged damage. A boon would be various bonuses to skills. Finally, they will get a campaign trait, and possibly (undecided on this) two of the character traits.

Here's the kicker though...I'm seriously thinking that I will have them use a 10 point buy for their stats. I want to keep the game challenging and deadly....otherwise, whats the point? :-)

Is this too restrictive?

Any feedback would be appreciated.