I want faster character creation. Also, I’m a monster.

Guest 6801328 · Jan 17, 2019

In the old days character creation took hundreds of hours. Less than an hour to get started, and then countless game sessions before it turned into something you truly valued.

The Crimson Binome · Jan 17, 2019

Arilyn said:
Wouldn't the character system have to be really basic to avoid the silliness you mention?

Eh... maybe? If you have a lot of decision points, such that optimization becomes a fun exercise, then that's a strong incentive for some people to go back and play that mini-game. You can still have complexity without turning character creation into a fun puzzle, but I can't think of any way to do that without invoking random factors (like Palladium, or Maid).

Arilyn said:
And is it so common that we need to take that behaviour into account when designing a character creation system in a game?

It's probably not common enough that it would be the sole factor when designing the creation mechanics, but it can be one factor. Other factors might be to discourage pigeon-holing (few people would choose to make a high-strength wizard, if given the choice, but someone might chance into it if you're rolling randomly for stats), or just to speed the process along in case a character does happen to die during play.

cfmcdonald · Jan 17, 2019

Charlaquin said:
Indeed, but the process of generating a set of six, and then re-generating sets of six until you get a set you are relatively satisfied with still takes longer Point Buy. Hell, generating a single set of 6 can take longer than point buy if you’re not trying to waste your day on it.
.

But you're changing the premise, which is that you just roll in order once and accept what you get. There seems to be this underlying assumption in the thread that you could never play a character with 'bad' stats, so you have to do something to prevent that.

Charlaquin · Jan 18, 2019

cfmcdonald said:
But you're changing the premise, which is that you just roll in order once and accept what you get. There seems to be this underlying assumption in the thread that you could never play a character with 'bad' stats, so you have to do something to prevent that.

I repeat, rolling one set of six abilities takes longer than Point Buy if you’re not trying to waste your day on it.

If you use point buy with any frequency, you know that after racial adjustments, every character ends up with either a 16, 14, 14, 12, 12, 8 spread or a 16, 14, 14, 12, 10, 10 spread, depending on how the player feels about having a -1 in something (usually Strength or Intelligence).. Maybe a 17, 14, 14, 10, 10, 8 or a 16, 15, 14, 12, 10, 10, 8 if they know they want to take a Feat that gives +1 to something when they get the chance. If it consistently takes your players more time to get to that using point buy than it does to roll 4d6, drop the lowest, and add up the rest six times, then they’re either unfamiliar with point buy, or just genuinely enjoy taking their time with these decisions.

Aiden_Keller_ · Jan 18, 2019

I disagree!

Character Creation is all about being original and finding a new backstory that differentiates one human fighter from another...maybe you have the Noble Background and offended another Noble because you took his betrothed home for the night.
Or maybe you spent your life as a Gladiator in the private service to a King as his champion...only when you lost instead of having you killed he allowed you to escape and life your life.

Although the class and race are limited the ability to craft a personal story for each character (along with a nice background and trinket) truly allow for unlimited options!

Be creative!

Maybe ask for a private session with the DM in order speed up the process. Before my DM (as well as when I DM) he/I holds private sessions called Session 0. This allows for the character creation as well as the ability to role play in the beginning area BEFORE the party meets up for whatever the stories hook is.

FrogReaver · Jan 18, 2019

cfmcdonald said:
But you're changing the premise, which is that you just roll in order once and accept what you get. There seems to be this underlying assumption in the thread that you could never play a character with 'bad' stats, so you have to do something to prevent that.

I agree with that underlying assumption. There are rolled arrays so bad that they just won't be played. One way or another they won't be. I'm fine with that.

However, almost no matter how many times you reroll in order it's still an order of magnitude faster than standard array. The speed factor comes from actually considering how all the various options you could do stack up against one another. The more options you have there the longer that process takes. Now some players don't analyze as much as others and may just shortcut through that process. However, players that consider all the possibilities, that takes a long time and that tends to grow exponentially with the number of options.

FrogReaver · Jan 18, 2019

Immortal Sun said:
Well, "personality" isn't part of the mechanical character creation, which frankly, is fast no matter how many options you include unless you're totally new to D&D, in which case, great limit people's options no argument (and we have the Basic Rules for that). But if you've been down this road before, I find it hard to believe you either A: didn't prep a backup or B: find character creation time consuming at all.

"Coming up with a backstory" as I already said can be one of the longest parts of character creation, but isn't a required element per the book. You're more than welcome to throw Generic Human Soldier #7 into the party every day of the week, it's only your DM that says you gotta do more.

I think "doing more" is what makes D&D well, fun. And I think "doing more" requires a little more room to work than Human+Fighter+Background.

Doing more makes the character creation mini game more fun. It doesn't do very much to make the game itself more fun.

jayoungr · Jan 18, 2019

iserith said:
At my table at least, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws are hugely important since the players need those in order to claim Inspiration.

Inspiration saves lives.

Sure, but if you want to model the old-school approach where this stuff is developed at the table, you could just start everyone with one free use of Inspiration, maybe refresh it at level 2 if it's been used, and then set the BIFTs at level 3 if the character survives.

Dannyalcatraz · Jan 18, 2019

cfmcdonald said:
But you're changing the premise, which is that you just roll in order once and accept what you get. There seems to be this underlying assumption in the thread that you could never play a character with 'bad' stats, so you have to do something to prevent that.

I used to think like that. Now I don’t. Had a blast playing my share of PCs with rolled stats, some using the die rolls in order.

Aiden_Keller_ said:
Character Creation is all about being original and finding a new backstory that differentiates one human fighter from another...maybe you have the Noble Background and offended another Noble because you took his betrothed home for the night.
Or maybe you spent your life as a Gladiator in the private service to a King as his champion...only when you lost instead of having you killed he allowed you to escape and life your life.

Although the class and race are limited the ability to craft a personal story for each character (along with a nice background and trinket) truly allow for unlimited options!

(Emphasis mine.)

While I often create unusual characters, I don’t think character creation is necessarily about creating a character who is distinctive from the earliest points of the campaign. Sometimes, playing a bog-standard, cookie-cutter stereotype is exactly the PC you need to play. Especially if your intent is to have the character evolve from that nondescript beginning.

“You haven’t heard of me in a bard’s song. I’m not the chosen of some god. I’m not the golden child of some prophesy. I’m not the incognito scion of a toppled royal. I’m the fifth son of a third daughter, strengthened by the hard life of working a farm, and who figured out how to swing a sword pretty well.”