Do you like character building?

[coyote6]

I can see the appeal of having background things like turnip farmer vs. warlord's son not matter to one's combat effectiveness, but I also like being able to have my Farlo Turnipsson character have different capabilities from my Kelsis Khan character. Ideally, I'd want D&D to silo off combat & non-combat abilities, or adventurer & background abilities, so I could pick the ones appropriate to my character. That way, it isn't a "you gimped your guy to be able to grow turnips" thing; it's a "you can grow turnips rather than recite royal lineages" thing.

I find that having Turnipsson and Khan be exactly the same mechanically makes them feel too similar in play to me.

<shrug> Different playstyle preferences, probably.

 

[Dausuul]

I disasgree completely here - "mental energy" dedicated to doing the rules is different from mental energy used to think of a backstory.

How? Brainpower is brainpower. Humans suck at multitasking.

For that matter, the character building "mental energy" isn't always there. When you're fighting orcs or talking to the princess, you aren't thinking in the back of your mind about what feat to take...

No, but you may well be thinking about your attack bonus and which feat to use (orcs), or your social skills and relevant powers (the princess). Lots of people have observed players in 3E and 4E developing a kind of tunnel vision, seeing everything through the lens of powers and skills and feats, and ignoring the possibility of stepping outside what's written on the character sheet. That happens because it takes so much thought to sort through a PC's mechanical options that non-mechanical options get overlooked.

Points spent in one skill and taking a "non-adventageous background" (I'm not sure if those even exist) are a pittance. At the end of the day, you really aren't that paralyzed from it.

If you're playing a fighter with Intelligence 8 (not unlikely if you're going the turnip farmer route), every skill point counts. It's not going to cripple you in combat, but you'll certainly feel the lack when your Climb or Swim skill suffers as a result.

In 4E, there most certainly is such a thing as a non-advantageous background. For instance, Wisdom clerics have a strong incentive to pick a background that gives them Perception as a class skill; Perception is a massively useful skill, it keys off the cleric's prime stat, and by taking the appropriate background you can save yourself a feat on skill training. Picking a different background won't break your character, but it'll cost you either a feat or a valuable skill, which isn't negligible.

Either way, the system sets up incentives to put the mechanics first and contort your character's back story and persona to fit. All of D&D does that to some degree, of course--it's hard to justify being a professional scholar with an Int of 8, in any edition--but the more incentives there are and the more detailed their interactions, the stronger the pressure.

The difference is that in 3e or 4e you can actually show your character was a turnip farmer, rather then say "Despite being completely identical to the heroic and brave warlord's son I just had, here's a brand new character who farmed turnips."

I can show those things in 1E and 2E as well, and much more easily. In the little space on the character sheet where it says "Character History" or "Background" or whatever, I write, "Turnip farmer." Done. I don't see why you're hung up on needing mechanics to detail every little thing about your PC. Do you need to pull out the Book of Erotic Fantasy to state whether your character is straight or gay?

For all their flaws, and they have many, 1E and 2E recognize that you can create two totally different, distinct, and interesting characters with exactly identical stats. Or at least I can.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'm not sure why it's not viable under 4e mechanics. Make a fighter, give him a scythe or papa's longsword. Say he's a former turnip farmer. Hell, make him the open off-hand style character to accentuate his rustic and more instinctual style of fighting, grabbing enemies and punching them in the face along with swinging his weapon.

Good point. Because 4e says nothing about the world, only the PCs and their doings, we can't say that a 4e 1st lvl fighter isn't a turnip farmer. In 3e we can. If a turnip farmer isn't a 1st lvl commoner, no one is.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Another consideration in 1e is the 1st level fighter level title, 'veteran'. That suggests more than turnip picking in the PC's past. Also, a fighter is proficient with four weapons. If you just pick club, quarterstaff and other farmer stuff then your PC will be gimped. Freedom to fail!

 

[Mallus]

(I do have one minor quibble with Verdande: If your turnip farmer really has nothing more than a pitchfork and ragged clothes, he will be at a serious disadvantage due to lack of armor. But as soon as the turnip farmer happens across a chain hauberk, he can put it on and the disadvantage is erased.)

Right. I don't remember seeing a lot of AD&D/2e fighters running around in shirt sleeves. Well, at least not for long.

I'm not sure why it's not viable under 4e mechanics. Make a fighter, give him a scythe or papa's longsword. Say he's a former turnip farmer.

Better yet, make him an Avenger. This way, the ragged clothes aren't a disadvantage, also, Avenger's primary stat is Wisdom, which fits perfectly with a character whose strength is good common sense. He's the divine champion of "simple country living".

Give him Nature as a Trained skill, to simulate his ability w/turnip farming.

 

[Ariosto]

You uh, didn't. You didn't make or build anything.

Have you not heard the saying, "Experience builds character"?
Are you not acquainted with the meanings of the words in normal English, as opposed to D&D-geek-ish?

You just didn't use mechanics and numbers to do it. You played the game to do it.

I used mechanisms and numbers as seemed meet to reflect events in the imagined world. This was the same principle in, e.g., RuneQuest as in D&D.

The difference was that in D&D, player-characters were generally assumed to be adventurers by profession, at least as competent as Boy Scouts at sitting horses, tying knots, sailing boats, making fires, polishing boots, and sundry other quotidian matters to which the authors of fantastic adventure fiction tended to devote no special attention. That was not where the interest lay.

It was not the case that players were eager to turn their warriors and conjurers into butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, only to be frustrated by an absolute prohibition on doing so! No, the demand as a rule was not there for such rules. People came to play Dungeons & Dragons to explore dungeons and deal with dragons.

If baking a cake or spinning a thread, planting beans or climbing a beanstalk, chanting a verse or milking a cow or riding a flying horse or anything happened to be conducive to adventure, then it was not in our interest to keep it from happening.

If it was not interesting, then again we usually had no reason to prevent it -- but also no reason to spend a lot of time and energy on it. We did not need rules for making horseshoes in Boot Hill, for the same reason we did not need rules for going to the outhouse.

Now, if our group happened to be fascinated by some usually neglected subject, then we could always add rules. D&D, and RQ -- indeed, most games prior to WotC-D&D, in my experience -- were easily extensible this way.

"Hey, can Jocko spend a season with the Circus? It would be neat to learn how to juggle." Sure. Why not? The other characters meanwhile will be off getting experience points in their classes, but when Jocko returns he might have "Juggler" noted on his character record.

Anyone else who chooses to do so may. Likewise, whoever proves himself or herself worthy to study at the feet of the Mountain Hermit may learn secrets of the Still Voice. Whoever wrests from the deep the Sea Queen's Pearl will possess its powers.

The game does not consist of spending so many points. It consists of taking actions, with no set allotment of helps or hindrances to acquire.

As for non-player characters, they are however the referee describes them. There is simply no game in making NPCs, no peer in competition with the Dungeon Master!

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Another consideration in 1e is the 1st level fighter level title, 'veteran'. That suggests more than turnip picking in the PC's past.

Didn't you get the memo? In games we like we are allowed to ignore fluff or even rules we don't want, creating any character we like. But in games we don't like, every piece of text written is an anchor around our necks that we cannot remove or change, a vile slap in the face.

It the rule of self-fulfilling RPG prophecy.

 

[Lanefan]

The difference is that in 3e or 4e you can actually show your character was a turnip farmer, rather then say "Despite being completely identical to the heroic and brave warlord's son I just had, here's a brand new character who farmed turnips."

We're not going to get far here, as there's a pretty big gap between how you define a character and how I do.

It seems there are two definitions (let's assume same class and race, for the moment):

1. Character as mechanics - the character is defined by its numbers and abilities, with personality and background somewhat secondary and-or irrelevant unless somehow reflected in the mechanics.

2. Character as character - the character is defined by its personality and background, with mechanics and numbers somewhat secondary where relevant at all.

You (and 3e, and to some extent 4e) clearly go for the first definition. I (and 0-1e and to some extent 2e) prefer the second.

Lanefan

 

[Ariosto]

In short: I choose D&D for the adventure, not for paperwork.

When I want paperwork, I have plenty of other games from which to choose. Chivalry & Sorcery has quite a lot, and more in the "skill ratings" department in the second edition -- but that's just a tiny taste of the offerings. The field has grown quite a bit since 1974!

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

We're not going to get far here, as there's a pretty big gap between how you define a character and how I do.

It seems there are two definitions (let's assume same class and race, for the moment):

1. Character as mechanics - the character is defined by its numbers and abilities, with personality and background somewhat secondary and-or irrelevant unless somehow reflected in the mechanics.

2. Character as character - the character is defined by its personality and background, with mechanics and numbers somewhat secondary where relevant at all.

You (and 3e, and to some extent 4e) clearly go for the first definition. I (and 0-1e and to some extent 2e) prefer the second.

Lanefan

False dichotomy is as false dichotomy does.

The character can be all of those things at the same time. The character can be defined by his background, but he expresses that background and experience during combat via your choice of feats/powers/what-have-you.

Even when you start with one or the other, primacy of creation does not imply primacy of place. You can write a 10 page background and then decide that your new Dwarf Fighter will carry a shield and use Tide of Iron because his background suggests he's all about defense. Or you can pick Tide of Iron when building your character mechanically, get inspired by an image of your shield-bearing Dwarf smacking someone down with it, and go off and write 10 pages of background based on that inspiration.

Or an infinite number of other ways to mix, match, or keep separate your character's "fluff" and "crunch." These neat little boxes you're drawing don't actually describe the option space very well.