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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.
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).Wouldn't the character system have to be really basic to avoid the silliness you mention?
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.And is it so common that we need to take that behaviour into account when designing a character creation system in a game?
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.
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I repeat, rolling one set of six abilities takes 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!