You've Created A Bad Character. How, why and whose fault is it?

Reynard said:

A side note: I think it is far easier to create a bad character with more open character generation and advancement rules. Hero, for example, allows the player a huge amount of freedom in creating a character. This means that masters of the system can created very powerful characters within whatever framework is established. But it also means that players can create something near useless (by spreading points to thin or otherwise not being efficient with points). Games with fewer choices tend to make it less likely a character is bad -- unless there are lots of random elements, in which case good or bad is a matter of chance.

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This is why, by the by, secondary power capping systems can serve two purposes; to prevent excess, and to set expectations. In the version of Rule of X I used in my last Hero campaign (a good two decades ago now) and the cap was set to 24, in a superhero game where combat can be expected with some frequency it probably could suggest if you have a total of 16 there might be a problem.

billd91 said:

With all of these, the GM has to bear some of the responsibility because they’re failed to help their players create a successful PC in the game they are running. Now, this could be because the DM has chosen a way to run the game in a way that devalues some elements of the game. This is OK, but they should be steering PCs away from options that will be irrelevant. Or they should be looking at their players’ choices and finding ways to incorporate them. The half-ogre barbarian takes Profession: Cook in the 3e/PF game you’re running? Dissuade them from doing it or, better, INCORPORATE IT.

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Never forget with a GM new to the game system, he also may not realize some of the accidental problems are, indeed, problems.

My own feeling is its a mix of the designer, the GM, and the player; how the weighting goes can't be established very well without specifics.

MichaelSomething said:

The system's fault? Well when they did try to explain how classes work like in 4E lots of people rejected it. So vague class descriptions are a thing that will keep on happening.

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People not liking it is not a good reason not to do it.

I ran a bad PC in a recent game.

PC was an alchemist artificer, in a Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Stats were rolled, and I didn't roll particularly well. I was a support class (and a mostly out-of-combat support class at that!) in a game where the DM was largely shuffling us from random encounter to random encounter as we hexcrawled around in the jungle. I was plinking away with a crossbow for 1d8 +2 still at level 4, while the barbarian who got lucky with his ability rolls was reliably dishing out 20 points a hit. And my intellectual, charismatic character couldn't even shine out of combat in social or research situation, because there was almost no 'out of combat'.

The responsibility was shared. I built a support/social character better suited for an urban campaign in a game i should have known was a combat-heavy wilderness hexcrawl. I did myself no favours by choosing an alchemist, which is a subclass that has real and frustrating trouble contributing in combat on a reliable basis (a fact that should have been caught and fixed by WotC in playtesting...).

But mostly - there was no session zero, and the DM and I had very differing ideas about the sort of game it was going to be. My PC was never going to be a powerhouse due to combination of stats and subclass (though any character with a max stat of 15 is going to lag behind when everyone else in the party is running around with 18s or 20s from level one, and when they're a human and most of the rest of the party chose flying races), but could have definitely been interesting in the right game. But that was the wrong game, and the wrong group for my gaming preferences.

First, as @Whizbang Dustyboots stated in the second post of this thread, if everyone at the table is having fun, no problem. The character may be "bad" in terms of optimization or even thematic fit, but sometimes a player and group can make that work and make that fun. Nothing to fix. If no harm, no foul. No need to pull out the hat-o-blame. But in the spirit of the OP...

As a GM, I would blame myself. I blame myself because that means I can do something about it. So, where did I fail?

1. Maybe it really is the system...but still my fault.

If it is poorly designed and makes it easy to create "bad" characters. My fault for choosing to run this system. Or my fault because I should know the system well enough to help players avoid the bad-character trap. Obviously, if I'm new to the system, I'm more likely to fail to catch these kinds of issues, no worries. I'm at least experienced enough to catch when it is becoming a problem, helping the player create a new character, and exiting the old one and introducing the new one in a way that fits the adventure/campaign. Or at least isn't too jarring.

2. Maybe it is the player creating a character that isn't a good fit for the game I'm running. Still my fault. Poor session 0. Failure to make character creation a group activity. Forgot to review and discuss character builds and backstory before starting the adventure/campaign, when it would have been easier to discuss with the player. No problem, I've learned to not passively avoid potentially difficult conversations. That leads to other unhappy players and the adventure/campaign--and possibly the group--falling apart.

3. Maybe its the adventure/campaign. This is more likely with homebrew. But sometimes the campaign or adventure you want to run just doesn't jive with the system. The incongruity becomes more obvious with some character choices more than others. Opps, my bad. Time to decide if the campaign/adventure concept is more more important than the system or vice versa. May need to take a break to restart with a new rule system or start over with another adventure/campaign.

I just don't see the point in blaming the system. I chose to run it. And there is not a system I've played yet that is immune from the bad-character problem. Rarer in some, more common in others. Easier to avoid and address in some, much more work to find preemptively or fix after the fact in others.

I don't see much point in blaming the player. That's just a normal social dynamic you have to navigate in any game. The only exception is if the player somehow insists in playing a character that is not working for the group and we are not all enjoying the game. Like any problem player scenario, you either have to kick out the problem player, kick out the players that are having problems with the bad character, or ditch the adventure/campaign and starting fresh with something everyone will enjoy.

So, the game master's fault. My fault. Sorry. Let's fix it and game on.

Another mode of failure: Too Complicated, or Player Burnout.

This is when a character build works well when the player continually puts in effort, but requires too much ongoing work and the player eventually gives up. Examples include:

- A fighting class who has to use advanced tactics to maximize damage. Eventually they get tired of it and just run up front and swing their sword at things.

- A caster that has to constantly keep track of enemies weaknesses. Does this monster have magic resistance that I need to summon something to fight? What save is this thing weak to? Ah, screw it: magic missile.

- Any class that has lots of resource management.

Sometimes this can be related to Player Unfamiliarity or Too Many Options. Sometimes it's a DM asking for too much from players. Sometimes the problem is the game itself; the group really should have picked a less crunchy game. But sometimes it's just regular boredom or burnout. In those cases I don't think it's really anyone's fault. Sometimes people just bite off more than they want to chew down the road. Or tastes/feelings change over time.

Reynard said:

It is possible for a player to create a "bad character" [...]

The more interesting question for me is "Who is responsible?"

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Who, or what. (note: to me a "bad character" is one that is for whatever reason no fun to play)

Sometimes it's the dice. I'm a big fan of randomized character generation, and sometimes the damn dice just don't co-operate. That said, sometimes those bad-stat characters have worked out wonderfully, so who knows.

Sometimes it's all on me. I'll have had an idea or concept that seems good in my head but falls completely flat once put in play.

Sometimes it's just bad luck. By this I mean that without knowing what the next adventure entails I'll bring in a character completely unsuited for said adventure. An example would be bringing in an Illusionist and then finding out the hard way that the next adventure holds nothing but mindless undead who are immune to illusions; or bringing in a Dwarf only to find out the next "friendly" place the party is going tends to hate Dwarves and kill them on sight.

Krachek said:

Another question is how long you play an unfun character before leaving him or asking to change him.

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If a character's not working out, and assuming it survives, I'll retire it at the first opportunity (usually the next time we're on a break between adventures), and come back with something different.

Tonguez said:

Too many options and trap options are definitely the fault of the games Class based design and DnD is particularly egregious in that regard.

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And yet the "too many/trap options" issue is far more likely to rear its head as a problem in classless point-buy systems IME. It's very easy for players (even ones who grasp the rules fairly well) to shaft themselves horribly in GURPS, Hero System, Storyteller, BESM/Tri-Stat, etc. by getting lost in a sea of choices.