Character Creation Mini-Game?

[grimslade]

I love building characters. I like to create twists and turns of the rules to eke out flavor. Fey stepping rogue-knight eladrin. Dwarven and Warforged melee warlocks were the rage at the start of 4E for the Optimizers but the image was so cool that I would play one after the errata cut off the infinite heals cheese.
The character building mini-game is to try and either take a character concept and try and use the rules to come as close as possible or the other version is to develop a full deep character using the rules and fluff to inspire. I have shoe boxes and thumb drives full of concepts and half started PCs. Some get turned into NPCs and villains. Most sit.
THe monster creation mini game is almost as much fun.

 

[howandwhy99]

Roll stats and coin. That's not really a game.
Pick class, race, alignment, languages, and equipment.
That's something of a game.

I think picking languages means having some foreknowledge of the setting. Keeping them open for later learning might be best. Maybe a short list of racial languages could be handy, like demi-humans and humanoids.

Picking equipment is always the longest task in my experience, but this could just as easily be done early in the game so that coin can be used to properly prepare for an excursion, basically leaving it coin and therefore open. It's not as if items can't be sold and new ones bought for whatever the current objective is.

 

[Aenghus]

I like the char gen mini-game, and the poll results suggest a majority of the readers of this post do as well.

I suspect more casual players, less likely to frequent this site, would have a majority that wouldn't like the character generation mini-game.

Which illustrates one of the issues of RPG design - catering to one section of the audience can be problematic for another section of that audience. Players who like the character generation mini-game as an exercise in itself want more all the time - more content, more complexity, more options.

But every layer of complexity increases the learning curve for new and casual players, makes it harder for them to quickly and easily create a PC. It also increases the chances that simple, naively created PCs will be massively outclassed by PCs that are carefully crafted by system experts.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Character creation is the entry to the game, not the game itself.

 

[Alzrius]

Character generation is part of the game, hence why it's in the books.

My players and I all love generating characters randomly like this, and will often break into impromptu sessions of it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yes, but they totally nerfed it when they removed character death.

Well, in 5e, they may well take a cue from other games. In Deadlands, for example, it is entirely possible to create a character who dies before the game begins!

While Traveller did it first, I have a respect for ALL RPG systems that let players do that whole risk/reward analysis and possibly show up with a starting PC who may be more skilled & powerful than his current running buddies.

I'd be curious (and surprised) to see if 5Ed went that route...and equally curious if you could still play those dead PCs.

 

[Serendipity]

I don't think that D&D really has a chargen mini-game, not in the sense that - to pick an already referenced example - Traveller does. I can sit and make Traveller characters (any incarnation) all day long and have a grand old time doing so. D&D characters? Not so much. At least not in any edition from 2e on, and I'm pretty sure only in other editions as legacy code (that being when I started playing).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I didn´t vote:

I love the game... making some PCs, toying around... and I just DM...
On the other hand, if I actually play, I prefer starting simple and make my choices during play...

So in the end, I want higher level characters with some options, but I want those choices made during play. No need for planning your career at level 1.

 

[kitsune9]

For D&D, I'm not a fan of that. For WRFP, I've always had a blast. I don't know, there's just something about even rolling up mundane characters like a rat catcher, camp follower, bone picker, or charcoal-burner that was cool. I considered it a "bonus" if I rolled up an entry career that was powerful.

 

[KidSnide]

I voted "no" in that I need to create characters (mostly for other people) and it's a PITA. I'd rather spend time writing adventures, or -- to be more accurate -- detailing adventures that I'm going to run with or without the detailed planned ahead.

But I used to create tons of characters when I was a kid and loved it, so it's definitely part of the game. IMO, one of the best realizations out of the 4e/Essentials design was the realization that simple and complicated versions of the same classes can play together at the same table.

-KS