Creating your Character vs. Meeting your Character

[Desdichado]

In fact, I am so antithetical to that approach that I specifically tell players in games that I run that they should specifically not consult each other about building a balanced party. I don't want anyone to feel pressured--real or imagined--to play anything other than exactly what they want to play. I consider it my job as the GM of a game to run a game for the group I get, not to expect the players to create a group optimized for some theoretical gaming ideal.

I fully admit, though, that my approach there might be a little more militant about ensuring that players have control over the characters that they want to build than most. And I do frequently place setting-based limitations on what's available to pick from, which is probably going the opposite direction.

 

[Chronikoce]

My group seems to auto regulate themselves party wise. They always seem to talk to each other to avoid playing the same character. It's not like they have to but I think it has been ingrained pretty deeply into most of us that a balanced party = win.

 

[Desdichado]

I've never bought into the notion that the point of D&D (or any other RPG) is to "win."

 

[Chronikoce]

I've never bought into the notion that the point of D&D (or any other RPG) is to "win."

Oh I'm not saying I do either, the goal as always should be to have fun. I do find it incredibly frustrating that several of my players associate winning with fun. One in particular gets really bent out of shape whenever a character dies because of all the time he spends on them (he plans every character out from level 1-20). We can't convince him not to do it and he still gets upset at character deaths. Thinking a random stat, high danger, mercenary campaign (for a few sessions at least) would be a good thing to break my players out of their comfort zone.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Which character generation method is used really ought to be explicitly based on the campaign one is attempting to create.

I love point buy methods, because I usually have a clear idea (based on role-playing considerations) of the character I want to play, and would like to be able to get as close as possible, and random stats—regardless of the specific method—are not reliable in accomplishing that.

That being said, I can enjoy using random methods if the campaign is based around that sort of thing. One occasional campaign I’m in had characters go random and in order, but the DM specifically gave the characters of those who rolled low in-game, non-transferrable benefits to even out the overall power level.

What would be ideal for some campaigns would be a system where everyone got the same point value worth of stats—but you had no control over where the stats were assigned. That would allow all characters to be equal in point value, but provide the same root experience of purely random character generation.

Now, is someone would like to whip up a system to randomize stats in that way, that would be great.

 

[Desdichado]

I like random stat generation--rolling for stats just feels right. That said, I like a fair bit of flexibility and fail-safes in place to make sure that I can still get the character I want out of the experience.

That said, especially if he's got players who have a "I must WIN D&D!" mentality, doing this as an experiment, to see if they can get that playstyle, sounds like a good idea.

Luckily for me, and we don't all get completely each other's playstyle 100%, we at least are all on the same page about character generation and how seriously we take the game--i.e., seriously enough... but not too seriously.

 

[Lwaxy]

We used to do stats in order but it's almost always gone downhill. Including one group where no one but one guy rolled up anything decent. We ended up using all 4 dice instead of 3 and it was still low.

TPK at the 4th session.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

For a one-shot or short campaign, I might be convinced. For a potentially long-term campaign, I would be so against the notion that if it prevailed, I might seriously consider sitting that campaign out and finding another group.

There was typically that one person who got a character type that he/she didn't want to play. This led to constant griping about it ("I could do it if i was a spellcaster and not this burly fighter type..." as a response to everything), or not taking it seriously ("sure, i'll charge straight into the dragon's lair farting the whole way"), or basic dissociation ("i know the group just met in the tavern but i can't figure out any motivation for this type of PC to want to go with them, i know, why i don't i try and make up a new character now...")

I agree with the first and am sort of in the second.

There are certain character types I just cannot play. I am a city guy in real life, and I'm not into nature. A druid would bore me to tears. I could never play an evil or even sorta evil character - and I hate playing sneak types - so Rogues and Assassins and such are not for me.

The purpose of gaming for me, is to become the character as completely as possible (yeah that murky word immersion) - and if I couldn't at least respect the character I cannot roleplay him.

For a 1 shot or 3 session, I could play a character that I normally don't, but I wouldn't really be roleplaying the character as I normally do, it would just be a piece to move on a board, with funny voice and attitude - there would be not actual connection to the character, which would also mean I wouldn't really care if the character lived or died.

I'd do the best I could so as not to let the other players down, but I really wouldn't enjoy it, except as something social to do with friends.