Do you like character building?

[Stormonu]

I like to build characters, but from a story-point of view. Of course, it's always great if those story points have some mechanics to back them up so the choices actually matter in the game.

I am greatly disgusted by character optimization on the level of the CharOps boards and wish that aspect of the game would just go away.

 

[Ainamacar]

I love character building. In my opinion, designing a strong character mechanics-wise is a fun intellectual challenge.

In addition, it also makes for a fantastic roleplaying challenge. It's easy to think up an interesting character first, and then pick classes/powers/feats after. It's much more challenging to go in reverse and still end up with deep, believable character.

To me, it's like having the best of both worlds: I get the roleplay challenge as if the character were random-stat, and I get the mechanics challenge as if the character were prebuilt.

It doesn't hurt that character building is also a great way to keep "in shape" with overall game mechanics. And its a great way to brainstorm NPCs for when you DM. Pretty much all of my best NPCs were originally statted up as a character I wanted to PC someday.

This is basically how I feel, on all points. The only thing I would add is that I should like how the build system works on its own merits, but that is almost a given. For example, I enjoyed it for 3.5 enormously, and not so much for 4e (despite its other strong points).

 

[Verdande]

I am greatly disgusted by character optimization on the level of the CharOps boards and wish that aspect of the game would just go away.

I think it's a combination of viewing D&D as a game primarily about combat, and a need to be "the best", two sentiments I disagree with.

 

[ExploderWizard]

It really depends on the game. I love building GURPS characters because of all the fun little bits aside from skills and abilities.

In games with just power and ability menu options not so much. I prefer simple generation. Such systems are easier to have more freeform versatile characters in and allow quick replacement when they are eliminated from play.

 

[Ariosto]

Sometimes I play a game with a focus on fiddling with lots of "stats".

If I did not like it then I would not play it. What a curious question!

It is not, however, what I want when I want to play D&D.

This is basically the same thing as my not much liking "feat and skill" systems for Scrabble, or rolling dice in Diplomacy, or having to put on skates, gloves and helmet to play Pinochle.

 

[Sunseeker]

Character building can be fun, sometimes, but it's the most mundane part of the game 9/10 times.

 

[Ariosto]

My thinking these days is I'd like a very free-form, but still numerical, system, mechanically as complex as it needs to be to represent a particular char. Could be a lot, could be a little, depending on the char. For balance, forget the point totals, they always lie anyway, just look at the end result.

That's just how I customarily run Marvel Super Heroes. The benchmarks, and many examples of characters' odd powers translated into game terms, make it pretty easy -- for me, anyhow -- quickly to write up a new concept. My interest as GM is in depicting your character with fidelity.

 

[Agamon]

No, building characters is annoying. I do it if I need to to play a game, but it's about as fun as watching grass grow. My most memorable charcters are known for who they were, not what they could do.

What I play though depends on a lot more than how easy it is to make a PC. I play games like M&M (rules really suit the genre), Eclipse Phase (setting is frickin' awesome) and Pathfinder (that's what my players want to play) for other reasons.

 

[sev]

I love creating characters. I like the insight it gives me into a system of rules; it's my favorite way to learn a new system. I like finding the ways, good and bad, that my different choices interact with each other. I like dreaming of who that character might be, based on what decisions I've made while creating it. I also like coming up with a personality or a story and trying to build a character that fits it.

When I'm actually playing a character, it's a cycle: I made some rules-based choices, which affect the character and how I roleplay. Eventually, more rules-based choices will come up, and which choices I make will be informed by the preceding roleplaying experience. And then the cycle repeats itself.

I find myself craving the RPG experience much more often than I actually get to play. So I create characters I never get around to playing. Now that it's coming up my turn to GM in both my regular groups, my game-related creating has extended to things other than creating characters. It's more difficult and higher-stakes, but it's also more rewarding for me. But I still dream up characters I'll never play.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I've come to despise mechanical character building, i.e. optimization. It was one of the features that drove me away from the d20 system. Maybe my reaction was a bit overboard, too, since I skipped over AD&D and went straight back to Classic D&D.

As far as the game rules go, it's quite enough for me to say, "roll 3d6 in order for stats, pick your class, pick your alignment, and you're ready to go."

But lately, I've also been turned on to the notion of non-mechanical character building. Slogging through back issues of Dragon, I hit upon this article for fleshing out a three-dimensional character, and now the back of my character sheet usually has a form that looks like this:

Physical Description - Describe your character's appearance, manner, attire
Background - Give a quick rundown of your character's nationality and religious leanings, social class, former professions, etc.
Personality Traits - two or three adjectives that sum up the character's personality
Quirk, Trigger, Fear, and Affinity - list one quirk (peculiarity that makes your character stand out), one trigger (something that makes your character angry, perhaps even angry enough to spur violence), one fear (not necessarily a phobia, but something that your character will flee from if possible), and one affinity (something that your character likes very much and would go to great, even irrational, lengths to procure or experience).
Allegiance, Motivation, Goal, or Quest - list any ideals or organizations that your character feels a duty towards; at least one abstract motivation, such as justice or greed; one immediate goal; and one long-term quest.

The justification behind all of this rigmarole is that even a 1st level character has a reason for being a fighter or a mage, rather than just a commoner with a workaday job. So every character who comes into the came has to be at least partially fleshed out. That's character-building in my B/X campaigns.