How do you handle character creation?

[Lhorgrim]

I have lurked and sometimes posted on these boards for quite some time, mainly because I have been without a 3.X game group. The two other players in my group are die hard 2E fans. I have wanted to move into 3E, and now 3.5E since 2000.

Now I have the chance to bring this group into the new game, because I went out and found some players that are willing to try D&D (no small task in such a small town). They used to play 2E in high school, around 8 yrs ago, and seem interested in playing 3.5. One of the guys bought the core books the day after we talked about playing.

Here begins my question/quandry. The guy from my group that acts as DM most of the time has volunteered to DM 3.5. He ordered the core rules, and has some familiarity with 3.0 even though I couldn't get him to run a full campaign of it. The situation is that he wants to create all of the player characters and have everyone pick from the pool that he has made. I don't mean just class, race, and stats, but personality and equipment and everything.

I have played that way in 2E, but only after years of playing my own characters, and usually just as a one off adventure. I really want to create my own character, and I think the new guys would benefit from making their own choices as they learn the new rules. I don't want to get in an argument with the DM, because I don't think it'll take much to send him back to 2E. I can't find enough players in my area to start a new group, so I'm hoping to drop some hints that making our own PC's is the best way to go.

So Enworlders, give me some feedback on how you handle character creation. Not how they're rolled(that's been covered on these boards many times), but whether the player or the DM creates them. Or, just help me come up with some good justifications on why players should be able to create their own when they're first learning the game.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Crothian]

I set a side a full session to character generation. I make myself availible to the players to answer any questions and give suggestions. I urge them to create characters that can work together and to talk to each other to make sure there will be no big conflicts in the party, small ones are fine. But in the ned the choices for the character are up to the player. I want they to have fun and to be able to play a character they will enjoy. By allowing them to make the character, this really helps in that.

 

[Darkness]

Well, there is another thread about this: Here.

 

[Lhorgrim]

Thanks for the link Darkness. I scanned before I posted, but I don't know how I missed that thread.

 

[Wombat]

Character creation is a process in our games. Usually we hold one session at the beginning of the campaign strictly for character creation. The broad outlines of the world are given and the reason the players are going to be together as a group are hammered into them. Essentially I try to make sure that there is a reason for the party being together (though in my silly campaign this was because they all went to the same tavern and had registered as the official adventuring party of said tavern). The current group is part of a larger semi-secret, semi-political organization -- any character created in the campaign must have a reason to join this organization. Essentially, Lone Wolves With No Connection To Anyone Or Anything are not allowed.

The character creation session is also important in that we lay down rules about what books may or may not be used, what races are or are not allowed, etc.

The importance of that creation session cannot be overstated in our campaigns. But that is just the way we play.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I'm with Crothain on this one. Before I start up a brand new campaign, I let the players know that we will be starting a new campaign. Usually one week before the campaign starts we all get together and create new characters. I like to have a house rules document printed up for each of my players so that they know what will be available to them from the start. Anyway, we usually take an hour or so to ensure the process is smooth as seemless. I usually do not reccomend the players write up a history for their character until after the third game session.

I use background feats to help give the players some idea (or get the ideas rolling) on how they want their characters history to be.

 

[Ellie_the_Elf]

We usually have at least one character creation session, or at least spend some time talking about the campaign and what we want to do with it before everyone makes their PCs.

For my new campaign, I've taken a different approach- we all got together a few times to discuss ideas and make characters, but I also set up a campaign yahoo group to talk about stuff on, and we all got together for a painting day where all the players painted a mini for their new character. I also set my players a number of tasks- as well as painting the mini, writing a background, drawing or finding a character portrait, stuff like that, and gave them a small in-game reward for each thing they did (extra starting gold, a few extra skill points, stuff like that). As a result, everyone's already fairly invested in their characters and I know the characters pretty well, before the game's even started.

I think the main problem-for me at least, if I was playing the game in question- with DM-created characters would be that I wouldn't really be invested in my PC- or care as much what happened to them if I hadn't created them myself from scratch.As a DM I'd worry about my players ending up with characters they either didn't enjoy playing, or couldn't play effectively- I've witnessed this happen as a player when someone joining the group took over a former player's character- she only ever used about a quarter of the character's abilities because the rest she either didn't really know how they worked or they didn't interest her. It was annoying for her, because she didn't really feel she had much to do, and just as bad for the rest of us because we always had one party member who wasn't helping as much as they could have. There's also the potential issue with your DM having his own ideas of how the characters should be played, and calling you on it, if he created them, which could be both annoying and railroady..

Besides which, and please don't take this the wrong way- is he insane??? As a DM there's so much to do already-writing adventures, creating the world (or fleshing it out if it's an established setting), making NPCs, making sure you're up on the rules you'll be using- why would anyone want to create extra work for themselves by making the PCs too when the players can do that? Maybe I'm just lazy..

Ellie.

 

[painandgreed]

I've joined campaigns where I've taken over the character that somebody else had made after they've left the game, but I don't thin I'd play in a campaign where the DM made up the characters. It might be fine for one shot adventures and such, but not for campaigns.

As DM I tell the players the house rules and generation methods. We dicuss the flavor of the campaign and then I just let them make their own characters and turn them in when we play. I do reserve the right to veto a character in part or whole if it really doesn't fit into my world or the campaign. I usually allow players to make any changes they want to characters after the firsst game. Sometimes you get what you think is a good idea that you can tell just won't work out or something else lends itself too well. Thus up till the begining of the second game the players can do so much as totally rework their characters from scratch without loss of XP. In these cases cush is generally taken as the "poof" method and changes occur and nobody notices such.

 

[megamania]

Creating your own characters are fun but don't forget that many of your new group are new to 3.5 including the DM. This may be his way of controlling what is used and how while getting used to a new system.

Perhaps give it a try (look into limiting the personality restrictions) the afterfinishing the first adventure- try asking to create new characters then.

 

[Remathilis]

My next game will have a three page document that discusses the allowed and not-allowed items for chargen. I find a document like this is great, if you can get one out to your pcs. It also discusses house and table rules.

As for actual rules:

36 pt. buy.
All Standard + Eberon races
All Standard Classes + psionic classes, Artificer, swashbuckler, favored soul, and warmage
Non-evil alignment and non-evil deity.
Fixed HP/Level (3/4 of HD).
Half-dozen banned feats.
A number of banned/modified PrCs.
Table/House Rules.

Thats about