Limits on character creation: Opinions?

[nimisgod]

.... Literally every instance of inter-party combat I've been involved in has been because of one or more players who used their alignment as an excuse to disrupt the game... QUOTE]

One of my pet peeves is when players use alignment to justify in-character decisions.

"My character is doing this because he's Chaotic Evil (or Lawful Good)"

Why can't it be "My character is doing this because he's a psychopath." Or "My character is doing this because he has a sense of duty towards poor people"

I understand that alignment is short-hand for a character's personality but short-hand only describes so much. In fact, some people use it as a shield to ward off arguments of playing in or out of character.

I guess that its just a thing of mine.

Contributing to the discussion: Rules are part of character creation. I mean, even in RIFTS your GM might bann you from playing a Splurgorth (sp?).

Most aspects of character creation are GM and setting dependent. You can't have a grey elf in FR, neither can you have a Sun Elf in GH. Obviously, playing a Balor is out of the question in a simple core rule book game.

I think that a character is best when player and GM come together to create something that fits with their vision of the game.

 

[Seule]

I've imposed various levels of restriction on my players for different games, from mostly wide open (no evil) to pretty restricted (no evil, no chaotic, must be a member of the City Watch). It depends on the game I plan on running. More restrictions frequently inspire more creativity in players.

--Seule

 

[Particle_Man]

I love limits. As a player, they let me get more of a flavour of what the initial game will be like, since I know more about the starting party and since I know there won't be certain races/classes in my starting area (or perhaps in the whole world). As long as I know the parameters of the rules for constructing a character, then I can set my imagination free within those limits (and those of the dice results for character ability generation). For example, in a world without elves, half-elves or halflings, gnomes suddenly rise to prominence as major spell-casters (especially in 3.0). Or imagine a world without half-orcs or half-elves, but allowing a character to be a goblin, kobold or orc?

As a DM, I have always banned evil, and often require good alignments. On the other hand, I am working on a 9 sentient race world with 9 gods, each focused on one alignment. In such a world, I might allow either an all non-evil, or all LE, or all NE, or all CE campaign (I would expect the latter to be rather short-lived).

In both cases, if a player finds things too restrictive they can vote with their feet. But it is not as if there is a shortage of players in my neck of the woods.

Someday I'd like to try a "13th warrior" style campaign. 1 human rogue, 12 human barbarians!

 

[Silveras]

I guess mine are extreme

I guess my limits fit the extreme category.

I forbid evil alignments -- because in my world, choosing an Evil alignment means you are expected to actively be Evil. Moral indifference is for the Neutrals. I do this also because I am running a game for heroes, not psychoanalysis for the players or a "family feud" for their characters.

I tried running with that as the only restriction for awhile. It failed. I gradually had to add others.

I found (in 1st & 2nd Edition) that the adventurers in my game were all Dwarves and Elves. So I created a requirement that 2/3 of the active adventurers in the human lands had to be human. (Much complaining ensued)

I banned Monks around the time 2nd Edition came out, mostly for the same reasons -- they came from an Oriental region in my world. I refused to add them back in when 3rd Edition came out. (More complaining ensued)

I allowed some odd races (Lizard Man, Goblin) in the 2nd Edition version of my world, having first warned the players that they would have social problems because of their race choice. They agreed. They had problems; some dealt better than others. (More complaining)

However, even the best restrictions can't prevent players that are determined to sabotage themselves.

In my most recent 3rd Edition campaign, I polled the players before we started as to what sort of campaign they would like. They said "mostly dungeon crawls"; my usual style had been political, with lots of town-based activity and mystery elements. Ok, I decided to focus on dungeon crawls. So the most straightforward warrior in the party winds up being a Paladin, with Mounted Combat and Weapon Focus (lance). The rest of the party is designed for melee in tight spaces. Great. He's optimized for something the others don't want to do, and he's sub-optimal for what they all said they do want.

I pulled the plug on that campaign after just a couple of months. I am surprised that I still get grief from the players about the Lizard Man and Goblin characters from six years ago, and for not allowing Monks. I get the line "it is in the book so it is supposed to be allowed" a lot. The most vocal player, one who makes a point to know the mechanics well (though not in a rules-lawyer kind of way), was stunned to see that the 3E PH and DMG quietly encourage the DM not to allow everything. I refer to "Step 0" of character creation in the 3.0 PH and to the "Creating Custom Worlds" section of the DMG.

 

[Camarath]

I think the most stringent limitation I place on my players is a group back story. I want to know why the group is together, what is the group's goal, and what is the internal structure of the group. I make the player's decide on this before they create their characters. After that I usally allow any race, class, or alignment that the player can give me a resonable back story for as long as it fits in our campaign world and group. I do discourage players from playing any of the cardinal alignments (LG, CG, LE, CE) unless the player has a compeling moral code that justifes it. We play with mostly soft alignments but I have found that those specific alingments are often use as a glosses for characters with little personal motivation. I also usally let the players decide what stat generation method they want to use which I later use for some NPCs. My current campaign used a roll three sets of 4d6, 3d6+6, 3d6, 2d6+6, 2d6, 1d6+6, choose one set, reroll 1 die, and arrange as desired method.

 

[Li Shenron]

I have never imposed any hard limit to the players, and let them choose from the PHB freely. But obviously if I were running some special campaign, we may decide to have a party of all elves, all LG or all sorcerers, and I think it would be interesting.

I do anyway try to stress the players about the fact that, while every combination is possible, some must be ecceedingly rare. Monks are coming from very far away, so I dislike having more than one per campaign (I dislike but at the end I don't think I would disallow). Half-Orc Monks should be one-in-a-million, since Monks are rare, Half-Orcs are rare, so HOM must be rare squared. Fortunately, I haven't found players who disagree completely, so I haven't had problems and never needed to put limits.

Evil characters are a completely different subject. I never forbid them, but they are more difficult to play than good or neutral, and mixed evil/good parties are very difficult for unexperienced players. I want the players to play their alignment correctly (although I consider different levels of evil, a CE doesn't necessarily mean a mindless destroying machine, it could be very selfish with little care for others' life and strongly oppose order and laws without being a serial-killer), and I know that unexperienced players playing evil PCs in a mixed group either go too overboard and disrupt the whole game or otherwise just regrets their choice and basically play neutral.

 

[Zappo]

I support limits, provided that they serve some purpose. As opposed to the pseudorandom limitations of previous D&D editions.

Alignment: I generally warn players that if they play opposing alignments there will be problems, and they won't get away with sending the paladin to buy pizza while they torture the prisoners.

Race: inappropriate races are one of the best ways to send the tone of a campaign down the drain. I make a list of allowed races for the campaign. All the rest is forbidden by default. A player might convince me to allow him to play a particular race, but it will take an exceptional backstory for that.

Classes: up to now, I've never DMed a campaign with strong reasons to forbid one or more classes, but if I did I would have no compunctions about it.

Equipment: firearms are banned by default; noone has ever felt restricted by this.

Basically, the point is that imposing restrictions isn't a limit to a player's roleplaying possibilities if the limits have the aim of enforcing the campaign tone. And for balance reasons, of course.

 

[DragonLancer]

1. No evil alignment.
2. I choose which races and base classes are acceptable.
3. Standard 4d6, drop the lowest and put them where you want for stats.

Other than those I let players make their own choices, although sometimes I do ask for a reason why a certain character has certain skills or feats.

For example, my players have already made their characters for my next campaign which should start round about December/Christmas. One of the players has made an elven ranger and he has taken ranks in Knowledge: Dungeoneering. The ranger in question is a woodlands ranger so I had the player explain his choice.

At the end of the DM the game is played by both the players and the DM, and it shouldn't just be the players who need to be happy with the choices made.

 

[Grazzt]

I use limitations in my campaign as well, mostly for flavor above anything else. Here's a few examples:


Abilities: No real limitations, but we roll 4d6, drop the lowest, arrange as desired.

Races: There are no halflings. Never have been and likely never will be. The race just doesnt exist.

Classes: Paladins are not a core class. They are a prestige class. The monk class is not allowed. Monks may exist in the campaign somewhere, but none are known on the continent the PCs are on, so no monks.

Equipment: No gunpowder/firearms. It doesnt exist and wouldnt work if it did.

Magic: No real limitations here really, but magic items are rare and scarce, so they arent as readily available as per the standard D&D rules. Oh- and under no circumstances, no magic shops. You can't just walk into the corner store and buy magic items....potions and scrolls from merchants or whatever perhaps, but not weapons, armor, rods, etc.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I used to allow pretty much anything under the sun but I've started to cut back just because characters were specializing so much in one field due to feat overload, that they were fairly useless in other situations. You know, the thief who can backstab anything, the thief who had d12 sneak attack damage, the monk who has three extra attacks due to two weapon fighting and body combat feats, etc...

I am much more careful of 3rd party books these days. Swashbuckling Adventuers is one of the biggest offenders but has some great stuff so it's still a sit and review situation.