My players said no....

[Crothian]

Crothian, I've got no real opinion on the issue of how your group generates ability scores. And I may also be reading too much into your second post. But what I've quoted above struck a bit of a nerve with me.

If I'm overreacting to what you posted then feel free to ignore this. But I did comment to our GM (and he said that, in retrospect, I was absolutely correct) that it SHOULD matter what PC's the players show up with on the first night of the campaign and that some effort to make them feel emotionally invested in pursuing the GM's plotline should be made. Otherwise they will probably feel like they are just walking along picking up the breadcrumbs that you're dropping.

Perhaps I need to better explain myself. Its not that what the players are playing is not important, its just that no matter what they play I feel I can give them direction and get them involved. At the beginning I don't like to cater to the players, esecially for this campaign where they are going to be hired by NPC to do jobs. THey can interact and persue the meta plot as they want, they will have side plots specifically for them.

So, for instance the first job is to goto the store and but a loaf of bread. Now, the party can just go and be straight ford about it, or they can go and try to negotiate a better deal for the bvvread, or they can go and try to steal the bread. Perhaps they will skip the store and go directly to to the baker. That's what I mean that it really isn't important what they are, anything can work and different solutions depending on them abound.

I hope that made some sense.

 

[Crothian]

"option paralysis".

Really? I think assigning the numbers would help. You could fully create a character in your mind and then pick exactly what attributes the character idea in your head needs. I'm obviously not worried in the least of anyone making an uber character, although I specifically told them all if they picked straight 18's I would not mind. And that's true. As a DM though I want to give them the options avaible to them to create a character that they want.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Really? I think assigning the numbers would help. You could fully create a character in your mind and then pick exactly what attributes the character idea in your head needs. I'm obviously not worried in the least of anyone making an uber character, although I specifically told them all if they picked straight 18's I would not mind. And that's true. As a DM though I want to give them the options avaible to them to create a character that they want.

Yep. Seriously. I usually go into the character creation process with a basic idea of the class I want to play, and very loose idea of the personality, etc. After I generate the stats I use them to flesh out the character as I want him to be, and what the stats direct me to. I usually end up with something a bit different than I started out thinking I wanted, but thats what makes the character fun to play. The times when I have been given the opportunity to create exactly what I want, I usually get tired of the character rather quickly. No surprises left in him for me to find. As I said, if left to my own devices, I'd probably end up with an overpowered character, and while they are fun to create, they aren't very much fun to play, unless I'm going to be in a one shot game or very short campaign.

 

[jmucchiello]

In 1e/2e it was easier to be freeform with scores without breaking the game. Since 8-14 was basically the same for most scores, you could with a clean conscience give yourself the 15 or 17 in a couple stats and then play with the other stats over the 8-14 range to fil out the character.

In 3e, you have to stick to the 10-11 range to have little impact on the game.

Of course, my opinion has always been take whatever scores you like all 18s? all 20s? All 30s? It doesn't matter, I can always scale the monsters up. The only important thing is that everyone is in the same range.

 

[The Other Librarian]

I agree. Point buys tend to make me want to min-max subconsciously (or sometimes conciously, I guess). I can see their utility when wanting PC's to be of an equal power level, or ease of reference for online play. For me though, rolling is the way to go. It's partly tradition, partly the fun of the elation at seeing 3 sixes pop up, or the groan of seeing the "three-eyed snake". :\ Well, you know what I mean.

Yep. Seriously. I usually go into the character creation process with a basic idea of the class I want to play, and very loose idea of the personality, etc. After I generate the stats I use them to flesh out the character as I want him to be, and what the stats direct me to. I usually end up with something a bit different than I started out thinking I wanted, but thats what makes the character fun to play. The times when I have been given the opportunity to create exactly what I want, I usually get tired of the character rather quickly. No surprises left in him for me to find. As I said, if left to my own devices, I'd probably end up with an overpowered character, and while they are fun to create, they aren't very much fun to play, unless I'm going to be in a one shot game or very short campaign.

 

[Crothian]

Of course, my opinion has always been take whatever scores you like all 18s? all 20s? All 30s? It doesn't matter, I can always scale the monsters up. The only important thing is that everyone is in the same range.

I don't even feel I need to do that to challenge the players. I run such a story oriented game that easy combats are not that big of a concern, plus I don't like to create encounters specifically to challenge the players. I create the encounters the story calls for be them easy, hard, or at the right level of the PCs.

 

[Rel]

At the beginning I don't like to cater to the players, esecially for this campaign where they are going to be hired by NPC to do jobs. THey can interact and persue the meta plot as they want, they will have side plots specifically for them.

My first inclination would be to ask, "What if they aren't motivated by money?" Again, Crothian, it's your game and I'm not telling you how to run it. I'm just relating a recent issue in our game with the hopes that it might help out you or somebody else reading this.

I guess that I'm just recommending that you not rely solely upon the fact that an NPC is paying them as their motivator and instead looking at the background info they've presented and trying to integrate that as well. Using your loaf of bread analogy, instead of the NPC simply hiring them to go get the loaf, what if:

Player 1 wants money so he's happy to go along in order to get the cash.
Player 2 wants to open up a fruit stand and knows that the NPC that wants the bread is also on the town zoning board that governs fruit stand permits.
Player 3 had his family murdered by an insane baker. He'll take the money but he's really looking to make a contact in the bread industry to try and get a lead on the killer.
Player 4 simply loves fresh bread. She wants to try and get a "two for the price of one" deal on the bread loaf so that she can give one to the NPC and still have a loaf for herself.

If the GM in our campaign had done something like that instead of simply saying, "So, you guys are going off to get (in our case it was more like deliver) a loaf of bread for this NPC, because you owe her a favor..." then it would have made the group a lot more interested. Instead I think many of us just sort of said, "Ho hum, another bread delivery job." It wasn't until we discovered that the place we were delivering the bread was a monkey-infested-ancient ruin that we became remotely interested in this plotline.

As to the issue of assigning stats, I'm with Cthulhu's Librarian on this one. The numbers that I generate help to inspire me to come up with a personality for the PC. I rarely have enough of an idea of the PC's personality before I generate the stats to try and sway them too much one way or the other. They provide me a framework to support the persona that I come up with.

 

[cybertalus]

I can relate somewhat to your players, Crothian. While I've never had a DM just let me assign stats, as a DM there have been times when I was trying to stat up important NPCs that I would write out several sets of stats, toss them, and then go grab my dice instead. While I would usually tweak the results a bit, having random generation as a basis to work from just felt like it made the resulting character seem less artificial somehow.

That being said.... given the B5 universe and the option to have all 18's, I might be tempted to play a character that was the result of some weird experiment by the PsiCorps/Shadows/Drakh/Vorlons. But if I did that, I'd wanna work it out with the DM for some kind of serious, ultimately fatal flaw or drawback to the character. Then again, if I knew that such a character's only impact on the campaign would be that when he died I'd be making another, I'd probably give the whole notion a miss and go grab my 4d6 instead.

 

[Crothian]

My first inclination would be to ask, "What if they aren't motivated by money?" Again, Crothian, it's your game and I'm not telling you how to run it. I'm just relating a recent issue in our game with the hopes that it might help out you or somebody else reading this.

With thier backgrounds even if they are not motivated by money, they can be pushed in the right direction. Its B5 so the players decided to create characters that have links to the different governments. This makes it wasy since I can have an NPC order them to do it. B5 does a great job of getting characters from various backgrounds to the adventure. They do a great job of getting characters motivation from the different races.

And I understand that it may not sound as free as the game really is. My players are a bit odd and make it easy especially at the beginning. So, they will motivate their characters to the adventure becasue they know that is were the fun resides for the most part.

 

[tburdett]

I am starting a new Babylon 5 game, first time any of us has tried this game. So in character genreation I told them they can just assign ability scores as they liked ie no rolling, no point buy, give yourself the attibutes you want. They said no.

I tried this just recently as an experiment. We just started playing D&D again after a stint in Darwin's World and I told the players to go ahead and pick what they wanted for attributes. The all just sat there for about 10 minutes looking uncomfortable. Writing stuff, erasing stuff, and finally one of the guys turned to me and said, "I'm just going to use point buy." The others did the same. There was no fear of DM second guessing or anything, they just did not feel comfortable with picking their stats.