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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 4441691" data-attributes="member: 467">Let's move away from issues of character death for a moment, since it tends to take control over a discussion and that's not really the subject at hand.Before Hrothwulf became a patch of vermillion on white, he must have been created.  In D&D, there's a continuum of randomness to intentional design in character creation.  At one end, there's nearly complete random generation, and at the other is nearly purely intentional design. (I say nearly in both cases because, if nothing else, there are limits on the possibilities, both random and intentional.)In the former instance, Hrothwulf's player took up 3d6 and rolled them in order, and perhaps used a "lifepath" style set of tables to determine background, culture and other character elements. When the last die had finally come to rest, the player was left with a collection of information that resulted in Hrothwulf, the nordic, axe-wielding barbarian warrior.  Even using this random method, however, there were likely elements the player chose, even if those choices were limited and informed by the random results.In the latter instance, the player came to the table with Hrothwulf already formed in his mind and set down to intentionally design that character within the framework of the character generation rules.  Even with the most permissive of DM's and the largest library of options, Hrothwuld would likely end up only an approximation of the character in the player's mind.For my part, I generally prefer character generation closer to the random side of this continuum, but not without some degree of player choice and methods by which completely debilitating or versimilitude breaking results can be mitigated. I like to roll stats (whether as a player myself or as a DM) in the order they appear on the character sheet (but with 4d6-L or similarly aboive average system) and roll random backgrounds/social status/etc... At this point, you've got the character's birth circumstances -- stuff we don't get to pick ourselves -- and from there you can build a character you want to play.  IME, this random foundation results in not only more well rounded, interesting characters but usually ends up adding to the campaign as a whole by extension.I think this is particularly true in 1E and 2E, where the choices available to the players are affected by the results of their rolls during chargen. Once a player was dead set on a druid in 2E but did not roll high enough and ended up creating a character that had wanted to be a druid but was rejected.  this colored the character's entire outlook on life and adventure and added depth and interesting story possibilities -- all of which would have been lost if I had simply said, "Okay, switch Strength and Charisma so you can play a druid."</blockquote>

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