Players who don't like to make up characters?

[Klaus]

One of my players hates, positively hates, making characters. Even if I just ask a few questions, like "what would you like to be able to do?", and then make up the character from scratch for her, she just dislikes it.

But here's the weird part: she likes playing. She doesn't like the planning part (when she played a wizard, she hated having to chose her spells, and as a druid, she never summons animals -- so I'll be using the new "fast healing" druid option from PHBII), but she likes messing around with the other players, in a "sibling rivalry" kind of way, and she positively adores getting the treasure (she's usually the team's appointed treasurer, writing stuff down). She likes that critical hit feeling, but she was underwhelmed when she casted a fireball as a mage (from a scroll, she never took the spell for her spellbook). When she was a wizard, she seemed underwhelmed by the fact that she never had to roll anything to cast her spells (like magic missile).

Ever had a player like that?

 

[domino]

So give her classes like that. I think the wild mage is a "roll to cast" type. Or a bard. Or possible an Artificer.

 

[Henry]

Sounds more like the Robin Laws' "casual gamer" in a lot of ways (some people hate the Laws categories of "kicks," but I apologize if you do). In other words, she likes the group aspects and the "gamist" parts of the RPG (gimme a challenge, gimme a roll!) and she likes winning, even if it's the small victories. Anything paperwork related and she fuzzes out a bit - sound about right?

I've had several "casual players" like this before, but most were young, and didn't know the rules. If there's a game, they'll be there, but most don't like really roleplay-heavy parts, or something where they're the center of the attention for a long time.

The only problem is when someone else has to do their paperwork for them; it doesn't matter if it's a d6 system character, or a 3rd edition D&D character, if a participant doesn't have a ready character, it's a problem for everyone at the table, because it slows things down if something needs correcting. For such players, if it doesn't work out in the RPG game, it's best to institute some other kind of game night, "card game night" or similar, so that everybody can get together, but not feel left out. That's been our solution in the past, and to be honest, now that you remind me, I need to do something about currently... (sorry to derail)

 

[doghead]

I am really over character creation at the moment. It seems every way I turn, I run in to a wall. I don't mind coming up with concepts, its just the crunchy bits I hate. Choosing feats, skills, and spells or powers in particular.

If I have to make another character, its going to be a barbarian. They have almost no choices. But I'd much rather take a pregenerated character. Or let someone else do it, if they are willing. Some people have too many ideas, too many concepts and love putting together characters. I used to be like that too.

So for now, I think I'm going to stick to ghost hacking abandoned characters. There are plenty of those in pbp. And I find playing other people's characters quite interesting. Especially when they are not something you would have ever created yourself.

thotd

 

[shilsen]

One of my two groups of players as a whole hate character creation. They think working out all the mechanics are a royal pain. But they're also very dedicated gamers, being heavily into character and plot development, enjoying combat and action, etc. If I create the character for them, they're happy to learn the abilities and develop it as time goes on, but the actual "rolling up a new character" bit is something they abhor.

 

[Particle_Man]

Warlock from Complete Arcane sounds right up her alley: It is practically paperwork free, you can just choose a few invocations for her and tell her what they do (thus tailoring the warlock to your campaign's and party's needs) and best of all, she *rolls to hit* with her ranged touch attack eldritch blast, and can even crit with it. Plus, they are dripping with flavour.

Oh, and phb II has lots of ready made characters too.

 

[amethal]

Normally I love character creation, and we even have people in our group who happily roll up new characters "for fun" during a lull in the game session.

However, at the moment I'm playing a human binder from Tome of Magic, and have decided its a perfect opportunity to cut down the character creation process to its bare bones.

Its 32 point buy, but a binder doesn't really need a high score in anything. I've gone for 14,14,14,14,10,14.

There also aren't any feats a binder "needs", so my starting feats were Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes. I'll pick up Great Fortitude next, and then Improved Toughness and Improved Initiative. After that I suppose I'll have to give it some thought! My binder bonus feats, once I'm high enough level, will be Persuasive, Negotiator and the like.

I like skills, so I've given the skills a bit of thought. However, if I was feeling even lazier I'd have just maxed out decipher script, diplomacy, intimidate, bluff and sense motive.

I'll be choosing a different vestige (pretty much at random) each day, at least until I've run through all the ones I can summon.

The character must have taken a whole five minutes to create, giving me plenty of time to think about personality and background.

 

[Crothian]

Ya, I have a player like that. She likes to make up characters but only certain kinds. She hates having to pick spells and hates combat and hates dungeon crawling. But the parts she does like I can make a game out of and we eventually moved away from D&D to games that fit her style better.

 

[Oryan77]

Seems like this type of player is common among women

My gf plays in our group and she can't stand to make characters. This also causes her to not have any interest in reading any D&D books. I think she kind of enjoys it when she levels and gets to select new spells...kinda ironic.

She also doesn't care for combat. Probably because she usually rolls low and then gets upset about her crappy d20's. She absolutely loves roleplaying though. Sometimes she'll get so into the roleplaying that she won't let others roleplay because she hogs the face time. I've had to point that out after the game before (she didn't realize she was doing that). She'd probably rather spend the whole session roleplaying than doing a single combat encounter...but then sometimes her roleplaying puts her into a combat situation