The PC you want vs the PC you get.

[Ariosto]

I started with "little books" D&D and Traveller, and still enjoy random generation of characters. On the other hand, I also retain the idea from the original D&D set that a player can potentially play as virtually anything -- and a balrog, centaur, dragon, vampire or whatever is the product of a player starting with a concept (although I once had a table on which to roll that included monstrous types).

The campaign setup has a lot to do with what fits. D&D is usually "about" starting relatively weak and scoring points to increase power level by level. One can have players start as Lords, Wizards, High Priests and powerful monsters, but then the game has a different dynamic. If starting at low levels, then some "character concepts" are going to be more in the way of ambitions.

Game-mechanical limitations are pretty thin on the ground in OD&D, which does not have a lot in the way of rules of any sort and is not very concerned with the kind of balancing that is so important in some later games.

That latter kind of balancing becomes more significant, I think, as the campaign comes to focus more tightly on a small set of characters routinely operating together. That seems to happen almost inevitably with a small group of players.

Still, I have not found it too difficult to gauge things with the Mark I Eyeball and cook up a way to represent a given character in the game. Other games (Empire of the Petal Throne, Metamorphosis Alpha, The Arduin Grimoire, Villains and Vigilantes, etc.) sometimes come in handy as sources of inspiration.

Actually, it's been a long time ere last I had a player ask to bring in an unusual type; my current group is pretty conservative, favoring the "traditional" D&D races and classes.

 

[Ariosto]

With Marvel Super Heroes, I'm concerned above all with accurately representing a player's character concept. Comicbook clichés help to give "spotlight" balance in the game just as in the source material. Not every character is necessarily suited to every scenario, though.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't usually go in with a particular game-mechanical build in mind other than maybe basic class. If I've given any forethought to a character at all it's almost always about personality, and the class idea (and gender, and sometimes race) grows out of that. From there, it's usually pretty easy to work with what the dice give me.

I mean, if I've decided going in that I'll be playing a snivelling bootlicker who'll do anything to curry the favour of the strongest/cutest/richest member of the party, it doesn't matter what class or race or gender it is or what stats or abilities it has - it's still going to be played as a snivelling bootlicker and I'll still end up with the characterization and personality I want.

The problems always seem to arise when someone goes in with specific intentions of being the strongest/cutest/richest and the dice don't co-operate. And for this, I have little if any sympathy.

Lan-"but I've never much liked the taste of boot"-efan

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For me, its all a big "It depends."

Like others, if I'm playing a system like HERO or M&M, I almost always start from the concept level and work down. On occasion, though, I look at what the party needs. I always try to keep the nature of the campaign in mind- I may want to have a unique and special PC, but I don't want to disrupt the game.

In less fluid systems such as 3.X, I may start from anyplace- mechanics, concept, party voids...a really cool weapon or feat, even. Regardless of starting point, I generally try to work towards a solid core concept.

Once I have a concept, though, I try to see what the best way to realize it is within the system- optimization be damned. Depending on system, I may even plot out the PC's advancement & future.

The next-to-last 3.5 PC I played was a Rgr/Ftr/Diviner/Spellsword in RttToEE. The one after that was a low-Int, low-Wis Sorc/Ftr with Draconic Breath, a Maul, and Scale Armor & Shield. (Both had level & feat progressions sketched out to level 20.)

Obviously, both were far from optimal designs, and while critiqued by other players, the both PCs did contribute, often at key moments.

 

[resistor]

Hr. That sounds less like "not very simmy" and more like "with so little attention paid to sim that the world doesn't make a whole lot of sense". There's a limit to how far you can throw off the triad of sim, narrative, and game and still have a cogent RPG. It is possible (like in this case) to toss so much at narrative (and/or game, depending how you construct it) that you don't actually end up with satisfactory narrative.

Why? Because Sam Spade doesn't have that much clout. It is actually a violation of his genre to put him on equal footing with Superman. Gumshoes are, as often as not, more adrift on events as they are influencers of events. The resulting story would not look like a story about a gumshoe. Or, alternatively, not much like a story about the most powerful superhero in the world. At least not sustainably.

Methinks you're misunderstanding how FATE and even more strongly narrativist games handle balance.

They don't make any significant attempt to balance the power of the characters, but instead balance the impact of the players. That means that both players have (roughly) the same ability to make what they want to happen, happen.

The goal is not to ensure that Superman and Sam Spade have the same powers, but to insure that both players have the same amount of narrative influence on the game. Taken to an extreme, you end up with something like the classic Cops & Robbers example, where the rules only exist to decide who gets to decide what happens, rather to answer any particular in-game question.

 

[Rechan]

I personally don't think the issue, or the original example, meant that Sam Spade & Superman are on the same level of power. Or even the same influence of the story.

The issue is that Superman, a Gumshoe, and 375 pounds of bellybutton lint are so unrelated in terms of story, genre, and purpose, that you can't run an adventure with them.

Even if you could have a member of the Star Trek federation, King Kong, and Sherlock holmes in the same party in a balanced manner, it makes no sense. It's a bad slash fiction story, not an RPG that a GM wanting to tell a story can really work with, unless you want to be utterly silly.

The point is that characters need to have some parameter to fit into the setting, the genre, and the tone of the game.

 

[Umbran]

Methinks you're misunderstanding how FATE and even more strongly narrativist games handle balance.

No, I'm not. I've made some study of them.

Rechan has my idea. The point of the matter is that if Sam Spade's player makes it look like a Sam Spade story, the story is inappropriate for Superman. And vice versa.

Having equal narrative power does nothing to eliminate the clash of fictional genre.

 

[The Shaman]

So what this all boils down to is how closely do the characters we end up playing reflect our initial inspiration and how much of them is shaped by the dictates of the game system and/or the DM's mandate? Do you merely settle for the PC that you end up with? Are you happy with this character creation process or do you often wish for more flexibility?

One of the reasons I prefer random chargen is that I rarely have much in the way of a character in mind before I sit down to play.

I like to generate whatever stats are called for by the system randomly, and then interpret my character from there. I also don't spend much time on background; for me what's important is what happens around the table, not a few paragraphs of what amounts to fanfic on my character sheet.

So I don't really suffer the kind of disconnect you're describing. I don't sit down with the idea, "I'm going to play a demon-blooded wizard," or, "I'm going to play a King's Musketeer," or "I'm going to play a starfighter pilot." I prefer to let the role come out in the playing, beginning with that first roll of the dice.

 

[Ariosto]

Most of the time, I'm like Shaman. Some games basically require one to have some predefined concept, not really providing much in the way of random generation. Although Call of Cthulhu, for instance, has rolled-up characteristics it also uses a resource allocation system to assign initial skill ratings. Other games are entirely "point buy".

The "story" that matters most to me is always what happens in play, but some genres seem to me usually to call for a bit of back-story. YMMV, and I know some players always come up with a lot of pre-game biography.

I like the process of "discovering" a persona as it takes shape in play, defined by the events that get remembered. Traits evolving that way can easily go against the stereotypes one might base on ability scores.