D&D 5E The "Sealed Envelope" Character Campaign. Would you play?

[Audiomancer]

In principle, sure.

I’d even be willing to play a pre-selected class, since that could be an opportunity to get more familiar with the abilities of a class I haven’t played before (looking at you, Monk and Warlock…)

I might even appreciate the RP challenge of playing a character I didn’t think through before sitting down at the table.

This could definitely work for a one-shot or mini-campaign. What about saying, “We play the pre-gens from Level 1 to Level 4. At Level 5, you can keep your character, or they retire and you roll up a new one.”

The main downside I see is that my DMs put in a lot of hours of prep work already. Not sure I would be fair to ask one to ALSO commit the hours to generate 12 new characters from scratch.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, the question: would you play in such a campaign?

Probably not, no. I respect the idea of pre-gen characters and how they can force one out of one's comfort zone. But, having played a pregen in the past, I didn't get much value out of it. It felt like...putting on someone else's shoes, if that makes sense.

 

[TheSword]

Pregens are very viable when it’s a one shot and you don’t want to spend hours creating characters, or for new players to get them into things. But these things are undermined by partially created characters.

Either pregen or don’t pregen for me.

It’s sounds like an attempt to control character creation - better to just to put some rules in place. Like the stat array.

 

[James Gasik]

I wanted to run a game similar to this once, so yeah, I'd be willing to try it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes, absolutely.

 

[CleverNickName]

Sure, I'd be down. As long as the campaign is interesting and all of the other players are engaged, I'd be happy to join. I've seen weirder character generation methods.

 

[Zardnaar]

Maybe it would depend on the day.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I would. However, with my group, we are used to restrictive character concepts when creating character. The current campaign I play in has a theme, with all characters members of the same dragonmarked house. So class is free, but race is fixed, background is mostly fixed and you're required to have relationships with the rest of the household and an interest in the clan's prosperity (even if you hate your cousin, you'll help him succeed at a lucrative endeavour because he's working for the family's interest). The only exception being the odd "and one of you can play the half-orc bodyguard that's been hired for so long he's part of the family". Character death means... Pick an NPC established to be in the family and tadaaa it's your next character. So it's not that far away from the sealed envelope scenario.

On the other hand, if I can't choose my backstory, I'd expect the campaign to include arcs about the character and that forced backstory, anything else being a missed opportunity.

 

[amethal]

I'll try anything, so I'd give it a try. We can always do something else if we don't like it.

Is there a reason for using pre-generated characters?

 

[DND_Reborn]

You know, if you added the twist that each player was the one to create the two characters and then everyone placed them in the pile to be drawn randomly, then you might be on to something. Since each player has the chance of playing a character they created, they're going to create interesting, playable characters.

Sure, this would work fine but it might backfire if someone gets the PC you made/wanted to play... But, then again, you might feel glad to see your creation being played, even if by someone else.