What are your Favourite Parts of CharGen? Least Favourite?

[Wik]

When you're creating a character, what are your favourite parts of creating a character? I'm particularly talking about actual mechanical choices, not necessarily things like appearance and background (unless the game actually makes that part of the explicit Character Creation Process).

What parts do you hate?

I ask because I'm putting together a package for an upcoming E6 Dark Sun campaign, and I'm making a few house rules, and I'd kind of like to see what players like and dislike about the character creation process so I can streamline the boring parts and expand upon the fun parts.

 

[Jhaelen]

When you're creating a character, what are your favourite parts of creating a character? I'm particularly talking about actual mechanical choices, not necessarily things like appearance and background (unless the game actually makes that part of the explicit Character Creation Process).

Well, my favorite part is coming up with an original character concept that translates well into the mechanical representation of a pc. It's basic stuff, like picking race, class, attributes, skills, backgrounds, and themes.

What parts do you hate?

The worst part is picking feats. There're just too many of them! I also often have a problem of deciding between options that are mechanically sound and options that fit best to the concept.

Picking powers is usually okay, but gets more difficult over time, since I tend to reevaluate my choices at every level and look at the whole picture.

I also don't particularly enjoy buying equipment. Especially terrible is having to pick magic items if the character is supposed to start at a higher level.

 

[Bluenose]

When you're creating a character, what are your favourite parts of creating a character? I'm particularly talking about actual mechanical choices, not necessarily things like appearance and background (unless the game actually makes that part of the explicit Character Creation Process).

I don't actually enjoy the mechanical bits very much at all, unless they're partly a game in themselves (Traveller character generation, for example). Coming up with the concepts, brainstorming with other players, that's fun. If there's one aspect of the mechanics I enjoy it's the equipment lists. What does my character have that's iconic to them, and why?

What parts do you hate?

Mechanically, it's spells. I'm just fed up with huge spell lists.

 

[RedTonic]

I really like picking my inventory--but I hate the really nitpicky stuff, like determining encumbrance. (Luckily, there are spreadsheets which will take care of that stuff now.) Games where I have some control over the specs of the equipment (like D&D) and can do some customizing (BESM) are even more fun for me.

 

[NewJeffCT]

When you're creating a character, what are your favourite parts of creating a character? I'm particularly talking about actual mechanical choices, not necessarily things like appearance and background (unless the game actually makes that part of the explicit Character Creation Process).

What parts do you hate?

I ask because I'm putting together a package for an upcoming E6 Dark Sun campaign, and I'm making a few house rules, and I'd kind of like to see what players like and dislike about the character creation process so I can streamline the boring parts and expand upon the fun parts.

For me, my favorite part is either rolling the dice or assigning points and then filling in the boxes for STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON and CHA. Once I do that, I start getting a better mental picture of what I want the character to be, any sort of background, etc. Well, I have an idea before I assign the stats/roll the dice. But, it doesn't really seem "real" until I put it down on paper.

My least favorite part is picking feats as I see the use of so many different feats that I keep thinking I'll regret it later on for not picking feat B or C instead of feat A. Not that I hate it - just don't like it.

Otherwise, I pretty much enjoy the entire process.

 

[steeldragons]

I think I'm a combo of Bluenose and Jhaelen.

It's the actual concept that's the most interesting part...mechanics take a backseat to how the they can fit in to make the concept a playable creation.

As you note in the OP, things like appearance and background are fairly core to my games and how I begin to develop a character (PC or NPC, for that matter) in play. Thinking about what makes them tick...and then, for how the mechanics are/can be structured into that...

For example: a geeky thin wizard-type who would like to be friendly but is very introverted...low strength, high intelligence, lowish charisma...lots of Feats/Skills in various arcane knowledge areas. Or a "would-be warrior hero" with big dreams and little skill...who actually is very bad at it. Dex is a drop stat, mediocre Strength, (maybe high Con to keep him alive), maybe he uses weapons he's not proficient in (can't hit the broad side of a basilisk).

Also, another vote against the "nitpicky bits", equipment buying, encumbrance, these kinds of things I prefer to have handwaved (so long as they make some common sense). At least for getting started.

You need to have food and drink. For the rest, look at the equipment list, put it on your sheet if you want it, be reasonable, I'll check it, and off we go.

No, the halfling can't carry 400 lbs. of stuff (unless he's starting with a girdle of giant strength of something...but I'm thinking 1st level folks). No the barbarian can't pull an astrolabe out of his pack to check the night sky. No, I'm not going to say you can't get a length of rope if you're a couple of silver pieces short.

Once we start playing, then those things get tracked a bit more (at least as far as paying for stuff/getting provisions). But to begin with, at character creation, nah.

So...yeah. Guess that's all.
Have fun and happy character creation.
--Steel Dragons

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The whole process for me is generally fun, macro to micro; whether its a pure RP character or pure powergaming artifact.

What sucks for me, regardless of system, is:

1. Making the final hard choices, especially when they'd all make the PC better in some way.
2. Coming up with more than one cool concept, knowing I can only play one.

 

[The Shaman]

Turn ons? Randomness, lifepaths, speedy generation - 5 to 15 minutes max.

Turn offs? Point-buy, generation > 15 minutes, and too many fiddly bits - a reasonable number of attributes, a few broadly drawn skills, and a standard gear package make me happy.

 

[tuxgeo]

Favorite parts of CharGen

Faves:
_1. Iteration: I look forward to going over the interactions of the moving parts again and again, to tweak things until I get the character to fit the concept as well as I can.
_2. At-Wills: I can spend hours reviewing this for a single character. I don't follow the CharOps lists blindly, at all. For example, I have thrashed over the second At-Will for my elf bard for months: her primary, or go-to At-Will, started out being MisMark, and still is; and while that power is greatly deprecated by CharOps, I still don't care, because that bard is still trying to form a Fey Pact with Erevan Ilesere, Exarch of Corellon--and Erevan is all about the trickery, so MisMark fits the concept, whereas War Song Strike or Staggering Note would be unsuitably straightforward. (Vicious Mockery would not be too straightforward, because it achieves its effects through delusion.)
(It gets even worse: until 2nd level, when the Warlord MC'ed Fighter, there was no Defender in the party, so all of the bard's "Misdirected Mark"-ing was fake anyway, delivering no actual mechanical effects from the Mark.)
_3. Feats: I have lists. I create most of my characters in text files first, so I can compare one thing with another without all that netlag. All Feats that I have listed in text go into one common "Feats" file (long). I maintain a "4thEdBasics" file that has my own list of favorite Feats as its second component. (My own list of 58 Ability Arrays based on 22-Point Buy comes first, sorted into descending order according to degree of spiky lopsidedness: "18 14 11 10==10 8" comes first, and "14==14 13==13==13==13" comes dead last.)
_4. Backstory: Not so favorite, but still a decent outlet for creativity. My hybrid Druid/Cleric of Melora (so "natural" a combo!) is still weak as regards completeness of backstory, and as regards being filled out enough to play; but the Conquest of Nerath board-game map is going to answer a lot of questions about seacoast towns where he might have originated, so his backstory might settle down more fully later this year.
_5. Skillsssssce: Candyland for a Rogue; tediosity for a hybrid (they get so few). For me, it really depends on the class. Bards who take "Bard of All Trades" at first level don't have to spend much time on this factor, and that's fine by me.
(Nevertheless, I still miss 3E's "skill points," and getting more skill points from having a high INT. Some degree of fiddlyness can be fun.)
_6. Weapons: "Hag-crammers" are Brutal-2 -- but do you care? When the Rogue gets an extra 2d6 damage with CA nearly every round, that totally eclipses any +1 (or whatever) differences that one weapon may enjoy over another weapon. Brew it. (Try doing 15 damage to a goblin sharpshooter that was reduced to 2 HP; is weapon choice going to make any noticeable difference in such an instance?) ("Three feet of wasted steel sticking out his back.")
_7. Dailies: I keep forgetting to use them, so they can't be all that important to me, right?
_8. Standard Adventurer's Kit: Great idea, use it every time; really difficult to enthuse over, beyond that.

Dislikes:
_1. So many choices that I wouldn't ever want to take, for any character I can imagine ever creating. OK, tastes differ; and there has to be enough different stuff to cover a wide range of tastes; but it still makes looking through the lists time-consuming. (My consolation is that it is probably equally time-consuming for everybody.)
_2. Items: Tantalus and me, together on the hillside.
I want a flying carpet! Alright, we all do; move along, nothing to see here.
_3. Options that detract from what I'm looking for.
Penny Arcade had it right -- "Shadow-Shadow-Bo-Bad-O." Enough said about that.

 

[Elf Witch]

I enjoy most of what goes in to creating a character. If I have to pick something I dislike I would go with picking feats. That always takes me the longest and is what I tend to agonize over.