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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8955704" data-attributes="member: 6988941">I've run D&amp;D at a summer arts camp for the last few summers. There's a substantial chunk of the kids who are more interested in character creation than actually playing the game, and for most of them character creation is at least a substantial selling point of the activity.I think many people get burned out on the process, which for some games is its own whole minigame, so I understand the impulse to want to skip it, but I think it's a core part of how most people initially get excited enough to try the hobby. This is also why I think using pre-gen characters as a hack to get new players playing quickly is a mistake, bred of people not remembering their own early experiences. Pre-gen characters are great when you are an old hand trying a new game, or doing a one shot. When my D&amp;D group first tried Call of Cthulu we used pre-gens and loved not having to immediately tangle with the rules creation mini-game of a game we might only ever play for a session or two. But someone's first RPG character is a whole different animal. It is personal to them in ways that it almost never is for experienced players, because they typically make it not really fully understanding what a ttrpg even is, and it is an integral part of most people's first experiences.Which is all to say that, by all means have character creation-less rpgs... so long as the leading gateway games into the hobby still start people off rolling up a character.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8955704, member: 6988941"] I've run D&D at a summer arts camp for the last few summers. There's a substantial chunk of the kids who are more interested in character creation than actually playing the game, and for most of them character creation is at least a substantial selling point of the activity. I think many people get burned out on the process, which for some games is its own whole minigame, so I understand the impulse to want to skip it, but I think it's a core part of how most people initially get excited enough to try the hobby. This is also why I think using pre-gen characters as a hack to get new players playing quickly is a mistake, bred of people not remembering their own early experiences. Pre-gen characters are great when you are an old hand trying a new game, or doing a one shot. When my D&D group first tried Call of Cthulu we used pre-gens and loved not having to immediately tangle with the rules creation mini-game of a game we might only ever play for a session or two. But someone's first RPG character is a whole different animal. It is personal to them in ways that it almost never is for experienced players, because they typically make it not really fully understanding what a ttrpg even is, and it is an integral part of most people's first experiences. Which is all to say that, by all means have character creation-less rpgs... so long as the leading gateway games into the hobby still start people off rolling up a character. [/QUOTE]

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