"What" you are versus "who" you are.

[Crothian]

Some people have claimed they have the right to play absolutely anything they want, apparently up to and including halfling commoner serial killers.

When people say that why would you assume it will be something worthless and disruptive?

 

[pawsplay]

When people say that why would you assume it will be something worthless and disruptive?

I offered the example of the worthless and disruptive character, and more than one person replied I had no right to judge someone else's character. Thus, the position being argued is explicitly that no character is out of bounds. Some characters will be fine. What we were discussing, however, is the boundary of freedom.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I like it when the who and what work together. For example, when I want to make a sword wielding noble gentleman, I'd like 4+ skill points a level and bluff diplomacy and sense motive as class skills, along with full BAB (or pretty close). And there's another list of 5 or 6 things that would also be great. It's probably something I can aproximate with Fighter/Rogue, but if there was a core class or PRC entitled "Exactly what ThoughtBubble wants to play" I'd probably pick it up and try to convince my DM to let me play that.

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

In my experience newer players are much more likely to focus on what, which can be a big help to them. New gamers, really new to rpgs not just this particular system, seem to do better when they can start with a series of concrete choices (I'm a dwarven fighter), and add backstory once they know what the end result is.

I personally design characters from lots of different angles, depending on what grabs my attention. A friend recently started a campaign using most WotC products, granting each feats, speeding ability score acquisition, and hansding out special abilities randomly selected as characters go up in level. The other three PCs had already been determined to be a warblade, a ranger, and a warlock. I thought to myself "we need a wizard, or a cleric." Then it occurred to me that those three characters are never going to run out of attack abilities, and what they really needed was a utility caster. So, I decided to actually try for a mystic theurge. The house rules are friendly to the idea (extra feats and ability scores makes the split focus easier), and while the character was a weak cleric 2/wizard 2 he could hide behind the other PCs.

Once I had that "hook" lots of other things fell together. I decided to be an elf, and the GM suggested Sun Elf. A roll on my age placed me at 125, with 100 years of that spent in a monestary studying. I ended up using the cloistered cleric and diviner specialist wizard from Unearthed Arcana. The knowledge focus of that worked well with a century of digging through obscure lore and old tomes, and the 16 year old adventurers he's suddenly travelling with soon came to think of him as an ivory tower scholar, with lots of book-learning but little experience. We're all 5th now, and that "who" tag seems pretty well established.

On the other hand I've based characters on costumes, names, themes, bits of background from particular campaigns, fiction characters I enjoyed, and even philosophies. I had what I saw as an interesting view of being lawful evil once, and based a character on that. It happened the campaign had an order of evil-only combat mages, so I worked that into the character, as well as enough backstory to explain where his world-view came from.

As far as I'm concerned, the experiences and attitudes of a group have much more to do with what vs who than the rules system. I've seen Hero players try to decide if they wanted to be a brick, speedster or Batman type before even considering the rules, and I've seen 1st ed D&D players start with quirks of culture and try to shoehorn a fighter into a specific role. Obviously my experiences may be atypical, and rules may skew how many people go with each method, but as long as the end results work for their group I don't see that it matters.

 

[MerricB]

At the risk of flying in the face of prevailing opinion, I think there is a lot of truth to your statement.

It is something that has always existed in D&D, but I find that the newest ruleset seem to somehow encourage this more.

The *game* aspect of a RPG cares nothing about your character's history. All it cares about is what you can do. In groups that like crawling through dungeons and killing monsters - in other words, groups of gamers - then "What" is terribly important.

The *role-playing* aspect of a RPG cares a lot about your character's history. What you can't do is important only in that it shouldn't get you killed. In groups that like haggling with shopkeepers and kings - in other words, groups of role-players - then "Who" is terribly important.

Most of us play somewhere between those extremes. As diaglo notes above, classic D&D was very much towards the game side of things.

Of those two extremes, the game is the easiest to pick up and play. All the rules are there! Role-playing isn't so easy, especially in larger groups, and the DM needs to be able to handle it.

Cheers!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I offered the example of the worthless and disruptive character, and more than one person replied I had no right to judge someone else's character.

I think the GM has that right.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

In fact, one of my groups of gaming friends has always had strong storytelling and character oriented games. One of the most roleplaying intensive players doesn't believe in starting with a fully fleshed personality, but wants it to develop through play (a favorite comment of his is that "the dice help tell the story"). Admittedly, he doesn't tend to start with mechanics but archetypes (I want to run a wandering storyteller), but the effect is the same.

This philosophy gives me the warm fuzzies. I'm not too crazy about 3 page (typed! single-space!) histories for 1st level characters (5th or 6th, ok). I like (and for myself, make) to see room for the DM to throw some curveballs my way, and to develop more as I play, especially if in-play, the concept doesn't quite match the "reality."

 

[hexgrid]

Uh-huh. Obviously. Terribly wrong. "OMG!" "This character came from somewhere and did things in the early parts of their life, just like a. . . a. . . living being would! Nooooooooooo!"

Well, starting at 1st level, they can't have done anything that would be significant enough to gain experience points, at least. 1st level characters really do need to be "fresh from the farm," so to speak. Their adventures haven't started yet, or else they wouldn't be 1st level.

 

[buzz]

I don't think your grognardism has anything to do with it - D&D has always been about "I'm going to be a wizard/fighter/cleric this time".

I'm with Numion and Thanee on this point...

It's incredibly frustrating as a GM or a player to deal with players whose best stories are all behind them and whose dangling threads dominate the story, to the extent there is hardly any dynamism in the game.

I agree 8000% with pawsplay on this point...

The *game* aspect of a RPG cares nothing about your character's history. All it cares about is what you can do. In groups that like crawling through dungeons and killing monsters - in other words, groups of gamers - then "What" is terribly important.

...and MerricB made this point for me.

I think the primary issue I have with der_kluge's OP is that it's based on a presumption of one particular style of D&D play being better than others.

"Who" only matters if your group has decided that it will matter and has adjusted the campaign accordingly. As far as the rule text goes, "what" is far more relevant to the RAW. Caring about "what" is how you create a party that can contend against the CR system. The "who" in D&D's default mode of play has more to do with adding enjoyable color to the "what". If anything, I think that prioritizing the "who" without making adjustments on the back end mostly results in a lot of dead PCs. "Sure, we're an all-rogue party. It's what made sense for our backstories."

On top of this, D&D classes are often strongly tied to their setting color (i.e., their role in the world): druids, clerics, paladins, etc. It's a very natural place to start when concepting your PC.

To get back to Numion's point, the only difference I see in previous editions was that the available "what" was so homogenous that it's no surprise many players would focus on the "who," as it was the only way to make your fighter look any different from another. Thankfully, we don't have to deal with that anymore.

 

[buzz]

You know, die_kluge, I think the disconnect here is that you're thinking about D&D chargen with your GURPS hat on. In GURPS (and HERO, what I play more), you really need to come up with a solid concept (the "who") before you ever get to the "what". The uber-flexible, point-construction of those games can't begin if you don't know what it is you have to build.

D&D's classes heavily imply roles, so knowing your role (your "who") starts with thinking about your class and race. Working the opposite way ("How do I build concept X?") tends to be problematic, IMO. D&D isn't much for the "modeling" thing that GURPS and HERO do.