You've Created A Bad Character. How, why and whose fault is it?

[Thomas Shey]

What is the purpose of the sheet then???

To give some numbers to base those die rolls present to represent the variables. Often those people want pretty minimalist mechanical representation.

 

[Emberashh]

That's not the issue at hand. One can have legitimate concerns about going on an adventure as presented. I've been in that situation. And I don't like the idea that your choices come down to grin and bear it or there is no game. It's not about being a hero, it's about being forced to pick up the idiot ball and setting your reservations aside. Good should not mean being dumb.

I think this is why its important that these games should be run as sandboxes.

But, even then, you can't really play these games and be the one person who doesn't want to participate no matter the reason. Particularly if that reason is soley based in not liking the premise of whatever the adventure is, which might be on whoever wrote the module, but could also be on your GM, their writing skills, or even just their skill as a GM to set the scene. If we're talking the latter, I don't think venting frustration with their skills by scapegoating the game is particularly healthy.

At the same time, though, its not like this problem goes away with other kinds of games. There's always a general premise no matter how open the game is, all the way up to true sandboxes.

 

[James Gasik]

I think this is why its important that these games should be run as sandboxes.

But, even then, you can't really play these games and be the one person who doesn't want to participate no matter the reason. Particularly if that reason is soley based in not liking the premise of whatever the adventure is, which might be on whoever wrote the module, but could also be on your GM, their writing skills, or even just their skill as a GM to set the scene. If we're talking the latter, I don't think venting frustration with their skills by scapegoating the game is particularly healthy.

At the same time, though, its not like this problem goes away with other kinds of games. There's always a general premise no matter how open the game is, all the way up to true sandboxes.

It just means I need the players to give me actual motivations for their characters that I can use to railroad manipulate con work with them to give them viable motivation to adventure!

 

[Emberashh]

It just means I need the players to give me actual motivations for their characters that I can use to railroad manipulate con work with them to give them viable motivation to adventure!

Well what I said still applies to them. Though I think the community needs to be less prejudiced against taking from them, we genuinely are not playing video games here, and they need to do more than just be passive.

Especially so if they're then going to grouse about the adventure everyone else is happy to go on.

Its kind of like what you learn as a kid if you're picky. You don't get to really complain when all you did was say "No" when mom and dad try to decide on dinner. Eventually, they're gonna have what they're gonna have and you'll eat if you're hungry enough to get over yourself.

Barring texture or genuine taste issues of course, but thats why communication is important and why parents can learn to be more interrogative of how their kids feel about things. A kid may not know already what "texture" is, but if you explain it to them they're probably gonna immediately point out 5 things they don't like because the textures awful.

In the same way, if a player isn't feeling the game as presented, they need to talk, even if they lack the words to effectively communicate their issue, and the GM can then try to pinpoint what can be done to reconcile the issue.

But, ultimately, theres no shortage of people who genuinely like these games just to roll dice and kill monsters. If you're not behaving any differently from them, nobody has any reason to assume you're not enjoying yourself.

 

[Starfox]

I played a Half-Orc Sling Fighter in the Extended Edition of BG1 with 19 Strength, and that was hilarious.

Half-orcs rule as martials in BG 1 and 2! No need to roll those pesky percentile dice for Strength! A single point takes you from +1/+2 to +2/+7.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

While perhaps extremes of optimization shouldn't be expected, there's a rather large number of situations where the proper response of many character groups to some characters should perfectly legitimately be "We're not going to go into a situation where you not only won't hold up your end, you may well actively make the rest of our jobs harder." The only reason that doesn't happen is this assumption that because someone came in with a PC, you're required to work with them.

Yeah, I largely see it as being one of a few big things the system played actually matters for, either you're playing a game where decisions have asymmetrical consequences and therefore those consequences have to be weighed, and a decision can be better or worse, or you're playing a game where consequences are symmetrical and therefore decisions are aesthetic. Usually I see this thread question as being pertinent to the former, not the latter because there's an organic criterion for what could make a character bad (inability to contribute to solving problems.)

Reading the rest of the thread I will add, that Gygaxian Skilled Play is kind of middle ground experience where there are decisions that matter and can be better or worse, but they aren't about character building-- the tradeoff is the loss of the experience of having a build, which is a pleasurable gaming thing (for me, at the very least) in and of itself.

 

[Chalice]

The GM’s.

Oh, as for how and why, that varies by player, group, system, campaign. But probably GM as well.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I'm gonna start my next session by asking one of my players, "would you have listened to me if I told you making a character with no combat ability was a bad idea?"

 

[Micah Sweet]

I guess I get the desire not to spend actual session time on character gen (as opposed to some ground rules, veils and lines, etc.) but even doing that part "off the clock" I always try to trade emails to collaborate a bit with the rest of the table. Building a character wholly in a vacuum feels really limiting these days, even it was very much the norm when the hobby and I were both young.

I don't understand what you mean by "these days". What about making characters alone now seems more limiting than doing it before?

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I don't understand what you mean by "these days". What about making characters alone now seems more limiting than doing it before?

It was extremely common to make you character (often characters, plural) alone at home long before a game in the earlier days of roleplaying because communications were a lot harder prior to the internet, cell phones, and free long distance calls, especially for kids. One of my first GMs was in a different area code, for ex, and calling them between games really wasn't an option with the parents I had.

The experience was normal enough at the time but "these days" I wouldn't want to do so when reaching out to the rest of the table is relatively simple to do. Better communications have largely removed the need to build in isolation, which in hindsight was a dreadful way to make characters. So why accept a limitation that time and technology has removed?