Well... this "make yourself" and "stats hell" is one of the reasons nearly all RPGs (on PCs or consoles) suck major balls. After all RP stands for Role Playing and this includes dealing with troubles and challenges without having "superman" as your character to begin with. But that has been done because majority of PC players are simply put dumb-asses which can't be bothered to play real games (aka games with depth and "characters"). Funny fact is that I know non-FPS games where you actual get role playing feeling while I know no RPG which has real role playing going on. So the general motto should be "less stats, more role play". Maybe the day will come I'll witness a real RP(G) which actually deserves the name.
Days of High Adventure: When Characters Were Born, Not Made
- Thread starter James Maliszewski
- Start date
Most of the games that use random stat generation actually encourage you to pick your class after you have your stats, not before. The idea is that the stats are the base abities of the character, and then you need to choose the role that fits them. Of course, this kind of generation doesn't work when you're in a situation where the players already know what they want to play to begin with.The Random One said:
Most of the game I've played recently, and the ones I've run, have actually had the game master doing the bulk of the character generation (with some high-level input from the players). When I ran a scenario in the Dragon Age RPG like this, I had the players roll their random stats via email, filled in their sheets for them. Some of them ended up with a slightly worse set of stats than others, but since I knew the rules, I was able to make sure that even with their weaknesses they were still effective. Then everyone gets their character sheets, along with a brief description of what they are, when they start to play.
It may remove the personal involvement a bit from ground up creation, but it sure saves a lot of time with people trying to figure out all the rules, min-max, or pre-plan their characters before they even start playing.
As someone who has never played a table-top RPG, one of the most confounding and intimidating aspects of starting play is the notion of creating a character, because I have no clue what half of the attributes mean, let alone which I should be emphasizing over others. The idea of a chance-determined character sheet is very appealing and seems more game-like. I might well be biased since reading this column as well as 'Check for Traps' is the most education on table-top gaming I've ever had. For instance, I also think the idea of a simulation game sounds more appealing than a cinematic game. If I want a heroic, cinematic game experience, I can always load a good video game and get that. Table-top gaming seems much more unique as an immersible simulation experience. But I honestly wouldn't know shit about either type of playing style.
The biggest problem with modern games is that all the stats and abilities are too intimidating. With the first edition of AD&D, none of that mattered. Everything was clear. You took the players handbook home for 2 days and you had a pretty good idea of what your character could and couldn't do. 2nd edition was worse and 3rd edition was just mental. Attack of opportunity anyone?300lb. Samoan said:
I hate randomly generated characters. When you have a character whose lowest stat is 13 in the same group as a character whose highest stat is 12, it's just imbalanced. I prefer a system where you choose your stats like WoD, Exalted, BESM, Hero, etc.
Depends on the system. The new world of darkness is a lot more easy to understand than the old one. Before, attributes where pretty arbitrary (strength, dex, stamina for physical attributes; charisma, manipulation and apearance for social attributes (apearance also count as a physical attribute sometimes for things like metamorphosis); intelligence, wits and perception for mental attributes). In the new system, there is still 3 kinds of attributes (physical, mental and social) but they each have a strength, finesse and resistance aspect. So, an intelligent character whould have lots of mental strenght, a quick thinking character has lots of mental finesse, a stubborn character would have lots of mental and social resistance, etc.frans909 said:
Well, I used to do stuff like this on my own accord when I played in Neverwinter Night online RP servers (A DnD game btw) I would often flesh out the character AFTER making them andthey became popular among my fellow players. My main character by the end of my run was a powerful and deadly villain and assassin. He started off as a stubborn warrior from the east and became practically a comic book super villian.
Also for RP, having your roles picked beforehand can be fine, since you in real life dont choose how your body starts, but can affect how it changes. I certainly would have created myself much different irl if I could, but I guess I am more interesting since I did not.
Also for RP, having your roles picked beforehand can be fine, since you in real life dont choose how your body starts, but can affect how it changes. I certainly would have created myself much different irl if I could, but I guess I am more interesting since I did not.
I've had a character with 4 Dexterity before. (he was blind) Still great fun to play.0over0 said:
I agree with this. Not a big RPG player myself but last time I played thats what I did. I ended up with a mentally retarded Bugbear.Altorin said:
Considering his low Int I played him as a loyal food obsessed person, that would go into a rage each time he was hungry
I often work with this method as well. I've seen 4d6 and remove the lowest dice as well, which has still created some deficient stats (managed to roll a 2, 2, 1, 1 once >_>) but for the most part it's 3d6 and assign as you like. Some days you'll get lucky and get 15+ in all stats. Some days...really not. Adds an interesting twist to some games when your character is almost lame because their strength stat is so low.Altorin said:
Hm, I might just roll up a character, old school style in a new school game. Reading some of the examples given here, they could be really interesting.
I sometimes encounter a divide between players of the newer games when it comes to rolling 4d6, discard lowest or point-buy. I like the rolling aspect, not knowing what you can get but I know some people who would rather tailor their character to fit their ideas like a glove.
I sometimes encounter a divide between players of the newer games when it comes to rolling 4d6, discard lowest or point-buy. I like the rolling aspect, not knowing what you can get but I know some people who would rather tailor their character to fit their ideas like a glove.
Most od dnd based systems saldy suffer from what is called munchkinism, trying ot get a character as powerfull as possible using every bit of avalible game mechanics. I remember, back when in one of big media/gaming shops in Poland they hosted a little PnP corner, all you would hear some people talking about was how to multiclass their chars for maximum efficiency.
For me its not the way i like to play. I like when character starts weak in some/many points and is built through actual events that take place. When i wa splaying AD&D and Warhammer: Fantasy RPG we always rolled our characters, allowing just little re-fits of points when someone wanted ot pick up specific class. (Like paladins had some requirement of charisma if i remember correctly in one of DnD editions) .
These days, when i play its mostly story telling setup, majority is based of WoD mechanics so we just pick up traits of our characters that differ them from the rest, the limited point system and heavy focus on actual story telling and thinking through problems rather than rolling a dice for solutions works fine. Only actual randomness is based on rolls, rest its just more of a game of outsmarting the GM rather than relying heavily on +roll modifiers.
For me its not the way i like to play. I like when character starts weak in some/many points and is built through actual events that take place. When i wa splaying AD&D and Warhammer: Fantasy RPG we always rolled our characters, allowing just little re-fits of points when someone wanted ot pick up specific class. (Like paladins had some requirement of charisma if i remember correctly in one of DnD editions) .
These days, when i play its mostly story telling setup, majority is based of WoD mechanics so we just pick up traits of our characters that differ them from the rest, the limited point system and heavy focus on actual story telling and thinking through problems rather than rolling a dice for solutions works fine. Only actual randomness is based on rolls, rest its just more of a game of outsmarting the GM rather than relying heavily on +roll modifiers.
This is why I liked the approach my family takes to AD&D character generation. Here's 6 6-sided dice. Roll them. Take the highest three. Add together, that is now one of your stats. You can choose which after doing this another 5 times. You get 1 re-roll or an automatic 18 from a 17. In other words, our system gives you the best chance of getting an ownage character.
I'm the sort of guy that can go either way with the creation of characters - I created a Dwarven Ranger a few weeks back for Pathfinder and ended up with a Charisma score of 4, but that helped me with the back story. He lost his eye in a fight with an Ettercap, thus explaining his favoured enemies as aberrations as well.
I do get kind of peeved when no dice are rolled during the creation of a character, so even if there is no roll system in place, I usually leave some of the details of the character in the hands of the dice gods. I think the only system that I rarely use dice to generate characters for is World of Darkness, as you make the concept first, before making decisions. It only seems logical to me to roll dice first and then assign the classes and back story. You wouldn't catch Stephen Hawking's parents saying "Yes, this boy's going to grow up to be a professional footballer" before he was even born - you work with what you've got.
I do get kind of peeved when no dice are rolled during the creation of a character, so even if there is no roll system in place, I usually leave some of the details of the character in the hands of the dice gods. I think the only system that I rarely use dice to generate characters for is World of Darkness, as you make the concept first, before making decisions. It only seems logical to me to roll dice first and then assign the classes and back story. You wouldn't catch Stephen Hawking's parents saying "Yes, this boy's going to grow up to be a professional footballer" before he was even born - you work with what you've got.
I've found that the older style of character creation and evolution tends to apply to me and my gaming group, despite the fact that most of us started out on D&D 3.5e. We use a pseudo-random stat rolling method - roll 4d6, drop the lowest die, repeat 6 times, then apply those 6 numbers to the stats however we choose. This lets us go in with a general character idea - such as "a silly Bard" or "a detached Wizard" - and create a viable character regardless of the exact stat rolls we happen to get. We generally start out the characters as a combination of that general character idea and their stats, and just as in the article, it's through surviving adventures that we develop them into rounded characters with intricate personalities (also through not surviving adventures - I have an ex-vampire Druid who's developed an overwhelming fear of mind-control). And to me, seeing my sheet of twinked-out combat abilities and stats somehow turn into an actual person is just as rewarding as making those twinks in the first place, and it creates this attachment to the character that lets me feel all their excitement, their fear, the joy and satisfaction of each victory - and that's half the fun of the game.
And then your DM decides to run Tomb of Horrors. ;_;
And then your DM decides to run Tomb of Horrors. ;_;