Random charges is fine for some games and would be bad for others. So the figures probably really depend on what games people like to play.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;816199Defying common tropes is essential to hone the craft.

I wonder how many players actually care about "honing the craft" of playing, as opposed to just playing as a hobby; I'm also curious as to what metric you'd use to show improvement as a player.

I prefer point buy and other allocation styles of character generation because I like to get close to the character I want to play. But some randomness can get the juices flowing and be nice change of pace occasionally.

Quote from: Ladybird;816201Random charges is fine for some games and would be bad for others. So the figures probably really depend on what games people like to play.

I wonder how many players actually care about "honing the craft" of playing, as opposed to just playing as a hobby; I'm also curious as to what metric you'd use to show improvement as a player.

No idea how many of your players or those at large actually care; impossible to quantify. I only have the perspective of my players, which weren't a hard sell on random generation at all. It's something I've actively endorsed since my red box days, where we house-ruled all manner of tables for random generation across every iteration of D&D we got our hands on.

The metric I use is whether the player likes the results. As an example, the guy who likes to play the sanguine brooding veteran ends up making a dynamic shift to play a socialite who turns his nose up at violence. To date, no complaints whatsoever.

As a Gamemaster, honing the craft using the above tool (out of many other tools I use) is essential for development of my own RPG. Your mileage may vary.

Quote from: Will;816197If I ever manage to run a D&D 5e game (fingers crossed), I'm strongly contemplating a 'random everything' option -- random race, stats, class, background...

Very do-able. But too random for probably most folks tastes as it takes away any sort of player input into the character. "Here, have some random and make of it what you will." others though thrive on that sort of lottery.

For 5e thats 9 races, 12 classes, and 13 backgrounds.

Was actually discussing the idea with Jan, who tends to not like that much random. But she came up with a neet suggestion.

Race roll table that is weighted based on region. And let the player choose the region. For example: Karameikos might heavily favour Humans. The Five Shires favours Halflings and Gnomes, Alfheim might heavily favour Elves and Half-Elves, Galantri being Humans and Dwarves, and so on.

Or have the players all decide what region they want to start in and so determines what races are common and whats rare.

Putting some choice back in the players hands.

I think D&D 3e lead to a surge of resistance to random chargen because the system and culture that grew around it was fairly intolerant of 'weak builds.'

More forgiving systems encourage a lot more laid-back approach. I expect D&D 5e will lead to a swing back, at least a little, though the lack of OGL hampers the opportunity for people to make fun lifepathy or similar add-ons.

Quote from: Will;816207More forgiving systems encourage a lot more laid-back approach.

That was how it was for us with BX D&D. Got a 6 STR but want a fighter? Blow off some INT to bump it up enough to get out of the negative. Or live with a rather inept fighter, or choose another class where the stats favour.

I've never been a fan of random chargen, and have never required it of any group I GMed for.

I want my players to get maximum enjoyment out of their experience, especially if they are new  to the hobby, and letting them play the character they want within starting-level limits is part of that.

No protagonist in fiction was randomly generated, to my knowledge.  And since every character is the protagonist in the eyes of her player, it just feels more fair and organic to me to eschew random chargen in favor of more player freedom.

That's how I did it from my start in the Red Box all the way up to today.

Quote from: K Peterson;816190I've had the same experience, whether that was with older or younger players. None of them have come into CoC chargen with unreasonable expectations, because they've had at least a basic understanding of the themes of the Rpg.
 
I'm a bit of a softy-Keeper, though, and allow players to assign their rolled characteristics to some extent. Basically by having them roll 5 groups of 3d6 - assigning them as desired to the 5 characteristics based on that roll - 2 groups of 2d6 to assign between INT and SIZ, and a flat 3d6+3 roll for EDU.

Also it's Call of Cthulhu. We enjoy playing eccentric or nutty characters and that's just as easy to do with poor stats as with great stats. Plus it's Call of Cthulhu. No matter how great your PC's stats are you aren't going to punch out Cthulhu and the tough, ancient, mad NPC wizards in the globe trotting campaigns are so tough they could fry the toughest PC one-on-one.

Bad rolls can kill or drive insane the PCs easy enough without the help of the Keeper. I think CoC works well with "softy" keepers. Though judging by how Sandy Petersen runs Runequest and Tekumel, he is anything but a softy.

Quote from: King Truffle IV;816230I want my players to get maximum enjoyment out of their experience, especially if they are new  to the hobby, and letting them play the character they want within starting-level limits is part of that.

I think this is an important point. Players that come to the game with a character they want, may well be disappointed by random generation. Players who enjoy playing what they get may be frustrated by elaborate builds.

Personally I find the sweet spot for a group with both sorts of players are games like Star Wars D6 or Honor+Intrigue where there are established templates to choose from so players can get much of what they want by choosing a particular template like Bounty Hunter, Brash Pilot, Jedi Apprentice, and Smuggler or Brash Inventor, King's Musketeer, Puritan Wanderer, or Spanish Masked Hero without having to fuss around for an hour optimizing and fiddling with build points.

I flatly refuse to engage with random chargen. I choose my character, then go to the system to operationalise that concept, I do not have it handed to me by the system. There are entire swathes of character concepts I have no desire to play; non-humans, wizards or other casters, ultra-specialists, non-combatants, aristocrats.

In my group I'm the most extreme anti-random chargen, but one other player is almost as far on the spectrum, and only one of us five is even open to the idea.

Speaking personally I despise random chargen. If I were playing  a one-shot and would be running a character that I absolutely didn't care about I would consider it. But if I am even playing the character twice, I want control of the chargen.

Quote from: Bren;816242Players who enjoy playing what they get may be frustrated by elaborate builds.

I see time spend building a character as wasting time I could spend playing the character. This is even more true as I've gotten older and have less time to play.

Quote from: RandallS;816268I see time spend building a character as wasting time I could spend playing the character. This is even more true as I've gotten older and have less time to play.

My players tend to agree with you. That's one reason I like templates. We can start playing faster. And unless you have already played that specific game with that GM and those players, you don't really understand what sort of build is going to get you the most of what you want out of the game anyway so spending hours on your own tinkering is not all that productive. Another reason I like templates is it gives me an incentive not to spend hours trying to mechanically optimize my character. Because if that's the choice I'll probably end up doing that.

Quote from: Bren;816278My players tend to agree with you. That's one reason I like templates. We can start playing faster. And unless you have already played that specific game with that GM and those players, you don't really understand what sort of build is going to get you the most of what you want out of the game anyway so spending hours on your own tinkering is not all that productive. Another reason I like templates is it gives me an incentive not to spend hours trying to mechanically optimize my character. Because if that's the choice I'll probably end up doing that.

For me, building the character is part of the game. Spending hours and hours writing a background in my head. Elaborate details about relatives long dead that will never be relevant to the game. *That* is fun for me. Whenever I hear, 'I just want to play!', it makes me think that maybe a tabletop role-playing game isn't the right choice for that group. Maybe they would prefer some detailed board game. For me, character creation is part and parcel of a tabletop role-playing game.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;816199The RPG cultural zeitgeist seems to be in favor of random tables (D&D 5e for example), but not necessarily for character generation.

Random character generation forces players out of their comfort zone, making them think critically about how race, class and temperament can be paired together creatively in new ways. Defying common tropes is essential to hone the craft.

In my tabletop ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous game, 100% of players randomly generate their characters for this very reason.

As a player I get to do *one* thing, play my character. I think I should be allowed to play the *exact* character I desire. Being told, 'Here, play this random thing', is pretty much the definition of 'unfun'. I don't find it challenging. It doesn't 'hone' my 'craft'. It just isn't fun for me. I am quite capable of defying common tropes on my own. Or playing them to the hilt. I don't get that option with a random chargen system.

Quote from: Tetsubo;816283For me, building the character is part of the game. Spending hours and hours writing a background in my head. Elaborate details about relatives long dead that will never be relevant to the game. *That* is fun for me. Whenever I hear, 'I just want to play!', it makes me think that maybe a tabletop role-playing game isn't the right choice for that group. Maybe they would prefer some detailed board game. For me, character creation is part and parcel of a tabletop role-playing game.

That's the cool thing about there being more choices in gaming. There are games that allow you to spend hours and hours building your character. And there are games that allow people to get to playing the game in minutes - or at most an hour or so for the whole group.

I play roleplaying games to play games with other people about characters who are in some way different than we are or who get to do things that we don't get to do in or normal lives. So for me the part where we play the game, where the character take central stage as a group is the central focus and feature of the game. The play adds the uncertainty and the play is the part that makes an RPG different than writing a story, reading a book, watching a movie or a TV show, or even making a movie.

It's interesting that you said, "Whenever I hear, 'I just want to play!', it makes me think that maybe a tabletop role-playing game isn't the right choice for that group." Because when I hear someone say they spent hours and hours writing a background for their character I think that a table-top role-playing game maybe isn't the best choice for that person and that maybe they should be writing stories. And I say that as someone who in the last 2.5 years has written some 200,000 words about our character's adventures.