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Author Topic: 2015: What % of players balk at random chargen  (Read 7376 times)

Bren

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #135 on: February 23, 2015, 09:22:40 PM »
Quote from: Ladybird;817303
Most groups I play in have an informal "first mission doesn't really count" rule, where you can change stuff (Within reason) after the first session if it doesn't seem to work for you, but you're locked in after that; kinda like a pilot episode for a TV show.

Makes sense. As long as the change isn't too extreme.
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Justin Alexander
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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #136 on: February 24, 2015, 02:43:42 AM »
Quote from: Bren;817283
OD&D roll 3d6 down the board is fast. And easy to explain, though selecting which spell for an MU to memorize could take a bit of time. If you just say, "Pick Sleep or Charm Person" then that's really fast too.


Or roll randomly. The OD&D spell list comes numbered.

Quote
I find templates, like those in Star Wars D6 or Honor+Intrigue work very well since players just pick a template that sounds interesting, e.g. Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Jedi Apprentice or Pirate, King's Musketeer, or Brilliant Inventor and then make a few selections that are easy to walk them through in either case. They can then find out how the system works in play for their PC. If they ended up with a PC they didn't like so much, they can then create another (or modify the first slightly) based on their new knowledge and that doesn't take long either.


That also works. I think the key, though, is that you want at least 3-4 key decisions that are comprehensible: Race and Class in D&D, for example. You don't have to understand the mechanics to know the difference between "elven wizard" and "orc fighter". Just selecting between pregens, IME, doesn't have the same pop that creating a character does.
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nDervish

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #137 on: February 24, 2015, 07:05:29 AM »
Quote from: tuypo1;817192

i dont really mind that sort of campaign but using it as an excuse for rolled stats is pretty stupid


Let me spell it out for you, then:

In a setting-centric campaign, PCs are likely to die and be replaced with new PCs.  If I roll a crappy character (or just one that fails to match My Vision Of What I Want To Play), then it's not such a big deal because he'll die before too long and I can roll a new one.  Also, random generation is usually (but not always) faster than character-building systems (point buy, etc.), meaning that, when my character dies, I can make a new one and get back into the game faster.  And, of course, if you're playing several characters over the course of the campaign, then the fluctuations in power level introduced by randomness will average themselves out over time.

In a character-centric campaign, PCs tend not to die very often, if ever.  Rolling a crappy character would really suck, because then I'm saddled with something utterly unlike My Vision Of What I Want To Play for the entire duration of the campaign.  And, since character creation is a one-time activity, it's less of an issue if creating a character takes a long time.

Now do you see why I say setting-centric campaigns are more suited to random character generation than character-centric campaigns?

Bren

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #138 on: February 24, 2015, 11:25:36 AM »
Quote from: Justin Alexander;817362
Or roll randomly. The OD&D spell list comes numbered.
Yeah you could do that.

Quote
That also works. I think the key, though, is that you want at least 3-4 key decisions that are comprehensible: Race and Class in D&D, for example. You don't have to understand the mechanics to know the difference between "elven wizard" and "orc fighter". Just selecting between pregens, IME, doesn't have the same pop that creating a character does.
If haven't ever used templates with a D&D style game. I'm not that fond of class/level systems. But if one were to create D&D templates I would include class as part of the template e.g. Elven Mage and Orc Fighter would be templates.

I fully agree that having some decisions to make is something a lot of people prefer. The goal with templates is to limit the decisions by giving a central and identifiable character type so they remaining decisions are fewer in number and more easily decided between. For example, in Star Wars D6 the player has 7D to allocate to the skills on the template they chose. That way Bounty Hunters A, B, and C can each have different abilities, but the players doesn't have to build their character totally from scratch. In games like SWD6 and Honor+Intrigue that were designed with templates as an integral feature, modifying a template to design an even more unique character is easy. The first two characters in our Honor+Intrigue game were modified versions of the Spy and the King's Musketeer templates.  

Both systems allow for a complete point buy as a way to create a character, but templates are presented as the default or at least as an included option which makes the games more accessible to a player and GM who don't want to spend hours creating a character together and for players who don't want to spend hours reading the rules and creating a character on their own.

Quote from: nDervish;817375
Now do you see why I say setting-centric campaigns are more suited to random character generation than character-centric campaigns?
That's an interesting point. I wonder how often arguments that seem to be about random generation vs. point buy are really about preferences towards setting-centric or character-centric campaigns.
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Nexus

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #139 on: February 24, 2015, 11:59:18 AM »
Quote from: Bren;817405
That's an interesting point. I wonder how often arguments that seem to be about random generation vs. point buy are really about preferences towards setting-centric or character-centric campaigns.


Speaking for myself Character vs Setting specific isn't the reason why I prefer point buy/non random character generation its investment in the character. When I go into a game I usually have character in mind that I'd like to play and I want to have something like it from the start. Even in a high mortality genre like survival horror, it facilitates my enjoyment and immersion to be invested in the character from the start and I've found random generation doesn't fulfill that need for me.
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Kiero

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #140 on: February 24, 2015, 12:47:49 PM »
Quote from: Bren;817405
That's an interesting point. I wonder how often arguments that seem to be about random generation vs. point buy are really about preferences towards setting-centric or character-centric campaigns.


My group only does character-centric games - to the point where they're not even much interested in troupe play, because they like to focus on one and only one character. The expectation is that you will play that character for the entire length of the game - as has largely been the case for everything we've played (even WFRP2e).
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Bren

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #141 on: February 24, 2015, 02:58:08 PM »
Quote from: Nexus;817416
Speaking for myself Character vs Setting specific isn't the reason why I prefer point buy/non random character generation its investment in the character. When I go into a game I usually have character in mind that I'd like to play and I want to have something like it from the start. Even in a high mortality genre like survival horror, it facilitates my enjoyment and immersion to be invested in the character from the start and I've found random generation doesn't fulfill that need for me.
If you have a character in mind from that start, to me that sounds character-centric.

Quote from: Kiero;817435
My group only does character-centric games - to the point where they're not even much interested in troupe play, because they like to focus on one and only one character. The expectation is that you will play that character for the entire length of the game - as has largely been the case for everything we've played (even WFRP2e).
So your group is character-centric and you hate random character generation.

I think there may be something to this observation by nDervish.
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Nexus

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #142 on: February 24, 2015, 03:35:44 PM »
Quote from: Bren;817466
If you have a character in mind from that start, to me that sounds character-centric.


The other expectations listed for "Character-centric" campaign don't always apply though such as the idea that death will be rare so everyone will be playing the same character for the length of the game. I thought character vs setting centric was a description of the campaign not the character creation process.
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Bren

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #143 on: February 24, 2015, 06:13:52 PM »
Quote from: Nexus;817470
The other expectations listed for "Character-centric" campaign don't always apply though such as the idea that death will be rare so everyone will be playing the same character for the length of the game. I thought character vs setting centric was a description of the campaign not the character creation process.
I think of coming to the table with a character in mind and wanting to replicate that conception as one aspect of character-centric play, but on re-reading nDervish’s post I agree with you that their description was mostly about likely to die vs. unlikely to die.
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nDervish

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #144 on: February 25, 2015, 06:49:14 AM »
Quote from: Nexus;817470
I thought character vs setting centric was a description of the campaign not the character creation process.

Quote from: Bren;817481
on re-reading nDervish’s post I agree with you that their description was mostly about likely to die vs. unlikely to die.


I was actually using "character-centric" and "setting-centric" as shorthand to refer back to my previous post in this thread, where I'd said

Quote from: nDervish;817189
The players I've seen who have had the most objection to random gen have also been very into "this is about my guy being a hero, so I want control over what my guy is like", while my randomness-preferring focus is more on "there are countless tales in the world, so let's find out what some of them are".  Focus on a specific character vs. focus on the setting as a whole.


"My guy is a hero" = character-centric = players more likely to want control over the details of the character.

"Discover a few of the many tales in this setting" = setting-centric = details of the character are less important.

The bits about frequency of character death were more along the lines of how each type of campaign tends to run (character-centric is all about the characters, so character death is usually considered a major problem to be avoided; setting-centric is primarily about the setting, sometimes to the point that the characters serve as little more than a vehicle to explore it, so it's much less significant if they die) and, specifically, about why random generation would be better-suited to setting-centric than to character-centric games, rather than as a definition of the two types.

Bren

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #145 on: February 25, 2015, 07:54:54 AM »
Quote from: nDervish;817606
"My guy is a hero" = character-centric = players more likely to want control over the details of the character.

"Discover a few of the many tales in this setting" = setting-centric = details of the character are less important.
Subconciously I was probably including the first post, but when I reread the one post, I didn't recall or reread the other.

Thanks for clarifying your meaning. I think the two different focuses explain some of the disagreement people have on issues like point buy.
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RPGPundit

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #146 on: March 02, 2015, 01:43:37 AM »
Obviously, 0% of my players balk at random chargen.
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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #147 on: March 02, 2015, 07:05:48 AM »
My players are always happy to play and don't seem to care much about the chargen system.
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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #148 on: March 02, 2015, 03:12:38 PM »
Quote from: RPGPundit;818515
Obviously, 0% of my players balk at random chargen.


Does that include the ones that declined to play because of random chargen because then they arent players in your group right?

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2015: What % of players balk at random chargen
« Reply #149 on: March 02, 2015, 04:09:38 PM »
Quote from: Bren;817263
:confused: What is ridiculously false?

Are you saying that experience bonuses don't make any difference in speed of character progression and hence power? That seems patently absurd, so probably you don't mean that.

You said, "Real life charisma has not one thing to do with your stats". Do you mean it has nothing to do with my character's stats? Well that is an obvious truism, but since that isn't what the person you quoted actually said, so you probably don't mean that.

Do you mean that in real life, real life charisma isn't related to the real world analogs to stats in D&D? That would deny that there is such a thing as charisma in the real world. That seems unlikely. Maybe you didn't mean that.

Do you mean that the Charisma statistic was meaningless in OD&D because the effective charisma of your character was based solely on the player's charisma? Well that's half right. OD&D allowed the player to provide the plans and speech for their character. However, the Charisma stat provided a bonus to reaction rolls and follower loyalty. So it is wrong to say that the game stat has no effect.

So what is it you think "is ridiculously false?" Because I don't see that anything those posters said was ridiculously false.

EDIT: Also worth noting for clarity that the second quote you responded to was by Justin Alexander not Old Geezer.


I meant what I said in old versions of DnD (largely before 2e but especially 3e and beyond) your ability scores didn't mean all that much because you rarely had any bonuses to the roll and skills weren't really codified beyond a simple skill check and the player just winging it anyway. Nothing is wrong with that method it's just different then later editions for the most part.
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