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Tough Choices in Character Generation

Started by Votan, August 26, 2013, 01:18:03 AM

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Exploderwizard

#30
August 26, 2013, 03:09:39 PM
Quote from: deadDMwalking;685806And yet it seems that you are advocating for a player to have the same personality for every character they play.  

Not at all. I refer you back to post #28.
Quote from: JonWakeGamers, as a whole, are much like primitive cavemen when confronted with a new game. Rather than \'oh, neat, what\'s this do?\', the reaction is to decide if it\'s a sex hole, then hit it with a rock.

Quote from: Old Geezer;724252At some point it seems like D&D is going to disappear up its own ass.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;766997In the randomness of the dice lies the seed for the great oak of creativity and fun. The great virtue of the dice is that they come without boxed text.

Votan

#31
August 26, 2013, 03:25:14 PM
Quote from: Ravenswing;685612I've been a confirmed fan of point-buy for decades, and I've always hated random gen.

For all random gen's purported enabling of RP and "interesting" characters, I think that's a crock.  Random gen doesn't "enable" a thing; it restricts choice.  I can, with a point-buy system, choose to play anything I want.  If I want to play a low-IQ brick who can scarcely lace his sandals unassisted, I can choose to do that.  Random gen, I have to take what's handed to me.

I don't want to do that, and until I got a clue and dumped random gen both as a player and a GM, I observed far more people who walked away from campaigns because they couldn't stand what they were stuck with than those thrilled to play something offbeat.  (Hell, I retired my first character, well before his time; I wanted to play wizards, not grunt fighters.)

I do understand this concern, but I think the interesting design space is then to create a "tough choices" design focus.  A good example of that is the Amber character auction -- if you are focused on being the best player at Pysche (i.e. magic) then it is likely that you will be able to achieve this, but only at the cost of being a bit of a bystander in the other auctions.  

In the same sense, 3E era character design creates a lot of wizards who are smart, fast and tough, but not very strong, wise or charismatic.  In general there is no tradeoff here -- the optimal point for a wizard is going to be very close.  

Now it is not to say that you couldn't do interesting things.  Like a chain of feats where picking one feat closed off other interesting (and highly desirable options).  For example, in Numenera, you can be swift or graceful (and each penalize the domain of the other).  Similarly, clever and intelligent both increase the mental pool but also close off the other somewhat.  That is interesting because you make meaningful choices.  

Intelligence or dexterity, under point buy, become merely "as high as you can afford" (especially at higher levels).
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