4 hours of chargen makes me sick of the bastard I've rolled up or built.  There's no emotional investment at all.  Give me brief chargen and 3+ hours to play the heck out of him and I'll be much more into the dude at the end of the night.

Quote from: jrients4 hours of chargen makes me sick of the bastard I've rolled up or built.  There's no emotional investment at all.  Give me brief chargen and 3+ hours to play the heck out of him and I'll be much more into the dude at the end of the night.

Yeah, I'm beginning to think the same way.

Remember that one-line character concept thing from a while back?  Where you write up a character concept like "an overconfident swordsman is looking for a challenge" or "a rambunctious party girl is on the run from the cops"?  

I like that a lot.  Quick, direct and a springy trampoline for further ideas.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Remember that one-line character concept thing from a while back?  Where you write up a character concept like "an overconfident swordsman is looking for a challenge" or "a rambunctious party girl is on the run from the cops"?  

I like that a lot.  Quick, direct and a springy trampoline for further ideas.

Mos def.

I'd rather have as much time to play the game as possible, and spend as little time getting ready to play as necessary.  4 hours seems needlessly excessive -- unless the chargen itself is somehow "fun" and part of the game.  Maybe if the group was making characters together?  Or maybe the Traveller system where you do all sorts of random die rolls to see what their life/career path has been.  Generally though -- fast chargen is better.  If you want to make the player wait before "respawning", just do that.  Tell them they can't bring in the new character until a suitable time in the game.

Much worse: Longish char-gen makes the DM reluctant to kill when otherwise necessary!

I tend to agree with the idea referred to in the OP. It's possible to have a system be too complicated (I'll never play RMSS again, thanks), and find fidgety point-gen frustrating, but I find rules light gen like OTE does nothing to make it feel like I've invested in the character.

Quote from: SettembriniMuch worse: Longish char-gen makes the DM reluctant to kill when otherwise necessary!

I agree completely.  The fever-dream of Shadowrun 4's chargen makes character death a night-ender for the dead guy's player.

Complex character creation by itself does not ensure that a player is 'invested' in his/her character.  However, more 'committed' players are generally more willing to go through a lengthy process of character creation than half-hearted or ambivalent players.

It's gotta be a two-way road.

I once played a game in which we, the players, convened with the GM on no less than two sessions expressly to make characters; we probably put about 4 hours into it.  I knew Velocity (my character) inside and out.  When the time came for her to do her thing, asses would line up just to get kicked.

The game lasted 1 session, during which we took a lost child back to his village.

Quote from: RPGPunditI strongly disagree.

RPGPundit

With what? That time spent creating a character is tied to how much you give a shit about that character? Or that point buy chargen is a waste of time? Or... what?


Anyways, a half-hour to an hour is about how I like it. Like DnD. Now, if we got lotsa lotsa n00bs at the table, and I have to "help" (do all teh work) making 12 or 15 of these things, that gets old.

In that case, five to fifteen minutes.

I tend to agree that really detailed character gen can make players too cautious. However, I like having some detail. That's why I like the idea of character templates, along the lines of what you find in GURPS or the d6 version of the Star Wars RPG (and I believe they had templates in the 2nd edition of the d20 Star Wars game). Games with a lot of options during character gen would do well to include templates for common character types for the genre. That way, those who like to do characters from scratch can do so, but those who find long, detailed character gen boring (like me) can grab a template and go.

But then, y'know, hell, it's a game. Why not do what blakkie touched on above - if Longstretch the Ever-Handy bites it early on, just hit reset and use him again. I mean, what's the point of redoing everything just because a character gets killed in the first session or two? Rename him if you or the GM just can't countenance "respawning."

Whatever makes the game more fun for everyone is the best thing to do.

In my experience long, detailed character creation works best when GM and Player use it as a way to provide background and detail to the character, and adventure hooks for the GM.

Let's say the character turns out to be (Mythus refs) an Albish Forester with a Merchant contact in Norwich. How did the two meet? Do they stay in touch? What might the Merchant ask of the Forester?

Merchant: Tom, I have run into a problem. That's why I asked that you come here. I have lost a ship off the Bight of Benin, and stories have come back regarding the event.

Tom (the Forester): What do you wish of me, Uncle?

Merchant: I need you, and anyone you hire, to go to the Bight of Benin and investigate. I will sponsor the expedition.

Circumstances of birth, parentage, upbringing, social class, choice of class/career/vocation, friendships can be used by a GM willing to put the effort into it. But detailed character creation only works when people work together.

I think people failed to grasp the idea that the ref to a '4 hour chargen process' was a bit of an exaggeration. The guy posting the thread that inspired this one did not literally mean you spent 240 minutes creating a character, he just meant a long, complex character creation process.

it's not literally 4 hours, guys, it was a slight exaggeration to illo a point: Does a lengthy, complex (Ghawd forbid I ever use the term 'long, hard' around here again...) make players less likely to do stupid things that risk character death and make them play a little more realistically and intelligently or not?

Yeah, I think people got that 4 hours was hyperbole in most cases. But I've seen char gen take that long and longer, so it's not unrealistic.

Character generation that takes a long time tends to make players play their characters "realistically and intelligently," which can be deathly boring in a RPG. Such games are usually about heroes confronting things beyond mortal ken. Acting realistically in a game context can really bog the game down. So such character generation is, overall, a bad thing, particularly in a game which tends towards high adventure (or which generates a high body count).