So over on Pundit's blog, he continues his non-argument with Benoist that people who believe that character generation is essential to an RPG - even a RPG start box - are full of it. The idea is that to accord such centrality to character generation is tantamount to being beholden to character optimization ('oh nooos, Benoist is one of them 'denners').

Pundit is not so stupid as to conflate generation with optimization, so the pride of place has to go with the 'according centrality to' part of the sentiment he's protesting.

I rest my case in Benoist's favour (who'd have thought I live to see that day) on the sheer basis of an awesome post written in 2010 for 4th edition D&D. Yes 4th edition, you crisgrogs! Without further fanfare, here it is.

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Greywulf's Guide to 4e Character Generation by Hand

Generating your first character in any role-playing game is a rite of passage. It's the initial step of commitment to the game, an investment of time and precious brain cells into this wonderful hobby. Before then you may well have played using a pre-generated character, or followed the Choose Your Own adventure in the Red Box D&D Essentials Starter Kit to get started. Or your first character may well be your very first step into the hobby, your gateway to exploring dungeons, ruined keeps and the borderlands. But this isn't about how to generate your first character. Or the one after that. Or even the one after that. I'm going to assume that you've generated a fair number of characters by now, most likely using the Character Builder. I'm also going to assume that somewhere along the way you've forgotten what character generation is. Of course, you may just have stumbled onto this little tome by accident (or design) and you really are just about to generate your very first character. If that's the case, I welcome you.


You are at the beginning of a wonderful adventure. So whether your next character is your first, or your hundredth, I hope you find something of use within. We're going to look at how to do one thing, and do it well: how to generate a Fourth Edition Character entirely by hand. This is, in my opinion, something of a dying art with people moving en masse toward generation tools such as Character Builder rather than spending time and care to finely craft their virtual personna. It's the difference between microwaving a meal, and cooking one by hand from the raw ingredients you have available. While both have a place in the kitchen, microwaving teaches nothing about culinary skills – you just set a timer, press a few buttons then waiting for the ping.

Character Builder, like the microwave, is a terrific tool. It's very useful if you want something quick and filling in the shortest time possible. But there's nothing quite like a freshly prepared PC scrawled in your own hand to really hit the spot. What I aim to do is encourage you to create your next character using nothing more than a pencil and scratch paper. Along the way you'll hopefully learn more about how the Fourth Edition rules really work, what cunning synergies are hidden in the game, and more about crafting the character you really want to play. It will, I hope you find, be a much more rewarding experience.

What Character Generation is, and isn't

Starting at the very basics, Character Generation is two words. Character, and Generation. Generation is the act of putting together the numbers. It's what tools such as Character Builder do very well indeed, providing all of the options in a list and automatically calculating all of the numerical values. Generating your Player Character involves running down a checklist of items that every PC needs – attributes, race, class, abilities, feats, skills and equipment – and filling in the blanks. Character is something much more intangible. Character is what you bring to the table. It is your PC's personality, his backstory and quirks. It is how he (or she) dresses, what food they like and where they were brought up. It's the difference between playing “Justin the 1st level Human Fighter with STR 18” and “Justin Swallowdrake the farmer who had his lands confiscated by the Church of Pelor for failing to pay his tithe due to a failed harvest and is now driven to looting old ruins in the hope of paying off the debt and reclaiming his land”. Character is rarely quantifiable in numerical game terms (though it should guide stat, feat and skill selection – see below), but it is by far the most important but neglected part of Character Generation.

Tools such as Character Builder over-emphasise and simplify Generation, but at the cost of leaving little room for the Character part of the equation to develop. It is possible to create characters with great personality with Character Builder but I'd argue that for every thousand optimised but soulless PCs generated using it, there's probably just one gem of a Character (capital C). Creating a character by hand switches the emphasis from Character Generation to Character Generation. By spending time to create the PC, you're getting to know them more fully. Rather than just passing them by in a mouse click or two, Character Generation becomes more like a conversation with your virtual alter ego. Each step along the way you're learning more about them – what their Training in Stealth really means, why they chose that Spell or why they favour the Mace over any other weapon. Creating your first hand-made PC I'm going to walk you through the steps required to create a fully formed Player Character entirely by hand. But first, I'll let you into a little secret. It's really not that hard to do.

What you need

1. A pencil and eraser
2. Paper
3. A copy of the Player's Handbook

What you don't need
1. A D&D Insider subscription
2. A copy of Character Builder
3. A computer
4. An Internet connection
5. Pre-printed character sheets
6. Any other sourcebooks or supplements
7. D&D Essentials
8. Errata […]

About the Errata
Errata is a myth, and like all myths it's a pretty big one. Provided you're not playing in a Living campaign or bringing a character to a game convention (where a consistently agreed upon set of rules between total strangers is necessary), your well-worn copies of the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual are just as relevent and up-to-date as they need to be […]. Quite frankly, life is too short to worry about errata.

The Three Stages of Character Generation

1. Initial concept
2. Generation
3. Fine-tuning

Each character begins with a spark, an initial idea of what kind of character you want to play. It can be extremely vague or as well-defined as you can come up with. Many times the vague ones turn out to be the best characters as you take them through the journey of their creation as they're the ones which literally (ok, virtually literally) take shape as you fill in their attributes and personal history. It pays to avoid using Class names when thinking about your concept (unless you really want to play a Rogue, for example) as this automatically limits your options at a point where your imagination should be at its most free. Even if there's an obvious Class to match your concept, think about what the other Classes could offer and you might come up with an interesting twist. For example, if your concept is “wilderness protector” it's tempting to turn straight to the Ranger – but what about a Cleric who is a protector of the wilderness (a Cleric of Melora, perhaps), a Fey Pact Warlock, a Fighter who has been declared an outlaw, a stealthy Rogue who flits from tree to tree or even a Wizard who considers the forests surrounding his tower as being under his arcane protection. In short, any Class can fit any concept and it's the inter-relationship between the class and concept which creates the interesting characters. Don't limit yourself to the obvious!

Here's a handful of initial concepts just to get the brain juices flowing. • Spy • Exiled noble • Victim of identity theft • Wrongly convicted criminal • Rightly convicted criminal • Church-sponsored assassin • Wizard's ex-apprentice • Amnesiac • Heir to a fallen empire • Last of their kind • First of their kind • Farmer, now adventurer • State-employed treasure hunter • Archaeologist • Compulsive gambler • On the run • Haunted • Dragon stuck in humanoid form • Clone/identical twin • Cursed
http://tvtropes.org is a terrific source for concepts, but be warned that the hours will disappear when you hit that site!

Character concepts work best when you combine them. Playing a Spy is good, but playing an Amnesiac Spy is better (just ask Jason Bourne). Likewise, an Archaeologist On the Run is likely to have quite a story to tell, and an Exiled Noble Compulsive Gambler is going to be a very different character to an Exiled Noble who is Haunted. The key thing to remember is to be flexible with your initial Concept. It's likely to evolve and refine as you walk through the generation process, but should provide a great starting point on which to base your character. Be prepared for that Exiled Noble Compulsive Gambler to end up as a Paladin whose heritage was lost in a game of cards to the Dark Cardinal and he is now indentured to Asmodeus for the rest of his natural life. Hey, it could happen.

Generation
Time to bring out the pencil and paper! As per the Player's Handbook (p14) there are nine steps to generating a character in Fourth Edition D&D: 1. Choose Race 2. Choose Class 3. Determine Ability Scores 4. Choose Skills 5. Select Feats 6. Choose Powers 7. Choose Equipment 8. Fill in the Numbers 9. Roleplaying character details The PHB makes it clear (just above this list) that these can be tackled in any order, but that's something easily missed by most players. It doesn't matter whether you generate your ability scores first, leave your Race selection to the end or write down that one Feat you really want before you do anything else. While nine steps sounds like a lot, this list could really be shortened down to:

1. Determine Ability Scores
2. Select Race & Class
3. Choose Skills
4. Choose Feat(s)
5. Choose Powers
6. Choose Equipment
7. Check your math!

That's more like it.

While the options can be tackled in any order, I tend to generate the ability scores first because the initial concept generally suggests what kind of attributes the character should possess. At this stage, the attributes describe the character's physical build, intelligence and force of personality before the Race and Class are considered. This is him (or her), “in the raw”. [...]

Going back to our Wilderness Protector as an example and using the Standard Array (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16) I envisage him like this: He's healthy, well-built, reasonably self-assured but more likely to fade into a crowd than be the centre of attention – all a sign of good living in the Wilderness. By creating stats based upon your Concept (rather than the needs of the Class), your character is going to be much more interesting though less optimal than your typical Character Builder created build. That's not necessarily a Bad Thing as playing a less-than optimal charater is much more fun!

So saying, it's worth considering the kind of Class that a person with those attributes is most likely to take. Let's face it himself at the door of the Wizard's Academy, and a high-Wisdom gal will be shown the directions to the nearest Temple. Consider the best Class for the stats, which in turn you've generated based upon your initial Concept. Or ignore all that and pick the Class which would be the most fun. It's up to you. Looking at our Wilderness Protector's stats, the obvious choice would be to make him a Fighter. With his healthy living and well-built form he could be a Greatclub wielding outlaw who stands vigilant against the encroachment of civilization. He could also make a passable Cleric or Paladin, though his skills as a Rogue or Bard would be marginal at best! It's worth considering Race & Class together as a whole as a Race could well open up Classes otherwise limited by your starting stats.

Make our Wilderness Protector an Eladrin and he could make a pretty good quarterstaff-wielding Wizard! Let's let him play to his strengths (so to speak), and be a Human Fighter and use that +2 to boost his STR. I'm already picture him as a giant of a man hefting a Greatclub with a broad smile on his unwashed face. While we're at it, let's give him a name too. Jot down the Racial bonuses and abilities, then head into the Class write-up and do the same. Calculate your Hit Points and Defences but bear in mind these might change due to your Feat selection. Write them faint and keep the eraser handy. By now, your character should be taking shape nicely.


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There is more, but this rests my case. A starter box for an RPG without character generation cuts out the above, and thus cuts out what is not simply a ‘bump in the road’ towards FUN! 4DVENTURE! It kills what is undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable and most central element to being a character in a game. And that’s what the original argument was about. Q.E.D.

Shame on WotC for not including any of the above. Shame on them for not dedicating 4 pages on the joys and thrills of generating a character, and for showing you on another 4 on how to do it. Shame on them for promoting the idea that creating a character needs a $50 hardcover or a 48 (!) page PDF. And I wonder if that PDF expresses any of the above sentiments, or if Neeeext continues with 3e's and 4e's idea that character generation is all about generation and less about character. Because I can't honestly believe that 96 pages in a starter box is not enough to address, at a very basic level, this really important corrective to the modern culture of build that started Pundit's blog rants in the first case.

The fact that Pundit can't see it in those terms cements, if anything, his own blind spot - his failure to distinguish character generation from character generation. Which, ironically, is what he accused the 'OSR Taliban' opposition of. I guess it takes one to see one? ;-)

Quote from: Windjammer;752527I rest my case in Benoist's favour (who'd have thought I live to see that day) on the sheer basis of an awesome post written in 2010 for 4th edition D&D.

Your're right, that's a great post.
But what else do you expect from Robin "Microlite" Stacey?

QuoteBecause I can't honestly believe that 96 pages in a starter box is not enough to address, at a very basic level, this really important corrective to the modern culture of build that started Pundit's blog rants in the first case.

Yes, that's what this fuss is all about.

Brilliant blog post. Never saw it originally, so thanks for linking and posting it.

True.

But the thing in Next's starters case is. It is not a "basic" set. And in a way "starter" is a bit misleading. Not sure what youd call it.

But. While chargen isnt in the box, it is going to be online. And that is a key to Next's system. You dont need all the books to play. How far that works remains to be seen.

As for not needing chargen? If it is not following the Next Starter ideal of near instant pick up and play, and is instead a functional RPG in a box, however short that might be, then chargen is essential.

Otherwise as in this Next starter case. Its not. In part because the chargen has simply been shuffled elsewhere and the box is not meant to be a RPG core as it were.

It really depends on what is and is not in the starter.
Alot of the vexation has been in part due to the lack of hard data.

Or to put it differently.
The problem is that the Next starter looks like a B/X/etc Basic boxed set. But is not.

Since they took the maps and tokens out of the boxed set, you'd think they could have added another 16 pages or so and still kept it under $20. The bang for your buck is lacking.

Quote from: Endless Flight;752536Since they took the maps and tokens out of the boxed set, you'd think they could have added another 16 pages or so and still kept it under $20. The bang for your buck is lacking.

All the D&D boxed sets up to at Cyclopedia did not have a seperate map or counters I believe. Basic tended to not even have a worldmap at all. You tended to get the worldmap in the Expert box, and that was oft just a page in the book. I think BECMI had maps in one of the boxes?

So there being no maps or counters in the Next Starter is somewhat a non-issue at this point.

Im pretty sure the adventure will have maps though. But likely standard module style maps.

We will know soon enough.

Quote from: Omega;752538All the D&D boxed sets up to at Cyclopedia did not have a seperate map or counters I believe. Basic tended to not even have a worldmap at all. You tended to get the worldmap in the Expert box, and that was oft just a page in the book. I think BECMI had maps in one of the boxes?

So there being no maps or counters in the Next Starter is somewhat a non-issue at this point.

Im pretty sure the adventure will have maps though. But likely standard module style maps.

We will know soon enough.

I'm basing it off what Wizards has produced over the last 14 years. The 3e/4e boxes all had tokens/minis and maps/dungeon tiles.

Quote from: Endless Flight;752539I'm basing it off what Wizards has produced over the last 14 years. The 3e/4e boxes all had tokens/minis and maps/dungeon tiles.

Interesting. Never seen the boxed sets for 3 or 4. Hence why said "up-to Cyclopedia"

good OP windjammer, i agree completely.

Well, I had asked in the other thread what they were going to put in the box to offset the loss of the two maps and the tokens. The books are going to be the same page count. They are keeping the price the same though. Is that because of inflation? Do they want to make more profit? Why not add in another 16 pages or so for character creation (maybe four pages per four basic classes)?

I mean, I'll probably buy it, although I did feel somewhat disappointed with the poor (putting it nicely) 4e starter sets.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;752533Your're right, that's a great post.
But what else do you expect from Robin "Microlite" Stacey?

Indeed. Back then he also had a series of blogposts about 4e called 'Play like it's 1983', where they roll up 4th edition characters by going 3d6 in order. I kid you not - these guys are playing warlocks etc with a -4 to their "primary attack stat", and they're none the poorer for it.

Only yesterday I played Swords of Rome where a puny Gaul general had to roll a 1 on a 1d6 so his sorry band of barbarians would run in time from an overwhelming Roman army (represented by a 1 inch pile of combat unit chits on the board). When the Gaul player rolled that 1 the whole board cheered.

That's what playing a severely under-optimized 4e warlock is like. Your pact rays rarely hit - well, they do, but they hit everyting else - but when they do hit home, it's a triumph.

Anyhow, end of tangent, just another reason to (re)read Greywulf's blog.

Tell me this given Tyranny of Dragons is going up to 15th level and you can play it just with the starter box it follows at minimum you'll get basic character generation 1-20 for the 5 classes in the box. Right?

I find that they are giving out a pdf, might draw me back into play (haven't bothered with D&D in years), if I don't have to buy anything. It is actually a smart concept.

Quote from: Marleycat;752547Tell me this given Tyranny of Dragons is going up to 15th level and you can play it just with the starter box it follows at minimum you'll get basic character generation 1-20 for the 5 classes in the box. Right?

No, just 1-5 in the starter set.  Further levels will be in the free PDF.

How do we know it's a free PDF and not just pages on their website? With one, you hit their website once and you never have to return. With the other, you have to go back for repeat visits, driving traffic to their website, where they can bomb you with ads for other products.