Character Generation: An Idea of Mine...

[Ben O'Neal]

Ok, I have this idea for chargen, which I'd like to just "throw out there" and see what you guys think.

For starters, alot of people seem to like "qualitative" descriptions because of their freedom, and yet mechnically, they nearly always have to have numbers assigned to them (3d6 +I like beer?). But from what I've seen of such qualitative ideas, I don't think they go far enough. I mean, no-one is a list of one-sentence lines.

Secondly, I like the idea of a deep character -someone with a frickin history that actually holds meaning for them.

So it got me thinking (late at night, when I should be sleeping), "what about essays?". I mean, really, has anyone ever considered why essays are used as a benchmark in education systems? Every essay is different (ignoring plagiarism), but they are still all measured quantitatively along a common scale. So here's my idea:

Chargen begins with each player writing an "essay" describing their character. It must have at least 4 sections. The first section is history. They must describe, in as much detail as they can, everything important that has ever happened to their character, including people, relationships, problems, the good times and the bad. The next section is present. They must describe what it is that their character is currently doing or hopes to do within a range of 2 months (at most), like their job, relationships, interests, social life, obsessions, and all that. The third section is future. Obsviously, they can't dictate their future, but this is the section where they describe their characters goals and stategies for achieving them. The fourth section is a description of the character. It includes a physical description, emotional description, mental description, what they own, where they live, name, age, all that junk.

Ok, so once they have written up their character, this "essay" is then passed around all the other players and the GM (if any) for "peer review". There will be a set of criteria that must be followed, and the character sheet gets marked according to the criteria. If there is any discrepency between the marks it gets from different players (and there will be), then the average of those marks is taken.

This score then becomes the number of points your character has for chargen/play/whatever. For example, the easiest and most common method would be to use these points to spend on character attributes/skills/whatever, and these would probably be ripped straight out of the essay to give a numerical measure of what was described. Another use could be as a sort of "plot resource", which could be spent to affect the game in some way, and then you'd need a system for regenerating this resource (OR you could be really crazy and make it a non-renewable resource, meaning that the character can only affect life so much until life overwhelms them, forcing them to decide when to change fate and when to go with the flow! Crazy!). I dunno, I'm just playing with the chargen idea at the moment, maybe one day I might make a system out of it (hence the reason this thread is in theory instead of design).

I'm thinking part of what would guide the criteria for marking the character sheet/essays would be number of/severity of personal problems the character has been through, with a measure of plausibility and a measure of drama. One thing I like about this idea is that more detailed and interesting characters get more points, which is great, because more detailed characters also make plots and adventures more interesting and complex. Plus right from the start it's getting players to create characters who will be highly developed, and thus easier to play.

The only downfall I can see is the effort required to generate characters, in that each player must have a good think about them and come up with something they like, and then the other players must review all the character sheets of all the other players. However, aside from my opinion that the benefits would be worth it, I also think that this idea may appeal to some people, especially this girl I know who thinks coming up with interesting characters is more fun than playing them (probably because she hasn't found a system that allows her to play them the way she wants).

So anyways, that's a general run-down (*cough*RANT*cough*) of my not-so-well-developed idea for chargen. A few quick questions:

Firstly, what do you guys think? Is it workable?
Has this been done before, and if so, how well did it turn out?
Should I maybe develop the idea further? Or is it completely unappealing?

Thanks,

-Ben

[Green]

Firstly, what do you guys think? Is it workable?
Has this been done before, and if so, how well did it turn out?
Should I maybe develop the idea further? Or is it completely unappealing?

I know this is going to sound like I'm just pimping my system, but based on what you have here, Kathanaksaya may be interesting to you.  Currently, I'm running a  Matrix game with it, and it's working beautifully.  The system is well-suited for the sort of thing you are going for.  Although I hadn't  considered the essay format at the time, it is a perfectly valid means of organizing character data in Kathanaksaya.

[Trevis Martin]

Another one to look at is the Pool and specifically the Questing Beast variation of the Pool.

In the pool you start of with a strict 50 word limit which you draw your initial traits from.  After every session you are permitted to add 15 more words.  In TQB you write about a page of your characters story and derive your 'motifs' from that in a similar fasion to the Pool.

regards,

Trevis

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Ravien, I strongly recommend that you examine the three similar, not but not identical character creation methods in these games:

The Pool
Castle Falkenstein
HeroQuest

Great reading and guaranteed to blow at least a few circuits.

Best,
Ron

[Shreyas Sampat]

In response to your questions:
It looks like more work than I'd find worth it, but it could work.
Ron has linked you to great reference.
I find your hypothesized criteria unappealing, but I think that in a more disciplined form, and tuned specifically to the game they are trying to support, "background rating mechanisms" could be useful.

General commentary on the idea:

What kind of gameplay do you want to derive from this chargen procedure? From my experience, I suspect that if you don't end up with something that looks like a HeroQuest character at the end, a lot of the effort that is put into the essay-writing will not have any real impact on the game - I have seen countless characters who have beautiful and memorable histories that have had no discernible impact on the way the character is played.

You're running with this dual assumption, I feel, that "more complex characters are inherently better", and "characters do not complexify through play." I don't think that the first is applicable to every kind of play, and the second, in every experience I have had, is false. I think that your idea's interesting, but i think that an examination of these two assumptions (maybe you're not making them after all, but examine them anyway!) can get you an even stronger system.

[ChefKyle]

I second the recommendation to have a look at Hero Wars. It's not as lengthy as what you describe, but is otherwise similar.

As to time and effort, well, people are willing to do that in character generation for the number-crunching stuff. I mean, I recently spent four hours making a character for Rulemonster, it involved 12 books. I kid you not - 12 books for one character. It was horrendous, and so complex that I could have easily cheated and souped up my character.

So, if people will spend hours number-crunching and referencing books for the Gamist stuff, I don't see why they wouldn't do so for writing (Narrativist stuff). You just need the right players... the minimaxers will hate it. But there's enough storyteller types out there who will love it.

[M. J. Young]

The one thing that comes to my mind is that you want this sort of intensive character generation system to go with something that's going to provide long-term play--high survivability for the kinds of characters people create, and if not campaign play at least long multi-session arcs. No one is going to want to put this effort into a character that will only last one or two nights.

My mind goes back to a thread about a year ago, http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5826&start=15&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=">100% Subjective Character Generation, in which I proposed something (the last post) similar but a lot briefer (both in how long it takes and in the amount of detail). It might be helpful, as might much of the thread.

--M. J. Young

[Bluve Oak]

I have tossed about similar ideas like this too Ben, including using astrology software to generate a 30 page report on the character and his likely fate! You could then add numerology, psychology personality tests, etc etc..

But after a while I concluded that a personality is a seriously deep thing and never can be really captured by any length of description. And at the end of a day we are just playing a game.

If you want a game like this that's fine but it is in my experience that our characters in rpg's - even those that proclaim to be highly realistic - aren't really characters at all but rather "caricature's", a bunch of aphorisms or even cliches that are interesting and fun to play.

I think for most player's this is more important.

And have you also considered that this sort of depth of character develops as the gamne is played? The Pool was mentioned as a game that does this, but I think all RPG's do to some degree.

[Ben O'Neal]

Hey guys, thanks for your comments,

Funnily enough, I had read The Pool just after posting this thread! I also read Ron's review of it. All in all, I'm not too sure how I like it yet. Of course I haven't played it, but it didn't really "leap out at me". But that's just my opinion. (Also, thanks for the list Ron, I'll check out the other two games whenever I see them ;)

And have you also considered that this sort of depth of character develops as the gamne is played? The Pool was mentioned as a game that does this, but I think all RPG's do to some degree.

Yeah, I reckon constant development of a character is a really important thing for keeping a game going. Honestly, I hadn't thought that far with this chargen idea -it just popped into my head and I thought "hmmm, let's see what other people have to say about this and similar ideas".

The one thing that comes to my mind is that you want this sort of intensive character generation system to go with something that's going to provide long-term play--high survivability for the kinds of characters people create, and if not campaign play at least long multi-session arcs. No one is going to want to put this effort into a character that will only last one or two nights.

Yeah, I definately would not use this sort of thing for anything but a long-term game. I was throwing around the idea of taking advantage of the fact that every player would know every other player's character really well to have play driven around manipulating the others into achieving some huge personal goals (which would be entirely secret, and must be significant enough to require alot of manipulation). They could use whatever resource they recieved from their chargen to take advantage of aspects of the other characters and the other players could use their resources to prevent this or allow it in return for manipulating them back. Layers of complexity. Such a game would not require a GM, and would probably spiral into a schizophrenic nightmare.

Alternatively, I was also throwing around the idea of having the resource be "time as God", in which case players can bid to be the GM until another player bids to be the GM. The other players could still describe what their characters were attempting to do and the GM could decide how things turn out. If a player doesn't like it, then they can simply bid to be the GM. I'm thinking such an idea would require an "endgame", where the player with the most "time" left when their characters acheive the stated goal of the session wins and gets more "time" for the next session.

Very, very preliminary ideas I know. I've just been letting my mind wander is all.

Also, thanks for the thread link, I read it, and it was interesting. Hehe, it was the preacher, and I was the choir! I'm big on character concepts, rather than min/maxing. One of the things I'm trying to do with Eclipse (though my success is yet to be determined) is build the system around concepts in a quantitative -rather than qualitative- way. Like the whole complex social interaction thing which most people won't understand/be interested in. Like how interpersonal social interaction mechanics interact with extrapersonal social mechanics (reputation) and combat mechanics. It's all based on complex concepts with vast areas for specialization makes min-maxing very difficult IMHO and not nearly as interesting as working to a character concept. But that's enough pimpin of my own shit for now!

As to time and effort, well, people are willing to do that in character generation for the number-crunching stuff. I mean, I recently spent four hours making a character for Rulemonster, it involved 12 books. I kid you not - 12 books for one character. It was horrendous, and so complex that I could have easily cheated and souped up my character.

Really? 4 hours? 12 books? Shit. And they call that game Rulemonster huh? Can't imagine why...

But yeah, I agree with your point. Such a chargen idea would, I think, be great for certain types of players (budding authors, author/wannabes, etc), so long as it was part of a system that really focused on and took advantage of the chargen. Now if only I can think of such a system...

I find your hypothesized criteria unappealing, but I think that in a more disciplined form, and tuned specifically to the game they are trying to support, "background rating mechanisms" could be useful.

Yeah, I see your point. The ratings would have to be tied in closely to exactly what the game is about, and how well that character will mesh with the game/setting/other PC's, rather than a simple measure of how good the player is at developing a complex and realistic character. Thanks!

-Ben