Character Creation

[Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro]

I have discovered an interesting, and as far as I know, unique (surely it’s been done before) form of character creation that could be used for many RPG’s – especially freeform or minimal ones.

It came about playing The Window by Scott Lininger. I have been a big fan of The Window RPG for some time now and have on numerous occasions encountered players who suggest a point based system for “purchasing” dice for traits and skills.

Recently I followed a link on The Forge to James D. Hargrove’s site and there he offers the same suggestion with “The Window Frame”.

Here’s what we do - the GM (Storyteller) assigns the dice for the character! This is a lot more interesting than you would think. You interview the player about their character and as the player is describing the character you write down traits and dice and ask a few questions to clarify things if needed.

The amazing thing is you (the Storyteller) can glean some very interesting things from your players description that they may not have been aware of themselves!

Many players are turned off by the idea at first but when they see there character sheet they often get a pleasant surprise and have a few laughs. Then you can discuss the character further and adjust anything if the player so desires.

This eliminates the whole “balance characters” thing and is a lot of fun.

[Andrew Martin]

Hi Lorenzo. Welcome to The Forge!

This eliminates the whole “balance characters” thing and is a lot of fun.

Another method I've heard of involves players describing their character to the player on their left and that player assigning the scores.

I feel that this kind of group concensus on character design negates the need for a points cost system, which then allows players to play a far more wider range of characters with out the pressure to min-max character design.

[Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro]

Thanks for the reply.

That's an interesting way to do it too - probably a lot quicker if you have a large group too.

It works well for The Window.

Cheers.

[xiombarg]

I've seen this method done successfully in more "crunchy" systems, too. A friend of mine ran a GURPS game where you described your character in detail, and he created the statistics for the character.

[Lxndr]

I knew a GM that did it in HERO.  His justification was, in part, that at least that way all the characters would be equally "crunched".

[The Benj]

Been doing this for years. Works well, especially for Supers.

[Jeph]

I tend to do this for first-or-second-timers with D&D. The results tend to be quite satisfactory. And, like lxndr sais, it makes sure that the characters get a decent amount of munchkinism thrown in--enough to stop them from being deprotagonized in standard D&D situations, but not enough to make the game unfun.

--Jeff

[Mike Holmes]

I do this with GURPS so that players don't minmax the points, and because, generally I can make better enumerated characters than most players can (the missing Math skill phenomenon).

Mike

[Zak Arntson]

I have discovered an interesting, and as far as I know, unique (surely it’s been done before) form of character creation that could be used for many RPG’s – especially freeform or minimal ones.

I've seen this method done successfully in more "crunchy" systems, too. A friend of mine ran a GURPS game where you described your character in detail, and he created the statistics for the character.

Be careful with your audience, though. If someone is not up to creating their own crunchy character, they may be playing the wrong game! In a crunchy game where play (and not just character creation) is based on rules-knowledge, the helped player could easily wind up lagging behind the others and/or deriving less enjoyment from play.

[Maarzan]

This method is an easy way to get characters for people with no knowledge of setting and/or rules - probably also with free form rules where they can´t have any knowledge of those because they are all in the head of the GM.

But this puts a lot of the burden on the GM and ask for some experience on his side.

For starting GMs you would need rules again. So this way of creation can replace standard char creations in some special cases but it means in no ways that you can skip rules for creation in a game.

[Brennan Taylor]

I've done this method as well, in the Amber system. Rather than having bids or a blind auction, everyone submitted a detailed description of their character and I assigned numbers before play. It solved some of the issues I personally have with the Amber system and created a really interesting play dynamic, where the various players were a bit more unsure of where they stood in relation to their peers.