I've just finished rewriting characters with my players for the second part of our Sorcerer chron. Actually I lied, we haven't finished them yet. This has brought up something I've noted during the last games I've run. Character generation, when potential for a good story must be included, takes a damn long time. At least that's my experience.

Of course one might suggest it's only fair considering the time the GM puts into it and that it's a consequence of players taking up authorship. The problem is it's so frustating getting all the players togheter and then make them spit out good ideas on the spot. For my part, this has lead to several character generation session before actual play can start. Sitting there, preparing instead of playing just feels stupid.

So, does anyone have good ideas for shortening character generation?

Hi Petter,

My new group did chargen in about 2 1/2 hours. This

First, the players each wrote up our character descriptions (by answering the questions on page 25 and 26 of the Sorcerer rule book), each on our own, and emailed them to each other. Approximate time, 30 minutes.

Second, a few days later we met up at a coffee shop for 2 hours, going over the ideas and teasing out any more inspiration we could find.

Then we were done, handed everything off to the GM, and went on our way.

Now... from your post, what "good ideas" are you making them spit out on the spot. Sorcerer chargen really only requires the stats, the demon binding story, and a kicker. After that, you find out the story. So you might be making the chargen much harder than it has to be.

Lett me recomend two threads down in the Sorcerer section. The first is, Character Back Story, which is everyone's input on my first Sorcerer character, and then Hey Paul, Face to Face Chargen! -- which is my second attempt. Between these two threads you'll find a newbie's experience in setting up his first character, a summary of our group's chargen session, and lots of inplut and feedback from folks who've done a lot more of this than you and me.

Here's the link to the first thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2617

And here's the link to the second: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2651

Also, are you working from only the Sorcerer rules, or have you also gotten a chance to pick up Sorcerer & Sword and Sorcerer & Soul, which are both chock full of goodness about preparing Sorcerer sessions? I'm curious about this, because your answer will help improve the advice that's about to come pouring your way.

But in summary: two to three hours should to it...

Take care,
Christopher

Petter Sandelin wrote: So, does anyone have good ideas for shortening character generation?

Petter,

I can understand your frustration. Watching your group spend hours staring at their character sheets with blank looks on their faces just makes you want to beat them about the head and shoulders with a really big book.

Christopher and Jack are absolutely correct.

I've learned to get with my players way before the actual game..any game...and discuss character concepts. Before we even get together everyone has an idea of who they want to play, and sometimes they even come to the table with characters in hand. If they don't, it's just a matter of creating them already knowing what they want.

It's much easier than sitting them down cold at the table when you're ready to play.

From what I've read, and my small amount of play with Sorcerer, part of the fun is coming up with character's stories during play. You don't have to have their life stories when you start.

Good luck and have fun playing.

melodie

Hi Petter,

I'm a little curious about this issue, and a little worried. You're a Sorcerer veteran, now, and at least some of your players are too. You have a good idea of what gets accomplished during play. That's what seems weird to me - that you and your group, specifically, are taking this long and spending this much effort. It's not as if you're newcomers to the game.

Do me a favor. You already went through character creation for the first six-session play of Sorcerer. How was that different from what you're doing now? Why is this difference appearing?

Best,
Ron

There seems to be some separate issues here.

The first obstacles in character generation is getting something done during the session. As said, having people bring ideas and have more of a discussion session is good. Strikes me it's a bit more difficult if players are new to the game but a few pointers to what they need to think about will help. On the other hand, before some games I've felt it necessary to bring the players to the first session to discuss stuff like one-sheets, general style of the game etc. and that prevents bringing ideas.

Maybe I should point out that this problem isn't Sorcerer specific. I've encountered it in many other N-style games I've run lately. And yeah, I'm a happy owner of Sword and Soul.

Second, how much should be worked out. The threads pointed out above have discussed that so i won't go into it. I just want to say that I feel I, as a GM, need quite a lot of stuff to build on for the game.

Ron Edwards wrote: Do me a favor. You already went through character creation for the first six-session play of Sorcerer. How was that different from what you're doing now? Why is this difference appearing?

Hi Petter,

Follow up questions:

Basically, what the players need to bring to the table are the answer to the nine questions on page 25 and 26 of Sorcerer. From that, with a round robin discussion to help flesh out and chrystilize these nine points, the GM should be able to build a Relationship Map (discussed on the Sorcerer boars and in Sorcerer and Soul) and then run a session.

When you say you, as a GM, need a lot to build on, are you saying you need more than than those nine questions answered? Becauase everyone else seems to think that's enough, and if you're looking for more, that's not a function of N-style games, but a choice you're making for what you need -- which is more than is required to actually run this style of game.

Of course, building a Relationship Map (discussed on the Adept Boards as well in Sorcerer's Soul) really helps the GM do a great deal of prep after those nine questions are answered. But that's something the GM can do alone -- it doesn't depend on getting more material from the players.

So, the next questions from me are 1) what are you looking for more than the nine chargen questions from the players and 2) what are you doing to prep that requires more information?

Take care,
Christopher

Dear Petter:

I play in a group of six people. We used to play AD&D 2nd Edition but we found so many errors, loops and time consuming concepts that we decided to stop. Sure the universe and plot for the stories are good in AD&D, but the battle system was horrible. So now we are playing Starwars 2nd edition and we love it.

Some reasons why I and my friends prefer it over other systems are:

1. You only need some six sided dice. No D20, D8, D10. If you lose one of them, you have to go buy another one. If you lose a D6, you have another.

2. We have found that rolling a D20 is way to random.

3. Armor class and THAC0 and multiple dice of variable sides are too complex. With pips, all you have to do is divide your number of dice in a skill by 3 (there are 3 pips in a die).

4. In a campaign I played a while back, I played as a cleric/mage. Guess what? I had 1 HP!... Okay, I had 2 because the gamemaster felt sorry for me. I like how they did the health system in Starwars. If you are shot by a blaster, you could be a Jedi and still die if you were hit (of course it is still hard to hit a Jedi), whereas in D&D, a fighter with platemail is barely hitable by an arrow but a mage will most surely be hit and will not survive.

Conclusion:

Play Starwars 2nd edition. It is less complex so creating characters does not take more than 30 minutes usually.

Hi Scratchware,

This might be good advice... But might not. As far as I can tell, Petter's priority is not fast character creation -- but faster character creation in Sorcerer.

Let's remember that it's not easy to keep answers on target, but it's probably worth the effort.

Take care,
Christopher

Scratchware! Darn you... Never mind... Anyway:

I just finished character generation for my character. It took about two hours, over the phone. It was in 2nd edition D&D. I have found that creating characters beforehand is the best option. There is one big assumtion that has been made that I don't agree with so here it is:

1. Character generation is boring or bad and should be avoided.

Response: I find character generation as interesting as actual play, as I get to write several things up and create stories that I know will be of interest to other people. About 20 minutes ago I was talking to my friend about dividation spells. It went like this.

Me:So, what first level spells are there?

Him:Detect magic, identify, and detect undead.

Me:And?

Him:And what?

Me: What other spells are there?

Him: There aren't any more.

Me: That's funny, but you could have made the joke better.

Him: What do you mean?

Me: The joke about the limit of the number of spells.

Him: What joke?

Me: I'm serious. I'm not in a laughing mood. What other spells are there?

Him: There aren't any.

Me:Anthony; what is the other spell?!

Him:{laughs histerically}

Character creation allows full expression of ideas and concept, which is why I enjoy it so much.

Petter,

Something clearly needs to be reviewed in how you and your players create Sorcerer characters. I'm not sure if the extra time is being taken by discussion or individual preparation, but I am guessing, either way, that it concerns previous character histories and general character "motivation."

Previous character history should be much sketchier than what one finds in, say, Vampire or Cyberpunk (to pick two examples which encourage extensive pre-play histories). Check out the Art-Deco Melodrama threads and review how much history each character had.

"Motivation" is much more troublesome. A lot of people are used to playing characters according to pre-set parameters of behavior. Alignment is an example. Psychological disadvantages ("will not kill," "greedy," "code of honor") are examples. The player is essentially promising that his character will act in such-and-such a way. Many people are so used to this method of character creation that they try to establish such parameters for any role-playing game, prior to play.

Sorcerer does not require these parameters. A character is perfectly free to act against his or her own "style." For instance, a person with the Will descriptor "User" might do something, one day, in a sympathetic, altruistic way. Others might say, "Wow, that's not like him," or, "Typically, he doesn't do that," but there is no game expectation to say, "He can't do that! That's not his character! It says so on his sheet!"

Therefore a lot of pre-character preparation to make it clear to everyone how each player-character is "going to act" is completely misplaced in this game.

It may be that I'm entirely off-base and not helping your situation at all. Let me know.

Best,
Ron

The list on page 25 and 26 describes about what I want from a character(the "size" is also about what I want in other games). That is, if all the points are concidered thoroughly. I don't think this is overwhelming but still takes quite a lot of effort, especially if most of the thinking is done during a session. What I was looking for was quite general character generation tips. How to get everyone going etc. Telling players to think stuff over better before the sesison, was a good one. A problem with that though, is that I often find I need to discuss stufff face to face with the players before any thinking on their part can be done.

Sorry if I've mislead you.

Pyron,

I agree character generation should be fun. It is. My concern is more that character generation is a bit long and because of that hinders the ultimate goal, playing.

..,
Petter

Petter,

I think I know what you're getting at. I think you're not saying that it takes so long to generate ENOUGH information because you only need the nine items described in the rule book. Instead, I think you're saying it takes a long time for your particular players to generate just those nine items. Is this what you're saying?

Example,

I could rattle off maybe 5 Sorcerer characters in the space of half an hour. However, you're saying that it takes two hours for your players to produce just one. Is this the idea?

I know that issue. My girlfriend is like this. She's very good at rounding out and finishing other people's characters but has a hard time coming up with a character of her own from scratch.

If this is the issue then one of the things you can do is come up with some 'archetype' style suggestions. Just throw out ideas on the table. No actual stats or demon powers or anything like that. But just things like, "Well, how about a journalist?" Or even throw out characters from movies as 'types' to play.

The problem stems from too many games that use either Classes or Archetypes to guide character generation. You tell a Deadlands player it's a Western and they stare at you blankly but if you hand them the rule book and they start flipping through the sample character section, they'll go, "Oh a Preacher, yeah I want to play a Preacher" and then they'll spring board from there.

Some people just need that initial creative push.

Jesse

Jesse,

you're right on. This is exactly the kind of stuff I was thinking about, although it took me some time to nai it down. Archetypes and example sections can help a lot.

I've noticed that it's sometimes good to let players get a better picture of what their doing. Instead of going form point to point, give a good general view of what needs to be done. This evens out the flow of ideas as people gets ideas about stuff you're not really discussing right now.

Petter

One reason I think character creation can take so long is that players are afraid of making the wrong choices before the game even begins.

Classic example: language skills in Shadowrun. I got so fed up with taking the exact WRONG language skills for the GM's adventure that I started playing characters with skillsofts (need to learn a language? just plug in the appropriate chip).

Another example would be D&D. The choices you make for your 1st level character are perhaps the most important in the game.

And heaven forbid you accidentally make a fighty character in a non-combat oriented game (or vice versa).

This thread is covering a lot of really good ground...

First, I think archtypes or suggestions are always a good idea if the players don't already have one in mind. I find that with narrativist games, particularly if the players do not have a pregen setting in front of them, it's a good idea to either start pulling examples from books or movies as far as style and attitude, or start giving more guidance as to what the game is going to involve.

This links directly into players worrying about picking the wrong skills or making bad choices. You can say, "This game is pulp, think Indiana Jones, stunts, action, weird locales, etc" and that gives the players a better idea of what to go with.

The second issue that I think comes up is that players want to have game play similar to what they see in movies or good books, but define their characters very differently than movies or books do.

Because the entire group is the audience, the backstory doesn't exist until it's played out in front of players, just as GM backstory doesn't exist until stated. The players often come up with complex backstories, but cannot bring it over to actual play, leaving a giant disjunction between the character in concept and the character in play.

What I suggest is that players define their characters in more open terms and simply define them through play. The questions then become more role based than character background based.

For example
What kind of character-Cold, calculating businessman, think Bruce Wayne
without any conscience
What kind of action do you want- Lots of social intimidation, intrigue, political manuevering
What's driving you-I have to keep convincing myself that I'm worth something...

Then using those kind of ideas to immerse the character and let the character get adapted to the story in play, not the story "As was written". Of course, the hardest thing is getting players to let go of the predefined character as the sole definition of character.

From the example above, it doesn't state what kind of business this character is in, or how big the business is, etc., etc, but can be something to be created in play, not before play. Take a look at Hero Wars creation in play rules, and you'll get a good idea of what I'm talking about.

Chris

Hey,

One reason I think character creation can take so long is that players are afraid of making the wrong choices before the game even begins.

I think Jared makes a fantastic point here. And beyond his Shadowrun and D&D examples, I think it's just as relevant to narrativist games. At least it is for me. Making decisions about my character is hard for me. Check out my recent difficulty creating a Whispering Vault character for an example. Upon considering it, I think the problem with making decisions about character for me has been not knowing how much empowerment over situation and setting elements to expect in actual play from an unfamiliar combination of rules-set and GM. Witness the conflict between me and Scott over how much like a B horror movie his character's story would be like during our recent playtest of The World, the Flesh, and the Devil. He thought he'd have more influence than he did. Making a narrativist character for me is, in many ways, a guessing game, trying to skew the details in such a way that when he's mixed with the stuff the GM won't budge about during actual play, I still end up with a protagonist and a story that's interesting to me. It's an exercise in managing my own expectations, examining what's significant to me, trying to be trusting, presenting the character to the group in such a way that he's captures audience interest prior to gameplay, and assessing whether I'm going to be able to handle the character so, given the rules-set and GM expectations for the game, that audience interest is maintained. You don't want to make any mistakes, because if you do, you're in for disappointment. The whole thing is provoked by fear of disappointment.

Paul