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Typewriter
2009-04-09, 10:33 AM
I started something a while back that my players really enjoy, and I figured I'd post it to see if anyone liked it. I will tell you - this works best the first times it's used, but after that players will start trying to find ways to abuse it.

This first post is going to be an explanation of what I do, and my next post is going to be asking for advice with problems that arise from this.

The first session of the campaign(and sometimes the second) begin with the players not having character sheets. They are 1 hit point creatures, and they are 5-8 years old. Give them a description of the town they live in, and ask them questions about their behavior growing up, to about age 12.
Do you play with other kids?
Do you like your parents?
Do you go to school, or work at some menial task?
A girl pushes you down. What do you do in response?
You're told not to leave the city. Ever. Do you listen?
etc.

Have events occur, and see how they respond.
A girl pushes you down. What do you do in response?
A golem crashes through the gate and begins to smash things. Someone yells to get to safety. Do you?
A bully arises amongst NPC children, how do you respond to him?
A friend goes missing, and the parents say they've got it handled. Do you launch an 'investigation'?
etc.

Once you reach level 12 things really start happening.
The local mages are taking apprentices.
Monks from the monastery are looking for disciples.
The town guard is training recruits.
The town 'diplomat' needs a ward(is actually a rogue).
etc.

So every year the kids go and train with these people, and in each situation they should be presented with different challenges and experiences that they must deal with through role-playing - not dice rolling. And every year they get to come back to town for a few months to interact with each other again, forming a bond.

As they're growing up, have different things happen. A friend slowly turns dark, and moves away to be with his creepy older sister in a keep to the north. A kingdom claims this land and starts imposing heavier and heavier taxes on them. Golems march into town and ask if anyone has seen person "X" who is actually the town blacksmith(who does not present himself directly, so that'll be up to the party).

Lots and lots of hooks. At the end of this session(or two, as this can take awhile) give them their stats and class skills. If they ran and jumped and played a lot, bonuses to STR and DEX. If they spent time in school, bonuses to INT. Etc. etc. You can give them a base outline of stats, and then a few points to spend on top of that if they'd like. For instance, a child who did the following:

Spent a lot of time playing = Plus STR
Tried to attack a monster attacking the city = Neg WIS
Stood up to the bully and helped kids = Plus CHA
Trained with monks for 2 years = Plus DEX WIS CON but got Neg INT

and then three years as a town guard trainee would get Plus STR CON CHA

So you would give him stats of
STR 16
DEX 12
CON 12
INT 8
WIS 10
CHA 12

which equates out to 24 points. Give him additional points equal to the strength of the campaign you want to run and allow him to spend as he likes.

The other thing I do with this is I assign 'class skills'. You dont get your class lists skills. You get what you did growing up +2 of your choice. If you never learned to read, then you are illiterate. If you did, but you end up as a barbarian, then you are not illiterate.

Why this works well:
It shows players things that they might be good at playing that they never thought of. I had a player who always played rogues, and he wound up with really good bard stats, and he played a bard really well.

And for the campaign? If you've planted enough seeds you can have them do any number of things. Maybe orcs start showing up with the tax collectors threatening them, so they have to go deal with the orcs. Maybe they want to know why they're friend went missing. You could even go with the old fashioned(and somewhat lame) town gets destroyed. This works really well especially if you got them attached to people in the city. Maybe one of them had a girlfriend, or maybe someone had parents they liked a lot.


Let me know what you think of this. I'm very curious as to what other people think. It's also very easy to add variations to this, and personalize it. Last time I did this, I required classes to semi-match up with the training people did. No spending 5 years with the mages, then going Paladin.

Typewriter
2009-04-09, 10:54 AM
OK

That's my overly long post describing how I begin campaigns where I dm. Now I have a few problems that I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on.

Abuse of this system:
After doing this a couple times, people started to try and abuse the role-playing aspect of it. I had a player who wanted to build a CON based character, so his answer to every question was "I endure" which was not helpful. I ended up giving him a high WIS out of spite for 'mental endurance'.

The home town:
I promised in my last campaign that I would not do something lame like destroy their hometown like I had done in previous campaigns. This campaign ended with the party going to the town to find the mayor, and when they couldn't find him, they destroyed the town themselves...butchered everyone(parents included) and burnt down every building.

Even beyond just having the town there, it's kind of hard to maintain the upkeep of this place. Especially when they're so tied to it. They were in constant contact with the mayor, and the importance of people in this town was usually a bit overdone. One of the unimportant NPCs in the town became very important because someone in the party thought they were important(Of course its him, he's from our hometown!!!=fail logic). It was fun, but it was a bit weird.

Death:
The first couple times I did this players were essentially immune to death. They would be captured, easily raised, turned undead, etc. just to keep these characters alive and kicking simply because so much time had been spent on role-playing and party development.

But lately I've been trying to shy away from that and enable death. It feels a lot like a waste when you die in the third session when you spent the first 2 sessions establishing this character.

And what do you do for re-creation? You cant roleplay everything all over again, so you wind up just letting people do 32 point build, and huzzah their new character is better than everyone else because it's fully customized to be awesome and useful, where as you might be limited in other ways from the growing up portions.


AND for one last comment - something I'm having trouble with now.
Party grew up in war torn world(left war torn after their actions in the last campaign). In this town was a hero of light who was pure awesome good, and a diplomat representing dark(not pure evil, but the dark side of politics easily). The good guy can no longer participate in the war(orders from his god).

While on a diplomatic mission to gain allies the party killed a diplomat from a 'opposing nation' forcing the hand of the ones they wanted to be allies with (they think you killed their diplomat, so now you have no choice but to go with us). The Knight in the party was responsible and owned up for this when the party 'leader' said they could take the blame out on their supervisor(a evil officer they had killed earlier). They didn't mention that this guy was dead, just that he was a superior who could take the blame. The knight said nothing.

The army said they would agree to the alliance once they had their blood. They freed the party and sent someone after the person they told him about. When they arrived they found out that he was dead(at the hands of the party) so angered they were on the border of war, declaring that they would find the party and butcher them when the dark guy kind of convinced the light guy to take the hit(he was an even higher ranking officer).

Now the party knows what their actions have caused, and theres problems. In character the knights is bitter that his lack of action led to this, while the party leader is just glad that he kept his 'platoon' alive. Out of character everyone is really really bitter, and not really talking about it at all.

Any thoughts?

Egiam
2009-04-09, 10:58 AM
Neat idea! I would only recommend 2 hp, instead of just 1.

Tempest Fennac
2009-04-09, 11:29 AM
Regarding the system, it's interresting, but I'd sooner just use more conventional character creation methods due to it being quicker while being easier for making the character which I want to play as. Regarding new characters, I'd recommend having back-ups with your system.

I'm not sure what to recommend about the ingame problem. Maybe starting over with new characters would work, but it would mean the game up to that point was a waste of time. :smallfrown:

Typewriter
2009-04-09, 11:51 AM
@Tempest

Yeah, this system doesn't really provide people with exactly what we want bu thats part of the reason I started using it.

We had one guy who always played high cha character but...um...couldn't? He himself had a cha of about 6, so always having to deal with his "OMG high cha" character got really old.

Another guy always played rogues, and doing this got him interested in playing other things.

And while it is slower it makes people earn playing what they want to play. A lot of players make things like knights or some such, and then break the knights code constantly, but oh no, it only costs 1 usage of knights challenge.

But for my party the character concept is the important part, not the class, so this enables a class to match the personality, not the other way around, as most people do.

Not saying that thats you, or that this system would work well for everyone, just explaining the mindset behind it.


But yeah, on your other point that's kind of what I'm going to do if theres ever a full party wipe(but there actions will have mattered because every campaign takes place XX many years after the last in the same world.

But I dont want to have to do that if one person dies. As it stands I've been allowing people just 32 point builds but personalities aren't matching the stats, and that kind of sucks. It's like you get to be less restricted by the rules because you died. I've decided that after someone goes through their third character they'll have restrictions on what they can build(28 point build, dm picks race randomly, no free la(which everyone was getting), etc.)

We had one guy who created an exalted vow of poverty druid in the growing up session, and he almost immediately retired him because he didn't like vow of poverty or being a druid(he went into the campaign aiming for that too).

The real problem is maintaining a balance between roleplaying and power.

valadil
2009-04-09, 12:19 PM
I like the idea, but I can see why your players are trying to game the system. I think this would be a great way to start up a campaign in a new game that nobody had played before or to introduce new players to roleplaying, but I just can't see players really getting into it each time you started up this way.

What if you ran the childhood sessions for longer? Maybe they'd invest more in playing their young character and less in grinding for stats.

Alternatively, what if you let your players give you a template for the character they wanted to play? Like, they'd write up a 25 point buy set of stats, then you run through their childhood, and finally you finish off their stats based on how they played. The gamier players might appreciate the extra control given out.

Also, have you played Fallout 3? It starts out like this. Try playing through the opening of that game a couple times so you can see what's its like from a player's POV.

Typewriter
2009-04-09, 12:36 PM
I have played fallout 3...I'm surprised I never realized that before....oh well...I'll add it to the list of things I've accidentally stolen ideas from(though fallout 3 came out after I started doing this)...

Like I said the first time it went really well, and everyone had a lot of fun. This is the fourth time I've ever done it, out of the last 8 campaigns, and I knew I shouldn't have. When I decided I wanted player death to be optional I knew it would be a bad idea.

Making the childhood thing go for longer might be a doable idea. We usually start at level 3-5. I could probably give everyone make a level 1 character sheet at the end of one session with low stats, and then have the next couple sessions worth more stats, and gain one level per until we get to the desired starting point.

Splitting control a little bit more could also work, but only with some of my players. I had one guy spend all his time with with rogues, then he made an incarnate characer putting all his points into CON. I want it to make some sense.

But I could assign 14 points, and allow them to assign 14 points. Hmmm.....

It's gotten a bit harder to get into as far as growing up, especially with me constantly trying to come up with new things instead of having it be exactly the same every time. But the point at which the campaign begins is usually worth it.

The first time the hometown was outside a gate leading into some magically barricaded mountains, and the creatures of the mountains came out and slaughtered the parties families(and everyone else) while holding them down and making them watch. A cheesy destroy the hometown intro, but an effective one.

haha...last time I did this two players decided to make a raft while growing up, but before they could finish I rolled spot checks to see if any other players noticed them wandering off to the river. One of them did, and he was presented with this info. He sabotaged their raft and almost killed them....all before there were any character sheets.....hahaha

Calinero
2009-04-09, 12:47 PM
You seem to have a problem with you players going nuts and killing things they aren't supposed to. Perhaps they should work on that.

Typewriter
2009-04-09, 12:53 PM
I dont really consider them killing things to be a problem.

I rather enjoy watching the world I've created have to respond to their actions.

Granted sometimes they remove and NPC I was really excited about, but I don't create them for myself.

:)

Tempest Fennac
2009-04-09, 12:56 PM
I tend to come up with character concepts while attempting to pick abilities and classes which fit the concept, but I class the mechnical part as more important then the fluff part due to the crnch having more effect on how the character solves problems and acts (I prefer RPing to combat, but I'm limited to playing as good aligned polite helpful characters due to my inability to do anything else convincingly for long peroids). Regarding the Rogue guy, was it a problem that he only wanted to use Rogues? (I tend to hate being told what to do, which is another reason why I want to be the one who picks what I play as.*)


*I also look at what the party needs if other characters have been made once I've joined.

Shpadoinkle
2009-04-09, 01:03 PM
Sounds like your players want to play an evil campaign.

Also, I agree that while this might be a good way to introduce someone to roleplaying if they've never done it before, experienced players are likely to, as yours did, try to manipulate the system.

Typewriter
2009-04-09, 01:07 PM
The problem wasn't that he wanted to play a rogue all the time, just that he 'didn't' really want to play a rogue. He would sneak around some, and pick locks when available, but he wasn't really a 'rogue'.

When he got his stats and decided to play a bard based off of them he wound up being able to play more in tune with his abilities. And because he had spent some time with the rogue training I assigned him the rogue skills as class skills. I dont remember if he used them or not, but I think he did. Having skills match your rp style instead of your class also enables a great deal of customization(based off of roleplaying of course).

He actually spent 2 years with the 'diplomat', but at one point I rolled randomly for what happens that year. He got really sick for a couple weeks. His trainer showed up, and told him that being sick wasn't going to get him out of learning. He then stabbed him in a major artery and left, telling him he had better come up with a smart way to deal with the blood loss, before he died.

After he failed to convince his mother that he 'just started bleeding' she no longer allowed him to train with him, so he went to the musicians instead since they were interesting.

The idea wasn't to convince people not to play what they wanted to play, but instead to get them into the mindset of actually playing what they're going to be playing. He could have made a rogue had he wanted, but by the time it came around he realized that his character was not a rogue, but a bard.




Sorry for all the long-winded responses. I have a lot of trouble with brevity.

Typewriter
2009-04-09, 11:12 PM
Sounds like your players want to play an evil campaign.



Also, I agree that while this might be a good way to introduce someone to roleplaying if they've never done it before, experienced players are likely to, as yours did, try to manipulate the system.



The campaigns dont begin with an alignment in mind. It simply goes wherever they take it. Some turn out good, most turn out evil.



Starting a campaign out with an evil mindset is like saying roleplaying not required. Making them develop themselves though....that leads to some truly evil deeds....and that makes for some good roleplaying.





And most of my players have been playing D&D for 5-10 years or more, and have no problems with the system. It's just a few people with either short-character-attention spans or powergamers who kind of jack things up...most like the idea of the importance of roleplaying, and it has nothing to do with familiarity with the system.

Katrascythe
2009-04-09, 11:44 PM
I'm actually going to try something sort of similar to this. The players will make their characters are normal, with help to make sure that their builds aren't horrifically bad (Don't have much of a problem with being *too* good).

Then, what I would like to do is basically sit down and interview the players one on one. It would be a cross-examination for all practical purposes. Our group has MAJOR issues with RP. I'm hoping that grinding them to think of backstories and motivations will be enough to make them relate to their character. My general questions are generally something like this

-What do you do for a living?
-Did you always want to do this?
-What is your family like?
-Why did you choose "X" as a familiar (and not for mechanical reason...)

It's not necessarily the big picture I want to get, I'm more interested in the little quirks each character will have. I can get plot hooks that way by playing to a character's interest instead of getting plot based on what a player wants the game to give them. The group is pretty open-minded so hopefully they'll go with it, at least for a while.

................Then again I believe in Santa Claus and Unicorns

I really like the rolling randomly to see what happened to the person that year. That is something I need to try, too. Only thing is that one of the PC's is several hundred years old and I don't feel like making that many rolls... I'll just have to take his life in chunks.

Deme
2009-04-10, 12:07 AM
I wanted to thank the OP. For a while now I've been wanting to start a new game with a pair of friends of mine who were in my IRL group until one of them moved, breaking up the group. I came to them with the suggestion of trying this, or my understanding of this.
I don't think we're going to keep this as a way of generating stats; I'm not good at deciding when to add numbers and ect. But in terms of deciding class and personality and how they move and live and who they are, and building a tight bond between the party before they even become the party, and to the world around them... We all agree that it's just awesome.

We're about 3 years into the 10-year background-building plan, and we're loving it.

Winter_Wolf
2009-04-10, 12:28 AM
I must say, I really like the system. It reminds me a bit of the old 0th level character section in the back of the 1E AD&D Greyhawk hardcover, but more involved. I'd like to give it a try if I ever managed to get a group and the time to play again.

As for some people trying to work the system, that's too bad, 'cause I think it's a pretty good way to figure out a character that you'd like to play, plus I like the way you handle the class skills with it.

Great work, I hope to steal it in the future for my own gaming.

Ovaltine Patrol
2009-04-10, 12:42 AM
As an experiment in world building, I once had the players run extremely high level characters for three sessions before beginning the actual campaign. The campaign was set a few thousand years after the first three sessions and those characters were part of a pantheon that replaced the old gods. The dogma, churches, and myths surrounding those gods was influenced by how the characters ran them.

I think the concept worked pretty well, the players got to participate in the world building in a fun way, and were more invested in the world's history. They also had a few laughs (and groans) as to how what they did as those characters was interpreted by later generations.

Typewriter
2009-04-10, 08:06 AM
@Katrascythe

I did the questionnaire thing before. It worked out pretty well. It caused some minor hiccups, but for the most part it made people think about what they were playing beforehand.

The rolling randomly thing worked pretty well for me. It has things like attacks on the city, people getting sick, death of royalty, potential for character flaws(the specific flaw was then rolled on a separate table), etc.

And having older characters really kind of screws up my system. Any time people play older races they usually wind up being X years until reaching maturity where X is the number of years of the growing up campaign. It keeps them from interacting with the other players a whole lot(because of the age difference), but it's wonky. Stupid long-lived elves.....


@Deme

I'm glad you liked it and I hope it works out for you :)

Let me know how it works out.


@Winter Wolf

I had a friend who collected every book he could. He had most of 1st edition at his parents house(just never went back to get them) and had all 2nd edition, and most of 3.5 before he left. He gave me all his second edition and told me he thought that 'something like what I was doing" was in one of those books, but I could never find it. Guess he was one edition off, haha!

If you ever try it let me know how it goes.


@Ovaltine Patrol

This is actually our third campaign in this world. In the first a disturbance of the gods led to the players getting imbued with their gods spirits(making them gestalt and highly OP), and they eventually overthrew false gods and reclaimed the thrones of the gods. I normally stay away from this kind of thing as I think that, rules aside, any player trying to attack the gods doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.

Part of the way through that campaign they melted a bunch of gold into a giant ball and teleported it into a forest(in the air) so that it crashed to the earth.

In the next campaign I didn't tell them that it was the same world where their old characters were the gods, and they didn't realize it until they found a small war in the woods over an 'artifact left by the gods'....the giant ball of gold. When they realized that everything that was happening in the world was impacted by their previous characters...they loved it.

And now we're in campaign three and they're afraid they're going to have to fight one of their old players soon, and they're terrified because they know what a beast he was. HAHA!

Tengu_temp
2009-04-10, 09:40 AM
I like the idea of playing a short prologue to the game as kid characters (it only helps to reinforce the story, and if the PCs knew each other from childhood it fixes the issue of why exactly are they adventuring together), but not the idea of it influencing what kind of character I get in the end - I like to have full control over creating and building my character, thank you very much.

elliott20
2009-04-10, 10:09 AM
Believe it or not, what you described here is pretty much how the Fate system and the Burning Wheel system works. Your history actually directly effects what you can learn and what you can do.

The problem I see with your system here is that it is entirely based on your own interpretation of what they would be good at and what they should be playing. Now, for you, it worked out great. Your players were receptive enough to your opinion and you seem to have a good pulse on them.

For me, I would NEVER try to do something this specific. i.e. I knew one kid who always played high CHA characters in my older games. The problem was he was terrible at actually being a high CHA person. What made it even worse was that he has a really short temper when it comes to taking personal criticism. Giving him a 6 CHA at the end of all this when you know he's gonna want to a high CHA character would be a gigantic slap in the face for him. It's like taking an intelligence aptitude test, hoping you'd get rocket scientist, only to end up with janitor.

It's not quite THAT bad, but you know what I mean. Now, your players can roll with that. If I did that with my old group, I'd probably end up offending some people, especially since some of them are more senior and more knowledgeable about this game than I can ever hope to be.

And after the players get familiar with this system, most will try to game it. It is almost inevitable.

If you ask me, this is something that needs to be done with a light touch. For me, I would just do one short "childhood" session just to establish some broad strokes. (This does help establish characters, after all) But I would still leave the exact details and nuances largely to the players themselves.

Now if I was GMing a group of completely new, inexperienced players? oh yeah, go for it. Great way to get them into the groove. Otherwise, I'd just do a shorthand version of it and leave the rest to the players.

Typewriter
2009-04-10, 10:20 AM
I was thinking of next time I do it using something more generalized.

Everyone gets commoner HD, starting at something like 12 in all stats, and at every level(up to probably 5)they get a 'feat' that is a +2 stat of their choice, and an optional +2/-2 if they like(with the stipulation that they cant go below 8/above 18).

That way I dont have to involve myself in the process of dictating stats, which is getting to be bothersome because of the reasons you listed. It's hard to adjudicate without offending anyone, though luckily no one has gotten bitter at me yet :)

Either way I'm going to take a break from it for awhile just because I want to do something a bit more....traditional...with my next campaign probably.

Holocron Coder
2009-04-10, 11:45 AM
Hm, as an idea to possibly address the death of a single character, try this: have each player roleplay 2-3 kids. Maybe siblings or good friends. If you start early, even have them roleplay meeting said friend.

That way, when the big departing event happens, they can pick which of the characters they want to stick with and the others "go off to do their own thing." Later, if the character they're playing dies, its possible for them to go back to the character that went off and finish them out mechanically, describing where everything came from.

On top of that, if the player's main character takes leadership? Whose to say the person that joins their cause isn't their old childhood friend? :smallbiggrin:

valadil
2009-04-10, 11:58 AM
Here's an idea. Since you've already established that this is how your campaigns start and your players are used to it, why not mess with them a bit? Kill off their starting characters. Orc raids whiping out towns are so cliche, but not from the point of view of the townsfolk. Especially the innocent children townsfolk, who are so busy earning points towards what they want to be later in life. Snuffing them out is brutal, but then when your players roll up their real heroes and hunt down those orcs, they'll be 100% emotionally involved in your story.

Typewriter
2009-04-10, 12:11 PM
@Holocron Coder

That could work...it would take a bit longer probably, but it could have some good results. In my last campaign like this one of the players met an NPC(a child growing up at the same time as him) and when he reached level 6 he was near the area she was at, and he asked if he took leadership if he could have the NPC. I went ahead and let him, it was kind of cool.

@Valadil

That is mean....and awesome...give them the attachment, but then use that drive without having to adjudicate all the BS.

I did something like that once. We played through the intro geared towards evil, and I told everyone to make the most broken thing they could. They were mostly gesthalt with monstrous races down one side, and classes on the other. Only things slightly shy of pun-pun were disallowed. I told them that 'since you're playing monstrous creatures make these characters at level 15'.
When they were all done, I asked for their character sheets for review, and then placed them off to the side and said "thanks for supplying me with the villains of the campaign. You guys are actually....."
It was awesome. They loved it. And they never trusted me again when I gave them permission to abuse the system.

Olo Demonsbane
2009-04-10, 01:30 PM
EDIT: Stupid quotations don't work

That is pure awesome. Once, while I was DMing, my friends brother decided to quit. So, I killed his character with a vampiric werewolf. And gave his sheet to my friend, who is planning a campaign with him as a BBEG :smallbiggrin:

Berserk Monk
2009-04-10, 06:55 PM
Sounds interesting. Might have to try it on for myself. Still, in D&D, like all RPGs, the player needs a certain degree of Munchkin-sim, Rule Lawyering, and Metagaming to help them build a character that can excel. Your system seems to rob them of this, but it is an original idea deserving at least some degree of trial. I still prefer the old method of "Okay, you're all in the tavern..." to start a campaign. I'll say this: it's a good method for people who have never played before and wouldn't understand all the rules of character creation.

Oh! Question: how do you determine race and what about sorcerer? One doesn't choose to be a sorcerer. You're born with the gift. What about equipment too? Do you give the PCs stuff based on things they've done and people who'd give them stuff?

Typewriter
2009-04-11, 01:15 AM
Sounds interesting. Might have to try it on for myself. Still, in D&D, like all RPGs, the player needs a certain degree of Munchkin-sim, Rule Lawyering, and Metagaming to help them build a character that can excel. Your system seems to rob them of this, but it is an original idea deserving at least some degree of trial. I still prefer the old method of "Okay, you're all in the tavern..." to start a campaign. I'll say this: it's a good method for people who have never played before and wouldn't understand all the rules of character creation.

Oh! Question: how do you determine race and what about sorcerer? One doesn't choose to be a sorcerer. You're born with the gift. What about equipment too? Do you give the PCs stuff based on things they've done and people who'd give them stuff?

I dont know...I disagree with most of the concepts of using this on new players only. It's not a system familiarity thing, it's a rp thing. How important is rp to your character. And of course I allow players to disagree with things I say do. I've misinterpreted actions before, and changed stats accordingly. Plus I allow some form of customizing at the end, whether it be additional points, or a +2 -2 of their choice, or 2 of those, etc.

Sorcerors usually show some interest in magic, but upon trying to learn they find themselves unable to focus on their studies. This happens by me asking whether they spend all their time in the books, or if they find that to be lame, and would rather party.

Equipment is somewhat dependant on level and is usually assigned / bought with funds dependant on what they did growing up. Did they get a job? Did they work in the fields(low pay) or try to get an apprenticeship to a jeweler?

Tempest Fennac
2009-04-11, 01:24 AM
I tended to assume Sorcerers would just practice on their own once they realised they had magic powers (the fact that it's inborn suggests that studying isn't necessary to develope it, but I think WotC mentioned in 1 article on their website that Sorcerers need somebody to teach them for some reason). My view regarding more experienced players is that they'd know what to say to get the bonuses they want to get rather then being likely to develope the sort of chaaracter which may fit their personality. I'm curious about how you pick races as well due to my preference for half animals while considering human-like things to be dull.

Berserk Monk
2009-04-11, 02:56 AM
I dont know...I disagree with most of the concepts of using this on new players only. It's not a system familiarity thing, it's a rp thing. How important is rp to your character. And of course I allow players to disagree with things I say do. I've misinterpreted actions before, and changed stats accordingly. Plus I allow some form of customizing at the end, whether it be additional points, or a +2 -2 of their choice, or 2 of those, etc.

Speaking as someone more than able to produce a full character, if someone else tried to do this for me I'd be offend and angered. Using this on a newb is good. You basically someone else makes their character for them (something I'm sure has been done for all of our first character) as well as introduces them to the concept of roleplaying in a fictional swords and sorcery world.

Typewriter
2009-04-11, 10:38 AM
People choose their own races beforehand, using whatever rules are in place for races. Sometimes I give free LA, which means that if they pick an applied template, they tell me what they want, and they'll receive it while growing up. If they pick a more exotic race something winds up causing them to be raised in this city. Sometimes aging gets a little fudgy as I mentioned earlier, but for the most part it works out well.

@Berserk Monk

Once again, the point of this isn't to just make a character to force them to play. It's to make them actually roleplay into what they want. My players are also able to read numbers out of books and write them down on paper. It doesn't stop the knight from acting without honor, the 'lawful' fighter starting fights so he can steal from unconscious people, etc. If you cant roleplay something you shouldn't be allowed to play it(or your alignment should change).

If you dont like this then that is fine, I understand, but my personal opinion is that if you cant roleplay into what you want to play then you dont deserve to.

And having stats assigned to you is hardly making a character for someone. Using those stats to still make a decent character is more a sign of knowing the system and how to use it than building a character from scratch in which you get to do the same boring things you always do. Oh, you didn't get enough points in X stat to go down the combat path you ALWAYS go down? Better find another way to make it effective.

Hell, this is more customizable than rolling straight down the line for stats, because instead of random, you at least get to impact your stats.

And the class skills thing? Class skills are a joke for the most part, so I dont see any problem there personally.