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Zaeron
2010-10-05, 11:29 AM
So I recently started a game. I had a lot of new players, and I'm one of the only really experienced people in the game, and I'm DMing. So rather than play 3.5 'by the rules', I handed them a blank character sheet, and handled character creation with questions. My question chart was basically (answers in italics):

You're standing outside a keep. There's only one gate, and there's a big wall. There's a guard standing at the gate, and you need to get inside. How do you do it?
A: I hit the guy over the head, drag him a little ways away, and dress up in his clothes.
B: I use magic to make him my friend!
C: I talk my way past him - convince him that I have a good reason to be there.

Now you're inside the keep, there's another pair of guards. They're standing in front of the room you need to get inside. How do you get past them?
A: I run up to them in my guard suit and tell them that something really bad just happened downstairs, that they need to go check it out, and I'll hold this post!
B: I set 'em on fire. With magic!
C: If I can't talk my way past these guys, can I maybe go around? Like slip out a window and climb around to get inside?

Okay, now you've got the thing, and you need to get out of the keep.
A+C: I climb down, slip out a window.
B: Can I fly? I bet I would fly out.

A: Now you're in a bar. You're drinking, minding your own business, and some guy bumps into you, pushes you from behind. What do you do?
I shove the guy back, and if he tries to fight me, I'll grab a chair and smash it on his head!

B+C: You're in a bar, and two guys come in. They're obviously looking for you. What're you gonna do?
B: I throw some coin at some guys, and ask them to help me. Then we kill them!
C: I bat my eyelashes at some guys, see if I can convince them to help, or maybe start a fight.

C: Okay, you start the fight, but it doesn't work. These guys ignore the brawl and keep coming for you. What now?
C: Okay, I slip out the back door, hide behind a corner, and then jump the first one through the door.

From this, we established that A sounded kind of fighter-y, plus a couple bonus rogue skills I gave him for free. B was our newest player, and least comfortable role playing, but she sounded pretty sorceress-y. C was definitely a rogue.

Once we knew what they were, we filled out their character sheets as we played the first session, with me occasionally ruling stuff like 'no, remember, is that really how your person would solve that? I thought she was more sneaky, would she really pick a fight with three big guys?' - that kind of thing.

What kind of exercises have you guys used?

valadil
2010-10-05, 12:07 PM
I played through character creation for the Dresden Files RPG on saturday. It's based on the FATE system and is awesome for character building.

First of all, the group collaboratively builds the city you'll be playing in. It gets its own sheet. You list places where stuff happens and come up with the NPCs who represent those places. That was cool, but it wasn't really earth shattering.

What blew my mind was the phases for each character. First off, you list your background. Where you came from, how your parents raised you, that sort of thing. I think this is the backstory that most players are used to dealing with. Next is your rising conflict. You have to describe a moment that shaped your character. After that you go into story. Assuming each character is the protagonist in a book, summarize your character's first adventure. The trick is to make it not just plotty, but to show the character as someone you'd want to read about. After that, you pass your sheet to the left. That player guest stars in your story, and you guest star in another player's story. You get to write in what your contribution was in that particular group. Pass the page over another time and participate in another story. Within our 5 person group, everyone had ties to everyone else before character creation even finished.

The other important part of these phases is that your character gains an aspect. I want to describe this as what they learned in the story, but that's not really accurate. It's more like a literary device. What sort of things keep happening to them? For instance, when my character guest starred in City on Fire we learned that he shoots first and asks later. That will benefit me some of the time and screw me over the rest. I don't really understand the system yet since we haven't played, but I've been led to believe that I get some sort of reward for living up to these aspects and that the GM can activate or compel an aspect to screw me over.

Even if I never run FATE, the story integration and guest starring system is something I'm going to mooch for the rest of my days as a GM.