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Tanuki Tales
2013-07-29, 07:48 AM
What tabletop roleplaying game, in your opinion, has a method of character generation for player characters that is not very lengthy in practice and ends up with your players at the helm of interesting characters?

The following caveats apply:

"Not very lengthy" is defined as the entire character creation process, from start to finish, taking no longer than one and a half hours at the most.
"Interesting" is defined as the character creation process resulting in unique, competent characters that are fun for their players to play, fun for the other members of the group to play around, but don't strain the balance of the game to the point that you should have a sticky tape ready for the final straw.
The two above caveats can not be met because of play style or house rules, but how the game is fresh out of the box (or as close as possible).
It is assumed that the "players" in this scenario have gamed for at least two years in some form of table top game.

Eldan
2013-07-29, 08:08 AM
FATE is quite nice, the process is quick and intuitive and character still end up very diverse. It's the game I use to introduce people to roleplaying.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-07-29, 08:13 AM
Huh. I wouldn't term Burning Wheel's character creation to be fast, but 1.5 hours? I could easily fit it into that. My first character, I created during an episode of Firefly. I've created a character in a half-hour.

It's interesting because you take a character through different stages and areas of life, and they accrue skills and traits and stats from each one.

For the same reason, I highly recommend Traveller's character creation system. It did lifepaths before Burning Wheel, and it has a neat randomizing element to what happens during your lifepath.

elliott20
2013-07-29, 11:12 AM
Huh. I wouldn't term Burning Wheel's character creation to be fast, but 1.5 hours? I could easily fit it into that. My first character, I created during an episode of Firefly. I've created a character in a half-hour.

It's interesting because you take a character through different stages and areas of life, and they accrue skills and traits and stats from each one.

For the same reason, I highly recommend Traveller's character creation system. It did lifepaths before Burning Wheel, and it has a neat randomizing element to what happens during your lifepath.

Burning Wheel is the bomb-diggity. Yes, I said bomb-diggity.

But as far as a game goes, BW is NOT a game that is for the faint of heart. That thing can be even more intense than D&D at times when it comes to the crunch.

Anyway, I feel that the best character generation method depends on the type of game.

In a game that values system mastery, and high detail focus (i.e. D&D), you need to have a detailed system that gives you a lot of controls over every detail.

For games that plays the rules fast and loose, speedy generation is preferred over detail customization.

It's not as simple as that, obviously. But that's the beginning point I would use to think about these things.

One thing I do notice that can be successful is character templating. D&D tries to do this to a certain extent, but because D&D can have such a huge range between optimized and crippling disability combos, the worth of the character template is questionable at best. Also, it means that any customization of said template still requires character auditing, which can still need some system knowledge. (especially when you're swapping out levels instead of say, one feat or one skill point)

Tenra Bansho Zero does templating wonderfully though. The game itself is a point buy system, but it tried to do is create three levels of character creation:

level 1: highest level, where the character is basically built for you. Your input is really just in picking out what kind of basic archetype do you want to play.

level 2: template layer. You take one template, and you can add additional on top. Each template you add comes with a bit describing how this changes the stats. It's basically like D&D racial templates, but with character skills.

level 3: deep dive layer. this is the default to all D&D style games.

I imagine something like this for D&D would be tremendously useful, actually.

The Rose Dragon
2013-07-29, 11:43 AM
If you are familiar enough with the system, GURPS, where character generation takes about an hour. If you are not, creating a GURPS character can take a day, easily, and turn into an absolute nightmare for the GM.

If we are assuming absolute beginners, then I can't think of any system that meets the criteria. Games like Risus and Anima Prime can create unique, interesting characters in about half an hour, at most, even with beginners, but lack mechanical diversity (Risus more than Anima Prime). Creating a Maid character can take around five minutes, but you have little control over the end result, and you are always playing a maid. Any game more complex than those will likely either require system familiarity to reduce character generation below 90 minutes, or lack concept diversity.

elliott20
2013-07-29, 12:22 PM
If you are familiar enough with the system, GURPS, where character generation takes about an hour. If you are not, creating a GURPS character can take a day, easily, and turn into an absolute nightmare for the GM.

If we are assuming absolute beginners, then I can't think of any system that meets the criteria. Games like Risus and Anima Prime can create unique, interesting characters in about half an hour, at most, even with beginners, but lack mechanical diversity (Risus more than Anima Prime). Creating a Maid character can take around five minutes, but you have little control over the end result, and you are always playing a maid. Any game more complex than those will likely either require system familiarity to reduce character generation below 90 minutes, or lack concept diversity.

Hell, if you're talking super beginners, something like "I'm a Pretty Princess" (yes, I know, it's a stupid name, trust me when I say it's an easy system) or "Animal Crime" or "Prime Time Adventures" would be even faster.

Eldan
2013-07-29, 12:49 PM
The simplified version of FATE I'm normally using to teach newbies what an RPG is takes about, oh, three to ten minutes to create a character, depending on how quickly they "get it" and how creative they are.

It's quite literally:

Think of a character.
Give them a name.
Give five points that describe them. Short sentences or words. Preferably ambiguous as to whether they are good or bad and as descriptive and unique as possible.
Choose a number of skills from this list. Number and how many points changes.

You are done.

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-29, 12:50 PM
If we are assuming absolute beginners

Not my intention for this thread, so fixed. :smalltongue:

The Rose Dragon
2013-07-29, 01:03 PM
Not my intention for this thread, so fixed. :smalltongue:

Doesn't change much. You can get a GURPS player that can create a character in his sleep, give him some World of Darkness books, which is far less complex than GURPS by any metric, and have him go "what's this thing do" for about an hour. In many cases, system familiarity is far more important than gaming experience.

The aforementioned simplified version of FATE sounds a lot like Anima Prime, but the main mechanical diversity of FATE comes from stunts, which the simplified version lacks, and is the main problem when it comes to creating a character quickly for new players.

In any case, the character generation method will end up as "quick, diverse, newbie-friendly - pick two". If the player has enough experience, a lot of systems can create diverse characters in an hour at most, even highly complex ones like HERO or GURPS.

Eldan
2013-07-29, 01:05 PM
I've found FATE to be entirely playable without stunts, at least for a while. Which is why I said beginner game. If you want to just show someone how an RPG works for an hour or two, you don't need much more diversity than skill points and traits.

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-29, 03:10 PM
Doesn't change much. You can get a GURPS player that can create a character in his sleep, give him some World of Darkness books, which is far less complex than GURPS by any metric, and have him go "what's this thing do" for about an hour. In many cases, system familiarity is far more important than gaming experience.

Look, it really detracts from the point of the thread if you're going to make that stand point some be all, end all.

kyoryu
2013-07-29, 03:22 PM
I've found FATE to be entirely playable without stunts, at least for a while. Which is why I said beginner game. If you want to just show someone how an RPG works for an hour or two, you don't need much more diversity than skill points and traits.

Agreed one hundred percent on this.

I'd even go as far as going through some of the "Phase Trio", and just picking the top few skills and leaving stunts to be defined later (if at all).

Also, Fate Accelerated is pretty quick for chargen.

DonEsteban
2013-07-29, 03:34 PM
I think Paranoia and CoC qualify. I think a lot of games qualify. Actually, I think almost every RPG I know except D&D (2e and up), GURPS, and maybe Risus qualifies.

Kol Korran
2013-07-29, 03:38 PM
I quite like fate as well. The selling points for me on this are:
- create utterly unique characters. for any genre, without getting bogged by rules, who truly catch the core concept of the character.
- simple, and can be easily alteredin time, making the characters immensely flexible to change later on.
- contribute to the narrative qualities of the game, instead of sole modifers.

Khedrac
2013-07-29, 04:26 PM
For the same reason, I highly recommend Traveller's character creation system. It did lifepaths before Burning Wheel, and it has a neat randomizing element to what happens during your lifepath.
Traveller character creation is great, but does have the drawback that your character can die before you start play...

Also don't mix the expansion supplements (Mercenaries, High Guard, Scouts and Merchant Prince) with the basic characters (base rules and the classes supplement). The characters they create are of totally different power levels.

Zavoniki
2013-07-29, 10:56 PM
Cortex. You have stats(that are dice), skills(that are dice), and then traits(both positive and negative)(that are, surprise, dice). Characters end up still being unqiue, and character creation can take less than 5 minutes with experienced players/people decent at math.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-07-29, 11:03 PM
Traveller character creation is great, but does have the drawback that your character can die before you start play...
Classic, true. Not so in the Mongoose edition, though they did have optional Hardcore rules that let it happen.

Geostationary
2013-07-30, 01:13 AM
Gamma World character creation is certainly fast and produces unique characters. Only works if you're fine with 4e-lite or an older edition, which I can't speak for.

Nobilis is pretty fast, especially if you have some familiarity with the Lifepath system (not actually a lifepath from what I understand, but conceptually similar).

(nth)ing FATE for speed.

Lacuna is fast and produces competent characters, but is rather niche.

Drachasor
2013-07-30, 02:59 AM
I quite like fate as well. The selling points for me on this are:
- create utterly unique characters. for any genre, without getting bogged by rules, who truly catch the core concept of the character.
- simple, and can be easily alteredin time, making the characters immensely flexible to change later on.
- contribute to the narrative qualities of the game, instead of sole modifers.

It can be quick to create characters in FATE, true. However, I've found the power level of characters to be all over the map. Even a single point higher or lower makes a big difference. A 3 in guns can have trouble hitting anything remotely difficult, whereas a 5 will have little trouble. A big part of this is the bell curve system with the dice, which magnify differences. Probably no worse than other games, but I feel the system hides the mastery aspects when it should be upfront about them.

The non-skill bits of character creation is definitely the best part though. And it can be quite fast.

Edit: Though I'd say the most interesting ASPECT of Fate (haha), can be ported to almost any system without too much trouble.

Black Jester
2013-07-30, 03:10 AM
I really like Life-Path based character creation systems where background and events shape the character you actually play. They are usually intentionally not balanced, which is a lot more honest than the usual, unintentionally unbalanced systems you get, and they help to create unique and interesting characters without requiring too much planning, and also offer a few nice background events to shape a character around.

There is a surprisingly decent one for fantasy characters in Savage Worlds, a system i would otherwise categorize as a nuisance at best and a punishment under normal circumstances. There is the all in all very entertaining Artesia - Adventures in the known world, even though the variability of events tends to be a bit low in that one.

Eldan
2013-07-30, 03:45 AM
Gamma World character creation is certainly fast and produces unique characters. Only works if you're fine with 4e-lite or an older edition, which I can't speak for.

I can only speak for one of the old Gamma World editions (3rd or 4th, I think), but that, at least, was pretty messy. You could be a human with no mutations or a small attribute bonus, or an animal or plant mutant with seriously overpowered powers. Then you also had a class, which gave you skills, which never did much since mutations totally overshadowed them.
Also, mutations were rolled randomly on a 1d100 table and ranged from crippling your character to purely cosmetic to totally overpowered (split brain: you have twice as many actions per round).

The game system was also a weird AD&D/3rd edition hybrid that used different dice and modifiers for every possible action and had a certain love for random tables. You want to activate an unknown artefact? Okay, roll 8d10, in order and apply the following stats...

It was still fun, mind you. You just had to be prepared for the situation that the human had to rely on his 16 strength and his golf club, while the turtle mutant had +8 to his armour, 25 constitution, could fly and shoot lasers from its eyes and the fungus mutant had telepathy, telekinesis and a plasma rifle.


Though what I've heard from 4th actually sounds a lot better. I might have a look at it, this is a system where I think 4th edition actually works well, unlike D&D. For goofy one-shots, it should be fantastic.

Totally Guy
2013-07-30, 03:50 AM
Traveller character creation is great, but does have the drawback that your character can die before you start play...

I think it's a really good thing from a "games as art" perspective. Once you've played through a character life all the way you stop and realise that "hey, I'm meant to use this guy to play, I've got to use the time I have well".

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-30, 05:54 AM
Since the Lifepath system has been mentioned enough to peak my curiosity, which game has the most polished version of it currently?

Totally Guy
2013-07-30, 06:15 AM
If your preference is for the science fiction genre and having a bit of random chance affecting character generation I think Traveller is the one to go for. I think the scars and bad stuff comes from gambling and losing.

If your preference is for tolkienesque fantasy and having player's make difficult choices then Burning Wheel is the one. The scars and bad stuff is incorporated in with the benefits of the lifepath.

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-30, 06:17 AM
If your preference is for the science fiction genre and having a bit of random chance affecting character generation I think Traveller is the one to go for. I think the scars and bad stuff comes from gambling and losing.

If your preference is for tolkienesque fantasy and having player's make difficult choices then Burning Wheel is the one. The scars and bad stuff is incorporated in with the benefits of the lifepath.

I'm just talking about the system in general. I don't care about the flavor, I'm curious about how it works in crunch.

DigoDragon
2013-07-30, 06:39 AM
If you are familiar enough with the system, GURPS, where character generation takes about an hour. If you are not, creating a GURPS character can take a day, easily, and turn into an absolute nightmare for the GM.

I think the record for longest time it took a player to make a character in the GURPS system was one of our veteran players. Despite knowing the system well, it took him TWO WEEKS to finish.

Personally, my most interesting characters come under the GURPS system and I can get one turned out in just over an hour.

Totally Guy
2013-07-30, 07:40 AM
I'm just talking about the system in general. I don't care about the flavor, I'm curious about how it works in crunch.

I made this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=258063) a while ago to vote up a Burning Wheel character. We concluded it and ended up with a dwarf, Oskar son of Barrin.


Edit:

Despite knowing the system well, it took him TWO WEEKS to finish.

It took the playground less than that to vote up Oskar! :smalltongue:

Jay R
2013-07-30, 09:27 AM
Dungeons and Dragons. The original whitebox game.

You roll 3d6 6 times, pick a class, one of three alignments, and maybe a race, pick spells and buy equipment, and you're done.

No character could overwhelm any other, because so much of the problem-solving was done by the player, not the character. And the character could be as unique and competent as the player could make him.

Characters who were unplayable, uninteresting, or overly powerful only happened after the growth of the idea that the player's ingenuity could be stifled by the character stats.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-07-30, 09:54 AM
I'm just talking about the system in general. I don't care about the flavor, I'm curious about how it works in crunch.
Traveller is much, much more random. It's basically "pick the tables you want to roll on". You accrue randomized skills, but you get to pick how to narrow the randomization. (Like, do you want to get crime-related skills, or soldiering-related skills, or showbiz-related skills, etc.; you also have a distinct "random events" table for each different "career" that you can take.)

Burning Wheel has no randomization, so you can chart a course according to the constraints of the lifepaths...it's a lot more of a puzzle to figure out. That's actually a good analogy--Traveller's character generation is a bit of a flexible minigame, while Burning Wheel's character generation is a detailed puzzle, depending on your goals for a character. (Or you could just steer your character in whatever direction seems interesting in the moment.)

neonchameleon
2013-07-30, 09:56 AM
"Not very lengthy" is defined as the entire character creation process, from start to finish, taking no longer than one and a half hours at the most.

Meep! That is hideously long. In fact the only games I can think of where character generation takes that long are because character generation is literally the first session and largely collaborative. (For comparison I've designed a playable and effective 4e character in a class I'd never used before and selected at random in four minutes thirty eight seconds from starting to load the character builder to having the character sheets printed). In fact the only games I can think of where you're even pushing that are GURPS, Rolemaster, Mutants and Masterminds 1/2e, and high level D&D 2/3e.

As people have been discussing Fate, Burning Wheel, and Traveller, I'm going to drift slightly further afield.

Dread. This is a one shot horror game with the character creation process being to answer some loaded questions about your character (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iv-xahmUT01OJ2WUpyx1UKFrg-L7w4NJ8HtqrDQkPWI/edit?usp=drive_web&authkey=CKvfqb8L&authkey=CKvfqb8L#)

Smallville. Character creation is lifepath style where the important things are your values and your relationships with the other PCs. And in which character generation is collaborative and works by drawing a relationship map between all the PCs and both each other and the NPCs and locations that are expected to appear regularly. (For what it's worth I prefer the Smallville lifepath to Burning Wheel even without the relationship map).

Apocalypse World (and family - I consider Monsterhearts the best of a good set). Class based, with very intense descriptions leading to characters with a lot of hooks, and abilities that work well with those characters.

And I'll also throw in a quick shoutout for Leverage - for which MWP subcontracted the Evil Hat team (who are better known for Spirit of the Century, Dresden Files, and Fate Core). Character generation fits on one line on the character sheets (http://www.onesevendesign.com/leverage/leverage_sheets_oneseven.pdf). (The only bit of character generation missed out is that you end up with a third distinction, chosen by the other members of the party after the first adventure).

Totally Guy
2013-07-30, 10:04 AM
I'm going to drift slightly further afield.

Those are all good calls. It's surprising how ninety minutes is considered short!

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-30, 10:19 AM
I made this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=258063) a while ago to vote up a Burning Wheel character. We concluded it and ended up with a dwarf, Oskar son of Barrin.

Interesting. Now I need to learn the system to understand Oskar Barrinsson's character sheet. :smalltongue:

Amphetryon
2013-07-30, 10:20 AM
Pendragon fits all the OP's criteria, to my way of thinking; it's relatively quick to generate a Character, and the random charts produce groups of Knights that are likely to have divergent skills and backgrounds.

Granted, I haven't played this game in quite some time, so there may be edition differences or a nostalgia bias at work.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-07-30, 07:59 PM
Pendragon fits all the OP's criteria, to my way of thinking; it's relatively quick to generate a Character, and the random charts produce groups of Knights that are likely to have divergent skills and backgrounds.

Granted, I haven't played this game in quite some time, so there may be edition differences or a nostalgia bias at work.
Don't you have to generate your entire family history the first time 'round, though?

Amphetryon
2013-07-31, 08:21 AM
Don't you have to generate your entire family history the first time 'round, though?

We didn't last time I played, but the GM may have simply skipped that step.

Even doing so, I could still see the creation process taking less than 90 minutes; I got my first Pendragon Character done in +/- 20 minutes with the GM helping out.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-07-31, 08:31 AM
We didn't last time I played, but the GM may have simply skipped that step.

Even doing so, I could still see the creation process taking less than 90 minutes; I got my first Pendragon Character done in +/- 20 minutes with the GM helping out.
Mmm, okay, that makes sense. Individual characters don't take terribly long to create, but going through the Salisbury Family History could--you basically outline your entire family's participation in the major events of English history up to that point.

I feel like there's a quick-gen way, skipping all that, however.

Jay R
2013-07-31, 01:01 PM
Don't you have to generate your entire family history the first time 'round, though?

No. Just your character's father's name, his father's class, his son number (but your first character is the first-born), his homeland, and his Leigelord.

Over time, you marry, have children, and track the family that develops over the course of the game, until you are playing your original character's great-great-grandson, but that happens over the course of a long game.

Raimun
2013-07-31, 02:40 PM
I like the Shadowrun 4e's character creation. I don't know if it's too lengthy for you but the length of the process doesn't really matter to me. I like to plan my character on my own time and a-ok it with the GM before we even play.

Anyway, what I like about it is the versatility. You can make all kinds of characters. No any of that "fighters can't talk or play piano" or "mages can't shoot well or be men of action".

Also, the characters do end up with a wealth of skills that they can do fairly well. If you watch movies, the heroes are always more capable and well rounded than "2+int skill points per level" can buy.

Ailowynn
2013-08-06, 12:14 PM
Edge of the Empire. I've GMed through six or eight different characters for one shots. In almost every case, the player has gone into character generation with almost no idea what they want, and come out with characters more developed than those in my Saga campaign (which is now at 20th level; final adventure soon!!!!). The Obligation gives your character a ready-made flaw--he did something wrong to someone somehow. I guess flaw isn't the perfect word...

And then Motivation is great too, because it qualifies exactly what your character is trying to accomplish. Brilliant.

The other one I like is OD&D (well, I've sadly only ever played a retro clone, but same system). While you're rolling the stats, you're thinking [i]oh, cool, he's stupid, but in a lovable way cus of high Charisma...interesting...[i]. And character generation takes a very short time in that game.

Rosstin
2013-08-06, 03:09 PM
I found 4E Essentials to be pretty quick-- your choices were very limited. There were still interesting choices to make, but not so many. (We were confined to just the core book.)

erikun
2013-08-06, 04:53 PM
While I haven't given it a play yet, HeroQuest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeroQuest_(role-playing_game)) has looked to be a very quick and simple character generation method that still focuses on the character being made. Simply put, write a 100-word paragraph describing your character. Choose a number of words or phrases in the paragraph - generally 13 or so. Upon GM approval, those words/phrases are your character's skills. Distribute 20 additional skill points as desired, and you're done.

Knaight
2013-08-06, 05:28 PM
REIGN is excellent. One option is pretty standard point buy, but the options are such that it works out, and there are a few points which are write-in options. The other one involves rolling a fist full of dice once, organizing them into matching sets, and then connecting them to a table by set number and set size to pull a character together randomly, and this also works.

Baron Of Hell
2013-08-06, 09:19 PM
I haven't seen any window games being played on here but the system only takes about 15 or 20 minutes to learn. Making characters only takes a few minutes.