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1337 b4k4
2018-04-18, 07:10 PM
This is a raw idea that popped into my head listening to a podcast with a group that switches systems often. Almost every TTRPG makes character creation one of the first if not the first item in the book after the "what is role playing" section.

B/X D&D: two pages of intro and we're off to character creation
AD&D: A page of introduction and then to character creation
3.x D&D: An overview Character creation is the first thing after the TOC, beating out even the standard introduction by a page, and then continuing not 2 pages later
4e D&D: 8 pages of introduction, then character creation
5e Basic: 3 pages of introduction, then CC
Delta Green: you get a basic overview of the game premise and then right on to character creation
Fate: 30 pages of general "making a fate game" before character creation, but a vast majority of how to play the game comes after
Red Markets: 30 pages of intro and an explanation of the core mechanic and onto CC
Dungeon World: A basic "playing the game" section before you get to character creation, I could almost give this a pass because pretty much everything after that is GM stuff, but it's still fairly early in the book
Mg Traveller: Page 5
Classic Traveller: Page 15
D6 systems: Page 6

And so on and so forth.

There are in my collection two notable exceptions. Eclipse Phase actually has 127 pages of story, setting and general game mechanics before getting to the actual character creation, although there's another 200 pages of additional rules after the character creation. And the one that sort of triggered this idea in my head while listening: Basic D&D (red box) gives you a full on solo adventure before you hit character creation (although even this has CC before most of the rules).

So I got to thinking, because like most GMs I know, I want to play and run more systems than my players do, and the times I have been most successful with getting my players to try a new system or even switch systems has been when we've skipped character creation entirely, and I've handed them pre-made characters. And I think this makes sense. Learning a new system is a lot of work. There's a lot of things you have to keep track of and understand (especially in modern systems) how everything interacts. Trying to learn to create a character first, understanding what skills or attributes are really important, understanding whether taking this or that advantage or disadvantage is worth the cost, all of that is just additional load to take on for something you're not even sure you're going to like. And the sort of character you create is honestly dependent on the game itself. If a player tells me they want to be an "Investigator" well that builds very different characters in Call of Cthulhu than it does in Delta Green than it does in GUMSHOE, but until they've played the game, they won't know that. And I think that's part of why D&D Basic (red box) really did well for folks. It basically dropped you into a game with a pre-gren before introducing you to character creation. And lets face it, the person most likely to read the rulebook is the GM.

So why do we keep putting character creation at the beginning of the book? Tradition obviously, but I think it's also because of how we think of starting a game. You need to have characters to play a game, but if "the order in which you need things" was the true driver of book order, then the skills and equipment chapters would come even before character creation, and yet they don't. And we frontload these systems with their character creation subsystems, which leads GMs and Players alike to think they need to do this first.

But maybe we shouldn't. Maybe the first pages should be pre-gen characters, and then the general system play stuff (you know, the Combat / Adventuring sections for D&D, the space faring (and combat) sections for Traveller etc). Heck maybe all the GM stuff should come first too, and character creation should be an appendix at the end. You don't NEED character creation rules to play the game, you need characters, and that makes a difference. Both to the players, who can pick up and go and worry about learning and playing the game itself and not the character creation mini game. But it also helps the GM. All too often when reading through the rules I have to go through the character creation process so that I can have a character to reference as I read the rest of the rules. Play examples are nice, but sometimes they need to highlight something specific, or they want to sell something awesome (I'm looking at you Captain Jamison from Traveller), and I need to see what the likely outcomes are with a normal character.

Darth Ultron
2018-04-18, 07:41 PM
I agree.

I am, after all, a Basic D&D (red box) kid.

One cold winter day, after I had seen an add in the back of the Choose your own Adventure: The Dungeon of Dread for ''if you liked this book, you will like this game: D&D", I headed over to my local Waldenbooks to spend some of my x-mas money and buy that game.

And what I bought was the Basic D&D (red box).

Now nobody in my area that I knew played D&D, or any TRPG. So I had no mentor or already gamers. I just opened the red Basic D&D box, and started reading. And went through the adventure, and will hate Bargel forever more. THEN after that, I read the ''rules".

Then I showed the game to my friends, and had each of them run through the adventure and then read away.

Then everyone made characters, except me as I was DM as I owned the box/books/dice, and we ran through the adventure in the DMs book.

But just think....if I had bought ANY D&D players handbook...or most other TRPG books. I would never have gotten that experience.

And for YEARS after word, I would always use the ''pre made characters" for new people that would join our group. Luckily a lot of the old modules had pre made characters in them too. You could just have the new player 'play' along, and 'not worry' about the rules...but then that was really true of just about all players too.

ImNotTrevor
2018-04-18, 08:01 PM
I believe it is at the front of most books so that it is easy to find.

I also think that the character creation process does a great deal to describe the most basic focuses of a system, so starting there is a good idea. It also provides context for what everything following will be about.

If I know from chapter 2 that I can be a wizard, then I don't have to wait until chapter 8 where they talk about spells to learn that I can be a wizard.

Granted, in systems with wildly complicated char gen, I might say the opposite. I know Shadowrun 4e is wildly unhelpful as books go, and I feel like the character generation is rather deep in. (I can't look at it right now thanks to my pooter being on the fritz)

johnbragg
2018-04-18, 08:02 PM
Hmm.

It would make sense for a game aimed at brand-new roleplayers.

"What kind of hero do you want your character to be? A tough, strong hero? Start with Warrior. A sneaky, skilled, clever hero? Start with Trickster. A master of magical powers? Start with Magic-User."

Other than that, you may be right--the first thing should be content that communicates what kind of roleplaying game this is--how is this game different than 34 other d20 RPGs that have wikipedia listings. And yeah, the Red Box set was great about that--it put you right into a dungeon with your character.

1337 b4k4
2018-04-18, 08:14 PM
I believe it is at the front of most books so that it is easy to find.

I mean arguably it would be easy to find in the back too. And while in the days of black and white print books I could definitely see an argument for that, I would say today's full color prints have no excuse for not color coding the page edges for different sections.


I also think that the character creation process does a great deal to describe the most basic focuses of a system, so starting there is a good idea. It also provides context for what everything following will be about.

If I know from chapter 2 that I can be a wizard, then I don't have to wait until chapter 8 where they talk about spells to learn that I can be a wizard.

Hmm, see I think the character creation system doesn't provide context, and that's part of the problem. In character creation you're asked to make a bunch of decisions, but you can't actually make those decisions until you have context. If you want to know how you should spend your GURPS character points, you need to read the skills sections first. If you want to know what class to pick, you need to read the various class bits and bobs and equipment lists and skills lists and spells list before you can reasonably make that decision. And how can you know how important each stat is going to be without knowing how those stats interact with the system?

I agree that having a fully fleshed out character can make reading and understanding the other rules easier, but like I said, we should be doing that with pre-gens then I think.



It would make sense for a game aimed at brand-new roleplayers.


Arguably it works for both. D&D is sticky in part because D&D character creation (in 3.x and 4e) was complex, and so lots of players who had never played other systems thought other systems would be that complex too. Then add in that the way the books and material is presented, they have to learn to build a character before they can even see how the game is played, and I think you have a perfect storm where even if a player wanted to try something new, it just takes too much work to get to the "not-D&D" part.

Anonymouswizard
2018-04-18, 09:21 PM
There are in my collection two notable exceptions. Eclipse Phase actually has 127 pages of story, setting and general game mechanics before getting to the actual character creation, although there's another 200 pages of additional rules after the character creation.

My theory is that most books are organised roughly in the order of 'the more people need to know the rule the further forward', so character creation and basic rules will generally be at the front, and GM rules at the back. Note that whether or not you get an explanation of the basic rules before character creation is highly variable, a lot of my favourite games do it but a lot of other games don't explain more than 'you'll need this kind of die'.

My general advice is that books should be organised like Eclipse Phase is, setting -> basic rules (ideally including basic difficulty thresholds) -> character creation -> advanced rules -> GM rules. Beginning with the setting is nice, gives an overview of what the game's about, and knowing what consitutes a skilled character is kind of important before detailing how to make characters (one of the things that bugs me about Rocket Age is that it goes through all the character creations and options before telling you how to roll checks). But a good number of people will begin reading the book at the front, and a good number of people just don't want to learn the rules (which, as somebody good at both learning the rules and mental addition/subtraction, I've had to learn to be more tolerant of), and as these categories tend to overlap I really like organising books so they can be dropped after Character Creation without people missing important mechanics.

Now putting it at the back is interesting. I might actually do it for my game, it'll make it easy to find.

Celestia
2018-04-18, 09:33 PM
You know, I never thought about it, but that would be interesting, and I think it could actually work very well for the game I'm making where context is important for a lot of character creation aspects, like social class and careers (which are all tled to factions).

1337 b4k4
2018-04-18, 09:53 PM
My theory is that most books are organised roughly in the order of 'the more people need to know the rule the further forward', so character creation and basic rules will generally be at the front, and GM rules at the back.

Yeah that's probably another part I left off of why we still do it.


Now putting it at the back is interesting. I might actually do it for my game, it'll make it easy to find.

Actually for a physical book (and going of course against the entire premise of this thread) it might also be a good idea to place the character creation rules in the (physical) middle of the book. Why? Because most groups won't have one book per player, and the character creation process is the one most likely to have the books laid out across the table and being passed around. Putting it in the middle makes it so that the book can generally stay open on its own at the right page.

Pelle
2018-04-19, 03:25 AM
IME, most players don't read the rules, they just want to know how to create their character. They expect the GM to explain them the rules either before chargen, or during play, not read everything themselves. Anyways, for a first game, before understanding how the rules work, a one-shot with pregens is a good idea.

Quertus
2018-04-19, 06:11 AM
the times I have been most successful with getting my players to try a new system or even switch systems has been when we've skipped character creation entirely, and I've handed them pre-made characters.


And I think that's part of why D&D Basic (red box) really did well for folks. It basically dropped you into a game with a pre-gren before introducing you to character creation.


IME, most players don't read the rules, they just want to know how to create their character. They expect the GM to explain them the rules either before chargen, or during play, not read everything themselves. Anyways, for a first game, before understanding how the rules work, a one-shot with pregens is a good idea.

This is kinda how I teach new players. But then they generally make their own characters (often with help) afterwards.


And I think this makes sense. Learning a new system is a lot of work. There's a lot of things you have to keep track of and understand (especially in modern systems) how everything interacts. Trying to learn to create a character first, understanding what skills or attributes are really important, understanding whether taking this or that advantage or disadvantage is worth the cost, all of that is just additional load to take on for something you're not even sure you're going to like.


if "the order in which you need things" was the true driver of book order, then the skills and equipment chapters would come even before character creation, and yet they don't.

For twenty Flagnubd, I can get a +20 Farfignutin.

So, what order do we actually need information? In programming, there are two general schools of thought: top down, and bottom up.

In top down, you start with the highest level ideas, and slowly work your way down. So, you want to play the game? Here's what the game is about. To play, you'll need a character, dice, and imagination. For a character, you'll need stats, a class, level, gear, skills, and maybe spells. For stats, you have...

In bottom up, you start with the most basic underlying mechanic. So, there's the concept of making a check. It's a d20 roll, plus modifier, against a target number, or DC.... What can you use that for? Well, there's... and opposed rolls...

Most games sound like they intelligently implement top down design. I get to know how many skills I can buy with what package before I start drooling over skills. But what would be more intelligent? Hmmm.... Brief setting / theme overview (hyperlink / page number for more details), sample characters (hyperlink / page number for character creation), "skills" (and spells and...), rules, detailed fluff, character creation. That's my guess.


If a player tells me they want to be an "Investigator" well that builds very different characters in Call of Cthulhu than it does in Delta Green than it does in GUMSHOE, but until they've played the game, they won't know that.

How so?


And lets face it, the person most likely to readignore the rulebook is the GM.

FTFY. :smalltongue:


You don't NEED character creation rules to play the game, you need characters, and that makes a difference. Both to the players, who can pick up and go and worry about learning and playing the game itself and not the character creation mini game.

Not everyone is cool with playing pre-gens. Heck, some GMs are so linear and railroading, you don't need to know the rules, roll the dice, or even show up - the game will go on exactly the same no matter what!


But it also helps the GM. All too often when reading through the rules I have to go through the character creation process so that I can have a character to reference as I read the rest of the rules. Play examples are nice, but sometimes they need to highlight something specific, or they want to sell something awesome (I'm looking at you Captain Jamison from Traveller), and I need to see what the likely outcomes are with a normal character.

Characters provide context for rules. Agreed.


It also provides context for what everything following will be about.

If I know from chapter 2 that I can be a wizard, then I don't have to wait until chapter 8 where they talk about spells to learn that I can be a wizard.

This.

But, do you need character creation to provide that context? To what extent would, say, sample characters provide less context with which to understand the rules?


I think the character creation system doesn't provide context...If you want to know how you should spend your GURPS character points, you need to read the skills sections first.

Yeah, but when I've spent 207 out of my starting 159 points on skills, because I've read skills first, and know what I want before knowing what I can have, it's rather disheartening.


Actually for a physical book (and going of course against the entire premise of this thread) it might also be a good idea to place the character creation rules in the (physical) middle of the book. Why? Because most groups won't have one book per player, and the character creation process is the one most likely to have the books laid out across the table and being passed around. Putting it in the middle makes it so that the book can generally stay open on its own at the right page.

Another valid consideration. Although, perhaps, "advancement" should be in the middle, then.

Or, better yet: character creation, plus a rules cheat sheet is in the middle. Advancement is at the end, easy to find, but not needed by everyone at once. Because the system is designed such that characters advance at different rates, so very few players will need that section at any given time.

Rhedyn
2018-04-19, 06:38 AM
Considering that Fate was the first RPG I couldn't get a rough idea about just by glancing through the first couple dozen pages, then I would say char gen should be in the front of the book.

It's the bedrock of playing. The closer it is in the front, the easier the game is to learn (I still don't get how Fate is actually played)

Pelle
2018-04-19, 07:18 AM
This.

But, do you need character creation to provide that context? To what extent would, say, sample characters provide less context with which to understand the rules?


Yes, character creation rules are usually not needed for understanding how to play the game. It's the stats and abilities that those rules generate that get used in play. IMO, sample characters are much better for providing context.

You could split off all character generation and advancement rules, equipment and spells and so into separate manual/handbook for players to build their characters. Then you could have a shorter book on the rules for how to play the game, for those who want to learn the rules themselves. Or if just having one book with everything, I would just put all the character building stuff into appendices.

Quertus
2018-04-19, 08:17 AM
Yes, character creation rules are usually not needed for understanding how to play the game. It's the stats and abilities that those rules generate that get used in play. IMO, sample characters are much better for providing context.

You could split off all character generation and advancement rules, equipment and spells and so into separate manual/handbook for players to build their characters. Then you could have a shorter book on the rules for how to play the game, for those who want to learn the rules themselves. Or if just having one book with everything, I would just put all the character building stuff into appendices.

... Equipment isn't just for character creation. Unless you're arguing that all equipment rules text should be listed on the character sheet (which is rather difficult for my cyber-endocrine system or whatever)... In which case, I'd argue 3e-style feats are even more strongly character creation only. Spells in most any system generally have way too much text to be encapsulated on the character sheet, so they're stuck with the rules. Any tables (such as 3e skill DCs) are rules, but the rest of the skill section can be moved to an appendix.

Anonymouswizard
2018-04-19, 08:35 AM
Actually for a physical book (and going of course against the entire premise of this thread) it might also be a good idea to place the character creation rules in the (physical) middle of the book. Why? Because most groups won't have one book per player, and the character creation process is the one most likely to have the books laid out across the table and being passed around. Putting it in the middle makes it so that the book can generally stay open on its own at the right page.

Honestly? After having played umpteen games where there'll be at most two of us with the rulebook you learn how to deal with it. Would be amazing, and I'm glad Legend of the Five Rings does it (man, wouldn't it be great if they were making a 5e? I suppose we can continue with 4e and dream of the day).


Considering that Fate was the first RPG I couldn't get a rough idea about just by glancing through the first couple dozen pages, then I would say char gen should be in the front of the book.

It's the bedrock of playing. The closer it is in the front, the easier the game is to learn (I still don't get how Fate is actually played)

Fae is weird. Learning character generation doesn't teach how the game is played, because it doesn't really touch on how Aspects influence gameplay.

In general, it's your classic 'roll+skill versus difficulty' system, except you use 4(d3-2) as your roll and can spend Fate Points for a +2 bonus or reroll as long as you have a relevant Aspect or a situation Aspect would help you. But if an Aspect would logically cause you bad stuff and you take that bad stuff then you get a Fate Point.

Try reading Fate Accelerated, it's much easier to grasp by reading it because it's designed for new players (I think the nonGM rules only last for about 30 pages).

Cluedrew
2018-04-19, 09:47 AM
There was another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?553836-The-Best-and-Worst-of-Rule-Books) about a similar topic recently, it was more generally about rule-books but it included ordering of topic and similar notes.

For me... I don't think so. I do think they come after basic mechanics and introduction. You should know what HP, Hot or Aspect is before you read about how figuring out what goes in that box in the character sheet. But on the other hand, how much damage is 4? There are systems where that is almost enough to kill a PC, others where that is barely enough damage to register. Character creation has the build information that can give you some perspective on that.

It coming after an adventure is a weird idea to me, I feel like I should know the characters going on this adventure before I see the details of what they are doing.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-19, 10:04 AM
My experience is that most rulebooks are fairly horrible when it comes to organization, with a single topic or subject scattered across at least half a dozen different locations, with no references listed to the other locations at any one location. Not to mention terrible indexes and TOCs.

Cluedrew
2018-04-19, 10:16 AM
... So should character creation be at the back of the book?

Pelle
2018-04-19, 11:26 AM
... Equipment isn't just for character creation. Unless you're arguing that all equipment rules text should be listed on the character sheet (which is rather difficult for my cyber-endocrine system or whatever)... In which case, I'd argue 3e-style feats are even more strongly character creation only. Spells in most any system generally have way too much text to be encapsulated on the character sheet, so they're stuck with the rules. Any tables (such as 3e skill DCs) are rules, but the rest of the skill section can be moved to an appendix.

Depends on the system I would say. But I think generally that the rules for how to put things down on your sheet should be in an appendix/handbook, and the rules for using what's on your sheet along with an example should be in the main rules.

"Cool, I have written 'a shovel' on my sheet, how do I use it?" The actual mechanics for digging can be looked up in the rules, or explained by someone who knows them.

ImNotTrevor
2018-04-19, 01:17 PM
I mean arguably it would be easy to find in the back too. And while in the days of black and white print books I could definitely see an argument for that, I would say today's full color prints have no excuse for not color coding the page edges for different sections.[QUOTE]
1. If you mean edge printing as color you can see b when the book is closed, I encourage you to go check the prices of that with publishers. It is expensive.

2. Most people don't hit page 1 of an RPG book they picked up and immediately start building. Most people, even new players, scan the character genetation portion and then keep reading, searching out parts of particular interest.


[QUOTE]
Hmm, see I think the character creation system doesn't provide context, and that's part of the problem. In character creation you're asked to make a bunch of decisions, but you can't actually make those decisions until you have context.
As mentioned above, this is only true if you believe people robotically begin character building the moment they hit that page.



If you want to know how you should spend your GURPS character points, you need to read the skills sections first. If you want to know what class to pick, you need to read the various class bits and bobs and equipment lists and skills lists and spells list before you can reasonably make that decision. And how can you know how important each stat is going to be without knowing how those stats interact with the system?
Ironic that I covered highly complicated systems already.



I agree that having a fully fleshed out character can make reading and understanding the other rules easier, but like I said, we should be doing that with pre-gens then I think.
I think knowing the generals of how character making goes informs the rest of the read. If the system is so complex that it requires a great deal of understanding of the mechanics to even approach char gen, then yeah. Expect new players to hate it and put chargen in the back.

JoeJ
2018-04-19, 02:04 PM
It's find if you put character creation in the back, but what I'd really like to see is a couple of completed sample characters at the front. Then use those characters as examples throughout the rules.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-04-19, 02:07 PM
I'll admit to not reading RPG books straight through. I use them as references, reading chapters where needed. I want to see the following:

* A discussion of the basic style of the game (to set expectations)
* Something that gets me excited about playing it
** Could be a gameplay example
** Could be lore that sparks a "that's cool, I want to do that" feeling
** Could be character building
* Basic rules somewhere in there.

I prefer my rule-books modular, with stuff I have to refer to often either at the front or at the back. The middle's harder to find.

1337 b4k4
2018-04-19, 06:46 PM
So, what order do we actually need information? In programming, there are two general schools of thought: top down, and bottom up.

In top down, you start with the highest level ideas, and slowly work your way down. So, you want to play the game? Here's what the game is about. To play, you'll need a character, dice, and imagination. For a character, you'll need stats, a class, level, gear, skills, and maybe spells. For stats, you have...

In bottom up, you start with the most basic underlying mechanic. So, there's the concept of making a check. It's a d20 roll, plus modifier, against a target number, or DC.... What can you use that for? Well, there's... and opposed rolls...

On the other hand writing and designing a program is very different from learning a system. When learning something, it's almost always easier to start abstract and learn how the sausage is made later. Character creation is sausage making at its finest.



How so?


A CoC investigator is more likely than not an "ordinary joe". They have limited actual "going against the eldritch horror" skills, and in many cases won't even be a real investigator. Think most horror movies set in the "real world", it's people going up against something they don't understand.

A Delta Green investigator is more likely to have seen some things. They're better equipped for the things coming at them and have more knowledge and resources to lean on. Think X-Files or Monster Hunter International

Gumshoe I don't have direct experience with, but my understanding is it's more classical detective/mystery stuff. You're likely to be an actual inspector or have other inspection resources at your disposal. Think everything from pink panther to murder she wrote.



Characters provide context for rules. Agreed.


But characters are not character creation. I'm not arguing that characters shouldn't be introduced until the end of the book, only that the creation part isn't nearly as important for learning the system as a whole as the end result of the creation.


But, do you need character creation to provide that context? To what extent would, say, sample characters provide less context with which to understand the rules?

I don't think you clean much context from the actual creation rules. In most systems, the rules for actually creating the character are pretty divorced from the rest of the rules around running that character. Mostly creation ties into advancement, but beyond that, you don't learn much about D&D combat or exploration via building a character. You don't learn about flying through space and exploring planets through traveller character creation. And Fate character creation is almost useless for actually understanding how the system works.



Yeah, but when I've spent 207 out of my starting 159 points on skills, because I've read skills first, and know what I want before knowing what I can have, it's rather disheartening.

Why would you have started spending any points at all given that if you hadn't encountered character creation you wouldn't even know you had points to spend?



Or, better yet: character creation, plus a rules cheat sheet is in the middle. Advancement is at the end, easy to find, but not needed by everyone at once. Because the system is designed such that characters advance at different rates, so very few players will need that section at any given time.

I'm not necessarily opposed to putting it at the middle. I guess what I'm trying to get discussing is does putting it at the beginning actually serve a useful purpose, or does it possibly harm new systems.


Considering that Fate was the first RPG I couldn't get a rough idea about just by glancing through the first couple dozen pages, then I would say char gen should be in the front of the book.

Fate's character creation is pretty close to the front of the book (30 pages in). Hardly a counter point to the idea of putting it at the back.


There was another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?553836-The-Best-and-Worst-of-Rule-Books) about a similar topic recently, it was more generally about rule-books but it included ordering of topic and similar notes.

Indeed there was, your lamentation that threads about things other than arguing over rules don't seem to go for very long inspired me to make this thread and ask a question that was about something other than rules interpretation. So while I apologize for not having this brainstorm back when your thread was current, you can rejoice in the knowledge that the existence of this thread is at least partially your fault. :smallbiggrin:


For me... I don't think so. I do think they come after basic mechanics and introduction. You should know what HP, Hot or Aspect is before you read about how figuring out what goes in that box in the character sheet. But on the other hand, how much damage is 4? There are systems where that is almost enough to kill a PC, others where that is barely enough damage to register. Character creation has the build information that can give you some perspective on that.

But couldn't having some pre-gen characters give you the same context? If I see that "John Smith Pre-Gen Extraordinaire" has 10 HP and I read the weapons section in the equipment list and see most weapons deal 4-8 damage, doesn't that tell me just as much as if I had to go through the whole creation process, learn how HP was calculated and then read the weapons chapter?


It coming after an adventure is a weird idea to me, I feel like I should know the characters going on this adventure before I see the details of what they are doing.

We do this all the time in other fiction. In fact, dropping you in medias res is a pretty standard story telling device.


My experience is that most rulebooks are fairly horrible when it comes to organization, with a single topic or subject scattered across at least half a dozen different locations, with no references listed to the other locations at any one location. Not to mention terrible indexes and TOCs.

Generally agreed, book layout (and information distribution) is definitely something our hobby needs more work with, especially because I think the layout of our books has to be pretty unique. They're not classical game instructions, but they're not reference manuals either



1. If you mean edge printing as color you can see b when the book is closed, I encourage you to go check the prices of that with publishers. It is expensive.

Nope, doesn't have to be edge printing, just something easily visual as you flip rapidly through the book. GURPS 4e and Eclipse Phase are good examples of what I'm talking about



2. Most people don't hit page 1 of an RPG book they picked up and immediately start building. Most people, even new players, scan the character genetation portion and then keep reading, searching out parts of particular interest.

Which seems like an argument in favor of not always having character generation at the beginning of the book.



As mentioned above, this is only true if you believe people robotically begin character building the moment they hit that page.


Again, if you're going to have to read other rules first, why not put them first?



I think knowing the generals of how character making goes informs the rest of the read. If the system is so complex that it requires a great deal of understanding of the mechanics to even approach char gen, then yeah. Expect new players to hate it and put chargen in the back.

Again though, is it knowing HOW to make a character the give context or is it knowing WHAT a final character looks like. Because I'm arguing that it's the later. I'm arguing that putting some pre-gens up front and using that for context for the rest of the rules and putting creation at the back is a better flow than putting creation up front and either requiring they create a character without context, or jump back and forth to get context to create a character that then gives the remaining context they need to other rules.

Quertus
2018-04-19, 07:53 PM
On the other hand writing and designing a program is very different from learning a system. When learning something, it's almost always easier to start abstract and learn how the sausage is made later. Character creation is sausage making at its finest.

I meant to address this earlier, but people learn differently. Me, I learn by making. So, your statement is nonsensical in the context of my learning, as learning and creation are the same act.

Sight exaggeration, but hopefully you get the point. Not everyone processes new information the same way. What layout is best for the most people, or least bad for the worst case?

Because I'm a Builder, a Creator, I can't objectively answer how "normal" people learn differently from building.


A CoC investigator ... Think most horror movies set in the "real world", it's people going up against something they don't understand.

Delta Green ... Think X-Files or Monster Hunter International

Gumshoe ... Think everything from pink panther to murder she wrote.


Why would you have started spending any points at all given that if you hadn't encountered character creation you wouldn't even know you had points to spend?

These are related. If I know how many points I have to spend, I can calibrate my expectations, rather than reading the skills and wanting getting my heart set on Fox Mulder, when all I can afford is Gary, the Grocer.


And Fate character creation is almost useless for actually understanding how the system works.


But couldn't having some pre-gen characters give you the same context? If I see that "John Smith Pre-Gen Extraordinaire" has 10 HP and I read the weapons section in the equipment list and see most weapons deal 4-8 damage, doesn't that tell me just as much as if I had to go through the whole creation process, learn how HP was calculated and then read the weapons chapter?

Eh, when I looked at Fate, I had several characters in mind, and was asking myself how their concept would translate to Fate. For example, building a Quertus-like starting character was, IIRC, best modeled with knowledge +4, resources/contacts +3, magic only +2, etc etc, and some Spellcraft-related skill tricks (aspects?). I, to use a 5e term, get Advantage when I have something "solid" to "ground" my understanding of the new system in.

How likely is each member of your target audience to use sample characters vs character creation vs starting with the underlying systems vs etc etc? I don't know. I can only definitively state what I have done.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-19, 08:04 PM
... So should character creation be at the back of the book?

It might work better there.

If an RPG also has its own unique setting, I almost think that should be front and center, but I'm a worldbuilding junkie so I'm probably biased.

1337 b4k4
2018-04-19, 08:05 PM
I meant to address this earlier, but people learn differently. Me, I learn by making. So, your statement is nonsensical in the context of my learning, as learning and creation are the same act.

Sight exaggeration, but hopefully you get the point. Not everyone processes new information the same way. What layout is best for the most people, or least bad for the worst case?

Because I'm a Builder, a Creator, I can't objectively answer how "normal" people learn differently from building.

You and me both. I prefer to learn by doing. But in the context of learning a game system, character creation is not doing. To use an analogy from the computer world, trying to learn a TTRPG system by doing character creation is akin to trying to learn linux by doing bash scripting. Yes, bash scripting and some of the concepts behind it underly a lot of *NIX philosophy, but it's only a very small part of it, and you're better served understanding other pieces first.



These are related. If I know how many points I have to spend, I can calibrate my expectations, rather than reading the skills and wanting getting my heart set on Fox Mulder, when all I can afford is Gary, the Grocer.


This is where the pre-gens are important. They should set some baseline expectations about what a character looks like. If I open CoC and the sample party of characters doesn't have Van Hellsing, Vampire Killer or anyone remotely close, that let's me know that I shouldn't be expecting such a character from the system. Now obviously you can't cover all the possible characters, but a collection of "average" characters should be good enough to get someone started, especially if the rules reference those characters and when you get to character creation could talk about how those characters could have been built differently.

ImNotTrevor
2018-04-19, 09:04 PM
Nope, doesn't have to be edge printing, just something easily visual as you flip rapidly through the book. GURPS 4e and Eclipse Phase are good examples of what I'm talking about.
That's fine, then. No argument there.




Which seems like an argument in favor of not always having character generation at the beginning of the book.
Not in the context of character generation rules outlining what is important to the system and being a good hook for potential buyers, along with all the other hooks at the start. (Fiction, lore, TRPG introduction, etc. You want your hooks at the start, not the end. Character building is a hook.)

Additionally, regardless of the mechanics it is fairly easy to tell if character generation will be easy or tedious by reading through those rules. Often, it also presents a good intro for how the book will be layed out. For a simplified example:

1. Intro
2. Character generation overview
A. Basic stats
B. Side system A.
C. Side system B.
D. Miscellaneous.

3. How Stats work.
4. How Side system A works.
5. How Side system B works.
6. How the Miscellaneous stuff works.

The above is super simplified, but is a coherent layout that prepares you for what is coming. Often the Character Generation steps really can be super simplified, and that's sufficient. (In Apocalypse World, the Character Generation steps are:
1. Pick a playbook.
2. Look at the "Making a ______" section of the playbook.
3. Do what that says. (Everything is on the playbook already)
4. You're done.

For something like Apocalypse World, the Players only need the playbook for their class and one additional printout to cover everything they need to know. The GM needs... the rest of the book.

Putting the player stuff in front means that when the GM shares that digital copy around (I do this for game purposes,) they don't have to scroll for 5 minutes to grab the 3 pages they need. Just dip in at the start, nab your junk, and go. For digital? Wildly more convenient.



Again, if you're going to have to read other rules first, why not put them first?

They read the character generation steps because:
1. It's a potential hook.
2. It can be used as an outline for the rest of the book.
3. It can be used as a summary of later mechanics that is quick at hand.
4.



Again though, is it knowing HOW to make a character the give context or is it knowing WHAT a final character looks like.
MiguelAndTulioSayingBoth.gif
But the former is a great setup for how the rest of the book will go. Let's take an RPG about Wizards. The character generation steps could look like this:

1. Pick a name for your wizard.
2. Pick one of the 5 schools of magic (Zappy, Healy, Changy, Hidy, or Deady, See Chapter 2)
3. Pick your Wizardly Robe (See chapter 3)
4. Pick your Wizardly Staff (See chapter 4)
5. Select the spells in your spellbook (See chapter 5)

Since character generation is often a workflow, this doubly makes sense as that workflow can be indicated early. If the Robes depend upon your School, then you can introduce that basic concept in the chargen outline. You are now primed to look for that before getting to Chapter 3.



Because I'm arguing that it's the later. I'm arguing that putting some pre-gens up front and using that for context for the rest of the rules

Errant the Faceless
Hard +3
Cool +2
Hot -1
Sharp +0
Weird +1
2 armor
Chainsaw (3-harm loud messy hand)
Rasputin
Insano-like-Drain-o
Wilson
[ ] 3:00
[ ] 6:00
[ ] 9:00
[ ] 10:00
[ ] 11:00
[ ] 12:00

That's the current information I need for my AW character. I've removed parts that are explicitly explained on the playbook.

If you can tell me what even half of this means better than my wife who has never played but can read the playbook, I'll eat a hat.



Or they are a normal human being, read the creation steps, know what will be in the rest of the book, and then read with an understanding of which bits go where in the workflow, OR, they follow along with the rules and build as they read, giving them both current context and an ongoing instruction guide. If bits of your character creation REQUIRE backtracking, the problem is the chargen, not the printing order. It will suck regardless of where you put the steps.

[QUOTE]
to create a character that then gives the remaining context they need to other rules.

Or... they do what reasonable human beings do, as seen above.

The argument seemingly stems from a belief that people are inherently stupid and either:
A. Cannot witness instructions without following them
B. Cannot comprehend a general overview of a process until they comprehend all the deep mechanics of said process. Yet my 2 year old knows that food goes in your tummy, and turns into poop. She seems ok at grasping that process without knowing all the minute How's and Why's.

I know the general process for making bread, from planting to slicing, but I probably couldn't go out and write a book about it. Yet I have a comfortable understanding such that if I read a book about bread, I would know more or less what was going on at all times, because I am coming into that content with a basic overview of how it works. So even if presented with rhe baking first and the grain growing second, I would not believe that you bake the bread before growing the wheat. I would find the layout strange, but not paralyzing.

Maybe I'm the reincarnation of Einstein, though, and other people panic if presented with a non-exhaustive process guide.

RazorChain
2018-04-19, 09:18 PM
My experience is that most rulebooks are fairly horrible when it comes to organization, with a single topic or subject scattered across at least half a dozen different locations, with no references listed to the other locations at any one location. Not to mention terrible indexes and TOCs.

Are you specifically referring to WoD or just coincidentally?

1337 b4k4
2018-04-19, 10:16 PM
Not in the context of character generation rules outlining what is important to the system and being a good hook for potential buyers, along with all the other hooks at the start. (Fiction, lore, TRPG introduction, etc. You want your hooks at the start, not the end. Character building is a hook.)

Maybe we just have very different experiences then, because most of my players have never liked character creation. Character concept creation, sure, but the actual mechanical process? Most of them would rather farm it out to someone who does like it.



Putting the player stuff in front means that when the GM shares that digital copy around (I do this for game purposes,) they don't have to scroll for 5 minutes to grab the 3 pages they need. Just dip in at the start, nab your junk, and go. For digital? Wildly more convenient.


Honestly, it's a digital file. Not having bookmarks to relevant sections should be considered a sin. And if 3 pages is all the players need to get started, it should be a separate file. I know my players would be much more receptive to a 3 page PDF than a 300 page one, even if when I sent them the 300 page one I say "just read pages 6-9". I guess that's my point, we don't live in an age of 50 page rule books in black and white and limited distribution choices. We should stop making our designs fit that model and start making them work better for the people using the books. And i'm suggesting one of those "better" options would be putting character creation in a different spot.



But the former is a great setup for how the rest of the book will go. Let's take an RPG about Wizards. The character generation steps could look like this:

1. Pick a name for your wizard.
2. Pick one of the 5 schools of magic (Zappy, Healy, Changy, Hidy, or Deady, See Chapter 2)
3. Pick your Wizardly Robe (See chapter 3)
4. Pick your Wizardly Staff (See chapter 4)
5. Select the spells in your spellbook (See chapter 5)

Since character generation is often a workflow, this doubly makes sense as that workflow can be indicated early. If the Robes depend upon your School, then you can introduce that basic concept in the chargen outline. You are now primed to look for that before getting to Chapter 3.

Ok, but allow me to present an alternate book flow:

1. Introduction to Wiley Willy's Wonderful Wizard World
2. Sample W5 Characters: Master Blaster, Healing Hands Luke, Play Doe, Tiny Dancer, The Doominator
3. The 5 Schools of the Wizard World: direct references to the created characters and how the schools make those characters different
4. Every One is Crazy 'Bout a Sharp Dressed Wizard: what makes a robe important, and how the different school choices affected the robes each character is wearing
5. Wonderful Wizardly Weaponry: Choosing a staff, again with direct references to the pre-gens
6. Scintillating Spells and Interesting Incantations: All about spells and spell books, with references again
7. Mister Mikes Magical Magician Maker: Building a Wizard of your Very Own: Now we cover the creation process, with pointers backwards (rather than forwards) to the information already presented, and already primed to the reader.

Rather than dropping the reader into the middle of a mechanical system and telling them "go read this, then come back", we have them "read this" and present it in the context of the finished product, then at the end show them how to put it all together for themselves.



Errant the Faceless
Hard +3
Cool +2
Hot -1
Sharp +0
Weird +1
2 armor
Chainsaw (3-harm loud messy hand)
Rasputin
Insano-like-Drain-o
Wilson
[ ] 3:00
[ ] 6:00
[ ] 9:00
[ ] 10:00
[ ] 11:00
[ ] 12:00

That's the current information I need for my AW character. I've removed parts that are explicitly explained on the playbook.

If you can tell me what even half of this means better than my wife who has never played but can read the playbook, I'll eat a hat.

I mean you removed any of the section headings that would be present in a character sheet (or at the minimum would be labeled on a pre-gen but:

Errant the Faceless is the name and possibly "class" of your character
Hard, Cool, Hot, Sharp and Weird are all attribute descriptors (just like STR,DEX etc), and the +/- are modifiers, probably to dice rolls against those attributes
2 armor and chainsaw are clearly the armament of the character with the items in parenthesis describing attributes of the chainsaw

Rasputin and Insano-like-Drain-o are probably either class moves or some sort of further character tag

Wilson could be either the same as Rasputin/Insano-like-Drain-o or might be a contact/connection

The clock values are I believe your damage/HP track essentially

Now to be fair I have passing familiarity to the *World systems, but realistically the only guesses that couldn't have been made by anyone familiar with D&D would have been the damage track and the class moves, and those would have become obvious as soon as they were seen in a filled out character sheet (http://apocalypse-world.com/AW-basicplaybooks-legal.pdf).



The argument seemingly stems from a belief that people are inherently stupid and either:
A. Cannot witness instructions without following them
B. Cannot comprehend a general overview of a process until they comprehend all the deep mechanics of said process. Yet my 2 year old knows that food goes in your tummy, and turns into poop. She seems ok at grasping that process without knowing all the minute How's and Why's.

I do not believe either A or B And I will note that Character Creation at the beginning is not equivalent to B at all. Character creation isn't a general overview, it's an in depth system. Of course people can figure this out, they've been doing it for years, and there's no reason to think they couldn't keep doing it. But just like someone said "you know as much as people can learn intricate and arcane assembly language and create programs, wouldn't it be better if maybe we stepped back from that a little bit, made something that was easier and let them learn assembly later" and thus were modern programing languages born, so to am I suggesting that maybe just because people can do something doesn't mean it's the easiest or best way.


I know the general process for making bread, from planting to slicing, but I probably couldn't go out and write a book about it. Yet I have a comfortable understanding such that if I read a book about bread, I would know more or less what was going on at all times, because I am coming into that content with a basic overview of how it works. So even if presented with rhe baking first and the grain growing second, I would not believe that you bake the bread before growing the wheat. I would find the layout strange, but not paralyzing.

Ok let's go with this. Let's say you wanted to learn about bread baking. Do you want your book to start with information about actually baking bread and various techniques and important things to know like what the various ratios are good for, why and when you use salt or oils or water, or do you want the book to start with:
"here's how to grow your own wild yeast starter and mix it, whatever wet ingredients you want to use (chapter 3), whatever dry ingredients you want to use (chapter 4) and knead it (chapter 5) and then put it in the oven at your chosen temperature (chapter 6). Chapters 7, 8 and 9 will go over how different ratios of the wet to dry ingredients get you different bread types, how each ingredient affects the bread type in general and general baking principles respectively"

Remember your goal is to learn about bread baking as a whole. Chapter one being about how to make a sourdough starter, though an important skill is probably not the best place for it, and certainly a recipe before you've even been given the basics might be a bit much. And in fact, if you look at The Fresh Loaf's Handbook (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/handbook/section-i-introduction) you'll notice that they leave the recipes until after they've covered the general information. Heck, just poke around the table of contents on bread baking books on amazon. Almost all of them front load the book with the background and whys and wherefores of bread baking as a whole before presenting you with recipes to start making bread.


Maybe I'm the reincarnation of Einstein, though, and other people panic if presented with a non-exhaustive process guide.

I'm not suggesting anyone panics. I'm suggesting that maybe our current layout and design choices put people off learning new systems because it doesn't start them in the right place. It doesn't hook them into wanting to create a character because they don't even know what they should or could be creating yet because they know nothing about the system in the first place.

oxybe
2018-04-19, 11:40 PM
Depends.

In a game like D&D we don't really have a setting, or at least a shared one. D&D has a ton of setting and going into a diatribe about Forgotten Realms would be a waste of space for people who don't care for it (hi!) over the other D&D settings like Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Eberron, Grayhawk, Dragonlance, etc...

Shadowrun has an implied setting, in that it's the world of next tuesday after a magic-pocalypse. Many of the game assumptions are built upon that idea: an alternate universe where it will name drop real world locations in it's modules, like Seattle. You can make up your own setting for it, but it's largely meant to be run in it's faux seattle filled with orcs, elves, trolls and whatnot.

Setting the expectations in that kind of game is paramount to informing the types of characters the players will be running (get it? shadowrun? running? no? well, there's a reason i ain't on tv).

D&D at best would need to go over some common tropes or genre conventions, like the adventuring party and whatnot... but even then, consider how Eberron, Dark Sun & Forgotten Realms treats something as ubiquitous to the D&D experience as how it treats magic: the first as a common commodity, the second as the cause of it's dying universe and the third as a somewhat-unknown force studied by few and mastered by fewer. And that's not even counting how it's treated in Little Timmy's Forgotten Sun of Graylance homebrew setting.

In a game like D&D which doesn't have a set universe, having character creation at the front with a short forward about having a proper session 0, where your GM describes the setting & you create appropriate characters is a better idea, followed with a step by step "After some discussion Johnny will be playing in Timmy's Forgotten Sun of Graylance setting, and after going over the basics, he decides he want to make a Guardsman for the city of Townsburgh." and it then walks through the process.

Dimers
2018-04-20, 12:58 AM
Front, back, middle, separate book, doesn't matter. If it's the kind of game where I care about keeping a character alive, I'm going to spend a long time flipping back-and-forth.

Okay, fine, it does matter -- my left thumb is better at controlling number of pages simultaneously flipped than my right is, and English reads left to right, so the bulk of character creation should be at the front. That way my controller digit takes care of the harder job. All my right thumb has to worry about is the one spot I access over and over.

Floret
2018-04-20, 03:36 AM
If character creation is to have any sort of "(system) learning by doing" effect, following it along while reading through itis kind of a given necessity.

So if I look at the creation and think "great, what does this all mean?", it fails. And this is what tends to happen for me. Now if I skipped ahead to chargen, that lack of comprehension is on me. If a book threw me into chargen before explaining basic rules? That would be on the book. And not be a mark of good design in my eyes.

Now, I love Apicalypse world's playbooks, but unless I get presented them on a table, with a GM to answer questions (For which setting they are marvellous, and it is what the system recommends to do), looking at them doesn't help me grasp the system. Putting them as early in the book as they are is, I feel, a misplacement.

Pelle
2018-04-20, 04:37 AM
Ok let's go with this. Let's say you wanted to learn about bread baking. Do you want your book to start with information about actually baking bread and various techniques and important things to know like what the various ratios are good for, why and when you use salt or oils or water, or do you want the book to start with:
"here's how to grow your own wild yeast starter and mix it, whatever wet ingredients you want to use (chapter 3), whatever dry ingredients you want to use (chapter 4) and knead it (chapter 5) and then put it in the oven at your chosen temperature (chapter 6). Chapters 7, 8 and 9 will go over how different ratios of the wet to dry ingredients get you different bread types, how each ingredient affects the bread type in general and general baking principles respectively"

Remember your goal is to learn about bread baking as a whole. Chapter one being about how to make a sourdough starter, though an important skill is probably not the best place for it, and certainly a recipe before you've even been given the basics might be a bit much. And in fact, if you look at The Fresh Loaf's Handbook (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/handbook/section-i-introduction) you'll notice that they leave the recipes until after they've covered the general information. Heck, just poke around the table of contents on bread baking books on amazon. Almost all of them front load the book with the background and whys and wherefores of bread baking as a whole before presenting you with recipes to start making bread.


Who are you writing the book for, people who want to learn to bake, or people who just wants to bake a bread and need a recipe? For the former I agree with you, and for the latter they can skip to the back for recipies regardless. But should you try to tease the latter into wanting to learn about baking as well, and if so, what is the best approach?

Anyways, IMO the sourdough culture is the heart of bread baking, and it might not be a bad idea to start with that one.

Satinavian
2018-04-20, 05:14 AM
Maybe we just have very different experiences then, because most of my players have never liked character creation. Character concept creation, sure, but the actual mechanical process? Most of them would rather farm it out to someone who does like it.I like character creation. It is a time where the character slowly takes on form, important decisions about him/her are made, concept/backstory is either made or changed to fit the rules and probaly setting. It is the time when a player gets to know the character and the groundwork to identify with him/her later is laid. It is also the time of carefully choosing powers and abilities imagining their later use and building anticipation.

I really hate playing with pregens. I can tolerate it for some getting-to-know-the system one shot introduction at a convention because there really is no time. But even for new systems experiments in my regular groups not being able to use my own characters would make me even less willing to do such an experiment.


Honestly, it's a digital file. Not having bookmarks to relevant sections should be considered a sin. And if 3 pages is all the players need to get started, it should be a separate file. I know my players would be much more receptive to a 3 page PDF than a 300 page one, even if when I sent them the 300 page one I say "just read pages 6-9". I guess that's my point, we don't live in an age of 50 page rule books in black and white and limited distribution choices. We should stop making our designs fit that model and start making them work better for the people using the books. And i'm suggesting one of those "better" options would be putting character creation in a different spot.That is also your players. I would very much want to read in the real 300 page rulebook instead of some 3 page quickstarter. I probably won't read all 300 pages before the first game. But it is nice to not only be able to read some really basic rules but also look at the deeper rules for things that catch my interest. (And there better be things that catch my interest - if not i might decline trying out the game altogether)

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-20, 06:55 AM
I like character creation. It is a time where the character slowly takes on form, important decisions about him/her are made, concept/backstory is either made or changed to fit the rules and probaly setting. It is the time when a player gets to know the character and the groundwork to identify with him/her later is laid. It is also the time of carefully choosing powers and abilities imagining their later use and building anticipation.


Similar experience.

Also touches on why I dislike really simplified systems that abstract everything into a sort of general sameness, or don't allow for distinctions/variations (for example, systems that have just a few characteristics such "physical", which crams strength, agility, endurance, etc, into one thing, not allowing for differentiation between a strong character, an agile character, etc).




I really hate playing with pregens. I can tolerate it for some getting-to-know-the system one shot introduction at a convention because there really is no time. But even for new systems experiments in my regular groups not being able to use my own characters would make me even less willing to do such an experiment.


Same here. I deal with pregens for cons because of time limits, but other than that, NO.




That is also your players. I would very much want to read in the real 300 page rulebook instead of some 3 page quickstarter. I probably won't read all 300 pages before the first game. But it is nice to not only be able to read some really basic rules but also look at the deeper rules for things that catch my interest. (And there better be things that catch my interest - if not i might decline trying out the game altogether)


Same here -- I actually kinda hate "quickstart" rules. Either that tiny ruleset is lacking what I want from a system, or is just missing most of the system that I need to understand before I know if I actually like it.

Cluedrew
2018-04-20, 08:44 AM
[...] the existence of this thread is at least partially your fault. :smallbiggrin:I admit to nothing! Although I am happy to hear that. I will admit to that.


But couldn't having some pre-gen characters give you the same context [as character creation]?I agree with some other posters that putting pre-gens for play into the rule book... doesn't appeal to me. However if I have some running example characters, or setting characters, I could see providing at least partial character sheets for those. I might have to add more/adjust some example characters.

In my current work I put the character rules right after the system rules and character creation is in there. However it is a fairly minor part after explaining what all the stats are. So I could put character creation later, but I would probably leave the stats and explanations near the front.


For example, building a Quertus-like starting character was, IIRC, best modeled with knowledge +4, resources/contacts +3, magic only +2, etc etc, and some Spellcraft-related skill tricks (aspects?).Stunts, the skill trick like ones are stunts. Although you would probably have ~"Bookish Academic Wizard" as the high concept for Quertus, which is an aspect. So both.

ImNotTrevor
2018-04-20, 10:03 AM
As I said, for some, Chargen is a hook. You want all your potential hooks to happen early, just like how you put all the fishing lines with baited hooks in the water, not just most of them in there while one stays in the boat for after the fish is already in there.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-04-20, 10:21 AM
Part of this depends on how intricate character creation is, and how deeply connected and consequential the choices are.

If character creation requires several steps that depend heavily on previous steps, or worse whose results require you to re-do part of a previous step, I'm going to need a lot more explanation of exactly what I'm doing and lots of worked examples.

If there is a big chance of screwing up a character if you don't know all the system details, tell me the details first. If I can basically come in with a supported "high concept" (not all systems have to support all concepts) like "Big angry guy who hits hard and is hard to kill" or "nimble archer" or "magical blaster" or "sneaky investigator", pick what looks good and fits the concept and have a servicable character (even if not the best, but playable), then it doesn't really matter how much I know. I don't really need many examples at all, just a list of categories of things to choose.

Of course, this all requires things to be named well. An ability/skill called "stealth" should make me harder to see/detect/find. For me, it doesn't really matter how much unless it's a trap option. Which I hate. Detest. Abhor. <gets out thesaurus>

Of the two, I strongly prefer the second option. Let me pick what looks good and optimize later. Set the floor pretty high (into playable territory) and then let me do that up front. If I can make a character that doesn't care about magic/super tech/etc, don't make me wade through (or more likely thumb through) a section on those before I can make a character. Modular design is good so I only really have to know the things for my own character, not all the pieces of everyone elses' characters or the other subsystems.

If you're going to include trap options to "test system mastery" or any other such things, please tell me upfront so that I don't waste my money or time on your system. I find that anti-fun.

Jay R
2018-04-20, 10:42 AM
I suspect it won't change things as much as you think.

The players who stop reading the book after character creation now will just skip to the character creation rules if they are in the back of the book.

The players who read all the rules once will probably skip to character creation rules first, and then go back to the beginning to see how the character is played.

People like me who skip around throughout character creation will continue to skip around throughout character creation.

There will be exceptions, but in general, I don't think re-editing the rules will change the players' approach all that much.

Quertus
2018-04-20, 12:51 PM
Front, back, middle, separate book, doesn't matter. If it's the kind of game where I care about keeping a character alive, I'm going to spend a long time flipping back-and-forth.

Okay, fine, it does matter -- my left thumb is better at controlling number of pages simultaneously flipped than my right is, and English reads left to right, so the bulk of character creation should be at the front. That way my controller digit takes care of the harder job. All my right thumb has to worry about is the one spot I access over and over.

Yay, an actual use case! :smallbiggrin:


I suspect it won't change things as much as you think.

The players who stop reading the book after character creation now will just skip to the character creation rules if they are in the back of the book.

The players who read all the rules once will probably skip to character creation rules first, and then go back to the beginning to see how the character is played.

People like me who skip around throughout character creation will continue to skip around throughout character creation.

There will be exceptions, but in general, I don't think re-editing the rules will change the players' approach all that much.

This. Kinda.

Those of us with experience, who have a "way", will attempt to force the system to conform to our way.

However, the question is still valid for noobs who are not yet set in their ways.


If character creation is to have any sort of "(system) learning by doing" effect, following it along while reading through itis kind of a given necessity.

So if I look at the creation and think "great, what does this all mean?", it fails. And this is what tends to happen for me. Now if I skipped ahead to chargen, that lack of comprehension is on me. If a book threw me into chargen before explaining basic rules? That would be on the book. And not be a mark of good design in my eyes.

So, we're going to make an edible food person. For the head*, you need something round. You can choose between** an orange and a cookie. You choose cookie? Ok, there's things you need to know about decorating a cookie, and attaching a cookie to the body; they are...

Personally, I'm seeing "information as needed" as much more useful and efficient than learning the entirety of how to glaze, decorate, and attach every last type of food to every last possible other type of food, especially when I've got the "all marshmallows, all the time" expansion.

* apparently, gravity works backwards on this world, and you start building at the top?
** more options will come out in expansions. You can be sure of that.


I agree with some other posters that putting pre-gens for play into the rule book... doesn't appeal to me. However if I have some running example characters, or setting characters, I could see providing at least partial character sheets for those. I might have to add more/adjust some example characters.

Wait. What???

Maybe I'm just too grounded of a person (you'll not hear that accusation often), but few things are worse for me than what you just described. Nebulous "sir not appearing in this book took twelve flargs of phleboten for a mere 22 of his Yule - isn't that awesome?" does nothing but waste ink, confuse me, and make me suspect that the designers are idiots and/or on drugs, when the example would be so much clearer and make so much more sense if they'd included the full character sheet for reference.


Stunts, the skill trick like ones are stunts. Although you would probably have ~"Bookish Academic Wizard" as the high concept for Quertus, which is an aspect. So both.

Hahaha, yeah, I never played the system, so it didn't stick as well as I'd thought. :smallredface:


trap option

Trap Options

trap options to "test system mastery"

What you call "trap options", I call "ability to balance the party". :smallwink:

In Warhammer, you could hand me Tzeentch, or the god Emperor himself, and the standard inquisitors would out perform me. Give me 2e D&D, and even my vaunted skills are insufficient to make a character bad enough to keep me from dominating most parties if I go all out. But 3e? Yeah, I can balance to any party I've seen with that range of options.

It'd be nice if they were clearly labeled and sortable by power, though. It's tough trying to learn enough to build a bard/crusader that balances with a dark half-dragon monk with four free LA, if you know nothing about any of those choices.

However, it'd be nice if the simplest, most iconic choices were roughly balanced in power, and it takes a high degree of system mastery to step significantly outside that power range.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-04-20, 01:22 PM
What you call "trap options", I call "ability to balance the party". :smallwink:

In Warhammer, you could hand me Tzeentch, or the god Emperor himself, and the standard inquisitors would out perform me. Give me 2e D&D, and even my vaunted skills are insufficient to make a character bad enough to keep me from dominating most parties if I go all out. But 3e? Yeah, I can balance to any party I've seen with that range of options.

It'd be nice if they were clearly labeled and sortable by power, though. It's tough trying to learn enough to build a bard/crusader that balances with a dark half-dragon monk with four free LA, if you know nothing about any of those choices.

However, it'd be nice if the simplest, most iconic choices were roughly balanced in power, and it takes a high degree of system mastery to step significantly outside that power range.

A clearly labeled trap isn't as much of a trap, but it's still a waste of space. I strongly believe that everything there should be functional and roughly balanced. The big problems I have with trap options are:

a) They're labeled as stuff people want. Toughness--who doesn't want to be tough (especially if that's your concept). Instead, it has a huge opportunity cost that at minimum brings your build online later.

b) The attitude of "put it in there so the high-system mastery people can show off their mastery" is toxic. It's the "git gud nub" attitude, baked into the cake.

c) They're usually concentrated in certain archetypes. Crossbows in 3.5--you can take all the feats but you're going to be worse than someone with only minimal feat support and a longbow will be better. Either fix the feats or remove the option entirely.

d) They're noise--even if you know what you're doing, they're in the way and you have to page through them.

If you want balancing, add in optional flaws without giving anything back. Or just flat out hold back. And balancing is only a problem if the system is horribly imbalanced (has a large distance between floors and ceilings) to begin with. So remove that and you don't need trap options. Trap options are only good for balancing if you're already screwed up your game design. And even then, they rarely do a good job of that (since people who know they're there are usually trying to optimize for power, not for un-power).

Nifft
2018-04-20, 01:45 PM
Character creation should be on a small PDF linked from the main book.

Satinavian
2018-04-20, 01:51 PM
b) The attitude of "put it in there so the high-system mastery people can show off their mastery" is toxic. It's the "git gud nub" attitude, baked into the cake.
I don't think anyone includes trap options for that reason.

Trap options come into existence because authors are not necessarily better at optimizing than the players who choose those trap options later. And because a new system can't rely on play experience and character build options are usually written way before the accompanying challanges and/or any of the high experience content.

But making traps on purpose ? Why would anyone do that. Don't suspect malice when incompetence could explain it as well.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-20, 01:55 PM
A clearly labeled trap isn't as much of a trap, but it's still a waste of space. I strongly believe that everything there should be functional and roughly balanced. The big problems I have with trap options are:

a) They're labeled as stuff people want. Toughness--who doesn't want to be tough (especially if that's your concept). Instead, it has a huge opportunity cost that at minimum brings your build online later.

b) The attitude of "put it in there so the high-system mastery people can show off their mastery" is toxic. It's the "git gud nub" attitude, baked into the cake.

c) They're usually concentrated in certain archetypes. Crossbows in 3.5--you can take all the feats but you're going to be worse than someone with only minimal feat support and a longbow will be better. Either fix the feats or remove the option entirely.

d) They're noise--even if you know what you're doing, they're in the way and you have to page through them.

If you want balancing, add in optional flaws without giving anything back. Or just flat out hold back. And balancing is only a problem if the system is horribly imbalanced (has a large distance between floors and ceilings) to begin with. So remove that and you don't need trap options. Trap options are only good for balancing if you're already screwed up your game design. And even then, they rarely do a good job of that (since people who know they're there are usually trying to optimize for power, not for un-power).


Agreed on each and every count.

"Needing" bad options in order to "balance" means your system is already in deep trouble.

And the solution to "player system skill" imbalance is NOT, is NEVER, "give them a way to make a worse character than other players". That's some Harrison Bergeron level nonsense right there, straight from the Handicapper General. The solution is to avoid systems that require high levels of arcane mastery, and to actually teach the players how the system works.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-20, 01:58 PM
I don't think anyone includes trap options for that reason.


Designers intentionally including them in game design? Probably not.

Customers/users defending them on the grounds that they either enable some sort of "balance the skilled player with a worse character" approach, or that they force players to "master the system" or fail ("git gud nub")? We see both in these forums all the time, let alone elsewhere.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-04-20, 02:53 PM
Designers intentionally including them in game design? Probably not.

Customers/users defending them on the grounds that they either enable some sort of "balance the skilled player with a worse character" approach, or that they force players to "master the system" or fail ("git gud nub")? We see both in these forums all the time, let alone elsewhere.


I don't think anyone includes trap options for that reason.

Trap options come into existence because authors are not necessarily better at optimizing than the players who choose those trap options later. And because a new system can't rely on play experience and character build options are usually written way before the accompanying challanges and/or any of the high experience content.

But making traps on purpose ? Why would anyone do that. Don't suspect malice when incompetence could explain it as well.

I've seen quotes from PF developers to that effect in various threads--that they leave options in with a wide variety of powers and utilities to punish out the people with poor system mastery. And I've seen players echoing those approvingly. And that's ugly, in my opinion.

But this is a bit off topic, and more about balancing in general... :shrug:

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-20, 02:57 PM
I've seen quotes from PF developers to that effect in various threads--that they leave options in with a wide variety of powers and utilities to punish out the people with poor system mastery. And I've seen players echoing those approvingly. And that's ugly, in my opinion.

But this is a bit off topic, and more about balancing in general... :shrug:


PF comes across as 3.x lovingly turned up to 11, including all the things I don't like about 3.x, so I've avoided it.

I'm surprised that the devs of any system would do that deliberately... but maybe I shouldn't be in this case.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-04-20, 03:01 PM
PF comes across as 3.x lovingly turned up to 11, including all the things I don't like about 3.x, so I've avoided it.

I'm surprised that the devs of any system would do that deliberately... but maybe I shouldn't be in this case.

I hope I was misreading those quotes. I'd love to hope that no one is that user-unfriendly, but sadly I've seen real, actual developers (software in this case) that really are that way. And I played way too many MMOs in which it was a major segment of the community that felt that way.

From what I hear, large slices of the MOBA genre (games like League of Legends, etc) are rife with "git gud nub" sentiment. It's usually comes from a competitive, ranked PvP-oriented viewpoint where your team's performance (and you mostly team up with strangers) can drag you down as well.

Cluedrew
2018-04-20, 03:32 PM
Maybe I'm just too grounded of a person (you'll not hear that accusation often), but few things are worse for me than what you just described. [...] when the example would be so much clearer and make so much more sense if they'd included the full character sheet for reference.I'm not even sure what you think I am talking about. I mean it might be a bad idea but I'm not sure what you think the idea is. I'm just talking about if I have an example character in the driving rules that maybe listing out all the interpersonal skill modifiers they have doesn't help the example.

I mean other than giving some ideas about what a certain points total gets you or displaying random build combinations how would that help?

Quertus
2018-04-20, 03:34 PM
b) The attitude of "put it in there so the high-system mastery people can show off their mastery" is toxic. It's the "git gud nub" attitude, baked into the cake.

I'll look at the rest of your post later, but this I wanted to respond to immediately. I completely agree. This attitude is toxic.

I mean, I believe in Kai Zen, in improvement. I believe in many types of "git gud nub". I believe people should, in general, want* to get good. But even I find the attitude you describe in this and the next few posts to be madness.

* the fun of Sudoku being contingent upon a lack of system mastery not withstanding


Character creation should be on a small PDF linked from the main book.

The main book should be a large PDF linked - repeatedly - from character creation. :smalltongue:


"Needing" bad options in order to "balance" means your system is already in deep trouble.

And the solution to "player system skill" imbalance is NOT, is NEVER, "give them a way to make a worse character than other players".

So, if I'm way better at chess than you, chess has problems? And me spotting you pieces to make the game more balanced is never ever in any way a good idea? :smallconfused:

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-20, 04:14 PM
So, if I'm way better at chess than you, chess has problems? And me spotting you pieces to make the game more balanced is never ever in any way a good idea? :smallconfused:


We're not talking about chess.

RPGs are not chess.

There is no good parallel between RPGs and chess.

Quertus
2018-04-20, 04:28 PM
I'm not even sure what you think I am talking about. I mean it might be a bad idea but I'm not sure what you think the idea is. I'm just talking about if I have an example character in the driving rules that maybe listing out all the interpersonal skill modifiers they have doesn't help the example.

I mean other than giving some ideas about what a certain points total gets you or displaying random build combinations how would that help?

I guess I failed my reading comprehension roll. I thought you were talking about examples being good in text, but actually having the sample characters that those examples reference was bad.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-04-20, 04:54 PM
We're not talking about chess.

RPGs are not chess.

There is no good parallel between RPGs and chess.

Agreed.

Chess is zero sum competition. Only one person can win, and only if the other person loses. That's the polar opposite of an RPG, where even if players are at odds, they can have mutually compatible goals (along with their opposed ones).

Quertus
2018-04-20, 05:52 PM
We're not talking about chess.

RPGs are not chess.

There is no good parallel between RPGs and chess.


Agreed.

Chess is zero sum competition. Only one person can win, and only if the other person loses. That's the polar opposite of an RPG, where even if players are at odds, they can have mutually compatible goals (along with their opposed ones).

You don't like metaphor? Fine.

If I play 2e D&D with balanced characters with most anyone I've ever played with, I will either have to hold back (which is but so much fun), or I will dominate the game.

Otoh, if I play in the Warhammer universe, with balanced characters, I will totally under perform. Of course, I'll likely still under perform if you hand me Tzeentch or the god Emperor himself, so it would probably take multiple characters for me to having the same contribution as one inquisitor.

Is that grounded in RPGs enough for y'all?

PhoenixPhyre
2018-04-20, 05:59 PM
You don't like metaphor? Fine.

If I play 2e D&D with balanced characters with most anyone I've ever played with, I will either have to hold back (which is but so much fun), or I will dominate the game.

Otoh, if I play in the Warhammer universe, with balanced characters, I will totally under perform. Of course, I'll likely still under perform if you hand me Tzeentch or the god Emperor himself, so it would probably take multiple characters for me to having the same contribution as one inquisitor.

Is that grounded in RPGs enough for y'all?

I don't see how intentionally taking subpar abilities and "holding back" are materially different. Both are intentionally underperforming.

And you're still thinking in an inherently competitive framework. That's a big part of the problem right there.

Quertus
2018-04-20, 08:51 PM
I don't see how intentionally taking subpar abilities and "holding back" are materially different. Both are intentionally underperforming.

You don't? Really?

To you, Babe Ruth gently tapping a baseball is an identical experience to you trying to see just how far you can hit a wiffleball? You'd happily live Bob Parr's secret identity, even when you knew that you could do more to help people? Because that would be substantially the same to you as a young teen pouring their heart into a community service clean-up?


And you're still thinking in an inherently competitive framework. That's a big part of the problem right there.

No, I'm thinking in terms of spotlight sharing. In terms of everyone getting to contribute, and enjoy the game. I'm thinking in terms of everyone having a role to play.

D+1
2018-04-21, 10:46 AM
So why do we keep putting character creation at the beginning of the book? Tradition obviously, but I think it's also because of how we think of starting a game. You need to have characters to play a game, but if "the order in which you need things" was the true driver of book order, then the skills and equipment chapters would come even before character creation, and yet they don't. And we frontload these systems with their character creation subsystems, which leads GMs and Players alike to think they need to do this first.
Most game rule books are aimed at teaching the game, either to utter noobs who've never played an RPG, or to those who do already know RPG's but still need to learn to play THIS one differently than the last one. If you start with character creation first then you can be off and actually playing WHILE you're learning the mechanics, rather than first having to master the mechanics and THEN creating a character to finally begin the game with.

There are certainly advantages to knowing more of the game mechanics before creating a character, especially since many choices about character creation have to be made in the blind before you DO know more about the game mechanics, but the approach of, "mechanics first, then character creation," is generally aimed at already experienced players. For teaching the game, "character creation first, then game mechanics," works better for getting players PLAYING. If you don't care about teaching the game then the order in which you present your content can change... but then it doesn't much matter WHAT order things are presented in - and so you come back around to, "May as well present it in an order easier to learn the game."

dps
2018-04-21, 11:30 AM
Part of this depends on how intricate character creation is, and how deeply connected and consequential the choices are.

If character creation requires several steps that depend heavily on previous steps, or worse whose results require you to re-do part of a previous step, I'm going to need a lot more explanation of exactly what I'm doing and lots of worked examples.

If there is a big chance of screwing up a character if you don't know all the system details, tell me the details first. If I can basically come in with a supported "high concept" (not all systems have to support all concepts) like "Big angry guy who hits hard and is hard to kill" or "nimble archer" or "magical blaster" or "sneaky investigator", pick what looks good and fits the concept and have a servicable character (even if not the best, but playable), then it doesn't really matter how much I know. I don't really need many examples at all, just a list of categories of things to choose.

Of course, this all requires things to be named well. An ability/skill called "stealth" should make me harder to see/detect/find. For me, it doesn't really matter how much unless it's a trap option. Which I hate. Detest. Abhor. <gets out thesaurus>

Of the two, I strongly prefer the second option. Let me pick what looks good and optimize later. Set the floor pretty high (into playable territory) and then let me do that up front. If I can make a character that doesn't care about magic/super tech/etc, don't make me wade through (or more likely thumb through) a section on those before I can make a character. Modular design is good so I only really have to know the things for my own character, not all the pieces of everyone elses' characters or the other subsystems.


I generally agree. In fact, with many systems, I'd argue it's more fun if you don't always know exactly what you're doing during character creation and end up with sub-optimal (but still playable) characters. With some systems, though, the floor of what a playable character is will be set too high for that approach.

And, there's another issue. There seems to be an implication in this thread that players will understand all of the rules and how the different rules interact once they've read them. In my experience, this is far from the truth. If players are going to have to take time to gain experience with the system in order to learn how the rules actually work, then the "learning all the rules before you create a character" approach isn't going to work in practice.

FreddyNoNose
2018-04-21, 11:35 AM
When I DM, CC is done in front of me. I see all the rolls, I work though various rolls they have to make. Documentation goes on, etc.

It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to roll up a character in my game.

mephnick
2018-04-21, 12:10 PM
Honestly, any time I introduce a new group to D&D I don't let them make characters. We run a one-shot with premades and then we make characters for a real campaign if they decide to carry on with it.

Character creation is the worst introduction to D&D for new players.

Nifft
2018-04-21, 12:49 PM
The main book should be a large PDF linked - repeatedly - from character creation. :smalltongue:

Yeah, pretty much.

RPG rules should really be hard-cover wikis.

That'll make the inevitable errata easier to apply as an added bonus.

Florian
2018-04-21, 02:26 PM
*Shrugs*

I don't think this can really be answered.

We have a continuum going. The more complex the setting, the more it shapes the rules, the more you have to understand the entirety of the system before you can create a character.

You can basically throw a character into the Forgotten Realms and be fine, it works, you'd have a hard time throwing a character into Rokugan, some David Edings world or A Song Of .... it won't work.

1337 b4k4
2018-04-21, 07:44 PM
Who are you writing the book for, people who want to learn to bake, or people who just wants to bake a bread and need a recipe? For the former I agree with you, and for the latter they can skip to the back for recipies regardless. But should you try to tease the latter into wanting to learn about baking as well, and if so, what is the best approach?

Anyways, IMO the sourdough culture is the heart of bread baking, and it might not be a bad idea to start with that one.

Well in this analogy, your standard TTRPG rule book is teaching the system, so it's people that want to learn to bake. And teasing the latter might be worthwhile, and that's why I suggest that some pre-gens should be up front. It's not quite analogous to having a starter recipe in the front with all the remaining ones in the back, but it's pretty close. It's basically a "see this awesome thing, now we're going to talk about how you can make that better"


I like character creation. It is a time where the character slowly takes on form, important decisions about him/her are made, concept/backstory is either made or changed to fit the rules and probaly setting. It is the time when a player gets to know the character and the groundwork to identify with him/her later is laid. It is also the time of carefully choosing powers and abilities imagining their later use and building anticipation.

Obviously experiences can be different, but I should point out that as much as you personally might like character creation, you are also already self selected for being a more "in depth" TTRPG player, simply by your nature of being a regular on a TTRPG forum. While our hobby is a pretty well connected hobby, I would wager that TTRPG forum participants are more in depth than your average player, although I do admit to having no statistics on this to back up that assumption. I will note that my experience has been the players that are active online differ significantly in their enjoyment of aspects of our hobby than players who aren't.




I agree with some other posters that putting pre-gens for play into the rule book... doesn't appeal to me. However if I have some running example characters, or setting characters, I could see providing at least partial character sheets for those. I might have to add more/adjust some example characters.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting the rule book should only have pre-gens or even that it should suggest that all new players start playing with pre-gens. Just that in terms of presenting the rules the pre-gens should come first, followed by the rules the govern how a finished character interacts with the game itself, and then the character generation rules should be added. If you're familiar at all with online DIY how-tos and the sorts of standards that have developed around them, I'm suggesting here that what TTRPGs need to do is put a "picture of the finished project" first before going into the step by steps and tear downs.


In my current work I put the character rules right after the system rules and character creation is in there. However it is a fairly minor part after explaining what all the stats are. So I could put character creation later, but I would probably leave the stats and explanations near the front.

And that makes sense to me. If I'm not being clear, I do distinguish between the rules about characters, and the character creation rules. As a sort of simplified example, the "Monsters" section of Swords and Wizardry is divided into 3 parts:
1) Reading the monster descriptions (basically the rules about what the stats and attributes are and do)
2) The actual monsters list
3) Creating monsters rules for modifying or building your own custom monsters

This makes perfect sense to me, but what I'm getting at in this thread is it seems like we do something of the opposite with characters. Your average TTRPG is laid out for characters as if the monster section were:
1) Creating monsters rules
2) Reading the monster descriptions
3) (Optionally, and not frequently) The monsters list



I suspect it won't change things as much as you think.

The players who stop reading the book after character creation now will just skip to the character creation rules if they are in the back of the book.

The players who read all the rules once will probably skip to character creation rules first, and then go back to the beginning to see how the character is played.

People like me who skip around throughout character creation will continue to skip around throughout character creation.

There will be exceptions, but in general, I don't think re-editing the rules will change the players' approach all that much.

So for the first and third types of players, no change. For the second type though, I'm not sure we can say they would skip to the CC rules first. And if they wouldn't, would that change how effectively they receive that information?


Character creation should be on a small PDF linked from the main book.

For electronic copies sure I could buy that. But it does have to be in the main book somewhere too, especially for the hard copies, and certainly if the smaller PDF would be charged as well (see also the fallout over MgT second edition moving ship building rules to Highguard instead of keeping them in the main book)



The main book should be a large PDF linked - repeatedly - from character creation. :smalltongue:


Honestly our electronic copies of TTRPG books have a lot to be desired. Heck not all of them have useable bookmark TOCs, let alone take advantage of the ability for PDFs to have links and other "electronic wizardy" in them.


Most game rule books are aimed at teaching the game, either to utter noobs who've never played an RPG, or to those who do already know RPG's but still need to learn to play THIS one differently than the last one. If you start with character creation first then you can be off and actually playing WHILE you're learning the mechanics, rather than first having to master the mechanics and THEN creating a character to finally begin the game with.

There are certainly advantages to knowing more of the game mechanics before creating a character, especially since many choices about character creation have to be made in the blind before you DO know more about the game mechanics, but the approach of, "mechanics first, then character creation," is generally aimed at already experienced players. For teaching the game, "character creation first, then game mechanics," works better for getting players PLAYING. If you don't care about teaching the game then the order in which you present your content can change... but then it doesn't much matter WHAT order things are presented in - and so you come back around to, "May as well present it in an order easier to learn the game."

And yet as I pointed out in the initial post, one of the gold standards for teaching "utter noobs" a TTRPG is and has been Classic Red Box D&D. Page 2 starts by having you write down your pre-gen character's stats, explaining only the very basics to know what the words represent and then you're dropped on page 3 into a solo adventure. Right away it starts throwing mechanics at you, "attack rolls" "damage" "hp", the concept (but not name) of AC. By page 4 you're being introduced to saving throws. At page 10, in a brief interlude, they start going over the details of the character sheet, and basic equipment and money and XP show up on pages 11 and 12. Page 13 drops you back into the action of an adventure, teaching you now more about dying, mapping, dungeons and more. Class descriptions start on page 24 with class descriptions, and it isn't until page 28 that you actually get (an overview of) instructions for building a character of your own, and that's sandwiched in the middle (as I mentioned earlier) of the class descriptions. The true instructions in the form we've become familiar with don't start until page 48.

There are some additional rules that come after that, but it should be noted that one of the best books for teaching someone a TTRPG doesn't give you steps for building a character until half way through the book, and doesn't give you detailed steps until 2/3 of the way through.


Honestly, any time I introduce a new group to D&D I don't let them make characters. We run a one-shot with premades and then we make characters for a real campaign if they decide to carry on with it.

Character creation is the worst introduction to D&D for new players.

I think it might be one of the worst introductions to any TTRPGs (hence this thread), if only because TTRPGs aren't about creating characters. They're about playing them. Traveller character creation is fun. It's a game in and unto itself. And yet, it's a terrible way to get someone interested in playing an actual Traveller game.


Yeah, pretty much.

RPG rules should really be hard-cover wikis.

That'll make the inevitable errata easier to apply as an added bonus.

I'm not sure I really want to have to buy one hard cover book per chapter to have a TTRPG :smalleek:

TrinculoLives
2018-04-21, 09:04 PM
Mouse Guard has character creation at the back of the book.

Floret
2018-04-22, 01:21 AM
I think it might be one of the worst introductions to any TTRPGs (hence this thread), if only because TTRPGs aren't about creating characters. They're about playing them. Traveller character creation is fun. It's a game in and unto itself. And yet, it's a terrible way to get someone interested in playing an actual Traveller game.

I'm not so sure about that - yes, RPGs are about playing a character, but quite frequently playing *your* character, "you can be who you want to be" and stuff. There is a reason many people hate pregens, and if I'm being sold on a game with "you come up with a character, btw, you play this one" I'm feeling a bit cheated.

However, many games ofc have terribly complex character creation rules that feel like work at a certain point, which is terrible at introducing the game to newbies, too.

I think a short, concise and interesting character creation system that can be done right at the table might be the way to go - ofc, that would be hard to achieve in most game systems. Maybe some premades with slight customisability?

I found the Playbook style of Apocalypse world to work rather well as a compromise, but adapting that would mean making these "intro characters for customisation" in most systems. Your mileage may vary.

Florian
2018-04-22, 01:54 AM
I think one of the best examples that you actually need a lot of knowledge and an extended session zero to play the game is "A Time Of War", the BattleTech RPG.

BattleTech is already a huge affair with one entire hardcover rules book for each "zoom level" that it features, so if you play it in full mode with all bells and whistles, weīre talking about 5 hardcover books and some 3000 pages of rules and weīre not talking about setting, era and vehicles/gear yet.

Character generation is a really deep and powerful system that allows to create nearly any kind of character possible in the setting, from trader or civilian technician, to soldier, MechWarrior or House Lord.

That leads to a flood of problems. First, without knowing which of the "zoom levels" are involved and how they are mechanically connected to skills and traits, a lot of choices don't make sense by themselves or simply don't do anything obvious. Second, without sitting down and making a conscious decision on what kind of campaign to play, you're more likely to get a dysfunctional joke ("A clan elemental, a blakeist infantry grunt and a steiner merchant meet in a bar...") rather than anything playable. This again will be more obvious than in other RPGs when you switch between "character mode", "tactical war-game" and "strategic war-game" with some character being able to participate (MechWarrior can play the tactical game, the house lord can play the strategic game, the technician can play with their thumbs and take a nap while the others are doing their thing).

Satinavian
2018-04-22, 08:23 AM
Maybe some premades with slight customisability?
Lately i see many point buy systems provide lots of packages for the same price than the content would cost if bought individually. This allows to build typical, if somewhat bland characters fast and easy while still having all the options foor the unorthodox or non-archetype characters still in the system.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-22, 08:29 AM
Lately i see many point buy systems provide lots of packages for the same price than the content would cost if bought individually. This allows to build typical, if somewhat bland characters fast and easy while still having all the options foor the unorthodox or non-archetype characters still in the system.

That's sorta been the standard for HERO going back to the early 90s in some books -- "if you want to build this sort of character, start with this stuff, which will have this point impact".

Pleh
2018-04-22, 09:51 AM
My thoughts: "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

It's hard to get invested in a game that tries to start me out by exhausting me with world details. I can already probably guess half of the details through trope approximations mixed with familiarity with the genre. Any truly interesting, original ideas that make such games unique can usually be described in a single sentence, then extrapolated with a page or two of walkthrough. Example, Tippyverse: post-scarcity society based on exploiting magic power. Then you get a page or two of explaining the concept and giving examples of day to day life in this world and you're done.

Show me the world, don't just tell me about it. Let's hurry up and get me a character so I can start seeing the world for myself. I only need a world premise to work around.

In that spirit, don't make me wade through combat rules to find character options. Once the character is ready, it should need very little or infrequent changing in the future. Combat rules will make themselves apparent over time and I only need to understand the basic mechanic to get started.

That said, don't waste my time with pregen characters. I'm just going to skim past them or maybe reference them as a control group while making my character. Rather, in the first two pages about the world, rattle off a few names of significant NPCs and highlight some of their construction so I have an idea of what maked them work so I can aim to do something similar.

Yes, I want character creation near the front, because I don't care how cool your game is until I know how cool my character can be in it. A cool world premise without a cool character creation system is mostly a narrative vessel and not much of a game.

That said, I've never been a fan of the Fighter's class features scattered through the Feat chapter (and the combat chapter) or the Wizard's class features being scattered through the spell/magic chapter. It's not a bad thing, but it always felt to me like we could do better somehow.

Rhedyn
2018-04-22, 11:14 AM
I don't see how intentionally taking subpar abilities and "holding back" are materially different. Both are intentionally underperforming.

And you're still thinking in an inherently competitive framework. That's a big part of the problem right there.
I would say he is thinking tactically and narratively.

Superman does not adventure with Dirty Harry.

Nifft
2018-04-22, 11:25 AM
I'm not sure I really want to have to buy one hard cover book per chapter to have a TTRPG :smalleek:

Well, no, what I mean is one hardcover book for the whole RPG, which auto-updates and hyperlinks between sections like a wiki.

Which is to say, the best RPG books would behave in a somewhat un-book-like manner.


I think the most functional media for RPG books is not physical books, but I do like the look & feel of physical books so it's a bit of a dilemma.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-22, 11:31 AM
I would say he is thinking tactically and narratively.

Superman does not adventure with Dirty Harry.

I think what Quertus is saying is that the system should include options that lead to both "Superman" and "Dirty Harry", so that "good" players can self-balance their superior system mastery with other players by taking the the "Dirty Harry" options.

Celestia
2018-04-22, 11:54 AM
Well, no, what I mean is one hardcover book for the whole RPG, which auto-updates and hyperlinks between sections like a wiki.

Which is to say, the best RPG books would behave in a somewhat un-book-like manner.


I think the most functional media for RPG books is not physical books, but I do like the look & feel of physical books so it's a bit of a dilemma.
I don't think books can do that, unless we're talking magic books.

Nifft
2018-04-22, 12:16 PM
Well, no, what I mean is one hardcover book for the whole RPG, which auto-updates and hyperlinks between sections like a wiki.

Which is to say, the best RPG books would behave in a somewhat un-book-like manner.


I think the most functional media for RPG books is not physical books, but I do like the look & feel of physical books so it's a bit of a dilemma.


I don't think books can do that, unless we're talking magic books.

Indeed, that would be un-book-like behavior.

But it would be pretty great.

Celestia
2018-04-22, 12:59 PM
Indeed, that would be un-book-like behavior.

But it would be pretty great.
Probably the closest approximation would be an app that functions like an ebook but with internal links and an internet connection for updates.

Quertus
2018-04-22, 01:02 PM
I think what Quertus is saying is that the system should include options that lead to both "Superman" and "Dirty Harry", so that "good" players can self-balance their superior system mastery with other players by taking the the "Dirty Harry" options.

That's close to what I'm saying, at least.

What I'm saying is that groups that get hung up on "game balance" and "balanced characters" are invariably imbalanced IME, because, as the maxim goes, player > character.

A group that actually wants a balanced experience in the real world that produced the "player > character" maxim would evaluate the players, and assign them characters accordingly

Which you can't do if the game produces exclusively balanced playing pieces.

Thus, while I agree that it is best for all the easy to build and commonly desired options to be approximately balanced, it would be nice if there were a more advanced character building mode / more difficult to build characters of similar archetypes that allowed for balancing groups of diverse player skill.

Not entirely unlike spotting pieces in chess.

But wait, you say, chess is inherently competitive, whereas an RPG is cooperative. It's Apple's and oranges.

Well, no. In most RPGs, the characters are still striving against* something - monsters, traps, NPCs, the environment, whatever. IMO, the correct balance point is measured in narrative contribution, in ability to overcome what the party is striving against*.

There are those who will disagree with me. Most notably those with the (alien to me) mindset that those with negative contribution are balanced with those with positive contribution. I'll leave it to them to explain how their sense of game balance works.

Of course, all this is contingent on a desire for balance in the first place. Some groups actually enjoy playing Thor (and the Avengers). Those are the games I find the most realistic, and are often the ones I have the most fun in.

How does that affect book layout? For my proposed balance technique, the optimal layout would have Common, balanced options front and center; advanced balance-fixing options buried in obscure locations.

Which, curiously enough, means "core only, for balance" would still generally be indicative of ignorance. :smalltongue:

* Or you can view it as striving for something, and measure ability to move the game towards that something. But it's all the same to me, either way.

EDIT:So, the conversation went like this:
You don't like metaphor? Fine.

If I play 2e D&D with balanced characters with most anyone I've ever played with, I will either have to hold back (which is but so much fun), or I will dominate the game.

Otoh, if I play in the Warhammer universe, with balanced characters, I will totally under perform. Of course, I'll likely still under perform if you hand me Tzeentch or the god Emperor himself, so it would probably take multiple characters for me to having the same contribution as one inquisitor.

Is that grounded in RPGs enough for y'all?


I don't see how intentionally taking subpar abilities and "holding back" are materially different. Both are intentionally underperforming.

And you're still thinking in an inherently competitive framework. That's a big part of the problem right there.


You don't? Really?

To you, Babe Ruth gently tapping a baseball is an identical experience to you trying to see just how far you can hit a wiffleball? You'd happily live Bob Parr's secret identity, even when you knew that you could do more to help people? Because that would be substantially the same to you as a young teen pouring their heart into a community service clean-up?

No, I'm thinking in terms of spotlight sharing. In terms of everyone getting to contribute, and enjoy the game. I'm thinking in terms of everyone having a role to play.


I would say he is thinking tactically and narratively.

Superman does not adventure with Dirty Harry.

So, to my mind, Superman could adventure with Dirty Harry, if their personalities and stories were compatible, and if either Superman's player was bad enough that his Superman didn't out perform Dirty Harry, or if the party didn't care about balance.

Although, in retrospect, my examples were poor. It probably should have been the same person gently tapping the baseball vs struggling their hardest to get the same distance out of a wiffleball, for example. Ah, well.

Florian
2018-04-22, 04:50 PM
That's sorta been the standard for HERO going back to the early 90s in some books -- "if you want to build this sort of character, start with this stuff, which will have this point impact".

Not exactly. What's become a bit common recently is sorta-kinda mix of life path and point buy. You know, pick race, culture, social standing and profession, spend a couple of freebies, done, or replace one of the steps with raw point buy instead.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-22, 05:17 PM
Not exactly. What's become a bit common recently is sorta-kinda mix of life path and point buy. You know, pick race, culture, social standing and profession, spend a couple of freebies, done, or replace one of the steps with raw point buy instead.

Perhaps, but that's not what was being described in the post by Satinavianhttp://www.giantitp.com/forums/images/sand/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23014550#post23014550) that I was responding to. What Satinavian described was what some HERO "setting books" did 25+ years ago.

Cluedrew
2018-04-22, 08:41 PM
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/images/sand/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23014550#post23014550)Wow, I thought I knew just about every formatting trick on the forum by now (not that I use most of them), but I flat out have never seen that one before.


What I'm saying is that groups that get hung up on "game balance" and "balanced characters" are invariably imbalanced IME, because, as the maxim goes, player > character.Actually I was just flipping though the Apocalypse World playbooks... I can't remember why. But I stumbled on at thing that said something like "you may describe your clothing and optionally give it 1-armour or 2-armour". So you can take anything from no armour to the best armour in the game. No difference in cost. To put that in perspective, in another Powered by the Apocalypse system I have sunk a third of my starting resources (not starting gold, starting resources you use to buy up better attributes, materials and skills) into getting 2-armour without a moment's hesitation. So the power swing is huge here. And it is just a rather isolated choice that doesn't effect anything else.

So all of this is to say... I don't think less optimal takes that much work to allow. If you want to give people the option to be less powerful it doesn't really need another section in the book because it shouldn't take that long. Now that is just for adjusting power, I've seen you list off some of Quertus feats and if you want to incorporate that sort of obscure mumbo jumbo that might take up more space, but that is different. And might do with getting pulled out like you said.

Satinavian
2018-04-23, 02:09 AM
Not exactly. What's become a bit common recently is sorta-kinda mix of life path and point buy. You know, pick race, culture, social standing and profession, spend a couple of freebies, done, or replace one of the steps with raw point buy instead.


Perhaps, but that's not what was being described in the post by Satinavianhttp://www.giantitp.com/forums/images/sand/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23014550#post23014550) that I was responding to. What Satinavian described was what some HERO "setting books" did 25+ years ago.
Actually i meant it general enough to probably cover both. No matter if lifepath-like packages, gear packages, archetype power packages, profession packages ... as long as stuff in the point buy system is grouped together so that you can make reasonable characters in a very short time by just taking a couple of fitting packages and get and end result that costs exactly the same as arriving there via point buy, it fits. And you should also have the option to mix packages and regular point buy.

And yes, while the whole idea is probably not new, 15 years ago many point buy system would have packages that were cheaper than their ingredients to encourage people to play more "typical" or "lore friendly" characters. In practice that only made character creation even more complex as you didn't just buy what you wanted to play but were looking for the cheapest way to get there. That is out of fashion today, modern point buy systems keep it simpler and the cost of stuff is always the same. Instead caps and requirements are used to keep characters from being utterly unreasonable.

Quertus
2018-04-23, 05:54 AM
Actually I was just flipping though the Apocalypse World playbooks... I can't remember why. But I stumbled on at thing that said something like "you may describe your clothing and optionally give it 1-armour or 2-armour". So you can take anything from no armour to the best armour in the game. No difference in cost. To put that in perspective, in another Powered by the Apocalypse system I have sunk a third of my starting resources (not starting gold, starting resources you use to buy up better attributes, materials and skills) into getting 2-armour without a moment's hesitation. So the power swing is huge here. And it is just a rather isolated choice that doesn't effect anything else.

So all of this is to say... I don't think less optimal takes that much work to allow. If you want to give people the option to be less powerful it doesn't really need another section in the book because it shouldn't take that long. Now that is just for adjusting power, I've seen you list off some of Quertus feats and if you want to incorporate that sort of obscure mumbo jumbo that might take up more space, but that is different. And might do with getting pulled out like you said.

I've slept on it, and I still don't have a response to this. I apparently have hidden assumptions that I'm unaware of. I'm going to go home, and rethink my life stance.

Knaight
2018-04-23, 10:16 AM
Perhaps, but that's not what was being described in the post by Satinavianhttp://www.giantitp.com/forums/images/sand/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23014550#post23014550) that I was responding to. What Satinavian described was what some HERO "setting books" did 25+ years ago.

GURPS has been doing this for a fair while as well, Fudge had it from its first printing (which was only 23 years ago), and I know I've seen it elsewhere in fairly old games, particularly when including something akin to the pregens but with almost every point spent, as an archetype you can start with instead of a blank slate, while being able to fully modify them to anything you could get by starting blank.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-23, 10:36 AM
GURPS has been doing this for a fair while as well, Fudge had it from its first printing (which was only 23 years ago), and I know I've seen it elsewhere in fairly old games, particularly when including something akin to the pregens but with almost every point spent, as an archetype you can start with instead of a blank slate, while being able to fully modify them to anything you could get by starting blank.


Cool. Knew about GURPS, didn't realize Fudge had the same "tradition".

It's certainly nothing new, regardless.

Sometimes it seems like the dominance of D&D-likes/d20 in the market for so long means that the same concepts and ideas that break from how that family of systems does things appear "new" or "fresh" or revolutionary" over and over again as people discover them in other systems, even if other other systems did those "un-D&D" things decades ago.

Just last year, I had to tell someone who was excited about additive die pools instead of a flat d20 as "refreshing" and "different" that he should go do some research on WEG d6 Star Wars....

Cluedrew
2018-04-23, 11:49 AM
I've slept on it, and I still don't have a response to this. I apparently have hidden assumptions that I'm unaware of. I'm going to go home, and rethink my life stance.I mean I only disagree with... one foot? of that stance. The general solution (basic/advanced character creation sections) is fine I just don't think the problem really requires it.

So if there is a hidden assumption I think it would be that there must be some option there instead of just put nothing. It reminds me when I got into table top war games, or a new one. Anyways there was the one guy who had already been playing the game for a while. The simplest solution to rebalance that would be to play with fewer points. Instead he played this complex faction that if you got all the combos off they would approach most of the other factions in power. As I recall he still went undefeated in the first year.

So besides a small trip down memory lane for me, even the advanced options can still overpower the simple ones. They usually have a much lower floor, but the ceiling can easily end up below, equal or above the simple options. So using the complexity of the option as some sort of balancing tool is doable, but it would probably take a lot more work that just adding some power dials to your character.


It's certainly nothing new, regardless."Someone has probably already made a documentary that says how to save the world." Which is to say people have already figured out a lot of stuff, looking around will dig up a lot of good ideas. Of course in pop culture and even the less focused gamer culture just sees D&D. So a lot of it gets missed.

Quertus
2018-04-23, 12:50 PM
I mean I only disagree with... one foot? of that stance. The general solution (basic/advanced character creation sections) is fine I just don't think the problem really requires it.

So if there is a hidden assumption I think it would be that there must be some option there instead of just put nothing. It reminds me when I got into table top war games, or a new one. Anyways there was the one guy who had already been playing the game for a while. The simplest solution to rebalance that would be to play with fewer points. Instead he played this complex faction that if you got all the combos off they would approach most of the other factions in power. As I recall he still went undefeated in the first year.

So besides a small trip down memory lane for me, even the advanced options can still overpower the simple ones. They usually have a much lower floor, but the ceiling can easily end up below, equal or above the simple options. So using the complexity of the option as some sort of balancing tool is doable, but it would probably take a lot more work that just adding some power dials to your character.

Got it. I found my missing piece.

So, the reason I'm hung up on obscurity is simple: it isn't just about fixing overpowered players. It's about those with System Mastery being able to both nerf the strong (themselves), and empower the weak. Oh, the party scout is consistently under-performing? Well, there's this obscure option they can take that would improve their performance.

If, like in your armor example, everyone could easily take it, then System Mastery no longer has value for Empowering the Weak, and can only be used to Nerf the Strong.

That's the hidden assumption I was subconsciously working under. But, sometimes, you have to tear your beliefs apart, and rebuild them from the ground up to truly understand where you are coming from.

Thank you for helping me find such a spot.

ijon
2018-04-23, 01:28 PM
So, the reason I'm hung up on obscurity is simple: it isn't just about fixing overpowered players. It's about those with System Mastery being able to both nerf the strong (themselves), and empower the weak. Oh, the party scout is consistently under-performing? Well, there's this obscure option they can take that would improve their performance.

If, like in your armor example, everyone could easily take it, then System Mastery no longer has value for Empowering the Weak, and can only be used to Nerf the Strong.
why's it gotta be obscure though? just having an easy (GM-approved) way to adjust your power level up or down would do the same thing and be clearer about the intention behind it, and the only real difference I see is having the scout player go "oh I never knew that, sweet" vs going "shut up I'm doing fine I don't need a buff" out of pride or something. but if they don't want a buff, y'know, that's their choice.

and if you're the DM, you don't even need anything like that. after all, no one complains about a pile of treasure/vault/weapon stash/whatever with a cool gizmo that benefits them greatly, even if it's suspiciously targeted towards them.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-04-23, 01:33 PM
why's it gotta be obscure though? just having an easy (GM-approved) way to adjust your power level up or down would do the same thing and be clearer about the intention behind it, and the only real difference I see is having the scout player go "oh I never knew that, sweet" vs going "shut up I'm doing fine I don't need a buff" out of pride or something. but if they don't want a buff, y'know, that's their choice.

and if you're the DM, you don't even need anything like that. after all, no one complains about a pile of treasure/vault/weapon stash/whatever with a cool gizmo that benefits them greatly, even if it's suspiciously targeted towards them.

And if you build in intentional imbalance points you run the risk of players that think they have system mastery using them, mistakenly thinking they've found an exploit. And getting frustrated.

I'm most against accidental imbalance--where things that should be good (based on name and idea) just plain aren't (usually due to interactions with other issues).

ijon
2018-04-23, 01:48 PM
And if you build in intentional imbalance points you run the risk of players that think they have system mastery using them, mistakenly thinking they've found an exploit. And getting frustrated.

that, and the idea of the rulebook obfuscating stuff like that just doesn't sit right with me. I want my rulebook to lead me to what I need to know, and what I need to know is how to play the system well. intentionally doing "trap options" or "hidden gems" or what-have-you is going directly against that, and doesn't speak well for the rest of the system.

Quertus
2018-04-23, 09:20 PM
why's it gotta be obscure though?

Because if it's obvious, at character creation, take 0-2 armor, which is best, those who need the help will already be "optimal", the same as those who don't (but aren't yet at the level of "balance to the group").

You lose the "those who care enough about the game to get a PHD in it (which is a similar set to those who care enough about the game to want it to run well, and know enough about the game to make that happen) can help you" effect.


And if you build in intentional imbalance points you run the risk of players that think they have system mastery using them, mistakenly thinking they've found an exploit. And getting frustrated.

I'm most against accidental imbalance--where things that should be good (based on name and idea) just plain aren't (usually due to interactions with other issues).

Let's pretend that, in MtG, Red is the color of direct damage. Let's also pretend that, if played that way, it's balanced with the other colors played in their primary fashion. These aren't exactly true, but pretend.

Now, for this discussion, we'd need each of the colors to telegraph their intended primary play style, and for it to be easy for players to build solid, balanced decks if they focus on these particular themes of each color.

If someone in that scenario wants to take obscure Red cards, and build a deck based on obscure interactions of hand cycling and deck shuffling mechanics, and makes something terrible, is that really the fault of MtG?

This also ties in a bit into conversations about linear vs sandbox, actually. If a card is useful in at most one situation in one deck, and the rest of the time, no-one would ever play with it, that's different from a generally useful card that happens not to do what this particular deck needs. Just like one can create elements in an RPG that are intended to be played with exactly one way, vs more generally useful toys.


that, and the idea of the rulebook obfuscating stuff like that just doesn't sit right with me. I want my rulebook to lead me to what I need to know, and what I need to know is how to play the system well. intentionally doing "trap options" or "hidden gems" or what-have-you is going directly against that, and doesn't speak well for the rest of the system.

Perhaps obfuscation is a misnomer. I want the 101 core rules book to contain what you need for simple, balanced characters that meet the primary archetypes of the game.

Then I want advanced splats to give you the 200-level courses through PhD material, that you can use to fill in niche cases, balance the party, etc.

Cluedrew
2018-04-24, 08:15 AM
I can see it now: RPG 714 Supporting With Non-Support Creating characters that support or highlight other characters in the party. Draws on theory of interdependence. Focus given to character archetypes not traditionally associated with the supporting role. Narrative and mechanical tools will be examined, as well as simple table side strategies.

On the other hand, why does this metaphor start with entry level post secondary education? In hindsight that seems a little bit high for playing a game. Welcome to Giant in the Playground.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-24, 08:30 AM
The idea that one should have or need a "PhD in gaming" is ludicrous to begin with.

Cluedrew
2018-04-24, 09:01 AM
I think the Ph.D. thing was always a comment on how ludicrous the amount of research/work some people have put into, such things as, optimizing D&D 3.5 characters. At least it seems to have hinted that in most uses of the phrase I have seen. But I think it says something about the education level here that our metaphor for making it more accessible is still at a level of education many people don't get (or don't need). So maybe winding it back to high-school or middle-school or... well I'm not sure how much further we can going without it getting demeaning, but I think the point still stands.

As does the original point of separating out basic from advanced options. I also thought of a system that might of actually did that: Legend. It was kind of a reword of the d20 system that changed how classes worked. Each class was constructed from 3 tracks (I forget what they were called) that had about a third of the class features in it. You could swap these out to multi-/hybrid-class your character. Most of the ones in classes were relatively straight forward. Then they had some pretty weird ones at the back of the book not associated with any class. Now I am not sure if it quite played out that way, I never played that game.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-04-24, 09:57 AM
The idea that one should have or need a "PhD in gaming" is ludicrous to begin with.

I agree, and as someone with a PhD, that's drastically understating the work involved.

The idea that a seasoned veteran should have a dramatic advantage based only on the character creation process is also repugnant to me.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-24, 10:13 AM
I agree, and as someone with a PhD, that's drastically understating the work involved.

The idea that a seasoned veteran should have a dramatic advantage based only on the character creation process is also repugnant to me.


I've been gaming since the mid 1980s. I've played, GMed, read and studied, and/or even worked on the development of dozens of systems. I've seen terrible and great systems, terrible and great campaigns, terrible and great players.

I don't see this as something that should give me an advantage over other gamers, or something that needs to be "balanced" lest I "exploit it" or "not be challenged" (forum needs an eye-roll smiley) -- I see this as a store of knowledge that I can share with other gamers if they're so inclined (I don't want to be an aggressive know-it-all), something that I have to offer to my fellows at the table or in discussion.

If the system at hand requires knowledge to avoid traps or bad choices, then my choice is to share that knowledge with the gamer next to me who doesn't have it yet -- not to horde the knowledge and pretend I'm "challenging myself" or "balancing the game" by taking "high difficulty options".

E: And if another player knows something I don't about the mechanics of a system, the last thing they should do is hide it in some misguided elitism.

Mato
2018-04-24, 02:17 PM
Am I too late to the party to point out D&D's PHB first chapter is an introduction of role playing fantasy followed by an RP heavy basics? This is then followed by the races of the world and how they live, how they interact with each other, their interests, their racial hatred of others, their religions and hopes and dreams. Then you're finally ready to see how people of the world niche them selves into classes. You are then introduced to a class, told why it would adventure, what it's like, how it might view morality, ethics and religion, given a brief background of how they might have came to be, what people of the world would consider it and why, who they get along with other classes, all before finally being told what their actual role is and all of that comes before the class's mechanical benefits.

After crunching through their flavor rich environment you're given a more gritty version of skills & feats to quickly finish some minor details and then you're ready for chapter 6. It is the chapter that challenges you to flesh out your character. What do they look like, how old are they, what first impression do they hope to capture, what is their specific history. The chapter reminds you that when you first start playing a new character in a new game it's fine to be a little vague, you are here to play a game, but over time you need to breath a sense of life into the character. On a forum, chapter 6 doesn't exist. You do not post your character, you post a build. The impartiality avoids being jealous of someone developing your character better than you and for the person coping the build they don't feel like they are playing someone else's build.

But you are fundamentally limited by your own perceptions. If all you read is the SRD and forum, it's easy for someone to arrive at the point of thinking D&D doesn't have flavor and that you should have been told how to RP. It reminds me of all of the advice that the old WotC forums used to bring up, the better parts of it simply repeating what the DMG already tried to say but none of them had ever read that book either.

Quertus
2018-04-24, 03:15 PM
By to the way, just a friendly reminder: player skills come in multiple flavors. There's skill with the rules, skill at building a character, skill at playing a character, skill at knowing and being in sync with the GM, metagaming, role-playing, acting, etc etc etc. Keep that in mind when reading my posts.


I can see it now: RPG 714 Supporting With Non-Support Creating characters that support or highlight other characters in the party. Draws on theory of interdependence. Focus given to character archetypes not traditionally associated with the supporting role. Narrative and mechanical tools will be examined, as well as simple table side strategies.

On the other hand, why does this metaphor start with entry level post secondary education? In hindsight that seems a little bit high for playing a game. Welcome to Giant in the Playground.


The idea that one should have or need a "PhD in gaming" is ludicrous to begin with.


I think the Ph.D. thing was always a comment on how ludicrous the amount of research/work some people have put into, such things as, optimizing D&D 3.5 characters. At least it seems to have hinted that in most uses of the phrase I have seen. But I think it says something about the education level here that our metaphor for making it more accessible is still at a level of education many people don't get (or don't need). So maybe winding it back to high-school or middle-school or... well I'm not sure how much further we can going without it getting demeaning, but I think the point still stands.


I agree, and as someone with a PhD, that's drastically understating the work involved.

That people need that much work and understanding of the system to create and optimize characters in 3e is, indeed, my understanding of the original phrase that mine parallels

The idea is, low balling the amount of knowledge it takes to understand all the issues involved and actually balance a party at PhD is less insulting than low balling it at grade school basics of human interaction. Though plenty of gamers could use a refresher course there, too.


As does the original point of separating out basic from advanced options. I also thought of a system that might of actually did that: Legend. It was kind of a reword of the d20 system that changed how classes worked. Each class was constructed from 3 tracks (I forget what they were called) that had about a third of the class features in it. You could swap these out to multi-/hybrid-class your character. Most of the ones in classes were relatively straight forward. Then they had some pretty weird ones at the back of the book not associated with any class. Now I am not sure if it quite played out that way, I never played that game.

A less senile, alternate reality version of myself really ought to look into that.


The idea that a seasoned veteran should have a dramatic advantage based only on the character creation process is also repugnant to me.

I'm not sure what you mean here. If you're opposed to a reality in which a skilled general can make tactics that are better than the village idiot picking orders out of a hat, or where a skilled cook can create food that tastes better than someone throwing random ingredients in a blender, then I have bad news for you.

Do you dislike the idea that police have options other than lethal force, or that people can buy low sodium gluten free food? Do you dislike that people can customize their options to match the desired experience?

Player skills are a thing. Even if you give me the exact same equipment, your professional sports star of choice will out-perform me. Playing the exact same character, different people will have different results. Player > Character.

These are just characteristics of the world we live in.

So, why do you find it repugnant that player skill could also affect the character creation minigame?


I've been gaming since the mid 1980s. I've played, GMed, read and studied, and/or even worked on the development of dozens of systems. I've seen terrible and great systems, terrible and great campaigns, terrible and great players.

I don't see this as something that should give me an advantage over other gamers, or something that needs to be "balanced" lest I "exploit it" or "not be challenged" (forum needs an eye-roll smiley) -- I see this as a store of knowledge that I can share with other gamers if they're so inclined, something that I have to offer to my fellows at the table or in discussion.

If the system at hand requires knowledge to avoid traps or bad choices, then my choice is to share that knowledge with the gamer next to me who doesn't have it yet -- not to horde the knowledge and pretend I'm "challenging myself" or "balancing the game" by taking "high difficulty options".

I strongly agree with almost every last piece of this sentiment.

Really, I ought to just stop there. Because, if I go on, it'll be easy to lose the forest for the trees, and lose sight of the fact that I agree. But, I'm me. I'll clarify what I mean... and focus on the differences.

Those with our level of experience generally have been in a few games that failed. With our vast experience, we generally have the wisdom to know what "good" and "bad" look like (linear game without Participationism, for example), and the tools to try to work towards "good".

It sounds like you have been fortunate enough to game with "better" players, who didn't fail kindergarten "plays well with others" skills, and can actually be helped. In such a scenario, I agree with you. But, as you said, not everyone is so inclined.

There are some people who react poorly to our well-meaning sentiment. Beholders who cannot comprehend a world where they are less than perfect. Gaming - interacting - with them is a chore.

Others just don't want a PhD download - they just want to "play the game". Etc etc.

Because "helping people" is not a ubiquitous option, even when subject matter experts are available, the game should not, IMO, be designed with this assumption. Simple, obvious, easy to build characters should be competitive. PhD levels of character creation player skill shouldn't be required to play.

But

When you have groups with badly divergent player skill at actually playing the game (such as my ineptitude in anything Warhammer), what do you suggest? How do you not exploit your competence to not completely outperform me in Warhammer? How does a pro athlete not exploit his skill, talent, training when he's on my ball team? How do you propose that we have narrative equivalent impact?

I propose and assert that giving people characters with notably different capabilities based on their relevant player skills skill level allows for balanced narrative impact.

Do you deny the truth of the maxim "Player > Character", or that player skills figure strongly into narrative impact?

Do you disagree with my assertion that the technique of using imbalanced playing pieces can (at least approximately) achieve my goal of balanced contribution?

Do you have a counter proposal for an alternate method by which one can accomplish my goal of balanced contribution, given unbalanced player skill?

Do you want to assert that balanced contribution is not a worthy goal?

Pelle
2018-04-24, 04:25 PM
So, why do you find it repugnant that player skill could also affect the character creation minigame?


You seem to see system mastery, and high level threshold thereof, as a way to let high skill players nerf themselves to the rest of the group. I think many peoples' experience here is that it is often used for the opposite, to further increase the gap between good and bad players. Yeah I know, just play with nice people it it's not that big problem.



Do you have a counter proposal for an alternate method by which one can accomplish my goal of balanced contribution, given unbalanced player skill?


I think most people are satisfied with just starting at different levels, using different amount point buy points, difference in quality of equipment and so on. Even if you include options that are explicitly labeled as worse, instead of presented as equal, what's the point when you can just use one of the others? To make yourself happier for not feeling you are 'cheating'`?

ijon
2018-04-24, 04:30 PM
regarding Quertus's posts (>>23018771 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23018771) and >>23020921 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23020921))

I really don't understand how any of this wouldn't be solved by clearly signposting the (intended) power level of each character option you can choose.

if your group adheres to a certain power level, and the system is balanced properly enough, then each character will be roughly equal to each other. if one guy lags behind in party contribution for whatever reason, and he expresses issues with it (hey, maybe he's fine with being in the back)... well, the same strategies still work for boosting him up. either give him some tips on how to contribute better ("hey, you could put this ability to better use by doing this"), or if you're the DM, give him a power bump directly. none of this is incompatible with signposted power levels.

but since things are balanced, you generally don't have to worry about it. you won't get issues where one guy makes a druid in 3.5, takes natural spell, and finds out he's basically replaced the entire party. you won't get issues where a guy wants to punch things in the face, takes the guy about punching things in the face, and then finds out that he kinda sucks and the shirtless dude with perpetually oiled muscles and a greatsword kills everything before he can punch them (in the face). and you definitely won't get the issues where one guy in a group pulls a fast one on everyone else by choosing all the "hidden gems" and obviating everyone else's contributions. yeah yeah, don't play with that last guy. it still happens.

character creation should be an exercise in creative freedom, not rules mastery. if the system doesn't make it clear how to make a character that realizes what it's meant to be, then it screwed up. dead stop.

------------

back to the OP, the idea of "example fight/investigation/whatever, then basic rules and terms, then character archetypes, then combat-esque stuff, then further customization" seems like a good way to organize it to me if we're gonna stick to the book format. something like a wiki would be much better, and would make most of this a non-issue.

Floret
2018-04-24, 04:31 PM
I propose and assert that giving people characters with notably different capabilities based on their relevant player skills skill level allows for balanced narrative impact.

Do you disagree with my assertion that the technique of using imbalanced playing pieces can (at least approximately) achieve my goal of balanced contribution?


While I am not who was asked, I want to chime in, because yes, I disagree. Or rather, I agree that it might be solved that way, but it should not. Differences in contribution, of a level undesired by the respective players, are a table-level problem, and should not be tried to solve at the game (mechanic) level. Better GM attention to providing adequate spotlights or player attention to not hogging it would be a better solution, or at the very least an equal one, while avoiding all the problems that come with your proposal.

Satinavian
2018-04-25, 01:39 AM
I propose and assert that giving people characters with notably different capabilities based on their relevant player skills skill level allows for balanced narrative impact.
I get that. And i don't have a problem with giving a weak player a stronger character so that all on the table can contribute.

But that would easily be achieved through obvious boni like higher build points or level or whatever.

Hiding it in the character mini game so that only the people with system mastery see it ? Why would you do that ? The "people with system mastery" are just regular players. It is not their responsibility to make sure that everyone contribute. They are also not necessarily any less interested in only making their own characters thing than any other player. It is not a group of wise, learned senseis gaming for the greater good and the benefit of the group. They also don't necessarily have any speacial people skills that allow them to recognize unhappy players or mediate conflicts.
They are just some regular players who happen to have a head for rules and some interest in the game.

I don't think you should ever build a rule system under the assumption that those people are responsible for group dynamics and need more tools to decide power level of characters than the rest of the table.

Florian
2018-04-25, 02:16 AM
@Quertus:

I think there's a lot of wargaming roots showing in your assumptions, because of the top-down view of how strategic ability, tactical ability and system mastery, in the sense of circumventing the RNG work, so you think you need some gold-type handicap to offset the differences.

I do find this to be "purple duck"-level of odd. On the one hand, you see that you need to close the gap between power floor and ceiling to get a good game going, on the other hand, you're vehemently opposed to gaming systems that are already based on impact first, rest second.

Going with Avengers as an example, you'd have the "best player" play Hawkeye and the "worst player" play Thor to even things out, while something like Fate Core or Apocalypse World has already done the job for you by caring more for the "narrative impact".

That is amongst the major drawbacks of wanting "associated mechanics" in a game, with the mechanics clearly having different and "appropriate" effects to get the "feeling of the action right", while at the same time wanting something "balanced". Itīs like wanting a Porsche 911 Turbo to feel and perform like one, a Fiat 500, too, but then I want to have a fair and even race, so I blindfold the Porsche driver.

Cluedrew
2018-04-25, 06:22 AM
Do you deny the truth of the maxim "Player > Character", or that player skills figure strongly into narrative impact?I don't agree with player > character (per say) but I do agree that player skills do have narrative impact. Especially the story telling ones. In my experience optimization skills just effects how long combat takes.

Now for the per say: saying "less than" implies there is a way we can just order the contributions by there significance. For instance I often have a joke that there are two rolls in our group: those who get us into trouble and those who get us out of it. By the classic measure the later is better, but often the former does more for the plot, they make it interesting and give the fixers problems to fix.


I do find this to be "purple duck"-level of odd.If you can parse what he is saying and figure out what he is trying to say, no it is not "purple duck". Although I enjoy how that has become a level of weird/nonsensical.

Florian
2018-04-25, 06:42 AM
@Cluedrew:

Take a look at how systems with a concrete narrative resource work. For example, a lot of Disadvantages in Savage Worlds will get you into trouble, but reward you with a Benny for doing so.

.... and I'm pretty sure that is not what was meant.

(Itīs "per se")

Cluedrew
2018-04-25, 01:48 PM
To Florian: I don't follow. I'm not entirely sure how what you say connects to what I am saying at least. I know about some of the disadvantage as resources systems you speak of though.

On Per Se: Is that still pronounced with a long-a sound a the end? Because that is how I know it.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-25, 02:00 PM
On Per Se: Is that still pronounced with a long-a sound a the end? Because that is how I know it.


"Purr Say".

It's Latin, meaning "by itself".

Florian
2018-04-25, 02:26 PM
To Florian: I don't follow. I'm not entirely sure how what you say connects to what I am saying at least. I know about some of the disadvantage as resources systems you speak of though.

On Per Se: Is that still pronounced with a long-a sound a the end? Because that is how I know it.

"Per Se" is latin and means "By (It)Self". You've basically used it right, but written it wrong. Anyone trained in classic Oxford English will understand "say" differently than you meant your usage of it.
(Basically the rest of the world learns classic Oxford, so watch out there)

Let me guess why you canīt follow my thoughts: There're systems that award "going into trouble" or "advance the plot" with a meta-currency (aka plot points or other BS) that can be spent (or traded amongst players) to actually get out of that "trouble" again, receive XP and win the day.

Quertus
2018-04-25, 08:04 PM
Wow. So many amazing replies! Let me just say, if I ever need an Intervention, y'all are all invited!

I'm going to spend a few days writing up the details of my point of view, and I'll start a new thread with it, if anyone is interested in plumbing the depths of my personal insanity.

Germaine to this thread, however, perhaps we can agree that what layout is optimal depends somewhat on who you're marketing to, what your objective is, and what assumptions you make going in.

Cluedrew
2018-04-25, 08:35 PM
To Florian: (And Max_Killjoy for this part) I actually thought it was some much shortened saying about how something was said. On the other hand I don't think I have ever actually seen it written down before. Anyways, again I understand that how such a system works. It is not present in the system we used for the games that "those who get us into trouble and those who get us out of it" comes from. That being said I'm still not sure how it relates to my point of contribution not being a linear measure nor I'm I actually sure what your guess about why I didn't follow last time was.

What we have here is a break down in communication.

To Quertus: I will keep an eye out for that thread. I was going to ask if my discussion with Florian would fit in, but then I realized I'm not sure what it is yet. Also I hope you never need an intervention. For the obvious reasons and because I'm not sure where to go to do that. Finally yes, the idea layout would indeed depend on what you are trying to accomplish with it.