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Thread: Character attachment?
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2018-06-01, 12:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
Character attachment?
So this is really just a curiosity question as to what people enjoy regarding the characters they play.
Core question:
Do you enjoy role playing games when you have no connection to your character or their creation?
I always hated tournament play where you are assigned a character. I personally find no enjoyment in playing a character I didn't create and spent many hours fleshing out and arriving at their goals and motivation.
I could never play more than one character at a time. I can't have 2 campaigns going with multiple characters because I found myself incapable of being investing in more than one character at a time.
So im curious what % of the role playing world feels the same. Some basic questions
1) Can you enjoy being handed a random character and just going through a premade adventure?
2) How much time do you spend on character creation background and motivations?
3) Do you only play long term campaigns?
4) (slightly different) Are you ok with a DM telling you your characters background or is it something you really need to create for yourself?
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2018-06-01, 01:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Location
- San Francisco Bay area
- Gender
Re: Character attachment?
I've played some with random character creation in which backgrounds and skills are rolled and had fun, and I still sometimes do, but mostly I choose point buy now.
1) Can you enjoy being handed a random character and just going through a premade adventure?
Yes.
2) How much time do you spend on character creation background and motivations?
If I'm not just copying one of my old one's usually about 30 to 60 minutes, unless I intuit or learn that the GM wants a long back-story written as an "audition".
3) Do you only play long term campaigns?
I play what I may, if the campaign is long I consider myself lucky.
4) (slightly different) Are you ok with a DM telling you your characters background or is it something you really need to create for yourself?
I have a decided preference for some types of characters, but I'll play some others.
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2018-06-01, 05:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
Re: Character attachment?
No
Same.
I can.
I can. My record was 6 weekly games simultaneously.
No
Yes
2 weeks seems fine.
No. This is suboptimal. One-shots are a great courting period, for player & their character, player & other players, characters & other characters, party & GM, etc, to figure out what combination people are most likely to enjoy.
Starting a campaign without such planning and testing is... ill-advised.
No
Yes
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2018-06-02, 12:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2017
- Location
- Mystaraspace
- Gender
Re: Character attachment?
I would enjoy PLAYING... if that meant getting handed a random character and figuring it out from there... I'd like the challenge.
If I have a concept that I'm fascinated with, I practically write a novel of background.
Sadly, I don't get to play much at all anymore, so this question doesn't particularly apply
-I would be willing to work with this with a one-shot. For something longer-term, I'd prefer to collaborate with my DM to find a happy middle. After all, this is what I do for my players when I DM.
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2018-06-02, 12:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2010
Re: Character attachment?
1. I can get into an assigned character if I had some time to look it over first.
1a. I think premades are fine; I ran one once. They're a great tool for GMs, especially people who are new, uncertain of their world/plot-building, or simply don't want to spend time writing their own.
3. I probably spend about 8-16 hours total deciding a characters' lore when I expect it to be a long game.
4. I've played both long-running games, one-shots, and short games. I prefer a good game to go long-term, though some of my best games have been one-shots.
5. My GM can tell me my character's background. Though I'd prefer for him to simply establish "essential" parts of the backstory and let me take liberties with the others. It'll work best if I understand what he wants instead of him just dictating things in an arbitrary manner.
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2018-06-02, 12:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2013
Re: Character attachment?
Q1) Can you enjoy being handed a random character and just going through a premade adventure?
Yes, BUT
Being handed a character would remove at least one facet of my enjoyment but I would still enjoy hanging out with friends and the character might be interesting.
I can see how subtle changes to the weight of these preferences could change that to a no.
Q2) How much time do you spend on character creation background and motivations?
Some character concepts live in my head long before I decide to play them in a game.
Other character concepts write themselves with just a few hours of attention in the weeks prior to their first session.
Most are a mixture between long considered motifs combined with specifics from rapid inspiration.
Q3) Do you only play long term campaigns?
No, I have done one shorts, two shots, 24 shots, and 52+ shots
Q4) (slightly different) Are you ok with a DM telling you your characters background or is it something you really need to create for yourself?
If I am playing a character I created, I would want the DM to avoid retconning that character's existence but there is usually plenty of room for the DM to fill in. I tend to create personalities rather than histories as a consequence of how I see human nature.
If I am playing a character the DM created, I would enjoy the game less but the DM would need to tell me their background.Last edited by OldTrees1; 2018-06-02 at 12:48 AM.
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2018-06-02, 01:46 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
Re: Character attachment?
1. Depends. I think I could enjoy premade adventures if they were well made, and I could get into a premade character if there was some flexibility for my own additions. But if it became more akin to playing a part in a play, I'd just want to go be in a play.
2. A long time sometimes. Around an hour for D&D and similar games. For something that tends to be more character-driven (such as Vampire), I've been known to spend multiple evenings writing a detailed backstory and working through their motives and goals.
3. Depends how you define "long-term". My current game has been going on for about a year and will probably continue for several more months at least. 3-9 months has been the average. I've done some one-shots as well, and while I enjoyed them, I think I somewhat prefer longer campaigns. Would totally do another one-shot, though, especially with a good DM
4. I really do need to do it mostly myself, although I'm fine with a DM giving advice, critique, etc, and also with being given some specific role or idea to fill ("I would like something that's more on the straight-and-narrow to balance out a party that leans towards chaos" or "create someone loyal to the royal family")
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2018-06-02, 02:34 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
Re: Character attachment?
Yes.
Yes. This is a classic way to play a casual game. Go over someones house, take a character from the pile, toss some dice and play the game.
I don't think of the above as a ''real'' or ''serious'' game: it's just a way to pass the time.
For a real serious game I expect to play for roughly a year: several hours, if not days.
No. I like long term campaigns, but I'll play in a casual game.
For a casual game, sure, who cares.
For a real, serious long term game: No Way. I make my own character.
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2018-06-02, 02:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Gender
Re: Character attachment?
I enjoy playing in whatever capacity. If it's a one-shot with a premade character, that's a different thing than a game that is designed as some sort of long-form epic woven from complicated character and setting backstories. It's actually refreshing to just have a simple mission/goal and to try your best to complete it without caring about emotions and long-term plans.
The only limit to how many characters I could play is how many games can be fit into the time available. Being a GM most of the time, I do not view character attachment in the same way as some people, maybe. The GM regularly jumps from character to character, improvising personalities and voices, and often forming impromptu performances based on rolls of the dice. I'm a new character every minute, sometimes I'm lots of characters simultaneously.
1. There might be some characters I would like playing more than others in a longer game, but I'm fully capable of embracing the role and finding a way to have fun with whatever someone hands me. I don't prejudge a game based on where the GM got the adventure - it's how the game is run. Is it exciting, challenging, with interesting decisions to make as players and ability for all to participate equally? That's a good game.
2. it depends on the game, but generally I'd rather not spend more than one group-session designing a character (that's for a really character intensive game where players are supposed to have involved backgrounds and relationships that form a part of the campaign activity.) If the GM actually has a game prepared and isn't waiting for the PCs before designing session 1, I'd prefer an hour or less spent on character creation, so we can get to actually playing on the same day.
I'm not a method actor, and I'm not going to spend much or any time outside the game sessions thinking about this character. If doing so helps other people to play the game, I'm not poo-pooing their fun - but in my experience all that work rarely ends up being relevant to actual play.
I've never run a game where I wanted a full life-history of the characters. I like the players to think about their characters' relationships with each other, and to think about how their characters relate to the game's theme/objective (which I supply) - why does your character want to do the things the game is about?
3. In my experience, how long a game lasts isn't something that can be planned. You might hope a game will go on for a year or reach a certain number of game sessions, but there's never a guarantee - it's not something you can choose. So I don't go into it expecting there will be some sort of slow-building crescendo of powerful emotional content. I feel that long-form epics that are completely entwined with specific PCs and their backstories rarely reach a point of satisfaction, there's little or no payoff for all the focus you're expected to have on your character.
I play the character I have right now, and try to have fun with it today. It will last as long as it lasts.
4. I don't have any special need to create a background. If the GM wants to give me one, I'm sure it's relevant to the game and that's fine.
I don't think extensive and detailed character back stories ever really have a pay off that justifies the effort. Unless I'm the GM, I don't think about the game much beyond the time spent sitting at the table.
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2018-06-02, 02:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Gender
Re: Character attachment?
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2018-06-02, 05:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Gender
Re: Character attachment?
In order, yes, it varies, no and yes.
Who creates a character (or adventure if GMing) is not all that important and honestly, some of my best work was done with material handed to me by someone else.
How much time I spend on a character prior to a game is immensely variable. For play-by-post freeform games, I can and have written short novels because the end result of a written story is part of the point. For tabletop games, random rolls on a table is enough. The difference exists because the point is to actually play. Play-by-post is naturally slow, it's okay to spend a day on a character profile. For tabletop, using more than 30 minutes on it is a waste of everyone's time. Most of my work on motivation and background is actually done during play, not before it."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-06-02, 08:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: Character attachment?
Very much. Don't get me wrong, I like to make characters, but there's also something freeing about being given a character you have no mechanical attachment to, a brief character sketch, and making them my own. Toward the end of 4e, a friend was really into Fourthcore, and we'd sit down, grab a character that was a collection of stats and a name on a page, and start playing. I once grabbed one whose name was misprinted, just badly garbled on the page... she became Sister Ballista, pronounced Sistah Ballistah, frequently with the addendum "gets all the Mistahs". She got turned into a book. Since I didn't have an attachment to her, I was free to just go nuts, do whatever I liked, rather than worry about the character I created and the story I created for them.
2) How much time do you spend on character creation background and motivations?
3) Do you only play long term campaigns?
4) (slightly different) Are you ok with a DM telling you your characters background or is it something you really need to create for yourself?The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
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Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
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2018-06-02, 09:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: Character attachment?
Absolutely. I probably wouldn't want to do this for campaign play, but I'm mostly doing one shots these days anyways. That said, I am assuming that "random" in this context means deliberately created by someone else and randomly assigned. A genuinely randomized character might be more of an issue, though someone still builds the randomizer and could be fun.
I generally build a quick framework (call it 15 minutes, though that's with the experience of making a lot of NPCs), then develop the character through the game.
Not even a little. As I've mentioned elsewhere my current gaming is in what I'm calling One Shot Club, a group made to run a bunch of one shots in quick succession. That said even there we've had cases where people want to play a long campaign with pregens handed to them, because they liked the pregens that much.
I'm totally fine with it. That said, it's a nonstandard way of play, so it's the sort of thing that really warrants an explicit heads up. It's the sort of thing that's significantly less fine when it's a surprise.I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2018-06-02, 10:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
- Gender
Re: Character attachment?
1. I can, yes. While I would likely enjoy it more if I created my character and motivations. I also enjoy the strategy and tactics of the game.
2. I can spend hours fleshing out a character and really enjoy coming up with a nice backstory.
3. I’ve played long campaigns and one offs. I enjoy long term more because forming a team and working together is part of what I enjoy about the game.
4. For a one off, yeah, I can be ok with that but for a long campaign, I’d prefer to create it myself. I’d be more ok with being handed a character for a long term if I could make it my own with small changes or tweaks.
Bottom line is for a long term campaign, I’m going to be more attached to my character if I make it.
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2018-06-03, 08:54 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
Re: Character attachment?
Yeah, it's fine for an adventure that'll last just a few play sessions. I always have to come up with a backstory for my characters, and understand their personalities, but I can usually do that pretty well on the fly. For a long campaign I'd prefer to use a character I designed myself, though.
A couple hours, which generally happens on a long drive somewhere, while my mind is wandering.
No. I like long campaigns as both a player and a DM, but unfortunately I don't have time to commit to one these days.
I'd be fine with the DM telling me that the background needed to include a few specific details, in order to make the the rest of the adventure's narrative work, but I'd want to have the freedom to flesh out the rest. It could be a good trigger for some creative thinking.
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2018-06-03, 10:46 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2008
- Location
- Italy
- Gender
Re: Character attachment?
of course not
1) Can you enjoy being handed a random character and just going through a premade adventure?
2) How much time do you spend on character creation background and motivations?
3) Do you only play long term campaigns?
4) (slightly different) Are you ok with a DM telling you your characters background or is it something you really need to create for yourself?In memory of Evisceratus: he dreamed of a better world, but he lacked the class levels to make the dream come true.
Ridiculous monsters you won't take seriously even as they disembowel you
my take on the highly skilled professional: the specialized expert
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2018-06-03, 11:26 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2015
Re: Character attachment?
No. But I can create a connection very fast, so this is unlikely to happen. The only possible way would be playing someone else's PC. I cannot form a connection in that case. Personally creating a character, including the written personality/motivations and even history, isn't required for me to forge a connection. But someone else having played them and defined their own interpretations of the personality & motivations in their own way means I cannot.
1) Can you enjoy being handed a random character and just going through a premade adventure?
2) How much time do you spend on character creation background and motivations?
3) Do you only play long term campaigns?
A "home" campaign with no defined end point for the campaign? No.
IMX the times I've tried to join one, they always fall apart. Almost always faster than the adventure path/series campaigns.
4) (slightly different) Are you ok with a DM telling you your characters background or is it something you really need to create for yourself?
But for a convention or tourney or one-shot I wouldn't have any issues with it at all. I'll take a fully fleshed out character and run with it, no problem.Last edited by Tanarii; 2018-06-03 at 11:29 AM.