Random generation vs. Careful planning

[Loof]

hihihihi sounds like your problem is with ****y GM's and not with forced or self created characters. But it was a funny story =)

[metadigital]

"Far be it for me, an amateur, to re-engineer

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Randomization insofar as character creation is concerned doesn't have that much merit, other than being a quicker way to conjure some character type. Not much beyond that. The issue with being totally or partially in control of creation isn't really important: an oddball character which you wouldn't normally play can be created manually just like a character you'd devise from scratch. You can very well 'handicap' your character either way, and you can very well roleplay a character you didn't make or didn't like, give or take the obvious differing levels of success and enjoyment while doing so. Everybody could still roleplay some aspects of the Nameless One to a certain extent and within the confines of the character's own previously established motives and persona.

[Atom523]

In my admiringly limited role playing experience i do prefer naturally to be able to craft my character myself but at the same time i occasionally like playing as a randomized character (or a character that someone else designed) For me at least it is the challenge of playing a role that is not familiar to me, something that i hadn't truly prepared for. I personally lean toward combat lite characters who tend to rely on mystical skills and words to get out of situations. I have gotten pretty decent at playing these types of characters and tend to rely on others to fight my battles for me, however on occasion i do want to try other things. I might not be that good at playing a barbarian type character but on the occasions where i had to do it i did have fun. Trying to think in a more aggressive way and not relying on sneaking and magic ends up being an entirely new way of playing and it is fun to challenge myself into trying it occasionally. Now given a standard choice i would pick of course to design my negotiator but it is fun to occasionally be thrust into a role that i am not quite prepared for.

[Tale]

I dislike careful planning in that it encourages min-maxing. With random elements things get mixed up, more adventurous. One player could end up with a relatively incompetent wizard and I prefer games were people are okay with that. Not ones where people are obsessed with being the most maximumly effective character they can be.

 

I can't stand games with people who are obsessed with nothing but winning and are unwilling to do something strange or funny just to see what happens. The more serious a person is about winning, the more I want to stab them in the eye.

 

My Halo co-op gaming often ends up with us occasionally "accidentally" shooting each other in the back and laughing it off with more beer. My Counter-Strike gaming usually ends up with either me running around and knifing everyone or using silenced pistols and smoke grenades while yelling NINJA! And my Neverwinter Nights games ocsassionally ended up with a group member Halfling dead and me shrugging while saying "not my fault." When they ended elsewise, it was usually me hit with a lightning bolt and killed for trying to arrange such an accident.

Edited July 9, 2007 by Tale

[Blarghagh]

Both have their merits, but at least randomized characters lead to more creativity while actually playing. Otherwise the creativity generally goes only into the character creation and nothing interesting gets done with the character. That seems like a waste of a good character to me.

 

Of course, that may just be me. I have no interest in statistics and whatnot, after all.

[Cantousent]

I like planning as long as it doesn't take five hours to make a character. Like Tale, I prefer to play where folks don't mind doing something clever or goofy. RPG are particularly poor venues for "win at all cost" gaming. Driven players tend to drive away others. However, acting stupid all the time isn't fun either. Except for Paranoia. That requires goofiness.

[kormesios]

I liked randomization when I played PnP. No point in overdoing it, but in general it helped a lot of ways: different skills/characteristic were a nice starting off point for imagining a new character, gameplay wise it forces you to fiddle with new play styles, and it helped counteract my natural tendency to make an avatar a bit of a Mary Sue.

Edited July 18, 2007 by kormesios

[Cantousent]

What's a Mary Sue? I have to say in computer games, I usually end up staying with tried and true character builds, but so much depends on what the game lets you do that I find enough variety in what I play. When I DM, I use a non-weighted point buy system.

[Musopticon?]

"Mary Sue" is a metacharacter in fiction that the author uses to portray her self on the story. There are several types, but the most prominent one is usually a "perfect" character which author uses to solve unresolved issues, live fantasies and be an allaround hero. This kind of characteration usually appears in fan fiction in particular, where Mary Sue characters often have all the knowledge of their author, aka omniscience, and can use that to easily bend all her favorite to her will, kill of ones that she perceives as villains and raise hypogamies with all her favorite characters, who probably change their views, sexual bias and persona at her whim at her will as well.

 

In short, it's a poor form of characteration in fiction.

[kormesios]

What's a Mary Sue? I have to say in computer games, I usually end up staying with tried and true character builds, but so much depends on what the game lets you do that I find enough variety in what I play. When I DM, I use a non-weighted point buy system.

 

Musopticon got the actual definition.

 

Though I didn't necessarily mean something quite so extreme. When I played PnP (high school and earlier) there was a tendency to want your characters to have all the traits (both abilities and background) you thought were really cool, which might be slightly different for everyone, but which could lead to "bad" role playing. Heck, I *still* tend to make characters close to that 14-year old's idea of "cool" when I play cRPGs with a point buy. Sometimes something as simple as sticking a character with a low dexterity, so you had to re-imagine him as a clumsy fighter or fat wizard, could actually force a player to re-think things a bit.

 

I'm sure many more mature RPGers don't need such tricks to put some thought into a character, which is why I think the real answer is it depends on the group.

Edited July 19, 2007 by kormesios

[metadigital]

"Mary Sue" is a metacharacter in fiction that the author uses to portray her self on the story. There are several types, but the most prominent one is usually a "perfect" character which author uses to solve unresolved issues, live fantasies and be an allaround hero. This kind of characteration usually appears in fan fiction in particular, where Mary Sue characters often have all the knowledge of their author, aka omniscience, and can use that to easily bend all her favorite to her will, kill of ones that she perceives as villains and raise hypogamies with all her favorite characters, who probably change their views, sexual bias and persona at her whim at her will as well.

 

In short, it's a poor form of characteration in fiction.

Congrats on giving me a word to look up!

 

I found an interesting site here.

 

Hypergamy: Denotes a marriage rule prescribing union of a female with a male of higher status. Contra. "Hypogamy"

 

Hypogamy: Denotes a marriage rule prescribing union of a female to a male to a male of lower status. Contra. "Hypergamy"

 

Also, I found the wikipedia article pretty funny, too:

The definition today has widened considerably to encompass most clich

[Blarghagh]

I think the most interesting characters I write or play are the ones who I have the least in common with. Or even ones I don't really like. It makes me less afraid to throw everything I've got at them for the sake of storyline, drama and tension.

 

That being said, I've done the occasional Mary Sue (Gary Stu?) and none of them ever turn out as bad as the ones the wikipedia entry describes. Mary Sues can be good characters, but sadly most of the people using them just suck at writing.

 

The exception is the "Angsty Stu", which always sucks. I took it upon me to make an Angsty Stu which was not a bad character, but I failed and gave up after several attempts. It did leave me with some interesting character ideas that may end up in non-Sues though.

Edited July 21, 2007 by TrueNeutral

[Sofaking]

This isn't exactly a random generation but once, my group decided to make characters for eachother, with the person they were playing no knowing or having any input. It was great because it ended up with us all playing characters we would never dream of. I think I ended up a halfling paladin or something. It was great fun.

[Blarghagh]

Heh. That reminds me of a comic I read where the characters played DnD, and one of them played an Elven Barbarian named "Glorfinmad".

[Rosbjerg]

This isn't exactly a random generation but once, my group decided to make characters for eachother, with the person they were playing no knowing or having any input. It was great because it ended up with us all playing characters we would never dream of. I think I ended up a halfling paladin or something. It was great fun.

 

I have huge problems with my group powerplaying.. Why didn't I ever think of this!

[kormesios]

I think the most interesting characters I write or play are the ones who I have the least in common with. Or even ones I don't really like. It makes me less afraid to throw everything I've got at them for the sake of storyline, drama and tension.

 

That being said, I've done the occasional Mary Sue (Gary Stu?) and none of them ever turn out as bad as the ones the wikipedia entry describes. Mary Sues can be good characters, but sadly most of the people using them just suck at writing.

 

Less of a crime in fantasy game, part of the point is wish fulfillment. And playing with other people, you're going to get past the point where it's all about you pretty quickly anyway. You're forced to find your limitations, as you don't make all the rolls or win all the arguments.

 

And I couldn't agree more, that playing a character you don't actually like can be fun for a while. Possibly the most fun I had was when I got saddled with a lizard man fighter in some DM's campaign. I whined at first, but settled into a role of someone who's problem solving skills could be summarized as "hit it until it goes away"--not stupid, just direct. My "real" characters I never ventured that far, probably because I didn't want people to think of as stupid or the butt of a joke or something. This one, why not?

 

BTW, I brought up the word Mary Sue, but I actually hate it when it's applied to even mediocre fiction. The extreme fan fiction type is recognizable, and it's a good description. But in other places it's so vague it just becomes an all purpose slur meaning "I don't think character X is all that cool." If the word existed in literary criticism before the internet, Odysseus, Henry V, Tom Jones, D'Artagnan, Sherlock Holmes, Aragorn and Jack Ryan would all be dismissed as "Mary Sues", when only Jack Ryan actually is one.

Edited July 24, 2007 by kormesios

[Walsingham]

I've been thinking more about this, and reckon it depends firstly on the campaign, and secondly how much of a power gamer the person is. If they're able to hear trhe campaign context and fit into it under their own power then fair enough. But if tehy're too much into questions like "I wonder if I can quad weild?" then nuts to them.

[Walsingham]

It liiiiiiiiives!

 

 

 

I thought I'd resurrect this thread because we've been having fun after randomising both stats and career class playing NWN2. I can detail the system we used if anyone is actually interested.

[Magister Lajciak]

I prefer a mixture of randomization and control over character creation in PnP RPGs. In CRPGs I don't care. When I DM D&D or the Pathfinder RPG I make players roll their character's stats (I don't like nor accept point-buy). When I am a D&D/Pathfinder player, rather than the DM (which rarely happens), I also prefer to roll for ability scores, but I, of course, submit to whatever system of character-creation the DM devises.