Pasquinade ([info]pats_quinade) wrote,
@ 2007-09-06 14:53:00
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Entry tags:crpgs, rpgs

Roleplaying Question
What is your favorite character-generation system (tabletop or CRPG), and why? Is it a class system (D&D), a point-buy system (GURPS), or something in between (NWoD, with point-buy within roles)?

In whatever system you like, how much does your class or primary ability set define you? If I tell you that I play a Rogue/Fighter named Coric in a D&D game, that might not tell you everything about his character, but it probably tells you a lot. If I tell you that my wife played a Dedicated/Strong character named Balam in a d20 Modern game, that tells you considerably less. If I tell you that my wife plays an animal mimic in our Mutants & Masterminds game, that tells you almost everything.


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[info]jhonen_red
2007-09-06 09:46 pm UTC (link)
For character generation, I prefer pure point-buy systems. I hate playing GURPS. But I love making GURPS characters. The advantage of a class system is that it forces specialization, which means you have a more balanced group and people get to feel like they're special because they can do something no one else can do. Those are worthwhile benefits. But I prefer more flexibility. D20M is decent in that respect. And flaws / drawbacks. Mmm. I mean real ones, not "overconfident" or "greedy". I played a blind character for a one-shot in D&D once, and it was okay... but it would have been pretty awesome if I could have actually had some benefits to make up for my chosen limitation. (Alright, I suppose "overconfident" could be legitimate.) As a side note, I have a M&M character I've been wanting to play... sigh.

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[info]pats_quinade
2007-09-06 09:54 pm UTC (link)
re: M&M -- I hear you. Someday, I'll get to play Coldsnap (the speedster/ice controller who gets her powers by the super-science of ANTIFRICTION -- she speeds up and cools down). Not soon, but someday.

I made a hero for a PbP online game (as opposed to, you know, those play-by-post TABLETOP games), and I was so jazzed... until two months passed without us actually getting into a fight. I'll be honest: I like roleplaying as much as the next guy, but if I'm making an M&M character, it's because I want to hit something.

How do you feel about archetypalness? Do you prefer games where you can introduce your character with a name and a single-phrase description and have people more or less know what you can add to the group? (Tierney the Bard versus Ander the Tough/Dedicated?)

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[info]elysdir
2007-09-07 05:54 am UTC (link)
[The following answers are probably not at all what you're asking; apologies if totally irrelevant.]

My favorite professionally published character generation system is the one used by Over the Edge, where you come up with a character concept and a few defining traits, and that's pretty much the character. I'm also fond of the SLUG character-creation system.

At some point maybe I'll post the character generation system I used for a one-shot systemless game some years back. The numerical part of it was that I provided a list of 10 attributes, and told the players to pick numbers from 1 to 100, averaging roughly between 65 and 75 across all 10 attributes. Worked pretty well, though I don't think we ever used most of the numbers for anything. In general, my policy is to trust players not to be abusive, because I don't really want to play with abusive players. (Though of course that pick-your-stats-but-they-should-average-to-65 is essentially a point-distribution system in disguise.)

As you can probably guess from the above, character class (or occupation) tends to be a relatively minor factor in the games I play and run -- not insignificant, because people's professions are generally significant to their lives, but far from the whole story. I think archetypes can be neat in some contexts (and they certainly make character generation faster), especially in games that adhere closely to genre conventions; but in most of the games I like best, I'm much more interested in psychological character nuance than in what their day job is.

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[info]scarypudding
2007-09-07 08:33 am UTC (link)
Amber Diceless -- competitive auction for attributes, points for toys and powers. The combination of powers and attributes -- since there's only four attributes and three or four major powers -- amounts to something like a character class, but there's enough combinations that making your character concept distinctive and making it easy for the other players to get a handle on are actually complimentary.

And of course the fact that the gameplay is free-form rather than statistical means there's no really wrong way to spend your points. My problem with a pure point-buy system is that unless I'm really familiar with the game I never know how many points are "enough". (In particular, I remember a Pendragon game at a con where I thought I was creating a well-rounded character, and actually I was just creating a character who could get his ass kicked five or six different ways, without any compensating advantages.)

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[info]wickercabra
2007-09-08 09:01 pm UTC (link)
That's one reason I'm a huge fan of pregens for con games. The GM should have at least a vague idea of what's 'enough' :)

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[info]scarypudding
2007-09-11 11:54 am UTC (link)
Good point.

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[info]Stormwaltz [myopenid.com]
2007-09-09 11:56 pm UTC (link)
For generation, but not for playing, GURPS. I like the Advantage/Disadvantage system, and the ability to take nearly any skill under the sun. It allows me to craft someone who is primarily a character, not a collection of useful stats.

But then, I'm known for speccing characters in things like Whittling.

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