Meet the Characters

I admit, sometimes I sit at my laptop, flip through RPG books, and make characters. But not for a future game I will be playing. Just an idea of a character that I want to see work in a particular system. Rules filter an idea through mechanics. What is especially interesting is trying many systems. Same idea, but very different outcomes.

Watching other people make characters is interesting in a very different way. What ideas they have. The choices they make. How the mechanics filter their ideas. Because of this, I dislike "helping" players make a character. My interpretations will taint their characters. Especially if they do not have system mastery of whatever game we are playing. So with three new(ish) players who had never made a character from scratch, I wanted to be as hands off as possible.

But dumping a book full of rules and options doesn't help. If you get a chance read The Paradox of Choice it gives a great breakdown of why having too many options is a bad thing. It is better to have a few distinct choices rather than many gradated choices

But what choices?

I have no real idea. But I guess that having enough so that the players feel unique in the game.

So we did the session 0 thing that seems all the rage these days :)

Everyone was excited to play. R made some awesome food (Tunisian!), M brought some wine, P brought the cheer. We discussed the idea of the non-plotted game - there would be no "plot armor" for the characters. To get XP: explore new places, loot any treasure, then in the finest traditions of Sword&Sorcery, blow it all.

The example we talked about went something like this:

 Hey, there is a huge horde of gold in that cave, pity about the giant lizard. No worries - Hey you (bangs on lizard) go away... Snap. Chomp. Burping dragon. Roll new characters.

On that note, they all jumped for the "random character creation". We used the Alternative Character Generation System from the Hill Cantons Compendium. It makes each roll result a distinctive event. Depending on the event, you get to roll extra dice for a particular stat. Combined with random names and personality traits, we got a trio of interesting characters. The only choice made was the background, after they had rolled their stats.

The events are perfect. Distinct enough that you get a real sense of who the characters might be. Vague enough that you can put your own spin on things. It really set off the inspirational juices!

The characters came out as follows:

M

• Daughter of Merchants - local traders (+1d charisma)

• Parents outlawed for a crime they didn't commit (+1d any)

• Lived in the wilds (+1d constitution)

• Developed a vice-quick temper (+1d strength)

• Settled into the borderlands (+1 constitution)

• Background: Outlander (life lessons, glory, provide for family, untrusting)

• Name: Archana


P

• Daughter of craftmen - tailors (+1d dexterity)

• Caused the death of her cousin (+1d any)

• Moved into the wilderness (+1d constitution)

• Enslaved... but escaped (+1d dexterity)

• Faced a monster (+1d any)

• Background: Charlatan (pocket valuables, ambitious, owe mentor, loves a pretty face)

• Name: Vijaya


R

• Daughter of a sage/alchemist (+1d intelligence, owns a book handed down)

• Orphaned and raised by Dwarves (+1 constitution)

• Lived a nomadic life (+1 dexterity)

• Enslaved... but escaped (+1d dexterity)

• Faced a monster (+1d any)

• Background: Sage(read it all, self improvement, secret text, take copious notes)

• Name: Kamala


The exact same "young adulthood" rolls of Vijaya and Kamala was interesting! P & R decided that the same slavers had taken them, and they escaped when a monster attacked. Archana is on the run with her parents and founded a town in the borderlands. So the  players decided the two ex-slave girls went to the little town when they escaped. We've ended up with a great sounding backstory for all the characters that ties them together.

 Listening to the girls bouncing ideas off each other to create a joint backstory was a lot of fun... The feeling I got was that the broad strokes of the characters were defined by the random events, allowing them to gloss over a lot of the "mechanical/system" choices, but how to interpret those events was chosen by the players - and they were very creative in those interpretations - actually creating the "character" of the characters.

I will definitely encourage random character creation in future games. Full props to Chris Kutalik