Given my long experience with 3E, Champions, and other similar systems, I've abandoned point buy in exchange for modeling, schtick protection, and spotlight management mainly because "system mastery" often make any assumption of balance irrelevant.

As for where I stand on random character generation, after playing with a cast of ... characters ... on a reoccurring basis for a number of years, I'm beginning to see the light having grown to despise seeing the same character over and over again with different dashes of paint. The fact that said individuals often play women as caricatures has just further nudged me in said direction.

Quote from: Chris24601;1031443I don't find that odd at all. Everyone in our group (men and women) has played cross gender at some point or another (the latest game where I'm actually getting to play has a guy playing the half-elf grandmother of another PC and a gal playing a male bounty hunter). To be fair a lot of us are also GM's and so have to play all manner of NPCs of every gender so its just not as big an issue for us.

Something that cracked me up is when playing online I'd hear complaints about someone not playing a woman right directed at players that I knew for a fact (having met them, dated in one case, them in real life) were woman. I've long since come to believe those complaints are more because the character doesn't fit the griper's idea of a "real woman" like they come from a factory somewhere and there's only certain models or part of an Estrogen fueled hive-mind. It seems a little silly given the breadth and variety of being players can depict drawing the line at another human being with different genitals than they have in real life seems like a weird spot.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1031442Phil Barker ran into this on Tekumel.  Early players had names like "Xerox," "Abilene," and "Hashish."

And you're also right about some worlds are more tolerant.  "Gronan of Simmerya" worked fine in Greyhawk, but "Hlych'ptu" didn't work well in Tekumel.  So after a couple of years my character adopted a Tsolyani name.  Fortunately, Tsolyanu had a bureaucracy perfectly capable of registering a name change to "Korunme."

Long story short, after the first six months or so, people just asked Phil for help.

This is an issue that arises every once in a while. I think the best thing for players to do is check in with the GM before naming their PC. Do you have a list of appropriate names? Are silly names acceptable? What Earth cultures are appropriate for drawing names from?

In most campaigns, I'm open to a certain degree of silliness. Gronan of Simmerya would be totally acceptable in almost any game I would currently run (even Traveller, we might have to decide where Simmerya is in a few games - I might have to add Simmerya to my Traveller setting just in case... :-) It actually would be fun to take a variety of places that are part of well known RPG characters names and populate them into whatever setting is in play... And yea, if I ran Tekumel, I think I'd even be ok with Gronan of Simmerya there too...).

Frank

The interesting thing is that after six months or so, "Gronan" was just a name; nobody really thought about the lame pun any more.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1031375That's fucking hilarious, given how in a lot of these other games where you're allowed to pick down to the last 0.25th of a point exactly every detail about your character with total control and zero randomization of what your character is, you then have a bunch of die rolls in actual play that control how your social interactions go.

In my games, you randomize character creation, forcing you to be better than yourself, and then in ACTUAL PLAY you have to FUCKING ROLEPLAY IT, rather than rely on the 260 points you invested in "intimidate" to get around having to actually RP your character.

Okay, this seems to be mixing issues a bit. Mechanical social resolution mechanics are a completely separate issue than random, semi-random, or point-buy character creation. The existence of game-based skill-check-style social rules is a relatively separate tangent. Sure it, like everything else, can be gamed (especially in a point-buy game), but it isn't in particular more or less true than any other mechanic. As both of us have pointed out, OD&D and other OSR mostly-random systems HAVE a 'bunch of die rolls in actual play that control how your social interactions go' -- it's called the reaction table. Yes, it specifically states that real role-play and/or saying what you say is supposed to modify the results, but so do many of these other games.

QuoteOn the other hand, I have a lot of people who are very good at being players, doing what players are meant to do, which is to maximize their own personal advantage as a player.
For some people, that will mean, entirely without going to the extremes of breaking the rules, trying to get away with everything they can get away with using the rules.  If the rules are badly designed so that the "smart" player is actually the one gaming-the-system, it means that smart players will game the system.  There's even a whole school of thought in RPG design (which took over D&D in 3e) where "Character Optimization" that rewards players who've carefully studied how to manipulate the rules to get the most powerful or capable possible player is somehow a laudable model to be based on. And you see this in virtually EVERY major point-buy system. You see it in GURPS, in Shadowrun, in Champions, etc, where players who have carefully read and studied every detail of the game system (especially character creation) will have a definable advantage over players who don't know the system and that's thought of as perfectly fine.
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This ends up being much WORSE than what you and others here were complaining about, the mythical nightmare scenario of one character having ended up with no random stat lower than 15 while some other guy has no ability score higher than 10.  The difference in those character is much, much less of a disparity than that between a carefully-purchased character in point buy by a Character Optimization Expert compared to a character created by someone who has not spent hundreds of hours carefully studying the character-creation system.  

This. Stick with this. This, without the other invectives you have brought forward, is a good argument for why a mostly random character generation model has a place in the universe of potential games. Random character generation, particularly in the mechanical bits and bobs, removes a players ability to, but also the burden of, building an mechanically powerful character (which, as you correctly point out, many players feel obligated to do). The play style of making the best of the situation fate presents is a different challenge, and one worth exploring.

QuoteYeah, like I said, we get it now. You shit your own pants in the middle of a fight in a sad, desperate attempt at causing a distraction.

And don't stick with this. Or do whatever I guess. But you know, I wouldn't suggest it. Once we get to the point where people try to outdo each other telling each other how sad, immature, or pathetic each other is, the opportunity to actually convince each other of anything is long gone.

Quote from: Certified;1031153So there seems to be a lot of confusion around how I was able to so clearly deduce the abundance of gender reassignment magic in the worlds of Punditry. The answer is simple, when you make sweeping statements about how games should be played and if you don't play them just like me then you are less of a person then it's time to start doling out some fun. Part of the definition of the word game is a form of play and playing means to engage in an activity for recreation or enjoyment.

Yeah, no. We got it. Pundy pissed you off and you responded in kind. Mind you, your grievances are reasonable. Pundy has never been shy about demeaning other people for what are generally different choices than he thinks best. Straight up calling him out would have worked. The whole reducto-ad-absurdum thing on his game's set-up (which at worst is hypocrisy if you hold him to his 'no choices your character wouldn't get to make' policy) just seemed ridiculous (how hard is the concept of an exception?) and a little bit of high school 'My First Philosophy course'-y. I don't feel that it added to the conversation. You might have actually gotten a meaningful discussion from him if you'd tried a different tact.

Quote from: Certified;1031395Let me try to sum this up succinctly.

That was uncalled for. It was the one thing Pundy said that makes absolute, inarguable sense. Mind you, you can disagree with it, but it is completely coherent and a valid position. I don't know if I believe that most players "usually have no problem handling being of a different social class, or playing a character who's way stronger than they are, or dumber than they are, or even wiser than they are to a certain extent. But most players will fuck up playing outside their sex," but it is a reasonable position to take. And if one wants to design a game where a player makes no background choices a character themselves couldn't make, except for their gender (because of concern that the burden of that bit of role-play would impede the ability to perform other shifts in imagination/perspective), that seems completely reasonable. Again, for a purpose-driven game. If you weren't already pissed at Pundy, I doubt this point would be the hill you would die (or make him die) upon.

Oh whatever, we're all going to walk out of this thread smelling terrible. Where's Black Vulmea and his poo-flinging monkeys reference when you need him?

I still like my favorite method of character generation better.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1031458The interesting thing is that after six months or so, "Gronan" was just a name; nobody really thought about the lame pun any more.

That's actually the beauty of it I think and what would make it a totally cool name in any of my games.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1031461Okay, this seems to be mixing issues a bit.
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This. Stick with this.
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And don't stick with this.
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Yeah, no. We got it.
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That was uncalled for.

You may just be entirely too reasonable to be posting on this forum.

Quote from: Bren;1031542You may just be entirely too reasonable to be posting on this forum.

Never thought of it as reasonable, or even mature. Just don't have my ego tied up in making someone else 'lose' on a discussion board. It serves no purpose.

I use a super-simplified point-buy method, mostly for the sheer sake of speed. At my table a character can be generated without rolling dice in 5 - 10 minutes. That said, my attribute system is bonuses-only (no associated stats), and I haven't much liked any of the point-buy systems I've encountered that generate stats. I think it's maybe because stat numbers are large enough to allow too much flexibility with point-buy, leading to awkward min/maxing (or awkward rule clarifications to prevent it).

Before I switched to point-buy, I had a lot of players who were frequently pretty meh about their characters. As a player I like the challenge of adopting to die rolls, but as a GM my players don't enjoy that particular exercise. I find this is true especially with newer players, who are more likely to become immersed in a character that closely matches their preconceptions of a fantasy hero.

My preferred method of character generation is simply making up the character I want.

No rolling.  No point build.  Just stat it up.

Marvel Super Heroes calls it "modeling."  I don't think it's ever been given another name.

Quote from: Gabriel2;1031759My preferred method of character generation is simply making up the character I want.

No rolling.  No point build.  Just stat it up.

Marvel Super Heroes calls it "modeling."  I don't think it's ever been given another name.

I don't mind this as long as everyone is on the same page.  Trust is important, but as long as you the GM vets it, there's no real issue here.

Quote from: CarlD.;1031390I find it amusing that there is some pretense that character optimization only exists in point buy generation. Unless everything, literally everything is determined randomly, the system can be gamed. Some of the biggest most dedicated min maxer and power gamers I've had seen where in D and D and other random generation based systems.

No, certainly, you're right that Character Optimization is something that can occur in any number of systems, many of which are far from complete point buy. D&D 3.x is an excellent example of a system that was crappier on account of being intentionally designed to reward character-optimization; Monte Cook stated as much, that it was meant to reward players who obsessively studied the rules and learned all the feats etc to create superior combos vs. players who were not that way and 'wasted' their feat selection.

But the general point is that the more choices you have control of during character creation and character advancement, and the more options available in each choice, the more the possibility exists to game the system.  That is to say, "you get x" or "you roll and what you roll is what you get" is zero choice and thus in essence zero opportunity to game the system. Saying "you get to choose either x or y" is slightly gameable but it's a very limited choice. While "you have 30 points and can choose to use those points to purchase things from a list of 300 possible options" is hugely gameable.

So if you are playing really old-school games, where often the vast majority of character creation and character advancement is either random or presents you with no option, your ability to game the system is mostly limited to some very specific selections (in some versions of the game, pretty much just which class you play and nothing else; in others things like spell selection to a certain extent).

Quote from: Certified;1031395Clearly, you are just trying to distract people form the magical gender reassignment fairies that live in your game worlds.

Shitting yourself in mid-fight didn't work the first time, dude. It won't help you now.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1031442Phil Barker ran into this on Tekumel.  Early players had names like "Xerox," "Abilene," and "Hashish."

And you're also right about some worlds are more tolerant.  "Gronan of Simmerya" worked fine in Greyhawk, but "Hlych'ptu" didn't work well in Tekumel.  So after a couple of years my character adopted a Tsolyani name.  Fortunately, Tsolyanu had a bureaucracy perfectly capable of registering a name change to "Korunme."

Long story short, after the first six months or so, people just asked Phil for help.

yeah, that's a good example. In certain settings you can get away with almost anything. In others, there's an immersive experience that requires that people buy in to the context.