For me, for the copper coin it's not worth, nothing bugs me more than lengthy character creation time in a game I don't know. Hand me a pregen and we'll call it a day.

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 28, 2024, 07:47:56 AM

Quote from: Rhymer88 on May 28, 2024, 06:28:43 AM

Quote from: SHARK on May 27, 2024, 05:10:06 PMCharacters starting out at level 1 shouldn't be fucking superheroes, you know?

Several 5e players have told me that they start characters at third level because first-level characters are "too weak."

As far as I know, that's been common in every edition. Supposedly, even Gary Gygax started his players at level 3.

   And if I correctly recall the discussion at 5E's launch, this was intended to be common for more experienced players--Levels 1 and 2 were meant as 'training levels' for players new to the system, and to go by very quickly.

We started our 5E campaigns back in 2014 at first level. We were new to the system and it took players a while to create characters because they were reading through the classes for the first time. These days we start at 3rd level and can get characters cranked out pretty quick. Character creation time depends on how well you know the system. Maybe it takes longer if someone using the slow ass D&D Beyond interface? Using a blank character sheet and pencil I can have one ready to go real fast.

Character creation generally takes more time the more options available.  Especially if you have a player who has to read every option and list it and weigh it before deciding.  There's always that one guy.  Though that's only a system issue in the sense that the more stuff there is in the game the more time he'll take.

I have only played a total of 1 5e game and that was years ago, so can't way in on how long it does/could take

Quote from: Jason Coplen on May 28, 2024, 08:42:13 AMFor me, for the copper coin it's not worth, nothing bugs me more than lengthy character creation time in a game I don't know. Hand me a pregen and we'll call it a day.

& that is why for my girls' face to face game, every system we have played over the last 4+ years, I've started them with a group of pregens to chose from and ran them through an adventure or 2. Then we have a 'session 0' for them to make their own character and start the real campaign.

Quote from: David Johansen on May 28, 2024, 10:20:02 AMCharacter creation generally takes more time the more options available.  Especially if you have a player who has to read every option and list it and weigh it before deciding.  There's always that one guy.  Though that's only a system issue in the sense that the more stuff there is in the game the more time he'll take.

After a home brew Castle & Crusade adventure arc, my girls' group played Call of Cthulhu/ Delta Green, and then Traveller. Unfortunately, my older daughter and her best friend that games with us are both "those guys". That, plus all the choices in CoC/DG and then even worse for Traveller, made the session 0 take WAY TO LONG. It was fun to watch them in Traveller go through the life path process and grow their character, but each choice was 'what is the right/best choice ? Should I stay in this career, should I change careers, if so then what career ....

Now that said. There is no way a D&D based character should take that long to make. Of course the great back story that has to go with the character can/should take weeks, ;-)

Quote from: Lurker on May 28, 2024, 12:23:07 PMI have only played a total of 1 5e game and that was years ago, so can't way in on how long it does/could take

Quote from: Jason Coplen on May 28, 2024, 08:42:13 AMFor me, for the copper coin it's not worth, nothing bugs me more than lengthy character creation time in a game I don't know. Hand me a pregen and we'll call it a day.

& that is why for my girls' face to face game, every system we have played over the last 4+ years, I've started them with a group of pregens to chose from and ran them through an adventure or 2. Then we have a 'session 0' for them to make their own character and start the real campaign.

Quote from: David Johansen on May 28, 2024, 10:20:02 AMCharacter creation generally takes more time the more options available.  Especially if you have a player who has to read every option and list it and weigh it before deciding.  There's always that one guy.  Though that's only a system issue in the sense that the more stuff there is in the game the more time he'll take.

That's a good idea. I have never even considered it before. Thanks!

I screwed up quoting. The quote from Dave shouldn't be there.

I hope people who spend an hour just creating a character's backstory get wasted in 5 minutes of game play.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on May 28, 2024, 06:49:21 PMI hope people who spend an hour just creating a character's backstory get wasted in 5 minutes of game play.

Now that is just hurtful .... it cuts me to my soul ;-)

I do tend to make in-depth backstories, but the campaigns I play in fit it. Plus, I'm lucky that the DMs that run them tend to let me create the micro story for my background (in their proscribed framework of setting etc) With that, my backstories always give the DM at least 4-6 (or more) hooks for future adventures, and they flesh out a location for the DM (give the DM 3 or 4 family names and general history of important families in a city and their political machinations in the city). It also give exactly why my character has taken up the life of the adventurer and what my goals are.

One thing it NEVER does is make my lowly 1 level character sound like a 8th or 9th level hero. That has always annoyed me.

Of course, that is like I said for a campaign that it fits. If the game is going to be straight "go kill the monster, loot the bodies, clear the crypt" and has minimal to no background political etc elements, then by all means I'll have a character finished minutes after the last dice rolls.

I think "backstory" has a lot to do with the power of the character. 1st level D&D characters' backstory should be nothing more than, "Some goblins raided my farm and killed my family so I am going to loot some old ruins and gain power so I can wipe them out." If it's a 20th level paladin, then obviously a page or two of information is probably okay, and helpful for the DM. If you run Peter Parker a few days after getting bitten by a radioactive spider, you're doing a massive fucking disservice to the character by not allowing what happens to play out in real-time instead of just writing it down. Spider-Man's development into a hero is nothing to gloss over with exposition; that needs to done at the table. If you're playing Batman after he becomes friends with Commission Gordon, then again, you can have a page or two of info.

I think the issue here is most players (i.e. modern non-roleplaying junior thespian wannabes) think they can't adequately play a PC unless they have their entire life mapped out. Where's the fun in that? What if Uncle Ben had never been killed? Would Spider-Man even exist? Would he instead be a petty criminal?

Quote from: Jason Coplen on May 28, 2024, 03:54:27 PMI screwed up quoting. The quote from Dave shouldn't be there.

I was never here...(waves hand)...you have never seen me...

Quote from: Brad on May 28, 2024, 09:22:44 PM1st level D&D characters' backstory should be nothing more than, "Some goblins raided my farm and killed my family so I am going to loot some old ruins and gain power so I can wipe them out." If it's a 20th level paladin, then obviously a page or two of information is probably okay, and helpful for the DM.

Exactly. I had to make a 6th lvl Illusionist for a 5E game and this was what I came up with in less than 10 minutes of typing:

QuoteBorn the third child of a merchant in the Foreign Quarter of The Free City of Greyhawk, Ahnwen proved a quick wit and a creative mind. His aptitude for entertaining others was evident from an early age. He began his career as a Street Magician by the age of 10. As he grew, he began to yearn for real magic and soon found himself apprenticed to a Master Illusionist at the age of 20. Years of intense study, punctuated by travel, entertaining crowds and occasional adventures with his master followed before Ahnwen's teacher declared him ready. 

Setting out from Greyhawk with not but the clothes on his back, an entertainer's pack, a lute and his spellbook, Ahnwen traveled the length and breadth of The Wild Coast and back, into the Grand Duchy of Urnst before coming back to Greyhawk. He had with him a modest amount of treasure that he had garnered along the way. Two years had passed and he was ready to settle down for a period of time. While living the more quiet and less adventurous life for several months, entertaining crowds and performing at various Inns like The Green Dragon, he was contacted by his old mentor about a new adventure to recover an artifact for him from Castle Greyhawk. While it took a little bit of convincing, he eventually agreed to go.   

Unfortunately, the mission turned into a nightmare. Most of the adventuring party he was with were killed and he was separated from the few survivors when a trap door and slide dropped him to an unexplored level far below. Soon he was running for his life as monsters pursued him. It was either divine intervention or random luck that he came across the magickal gateway at one dead end hallway. Without looking back, he stepped through the misty portal before emerging again into what he thought was the world above, but was in fact the outskirts of The City of Waterdeep upon Toril.

This basically covers his adventures from Level 0 to Level 6. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Quote from: David Johansen on May 28, 2024, 10:20:00 PM

Quote from: Jason Coplen on May 28, 2024, 03:54:27 PMI screwed up quoting. The quote from Dave shouldn't be there.

I was never here...(waves hand)...you have never seen me...

(stares blankly totally under your force power) Daves' not here...

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on May 29, 2024, 02:51:54 AM

Quote from: Brad on May 28, 2024, 09:22:44 PM1st level D&D characters' backstory should be nothing more than, "Some goblins raided my farm and killed my family so I am going to loot some old ruins and gain power so I can wipe them out." If it's a 20th level paladin, then obviously a page or two of information is probably okay, and helpful for the DM.

Exactly. I had to make a 6th lvl Illusionist for a 5E game and this was what I came up with in less than 10 minutes of typing:

QuoteBorn the third child of a merchant in the Foreign Quarter of The Free City of Greyhawk, Ahnwen proved a quick wit and a creative mind. His aptitude for entertaining others was evident from an early age. He began his career as a Street Magician by the age of 10. As he grew, he began to yearn for real magic and soon found himself apprenticed to a Master Illusionist at the age of 20. Years of intense study, punctuated by travel, entertaining crowds and occasional adventures with his master followed before Ahnwen's teacher declared him ready. 

Setting out from Greyhawk with not but the clothes on his back, an entertainer's pack, a lute and his spellbook, Ahnwen traveled the length and breadth of The Wild Coast and back, into the Grand Duchy of Urnst before coming back to Greyhawk. He had with him a modest amount of treasure that he had garnered along the way. Two years had passed and he was ready to settle down for a period of time. While living the more quiet and less adventurous life for several months, entertaining crowds and performing at various Inns like The Green Dragon, he was contacted by his old mentor about a new adventure to recover an artifact for him from Castle Greyhawk. While it took a little bit of convincing, he eventually agreed to go.   

Unfortunately, the mission turned into a nightmare. Most of the adventuring party he was with were killed and he was separated from the few survivors when a trap door and slide dropped him to an unexplored level far below. Soon he was running for his life as monsters pursued him. It was either divine intervention or random luck that he came across the magickal gateway at one dead end hallway. Without looking back, he stepped through the misty portal before emerging again into what he thought was the world above, but was in fact the outskirts of The City of Waterdeep upon Toril.

This basically covers his adventures from Level 0 to Level 6. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

I'm also pretty good at coming up with character backgrounds on the fly, but then, I also am very quick at making characters mechanically. I suspect we're both regularly GMs.

In my experience, though, a lot of players need more time to make choices. It's not about typing speed or that they have no imagination, but they need a lot of time to decide on what they want.

Even with pregenerated characters, deciding on who plays what character can take time. In the Savage Worlds game I ran at KublaCon this past weekend, I had 12 pregenerated characters for 6 players, and it took more than fifteen minutes for the players to go over who all the characters were and which one they wanted.

When it is wide-open choices like backstory, then some people can take a longer time. And especially if this is a character they'll be playing for a long campaign, I can understand that. It rarely happens now, but I can remember hours of going through books and considering options for a new campaign character - back when we did character creation out-of-session.

Quote from: jhkim on May 29, 2024, 02:21:25 PM

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on May 29, 2024, 02:51:54 AM

Quote from: Brad on May 28, 2024, 09:22:44 PM1st level D&D characters' backstory should be nothing more than, "Some goblins raided my farm and killed my family so I am going to loot some old ruins and gain power so I can wipe them out." If it's a 20th level paladin, then obviously a page or two of information is probably okay, and helpful for the DM.

Exactly. I had to make a 6th lvl Illusionist for a 5E game and this was what I came up with in less than 10 minutes of typing:

QuoteBorn the third child of a merchant in the Foreign Quarter of The Free City of Greyhawk, Ahnwen proved a quick wit and a creative mind. His aptitude for entertaining others was evident from an early age. He began his career as a Street Magician by the age of 10. As he grew, he began to yearn for real magic and soon found himself apprenticed to a Master Illusionist at the age of 20. Years of intense study, punctuated by travel, entertaining crowds and occasional adventures with his master followed before Ahnwen's teacher declared him ready. 

Setting out from Greyhawk with not but the clothes on his back, an entertainer's pack, a lute and his spellbook, Ahnwen traveled the length and breadth of The Wild Coast and back, into the Grand Duchy of Urnst before coming back to Greyhawk. He had with him a modest amount of treasure that he had garnered along the way. Two years had passed and he was ready to settle down for a period of time. While living the more quiet and less adventurous life for several months, entertaining crowds and performing at various Inns like The Green Dragon, he was contacted by his old mentor about a new adventure to recover an artifact for him from Castle Greyhawk. While it took a little bit of convincing, he eventually agreed to go.   

Unfortunately, the mission turned into a nightmare. Most of the adventuring party he was with were killed and he was separated from the few survivors when a trap door and slide dropped him to an unexplored level far below. Soon he was running for his life as monsters pursued him. It was either divine intervention or random luck that he came across the magickal gateway at one dead end hallway. Without looking back, he stepped through the misty portal before emerging again into what he thought was the world above, but was in fact the outskirts of The City of Waterdeep upon Toril.

This basically covers his adventures from Level 0 to Level 6. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

I'm also pretty good at coming up with character backgrounds on the fly, but then, I also am very quick at making characters mechanically. I suspect we're both regularly GMs.

In my experience, though, a lot of players need more time to make choices. It's not about typing speed or that they have no imagination, but they need a lot of time to decide on what they want.

Even with pregenerated characters, deciding on who plays what character can take time. In the Savage Worlds game I ran at KublaCon this past weekend, I had 12 pregenerated characters for 6 players, and it took more than fifteen minutes for the players to go over who all the characters were and which one they wanted.

When it is wide-open choices like backstory, then some people can take a longer time. And especially if this is a character they'll be playing for a long campaign, I can understand that. It rarely happens now, but I can remember hours of going through books and considering options for a new campaign character - back when we did character creation out-of-session.

That is the camp I fall into for longer back stories. If it is like I said just a simple adventure to adventure then no need for something in depth. But if the campaign is going to have important social and political elements, I spend more time. Even then, most of it is looking into historical and literary examples to use as reference. If the setting , or location my character is from, is based on Venice Italy, then I brush up on medieval Venice, read through highlights of some Shakespear Othello, look at important historical Venetians for names etc. Then I write up my family's info history, who they are aligned with and who they have a vendetta with where they fit in the city's framework, and give a list of possibly important key NPC's names. That way it is A LOT easier for the DM to pull things into the campaign without having to do a ton of research on their own (and we all know how much time and effort it takes to run a campaign)

Now and like I said before it NEVER includes my character's historic heroic acts. At first level there should be no heroic act already accomplished. There will be a reason or 2 for the character to become an adventurer. Possibly having dueled a rival family's son and injuring him, or possibly accidently insulting a politically powerful person and bringing their wrath down on the character or his family etc. Regardless it is no great "I was the hero of this earth shattering battle" but it is a reason for the character to give up the life of a normal person and join the dangerous life of being an adventurer

 

Quote from: Brad on May 28, 2024, 09:22:44 PMI think "backstory" has a lot to do with the power of the character. 1st level D&D characters' backstory should be nothing more than, "Some goblins raided my farm and killed my family so I am going to loot some old ruins and gain power so I can wipe them out." If it's a 20th level paladin, then obviously a page or two of information is probably okay, and helpful for the DM. If you run Peter Parker a few days after getting bitten by a radioactive spider, you're doing a massive fucking disservice to the character by not allowing what happens to play out in real-time instead of just writing it down. Spider-Man's development into a hero is nothing to gloss over with exposition; that needs to done at the table. If you're playing Batman after he becomes friends with Commission Gordon, then again, you can have a page or two of info.

I think the issue here is most players (i.e. modern non-roleplaying junior thespian wannabes) think they can't adequately play a PC unless they have their entire life mapped out. Where's the fun in that? What if Uncle Ben had never been killed? Would Spider-Man even exist? Would he instead be a petty criminal?

On the surface, we may be on opposite sides of this, but I completely agree with you on that. I might give a good background / family history, but it never is a map to the future. The background is a starting point, but "the future is wide open" (and governed by choices and dice rolls)

I have even had a DM take someone from my history that I assumed would be friend and over time make them a key enemy NPC. It made me hate that NPC even more than if it would have been a standard generic bad guy NPC. I would have adventured against them as part of the campaign if they were generic evil NPC, but since they betrayed me from my history, I had a vendetta against them and HAD to defeat and humiliate them .