I've been gaming for over 30 years but only really been reading a lot of forums on the topic for a year or so.  Sure there was Usenet before that but, well, not the same thing really.  Anyway when you talk to a thousand or so people only in text and distributed over a wide geographic region (the planet, basically), it turns out that a lot of the time you're all using the same words but not necessarily saying the same things at all.

Anyway, one place this came up was in discussions of difficulties in character creation and GM expectations not meeting up.  I found this idea profoundly confusing -- I could not understand how it was remotely possible for characters to fail to line up with the GMs game idea.  Then I realised that a substantial majority of these people just get the players to make characters AWAY FROM THE TABLE.  For thirty years, without ever questioning it, we've set a night's gaming aside for character creation and discussion about how the game is going to work with them.  The idea of going away and making characters on our own just never occurred to us.

So, how about you?  Creation at the table or away?  Reliably one or the other or a mix by system, whim, whatever?  What obstacles does your choice present?  What opportunities?

Quote from: HalfjackSo, how about you?  Creation at the table or away?  Reliably one or the other or a mix by system, whim, whatever?  What obstacles does your choice present?  What opportunities?

I used to do character gen away from the table and hated doing it together, because I'd be bored.  As I continued to game I learned that the games I played in and, especially, the games I ran were *substantially* improved through group character generation.  Everyone is on the same page, every character has their niche, and the process often defines the campaign.

Today it's always group character generation.  I don't see any obstacles other than getting folk together.  For games with monstrous numbers of supplements, such as D&D, not having access to all of those can be a problem but in that case I'd have the player hammer out the concept and then mechanically build it away from the table if necessary.  D&D is really the only game where I've encountered this, however.

The opportunities are many.  Character relationships are often defined, character capabilities become known to everyone, and players often feed off of each others cool ideas to get really excited about a new game.  It's great!

Quote from: HalfjackSo, how about you?  Creation at the table or away?  Reliably one or the other or a mix by system, whim, whatever?  What obstacles does your choice present?  What opportunities?

Ever since I entered the work force, got married, 2.5 children, etc., play time is precious, so yeah, I see telling players to make up characters for a game at a set time so we can get playing. (In practice, that rarely happens... someone is always a straggler and we are always spending of the first session finishing up chargen.

Mismatched expectations is something I used to run into all the time, and I've slowly learned that the more options you have, the bigger chance players are going to do something that just doesn't fit, so it pays to be pretty explicit about what your expectations were up front. It used to be I never did that.

Tangential to your comments, Caesar, I find that nowadays we're far more likely to talk about the game itself than we used to be.  End of evening discussion of what worked and what didn't has become a staple instead of an exception.  And obviously, then, character generation and game direction gets discussed a lot before the game.

Do you play any games that clearly EXPECT character generation to take place at the table?

Nowdays I deal with mostly away from the table character generation.  Mainly because my time for gaming is pretty limited.  Questions I deal with via email or the phone before hand.  This allows us to get right to the game instead of waiting for a few folks to get things done, or the guy who spends an hour deciding on equipment, not to mention the person who takes twenty minutes just to come up with a name.

Quote from: peteramthorNowdays I deal with mostly away from the table character generation.  Mainly because my time for gaming is pretty limited.  Questions I deal with via email or the phone before hand.  This allows us to get right to the game instead of waiting for a few folks to get things done, or the guy who spends an hour deciding on equipment, not to mention the person who takes twenty minutes just to come up with a name.

Do you think the game you choose influences this at all?

Quote from: peteramthorNowdays I deal with mostly away from the table character generation.  Mainly because my time for gaming is pretty limited.  Questions I deal with via email or the phone before hand.  This allows us to get right to the game instead of waiting for a few folks to get things done, or the guy who spends an hour deciding on equipment, not to mention the person who takes twenty minutes just to come up with a name.

This is the same set of problems I run into.

Quote from: HalfjackDo you think the game you choose influences this at all?

Sometimes.  Currently I'm running two games Sla Industries and red box D&D.  The Sla character creation system is a little long and can take a while so I really hate waiting for players to get done with somethings, especially when there is only a couple of core rule books floating around the table.  D&D of that edition is so blood simple that characters can be cranked out in a few minutes so doing that at the table doesn't bother me.

Now some games are made to generate the group all at once, original Conspiracy X (haven't seen the new one yet) comes to mind right off the bat.  If I was running something like that I can see doing it away from the table.

But with the level that most of my players are connected online it works out really well for us to do things like we are.  I've backwards calculated a few characters once or twice and have never caught any of them adding things in.

Quote from: peteramthorBut with the level that most of my players are connected online it works out really well for us to do things like we are.  I've backwards calculated a few characters once or twice and have never caught any of them adding things in.

That's interesting to me that trust would be an issue in this, but I guess obviously it can be.  I don't think that we, for example, ever avoided away-from-table generation because of trust issues but then we never ran into any because we always created at the table.    Now I think we're all at the point where if someone wants to bend the rules to get the character they want then it's probably a pretty cool character.  In the past I have certainly gamed with people that were not so dependably interested in the success of the game.

Quote from: HalfjackDo you play any games that clearly EXPECT character generation to take place at the table?

Since I am having trouble thinking of one other than Burning Empires (which sort of assumes the group will set aside a session to make THE WORLD), I guess not.

Group chargen is the way to go IMO, and this is irrespective of game system. It's not time wasted at all. You can tailor the group more easily to the specific campaign, e.g. by selecting skills for the PCs that a) will be useful and b) complement each other. You can nip problems in the bud ("my PC's an orphaned loner"; three people wanting to play the same character class; cheating at attribute rolls). And you get a ballpark sense of possible group dynamics.

I think too that with group character generation comes the possibility of some group backstory (though there are games now that handle this is part of generation mechanically anyway) which seems valuable to me.

Quote from: HalfjackThat's interesting to me that trust would be an issue in this, but I guess obviously it can be.

Well the trust issue isn't really a factor here either until there were rumors of somebody doing some excessive fudging on their characters.  Turned out to be false and likely to be a fake story because player A doesn't like player B.

Then again sometimes it is probably just as easy to cheat at making a character right in front of the GM.  Especially in a point distribution game with high numbers.

As far as group dynamics forming in the character creation process I had another thought.  In most of the groups I play with there is usually no 'set' group that plays.  You have a core of three or four people that will always be there and then some who show up for a while then leave and new people drift in.  That and we always seem to lose a core person due to shift changes at a job or a whole new job altogether.  Basically we got used to a rotating roster of players.

Quote from: peteramthorAs far as group dynamics forming in the character creation process I had another thought.  In most of the groups I play with there is usually no 'set' group that plays.

That's interesting and I can see how it could quite change the social dynamic at the table.  Our group is a long-standing group of four and tightly enough meshed that if one can't make it then the other three find something else to do.    I guess we're pretty insular.  

I prefer to hammer out character, expectations of play and so on before the actual game. Not doing it can sabotage a game, and ruin someones fun.