Anyone ever design a character's equipment, then make the character around it?

I'm doing the PCs for a congame I hope I get to run, and basically wanted a mec group with 3 regulars, a snipergrrl, a heavy weapon dude and a medic. I first laid out the gear for each, then basically wrapped the characters around the gear loadouts.

Anyone make their own characters this way? I imagine in rifts people do it because rifts is more about gear than anything else, but I was curious to see if many gamers did it.

I ran an Iron Heroes campaign in which every single PC was created this way.

"I want a guy who swings a big scythe!"

"I want to backstab!"

"Arrow guy!"

"Shotgun the tank!"

And there was the party.  There's a lot to be said for being painfully honest about what you want out of your PC.

When my group decided we were gonna half-ass some 3.x (literally .x; 2 3.0 PHBs, 3.0 DMG, a 3.5 PHB & MM), I thought about it for about ten seconds,  then had my concept. "I want to play a dwarf. Who fights with a longspear!" And thus was born Harambi oln Coromar, the Pointy Turret.

Rifts was always good for that too. "I intend to use a recovered SAMAS railgun as my main weapon. Now, to pick a character than can do that..."

I could totally see doing in in Iron Heroes, too, though it might be less gear than "What kind of badass do you want to be?". I've had my eye on Hunter/Harrier for a while.

So yeah, sometimes.

Not so much around the equipment as alongside it.  The D&D character I made two weeks ago was inspired by 300, but I made a cleric. The Idea of a spear and shield guy went alongside what else I wanted to do with the character... that is to say: not another boring ass fighter/featmonkey.


Beyond that I really don't go heavy into specific gear. A rifle? Sure, THAT RIFLE? not so much.  Then again, in modern games, I'm the character with an arsenal in the trunk of the car

My "equipment" is the D&D 3.5 magic system, but yes, I do.

When Dark Champions first came out I designed a vigilante names Python around wearing snakeskin boots, owning pet snakes, and carrying a Colt Python.

Back in D&D campaigns in the old days, when we went through a lot more characters than now, I would regularly build PCs around a choice of weapon or type of armor.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineMy "equipment" is the D&D 3.5 magic system, but yes, I do.

That's a good answer.

Anyway, I think in a game like D&D where there are basically multiple "menus" of archtypes to mix 'n match from, gear can be one of many starting points, especially after you've tried the others, race and class. After going "what kind of Elf should I be?" or "What kind of Rogue should I be?" a few times, some people are bound to start going "what kind of Glaive-wielder should I be?" or whatever.

Myself, I've designed from the rapier on out a lot of times, on account of Weapon Finesse and a love of Swashbuckling. And I've done my share of "equipment alongside character," as Spike put it, such as the Dwarf Paladin I designed. In that case, I had a very strong image of yer heavyset, brilliantly armored Dwarf wielding a HUGE frickin' Warhammer of "Diplomacy" +2 :hehe: But the PHB doesn't have a big, 2-handed warhammer, so I made my own: took the Greataxe stats and changed the damage to Blugeoning, called it a "Greathammer" ('spose I could've used Greatclub stats, but I liked the Greataxe stats better). So yeah, in that case the equipment component of the character was important enough to go "off book" rather than compromise.

Peace,
-Joel

D&D gear is pretty cool too. In some games, there isn't really a ton of space devoted in the rules to differentiating gear - think WFRP's generic "hand weapon", or Shadowrun's endless lists of near-identical guns. In D&D, most kit is pretty sweet - boots that let you float in the air, wands that zap bad guys with death rays, potions that cure your injuries. There's the right level of differentiation between what different bits of gear do to make the right choices really distinguish one character from another.

One example from our current game is this cool claw that my illusionist won when the party slew a vampire. The claw is a black gauntlet with claws in its fingers that allows him to apply the quicken spell metamagic feat to a single spell without level adjustment each day (he has to choose which one gets it when he preps). The "Black Claw" can't be removed until he dies, and it's a pretty swanky thing for a mage to be packing. Based on this claw and this other piece of kit he has that he hasn't used (this majorish artifact called "the Crown of the Magi" that requires the user to be evil), I'm really tempted to move him from lawful neutral into lawful evil. My DM refused, because he didn't want me to use the crown at all, but I think we're coming to a situation where he might let me just because it's dramatically cool to do so.

In a very closely related sense I will often design the character around a miniature and thus the equipment on the miniature.

Quote from: David JohansenIn a very closely related sense I will often design the character around a miniature and thus the equipment on the miniature.

IIRC, Games Workshop's Inquisitor game had a WYSIWYG rule about the miniatures you used. The idea was to encourage tons of customisation of the small range of miniatures released for it.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineIIRC, Games Workshop's Inquisitor game had a WYSIWYG rule about the miniatures you used. The idea was to encourage tons of customisation of the small range of miniatures released for it.

Yeah, that was to get you to bend over and pay the obscene prices and fees they had on "bitz".

I wonder how long before GW threatens to sue me for saying that.....

I've always found a few pieces of 'unique' (as in something far from standard, not actually unique)gear can give a RP 'edge' to a character. Nothing that beats the other players over the head, but something that the character is known for.  

The pipe that a Dwarf PC would always slowly pack, then deliver his 'speech' "You're going to have to get out. You have to go." He'd light it and give a hard stare. He ended up using that type of delivery a few more times. It became a trademark for his character. He loved his pipe, went through great lengths to secure good tobacco for it.

I'd suggest getting your hands on a copy of Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue, either a used copy, or a PDF. It's a 2nd edition D&D product, but shouldn't be too hard to convert the few items that have stats. Lots of neat stuff in there, and not all of it is game affecting. Some of it just adds flavor to your games.

The whole thing is set up like a Mail order catalog (infact it was inspired by a catalog from 1902). It has pictures and descriptions for most things, all with weird sorts of claims (DM info in small print to the actual effectiveness of said items)

I'd drop the 'magic walmart' aspect of it though. Just make most of the stuff available in common shops, with the weirder stuff available in specialty shops.

Even if you're not playing in the Forgotten Realms, most thing only need a name change to fit in your campaign. i.e. 'Arabellan Chedder' becomes 'Verbonc Chedder' just as well.

With mecha games, this happens quite a lot.

I had an idea for a game in which the weapons wielded by the characters were at least as important as the characters themselves.  Core to the idea was that the weapons themselves had stats and would grow in power and statue as the game progressed.  The focus was predominantly on sword play, but I suppose any weapon would have sufficed.  When you think about it, swords are fairly iconic in so many different games - lightsabers to Jedis, swords to knights, katana to samurai, rapiers to swashbucklers.  

But I couldn't quite get the duelling mechanisms quite right... and then my mind started to wander

Quote from: NazgulI'd suggest getting your hands on a copy of Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue, either a used copy, or a PDF.

I've used it for every edition of D&D.  It does help to flesh out the characters with extraneous trappings.