Restricted choices is a well-known means of making the choices that remain meaningful.  Restrict too much, such that the person choosing dislikes all the remaining choices equally, they'll disengage.  Give them too many, they'll miss the forest for the trees.  The art is in finding the fertile middle ground. A big part of finding that middle ground is removing fake choices, which have no real effect, thus encouraging the participants to zero in on the ones that matter.

The flip side of this is being wiling to engage with the game/setting/system on the grounds for which it is presented.  The oft-cited player who insists on playing Merchants and Moneylenders in an otherwise standard D&D adventure game illustrates the issue. 

I likewise have nothing customization, only those who refuse to engage absent some particular customization that they have decided must be present, no matter how irrelevant it might be to the game at hand.  In my own games, I try to maximize customization options that matter while ruthlessly refusing to pretend that ones that don't, do.  There are some players that, given such constraints, will invariably push against them out of sheer perverse contrariness.  I no longer play with such people. 

The problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice. I think there are three motives players might have to play a roleplaying game: use the escapism fantasy to be able to make a choice and be something other than what you are IRL, remain your comfortable self in an unfamiliar circumstance, or to let the Heart of the Cards guide you into your character.

This may surprise Brad, but rolling for stats is not objectively obsolete. D&D's distinction between Ability Scores and Ability Modifiers which have to be manhandled together by stepping the modifier on the even score increase when you could just use a bloody number or die size like a sensible system? I have a less charitable opinion of that bit of nonsense.

Problem One: Do you really need to randomly assign the attributes to successfully prompt roleplay?

Trying to emulate a reality is not a priority of mine, so I won't particularly comment on it. Well, with one exception; of the many ways you can create genre feel...rolling to determine your character's incompetences isn't exactly high on my list. No, the real question in my opinion is if you can prompt the player to roleplay, and in that regard I think assigning attribute scores is grotesque overkill. This is fundamentally a creative writing prompt, and with most creative writing prompts, less is more. The way I would do this in my preferred published system--Savage Worlds--is to let players randomly draw a free Edge their character gets before they even start character creation. Bonus points if it's something above what their character's advancement would normally permit, so the player will actually want to build around it.

If you have a point-buy system which isn't an overbuilt mess, I see no reason to tamper further. Great way to get strange edges like Tactician and Common Bond see some love; I rarely see those edges in action.

Problem Two: Rolling for attributes is the wrong way to randomly generate attributes.

I suggest cards instead of dice for a simple reason; dice have no memory of their previous roll, so they are inclined to give you extreme results. Anyone familiar with dice should know that they give strings of extremes; that's just how the implementation of RNG via dice works. That isn't ideal here because it can generate an uncontrolled intra-party competence difference or outright hand players unusable stats. A deck of cards remembers the cards you've drawn out of it because the cards are literally not in the deck. You can customize the RNG's range by taking out cards before drawing, or you can reset the memory effect by reshuffling the deck. Playing cards control the amount of randomness they give, guarantee the outputs will not be a string of repeats, allow the GM to fine-tune the output range at the table, offer resets in the form of a reshuffle, and allow for weird flavor applications like playing Blackjack against the GM for an attribute reroll. Dice don't do any of that.

The tradeoff? It's slower and requires the GM to actually think about how much randomness is appropriate rather than going, "hur de dur, D20 roll." Speed is good, and easy is good, but the fastest and easiest solution is not always the best one.

If you insist on making random stats, actually think out what you are doing and use cards, not dice.

  I just say Character Generation can be its own Mini-Game.

It's like art. Sure you have all those colors, media, line widths, textures, and techniques. But then there's those who are paralyzed by the options (a very real thing). And then there are those who are fixated on an ideal they never actually practice to achieve, forever chasing new art supplies and reference images but never mastering anything for themselves. Meanwhile you have artists who gleefully embrace momentary restrictions to push themselves into making something new and beautiful.

If you never experience creation in all its glorious mess, you'll forever be preserving an ideal unrealized.  Go risk. Be disappointed. Grow up. Rejoice. 

This feels like an argument for a lifepath system. I don't have an issue with random generation, but I also don't really want to be stuck playing something I don't want to play either. That was the weakness, I think, of the older idea of prime requisite requirements for classes (though it has other strengths for simulation purposes). If I really want to experience what it's like to play a Paladin or whatever, I'm going to be playing and churning through characters for a while before I meet those requirements. I don't see an issue with a less useful and strong Paladin - arguably it could be more interesting. What I'm less enthusiastic about is this more modern idea that everything should be pure choice (point-buy, attribute arrays). I understand the reasons and the desire, but it just makes me sad.
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I ended up with a compromise in my game. Characters get an attribute array from their race (humans start out basic, dwarves start tougher but with other drawbacks, whatever). Characters then modify that starting array based on background and a few allocatable points/penalties. This gives variety without having a bunch of Dwarf PCs end up weirdly frail compared to a human PC who just happened to roll well. I think that delivers on the fantasy of playing a Dwarf better than pure random roll with modifiers. It's always bugged me when demihumans get these attribute bonuses but sometimes they're outclassed by another RNG PC who is supposed to be thematically less competent in that area (unless they're putting points in that attribute).

As for picking feats, I feel like it's a false dichotomy. I think free choice is fine but yes it will lead to some players starting to optimize/character build. I think it's perhaps a good compromise to roll randomly on a table 3 times and let the player pick from among those options. That's a system I'm looking at building since I'm noticing a lot of players fall into certain patterns with their characters if given total control over their choice of character development.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 07, 2023, 03:17:55 AM
As for picking feats, I feel like it's a false dichotomy. I think free choice is fine but yes it will lead to some players starting to optimize/character build. I think it's perhaps a good compromise to roll randomly on a table 3 times and let the player pick from among those options. That's a system I'm looking at building since I'm noticing a lot of players fall into certain patterns with their characters if given total control over their choice of character development.

While character creation works fine even with random elements, random character advancement is absolutely wrong and immersion breaking in the extreme. You don't randomize training, especially if it is self training: as long as it is plausible and justifiable in-world (you spent the last 6 months in game in a desert wasteland fighting goblins every day and you want to take the "Masterful Florist" feat at level up ? Fuck no) the player should evolve his character however he likes.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 07, 2023, 03:49:08 AM
While character creation works fine even with random elements, random character advancement is absolutely wrong and immersion breaking in the extreme. You don't randomize training, especially if it is self training: as long as it is plausible and justifiable in-world (you spent the last 6 months in game in a desert wasteland fighting goblins every day and you want to take the "Masterful Florist" feat at level up ? Fuck no) the player should evolve his character however he likes.

This is a hypothetical system, I'm not 100% sold on it myself. All I can say is that I've noticed that giving people free reign over their development choices leads to a certain level of character building/optimization and I've noticed that players tend to fall into certain grooves of common choices. If you provide a lot of options (as I do), you also have to reconcile with how to constrain options enough that people can make sense of their choices. I currently categorize and group feats by class, which gives a little context. The only people getting a "master florist" feat would be Druids or something like that. So the concept is maybe you pick which class tables you want to roll on, and you roll some number of them, and then you pick one from that set. That way you're always getting Druid feats if that's what you want, but you have less fine-grain control over exactly what you want.

Some feats conceptually are stuff like "courageous", and that presents a problem with the idea that you're purely in control and the training is straightforward and intentional. "Courageous" feels like something you can discover about a character (ie perhaps random). I might consider providing a small set of fallback feats for each group which are more straightforward in terms of training so you can pick those if you don't like the options you rolled. Again, this is pure hypothetical but it's something I've been thinking about for a little while.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 07, 2023, 04:12:10 AM
This is a hypothetical system, I'm not 100% sold on it myself. All I can say is that I've noticed that giving people free reign over their development choices leads to a certain level of character building/optimization and I've noticed that players tend to fall into certain grooves of common choices. If you provide a lot of options (as I do), you also have to reconcile with how to constrain options enough that people can make sense of their choices. I currently categorize and group feats by class, which gives a little context. The only people getting a "master florist" feat would be Druids or something like that. So the concept is maybe you pick which class tables you want to roll on, and you roll some number of them, and then you pick one from that set. That way you're always getting Druid feats if that's what you want, but you have less fine-grain control over exactly what you want.

Some feats conceptually are stuff like "courageous", and that presents a problem with the idea that you're purely in control and the training is straightforward and intentional. "Courageous" feels like something you can discover about a character (ie perhaps random). I might consider providing a small set of fallback feats for each group which are more straightforward in terms of training so you can pick those if you don't like the options you rolled. Again, this is pure hypothetical but it's something I've been thinking about for a little while.

Again, this doesn't work. Experiences can be random, but training never is. I'm either going to a specific master that'll teach me his thing or I'm training on my own to reach a desired outcome; in other words, character optimization is a good modeling of in-world practices and represents proper immersion.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 07, 2023, 04:23:46 AM
Again, this doesn't work. Experiences can be random, but training never is. I'm either going to a specific master that'll teach me his thing or I'm training on my own to reach a desired outcome; in other words, character optimization is a good modeling of in-world practices and represents proper immersion.

I think part of the issue is that there's no clear idea or definition of what a Feat is since the very beginning. Training your footwork in combat is obviously a learned skill. "Courageous" is essentially a trait - something which can be discovered or summoned up but not something trained in any straightforward manner. So the hypothetical randomness is not modeling your training, it's modeling what you'd discover about your character through the training process. I agree that if the concept of feats tries to straddle courage, shield training, and footwork all in the same domain, it's going to be hard to make randomness feel good for two-thirds of that setup. I'm not too interested in just killing an idea because it has problems - I'll think more and see if there's anything worth salvaging.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 07, 2023, 05:53:03 AM
"Courageous" is essentially a trait - something which can be discovered or summoned up but not something trained in any straightforward manner.

Just to cherry pick a bit: "Courage" is a trained skill, not a trait. The ability to handle dangerous situations without fear (or better: the ability to channel and keep fear under control in dangerous situations) is something you learn, not something you're born with. And it's also fairly easy to train: repeated exposition to dangerous situations in progressively less controlled environments will do the trick (ask any soldier or firefighter).

So (again), your idea of semi-random advancement doesn't really work as it is right now.

I make a distinction between opportunity and training.  Because some opportunities arise, some are pursued, and all have opportunity cost. 

In my system, characters get some education and some practical training as part of their background.  The can also improve that as they adventure. 

The background training gives you limited control.  The amount of education and practice you get is somewhat random (tied to culture which you pick and parents' family/social status which you don't) and mixed in with some other things not related to skill.  For every point of educational background you randomly get, you also roll randomly on a chart.  Any roll typically lets you pick from 2 or 3 very different options, and sometimes the option itself has some choices.  Likewise with the practical background.  You don't control your opportunities but you do decide what to do with them.

The adventure training is less constrained.  You get most of it from the next "path" you want to pursue, which could be a new one or could be another rank in one you already started.  Paths only have 2 or 3 ranks, so you max out fairly quick.  Paths are bigger than feats but less than classes.  Skills are only one thing provided by paths, and probably one of the weaker things.  Each path provides from a very limited list of skills, and not at every rank.  The player has complete control of which path they take (within role play reasons and a handful of mutually exclusive, obvious choices that can block you from a few).  In effect, every rank in  a path provides a set list of things (like a class level). You don't get to mix and match, but you do get to decide what path your pursue next.  If that rank has skill choices (or weapon choices or language choices), you get to make those choices, often from a subset of the wider choices. 

If you had in mind that you really wanted to a ranger-type character from the very beginning, then it is highly unlikely that all of your random background choices will provide nothing that fits.  You'll probably get 1 or 2 oddball things mixed in to round out the background in stuff that otherwise fits.  It won't take nearly as long as optimizing every choice from the full list, and will likely provide a hook for role play.  Then when you start adventuring, you'll probably pick early ranks from some combination of the archer, champion, hunter, or scout paths.  Unless you think a ranger has some minor magic, in which case you might pick paths to go after that, if your class choice didn't.  Your choice, but you don't get to optimize the perfect "archer" in your view.  If you can't make a playable character that suits you with the options provided, then chances are you don't intend to, and wouldn't in any system.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 07, 2023, 04:23:46 AM
Again, this doesn't work. Experiences can be random, but training never is. I'm either going to a specific master that'll teach me his thing or I'm training on my own to reach a desired outcome; in other words, character optimization is a good modeling of in-world practices and represents proper immersion.

Depends on granularity, too.  If you decide that you want to learn to fence, for an example that at least somewhat matches early practices, you can pick the fencing master.  Or at least you can within the choices available to you in budget and location and your dedication to fencing compared to other things.  You don't get to pick the program of training, which is highly likely to include some things that are more important to the master than you.  Unless of course you happen to be the humble sort that assumes the master knows what he is doing and you don't.

In theory, practice is under your control.  In practice, it is not.  Besides other people, it also tends to smack up against reality. Many skills, especially those in pre-modern society, are easy enough to learn adequately, but very difficult to master, and in some cases completely out of reach.  That's because every skill worth mastering is usually, in fact, a combination of a lot of different skills working together.  That's still true even in modern society, though we have many more opportunities and more ways to specialize around a lack.

The issue with things like feats is that there are inevitably going to be winners and losers. Some systems do better than others and leveling the field, 5E is much better in this regard than 3.5 for example. The issues still exist and what you get is the optimized choices being chosen over and over again leading to standardized builds for each character type. This is why I prefer systems that do not feature these kinds of things whether or not initial character generation is random or not.

Quote from: Brad on June 06, 2023, 01:44:00 PM
I cannot wait to hear how bad randomizing character creation is from some of the usual suspects...

Quote from: Fheredin on June 06, 2023, 10:05:32 PM
The problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice.

So? If a player wants to play a paladin and rolls too poorly, they don't get to choose a paladin. So what? My kids don't get to pick fucking candy for breakfast, either. Limiting player choice isn't inherently bad; it CAN be bad in some instances, but your arbitrary "limiting player choice is BAD!" is just pure garbage. Hell, why limit the players at all? If you're running a pseudo-medieval campaign and a player wants a SAWS and some 21st century body armor, why not? Surely limiting their choice to a list of melee weapons like swords and axes is BAD! Whatever...

QuoteThis may surprise Brad, but rolling for stats is not objectively obsolete. D&D's distinction between Ability Scores and Ability Modifiers which have to be manhandled together by stepping the modifier on the even score increase when you could just use a bloody number or die size like a sensible system? I have a less charitable opinion of that bit of nonsense.

It doesn't surprise me that you wrote this sentence, but I am surprised why it matters to you since I doubt for one second you play D&D at all. Considering it's a terrible game, right?

QuoteProblem One: Do you really need to randomly assign the attributes to successfully prompt roleplay?

Nope. Do you really need to use point-buy or some other system to assign attributes to successfully prompt roleplay? Nope. For some games randomized rolls are good, and for some games point-buy is good, and for some games it might be a combination of both, or neither. This one-true-way bullshit is exactly why your opinion is irrelevant. I would never advocate randomized attributes for a game like Amber because the auction is what literally generates conflict within the game itself. It's a vital part of creating the environment that will ensure plenty of fun and mayhem. But for a B/X game? Roll those D6s.

QuoteIf you insist on making random stats, actually think out what you are doing and use cards, not dice.

So...use randomization, but use the kind I LIKE INSTEAD! YOU FOOL! I cannot tell if this is a troll or you are really this fucking stupid.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 07, 2023, 07:07:31 AM

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 07, 2023, 05:53:03 AM
"Courageous" is essentially a trait - something which can be discovered or summoned up but not something trained in any straightforward manner.

Just to cherry pick a bit: "Courage" is a trained skill, not a trait. The ability to handle dangerous situations without fear (or better: the ability to channel and keep fear under control in dangerous situations) is something you learn, not something you're born with. And it's also fairly easy to train: repeated exposition to dangerous situations in progressively less controlled environments will do the trick (ask any soldier or firefighter).

So (again), your idea of semi-random advancement doesn't really work as it is right now.

So, please delineate for me, down to the last second, exactly how long it takes every soldier to lose their fear in combat.  I want the number that applies to everyone, please.

Different qualities and skills manifest at different rates, based on personal aptitude.  To use a sports analogy, both I and a teammate may practice slapshots the same number of hours per day, but it doesn't mean our slapshots will be equivalent.  Something may click for him and his be much better sooner, despite the same amount and intensity of training.  I might, however, pick up backward crossovers after just a few attempts, whereas he may struggle with them for months.  So just because you train for "courage" doesn't mean you will get courageous, nor does it mean you will do so at the same rate as others.

In an RPG with fixed experienced costs for advancement (unlike AD&D where every class had its own cost/table), you can't really appeal to "realism" for training and advancement.  A real person is not guarantied to ever learn a particular skill or quality, much less do so on the same time-table as everyone else.  So a random table that is associated with the class/profession that fits the character's pursuits could be just as "realistic" as any other method.  If your character keeps rolling to increase Strength, rather than to gain a weapon feat, it may just represent your character's aptitude for physical improvement over their difficulties with coordination (hence they can't pick up a new weapon skill).  That's no less "realistic" than everyone picking up dual wield at 2nd level.

I actually can dual wield in real life, and I'm self taught (though, I'm formally trained in other martial arts), and didn't even grow up in a warrior culture, or become a soldier, cop or any other type of combat oriented profession. I'm not even very physically fit and don't exercise much other than occasionally training martial arts or walking. I learned how to dual wield and do spinning tricks and shit as a hobby entirely on my own. So I tend to lean heavily on the side of "absolutely everything can be learned (even if you don't have a teacher handy)". Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.

Are there people less capable than others at doing this? Sure. And they invariably don't want it enough. Just like characters in a TTRPG who don't want to dual wield more than they want to learn more spells, for example, won't end up learning how to dual wield, but pick stuff that would grant them more magic instead. You don't need random selection to enforce this stuff. Player/character priorities will sort it out on their own. Insistence on things being handled otherwise is just a neurotic OSR fixation.

That being said there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of random or semi-random creation or advancement, other than the idea that to do so is the "one-true(best)-way". Just be upfront about it if that's the way you handle it in your game and don't be a pompous asshole about how superior that way of handling things is. But I still prefer freeform selection and have no interest in micromanaging player selections or forcing them to roll for it.