I am just as happy to generate a character as build one. Never knowing how long a given game is going to run, I don't like to waste too much time futzing with character stuff before play begins.

Quote from: jeff37923;685036When I was 12, back in 1981, and first began to GM games, I would tell my Players to put their rolls where they want them for characteristics. It was a simple, elegant, and common sense solution to this so-called "problem".

I agree that is the best way to handle the "issue".

I think the spreadsheet version is part of the trend in modern games to "protect" players from bad/jerk GMs. Codify everything and don't let the bad GM deny you your character concept.  


When I make a character I do what that women in the picture doing.

Quote from: jedimastert;685113I agree that is the best way to handle the "issue".

I think the spreadsheet version is part of the trend in modern games to "protect" players from bad/jerk GMs. Codify everything and don't let the bad GM deny you your character concept.  


When I make a character I do what that women in the picture doing.

I disagree that the spreadsheet is only for this.  I guess because I use them.  It could be as you say, but it can also be to deepen the way the math and the setting interact.  But it certainly is more work and more investiture in chargen, which is another issue.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;684982It just seems that, especially recently with the announcement of Next, that everyone is about the numbers.  Almost to an obsessive level.  Nothing else matters, not the environment, not the game world, not the NPCs, not the stories, none of it matters anywhere near as much as making sure that DPR is calculated for each class/race combination and compared to monsters and each other so arena battle simulations can take place like some sort of RPG version of Deadliest Warrior.

Quote from: Old One Eye;684993WotC has said that the feedback from the playtests is that the numbers are not that important to most people.  We know that only a relatively small subset of gamers actually post on rpg forums, which I think it fair to speculate is significantly more heavily skewed toward those more likely to obsess over the numbers than the overall gaming populace.

My anecdotal experience is that almost everyone I have ever gamed with finds the numbers to be a pain in the ass and just wants some cool hook to hang their character around.

This. You've been spending too much time on RGPnet and other nests of number-wanks. And take solace from the knowledge that WotC admits they made a big mistake in letting these dweebs drive the D&D bus for the last 10 years, and are now kicking them to the curb. It's actually hardcore mini-maxers who are a dying breed, because the games they like are so inaccessible to new blood, and eventually everyone who prefers that mode of play will stick with CRPGs.

Quote from: Eisenmann;685085I didn't even know what a "build" was in 2003 when I returned to the hobby after a 12 year hiatus.

Same here. Thankfully, neither did my players.

Quote from: One Horse Town;685084Well, without having a concept in mind you'll have trouble spending your points.

Analysis paralysis.

Yep. Especially when there's a bunch of options.

Quote from: Haffrung;685116This. You've been spending too much time on RGPnet and other nests of number-wanks. And take solace from the knowledge that WotC admits they made a big mistake in letting these dweebs drive the D&D bus for the last 10 years, and are now kicking them to the curb. It's actually hardcore mini-maxers who are a dying breed, because the games they like are so inaccessible to new blood, and eventually everyone who prefers that mode of play will stick with CRPGs.

Now that's good news. Never liked min-maxing.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;685027So, Sacro, is that young woman imagining a character with a magic sword? Or magic armor, perhaps?

Optimisation isn't inherently bad. Believe me, I know all of the numbers on my character sheet and how they interact with the rest of the game, and I have pretty much since I was introduced to this hobby over thirty-five years ago. I know my character's attack and parry scores, and whether to parry or use footwork to avoid an attack based on the differences in Expertise and weapon type between our characters. I know I have a better chance of stabbing an arm or a leg than I do of sticking my basket-hilted broadsword in someone's eye. I know that if I can get a stun then my opponent is reduced to a single action, meaning he must choose either to parry or to attack and reaction parry, which is much easier for me to defeat.

That doesn't mean my character is defined solely or wholly by those numbers. It means that my imagination and the rules of the game interact to create the experience of actual play. The numbers of the page describe what my character can do, not who he is, so I can see both the numbers on my character sheet and imagine him with his broadsword dangling from his hip as he confronts a bravo with a wink to the trollop at the bar.

The idea that the experience of roleplaying games is one or the other is the attitude I have trouble with much more than spreadsheets.

Perhaps I'm not conveying myself very well.  Of course people are aware of the mechanical part of their character, and have been since day 1.  What I'm getting at is that before, you'd create your character solely on an inspiration: a movie or book character, a fictional hero, a mini, or an image.  Then the numbers would come after.  Now?  Now the focus seems to be on min/maxing first, and then theme later.

For example, shortly after 3e came out I recall a conversation where I wanted to build a character concept around the arcane archer because it sounded cool.  I was immediately beset up on on all sides how that was a horrible build, and I could get similar results around doing X, Y, and Z options instead.

Or look at the conversations around Next, where just the other day someone mentioned how they wanted to do concept Y, and the overwhelming response was, "Why?  A mountain dwarf wizard is the best way to go."

It's an attitude shifting away from thematic concept to maximum combat effectiveness.

Quote from: Ravenswing;685095(shrugs) There were number crunching fanatics in the hobby many decades ago.  "Minimaxing" isn't a term invented in the last decade; it was in general use at least as far back as 1977.

Terminology pollution is nothing new, either.  A lot of people on this board use "buff," for instance, a term I despise, and one invented relatively recently in MMOs.

Yes, there were min/maxers back in the day.  But they were a small minority and D&D wasn't designed to cater to them.  Now it seems as of they are a significant portion of the base, and D&D needs to cater to them as well in order to maintain sales.  This is why I said I think it's more generational rather than edition specific.

Quote from: Haffrung;685116This. You've been spending too much time on RGPnet and other nests of number-wanks. And take solace from the knowledge that WotC admits they made a big mistake in letting these dweebs drive the D&D bus for the last 10 years, and are now kicking them to the curb. It's actually hardcore mini-maxers who are a dying breed, because the games they like are so inaccessible to new blood, and eventually everyone who prefers that mode of play will stick with CRPGs.

.

Believe or not, I don't spend very much time at RPGnet at all.  This attitude is one I've seen reflective in the majority of game forum members, from ENWorld to the official WotC forums.  In fact, it's really prevalent in the official forums.  At Gencon, Mearls said that they do base a lot of design decisions around the official forums (he also mentioned EN World and Rpg.net).  And he didn't acknowledge that the min/maxers were a dying breed.  He said the game moved away from what it should be, which can easily mean that the min/maxers of 3e are perfectly fine, but the tactical gonzo "everyone should have magic powers" aspect of 4e is what he was referring to.

Quote from: Melan;685006And personally, I follow a third method: I let the randomisation create the basic character concept, and actual play develop the detailed profile.

You mean you start with a character that's nothing but numbers?! Where's the roleplaying in that!?

I jest, of course - that's my preferred method as well, pretty much to the exclusion of the rest - but it also bears noting that in most roleplaying games, even with a random creation, you still have the opportunity to improve that character over time, with increasing skill and ability scores, class selection, or gear.

Frex, original Traveller out-of-the-box has perhaps one of the slowest skill improvement systems around - if you're diligent enough, you can improve two skills by one point each permanently in just eight in-game years! - but I'll bet credits to Imperial Navy beans a retired Marine character wouldn't sneer at upgrading his reflec for battle dress and his laser carbine for a FGMP-15 if the opportunity presented itself.

There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to improve one's character vis–à–vis the rules of the game.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;685131What I'm getting at is that before, you'd create your character solely on an inspiration: a movie or book character, a fictional hero, a mini, or an image.  Then the numbers would come after.

No, actually, for me the numbers come first, starting with 3d6 in order.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;685133No, actually, for me the numbers come first, starting with 3d6 in order.

I think you're the exception then.  I would say 95% of the games I played in, starting with AD&D (so pretty much the beginning of the game life cycle minus a couple years), players rolled 4d6 drop 1, assign in order.  I think way more players used that method than roll 3d6 straight down.  Why?  Because they had a visual concept in mind and that method allowed them to do it.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;685131At Gencon, Mearls said that they do base a lot of design decisions around the official forums (he also mentioned EN World and Rpg.net).  

That's really a poor decision, at least if they weigh what they say too high. I've discovered that the D&D fanatics who post a lot on such forums often have very different views on D&D than players I run into on the street. It's very easy to go with what the people on forums think because they are very easy to find and communicate with, but they are a very limited (and self-selected) subset of D&D players.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;685136I would say 95% of the games I played in, starting with AD&D (so pretty much the beginning of the game life cycle minus a couple years), players rolled 4d6 drop 1, assign in order.

Roleplaying games were still using roll stats in order into the mid-Eighties, such as the one I'm playing right now.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;685136I think way more players used that method than roll 3d6 straight down.  Why?  Because they had a visual concept in mind and that method allowed them to do it.

Yes, and I call them 'minmaxers.'

Congratulations - you are what you hate.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;685136I think you're the exception then.  I would say 95% of the games I played in, starting with AD&D (so pretty much the beginning of the game life cycle minus a couple years), players rolled 4d6 drop 1, assign in order.  I think way more players used that method than roll 3d6 straight down.  Why?  Because they had a visual concept in mind and that method allowed them to do it.

Not in any of my games.  I am an outlier in many of these conversations, but we used to call rolling the attribs part of 'character generation'  I don't mind the dropped die, but we always roll in order.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;685133No, actually, for me the numbers come first, starting with 3d6 in order.

This is my reaction as well. I sympathize with Sacrosanct, but what he identifies as "the problem" seems completely wrong to me. In OD&D (1974) you roll 3d6 in order, and that serves as the basis or springboard to your imagination from there. My wife found it very liberating actually, as opposed to assigning die results from a concept, because it encourages you to "play dice with the universe" and use characters you might not otherwise have come up with because they were outside what you perceived as a comfort zone.

So it's not a problem of rules v. Imagination at all, to me. The two ideally work with one another and basically create a synergy, a whole that is "the game", as opposed to the sole rules, that is greater than the sum of its parts.

The real problem becomes when the rules themselves become the game. The rules are not the game, nor the game the rules.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;684975and perhaps I just need to accept that the hobby is moving past me.  For example, when I think of character generation, I approach it something like this:

Fear not, brother, you are not alone!

I still approach character generation like this, and I make sure the rules I use support that (in my case, OSR and Amber/Theatrix/Everway).

I remember creating a character for D&D 4e once. What a fucking waste of time.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;685131Believe or not, I don't spend very much time at RPGnet at all.  This attitude is one I've seen reflective in the majority of game forum members, from ENWorld to the official WotC forums.  In fact, it's really prevalent in the official forums.  At Gencon, Mearls said that they do base a lot of design decisions around the official forums (he also mentioned EN World and Rpg.net).  And he didn't acknowledge that the min/maxers were a dying breed.  He said the game moved away from what it should be, which can easily mean that the min/maxers of 3e are perfectly fine, but the tactical gonzo "everyone should have magic powers" aspect of 4e is what he was referring to.

Listen to the GenCon R&D podcast. It was very encouraging. He said for the last 10 years, they have listened too much to what existing players, instead of what potential players want. He said he meets more people who want to play D&D, than who are actually playing D&D. And he said that's a big problem.

Mearls has also said that what players really remember about D&D is the cool adventures and incidents in their games, not what's written on the character sheet. This suggests he realizes that putting the game in the hands of the mini-maxers was a mistake. It has made it harder to get into the game. And the people who post on forums are only a subset of people who actually play (or want to play) D&D.

Another encouraging thing from the GenCon Q&A was that sub-classes and other different mechanic modules will typically be coming in themed expansion packs. He mentioned a pirate-themed supplement, and an Ice Age supplement. They wouldn't be creating books of crunch for players to go in and grab feats out of, he said. Instead, they will be creating books with different options and dials to support the particular style of themed campaign a DM might want to run.

I don't think Next will be game for mini-maxers. And a lot of people will howl about it. But a lot of other people, some who haven't even played D&D before, will be happy.