I was thinking about this just now, and I'm not sure I have an answer.

It's perfectly fine for games with limited to no setting, in that sense you're just defining your variables before presenting the system for interaction with those variables.

But many setting-focused games nevertheless start right off with the chargen, maybe leaving, at most, a brief intro chapter of only a few pages, or a piece of vague and rubbish fluff fiction.

But, if this is a new world to the player, why are we starting off without getting them the background needed to actually make a believable character for the setting?  

Now, the simple answer of course is to just read the setting bits before making a character, but if we're going to do that why not put them right up front to begin with?  

Or do you find it actually helpful to define a setting for you as a player to start with the chargen, assuming the system gives you enough idea through the character systems of what sort of people are running around adventuring in this new world?

And I would imagine system itself plays a role in that, after all, if it's a very simple system it may not tell you enough just seeing the rules, but if it's a game like D&D with defined roles in the system then that's liable to tell you all you need to know to get started, but then I wonder if that's also why the players never seem that invested in the setting.

I wonder too at the motivation to always stick the setting bits in the "GM half" of the book, like we're all still in 1982 and that stuff is GM EYES ONLY top secret material or something.  

What do you folks think?  Do you like the more or less standard formula of chargen -> system -> combat -> setting -> DM bits that most games seem to follow?  Or do you think there might be more efficient or logical ways of ordering a book?

Palladium does all it's new books with chargen at the back. I guess at least one person agrees with you.

I prefer a quick rules summary in the front, followed by chargen, followed by the main rules section. Like how Savage Worlds does it.

I've considered this issue, and my answer for wanting to put the character generation parts in the beginning was because after the first character, players will want to have the character chapters easily accessible. Putting them at the beginning of the book makes them easier to find.

Didn't White Wolf do world stuff first, and put character generation around chapter 5 or so, though?

I've been cracking open game books fresh from the shelf for almost a quarter century (almost! Hah! Keep telling myself its almost!) and I can tell you that the main reason is for players who buy books.

The primary means of the player to interact with the game world is via his character, thus, generally, the first thing any player... even one new to RPGs... is going to want to know is how HIS piece of the puzzle works.

For the most part, your average player doesn't care much for the deep darks of the game world, most of the information he needs can be encapsulated in the cover art.  

"Ok, so there are midgets with beards and axes, an a manly looking woman with a bow and pointy ears. Ok... I wanna play a wizard, how do I do that?"


He literally does not care about the geopolitics of Midrandia, or how the Three-Toes Elves of the Forest of the Golden Vine make the best wine.

He wants to know what his dude with a robe and stick is gonna look like on paper.

Thus, the first thing he's probably going to read will be character creation rules.

And universally the games that you NEEDED to know the geopolitics of Midrandia in order to meaningfully use that section: They all sucked balls.

And those WW games where they give you Midrandia up front? They sucked balls too because it was annoying to have to flip past 150 pages of tortured prose to read the essentially generic rule that if you are a hairy vampire you can rip someone's face off with your claws at two dots of protean.



regarding Palladium: Generally, Palladium books have the Rules of the Game up front (which actually supports part of my general thesis), followed by character creation.  If you get any world information (in the core book), its after that, and in blurb format. Mostly so you can get to faster face stabbings.

now: equipment does come at the end of the books in many (most?) cases, so there is that oddity.

I think having char gen upfront (along with equipment and other crunch) is the best way to go. Once you play a game, those are usually the sections players need to reference most, so makes it easy to have them in the beginning. In my experience most players rarely read the setting part (or tend to skim) and the GM distills the information for the group so they have some context and character guidelines. I dont mind sifting throug a book for setting material, but do mind sifting for skills or character wealth.

I recently leafed through Monte Cook's World of Darkness, and that book does two of the worst things: it has a fiction piece as the first thing you see when you crack open the book, and the index is actually after the fiction.

Indexes should be easily accessible.

Because it's one of the most important part of RPG manual, and needs to be easy accessible without searching a lot. I had seen books with chargen split around the middle, and all were terrible mess when it came to creating a character.

As the primary Gm for most of my game groups, I usually prefer it at the front. I get a better handle on what characters can do, how they can do it, and the like. Plus it inspires me on what kind of campaigns to run.

When I am a player it makes it easier than flicping through half the book to get the chargen.

Sure I'll read setting details, in fact I encourage it in High Valor, but I provide an awful lot of "here ya go, this is what you need to know," as well.

In fact I find games that move chargen too far back to often be badly organized for myself, because I have to flip so far back to get a handle on what characters can do, and to what extent. Knowing mechanics is fine, knowing setting is fine--but I feel one still needs to know how the character works to get all that to gel."

I can't tell you how many games put me in an awesome mood to do something cool with there setting early on--then stomp on that in character generation.

It's the first thing players want to do when they open the book. It's an immediate, easy-to-grasp bit of insight into the rules and also the gameworld and how the two interact, at the same time.

I want chargen first.  And, more to the point, I want it done right the first time.  Don't tell me "just write this down, just write that down" or come up with a "basic" character generation method.  Give me the whole enchilada.

Quote from: J Arcane;515229I was thinking about this just now, and I'm not sure I have an answer.

Unexamined tradition.

As I discuss in On the Importance of Character Generation, one of the things that makes D&D work is that a new player can "start playing" within 30 seconds of sitting down at the table because character creation is (a) a game-like experience and (b) uses only easily comprehensible choices that don't require a deeper understanding of the rule system or setting in order to be meaningful.

In that kind of system, putting character creation at the front of the book makes sense: It's a process which will is both immediately accessible to new players and will also hook them into the game.

That isn't actually true for most games published post-1980, but character creation nevertheless hangs out in the front of the book, pretending to be comprehensible before you understand how the game system works.

One semi-legitimate reason for that is that character creation is often a convenient place for defining the most basic building blocks of the system: If you need to explain what ability scores are in order to explain how your 1d100 + ability score resolution system works, then you might as well include the rules for assigning ability scores to your character at the same time, right?

QuoteOne semi-legitimate reason for that is that character creation is often a convenient place for defining the most basic building blocks of the system: If you need to explain what ability scores are in order to explain how your 1d100 + ability score resolution system works, then you might as well include the rules for assigning ability scores to your character at the same time, right?

This has generally been my logic.  I can't help but think of it in programming terms.  A game's rules are essentially just the engine, the system of algorithms, that you use to resolve the interaction of variables.  So, you start by defining those variables.  

This gets scrambled up a bit in a game like D&D or my Drums of War, where enemies use a different set of simpler variables, but I don't mind leaving them to the DM section of the book because only the DM needs to know them.  I don't actually like players knowing anything about monster stats anyway, which is why DoW's bestiary is as much a monster creation system as it is a traditional list of beasties.

It's often a deliberate attempt to get the players to start actually playing the game and using the rules as soon as possible.  D&D 3e was deliberately designed to have the character generation start in the first few pages.  From Ryan Dancey's commentary about D&D 3e design goals on the Pyramid message boards circa September 2000:

QuotePick up an adventure for D&D circa 1985.  The adventure will begin on at worst page 2.

Pick up an adventure for D&D circa 1995.  The adventure will begin somewhere in the middle of the product, after a lengthy story and setting exposition, details of NPCs, geography and history, and perhaps a substantial boxed text essay to be read to the players to "set the mood".

Compare the core rules for several game systems:

D&D 1E:  Character creation begins on page 8.

D&D 2E.  Character creation rules begin on page 12.

Shadowrun 1E:  Page 30.

Werewolf 1E:  Page 73.

Mage 1E:  Page 95.

7th Sea:  Page 112.

(Note:  Character creation in the 3e PHB:  Page 4.)

As much as this horrifies obsessive world builders, wordy game authors, and GMs with elaborate backstories, most players don't want to have to read a novel or a novel worth of rules before they can start playing.

To consider this in the light of programming and math. Think of it as wanting to add A+B= Play, but you want to know at least one of the variables first. You thus get a method to solve for A right up front so now you know what A is, and how it works when added to B.

I don't think you can really group D&D editions with other games.  D&D has a whole host of built in assumptions.

For example, I buy Werewolf.  Umm, ok so what kind of werewolf, Lon Chaney, American Werewolf in London, what the fuck is this game even about anyway besides a cool cover with tears in the cardboard?

I buy Dragon Age.  Well if I want to know about Thedas there are two Bioware games I can play 6 times each to squeeze every drop of the setting out of it if I want to (not to mention 3 novels and a comic).  At the same time, DARPG assumes you're a complete tabletop newbie, so a couple pages on WTF is an RPG, a few pages of sample play, a few pages on Ferelden for the 5 people who bought the game yet haven't played the CRPG, and Character Creation begins on 17.

Shadowrun, don't even get me started.  You can have the GM answer 500 questions from the players about what the hell is going on as they are making up their character or have them read "What Came Before" and then start rocking.  Believe me, unless your player is an experienced enough gamer to get by with "Cyberpunk and Magic has returned to the world" you don't want Shadowrun chargen to start on page 4, you REALLY don't.  As a GM I got to where I could give a total newb "The Speech" that would boil everything down to a couple minutes, but by that time I also had players to help answer all the other stuff.

It kind of depends on what you're trying to accomplish.  Generally speaking though, yeah as early as possible is best.