I was pondering this evening what is it that makes a character generation process work well.  In the 3.5 era (or even the AD&D era) there were a lot of designed character options but they tended to be merciless exercises in finding ways to massively inflate the power level of the character.  

But two approaches seem to work well.  One is randomization (i.e., 4d6 drop one, in order for AD&D or the original Traveller character generation sub-system).  The process of character generation is a process of discovery as to who or what the character will end up being.  Traveller is brilliant in this respect -- by the time you have a character, you have an entire history to go with him or her just by virtue of education, abilities, and careers.  

That tends to fall apart as soon as you fiddle with the randomness too much -- 4d6 drop one, arrange to taste will still result in the same pattern of stat allocations as point buy, just the absolute levels will change.  

The other approach that works well is all about tough choices.  Examples of this include the Amber auction (where you cannot be good at everything) or the Numenera adjectives (everyone likely wants to be clever, tough and fast -- picking only one is tough).  This is also present in D&D with classes -- before multi-classing you could decide if you were focused on magic, melee, stealth, or support.  Multi-classing opens up the option of "I would like to be good at many of these things".

This is not so much a rant against point buy or designed systems, but merely noting that interesting characters come about when you have to decide what is the most important.  A 3.5 wizard with high intelligence, dexterity and constitution is simply one of a vast number of assembly line products.

CharGen is very much personal preference.

I know people who LOVE taking hours to make a character. For them, those hours are incredibly fun. I knew a dude who had literally hundreds (probably over a thousand) of 250 point Champions characters.

Me? If I can't make a character in 15 minutes, I'm in unfun mode. I am all good for reading the book, reviewing the options, but I want to quickly make a character and get into the game.

For me, fast chargen is good, faster is better. For me, random chargen creates the most interesting characters. But what works for me, isn't what works for everyone.

I like random chargen.

This does include lengthy lifepath-y stuff as well as "3d6 in order, try to make the result useful" allthough I guess I prefer the latter really.

That's not to say I hate point-buy, I'm an old GURPS fan after all. But I prefer some random.

I prefer random Traveller characters.  A lot of Traveller players tend to end up with the perfect mercenary character with high skills in their gun weapons every time for some reason.  Most Traveller players error on their side while making their characters also.  Random CharGen is a problem for them because they all want to win the game.

Sometimes I have to choose between a bastard sword and a battleaxe. It's a tough one.

I role with whatever the dice roll.

I've been a confirmed fan of point-buy for decades, and I've always hated random gen.

For all random gen's purported enabling of RP and "interesting" characters, I think that's a crock.  Random gen doesn't "enable" a thing; it restricts choice.  I can, with a point-buy system, choose to play anything I want.  If I want to play a low-IQ brick who can scarcely lace his sandals unassisted, I can choose to do that.  Random gen, I have to take what's handed to me.

I don't want to do that, and until I got a clue and dumped random gen both as a player and a GM, I observed far more people who walked away from campaigns because they couldn't stand what they were stuck with than those thrilled to play something offbeat.  (Hell, I retired my first character, well before his time; I wanted to play wizards, not grunt fighters.)

I like some random. Stats need to be bounded to limit the spread of PC power, but obligating players to obsess about every last point isn't something I enjoy, and its not something as a gm I care to inflict on players who aren't good at it.

I find the idea that point buy enables you "to make whatever you want" to be a bit fallacious. Depending on the game, a few syndromes pop up:
1) In less cautiously designed point-build games, point gen is a license to game the system, with skilled minmaxers squeezing more out of the game than their companions. Minmaxed creations are often bizarre, unbelievable characters.
2) Even when you have less minmaxy players and more robust systems, the measures put in place to limit minmaxing also limit choices the player may make for non-mechanical benefit. Decisions made for role playing reasons can make a PC weaker, often unduly.

The hidden trade-off here is choice vs. variety. After years of cookie cutter characters, I'm willing to give up a little "choice" (often faux choice, as the system forces characters to " fit the shape of their container") for a little variety.

I want character generation to be fairly fast and not require having read the rules in advance (or worse, having studied and mastered the rules) to create a character. As I play with what most on Internet RPG forums would consider casual players, I don't want players who have spent days studying and analyzing the rules to have an advantage in character generation over someone sitting down to play the game for the first time five minutes after first hearing about the game.

Quote from: Ravenswing;685612If I want to play a low-IQ brick who can scarcely lace his sandals unassisted, I can choose to do that.

But you won't do that.  Don't even kid yourself.

I prefer tough choices in actual play. What matters more in character generation is an interesting, consistent character, not a mathematically optimal bundle of stats.

I like random chargen, to a certain extent.

What is the point of playing a fighter with STR 3? You might as well not bother.

So, redistributing 6 points, or swapping 2 characteristics around works for me.

Quote from: soltakss;685660What is the point of playing a fighter with STR 3? You might as well not bother.

Um, someone chose their character type before rolling any dice?  Who does that?

The one game that I found character generation the most annoying was D&D 4E using DDI.  There was far too much information for me to go over and in the end I stopped caring what the feat/power was and just started clicking away in the hope of getting it done.  On the flip side, a couple of my good friends loved it and would go over the lists for hours at a clip.

Quote from: soltakss;685660What is the point of playing a fighter with STR 3? You might as well not bother.

That depends upon what the game system in question makes of STR 3. In the original D&D set, I'm pretty sure it's no worse than STR 6: something like -15% or -20% to experience points. Starting a career as a cleric or MU might be more advantageous, but the handicap is not terribly great.

What matters more in the long run is what happens in the long run. Your fighter could end up with Giant Strength and all the benefits of high level, while a figure starting with extraordinary ability rolls ends up simply dead!