Mongoose Traveller chargen all the way, no matter the setting.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1026074Mongoose Traveller chargen all the way, no matter the setting.

...Mongoose Traveller in King Arthur Pendragon:D?

I let my players custom build their characters. Always have. It's their character after all, they should play the one they want. Some insist on rolling, buying or whatever. That's fine too, it's up to them. Makes no difference to me as GM.

Quote from: AsenRG;1026080...Mongoose Traveller in King Arthur Pendragon:D?

Dark Albion.

Whatever the GM feels is appropriate for his/her gampaign. #TrustYourGM

Since I've never been that interested in the mechanical aspect of chargen, I would say 'Make a freeform description of your character, the GM will assign stats based on that' is my favourite.

While I went point buy, there's also something to be said about non-random Lifepath as seen in games like Fading Suns or Eclipse Phase 2e.

My ideal mix would be about a 50/50 mix of random and choices (somewhat restricted by the random), as in "Roll randomly, get category X, then pick from 3 or 4 options."  Mainly, I'm motivated by giving choices to players without freezing them in analysis paralysis.  Which is why my usual replacement is to ask them what they want in general, then make it for them.  

I think I'd also like a system where everything was random, but with a few outs allowed.  That is, maybe you make 10-12 rolls to see what you get, but a couple of times, you can forgo the roll and pick.  Decide what is really important to you, and make sure you get that, but otherwise live with how the dice fall.  If I ever get my own system off the ground, this is the way it will work, in part to see if that idea does work.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1026082Dark Albion.

I don't think it would work like that, but if it works for you, great, lifepaths are great in either case:)!

Quote from: Certified;1026088While I went point buy, there's also something to be said about non-random Lifepath as seen in games like Fading Suns or Eclipse Phase 2e.

True, but it's the lifepath part that matters to me. The random part I can take or leave, though I find it's best when the game mixes some choices with some randomness;).

Quote from: CarlD.;1026073But if you have your druthers or if you were designing a perfect system what would you use? Or do you mean you don't have strong feelings for any particular method?

The particular method I have strong feelings for is anything quick and simple.  If it takes more than 15 minutes to create a character, that's too long.

I'm fine with OD&D's 3d6 in order, but I'm just as fine with TFT's "allocate 35 points" and West End' Star Wars "take a template and add some points."

Quote from: GameDaddy;1026021For Traveller 2d6 straightup

Well, Traveller is 2d6 straight-up for stats, but then it has decision (decide career, decide how long to press your luck), but then random, lifepath. I think it is a wonderful system for modeling a real-ish person's career journey. I like that one a lot, and like it in fantasy so much as it appears in Beyond the Wall.

Random everything, Lifepath, race, class, skills/attributes, starting equipment, spells...combine Beyond the Wall's playbooks with Ancient Odyssey: Treasure Awaits' random everything else.  I love getting a random character and then figuring out why and how they got that way.

It depends on the game.

But, if I must pick one option... Lifepath.  They make character creation interesting, provide adventure hooks and npcs.

I have successfully refereed Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. campaigns begun with nothing except the lifepaths of my players' characters.  It is easy and fun.

Alright!  Someone other than moi finally voted for allocation.

As a DM I like point buy but I almost never use it because when character generation happens, the players just pick up the dice and start rolling so I just go with it.

Two things I hate:
1. Roll and assign. Combines the worst of random and non-random chargen.
2. Point buy chargen that uses different systems for chargen than for advancement. So for example in WoD if you make a specialized starting PC and then pick up a random grab bag of skills later it's a lot cheaper to get the exact same final PC than if you start out generalized and then specialize later. That's annoying.

Anything else is fine. Lifepaths and utter randomness are probably my favorites, but being able to dive into the nitty gritty of point buy is fun in some games if it's set up well.