Randomness can be fun, but the golden law I abide by is that the more random things are, the less they favor the characters.  So I've got to keep that in mind as I run and play.

That said, I tend to love controlled chaos.  Deadlands Classic's character creation system is an absolute hoot.  Much more fun than the dice-chucking number fest of D&D.  Despite the fact that they both generate your stats.  Well, okay, Deadlands also has the possibility of generating a mysterious past for you too.

Likewise, I also like meaningful hit location charts as they give interesting feedback.  They do add a layer of complexity, however.

Quote from: RedFoxRandomness can be fun, but the golden law I abide by is that the more random things are, the less they favor the characters.  So I've got to keep that in mind as I run and play.

I figure that, if the players know the system, they should know enough to stack the mods on any dice roll in their favor before taking action, mitigating the randomness.  That's part of good gameplay, and if you don't know enough to do that, then you deserve what you get.  It's analagous to setting up 3:1 attacks with soak-offs in adjacent areas to break a defensive line in some classic wargames...or making sure you've got your 10-3 leader directing machinegun fire in Squad Leader.

Of course, the above applies to dice rolls made in play.  You don't have the luxury of doing that in chargen, but as long as the chargen system is well-designed, it's not so much of an issue there.

Quote from: KenHRI figure that, if the players know the system, they should know enough to stack the mods on any dice roll in their favor before taking action, mitigating the randomness.  That's part of good gameplay, and if you don't know enough to do that, then you deserve what you get.  It's analagous to setting up 3:1 attacks with soak-offs in adjacent areas to break a defensive line in some classic wargames...or making sure you've got your 10-3 leader directing machinegun fire in Squad Leader.

That doesn't always work.  Unexpected situations crop up, often outside the PCs' fields of expertise.  The GM could be purposely asking for more rolls to make things more difficult, etc.  And don't forget that in a war of attrition, the GM can always win.  Stacking negative modifiers when you control the situation is far easier than the players pulling out positive ones.

Quote from: RedFoxThat doesn't always work.  Unexpected situations crop up, often outside the PCs' fields of expertise.  The GM could be purposely asking for more rolls to make things more difficult, etc.  And don't forget that in a war of attrition, the GM can always win.  Stacking negative modifiers when you control the situation is far easier than the players pulling out positive ones.

Granted, but I guess my GMing style isn't quite so adversarial.  I like antagonizing...err, challenging...the PCs, but I try to do it on as level a playing field as possible.  I would never purposely ramp up difficulty or stack up negative mods just to make a situation more difficult for no good reason.  If I ever do something like that, I provide plenty of options to my players to mitigate those mods.

When I'm the GM, I judge my "win" by that most corny of measuring sticks: did my players have fun?  If I ruined their night by being an asshat, they probably won't come back, and I'll be left without a game.

Quote from: RedFoxRandomness can be fun, but the golden law I abide by is that the more random things are, the less they favor the characters.  So I've got to keep that in mind as I run and play.

I don't know that this is strictly true.  For MANY players, random character generation frees them of:
1. Having to think up a character profile themselves. Like Mr.Slaad said, its a muse.  This is brutally important for many people, who are otherwise just basically playing the same character or small pool of characters over and over again.
2. Having to know the rules in minute detail to keep an edge over other players who do the same.  The LESS random a system is, the more it can be abused by rules-lawyers and munchkins, to the detriment of more novice or less serious players. Point-buy systems for character creation are notorious for this; give me and JongWK the same amount of points to create a Shadowrun character; hell make us both have to create the same career type, and it is absolutely guaranteed that his character of equal points will absolutely wipe the floor with mine, just destroy him; because of the difference in understanding of rules details and how to maximize the character creation process.  Now, make me and Jong both roll up WFRP characters, and my character is not guaranteed in the least to be able to kick his PC's ass, even though I know WFRP much better than him.

So randomness is only a detriment to characters who are very, very familiar with the system, and it actually serves as an equalizer to make the system friendlier to amateurs or novices.

QuoteThat said, I tend to love controlled chaos.  Deadlands Classic's character creation system is an absolute hoot.

Yes it was.

RPGpundit

Okay, someone clue me in about Deadlands chargen, please.

Quote from: jrientsOkay, someone clue me in about Deadlands chargen, please.

In short, you have a bunch of Traits like Brawn and Mien and Spirit and what not.  Attributes by any other name.  Each one is rated with a die code, like 2d12 or 3d4 or whatever.

Character creation involves drawing 12 cards from a poker deck (jokers included), with each card representing a die code.  You drop any two cards you want (unless they're deuces, which are d4s, or jokers which are any code you want after drawing another card to determine suit) and keep the rest, assigning as you like amongst your stats.

Your Traits determine your skill point totals (called Aptitudes), via a combination of the intelligence traits.  Aptitudes use the die size of the governing Trait, but your skill ranks give them number of dice.

Jokers indicate a "mysterious past," where the Marshal (GM) draws a card and consults a secret table to see if you were, for example, possessed or born under a certain sign, or are likely to gain an inheritance.

Suits govern the number of dice, clubs being 1d and spades being 4d.  The rank of the card determines the die type.