Character Creation - Making Decisions

Making Decisions

A character’s initial attribute scores are usually either generated randomly or determined by distributing character points, and some systems use a combination of both possibilities. Some game systems allow attribute scores to be increased later in the game in a way similar to skills (but much less frequently), usually by some sort of point distribution system.

Characters can also gain a number of skills. What types of skills the characters can learn and how easily they can be learned usually depends on if the character creation system is “class based” or “skill based”.

The process of creating a character for a given game involves a number of decisions: What advantages and disadvantages will the character have? What particular statistic will a certain value be assigned to? What values are there to assign anyway? For most of them, there will be a rule outlining by whom and how it can be made. Most of these rules can be classified into one of the three groups described below. They differ in several aspects, the most prominent being ease of use as well as game balance and diversity of the generated results.

So, most decisions in character creation are made according to the following principles:

Prescription: The decision is predetermined by the rules (often by a formula or a table that maps one or more already-established statistics to a specific choice for another), or it is made by the game master prior to character creation.

Examples would be the skill bonuses a character gets from his attributes in many games (which are usually determined by a table or a simple formula) or the amount of character points a player gets to use for character creation (in GURPS, for example, this is set by the game master).

This method facilitates fast and easy decisions that are likely to be balanced according to the judgement of the game’s author and the game master, but doesn’t allow for variation if not combined with other options. In an extreme case, characters are completely predesigned by the author of a scenario, but even then, players usually may choose their character from the selection provided. This technique is often used to save time for short games run on gaming conventions.

Random Choice: Random choices are usually made by rolling dice and either using the result directly or looking it up in a table, depending on the decision that is to be made.

For example, in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition the player rolls 4d6 and adds the highest three numbers to generate an ability score (attribute value) from 3 to 18. In the first editions of the Stormbringer roleplaying game, the character’s race and class both are determined by rolling 1d100 and looking up the result in the appropriate table.

Usually, a random generation system allows the full (or at least a rather large) range of values to be generated for each stat, leading to a great diversity among newly generated characters. Thus, it is possible for a character to start the game with all-maximum scores (or nearly so). On the other hand, players have very little control over the scores, and rolling low scores can be very frustrating for some players. This method is generally less concerned with game balance than with ease of use.

Player’s Choice: Another option is to let the player make decisions, normally within clearly defined restrictions. These restrictions often involve allowing players to distribute a number of character points among various statistics. In such a point distribution system, higher scores often cost more points per level than lower ones, and costs may vary between statistics even within a category. Usually, there is an upper and lower limit for each score. Additional constraints may apply, depending on the game system. How these points are spent will usually determine if the character will refer to himself as a warrior, a thief, or a scholar. If a player wants to be a fighter/mage/thief/cleric he can — as long as he spends his skill points in the right way.

Examples for systems that almost exclusively use point distribution to determine statistics in roughly chronological order are the Hero System (including its predecessor Champions), GURPS, the World of Darkness series, and the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game with its unusual auction system. Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition also has an optional point buy method for determining ability scores.

Point distribution gives the players much control over the character creation process and tends to make characters highly customizable. If the system is designed well, characters are usually more balanced than randomly created ones. On the other hand, this method is almost always more complicated and time consuming than random generation.