Kits, Professions, and Sub-Classes

[fectin]

But even then, is class identity something we even care about? If given the option between playing a Wizard and Fighter, someone picks Wizard and then swapped every class feature they got to become a Stick specialized Fighter... whose fault is that, really?
Is it even a problem?

Inherently, no. But it opens you up to a much more min-maxable system.

[Username17]

That being said, I think I see the draw of what you're suggesting - basically replacing a fixed choice + a free choice with two fixed choices that can be overridden. However, doesn't that strongly dilute class identity? You could very easily end up with a character who has five levels of wizard, but traded out all his spells for melee abilities. So you have a mid-level wizard who is unexpectedly awesome with hitting dudes with a stick, but can't actually cast any spells.

People do that anyway.

But honestly, once people are combing through 8 splatbooks to customize their character to fit their exact character concept, they really aren't interested in playing "A Red Mage", they are interested in playing "Steve". I mean, can you really tell me what the single essential class-related concept of someone playing a Ranger 2 / Rogue 3 / Barbarian 2 / Corsair 2 is? And yet: people love that shit. It's the thing that made people happiest about 3e. Even if it didn't actually work very well.

People like the result of being a four class hodgepodge that customizes their character into a desired form. But they don't really like the process, where you can't raise Move Silently this level because this level you're getting some class feature you need that doesn't have Move Silently on it's associated class list. The thing where the Fighter/Rogue gets 2 points of Ride one level and 2 points of Hide the next is clunky and stupid. The thing where people have to get to level 7 before they are allowed to write "Red Champion" on their character sheet is bad. It makes people resent low level adventures even though those are usually the best adventures from a setting integration stand point.

The goal, then, is to make it so that people can play these mix-n-match concepts and they can play them from level 1. But the other goal is to allow people to play characters, even high level characters, quickly and easily. If you decide to play a game of D&D, you should be able to just do that, without spending four hours making a character so that you can hopefully get together and play next week.

If you really want some sort of "essential nature of the hat you wear" to come through on mix-n-match characters, I suggest "Jobs". That is, after you've got all your feats together, you select a hat like you were a Final Fantasy character. That hat selection gives you some basic defenses and a unique shtick or two. And then when you decide to stop wearing the Paladin hat and start wearing the Mageblade hat, you do full trade-in on that part of your character. This is entirely in keeping with the idea that people should be making a small number of choices during chargen. I don't think "Pick Race, Pick Class, Pick Job, Pick Background" is overly onerous for a pickup game.

-Username17

[Blade]

There's also a very simple system: free character creation.
I've used it as a player on a homegrown game, and I've been using it as a GM on my own games.

The table agrees on a power level and then everyone gets to create the character he wants according to that power level. The GM tries to make sure that the power level is respected.

The players can choose the skills they want at the rating they want in order to get the character they want. The skills can be very broad (mercenary), standard (melee combat) or very specific (sword combat), depending on how detailed the player likes his character.
Likewise, the player choose the spells/powers/gear he wants his character to have, in respect to the setting and to the power level of the game.

Of course, you need mature players who don't want to be "better" than the rest of the group and who don't want to "win the game". But in that case you get characters that are actually more balanced than in systems with points (where veterans will know how to get the most our of their points), you can create them quickly but if a player wants he can spend a lot of time detailing every aspect of his character.

[Lago PARANOIA]

CharGen should be long and engaging. People spending 10 hours making their MtG deck or picking through Spell Compendium for their 20 spells is good for the game and the hobby. ... but that only applies if they want to do that.

When you're passing by a table in the Student Lounge and see some people playing a game or you're at a convention where some doofuses staked out a corner you do not want to spend an hour or even 30 minutes making a character if you're already familiar with the system.

Traditional games have typically dealt with these two needs by giving prepackaged options and just letting people pick it up right away. And they continually fuck this up for two major reasons.

[*] Pre-printed characters are usually too narrow in focus and scope both crunchwise and fluffwise. I mean, even if you're going to accept that you have some options that you personally don't like, having a bard iconic that's a sexy gnome with a goatee is automatically alienating. That thing Pathfinder did for their boxed set where the iconics had a twee little background is harmful to the product, believe it or not.

[*] Pre-printed characters usually suck from a min-maxing standpoint. Even to players not familiar with the ins and outs of a system, nearly anyone can tell that a berserker barbarian with points in charisma is a turkey build. People would seriously rather have you stiff them of 2 skill points than see a fighter with a rank of Knowledge: Arcana.


I don't think that this will ever be fixed and even if it could, you'll still have some people out there who will never be satisfied with an iconic or a premade character sheet once they learn that they can totally be a Fey Beastmaster / Warden / Warlord with a background of 'Frontier Marshal' at first level -- which 4E D&D totally supports in theory, BTW, even though it's ass. So that said, why not give people mix-and-match ability packages that they're allowed to break down further with the DM's permission?

[Lago PARANOIA]

So a thought occurs about ability packages and the ability to break them down.

So you have three packages for a 1st level Engineer, right? You have Apothecarist, Rocketeer, and Grenadier. Each package has three abilities in them. This makes selecting powers for an Engineer much faster than having to sort through nine powers and picking three.

The thing is, if you give experienced players the ability to break them down, you don't actually gain anything in CharGen speed. See, it's just basic game theory that the more options you have the more you will win and players know this. So they have a choice of just going with Rocketeer and hoping for the best or picking through Apothecarist and Grenadier to see if there's something that they might want. So packages don't get picked at all -- and even if they do, people still experience choice regret.

To alleviate this problem, I suggest that having someone take an ability package as-is should give them a minor geegaw ability that only applies when they don't break it down any further. A dedicated min-maxxer will still sort through all of the options to see if going without will be compensated by having exactly what they want -- but for people who only want to spend 10 minutes on CharGen, it tampers down on choice regret by giving them a consolation prize specifically for not looking back.

I mean, imagine a game where at the end you had a player have the chance to earn double or nothing from their previous earnings if they picked the right box out of two choices; one had the 'double earnings' and the other had the 'no earnings'. Even if a player walks away they're always going to experience some regret at not taking the risk. But if you give them an a consolation prize for not deciding to gamble, the regret goes way down. Even if the average 'money earned' is the same between iterations of the game.

[Ancient History]

CharGen should be long and engaging. People spending 10 hours making their MtG deck or picking through Spell Compendium for their 20 spells is good for the game and the hobby. ... but that only applies if they want to do that.

Magic is a good example - because it has pre-packaged starter decks and customization. Everyone agrees the starter decks aren't optimized, but you can literally hand one to someone and get them playing in ten minutes; you can also have anyone that wants to pour plasma, cerebralspinal fluid, and liver squeezings into making a custom deck if they choose to. That's the best of both worlds.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Everyone agrees the starter decks aren't optimized, but you can literally hand one to someone and get them playing in ten minutes;

I claim that starter decks/premade packages/etc. need to have some sort of additional benny on top of what you already get -- not enough to actually be better than picking through long lists, but, large enough so that people can believe that they're making a rational choice if they don't think about it too hard.

Otherwise you get choice regret and frustration because it's almost guaranteed that you will do better carefully pouring through options. And they were not allowed to do that for outside reasons. And while choice regret and frustration is a good thing for an already hooked player (because they'll buy more of your product!) it's not a good deal for someone who's just starting out or worse is already familiar with your product and just wanted to play a pick-up game.

[ishy]

See, it's just basic game theory that the more options you have the more you will win and players know this.

This is just not true.
The more options you have the higher the chance is you'll have something good.

If you just give them abilities that are useful for them a lot of people will not look through all the options again because they made their char already and there is no point for them to do so.
If however they get useless abilities that they don't find interesting or never use etc. then they'll look through other options.

While the people who will look through the other options will do so anyway even if you give them a benefit for not taking them, because they realise that you might be able to find something that would still be better than that benefit

[Lago PARANOIA]

It's not actually supposed to be a competitive or even useful option, is the thing. It's supposed to make people think that they're getting something in order for them to go along with it without whining.

Going back to the 'double or nothing' game setup, if one guy decides to go home with their winnings of $5000 from the previous rounds, they will experience less choice regret than someone who had $2500 from previous rounds but was offered double the amount for forfeiting at the cost of not getting to play the 'quadruple or nothing'. Even though the payoff is the same, the first guy will feel worse about their decision.

Considering that the point of having packages and starter decks is to allow them to join the game quickly (at the cost of experiencing some inevitable choice regret because there was the non-option of doing everything the hard way) this seems like a desirable outcome.

[ishy]

The whole point of the package is that they are getting something in the first place. They can play the game instead of spending hours on char gen.
You're better off making the choices equal than handing out some kind of reward for not altering the package.

Because it also creates a feeling of how the game should be played, causing distrust towards those who do alter the packages. Because why would you give up something for nothing?

- Edit: not to mention it also creates an additional barrier for people who want to play a specific char concept not in your package.

[echoVanguard]

Grapple Wizards

First off, that really isn't the same thing - you've basically built a wizard who's good at grappling, not a wizard who gave up his ability to cast spells in exchange for grappling. Nothing's stopping that character from filling his spellbook with non-grappling-oriented spells for use in utility situations. He's still pretty much everything you would expect from a standard wizard - high intelligence, spellbook, familiar, no armor. In the sort of scenario where classes literally mean nothing at all but a set of predetermined choices that can be totally overridden, all you've really done is used a character creation template. While being able to write "Corsair" on your character sheet at level 1 is admittedly keen, that doesn't actually mean anything because your character chose only abilities centered around farming. Saying "I'm playing a half-orc Corsair" should imply that your character (a) is a half-orc and thus has half-orc racial abilities or talents, and (b) has class abilities related to being a Corsair which are thus nautical at least in some manner. People who play six-PrC rogue-fighter characters are still chasing a specific character concept - a rogue-fighter with a set of particular cool tricks. The fact that they can't adequately describe their character concept is a vocabulary failure more than anything else.

I'm not saying I'm against free-form character creation, but that's what generic classes are for.

Jobs and such

This could probably be combined with the concept of weapon-based supermoves from the WoF thread to create a sort of dynamic equipment-based ability system.

echo

[Lago PARANOIA]

The whole point of the package is that they are getting something in the first place. They can play the game instead of spending hours on char gen.

Okay, but then you've incentivized people to do CharGen the 'normal' way. As in 'try to do my shit as fast as possible so I'm not stuck with the noob combo'. I mean, really, how many times have people other than complete and total noobs used a Shadowrun or D&D iconic straight out of the book -- even though the CharGen time on those babies is zero?

The problem is, once you've got people opting for the 'fuck it, I'm going to try to make a character in 20 minutes without gimping my options' option -- known as normal CharGen -- that's when people start fucking it up and not actually making a character within a reasonable amount of time at all.

You're better off making the choices equal than handing out some kind of reward for not altering the package.

It doesn't work like that and can never work like that. I mean, you want to do that anyway, but there are always going to be people that argue that their Firebender should know a Waterbender technique -- but Firebender packages only come with Firebender powers. And from a more game mechanical standpoint, there are always going to be powers that are situationally more useful with respect to the length of a campaign (freezing fog will become proportionately more powerful if you have a bunch of ranged attackers) even if they are generically equal.

So unless you give people a 'shut up and play' consolation prize, you're going to have people gripped by the Dunning Krueger effect thinking that they could make an awesome character in a small timeframe -- and they're incentivized to think this way because the alternative is playing a character that plays less like they want to.

[Endovior]

It strikes me that giving out bonuses for using the premade options as they stand is bad design. You don't want to do that outright; that's the wrong kind of incentive.

Instead, I'd suggest that a 'package' should be something like four abilities... three basic sorts of abilities that anyone can take, and one 'capstone' that has the other three as a prerequisite. The 'capstone' abilities are slightly better, and reward you for specialization. Classes, on the other hand, work by progressing through related packages in an order that you can customize a little... but which ultimately wind up putting you towards packages whose abilities you can't take unless you've got some capstone abilities from earlier on.

To get specific, say you have the Apothecarist, Rocketeer, and Grenadier packages for the Engineer. Apothecarist will, presumably, include abilities like Brew Potion, First Aid, and Herb Lore; if you have all of those, you can qualify for Throw Potion, which makes you like a FF Tactics Chemist and lets you chuck potions around like grenades. Now, if you just want to support your allies like that, great; that's what the package is for. But if you don't care about gathering ingredients or using bandaids, and just want to have some potions on hand for personal use, you can just take Brew Potion and keep yourself supplied with pots. That said, not only does Throw Potion synergize well with the Grenadier abilities (given that you actually treat potions as grenades), but you can unlock more powerful grenades AND potions if you've finished both trees (and/or taken both packages). And if you also take Rocketeer, you can build a launcher for your potions/grenades, for longer-range engagements.

Generally speaking, the different packages available to a given class should synergize with each other, and lead you along towards the higher and more awesome stuff the class does... but leave you free to choose which order you pursue the options in, as different abilities might be more relevant to your playstyle and party composition (for example, it should be totally reasonable to have an Engineer not take Apothecarist at all, and focus entirely on more boom... perhaps because there's already a Cleric in the party; this limits his choice of recipes somewhat, but provides more damage at greater range sooner in compensation). At the same time, though, there will be all kinds of stuff available in other classes that you could dip without setting yourself too far back, adding extra flexibility. For that matter, a bunch of the specific abilities may appear on the lists of multiple classes... the Assassin, for example, might have Herb Lore as part of his Poisoner package, to support his Distil Poison ability. Since he's already that close, he might consider branching out and grabbing Brew Potion as well, to give him some extra healing abilities... especially if there's no healer in the group. And if he's gone that far, it'd be easy to go just a little further and finish off the Apothecarist package, particularly since it'd let him deal with those pesky poison-immune undead by hurling cure potions at them.

Sound reasonable?

[Username17]

It strikes me that giving out bonuses for using the premade options as they stand is bad design. You don't want to do that outright; that's the wrong kind of incentive.

It's really bad design. Easing people into chargen involves baby steps like using the pregen characters but swapping a sword for a spear or using a motorcycle instead of a car or specializing in mountain survival instead of forest survival. Telling players that they can't run minor or even cosmetic changes on the pregen characters because the points don't add up and designed characters are all-or-nothing is an unnecessary and frankly offensive cliff thrown into the learning curve.

I mean, really, how many times have people other than complete and total noobs used a Shadowrun or D&D iconic straight out of the book -- even though the CharGen time on those babies is zero?

Essentially never. Because those characters are fucking awful. But what I have seen is a bunch of players start with the premade Street Samurai and swap skills and gear around until they had something they liked. Hell, in Feng Shui this is the only option and people are fine with it. It needs to be at least an option, which is why the premades have to be the same points cost as a scratch-made character.

That the premades need to not be fucking terrible is another issue.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

It strikes me that giving out bonuses for using the premade options as they stand is bad design. You don't want to do that outright; that's the wrong kind of incentive.

A.) They're not supposed to be actual bonuses that will come up to a big in most games. It's promotional geegaw so at first blush people will think that they're getting something. But it's all stuff like 'reroll one Athletics check' or 'Have an extra level 0 spell'.

B.) Unfortunately, basic game theory will always make premade character options worse than discrete selections. And people know this. Yes, bonuses for not changing up the premade options hurts the game -- but not as much as punishing harried or new players because they don't have the hour needed to run options. If they even understand the game that much.

Telling players that they can't run minor or even cosmetic changes on the pregen characters because the points don't add up and designed characters are all-or-nothing is an unnecessary and frankly offensive cliff thrown into the learning curve.

Unfortunately, the alternative is handing out packages of abilities (or entire premade characters) that are almost assuredly not going to be what players want. And then you have choice regret or people going 'nah mang I can get this bitch running up in 15 minutes, don't give me the baby cup'.

[shadzar]

It strikes me that giving out bonuses for using the premade options as they stand is bad design. You don't want to do that outright; that's the wrong kind of incentive.

lets take D&D as an example of premade versus component.

with CPs using player's options you could build the base class/races with the avilable points. this was to balance those other options so you couldnt build a race and /or class that could be combined to become more powerful than someone wanting to buy the package of default race and/or class.

the ability to buy components has the incentive of being able to change the default, not improve upon it, but a refluffing that meets your idea of the character you want.

example you dont want to be able to "detect grade or slope" as a dwarf you purchase your abilities form the list instead of a package dwarf and choose anything other than Mining Detection Abilities (10)

with CPs the BEST you should be able to create using them would be the default packages, otherwise you could make the default package with bonus abilities that makes the default packages useless and pointless, even for those that want JUST the default packages.

for incentive you have the ability to change things yourself with a given class or race, you have the ability to do it now rather than hope the DM creates what you want, and you have the incentive create something unique in the world. (odds are most DMS dont use CPs to build NPCs they will use a standard package)

even if the CPs dont allow to purchase the default array of abilities for the packages, that doesnt mean the default has a bonus, just that they have a fixed set while using component means you get to pick and choose. you might not intend to play your character as the norm of that race and/or class anyway.

and as the saying goes.. it is cheaper to buy in bulk or preassembled (a package) than buying the parts to build your own (components) from the same place. and the DM will always be the same place, you cant go ask another DM for more stuff.

[Endovior]

Okay... so Lago says that you should offer the players trivial bonuses for going with the premades as a consolation prize for not having time to make a character properly, and shadzar has... some totally incoherent argument that I can't even follow, I'm not even sure what side he's arguing.

Yeah, I'm going to side with Frank on this one; penalizing players for wanting to tinker with the build a little is just totally unnecessary. What you should do is have character creation in a tiered scale.

Play Now - Premade characters, possibly with a sidebar of quick customization options so people feel a little less like they're using a cookie cutter.

Basic Character Creation - Here's a list of classes. Pick whichever you like best, then pick your packages off that class list.

Advanced Character Creation - Here's a long list of abilities, which can be compiled together into packages. Since the packages add up to more powerful abilities, you're better off taking as many as you can, but you don't have to.

The book should strongly recommend that players start with Basic, and advise the DM not to let players hold up the game by messing around with Advanced.

[RobbyPants]

Traditional games have typically dealt with these two needs by giving prepackaged options and just letting people pick it up right away. And they continually fuck this up for two major reasons.

[*] Pre-printed characters are usually too narrow in focus and scope both crunchwise and fluffwise. I mean, even if you're going to accept that you have some options that you personally don't like, having a bard iconic that's a sexy gnome with a goatee is automatically alienating. That thing Pathfinder did for their boxed set where the iconics had a twee little background is harmful to the product, believe it or not.

[*] Pre-printed characters usually suck from a min-maxing standpoint. Even to players not familiar with the ins and outs of a system, nearly anyone can tell that a berserker barbarian with points in charisma is a turkey build. People would seriously rather have you stiff them of 2 skill points than see a fighter with a rank of Knowledge: Arcana.

Those don't have to be an issue, though. Just because people made shitty or focused characters in the past doesn't mean they have to.

The first problem can be solved by allowing easy custom swaps. The second problem can be solved by the devs actually knowing their own fucking system.

The benefits of premades are quick char-gen. So, you can give the new guy a premade sheet and allow him a bit of time to swap some things in and out while the veteran spends that time building a PC from scratch. This seems to nicely solve all of those problems while doing what you set out for in the first place.

[hogarth]

I mean, really, how many times have people other than complete and total noobs used a Shadowrun or D&D iconic straight out of the book -- even though the CharGen time on those babies is zero?

I've actually seen people use D&D pregen characters quite often for one-offs or organized play like D&D Encounters or Pathfinder Society.

But, as you note, character generation is supposed to be a fun part of the game, and for many people it is. So I don't think too much effort should be devoted to finding a way to bypass that for the minority who don't like it. As long as a game has:

(a) a set of pregen characters for noobs, people playing pick-up games, and the truly lazy, as well as
(b) a character generator program out there for people who don't like math or poring through dead tree books,

I think it's fine.

[Ektagliaresia]

[*] Pre-printed characters are usually too narrow in focus and scope both crunchwise and fluffwise. I mean, even if you're going to accept that you have some options that you personally don't like, having a bard iconic that's a sexy gnome with a goatee is automatically alienating. That thing Pathfinder did for their boxed set where the iconics had a twee little background is harmful to the product, believe it or not.

The pregens need not be full-blown "iconics": as long as the book has adequate illustration of different characters, and a character sheet for each class, I suspect new players would be able invent a character concept from their choice of race and class (or vice versa). Tables of character traits are provided in the PHB for less inspired players.

I think that "custom swaps" can be handled by retraining/rebuilding rules. A new player who took a Magic-User pregen who decides the included Cleric archetype wasn't really what she wanted can have the character abandon her faith and retrain into Frost Witch after the first adventure.

I think the goal is the get the time spent on chargen at a session reduced to 0, accomplished if veterans use the advanced options ahead of session, and new players are able to pick up a pregen with no work attached.

[fectin]

So, the suggestion is that pregens work about like Roland, Bear of the North? "Here is a character build, go play it, it will not suck"?

[Whipstitch]

It's really bad design. Easing people into chargen involves baby steps like using the pregen characters but swapping a sword for a spear or using a motorcycle instead of a car or specializing in mountain survival instead of forest survival. Telling players that they can't run minor or even cosmetic changes on the pregen characters because the points don't add up and designed characters are all-or-nothing is an unnecessary and frankly offensive cliff thrown into the learning curve.
-Username17

Exactly. I've got a binder with a number of pre-genned sheets I have made or gleaned from dumpshock and it gets a fair amount of use even if people decide to be cowards instead of novacoke addicts or to know a beat cop instead of a mafia soldier.

[Ektagliaresia]

So, the suggestion is that pregens work about like Roland, Bear of the North? "Here is a character build, go play it, it will not suck"?

Yes. Maybe not as exhaustively commented, but a few reasonably optimized pregens, encompassing each class, for each tier would be ideal. Depending on how heavy the system is, all this might eat up a lot of word count, though.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm not particularly attached to my 'give small bonuses for not altering the premade packages/CharGen sheets' idea, by the way. So, suggestion withdrawn.

[Ice9]

One other thing is choices made during level-up - many people want them. Preferably more than one. But when you combine this with making a 10th level character, suddenly you have to make a huge number of choices at once.

I'm not sure there's a perfect solution to this, but one idea would be that many of your new powers / new choices would be upgrades. So for example, instead of getting three new powers you get one new power and upgrade two of your existing powers.

Benefits:
* You get new toys every level, and choices.
* Your total number of powers remains manageable.
* When making a higher level character, you don't have to make a huge number of choices, just get multiply-upgraded powers to start.

Downsides:
* You have to write a bunch of upgrades for powers, and try to balance that.