Frank, I didn't say anything about not liking a character because of its stat line. I said I might not like a character where someone else came up with the personality, motivations, etc.FrankTrollman wrote:It does work pretty well in Ars Magica (much better than the thrice bedamned magic system in that fucking game). I think the thing you're not getting is that the Grogs are in fact about as complicated as AD&D characters. They don't have pages of backstory provided for them or long lists of interests and skills. You get a short stat line and a couple proficiencies. It's a rather basic role playing prompt. Ensign Ro has a decent enough stat line, but her Discipline score is markedly bad. Also she's a Bajoran. And you can take that role playing prompt in whatever direction you want.hogarth wrote:Maybe it works better in practice (as I noted, I've never played Ars Magica). But in general I wouldn't always trust my fellow players to create PCs ("grog" or "non-grog") that I'm interested in playing, in terms of personality, motivation, etc. So that means I sometimes get stuck playing Ensign Ro according to someone else's idea of what an interesting PC is, even though I'd be happier if she just jumped off a cliff or ran away, never to be seen or heard from again.
For instance, if Alice's main PC is Captain Picard and she also comes up with the "grog" Ensign Soo whose personality and motivation is that she loves Captain Picard and likes to do anything he says and whenever he isn't around she's always asking "where's Captain Picard, my sweet baboo?", then forcing me to play that character sucks ass.