I was part of a discussion on reddit, and found myself looking at things from a different perspective on the whole "no Levels" argument. A most interesting one came from this slipped comment:
But what if, instead of just 'taking a class' you start out as kids. Getting to know the world, the setting, the background, all in a fairly safe environment.
So Character generation, players play out a scenario, the first RPG session, as kids. Getting to know themselves without skills, without training, just plain base stats.
When a player displays an apptitude for some skill, (Derrik climbs the balcony of the ruined house, so the GM takes note, and award Derrik the climbing skill bonus) the GM can award that skill to the player, and it becomes known by the players, that Derrik is the climber.
The first session should be understood as a tutorial mission. Something to cut your teeth on, learn some background skills, some of which may become irrelevant to the character, but builds character.
Session Two becomes the Training and intermissions. Characters join guilds, travel locally, do chores, study books, and take holidays at festival times. So have the players manage to 'catch up' in this time, and take on that nasty old bugbear thats been haunting the ruined mine all these years. (and discover it was just a costumed old man, looking to cash in on the gold mine when the lease expired - "and I would have gotten away with it, hadn't it been for those dang kids and their dog")
Session Three, the characters should meet up under circumstances, hopefully plot related. Maybe that gold mine was haunted after all, and the town gets the famous kids back to solve the mystery, maybe someones family member has become ill and cash / an ingredient is needed. This brings the players back together for a reason, hopefully plot hook.
Session Four, The characters should do some kind of income improvement related mission. Maybe tied in with Session Five. Something that's less dangerous, more likely to just set up some contacts for the future, some knowledge of the local area, and an idea of how much income can be gained from more mundane jobs, so when they do an actual adventure, they'll 'feel' how rich they've become.
Session Five introduces the need for a base of operations OR a travel pack mule/horse/cart that takes care of the bulk of the mundane. I've given players an escort mission to show them how much easier it is to have the gear in the cart, vs having to waste the first round to take off backpacks and get out gear.
Session Six, starts with a shopping session, has a 'find X to get Y' mid session and finishes withe the characters getting that 'upgrade' that makes them feel like their ready to take on the world.
Now don't take this list literal, I'm just giving you a feel for how one such gaming character generation works.
The whole point is to spread out the 'parts' of character creation, roleplay each one as a memorable event, so players can get a far more real immersive feeling for their character.
Players are constantly griping about how they should have taken skill X instead of Y. This style of play lets them choose the skills as they are needed, Let the player 'build' their needs. Players are more in tune with the world you want them to be in, little things that break immersion and cause argments are often the expectations of the world and their character, and how they feel cheated, because they couldn't foresee what skills they needed when they chose them.
In this style, players acquire skills, weapons, armour, spells, all on the go, while roleplaying. They feel more in touch with them, know when and how they got them and why they got them. Nothing on the charactersheet is 'given' from a book, its all earned.
Lastly, Since the players "grew up" together, they have a tendency to be a more coherent group, more likely to watch each others back, rogues are less likely to backstab their fellow players, Leaders are formed rather than chosen and players choose skills which compliment the group based on needs as they go, rather than clash because three players have herbalism, but no-one has first aid.
Note: For those adventures which are 'strangers coming together' obvious a different style is needed. If tension is part of the plot, having players develop their character independantly is the obvious choice, but if you can handle the initial build time, have them roleplay each heroes arc before the meeting, with whole other groups if possible, then have them meet up.
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* p.s. I have recently discovered that another Dungeon World title exists under the Apocalypse World brand. I have zero affiliation with them. DungeonWorld(tm) was created in 1993, registered in 1993 and trademarked under Australian Law.
Character creation in Dungeonworld* takes six weeks!
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| Top 10 'modify and dress your avatar' systems |
Tell anyone that character creation is going to take 6 weeks and they'll balk! 6 weeks to create a character? what are you Nutz? just roll the dice, pick some skills, spending little more than 30 minutes so they can "get into the game"... Yet they'll spend hours tweaking an MMO characters looks, when Charisma/Looks is usually the dump stat for the same players..
But the reality is that to make decent characters, you have to spend hours, days even weeks.. but that's what we call roleplay right?..
Whoa!, What? say some people? Roleplay your character before creating them? how .. what.. I'm confused!
I have several ways that I introduce players to my game & system. For a single session, such as a Convention or an Intro session for newbs, I would of course, pre-roll a set of fairly standard trope adventurers, using the rules lite characters. The session would likely be 3-5 hours, and I don't want to waste a minute of it, discussing which spell would be better for the wizard.
The Second method is for my lite rules system. I have a 3-6 week pre-written adventure, characters are unlikely to gain a rank withing that time, or if they do, its plot related. So I want the players to have more choice over their character, but again, not get bogged down more than an hour (including maneuvers, spells & prayer lists). Players roll standard 4d6 for the characteristics, and choose two 'classes' from a list of eight. This gives the players all the stats and standard gear for those classes, with a few choices.. "So you've chosen Warrior and Rogue, More of a Footpad with a Spiked-Club or a Mercenary for hire, with a sword."
But Full roleplay, when the players are expecting to continue for the next 6 months in the open sandbox, possibly interacting with up to 75 other players from 10 other GMs. That means some proper character generation.
Character Generation
Character Creation, is more realistically, the beginning dice rolls. before any choices are made. The first choices are almost forced upon you.. good strength, good dexterity, poor wisdom, might be a fighter... but nice charisma.. well..
You choose something that matches your rolls, figure out how you'd take advantage of what you've got and pick a class...
So Character generation, players play out a scenario, the first RPG session, as kids. Getting to know themselves without skills, without training, just plain base stats.
When a player displays an apptitude for some skill, (Derrik climbs the balcony of the ruined house, so the GM takes note, and award Derrik the climbing skill bonus) the GM can award that skill to the player, and it becomes known by the players, that Derrik is the climber.
The first session should be understood as a tutorial mission. Something to cut your teeth on, learn some background skills, some of which may become irrelevant to the character, but builds character.
Session Two becomes the Training and intermissions. Characters join guilds, travel locally, do chores, study books, and take holidays at festival times. So have the players manage to 'catch up' in this time, and take on that nasty old bugbear thats been haunting the ruined mine all these years. (and discover it was just a costumed old man, looking to cash in on the gold mine when the lease expired - "and I would have gotten away with it, hadn't it been for those dang kids and their dog")
Session Three, the characters should meet up under circumstances, hopefully plot related. Maybe that gold mine was haunted after all, and the town gets the famous kids back to solve the mystery, maybe someones family member has become ill and cash / an ingredient is needed. This brings the players back together for a reason, hopefully plot hook.
Session Four, The characters should do some kind of income improvement related mission. Maybe tied in with Session Five. Something that's less dangerous, more likely to just set up some contacts for the future, some knowledge of the local area, and an idea of how much income can be gained from more mundane jobs, so when they do an actual adventure, they'll 'feel' how rich they've become.
Session Five introduces the need for a base of operations OR a travel pack mule/horse/cart that takes care of the bulk of the mundane. I've given players an escort mission to show them how much easier it is to have the gear in the cart, vs having to waste the first round to take off backpacks and get out gear.
Session Six, starts with a shopping session, has a 'find X to get Y' mid session and finishes withe the characters getting that 'upgrade' that makes them feel like their ready to take on the world.
Now don't take this list literal, I'm just giving you a feel for how one such gaming character generation works.
The whole point is to spread out the 'parts' of character creation, roleplay each one as a memorable event, so players can get a far more real immersive feeling for their character.
Players are constantly griping about how they should have taken skill X instead of Y. This style of play lets them choose the skills as they are needed, Let the player 'build' their needs. Players are more in tune with the world you want them to be in, little things that break immersion and cause argments are often the expectations of the world and their character, and how they feel cheated, because they couldn't foresee what skills they needed when they chose them.
In this style, players acquire skills, weapons, armour, spells, all on the go, while roleplaying. They feel more in touch with them, know when and how they got them and why they got them. Nothing on the charactersheet is 'given' from a book, its all earned.
Lastly, Since the players "grew up" together, they have a tendency to be a more coherent group, more likely to watch each others back, rogues are less likely to backstab their fellow players, Leaders are formed rather than chosen and players choose skills which compliment the group based on needs as they go, rather than clash because three players have herbalism, but no-one has first aid.
Note: For those adventures which are 'strangers coming together' obvious a different style is needed. If tension is part of the plot, having players develop their character independantly is the obvious choice, but if you can handle the initial build time, have them roleplay each heroes arc before the meeting, with whole other groups if possible, then have them meet up.
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