Character creation

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This article is about customizable game characters. For the process of designing fictional
characters, see Characterization.

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Character creation (also character generation or character design) is the process of defining a
game character or other character. Typically, a character's individual strengths and weaknesses
are represented by a set of statistics. Games with a largely fictional setting may include traits
such as race and class. Games with a more contemporary or narrower setting may limit
customization to physical and personality traits.

Contents
 1Role-playing games
 2Making decisions
 3Determining numerical values
o 3.1Obtaining and assigning values
 o 3.2Adjusting scores
 4Templates and classes
 5Sports games
 6References
 7External links

Role-playing games[edit]
Character creation is typically the first step taken by the players (as opposed to the
gamemaster) in preparation for a game. The result of character creation is a direct
characterization that is recorded on a character sheet. In its most comprehensive form it
includes not only a game-specific representation of the character's physical, mental,
psychological and social properties in terms of statistics, but also often less formal descriptions
of the character's physical appearance, personality, personal back-story ("background") and
possessions. During play, only a character's appearance is usually described explicitly while
other traits are characterized indirectly, with the exact statistics known to the character's player
and the game master, but not necessarily to other players.

Character advancement refers to the improvement of a character's statistics later in the game.
The player will modify existing stats and add new ones, usually by spending experience points
or when gaining a new experience level. Character advancement typically uses similar rules as
character creation. To avoid unrealistic sudden changes in character concept, though, character
advancement is usually more restricted than the initial character creation. For example,
attributes are almost always harder (if not impossible) to change during character
advancement.

The term character development is, in some contexts, used interchangeably with character
advancement (in a sense similar to professional development or Human Development), whereas
elsewhere character development refers instead to the player's indirect characterization of the
character through role-playing (in a sense similar to film developing).

Making decisions[edit]

Character creation screen in S.C.O.U.R.G.E.: Heroes of Lesser Renown.

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 number 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 are
(in roughly chronological order) 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.

Narrative Generation: As used for example in the Traveller and Harnmaster RPGs or some
cRPGs such as Mount & Blade and Darklands, this technique models a character's life prior to
becoming an active adventurer with the player choosing family origin and then making further
decisions at specific life "checkpoints" - for example early education, young adulthood and one
or more "tours of duty" in various careers. Each stage will apply certain modifiers and give the
character the opportunity to develop skills, advantages and possibly possessions - or to suffer
setbacks and disadvantages. In some cases a player may run through repeated career cycles to
sacrifice character youth for additional skills, experience and material advancement. Levels of
randomization and player agency vary dependent on the specific system - in some it is entirely
possible for a character to die during the creation process and the player to need to start again
from scratch...

Determining numerical values[edit]

Determining numerical values comprises several steps that are not always distinct:

1. (a) Obtain a set of values and (b) select the statistics to assign them to
2. Assign the values to the statistics
3. Possibly adjust statistics scores by "shifting around" (stat) levels.

Example: In Castle Falkenstein, abilities are the only type of statistic. Each player gets the same
pre-defined set of scores (1a) and can freely choose (1b) which abilities he wants them to assign
to (2). In addition, higher scores can be bought by balancing them with a number of low scores
(3).

Obtaining and assigning values[edit]

Games that don't use point distribution to determine all statistics values typically use different
methods for different types of statistic: In general, there are comparatively few attributes, and
each one explicitly is assigned a value. Conversely, there are generally a rather large number of
skills, and each character learns only some of them while the others are left at their respective
default values. Here are some examples:

 To determine attribute values in Basic Dungeons & Dragons, Marvel Super Heroes, or
Stormbringer 3rd edition, for example, the player rolls once (1a) for each attribute (1b)
and must use whatever result occurred on the dice for that statistic (2). If for different
attributes a different number of dice is used (as is the case for non-humans in Palladium,
for instance), this is the most feasible option.
 D&D 3.5, on the other hand, allows the player to first randomly generate a number of
values (1a) and then assign (2) each attribute one of them (1b).
 For determining skill values, Stormbringer 3rd edition combines two methods: Some of
them (1b) are predetermined (1a, 2) by the character's randomly chosen profession
(and race). The player then selects a randomly determined number of additional skills
(1b) and rolls dice (1a) to determine starting values for them (2).

Adjusting scores[edit]

Some creation systems use a mix of point-distribution and random generation; most common
among these are variant rules that allow, for instance, the alteration of the initially random
stats by taking a reduction of one trait in order to increase another. Often, such adjustments
are made at a penalty, applying a two-for-one cost, for instance.

Another form of adjustment are racial or occupational ("class") modifiers. In many games,
certain statistics are slightly increased or decreased depending on the character's race and
sometimes profession. In Dungeons & Dragons, for example, non-human races typically
increase one ability score by two (on a scale of 3 to 18) while another is lowered by the same
amount. In Stormbringer 3rd edition, nearly all nationalities (subraces) cause adjustments of
some or all attribute scores by an amount that is usually randomly determined and has a range
of up to two-thirds of an attribute's initial value. In point-distribution systems, these modifiers
generally contribute to a race's "point cost", while in other systems, it is up to the race's
designer to balance different races against each other (if this is desired).

Templates and classes[edit]

Class selection screen in Falcon's Eye.

To speed up and ease the character creation process, many games use character templates of
some sort: Sample characters representing genre-typical archetypes that are either completely
ready-made or at least define the essential stats necessary for a character to be able to work in
a given occupation or fill some dramatic role. For instance, a thief will probably know how to
move quietly, pick locks, disarm traps, and climb walls. The use of character templates enables
inexperienced players to easily create suitable characters as they won't be overwhelmed with
having to select skills and abilities, and it still speeds up character creation for even the most
experienced players.

In some games, these templates are only an optional character creation aid that has no
prescribed effect on the rest of the game: They can be flexibly modified according to the game's
character creation rules or can be ignored altogether. This is generally the case in games that
try to give the player as much control over the character creation process as possible.
(Examples are Shadowrun or GURPS.)

Other games use such a mechanism as a mandatory tool to provide direction and limitations to
the character creation process as well as character development. This is the character class
concept introduced by Dungeons & Dragons that is now used in all d20 System games and has
been adopted by many others, such as Palladium Books' Megaversal system.

With a character class, most skills and abilities are predetermined, or must be chosen from a
comparably narrow subset of all available traits, leaving the player to select only a few extra
skills. Some people find this too limiting, while others like the fact that each character
necessarily has to be specialized to fill a specific role in the group of player characters. In a
class-based system, a fighter is often not allowed any magical abilities, while mages are typically
poor fighters. When players are not required do adhere to a specific template, on the other
hand, their characters might turn out very similar even if they started from different templates
— a fighter with good spell casting abilities is not much different from a spell caster with good
fighting abilities. Thus, the freedom of a class-less system requires extra caution on the side of
the players to create a diverse group of characters.

There are games that aim to get the best of both worlds by using some kind of hybrid. One
approach is to let the templates (called careers in Classic Traveller as well as in Warhammer
Fantasy Roleplay) still restrict the choices available for character creation or development, but
apply them only for a limited timespan:

During character creation in Classic Traveller, each character pursues one of six possible careers
(professions) that decides which tables can be used to roll on, thus giving direction to the
otherwise largely random process. When the character is ready to be played, he has ended this
career, so it doesn't have a direct influence on character development during play.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has a much more elaborate career system. Characters advance
by entering a series of "careers" that provide access to a set of new or improved skills, and
bonuses to attributes (called "advances"). The menu of careers available to characters reflects
the setting of the game world. Basic careers are those that might be filled by any individual with
a modest amount of training or instruction. Advanced careers require greater preparation and
training, and are often more appropriate for the lifestyle of an active adventurer. The career
system gives both an idea of what a character might have been doing before embarking on a
career as an adventurer (working as a baker, night watchman, rat catcher, or farmer), and how
they changed and developed through their career (becoming a mercenary, explorer, ship's
captain, etc.).

As another approach, some games (such as Cyberpunk 2020) use a hybrid skill-class system, in
which each of the primary roles (classes) in the game has one skill that is absolutely unique to it
and defines that role, but apart from that, characters are created and advance using a skill point
system rather than a class-and-level system.

Sports games[edit]
In sports games, creating players involves choosing features like skin color and vital stats. This
may also be extended to creating entire teams of players. Common skills such as running and
passing may be customized, as well as skills that are more specific to individual sports.

References[edit]
 Michael Alyn Pondsmith. Castle Falkenstein (R. Talsorian Games, 1994). ISBN 0-937279-
44-7
 Cyberpunk 2020
 Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition / d20 System
 Steve Jackson, Scott Haring, Sean Punch. GURPS Lite (Steve Jackson Games, 2004).
Available online from http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/.
 Steve Jackson, Sean Punch, David Pulver. GURPS Basic Set: Characters (Steve Jackson
Games, 2004). ISBN 1-55634-729-4
 Marvel Super Heroes
 Bob Charette, Paul Hume, Tom Dowd. Shadowrun (FASA CORPORATION, 1989).
 Kevin Siembieda. The Palladium Role-playing Game (Palladium Books, 1983). ISBN 0-
916211-04-5 (The second edition is called Palladium Fantasy Role-playing Game.) See
Megaversal system.
 Traveller, Book 1, Characters and Combat (Games Designers' Workshop 1977, second
edition 1981). And Book 2, Starships (Games Designers' Workshop 1977, second edition
1981; the chapter titled "Experience").

External links[edit]
 Building Better Characters column on RPGnet
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