photo credit freeimages.com / Jason Morrison

Inspiration can strike anytime, anywhere, sparked by some completely unexpected collision of thought and random sensory experience. There have been several articles here at campaign mastery with such origins; this is another, sparked by a random comment made during the pre-game conversation and socializing that normally takes place before a session of my Zenith-3 campaign. The comment itself is completely irrelevant; it was simply a springboard into a new metagame-based approach to character generation that I thought worth sharing.

When I first started gaming, there were two metagame approaches used for character generation.

Old Method 1: At-Home Generation

Everyone gets told what the game system is, and generates a character at home. The first time they find out what anyone else has is when they get together to play for the first time.

Variations

The GM may have (as I recommend in many other articles) given the players a brief description (or even a substantial briefing document) of the campaign that he intends to run, providing at least a modicum of direction to the players as to what characters will fit in.

A second variation has the players failing to generate anything more than mechanics – stats etc – and leaving the character’s personality to emerge during the course of play.

The problem:

This approach accurately simulates a group of strangers thrown together by happenstance. In terms of breadth of adventuring potential, though, it can be a nightmare; the campaign may demand at least one wizard, or an elf, or whatever – and there isn’t one. Everyone might turn up with Rangers (hey, I was once part of a rock band in which all 13 members wanted to be the drummer – and none of us had ever played any instrument! I ended up on Bass Guitar…)

The GM has no idea what he’s going to get. His campaign needs to engage the characters anyway, as though it had been written for these characters and no-one else. It’s an impossible burden.

That’s why most GMs quickly come up with Old Method 2, if they weren’t taught to use it from the start:

Old Method 2: At-The-Table Generation

Everyone gathers around the game table and generates their characters on the spot, usually after a short briefing on the campaign from the GM, who is there to answer questions as character generation proceeds. There is interaction between the players as they create their characters, and they all have an idea of what each other is creating and can deliberately seek out diversity between themselves. At the same time, the GM can hear those discussions, and can begin refining the campaign accordingly.

The problem:

It sounds wonderfully Utopian, doesn’t it? It often falls apart in practice, though the cause may vary with game system.

In D&D, Pathfinder, and other such systems, not all classes are created alike, and some require a lot more time to generate a member. That leaves the other players – and the GM – twiddling their thumbs. In a points-buy system like GURPS or the Hero system, many players agonize over where to spend those last two points, taking forever to dot the i’s and cross the T’s of their character design.

It’s enough to drive a GM back to method #1…

Newer Method 3: Phased Introduction

When I ran my TORG campaign, I deliberately sought a third path to character creation, based around the deliberate restriction of options.

To understand it, you need to at least understand the fundamental background of TORG, so I’ll diverge from discussing what I did long enough to fill you in: This bad dude known as the Gaunt Man created a conspiracy amongst a handful of extra-dimensional realities to invade the Earth because it was abundant in something called Possibility Energy, which could be used by those invaders to reshape reality to their own benefit. England was transformed by the invasion by the Fantasy realm of Aysle; The east coast of North America was unrecognizable after being transformed by the Lost-World-styled Living Land; France was dominated by a Cybertech-oriented interpretation of a medieval theocracy, the Cyberpapacy; Japan was dominated by Nippon Tech, a hyper-capitalist society full of Manga-style high tech, ninjas, betrayal, the Yakuza, and small groups of insurgents fighting for their lives and independence; Indonesia/the Pacific became the stronghold of the Horror-based realm of Orrorsh, ruled by the Gaunt Man himself; and Egypt was reshaped into the Pulp/Superhero “New Nile Empire”, a blend of ancient Egyptian motifs and theology, weird science, and four-color action. The alliance, quite naturally, didn’t last, and the “High Lords” of each of these realms began to conspire against each other, and (in some cases) with internal rebellions.

There’s a lot more, but that’s all you need to know to understand the campaign.

I started the campaign before the invasion of Earth, and set the initial campaign within the Fantasy Realm of Aysle. The PCs were initially charged with hunting down a rampaging dragon of unprecedented size and power. This was a quest that took a year of fortnightly adventuring, and as they pursued it (and saw the power of Corruption – think “the dark side of the Force” – spread over the land), they discovered that it’s power was a contrivance by one of the factions of the court, allied to a stranger (The Gaunt Man, which the players knew but the characters didn’t) as a means of undermining and ultimately overthrowing the ruler of the Realm, enabling the Realm to join the invasion of Earth. Ultimately, they defeated the Dragon, but were too late in doing so to prevent the coup.

That brought the campaign into Phase II, in which the players were the linchpins of a conspiracy/rebellion aimed at ousting the usurpers and restoring Pella Ardinay to the throne. Of course, the usurpers were well aware of the danger of a counter-coup, and had arranged an assassination in such a way that they had plausible deniability; the PCs were able to prevent the assassination but were caught in a trap set by the Gaunt Man (who didn’t fully trust the competence of his allies) and frozen in time.

When they were released by the trap, five years had passed; the invasion of Earth had now taken place, but the dethroned Ayslish ruler had regained her throne with the aid of the rebellion established by the PCs and had reached terms with the “Core Earth” Monarchy/Government of England.

That brought the campaign into Phase III, in which the PCs began to travel the Earth and the other realms trying to understand the invasions and how it could be won, once and for all. The whole campaign was laid out as a “Grand Tour” of the invading Realms, each of which had it’s own set of natural laws and internal logic.

Okay, so that’s the campaign in a nutshell. Now consider the implications for character generation.

In Phase I, the characters had to be Fantasy Staple characters. Fighters, a Mage, and so on. I also specified that they had to be Human, since that was the dominant species in Aysle.

In Phase II, a character could retire and be replaced any time the player wanted, and a more diverse selection of Fantasy races were available after the PCs had made contact with the race in question. He could also transfer up to half his earned experience (Possibility Points, used to alter reality) to the new character – but there was a catch: if the new character died, he would be replaced with the earlier character, but any transferred points, AND any earned subsequently, would be lost. In the meantime, the old character would become an NPC to be put “on ice” within the campaign. If the player elected to continue with their original PC, and died, they would have to generate a new character and would lose ALL the Possibility Points accrued by the old character. This encouraged a trade-in without forcing it on anyone; staying with their original character would give them a more effective PC, but it was betting the whole wad on each hand. Oh yes, and only one character could “upgrade” per adventure.

In Phase III, a character could retire and be replaced, but would have to be a native to wherever the PCs were at the time, using the same transfer rules; or could be killed out and a new “local character” generated. That’s how the PCs, bit by bit, came to consist of a Dwarven Mage, a Masked Hero, a cloned Ninja Assassin, and a walking plant-priest with Cybernetic Implants.

There’s one common principle embedded in this technique, and that is for the players to become at least somewhat familiar with the environment through their old characters before they got to generate a character deriving from that Reality. This was my way of educating the players about the game world, and it worked very well. Sadly, the campaign folded – well, technically was suspended, but it has never resumed – just as the PCs were on the verge of getting the information and tools they needed to really start changing the Status Quo in a major way, playing three of the High Lords off against each other (Nile Empire, Cyberpapacy, and Nippon Tech), defeating the High Lord of the Living Land, and developing a weapon that combined all five of those realities’ technology – which was when it was going to be discovered that the Gaunt Man had escaped from the prison in which he had been placed during the 5-year interim, leading to a final showdown for the whole box and dice.

So that’s option three: phasing characters in based on what is available, and controlling that availability through Plot. “Join the campaign! See the world! Go to interesting places, meet interesting people, and decide whether or not you want to be one of them!”

I took a different approach again when setting up the original Zenith-3 campaign…

Newer Option Four: The Structured Team

Because I wanted to be sure that each character was different, and wouldn’t tread on each other’s toes too much, I listed the essential character archetypes and specified that once a slot was taken, no other character could use that archetype until every archetype had at least one representative – and it was first-come, first-served, in order of asking to join the campaign. As it happened, there was no conflict, and everyone got the archetype that they wanted: a brick, an energy projector, a martial artist, a psionic, a gadgeteer, and a detective.

Variations

I employed the same approach to setting up the first Fumanor campaign, with elements of the Phased concept from the TORG campaign. Classes were restricted in choice (but always more than there were PCs) and non-human races were only permitted after milestone events that added them to the choices available. The initial adventure was two humans from the country on their way to the big city to join the Adventurer’s Guild, their respective townships’ mandated contributions to the common good; they were subsequently joined by an Elf and a… I don’t remember now, to be honest. Another human, I think. Later, a human was transformed into a Halfling.

Once again, the plot dictated what choices were available, but which of those options a player chose to explore and exploit was up to them. The biggest difference was that there was no trade-in; if a player seriously wanted to change race or class, it was a Big Deal (but there were ways of doing so).

Each campaign enlarged the pool of options available – most of the core classes were soon on offer, and races now available are Human (Three very different cultures), Elf (four varieties), Dwarf, Minotaur, Drow, Halfling, Orc, Ogre, Verdonne (a more agile Treant), and Dwarfling. On top of that, they also had a Mummy for a while, but that didn’t really work out for them.

The technique, on the other hand, worked very well.

Which brings me to my new idea…

New Option Five: Bidding For Characters

There are eight simple steps to this process.

1. Once again, the GM lists the archetypes or classes that he considers essential. These can be grouped – “Sorcerer/Wizard”, “Barbarian/Fighter/Ranger/Paladin”, or whatever; and also notes any that do not fit the game world that he or she has in mind.
2. He/She may also specify available races, and may set a maximum or minimum number of each – “At least one Elf and one Dwarf, no more than two of either” is as valid as “all humans” or “all Trolls,” for that matter.
3. He provides this as a list to the players, who go away and design a character concept for each of the archetypes/classes, an idea of what that character will be like – personality, motivation, personal history, future development, plotlines desired, and so on. Each player then submits his proposals to the GM. These are the player’s “bids” for that role within the adventuring party.
4. If there are any mandated races, the GM starts by ranking each of the proposals for that race, from most interesting or campaign-appropriate to least interesting or campaign-appropriate. Whatever archetype/class was specified by the bid is thus allocated to the player, and none of his other proposals are required. Repeat this step until the minimum number of representatives required of each race is complete.
5. Excluding any bids whose players already have an archetype allocated, the GM then ranks the remaining ideas for the first empty archetype. The best idea gets the winning bid, and is excluded from further consideration. Repeat this step until every archetype slot has at least one representative, or you run out of players. Maximum racial representation limits may rule some proposals out of consideration.
6. If there are any players without positions allocated, simply pick the most interesting proposal from that player.
7. Review the assemblage. Will they work well together? Will they compliment each other? Will their plotlines give different characters the opportunity to participate? Are there interesting potential connections? Does the character give the GM ideas (write these down)? If not, review your choices – it might be that the second most-interesting/appropriate option somewhere down the line will produce a better character group. Work backwards to do this until you reach the step where the character that fits least-well was allocated, change that allocation, and proceed from there. Some of your choices may remain the same, but you have a bunch of new suggestions to consider, so it’s also possible that none of them will end up matching. Continue juggling the roster until you have the most interesting campaign foundation possible.
8. Notify the players of which of their submissions has been accepted.

Benefits

If the players have done their part correctly, they will only have made any effort on the class/archetypes that they are most interested in playing. Ideally, they will list a character for every role that will appeal to them, but realistically, I know better. The result is that the player is guaranteed to receive a choice that he will enjoy playing, and since this choice has been made to better integrate with both the PC group and the campaign world, it will automatically be a better choice than any that could be made “blind”, and even more fun to play.

It might seem like the GM has a lot of work to do, but realistically, the process is designed so that he doesn’t have to read most of the proposals. The benefit for him is that the character choices will suit the adventures and campaign that he wants to run, something that might happen by blind chance – just as someone will eventually win the lottery. The odds might be about the same, too.

An example (following the same steps)

There are four players for a new D&D/Pathfinder campaign.

1. The GM specifies the archetypes that he needs as “archer”, “muscle”, and “spellcaster”, and that he wants three character proposals from each player, one for each of these roles. What else the character can do is up to the player and the standard character generation procedure.
2. The GM decrees that he needs at least one Dwarf and one Elf among the PCs, but no more than that. No more than two submissions by any given player should be the same PC race, either.
3. The players take these requirements and any campaign briefing and create their character “bids:
   • Player one proposes a Human Fighter, a Dwarven Fighter, and an Elven Druid.
   • Player two proposes an Elven Ranger, a Human Barbarian, and a Dwarven Cleric.
   • Player three proposes a Human Rogue, an Elven Fighter, and a Human Mage.
   • Player four proposes an Elven Paladin, a Half-Orcish Fighter, and a Human Cleric.

4. The GM starts by looking at the Dwarven proposals. He has two: a Fighter in the “Muscle” archetype and a Cleric in the “Spellcaster” archetype. The latter offers some interesting ideas about the relationship between their habitats and lifestyle and their theology, the former is fairly routine. Player two wins the bidding for a spellcaster.

4. The GM then looks at the Elven proposals. He sets aside those of player two, leaving him with three: a Druid in the “Spellcaster” archetype, which can be ignored for the moment because the campaign already has a spellcaster; a Fighter in the “Muscle” category which has interesting background and plot suggestions; and a Paladin in the “Archer” archetype, which is an interesting and unusual combination, but which would not fit into the campaign as well. Player three wins the bidding for Muscle.
5. So the bidding for the Archer comes down to players one and four. Player one’s Human Fighter proposal has a dark secret and feels a serious need to atone for his past, a fairly strong characterization; Player four is proposing an Elven Paladin, which would provide an interesting contrast to the Dwarven Cleric. Both are strong proposals, and the choice would come down to which would better fit the campaign (if the plan is to focus on theology, player four would get the nod, if not, it would be player one, as this would enable the campaign to cover a greater range of adventures) – were it not for the “no more” maximum limit on Elves. So player one has won the bid.
6. That leaves only the decision of what Player 4 will be allocated. The Elvish Paladin has already been rejected, leaving only a Half-Orcish Fighter and a Human Cleric. The latter is fairly humdrum and would cover much of the same territory as the Dwarven Cleric; the former is intriguing, especially with the cultural proposals that have been offered with it. So player four is allocated the Half-Orcish Fighter.
7. The GM reviews the party: A Dwarven Cleric (spellcaster), an Elven Fighter (muscle), a Human Fighter (archer), and a Half-Orcish Fighter (muscle). Two fighters up front, one at the back (who can move forward in a pinch), and one who can be either in front or in the back depending on the need. The GM decides that it’s an interesting party and will bring out interesting perspectives on the game world; and also notes that the Elf is the closest thing they have to a rogue, thanks to his innate senses – but that he would be compromised in that role by his focus on Strength over Agility. Since he didn’t list that as one of the archetypes explicitly, that doesn’t matter – in this campaign.
8. With the decisions made, the GM informs the players of which characters they should generate. Of the twelve proposals, he’s had to look at nine. He also indicates to players two and three that they should generate the Barbarian and the Mage as backup characters, respectively. He tells players one and two that neither of their other proposals will work, and they should come up with something else as a backup choice, should anything ever happen to his primary character.

One Final Step:

Lastly, while it might seem to the GM that yielding the best possible combination of interesting characters and a better fit between PCs and Campaign are their own reward, nevertheless he should provide some sort of concession or reward to the players to assist them in actually rendering these designs rather than leaving them completely at the mercy of die rolls.

If I were doing it, I would permit the players to use the “roll 4 dice and choose the best three results” character generation technique, but furthermore, would allow that “extra dice” to be moved (before rolling) to another stat up to three times in the process for stats that the character really does need to be high if the character is to be effective within their selected niche. So a character could end up with one stat being “roll 7 dice and pick the best 3 results” while the others are all “roll 3d6”, or there could be one stat at “roll 6 dice and pick the best 3 results” and another that retains its initial “roll 4 and pick the best 3”, leaving 4 stats at “roll 3d6” – IF one of their character proposals is accepted.

It’s that simple – and should yield better campaigns, more interesting PCs, and more interested players, every time.