Should players always do the chargen process alone?
I've been mulling over this question recently. A little bit of backstory first:
>Me and friends want to play Shadowrun
>I have some decent experience and made a few characters already
>Players are mostly clueless so I help them out, explain Chummer and some rules to them
>5e btw
>gf of my friend wants to play too so I give her a character that I made before and fleshed her out a bit
>Realize that friend's gf is clueless about most things in Shadowrun and even her own character
>guy I helped create character hasn't read any of the rules and doesn't even know how his archetype (rigger) works
That makes me think about if, going forward, new players should do the character generation all on their own. That way, they kinda have to read up on the rules to understand what they're getting into and there are no surprises.
What are your opinions on that? Or how would you handle chargen for new players?
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For new players I try to go through character creation with them or ask what sort of character they want and try making it for them. Going through character creation alone, all that means it's not going to get done.
I tell my players that if they want to play something that has special rules (like magic) they need to learn those rules.
But I gradually moved away from crunchy systems and most games I run nowadays don't need in depth rules explanations. Saves me a lot of headaches.
I even ran Shadowrun extremely rules-light and it's always went over well with players.
>Should players always do the chargen process alone?
>always chagen alone
>alone
What?
What sort of bait is this?
Making characters separately is a great way to end up with a party that implodes under the sheer fact its members (but not the players) don't glue together at all. It's like the 101s of things to never do.
>Provides example of people struggling with the process
>Hey, they should be doing this all on their own, no help provided!
So you're moronic or just desperate for (You)s?
Fair point. I guess you would have to set some ground rules in that scenario. Like everyone has to agree what role they fill or even what they head in mind. Like P1 say he wants to be a fighter, P2 wants a mage, etc
Anon, he wants to play Shadowrun. A system that's notorious for being borderline unplayable if you don't use Chummer to create characters and are able to read German at least at a high school level to understand their errata. (since Catalyst hasn't provided any in years)
I remember the first time I tried to make a Shadowrun character took me 4 hours. Mostly because besided reading the character options and such I had to go and read every piece of weapon and equipment I could buy. I practically had to read the entire book just to play a few hours.
define alone?
you mean like they rolled in front of you, you told them what is allowed and what is not, etc and then they fill the char sheet on their home right? sure no problem with that. Check the char sheets in case they made a mistake though
Yeah exactly. That's what I had in mind.
>Yyyeah that's a lot of rules to absorb
I agree to a degree. Should have mentioned that we're playing 5kraut, so it's better.
I do have a few examples about our Shadowrun sessions but I'll probably put that in /srg/ later to keep this thread more generalized.
I don't think the popular systems out there are any lighter on the rules, though. I've never played D&D but that and Pathfinder look like they give the player some stuff to memorize and read up on too.
>I'd take a session or two just making sure everyone understands [insert dice rolling of system]
Like a tutorial, right? I thought about that before. With my current knowledge, I could do that for sure and I think it's a good way to introduce new players. Back then, it was my first time GMing though so I just picked a premade module and ran it.
Now that I think about it, a kind of tutorial run where you mercilessly railroad your players through the module you prepared with premade characters might actually be a good way. After that's done, you can tell them "Alright, now you know the game and I'll leave you now to make your characters on your own."
>I don't think the popular systems out there are any lighter on the rules, though. I've never played D&D but that and Pathfinder look like they give the player some stuff to memorize and read up on too.
The difference is that you're usually creating a lv 1 or lv 3 character as your first in D&D. Shadowrun expects you to create what's effectively a lv 10 character the first thing you do, and depending on your choices it can end up being lv 5 or lv 15. (If you're not using PB/karma buy)
>Now that I think about it, a kind of tutorial run where you mercilessly railroad your players through the module you prepared with premade characters might actually be a good way.
Probably for the best. /tg tends to demonize railroading but there's a difference between railroading and making sure the session isn't directionless.
>>5e btw
Yyyeah that's a lot of rules to absorb. I'd take a session or two just making sure everyone understands dice pools and limits. And when you can say "roll stealth" and it's not followed by a 5 minute break and confusion, then you move on. Not even touching on magic or the matrix before that.
>That makes me think about if, going forward, new players should do the character generation all on their own. That way, they kinda have to read up on the rules to understand what they're getting into and there are no surprises.
For 5e specifically, that's a good way to scare away new players. Awful editing and a lot of rules is a bad combo.
3 premade stat templates.
Premade starter kit.
A few meaningful choices.
New character created in 5 minutes but they can become anything from that point.
Never an identical character.
I make players generate the most basic character as part of their application. Not to be used in my game, but just to show that they know how.
I think it depends on the system and group's familiarity with it. If the player(s) are brand new to it I'd advise everyone does it together, or at least discusses things after the fact. Chances are someone's made a mistake or has questions that would help other people out too.
System also depends. Some games, like Mutants and Masterminds, the DM NEEDS to be involved - regardless of player familiarity - because the game is well aware its rules let you do bullshit and fully expects the DM to be present to tell you what they won't be allowing or won't fit the power level they're going for.
Season 0 is the ideal moment to create characters. They may come up with the idea but they should work to make them fit into the campaign.
>That makes me think about if, going forward, new players should do the character generation all on their own
Hahahahaha thats a good joke anon
Try suggesting that to them and see what happens
>Should players always do the chargen process alone?
Kind of a silly question in the context of your story. The answer is no, by the way- You'd only do chargen alone if everyone wanted to keep their characters a surprise and actually read the rules.
But your players didn't read the rules, your players are buttholes that don't respect your time and were expecting you to spoonfeed them through the entire process. You ought to explain to them how they're being jerks and need to put in the bare minimal effort by at least reading the core rules, any other solution would just be burying your head in the sand.
Ideally you all get together and make the characters. Helps guys with weaker reading comprehension and the players know the team their character is going to be a part of.
Man, from the beginning I thought the reason people played RPGs was the whole paper doll experience of making your own character, then playing it in the world. My experience with players has taught me otherwise. At first I tried 1 on 1 walking them through character creation and it was like pulling teeth, dragging on for literal months. Years later with another group, I would try making their characters myself just coming to them for their choices on what branching options they wanted in character generation and they acted like I was contacting them about their cars' extended warrantee. Again, even that dragged on for a month at least.
A couple years later I got invited to someone's CoC game. I asked which books we needed to make characters and he told me we I wouldn't need it. He had made a stack of prefab characters on the day. The other players happily snatched up the character sheets.
So that was it. I realized the players didn't want paper dolls to make on their own, they wanted monopoly pieces to just grab and start playing.
I do pregen sheets for my players but I leave the name and appearance blank.
Chummer is great because it includes everything from every rulebook
>Chummer is awful because it includes everything from every rulebook
Anon, just use the core rulebook and only the core rulebook for a game with new players. No supplements. Everyone make their own character, but you should discuss the general theme or archetype/role so you can have a balanced group. DM be a little more forgiving with consequences of players doing dumb stuff or not knowing all the rules. Ignore lifestyle rules for a while.
IE; Literally the same thing you do with every new TTRPG
My players are all newbie babbies, I cannot trust them to do it alone without some help.
I taught myself how to play Shadowrun 4E with just pdfs of the books and access to Google, just like how I learned every other RPG I've ever played. On one hand, I have a degree of sympathy for people who just have trouble grokking some aspects of more complex systems, but with most of my players, "Here's the pdf, have fun and call me if you have any questions" is usually enough.
It sounds like your problem was less that you helped in character creation and more that you made their characters for them. Either that or they're that special brand of moron that wants to play a game but refuses to spend the <hour it takes to learn the rules.
If it's "haha lol you meet in a tavern" fantasy or "you're all independent mercs hired for the same job by the same fixer" cyberpunk/shadowrun/whatever then having character creation be a surprise is fine as long as you know and trust your players to individually match the tone and setting of the game.
If it's "you're making the totally-not-teen-titans" for a capeshit game or "we're starting at third level and your characters are experienced mercenaries who've been working together for a few years now" fantasy then making characters as a group simply makes sense because that way you can walk into the first session with a rough idea of how the party dynamic will play out. Who's the nerd, who's the muscle, who's the face, which characters would die for each other and which only have professional courtesy stopping a knife fight, is anyone related to each other? Did anyone grow up in the same town? How did you join the organization you're a part of? Anybody with shared skeletons in the closet? Etc.
>Should players always do the chargen process alone?
Generally, I don't think they should. Especially if they know frick all about the game. For Shadowrun that goes double.
Only War has the players pick or create their regiment together, which works better if they have the same goals or ability to compromise. Kind of sucks if the GM does it alone. Especially if the GM isn't the kind to consider repercussions of their choices mechanically.
Traveler explicitly tells you not to and you’re supposed to ask other players what connections your characters have and get bonus skills. Also rolling your character is a real b***h and you make a lot of random rolls and choices (additional terms for drawbacks)
For D&D I prefer if people have their character ready to go before we meet so we can actually play during the first session
>players don't understand rules
>should they do chargen alone?
This is moronic. If you do this, be prepared to pour over their characters sheets, notice mistakes, send them back to them to do it over, and then repeat. Aside from that you might end up with a party that doesn't belong together. No, if they don't understand the rules you'll probably want to create characters as a group. And not just hand them pre-gen characters, because they won't need to learn the rules if you do it for them.
I mean, when did you learn more when you were in school? When doing your homework, or when you were in the class with a good teacher?
I made the mistake of doing this too when I was a new SR GM. I feel for ya.