![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So. Hi there. Let's say you were going to look at playing a new RPG. And, for argument's sake, let's say even if you're not normally interested, you suddenly feel persuadable. You sit down and start to make a character for you to play. What kind of way to define/build your character would make you the most excited to play him/her in a game?
1. "Class based": This is the kind of character creation system (essentially) that D&D uses. You choose a class (Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, etc.) and then customize the character around it, adding some skills, special abilities ("feats" for D&D 3.5), etc., but the general advancement of the character is tied to your class. (In D&D's case, even skill advancement is class-based--each class gets a certain number of skill points to spend at each level.) It's relatively easy to create a starting character, but not necessarily as customizable.
2. "Skill based": Games like Cyberpunk were pretty revolutionary (or it felt that way at the time to me, anyway) in that they abandoned classed based characters in favor of basing your PC primarily on the skills you chose. Although there was still a bit of a class system, it was heavily de-emphasized. Basically, you personally have an overall idea of what you want your character to be. You have a certain amount of points and a large skill-list and you "buy" skills at certain levels. It's the amalgamation of these skills that define your character, not your class. The advantage is that it's much easier to customize a character. The disadvantage, or the one that leaps out at me, is that character creation is a bit more difficult and, if the game designer isn't careful, the game could get caught up in number crunching. (Note that this can be a problem with all types of games, not just skill-based ones!)
3. "Trait based": This one is the hardest for me to define, because it's the kind I've played the least. Basically, the way you use a trait based system is to first think about who you're playing. Instead of raw numbers, you use words. This doesn't mean there aren't parameters in creation. There are all kinds of examples out there. Some systems use a "positive/negative trait" kind of thing (White Wolf's Vampire, et al, for example), where you balance each good thing with a bad thing. ("Ok, my guy is 'fast as lightning,' but he's also 'prone to dizzy spells.'" And yes, this is an extreme oversimplification.) Some systems, like Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, use traits in a more general way. ("What's your character's ultimate goal? What are they really good at? What kind of thing really makes them screw up?" Again, serious oversimplification.) Some systems wind up assigning numbers to traits (generally based around the idea of a scale from "I think I can do that" to "Holy carp, I am awesome at that"), but that's mainly to simplify conflicts. What's ultimately important here is that the character's not based on numbers, but on words. There are a bunch of good things about this one: lots of hooks built in for storytelling by both the Game Master and the Player, very customizable, etc. But there are lots of bad things too: takes longer to make a character, sometimes difficult to balance (a player can front-load him/herself and get it by the GM easier with vague traits than numbers sometimes), sometimes harder to define resolutions ("I think the shopkeeper's trying to cheat us; I'll use my 'notice facial twitches' trait" vs. "I think the shopkeeper's trying to cheat us; I roll on my 'sense motive' skill), etc., etc.
There's a fourth kind of character creation that springs to mind (template based, which is kind of like class based with less options), but I don't think that's even on the table for me.
So, if you were approaching a new game, which would you like to see? Non-gamers/RPG novices, which of the three would most interest you in giving this "role-playing" thing a try?
1. "Class based": This is the kind of character creation system (essentially) that D&D uses. You choose a class (Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, etc.) and then customize the character around it, adding some skills, special abilities ("feats" for D&D 3.5), etc., but the general advancement of the character is tied to your class. (In D&D's case, even skill advancement is class-based--each class gets a certain number of skill points to spend at each level.) It's relatively easy to create a starting character, but not necessarily as customizable.
2. "Skill based": Games like Cyberpunk were pretty revolutionary (or it felt that way at the time to me, anyway) in that they abandoned classed based characters in favor of basing your PC primarily on the skills you chose. Although there was still a bit of a class system, it was heavily de-emphasized. Basically, you personally have an overall idea of what you want your character to be. You have a certain amount of points and a large skill-list and you "buy" skills at certain levels. It's the amalgamation of these skills that define your character, not your class. The advantage is that it's much easier to customize a character. The disadvantage, or the one that leaps out at me, is that character creation is a bit more difficult and, if the game designer isn't careful, the game could get caught up in number crunching. (Note that this can be a problem with all types of games, not just skill-based ones!)
3. "Trait based": This one is the hardest for me to define, because it's the kind I've played the least. Basically, the way you use a trait based system is to first think about who you're playing. Instead of raw numbers, you use words. This doesn't mean there aren't parameters in creation. There are all kinds of examples out there. Some systems use a "positive/negative trait" kind of thing (White Wolf's Vampire, et al, for example), where you balance each good thing with a bad thing. ("Ok, my guy is 'fast as lightning,' but he's also 'prone to dizzy spells.'" And yes, this is an extreme oversimplification.) Some systems, like Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, use traits in a more general way. ("What's your character's ultimate goal? What are they really good at? What kind of thing really makes them screw up?" Again, serious oversimplification.) Some systems wind up assigning numbers to traits (generally based around the idea of a scale from "I think I can do that" to "Holy carp, I am awesome at that"), but that's mainly to simplify conflicts. What's ultimately important here is that the character's not based on numbers, but on words. There are a bunch of good things about this one: lots of hooks built in for storytelling by both the Game Master and the Player, very customizable, etc. But there are lots of bad things too: takes longer to make a character, sometimes difficult to balance (a player can front-load him/herself and get it by the GM easier with vague traits than numbers sometimes), sometimes harder to define resolutions ("I think the shopkeeper's trying to cheat us; I'll use my 'notice facial twitches' trait" vs. "I think the shopkeeper's trying to cheat us; I roll on my 'sense motive' skill), etc., etc.
There's a fourth kind of character creation that springs to mind (template based, which is kind of like class based with less options), but I don't think that's even on the table for me.
So, if you were approaching a new game, which would you like to see? Non-gamers/RPG novices, which of the three would most interest you in giving this "role-playing" thing a try?
