The Man Keeping the Martial Down

[Arbane]

Not if you want the game to have any strategic elements at all. If you want there to be a strategy element to character creation, then it has to have options that are worse and options that are better.

Uh, no. You need to have options that are DIFFERENT, or have different strengths and COSTS, but having two things with the same cost where one is obviously better than the other (or worse, non-obviously better) is usually bad design.

It's the same sort of thing they do in all kinds of games. In chess they made a bunch of pieces that are objectively worse than other pieces. In MtG there are a bunch of cards that are worse than other cards. In order for there to be any kind of strategy there have to be options that are worse than others.

Everyone playing chess gets all 16 pieces at the start.

[AMFV]

Uh, no. You need to have options that are DIFFERENT, or have different strengths and COSTS, but having two things with the same cost where one is obviously better than the other (or worse, non-obviously better) is usually bad design.

You do need to have options that are different, but if they are no better for what you are trying to accomplish then there is no strategic element. Let's say that I'm building a fighter in 3.5, my options get pretty limited depending on what exactly I want to do with the fighter. If I'm building an ubercharger, some feats will be objectively better than those same feats if I'm building a horizon tripper.

You can't have difference of choice and have meaning to those choices in a game without those choices having a strategic value.

Everyone playing chess gets all 16 pieces at the start.

Right, which is why I'm talking about leveling the playing field in terms of class balance (at least for the character creation mini-game) in a direction that I've not seen before.

[Arbane]

The biggest advantage of classes, IMO, is the power of names.

Compare, "I took an 8th level Ranger through Keep on the Borderlands" with "I took a 50-point fire/summoning focused character on the GM's custom war politics planar adventure".

It is a very useful conceptual short-cut.

yup. magic should be more than spell books and wizard hats. if its that defined and boringly limited, its not really magic at all, its just a science masquerading as magic.

As someone pointed out long ago, D&D spellcasting has all the magical awe and wonder of ordering an Extra Value Meal at a drive-in fast food restaurant.

If one of the main strengths of class-based systems is approximating power-levels, 3e and its derivatives does a very poor job. It is implied by having Effective-Class-Levels, Level Adjustment, and Challenge Ratings that a character's level should tell you something about how strong it is. And I'd say that at level 1, those games do a pretty good job. But, the more complex the character build gets and the more options a character has (casters), the further it gets away from that balance that the system promises. The system implies that a level 10 fighter belongs in a party of other level 10 characters to overcome challenges appropriate to a level 10 party. But, that's not the case.

So, why use classes if you don't get the benefits of using classes?

"10th level Commoner".

And if an RPG system is designed such that different build options cost the same amount of points or whatever other resources, but result in grossly more or less functional or effective characters, that's never good game design -- even if it's deliberate -- and doubly so if it's obscured or obtuse about it. Trap options, dead ends, and gross disconnects in efficacy per expenditure in character building are never good game design, ever, under any circumstances.

What he said. One of my big complaints with CCGs is that quite often the match is effectively over before the first card is drawn - be it because one player spent a few hundred bucks more or because one strategy completely shuts down the other. That is barely excusable in a CCG, which is supposed to have an economy that's a cross between crack cocaine and the nuclear arms race, but it isn't excusable at all in an RPG.

We aren't fans or commentators here though, we're the athletes, and knowing if we're good or bad is probably a significant part of why we're doing this. That's a pretty crucial difference. I would imagine that the athletes are a lot more concerned about the quality of their performance than the commentators or the fans are.

Because it is such an impressive achievement to write 'Wizard' in the space labeled 'class'.

[AMFV]

Because it is such an impressive achievement to write 'Wizard' in the space labeled 'class'.

Exactly! That requires very little planning or skill. That's why what I was suggesting is to make it more complicated. After all writing out Fighter 2/Bard 3/Suel Arcanamach 3/Sublime Chord 10 is much much harder.

But to answer you more directly. Writing Wizard might not be hard, but it kind of misses the point of the character creation game. As I've said, I'll make gishes (who are less powerful generally than wizards) because they are more apt to involve the kind of complexity that I love. Fighter builds certainly do as well.

Knowing what feats to pick, when to dip, when not to, that does take some measure of knowledge. That's that game.

Knowing when to use what technique or what spell or what skills to use, also requires some measure of knowledge, and don't get me started on clever ways to circumvent monsters or traps. There's certainly skill involved at some point.

[Quertus]

So, I'm in an interesting space. I am someone who has made "top-tier" builds, who games with a few like myself, and, afaict, none of us post our unique builds online. So I've seen things many of you cannot even imagine.

Yet I fail at character creation shockingly close to 19 out of 20 times. I need to "take a 20" to produce a character that I'll enjoy playing.

"Winning" the character creation minigame, for me, isn't a matter of trivializing the adventure, or the other PCs. That's easy. No, winning the character creation minigame, for me, involves creating a character that I'll enjoy playing, who adds to table's enjoyment, who lets me explore the human psyche. A character whose concept and mechanics match well, who isn't "held back by their mechanics". A character whose contribution to the game, whose involvement in the various minigames, is… entertaining.

I can absolutely win or lose at character creation, even before there is a "rest of the party".

-----

Also, I could argue for being the first "spectator RPG for entertainment", with the other players forward to my enforced lessons in "balance to the table". IMO, if you are obviating the other PCs, you have failed the character creation minigame.

Many people feel superior for being a ****, and fielding some op piece to steal the spotlight. Really, the superior people are the ones who know better than to be a ****. Balance to the table.

-----

2e was "best RPG ever" for many reasons. One of them was that character creation was trivially easy. But, it could also, at the player's option, become more complex. 2e was the best of both worlds. And that is just another reason why 2e was best RPG ever.

[Cluedrew]

"Winning" the character creation minigame, for me, isn't a matter of trivializing the adventure, or the other PCs. That's easy. No, winning the character creation minigame, for me, involves creating a character that I'll enjoy playing, who adds to table's enjoyment, who lets me explore the human psyche. A character whose concept and mechanics match well, who isn't "held back by their mechanics". A character whose contribution to the game, whose involvement in the various minigames, is… entertaining.

{Claps}

I mean I am not so much into exploring the human psyche - I'm setting up so many conditions it feels hard to explore anything except my own psyche - so I would describe it as a game about expression rather than challenge. And a lot of the issues I have with D&D's system are things that get in the way of that expression.

[awa]

this discussion makes me think of someone who likes working on cars claiming that some model of car that breaks down several times a week is an amazing car just because they happen to love fixing it. You can like fixing that car but that does not make it a good car.

They did not sell d&d on the premise of complex character builds, if you look in the dmg prestige classes were supposed to be strictly limited by the dm. (I know they abandoned that premise later) That indicates that complex mixtures of prestige classes were not intended. Multi-class penalties are also intended to discourage class dipping and that mentality.

But the worst thing is many character concepts are crippled by their system, if they actually competently wanted to design complexity into the game their should be simple martial classes that have a high floor low ceiling and complex martial classes with a low floor and a high ceiling. Or the difference between an optimized character and unoptimized character should be small enough that they can be in the same party.

Except thats not what they did you have classes like the druid who are wildly overpowered with little to no effort, items like candle of invocation that require zero thought to break the game and spells like poly-morph that render most standard threats pointless.

Furthermore the base monsters and challenges simply cant begin to contend with the power levels presented by optimized characters. If someone brings a hi-op caster to a normal games the dm best moves is to say congratulations you won d&d now come back with an appropriate character.

[Max_Killjoy]

I am an athlete, I've competed in strongman competitions and various other competitions of athleticism throughout my life.

That's great, but it has nothing to do with RPGs.

I'm not saying that playing a game well is equivalent to athletic endeavor, I'm saying that we aren't the people watching people play the game.

Which misses the point by a mile.

The point is that the constant need to rank and rate and anoint the greatest reminds me of that nonsense in sports, whether it comes from observers or not. It's not enough that some players are or were great... "we" must know who is the greatest. (insert eyeroll emote here)

There is definitely success and failure in almost every RPG. Now the actual sort of success and failure varies a lot from game to game. There are also games that include ranking systems, and games that include contests.

None of which has anything to do with character creation, which is the subject (tangent) at hand.

If you not taping your ankles well causes you to become injured then maybe you should have focused on that a little bit more. In that sense 3.5 is like a muddy field, taping your ankles is becomes really important. As a strongman competitor there are definitely competitive events where your set-up is the thing that makes you succeed or fail. That's the same in many sports. Now there are events where it doesn't matter as much, but that doesn't mean that the events where it does don't exist.

This is why I rarely do analogies, because almost inevitably someone will seize on trying to warp the analogy to make their own "point".

Believing you're winning at character creation is like believing you're winning at tape. It's ridiculous.

There are games likewise where there isn't really a character creation mini-game, or where that isn't a significant part of the game. As I've said, I enjoy those too. But I also enjoy games where the setup is a crucial part of the game.

There is never a character-creation minigame.

That a few RPGs feel to some players like there is one, is a sign of faults in their design.

[Willie the Duck]

Oh, shut up, man.

But the whole "you must be this big to ride" attitude... yeah, that explains a lot about some past posts.

I hope, with the cold clear light of day, you recognize how poorly this makes you both look to someone who otherwise tends to enjoy your contributions. You both are better than this.

No wonder online discussion of D&D and D&D-likes has been so heavily fixated on builds, numerical optimization, etc... players are desperately trying to avoid all the pitfalls that the devs deliberately included in multiple editions worth of the systems.

And/or engaging in the system set up. Late 2e and 3e D&D have a certain set of traits that one can enjoy or be horrified by. 3e and PF*'s continued popularity, especially after multiple new editions (and a resurgence in playing the older versions or Mods thereof) indicate that there are people who enjoy this type of activity. And there's the rub of 3e -- you, I, or anyone else can rabidly dislike what it does, but it was designed at a time when all indications were that gamers wanted exactly that (given how 2e had evolved, as well as what other TTRPGs and computer games were popular at the time), and it was incredibly popular. I do not like the game style it incentivizes, but I recognize that others will disagree. My only problem with it was that it shouldn't be the industry leader/every-new-gamer's-first-introduction-to-TTRPGS (which it no longer is).
*And, let's be clear, all other build-a-bear games, including GURPS, Hero System, Savage World, Shadowrun, etc.

And if an RPG system is designed such that different build options cost the same amount of points or whatever other resources, but result in grossly more or less functional or effective characters, that's never good game design -- even if it's deliberate -- and doubly so if it's obscured or obtuse about it. Trap options, dead ends, and gross disconnects in efficacy per expenditure in character building are never good game design, ever, under any circumstances.

There are clearly optimal character creation choices in all build games, including those that use discrete points. Go to the GURPS, HERO, Shadowrun, or any other similar games' forums and people will navel-gaze and pontificate for threads much longer than this on the best way to crack the system wide open. Second only to that is threads complaining about people who have gamed the disadvantage system to gain extra points without having to pay any real penalty. This is not a situation unique to D&D, much less 3e/PF. A certain portion of the gaming base enjoy seeking out and discussing optimal routes (whatever they may be in a given system).

I understand what you mean, but I'm not really talking about magic, rather about how "martial" seems to have come to mean "non-magical", instead of, you know, relating to war and combat. A wizard slinging fireballs is more of a martial character than a rogue sneaking around and stealing stuff.

Probably a shorthand culled from the fact that the classes in question tend to use the 'martial' category of weapons. Regardless, it is a shorthand/jargon and those are almost always not technically accurate.

so the wizard with all its utility outperforming rogue, becomes the premier noncombat option, so you could say that magic in DnD has come to mean "everything thats not combat". because even though martials meaning being warped is weird, everyone is technically a martial in DnD and therefore the warped distinction is between things that ONLY have use in martial combat between magic users which have far more uses.

Well that is definitely what discussions like this tend to be about -- martial/'of combat' isn't the primary point of stasis, nor 'magic,' it is 'being of a primarily spellcasting-based class.' Why? Because that's where D&D* has historically placed most of its exception based rules, access to which wildly increases the range of problems a character has a reasonable ability to resolve. Take away that issue, and whether someone/something is 'martial' or not, or 'magical' or not isn't as relevant.
*And therefor anything that maintains its assumptions, even if the ruleset changes.

Um, OK.
Sounds a lot like the "need" to have character creation be a contest... or nonsense about how there's no hot without cold, or no good without evil.
And there's that...
Some people just need a pecking order to judge things against, I guess.

Or there has to be a poor selection/choice/decision at a decision-point for there to be a good selection. And people find genuine joy in the prospect of having chosen correctly. Humans are by nature problem solvers, and these are avenues towards that reward-response. TTRPGs tend not to have win conditions, but they do tend to have ways to succeed or fail (be it defeating the foe or not, getting the treasure or not, choosing the right direction when travelling to get you to where you were headed, or for some people during character creation).

[Willie the Duck]

this discussion makes me think of someone who likes working on cars claiming that some model of car that breaks down several times a week is an amazing car just because they happen to love fixing it. You can like fixing that car but that does not make it a good car.

They did not sell d&d on the premise of complex character builds, if you look in the dmg prestige classes were supposed to be strictly limited by the dm. (I know they abandoned that premise later) That indicates that complex mixtures of prestige classes were not intended. Multi-class penalties are also intended to discourage class dipping and that mentality.

Oh definitely, and I truly don't believe that the logical consequences of all the build options were truly thought through when 3.0 was conceived an implemented. I think Monte Cook's comments (let's all be clear, he has walked back a lot of it, called much of the rest a mistake, and not shown system mastery to be a personal passion. One interview does not define a person) are definitely CYA/'we meant to do that.' 3e has some genuinely huge issues with implementation, and the car that breaks down is not a bad analogy (or perhaps, 'model _____ of cars is a great model... after you've cut through the firewall and rebuilt the engine. And then only if you never use even numbered gears').

[Quertus]

There is never a character-creation minigame.

What are you trying to say here? I'm having difficulty understanding this statement as something that isn't blatantly false.

[awa]

There is never a character-creation minigame.

That a few RPGs feel to some players like there is one, is a sign of faults in their design.

A minor nitpick I have seen games that legitimately had a character creation mini game, where you would pick a profession for part of your life and then roll to see what happened during that period and what happened to you.

So character creation mini games do exist but that's not what your talking about. I personally dont believe any-kind of mini game was intended. If there is we have to assume that the creators both had impressive system mastery and then deliberately set out to make their game less fun for a significant number of players and never mentioned the mini-game in any of the material printed at the time.

None of those seems plausible (particularly the system mastery) in particular if you look at the post hes talking about taking toughness or not. Toughness is not a good feat but if you think toughness is the problem and not the caster with a candle of invocation you dont have system mastery.

[Max_Killjoy]

What he said. One of my big complaints with CCGs is that quite often the match is effectively over before the first card is drawn - be it because one player spent a few hundred bucks more or because one strategy completely shuts down the other. That is barely excusable in a CCG, which is supposed to have an economy that's a cross between crack cocaine and the nuclear arms race, but it isn't excusable at all in an RPG.

There's a reason I took one look at MTG and other CCGs early in the craze, said "I'm not a sucker", and wandered off to look at something else.

Absolutely none of that belongs in an RPG. None of that.

Because it is such an impressive achievement to write 'Wizard' in the space labeled 'class'.

I have the same reaction to any other mechanical build, from the simplest to the most complex. It's not an achievement, and quite often it's a simply a relief to find something that fits the character, especially in any version of D&D.

"Winning" the character creation minigame, for me, isn't a matter of trivializing the adventure, or the other PCs. That's easy. No, winning the character creation minigame, for me, involves creating a character that I'll enjoy playing, who adds to table's enjoyment, who lets me explore the human psyche. A character whose concept and mechanics match well, who isn't "held back by their mechanics". A character whose contribution to the game, whose involvement in the various minigames, is… entertaining.

I can absolutely win or lose at character creation, even before there is a "rest of the party".

That's not "winning" or "losing" in any real sense, that's just the process of building a character. Some systems make it easier or harder, some systems make it functionally impossible, but it's just the process.

Many people feel superior for being a ****, and fielding some op piece to steal the spotlight. Really, the superior people are the ones who know better than to be a ****. Balance to the table.

That's where the whole "winning character creation" thing falls for me... if that player is "winning", then who is "losing"? Is the point to map the character in your head into the system, etc, as you lay out above... or is the point to "win", to make a more powerful character than everyone else and "beat" the game before it ever starts? (Never mind the total silliness of the idea of "beating" an RPG.)

this discussion makes me think of someone who likes working on cars claiming that some model of car that breaks down several times a week is an amazing car just because they happen to love fixing it. You can like fixing that car but that does not make it a good car.

That is the perfect analogy for what's going on here.

They did not sell d&d on the premise of complex character builds, if you look in the dmg prestige classes were supposed to be strictly limited by the dm. (I know they abandoned that premise later) That indicates that complex mixtures of prestige classes were not intended. Multi-class penalties are also intended to discourage class dipping and that mentality.

But the worst thing is many character concepts are crippled by their system, if they actually competently wanted to design complexity into the game their should be simple martial classes that have a high floor low ceiling and complex martial classes with a low floor and a high ceiling. Or the difference between an optimized character and unoptimized character should be small enough that they can be in the same party.

Except thats not what they did you have classes like the druid who are wildly overpowered with little to no effort, items like candle of invocation that require zero thought to break the game and spells like poly-morph that render most standard threats pointless.

Furthermore the base monsters and challenges simply cant begin to contend with the power levels presented by optimized characters. If someone brings a hi-op caster to a normal games the dm best moves is to say congratulations you won d&d now come back with an appropriate character.

Simply put, the purpose of the character creation rules in any RPG system is to enable any appropriate character or concept to be translated into the mechanics of the game, in a balanced manner, and enable enjoyable gameplay with that character. If a player "wins" or "loses" character creation, then the system and/or the GM have failed.

[GloatingSwine]

To have big guns you need to have small guns for comparison's sake.

In a not-exploitatively-designed game the big guns and small guns would be different tools which are the correct thing to use in a roughly even number of circumstances.

[Rhedyn]

There is never a character-creation minigame.

That a few RPGs feel to some players like there is one, is a sign of faults in their design.

3.5 specifically was a game where you were more excited about what you could do in combat than actually doing combat.

If you have never experienced the character creation/planning mini-game then that's just something you personally lack. It's a real thing in any game with character builds. Your inability to play it does not mean it doesn't exist. (And I'm not saying you make trash characters. I'm saying you can't PLAY the character creation mini game. It's the closests thing a person can get to solo rpging without it being really really sad)

[Max_Killjoy]

A minor nitpick I have seen games that legitimately had a character creation mini game, where you would pick a profession for part of your life and then roll to see what happened during that period and what happened to you.

Randomized life paths?

Yeah... IMO... "the only winning move is to not play".

So character creation mini games do exist but that's not what your talking about. I personally don't believe any-kind of mini game was intended. If there is we have to assume that the creators both had impressive system mastery and then deliberately set out to make their game less fun for a significant number of players and never mentioned the mini-game in any of the material printed at the time.

None of those seems plausible (particularly the system mastery) in particular if you look at the post he's talking about taking toughness or not. Toughness is not a good feat but if you think toughness is the problem and not the caster with a candle of invocation you don't have system mastery.

Yeah, the most insane thing is this idea that the claimed "minigame" was evidently hidden from players deliberately, and never talked about?

[Max_Killjoy]

3.5 specifically was a game where you were more excited about what you could do in combat than actually doing combat.

If you have never experienced the character creation/planning mini-game then that's just something you personally lack. It's a real thing in any game with character builds. Your inability to play it does not mean it doesn't exist. (And I'm not saying you make trash characters. I'm saying you can't PLAY the character creation mini game. It's the closests thing a person can get to solo rpging without it being really really sad)

I've built a ton of characters in various systems, characters that I'll never get to play, or use as NPCs.

It's basically enjoyable along the same vein as crafting something in your spare time, or upgrading your own PC, or repairing your own car, or whatever, insert what you might enjoy along those same lines.

But that doesn't make it a game.

[awa]

Randomized life paths?

Yeah... IMO... "the only winning move is to not play".

I never actually played the game or saw how it played and i wasn't sure what it was supposed to look like in play. So I cant say if its a good game. But it was fun making a character.

I'm not positive but since I did not see any rules for getting better through play the game may have been intended for single adventure games.

[FaerieGodfather]

Not so, Prestigious Spellcaster being a feat now. There's also a few non-trap multiclassing options and several classes have weak (or nearly superfluous) capstones, meaning that dipping can be very viable for them.

But it does not apply to base classes... sometimes, I am tempted to believe that the sole purpose of Pathfinder's existence is to piss me off.

[Max_Killjoy]

I never actually played the game or saw how it played and i wasn't sure what it was supposed to look like in play. So I cant say if its a good game. But it was fun making a character.

I'm not positive but since I did not see any rules for getting better through play the game may have been intended for single adventure games.

There are several well-known old systems that had a ton of "life path" in their character creation rules.

Based largely on random rolls, you could start the campaign with a demigod and his closest friends, ie his half-blind hunchbacked diseased toadies, for PCs.

[Florian]

@Max:

Is it so hard to accept that there are different reasons of why and how to play the game, which need different tools to support them?

I get your position that the character creation rules should be there to create a viable character for a given setting and system.

Can you accept my position that certain games feature a friendly competition amongst the players against the GM will require different tools, thereby creating the so-called mini-game?

[awa]

There are several well-known old systems that had a ton of "life path" in their character creation rules.

Based largely on random rolls, you could start the campaign with a demigod and his closest friends, ie his half-blind hunchbacked diseased toadies, for PCs.

I never got into the guts of the system enough to really see but it did not seem as if the differences between characters were insurmountable. The numbers in general seemed fairly small. The game was called traveler I think.

[Florian]

I never got into the guts of the system enough to really see but it did not seem as if the differences between characters were insurmountable. The numbers in general seemed fairly small. The game was called traveler I think.

Traveller is the poster child for using life paths. And you're right, the basic package any character received made them fairly competent, the life path rolls added and subtracted to and from that in a fairly minor way, especially if you did it by the book and limited it to four terms and shared your points with your fellow players.

Disregard these boundaries and the result could be ridiculous, tho. I once started as a Noble because I understood how to game permanent wounds this way, then ended up with a character that managed to climb the whole imperial navy line without a loss and retired as a centuries old fleet admiral with a bazillion of friends and contacts.

[Gallowglass]

There is never a character-creation minigame.

What are you trying to say here? I'm having difficulty understanding this statement as something that isn't blatantly false.

You are both pretty er right. You just have blatantly different self-definitions of what a "game" is.

For Quertus, a game is any activity that brings him (what passes for him) enjoyment. So he "enjoys" the complex calculus of making a character that is neither too strong, nor too weak, fun for him to play and challenging and new and clever. For him, that is a "game." So there is absolutely a character creation minigame, being a discrete portion of the overall role-playing experience.

For Max_Killjoy, a game has to have an opponent, stakes, and potentially a victory/defeat outcome. the RPG is game, even though he is not competing with his teammates, because they, collectively, have an opponent (the NPCs), stakes (whatever the quest elements are) and a victory/defeat outcome (win the quest, die and start over). Each one of the in-game minigames have the same criteria. However, character creation, except in the most abstract way definable, does not have those criteria.

Except, you know, for Quertus, they do. His opponent is himself, his stakes are his potential enjoyment, and his victory/defeat is "do I enjoy or not enjoy this character". For Max, those are too abstract to qualify.

I would compare the character creation minigame here, to doing a sudoku or crossword puzzle. Are those games? If they are, then character creation is a minigame. If you don't consider puzzles games, then character creation is not a minigame.

Neither of you are wrong.

No victory! No defeat! the Forum discussion minigame continues!

Now, here's my take on it. I don't consider character creation a minigame because personal stakes are too abstract for me to qualify it, so I side on Max's side of the argument. But I absolutely respect and understand Quertus' take as well.

In my experience though, people with Quertus' take seldom stop at "can I beat my own expectations with this character" and often slide into "is my character better and/or cooler than the rest of the characters" which is where it becomes a problem and unnecessarily adversarial and potentially self-destructive. Not saying Quertus has or is, just saying, I see the potential trap.

[Morty]

@Max:

Is it so hard to accept that there are different reasons of why and how to play the game, which need different tools to support them?

I get your position that the character creation rules should be there to create a viable character for a given setting and system.

Can you accept my position that certain games feature a friendly competition amongst the players against the GM will require different tools, thereby creating the so-called mini-game?

That people do this isn't in question. What is very much in question is whether any given edition of D&D was designed to support it, or if it's just an unintentional consequence people ran with.

[Talakeal]

So, I'm in an interesting space. I am someone who has made "top-tier" builds, who games with a few like myself, and, afaict, none of us post our unique builds online. So I've seen things many of you cannot even imagine.

Yet I fail at character creation shockingly close to 19 out of 20 times. I need to "take a 20" to produce a character that I'll enjoy playing.

"Winning" the character creation minigame, for me, isn't a matter of trivializing the adventure, or the other PCs. That's easy. No, winning the character creation minigame, for me, involves creating a character that I'll enjoy playing, who adds to table's enjoyment, who lets me explore the human psyche. A character whose concept and mechanics match well, who isn't "held back by their mechanics". A character whose contribution to the game, whose involvement in the various minigames, is… entertaining.

I can absolutely win or lose at character creation, even before there is a "rest of the party".

-----

Also, I could argue for being the first "spectator RPG for entertainment", with the other players forward to my enforced lessons in "balance to the table". IMO, if you are obviating the other PCs, you have failed the character creation minigame.

Many people feel superior for being a ****, and fielding some op piece to steal the spotlight. Really, the superior people are the ones who know better than to be a ****. Balance to the table.

-----

2e was "best RPG ever" for many reasons. One of them was that character creation was trivially easy. But, it could also, at the player's option, become more complex. 2e was the best of both worlds. And that is just another reason why 2e was best RPG ever.

So do you think failing 19/20 times is a good thing?

That's kind of where I disagree with AMFV, I dont like character creation that you can fail, its hard enough to get a decent group together for a game, I dont want it to be over before it even began because people failed to make the characters that they wanted to play or that the group needs.

[Willie the Duck]

So character creation mini games do exist but that's not what your talking about. I personally dont believe any-kind of mini game was intended. If there is we have to assume that the creators both had impressive system mastery and then deliberately set out to make their game less fun for a significant number of players and never mentioned the mini-game in any of the material printed at the time.

None of those seems plausible (particularly the system mastery) in particular if you look at the post hes talking about taking toughness or not. Toughness is not a good feat but if you think toughness is the problem and not the caster with a candle of invocation you dont have system mastery.

Yeah, the most insane thing is this idea that the claimed "minigame" was evidently hidden from players deliberately, and never talked about?

That is because the entire term 'mini-game' is just a forum-jargon shorthand for a situation. One where a set of rules and the incentivization structures they create, probably/possibly* unintentionally, facilitated the ability of players to not only be able to preemptively plot out decisions which effected (or could effect) in-game success ahead of time, but to be able to do so differentially based on competence in skills separate from at-table gaming skill (either analysis or research). There's no real discrete distinct difference from reading books on how to succeed at playing chess or the like. Nor is it specifically different for 3e/PF than for games like GURPS or Hero System, it's just more obvious with 3e/PF that differing builds are genuinely of different value, despite the same supposed cost/game-ascribed-value (point value or level, etc.). So, yes, there is no actual mini-game, but there is an activity, and one in which one can excel or not, and one that pings certain reward responses (read: enjoyment) in some people and not in others.
*depending on whether one believes the Cook quote, despite contraindications

I never got into the guts of the system enough to really see but it did not seem as if the differences between characters were insurmountable. The numbers in general seemed fairly small. The game was called traveler I think.

Traveller. It is the iconic early sci fi RPG. It is really good/enjoyable (IMO). The numbers are small, but it is a 2d6 system, so they do have more than a little effect. The lifepath system, however, is a little like TSR-era D&D in that it has a different conception of game balance (some characters you roll really well and then get to play with a really competent character, and that's to be expected). There is a bunch of checks and balances as well (more tours of duty equal more chances to learn things, but also more chances to die/screw up, AND you start as an older individual, which has its own consequences). Hard to talk about in anything other than broad terms, since it like D&D has 6-10 editions depending on how you slice them. Still a very solid system and a good example of an alternative to class/level or point-buy systems.

[Rhedyn]

I've built a ton of characters in various systems, characters that I'll never get to play, or use as NPCs.

It's basically enjoyable along the same vein as crafting something in your spare time, or upgrading your own PC, or repairing your own car, or whatever, insert what you might enjoy along those same lines.

But that doesn't make it a game.

Much of the character creation mini-game is a simulation of how the character plays out in actual play, taking into account group dynamics, who is playing what, how powerful everyone's builds are, what the GM is likely to throw at the party, how does this character interact with the worlds, how do the mechanics tie into the backstory, etc.

Making theoretically strong characters is just a puzzle. Crafting good characters is a mini-game.

[Max_Killjoy]

So do you think failing 19/20 times is a good thing?

That's kind of where I disagree with AMFV, I dont like character creation that you can fail, its hard enough to get a decent group together for a game, I dont want it to be over before it even began because people failed to make the characters that they wanted to play or that the group needs.

That's a big chunk of why I'm aghast at the notion of character creation as a "minigame" with "winners' and "losers", that it somehow should be as complicated and "challenging" as possible. It's completely detrimental and contrary to why characters are being built in the first place.

[Florian]

That's a big chunk of why I'm aghast at the notion of character creation as a "minigame" with "winners' and "losers", that it somehow should be as complicated and "challenging" as possible. It's completely detrimental and contrary to why characters are being built in the first place.

And why and what for are they build in the first place?