Are there RPGs where some of the character creation is partly done during play?

[akma]

Character creation can be long and tedious, and I thought about the idea of having some of it occur during the first session, and maybe even afterwards. The idea is that players will start with the general concept and some big things and develop the little details during play, until a point in which it will be finalized and they will progress with mechanics like experience points. I once thought about doing something like that with an existing system by having the start of the adventure with temporary partial amnesia.

Are there any game systems that already do it?

[Anonymouswizard]

Out of what I own, not as the default.

It is stated as an option in Fate, allowing players to leave Aspects and/or Skills blank at the beginning of play. Until they decide what rank they want all skills are at +0, and Aspects can only be compelled and invoked once they've been filled in. It works much better for Aspects than for Skills.

[LordEntrails]

This is kind of what "leveling up" is. The character develops as you get more experience.

You can also look into some mods that have a "level 0" philosophy. There is at least one module for 5E that takes this level 0 approach, where character start before they have a class. They only have stats and a race. Their class is something they gain during the first session or two.

[Mastikator]

No RPGs where this is explicitly done that I know of but I once did the backstory of a character in a prologue session with the DM, at the end the stats were made.

It was relatively quick and IMO a good thing.

[LibraryOgre]

Really, that concept is part of why I don't like 3.x... continually creating your character, trying to make the one you wanted as you level up... until you surpass that point.

Now, 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars DID have such a mechanic. You defined certain aspects of your characters background during play, explaining WHY you were able to pull something off, even if it was weird or non-sensical.

[kyoryu]

Out of what I own, not as the default.

It is stated as an option in Fate, allowing players to leave Aspects and/or Skills blank at the beginning of play. Until they decide what rank they want all skills are at +0, and Aspects can only be compelled and invoked once they've been filled in. It works much better for Aspects than for Skills.

It's the default for Fate Accelerated.

[Demidos]

I've DMed a 3.5 game where each player was given the ability to make 3 "declarations", which was basically the ability to add a certain element to your backstory mid-game. You could declare that the BBEG was married to your estranged uncle, that the shopkeeper is in fact the member of a secret organization of which you are part, or that you had a detachment of paladins watching your back for the last several sessions that step into battle when you are suddenly on the verge of death.

The players were expected to be mature with their declarations, things like "I solve the plot" would obviously be not allowed, but I told them that if there was any way I could reasonably allow it I would. I thought the concept was very neat as it allowed the players to act on their changing understanding of their characters through time, and made the backstory something more organic and interactive than a boring 3 page long essay about their early lives. It could also keep the other players (and DM!) on their toes without having to figure out some complex system of explaining your character without showing anyone your sheet, to preserve the surprise twists.

[Maclay]

Two games come to mind when I consider this, but while they do what you ask to some degree I suspect they won't be what you're looking for in other regards.

At the most basic level you have Roll for Shoes. A short simple game in which you start with precisely one skill:
Do Anything 1d6
Contested rolls on d6s, roll all 6s and you get a skill in whatever you were doing e.g.
Climbing 2d6
Rock-Climbing 3d6
I've only seen it played, so please excuse any errors in explaining such a complex rule set.

The other game I've looked at that does something along these lines is Leverage (Cortex Plus) wherein you join a crew of crooks sticking it to the man for the greater good. It's based on a TV series.
Character creation starts with determining the broad strokes (what your main 'things' are) but then you can run a Recruitment Job where your character proves their worth and fills in the blanks as the job progresses.

[Blazmo]

Sounds like powered by the apocalypse games would be right up your alley.

[Prime32]

More for fluff than crunch, but Tenra Bansho Zero has "Scene Zero" rules where you start the game by having each PC play through some of their backstory in turn. Mind, the whole game is structured around short scenes and allows players to participate even when their character isn't present, so this tends to be less awkward than many attempts at a "Session Zero".

[Lapak]

This is kind of what "leveling up" is. The character develops as you get more experience.

You can also look into some mods that have a "level 0" philosophy. There is at least one module for 5E that takes this level 0 approach, where character start before they have a class. They only have stats and a race. Their class is something they gain during the first session or two.

Dungeon Crawl Classics uses this method. (Or rather, a more extreme version with a 0-level 'funnel'; every player starts with several 0-level characters and the ones that survive the first adventure earn a character class.)

But that's further away from finished than the original poster seems to be describing, where it's just finishing touches and specializations being nailed down after play begins. I like that idea, though!

[Anonymouswizard]

It's the default for Fate Accelerated.

Yeah, I tend to forget about FAE and assume Core is the only default (because FAE is technically a heavily altered Core). Plus FAE seems a bit weird to be, being a more of a pick-up game whereas I'm more used to Fate as the game that assumes a session zero.

[Knaight]

Fate more or less swiped this from the "Fudge on the Fly" article on the (now defunct) Fudge Factor eZine. There you defined a character by a descriptive concept, the highest skill on a skill pyramid, and a flaw. Whenever a skill came up you assigned it to a blank on the spot until the pyramid was full.

[Rerednaw]

Dungeon World...for that matter it's parent Apocalypse World and most of the hacks (subsystems that use the engine) kind of work that way. Your character motivations are made during play.

FATE has some elements like that.

Basically the systems with more player agency and narrative tend to lean towards this.

[Pex]

In Traveller your character can die during character creation.

[Nifft]

In Traveller your character can die during character creation.

I wish that were referred to as "Dribbling".

[Aliquid]

In Traveller your character can die during character creation.

This is true.

I actually quite like the character creation process in traveller, if done properly in a group process.

[Tinkerer]

Before the first level up (or for about the first 3 sessions or so for other systems) I tell my players they can reshuffle if they haven't used a particular ability yet so I tend to tell them not to worry too much about getting everything just perfect since if something doesn't quite match up they can reallocate. That helps cut down on character creation time since I find during character creation players spend about 50% of the time on 90% of the process and the other 50% spent trying to finish the last 10% of the character. We then have a brief chat at the end of the first adventure where we get everything sorted out and finalized.

[Pilo]

I know a game called Leverage Roleplaying Game from Margaret Weis Productions, where each character is partially done during the first session.

[Capt Spanner]

I can't remember the name of the system (it was never formally published anyway) where you had a pool of skill points that you allocated during play, by filling out backstory.

So you'd start the character with no (or minimal) back story, beyond a motivation, and no skills. Then when you come to a challenge you fill in a backstory justification for the skills you want, and the GM tells you how many points it will cost, based on the plausibility of it.

If you need extra points, you can also take a flaw to buy extra points.

For example:

GM: You come to a chasm, about three metres wide. There is no bridge.

Player (P): I want to jump the chasm. I was a long jumper, and competed for my school. I could often clear three metres.

GM: Okay, that's pretty plausible. Two points.

P: Oh, I only have one point left. Tell you what, I have an phobia of water.

GM: That will give you an extra three points to spend. You get the skills.

[Later]

GM: You can approach by water, but you'll only have sixty seconds in the water before the hyper-sharks detect you.

P: Sixty seconds? That's not much. Okay, I used to be an olympic swimmer. I can do it. How many points?

GM: An olympic swimmer would do it, but that's pretty implausible. Eight points?

P: Okay, so ...

GM: Wait, you have a phobia of water. How did you become an olympic swimmer? Sixteen points.

P: Oh, Belgium!

[Skelechicken]

Dread suggests allowing players to do this by seeing what checks they can and cannot pass.

So if a player asks if they can translate a tome written in an obscure language loosely based on Latin because they were an academic in an unspecified field and succeeds their check, then suddenly their player has a field, and in the future may not need to make skill checks to do similar translation.

That said Dread is a pretty loose system. The other examples here have a bit more crunch.

[DonEsteban]

The Conan RPG and other games using the 2d20 system like Infinity or Star Trek do this to varying degrees by developing "Life Paths". It usually takes about one session or less. It is fun. Star Trek also has the option to create a skeleton character and fleshing out aspects during play (similar to FATE).

[Cluedrew]

At the most basic level you have Roll for Shoes.

A game that didn't try to be anything more than what it wanted to be.

I've also heard of One Last Job, which is about a bunch of criminals doing the last job. Character creation continues into play with other players talking about the things your character did on the previous jobs. I've never even read the rulebook, so this is really a second hand blurb.

[Aliquid]

Yeah, I tend to forget about FAE and assume Core is the only default (because FAE is technically a heavily altered Core). Plus FAE seems a bit weird to be, being a more of a pick-up game whereas I'm more used to Fate as the game that assumes a session zero.

Total sidebar here... but I find the acronym FAE amusing

Consider that it is short for [Fate Accelerated Edition]... and FATE was originally an acronym itself, which was short for [Fudge Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment], based on the older Fudge RPG. Going even deeper, FUDGE was originally an acronym too [Freeform Universal Do-it-yourself Gaming Engine].

So FAE is an acronym nested in and acronym nested in an acronym.

FAE = Freeform Universal Do-it-yourself Gaming Engine Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment, Accelerated Edition

[Studoku]

In Traveller your character can die during character creation.

Traveller character generation is practically a game in itself

[wumpus]

In Traveller your character can die during character creation.

First edition Traveller (no idea how it changed) also had no means to level up or advance (although presumably you could take training during downtime. Or perhaps homebrew chip brain inserts and software downloads). Wealth (especially with ship ownership) was presumably a primary form of advancement.

Really, that concept is part of why I don't like 3.x... continually creating your character, trying to make the one you wanted as you level up... until you surpass that point.

Now, 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars DID have such a mechanic. You defined certain aspects of your characters background during play, explaining WHY you were able to pull something off, even if it was weird or non-sensical.

I would think that for campaign play, a character *should* be changed by an adventure, and certainly the major changes of a long campaign (3.x is also great for building a "snapshot" single play character).

The big catch is that D&D is always going to be pretty class heavy (and OOTS plays this well for laughs), and the abuse that 3.x lends to that will always feel weird as you play a build as it develops. Advancing skills in smaller chunks that full classes sounds better, but is significantly harder to balance.

[Magic Myrmidon]

There's a small RPG out there called "One Last Job" in which character creation is done as part of the planning for a heists. Looks pretty neat, but I haven't played it.

[kyoryu]

but is significantly harder to balance.

[citation needed]

Seriously, I find 3.x to be more abusable than the vast majority of skill-based systems, including noteworthies such as GURPS.

It's one of the reasons I don't care for 3.x, actually - less flexibility in exchange for more charop potential? I'll pass.

[Knaight]

[citation needed]

Seriously, I find 3.x to be more abusable than the vast majority of skill-based systems, including noteworthies such as GURPS.

It's one of the reasons I don't care for 3.x, actually - less flexibility in exchange for more charop potential? I'll pass.

Classes overall being easier to balance doesn't mean much for 3.x, between heavy multiclassing and the sheer number of classes. There's also the matter of how simpler systems are easier to balance than more complicated ones, and 3.x is way over on the more complicatedend of the scale. It's just familiar enough to the general RPG community that the complexity gets understated, leading to ludicrous comparative statements like "D&D 3.x is less complicated than GURPS".

[kyoryu]

Classes overall being easier to balance doesn't mean much for 3.x, between heavy multiclassing and the sheer number of classes. There's also the matter of how simpler systems are easier to balance than more complicated ones, and 3.x is way over on the more complicatedend of the scale. It's just familiar enough to the general RPG community that the complexity gets understated, leading to ludicrous comparative statements like "D&D 3.x is less complicated than GURPS".

I don't really consider 3.x to be a class-based game, to be fair.

The big issue with 3.x in terms of charop complexity is the fact that "class levels" are effectively bundles of various things, unlike buying most things in GURPS/HERO where you're just buying that thing directly. That makes balance much, much more difficult.