Random roll character gen can still be faster. I'm looking at systems like WFRP, which can random roll your backstory and appearance as well as your stats, skills and equipment, and ORE systems like reign which can do all of that in a single roll along with your stats, skills and most of your equipment, just requiring a quick flick for one or two items or spells. Wouldn't really work for Shadowrun though.

A modular plugin to character generation would be handy for introducing new players though, 100BP or so packages that represent backgrounds like former miltiary and contain the baseline skills and stats required to fill that role.

I suppose I'm probably the only person around here that actually liked the old Priority Chart. Don't suppose we're ever likely to see that again, huh?

-paws

Not the old one, no. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Another way of speeding up character gen is having a rough template in your head regarding the general build.

Example: If I know I'm playing an adept, I already know I'm going to spend this much on tech, that much on stats and so on.

The particulars will vary based on the theme and quirks of the character, but the numbers themselves are more or less the same.

It's when you start customizing the character's toe-nail polish you tend to get bogged down. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

-Siege

Speed isn't the only factor, but it's one of the defining ones. Ease of use, ease of understanding, consistency, and layout quality are also factors in a good character creation system. Additionally, the ability to fix mistakes in a build without going back to the beginning is part of a good build system. Wushu can generate narrative-driven characters within seconds. However, it's a different type of game. Let's stick to games of medium crunch or higher. I wouldn't call it simpler, however.

Under Rifts, you can build a character that's slightly more complex than the average shadowrunner within 45 min-1hr. Under Savage Worlds, you can build an equivalent character within 15 min or less. Hero takes two hours, about the low end of the same time frame. GURPS depends on the amount of points you're spending, but a 100-point character usually takes about 90 min.

The SR4 system is loaded with errors, and has significant layout issues. My pet peeve is the fact that the Edges/Flaws section is smack dab in the middle of the chapter. You can't go from one section to another without having to divert through 30 pages of qualities.



I'm sorry, but that's just not the case. The Build Point system from SR2-3 was a 125 point system with fewer caps, and really only 4 things to purchase. The SR4 monstrosity has almost four times as many points to fiddle with, with the accompaning increase in granularity. and to my eye, over three times as many things to buy. That alone would make the system more complex and more difficult to use; but the addition of arbitrary caps, wildly varying costs, and a total dependance on Edges/Flaws makes it a whole new ballgame.

So, the correct statement is: "If, as a veteran player, you are familiar and experienced with ludicirously overcomplicated, obtuse, and complex Point systems, the SR4 Build Point system should be no real leap."

I had the urge to correct your statement.

Except you got it wrong.

Not one person in this thread has said that SR4 chargen is any faster than a template system. They say they might like it better, but that doesn't mean it's any faster, smoother, or easier. Even Synner's statements amount to: "It's not *that* much worse."

SR4 is not an easy system. And that's the case for everyone.

.
As usual you are entitled to your opinion, since after all it is only your opinion and mileage does vary and some people have more difficulty with the system than others.

My SR4 playtest (3) players were all SR2/3 veterans who used the Point system almost exclusively. They drew up their first SR4 characters less than 3 hours from their first ever contact with the SR4 rules without my assistance or direction. Meanwhile I was walking 2 complete SR newbies through the basic rules and character creation. Once my regulars finished their characters they started helping the newbies and within 4 hours of initial contact with the rules everyone had characters ready. Maybe your experience is different but I haven't had chargen take up more than an hour in more than two years of play (and that's only when newcomers are involved). Had they only used the Priority system in SR3, I'm certain this would not have been the case.

Yes, tweaking did go on during the first couple of sessions, as the players got a hang of how augmentations and stats have changed and how they now affect play, but one of those characters remains active today with the only significant changes being retrofitted when Augmentation came out (a street sam named Alex Machine, featured in Corp Enclaves).

These days, anyone of them can turn out a brand spanking new character with a full load of gear and implants in under 45 minutes - one thats within 1-3 dice from the top of their specialty and still covers all the basics they know they'll require in my game.

In my experience the single element of Shadowrun chargen that is inevitably time-consuming regardless of how familiar and comfortable you are with remaining steps is gear and augmentation selection. That's what happens when you have so many crunchy options. There are ways of speeding this up, and we will be addressing them in future products. Meanwhile, my players have even implemented time-saving gimmicks like "basic running gear packages" and "basic commlink/software packages" that have pregenerated costs and all the characters pick up.


I'd rather you stop misinterpreting my words, I said nothing to that effect.

If I were to compare, and using as reference my group has played on a semi-regular basis and we're familiar with, I've found SR4 chargen (among both regular players and newbies) to run faster than Rifts, Hero, Fuzion, Tribe 8, GURPS, Underground, and Kult. On par with CoC, Mage: the Awakening, (Aeon) Trinity (non-D20), (original) Deadlands, Cyberpunk2020, and some of the D20 Modern stuff. And slightly slower than Exalted (1E), Vampire (2E), and Ars Magica 2E.

No, not for everyone. SR4 is by far the simplest. I guess if SR was your main game for years, the versions which shall remain unnamed might be simpler. From a purely mechanical perspective (i.e. without any preconceptions from years of playing it another way) SR4 is far simpler, just by the simple removal of variable target numbers a whole level of needless complexity was removed. I have to agree that the layout could have been better, but honestly it's not half the pain in the ass the old stuff was. My players like it a hell of a lot more, and really don't mind the extra couple of minutes to make a character (if its taking over 20 minutes to make a 100 point character in Gurps your players have issues that no amount of discussion will resolve, ditto for Palladium). Lastly I find it quicker for putting together unique NPC's that are not carbon copies of each other. So no BP is not faster than template generation, but the time difference is something that is clearly being exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Also a lot of people don't mind the minor sacrifice in time to get away from the ability to look at a new character and know exactly what priorities were picked.

And right there I would stop you. SR4 is an easy system. I taught 3 new players this weekend (2 who played D&D exclusively, 1 who had played SR3 and some OWoD). They had characters ready to go in an hour. I had a table copy of SR4 for each of them to use, so there was no waiting on books which can certainly slow the process down.

In between helping them make characters, I tinkered with my own. Admittedly, we could post any of these characters here and people would say "drop this, add that" but each of them was balanced and capable of doing what they want. So their dice pools are in the 8-10 category--that's perfectly acceptable to a lot of people.

I suppose I'll find out tonight, first hand. My wife and I are going to be sitting down to make her character. We're making it from scratch since none of the sample character really fit her character.

Her Shadowrun experience prior to meeting me was: choose an archetype, play for an adventure or two, move on to another game. That dated back as far as early SR2. When I ran SR3, she still picked an archetype, but the game lasted more than a couple sessions and she got into it.

I'm going to let her do most of the work, answering questions and maybe making some suggestions, if needed.

-paws

Any chance of sharing them? I am always interested in what everyone feels is the 'must haves' of the Gear section.

On Paladium, IIRC (It's been a few years since picking up any Rifts stuff) that requires some rolling as part of creation, right? TO me, that has always taken much longer than point buy, simply because I have to go through and look at what assigning each roll would mean for each stat whereas with point buy I just look at what I want to do and go from there.

On Shadowrun, the longest part of any character is Gear. No need to fear if you've got the gear is an oft used statement and it is absolutely correct. On the first half of creation I spend maybe 20 minutes, but when it comes to gear I can spend upwards of 90 just to spend, sell back and respend so that every eventuality is covered & every weapon remains loaded throughout the first 3 missions. Of course, that is probably just me being a gear freak, but so what (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

So, even the implacable Synner can't get characters generated in less than three hours. Gotcha.

I've heard of 45 minute working characters, but I've never actually seen one. It's like the Canadian girlfriend: You never see her, 'cause she's in Canada. But here's a few pics! The closest I've seen were characters that had huge gaping flaws in them, such as no perception skill, no contacts, or missing essential gear/stats. When final tweaking is done, the total time spent IMS is at least two hours, and usually a lot more. Time spent doing gear templates also counts against the total time.

Bottom line: no one has ever put their money where their mouth is, and proven that they can create a SR4 character in under two hours. Not even the line developer. Meanwhile, newer systems such as Savage Worlds and ToG 4.0 can pull together characters in less than half that time. In comparison to them, SR4 is slow, clunky, obtuse, and confusing.

Cain, he's talking about people who never seen the rules before. You conveniently omitted that part in your highlighting.

-paws

Do you actually read peoples' posts? Or do you just stop reading when you pick up on something that out of context seems to validate your position?

Here, let me reemphasize for your benefit...


Get it now? This was their first ever contact with the SR4 ruleset. Which is why a few lines down you can read (if you were of a mind to actually pay attention to what people posted):

Cain--I could spend 45 minutes putting a character together, and then post it. The problem is that there is no way for me to prove beyond any doubt, that I put it together in that time period rather than grabbing a cup of coffee and then copying and pasting a character that I made previously.

I was being nice. I also omitted this part:

Which means that they found the regular process so time consuming, they had to make shortcuts. Unfortunately, that's like saying character creation is fast because you can use a program. Just because you had to cut corners, doesn't mean the basic system is any faster, smoother, or easier.

I can safely say that in all of the systems mentioned in this thread that I've played, I don't count timesavers in my total time to character. I can also say that while SR4 isn't the slowest, it's right up there. It also offers fewer options than similar point-buy systems. I honestly am amazed that people seem to think that a one-two hour character is acceptable in the new game market.

So it looks like what the problem here is that you can't min/max a character in under two hours. How exactly is that a problem?

People, once familiar with a process, tend to create shortcuts. This is especially true of people that do repetitive things. Its natural, especially when they feel like they need to save time.

Faulting a game because its not trying to shoehorn someone into the game designer's own odd way of doing things makes me wonder if you're slow at work today.



The new game market? Oh, please. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

-paws

some of us spend a lot of time on creating characters because we consider it part of the fun. taking a long time for such individuals is not necessarily so much a matter of poor system design as it is the player choosing to spend more time tweaking things.

Well, since you put it that way and since you cite me personally. I'm willing to prove it and I'm willing to so publically.

I have said more than once (including one time above) that I can produce a fully viable character in less than two hours. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. Choose a public real-time chat, we can invite anyone who wants to sit in and watch. We'll have someone independent (or as many someones as you like) time me. Plus you get to present the character concept that I have to build at the start of the chat, so we're all sure I have no prior preparation, no forewarning, or gimmicks up my sleaves.

How's that sound?

Actually what my team considers "basic gear" is representative of the way I play things at my table and will definitely vary considerably from what any other group finds essential. When they got used to the system in SR3, my players realized (all on their lonesome) that there was some items of gear that they almost always picked up no matter what character they were playing, so they came up with gear packs with those "essentials" already added up to save chargen time. When we shifted to SR4 it wasn't long before they figured they might as well do the same thing, plus they added commlinks and relevants softs into the basic load out. The only team member who didn't take the "basic kit" was the magician.

Note that the same applies for "essential skill sets". The group themselves have imposed minimum skill levels on characters (again no intervention of my own). For instance, no one at my table (5 players) has Infiltration or Perception at less than 3 and with a couple of notable exceptions (rigger and magician) they all also have the Athletics Skill Group at 3-4 (though they do break it up after chargen).

All that said, you'll be pleased to know that something official is in the works that is more versatile and easy to use. More on that when I have something solid to offer.

Honestly, you should just be ignoring him at this point. You do this, and regardless of what you come up with, he will find some kind of flaw (probably related to min-maxing) & claim the character is not complete. Not worth the hassle.

EDIT: I am also fairly certain Cain is the only one on these boards that would fault you for backing down.

I know that you should take anything said on the Internet with a grain of salt unless it's really credible, but after looking through the rules, I was able to create three characters in an hour. I mostly did it in my head. Knowing what the character is ahead of time really helps, ex. a gunslinging street samurai, a hacker, a buff troll, etc.

Of course it only takes 20 minutes to make a playable character. Apparently for some that is not good enough. For these few a playable character is one who has squeezed every BP for every last drop of effectiveness, and made a character without flaws. Min/max to the max or why bother.