Character generation, how long does it take you? Options

[James McMurray]

This poll is in reaction to another post in the TN systems thread. I'm curious how long it takes people to make a basic character. By "basic" I'm not talking about generating a backstory or penny pinching for every last bit of gear and min-max squeezings. Instead, I'm curious about how long it would take to make a character that filled the role you were looking for.

[NightmareX]

[James McMurray]

No, what I mean is a PC that isn't min-maxed to squeeze out every last drop. NPCs take about 5 minutes for me to make, if that long because I don't concern myself with point buy and just put out the stats that should be there.

Backstory is left out because it doesn't reflect the usability of the system, but rather the depth and difficulty the player has in making a history for a character.

For the record, I'm one of the 30 minutes or less folks.

[ornot]

I'm with the couple of hours, but I usually find background to be intrinsically tied in with the stats, so I could be overestimating. I need to justify (at least to myself) why my character has the stats and skills they do. I think that even if I stripped out all of that it'd still take an hour to do all the number crunching (and rechecking all my BP expenditure at least twice). Characters with lots of 'ware probably take longer due to juggling with essence.

NPCs, on the other hand, take very little time as I don't bother with BPs when making them (unless they are to play a pretty big role). Usually I'm forced to come up with NPCs on the fly as, despite generating detailed teams of security guards at the facility the players are meant to be going to, they decide to do something crazy like go to a bar and beat up some gangers. Frankly their explanation that they are trying to generate a distraction for the Star to deal with, so that the Star are less likely to respond to an alarm being raised at the facility doesn't hold much water. /rant

[NightmareX]

Ok, I see what you mean now, having checked out the last few pages of the TNs thread (and Cain's continuing SW obsession :please: ).

In that case it still usually takes me about 30 minutes. For my newbie players (four of them), it took about an hour, and we're talking people that can barely handle D&D character creation here!

[James McMurray]

IMO D&D Character creation is actually more intensive, but only if you include multiple sourcebooks. Going striahg core rules is really fast, but trying to add in the Complete and Races books requires a lot of planning in the chargen stage to be able to get your feat trees and prestige classes lined up.

[The Stainless St...]

Null voted - don't play SR4

Mr. McMurray - would you care to create a duplicate poll in General Shadowrun and compare the results?

[NightmareX]

[James McMurray]

[Brahm]

1) This poll has been done before, and not that long ago.
2) Cain is a total moron, and a particularly thick one at that. He'd argue with his last breath that by his reading of Moby Dick that a lump of coal stuck up the ass of water buffalo was of the purest white, and that anyone that argues otherwise is a fool. In my opinion the best thing for you and Synner is to come to that realization and save yourself the fustration and time wasting of repeating the most simplest of things to him over, and over, and over, and over, and over....
3) You have sort of misquoted me in your sig, or at least provided misleading supplementary info. That isn't about just Cain on that topic. It is a general statement about Cain. Try "[Cain] remains a stone in a bucket of water. Taking up space and unable to absorb." No extra explaination required.

[James McMurray]

It's been done before, but the other version(s?) didn't leave out backstories and minutes point mongering. With those added in almost any system could take weeks to generate a character (especially the backstory part).

Besides, I wanted to know if my group was ahead of or behind the curve. :)

Point taken about the sig. I'll go change it now. And yeah, it's pointless, but I gotta do something to fill the boring times, and he's so easy. :)

[The Stainless St...]

[Phobos]

Can I do a multiple votes ?

Because ... I had to vote 30 minutes or less, and the same time frame still applies for a whole process including a basic background and pretty much complete gear - but I do have some practice ... making up NPCs on the fly, creating one-shots for guest players ... that kind of stuff.

My players on the other hand ... ummm ... Having basic design done can take hours, and a complete character can take a few weeks ...

So I'd basically have to vote
1x 30 mins
2x 1h
2x 2-3h
1x longer.

Just to kill any statistical evidence in this poll before anyone tries to use it for whatever purpose ... go fake your own statistic, but don't ask real people :D

[James McMurray]

Unless something crazy happens there will not be anywhere near a large enough smapling to generate anything resembling a valid statistic from this poll. I'm just curious about a) whether my group is faster or slower than normal at 30 minutes to an hour and b) whether Cain's group is faster at multiple hours. I can get a general idea of that from this poll, if not a perfectly clear picture.

Most people on this board are probably SR4 veterans of a year or so. Those folks will be faster than newbies at generating characters.

The speed you generate one at also depends on your overall rules knowledge, not just the simplicity or lack thereof inherent in the character generation rules. If you've got a great GM / group that can answer most questions on the fly (or you can do it yourself) that will save a lot of time that would otherwise be spent looking up info.

And if your group just has one book that you pass around, that will increase the creation time, because you'll have to go back and find your place again, remember what you were lst doing, etc. This is even more pronounced if you're making a character for rules you're not familiar with, such as a guy that's played a street sam for the past 3 editions suddenly deciding to play a mage. Or conversely, a guy that's played a mage for the past 3 editions having to re-educate himself and knock down the preconceived notions about magic that come from a decade of playing a different system.

[Brahm]

[James McMurray]

True, but the level of tweaking is dependent on the game style being played, not the char gen system. I'm trying to get a feel for how easy people find the char gen system to be.

[Brahm]

[Abbandon]

Due to lack of overall knowledge my characters usually take a day or more to make lol and thats minus the background. I have to read rules, and read gear descriptions and i have no idea what necessary skills and gear my people need.

[Synner]

Maybe a better introduction would have been to ask people how long it would take them to get a basic character ready for play if the GM asked everyone to draw up new characters for a new adventure/campaign. These could later be tweaked as needed such as adding gear or shifting a rating point here and there.

[ShadowDragon]

[James McMurray]

But what about the rangers that don't shoot? :)

[X-Kalibur]

[NightmareX]

[ornot]

Last DnD game I played we took some time to make characters, but I attribute that to the number of supplements we were using. There can be some significant variation in character type in DnD, but it's mostly down to personality and even that is restricted by alignment. I blame paladins mostly.

[emo samurai]

It doesn't take me much time at all to create a character, but then again, in my games, there aren't any skill caps or 25 BP for maxing out stats, so it's like "okay, 6's in everything. We're done."