Character Creation, Ever just have a concept change and change and change again? Options

[ElFenrir]

Or, to say it better...a base concept go through a bunch of different varieties.

Example. You have an idea to play a Genius Troll. You just want to play a really smart troll, plan on taking qualities to get Logic to 6, etc, maxing it out. Whatever character creation method...Karma, BP, doesn't matter.

So, you branch out on this. Your super-smart troll is going to be a Hermetic mage. Take advantage of that nice Logic. You don't totally gimp his Body. You leave the Strength score alone...hey, 5's alright, something has to give somewhere. Perhaps in Karmagen you get him a 6 here. Whatever. But the main point is high Logic, and you even get him some Cerebral Boosters. You want him to be the Super Smart Troll, after all. You make up some backstory for him, Hermetic mage, trained somewhere, college educated. Perhaps he likes electronics on the side, too. It was his interest before he awakened.

But wait...running a little low on skill points. Or perhaps you decided he liked electronics more than just dabbling, and it has nothing to do with skill points. Or something. Because you notice his magical skills going down, and his tech skills going up somehow. You still have the basic concept; genius troll, likes smart guy stuff. But now he's leaning more toward tech.

Then you remember Adepts. Adepts can add to Tech skills easily. Maybe it would be cool if your genius troll developed his magic as an Adept, to make him feel out the machines better? He still has his basic personality(maybe a few tweaks...perhaps as the mage he was even a little snobby, he became a little more laid back in this route for some reason. Maybe even gained a point of Charisma.)

But then you start reading about a bunch of brain-boosting cyber and bioware, and decide adept isn't really for him....just a mundane. He also gets much more than electronics...he ends up with different mechanic skills and even armorer-making him a fixit man of all trades.

So, while the concept of Troll Genius stayed the same, a few other things changed here and there, but the concept of ''Hermetic Mage'' changed to ''Mundane FixitDude of All Trades'', and then stopped a few places in between.

Has this ever happened to any of you? I find now and again it happens to me-I'll start with one concept, and then, while little things(general personality, etc), might stay the same-the concept will turn on it's head. It could be something as simple as ''Elf Corporate Gunbunny'' somehow turning into ''Elf down-and dirty unarmed pit fighter'', or something as long as ''Human Mundane Face'' transforms to ''Dwarf Combat Mage''. Hell, they are basically different characters in the end, though little things might stay enough the same(name, basic background) that you don't end up making two characters. This doesn't happen all the time-but sometimes...yeah. It does.

Am I the only one here?

[Cain]

No, you're not

This is one of many reasons why it takes me hours to days to complete a SR4 character-- it's difficult to change concepts midstream, without undoing the whole character. Compare this to GURPS or Savage Worlds, where the transition is much easier.

[Ryu]

No, you're not

This is one of many reasons why it takes me hours to days to complete a SR4 character-- it's difficult to change concepts midstream, without undoing the whole character. Compare this to GURPS or Savage Worlds, where the transition is much easier.

How so? Less granularity?


But it happens to me. Currently I have to make a choice between a rigger/hacker, the magician that came from it, and a combat hacker (very distinct from the rigger/hacker). The uniting factors are a nearly identical natural statline, the "general dwarven" race, and sizeable investment in skillgroups of rating 2-3. Or more precisely, "the uniting factors were", since I´m now considering to play an elf for the first time in SR, and that one would have a different statline.

[ElFenrir]

Yeah, sounds like what happens to me now and again. While some characters roll off the press, so to speak, almost perfectly(give or take a few skills), others just change.

My changeling is this. An elf changeling-race and changeling aspects didn't change. But he went from being a mundane tech with some good athletics, a bit of firearms and some nice martial arts skills(good for on-site stuff in a dangerous environment), to a tech adept...to a mage with little tech skills, but was new in magic. Stats and the base skills of athletics/pistols/martial arts didn't change, but other stuff did. Now I'm more tempted to send him down yet another route...totally different than before, more underground and gritty. For some reason it just sort of happened. I like all those other aspects, but for some reason this new thing came to mind. And who knows if yet another will come to mind after this.

[Cain]

How so? Less granularity?

Surprisingly, no. SR4 has less granularity that GURPS does, but GURPS has fewer restrictions and subsytems to deal with.

For example, let's say I start making a character in SR4. I've spent my 200 BP, but as I look at my skill list, I realize I need more Quickness to really get what I want. But the only way I can get one attribute to go higher is to lower another. If I'm hard-maxing, I need to lower 3 attributes in order to raise it. So, I'm forced to go back and juggle some more numbers in order to get that stat one point higher.

GURPS is all BP-driven as well; but if I want an attribute to go higher, I just spend the BPs on it. No limits involved.

Skills is another issue. Annoyingly enough, GURPS breaks things down into quarter-points here, so it suddenly becomes four times as complicated as before. Despite this, the exact value of a skill is easy to determine; it all goes off of one chart. In SR4, if I have two skills at 5, I have to juggle a lot of them if I want to raise one skill to 6. If I decide the dice pool needs to be even higher, I'll end up back juggling attributes again.

Edges and Flaws are yet another. If I decide a character is better off as an adept, I have to go back, erase some of my existing advantages, and replace them with the Adept one. I also have to juggle out points to give him a decent Magic, and then allocate those powers. To get those points, I'll need to strip them from attributes and skills.

So, we've done three things: we've changed one stat, one skill, and added one edge. And in all three cases, we practically had to undo entire sections of the character and almost start from scratch.

GURPS has many times the granularity of SR4-- even with a similar amount of BP, GURPS uses quarter-points and well as half points, which makes it a much more fiddly system to cope with. But it also doesn't have the arbitrary restrictions, so it's actually easier to create a character.

[FlashbackJon]

How so? Less granularity?

I can't speak to GURPS, but in Savage Worlds, character creation take 5-10 minutes tops, even for the most anal player, so even undoing the whole thing only takes that long, and adjusting obviously takes less. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

To the OP: no, you're not alone. This happens to every single character I ever made. And yet I still have stables of them to choose from.

[Ryu]

Thanks. GURPS sounds a bit like the karma-gen system, all things considered.

[ElFenrir]

Karma-gen can cause it's own little bit of management. Now, granted, you can end up with more. You're usually not shaving points like hell, like can happen in the BP system.

But sometimes you do need to do some manipulating. Say you decide you want your Company man or Sam or whatever to have Heavy Weapons(Launch Weapons) of 3(+2). This is 16 Karma. Now, you have several places you can get this from. Lowering another 4 to a 3 gets you 8 Karma, knocking out a specialization gives another 2, and you decide they can go without the 1+2 skill for the last 6. This happens in BP as well, just a bit differently(since it's a constant cost. If you wanted Heavy Weapons 3, you basically would have lowered 2 skills by 1, and then maybe knocked off a couple specializations.)

Points management can certainly strike here. But yeah...the thing about having to remake the character? Yeah. I mean, even though the one concept I'm working on has similar attributes and the like, there are still things that I just had to out and out change, and i had to rebuild him to do it. So this particular character is currently on his 4th revision. I love the base concept, I'm just seeing which ''full'' concept clicks with him-and me-the most.

This by far isn't my first character this happened to, though. I've had several that went through 2, 3, or even 4 revisions. I guess it just hits more for certain concepts. It's not that I dislike the base concept, it just seems that certain concepts loan themselves to opening up more in my mind, or something.

[marinco]

Same here, usually it takes me a few days to completely be happy with a character. Maybe a few hours to get the core stuff done, but then ideas will just pop into my head and ill make many..MANY little changes here and there.

I once started off with a homeless pickpocket/sneaky type, the moved to a sneaky/sniper, then to a sneaky bladesman, and finally to a SURGE III cat person.

yea...wth lol

[Cain]

Thanks. GURPS sounds a bit like the karma-gen system, all things considered.

There are some similarities, but it's closer to the standard BP system. It does have ascending costs for attributes, but not skills (well, not exactly). You also don't directly buy your equipment with BP's.

[Nigel]

My current character IRL started out as a grim Troll blademaster, reaper-of-death type who took his "duties" seriously and let nothing get in their way. He then changed to an insane (still Troll, though) battle dancer, specializing in unarmed combat and dodging. He is now in his hopefully final form, a nature-loving Troll thrower. By nature-loving, I mean nearly shamanic. He throws anything, but his favored weapon is throwing axes, which he has bandoliers of strapped to himself. He also uses the occasional grenade, and sometimes his ironwood sword.

[It trolls!]

Happens to me all the time. I haven't developed any new rounded characters in some time, only stat-studies and such. The last character I developed started out as a TM, became an adept and then developed into a hacker. The only part that stayed constant was the face part, because that is needed for the group I intend to play the character in and the notoriously lying manipulative elven bitch character I wanted to portrait.

[Rad]

Happens all the time. While working up a character in notepad or with a generator program, I usually have to save at least 3 versions as I try out the different ways the concept could be approached, then go back and compare. Part of it is because there are so many different paths to get the same result, another is because it's damn hard to fit what you want into 400 BP, and I generally have to try several approaches to find the one that can best pull it off.

This happens alot with my melee combat builds, as you can go mundane with 'ware, adept, possession mage, or some combination of the three.

The biggest example though was a character I had statted up before I started playing, which then morphed considerably as I redesigned him to be my backup character in the group I'm playing with, and incorporated rules from other books that I didn't have when I made him the first time.

The idea was for a slightly crazed combat-type who used twin swords and explosives, with just enough magical ability to set things on fire if all else failed. Basically a guy who liked messing stuff up in a big way.

He went from being a human mystic adept (Hermetic) named Adrian Sharp from Seattle who'd watched too many samurai movies, rode a motorcycle, had two contacts, a Wolf mentor spirit, and used his small-time demolitions business as a front for shadowrunning--and ended up a Chinese ork named Wu-Long Feng who ran a fireworks shop in Hong Kong, was trained in classical martial arts and the Wuxing tradition, had connections with virtually every triad in town, and had turned to Shadowrunning after having the Red Dragons bail out his business. He also couldn't drive and had traded his Improved Reflexes power for Move-by-Wire 2 to keep up with the curve.

Then there's Bad News Johnny, who started out as a human detective with edge 8 and the Bad Luck quality, and somehow became a troll ex-go-ganger in the witness protection program, whose idea of detective work is: "Find somebody who knows more than me, and ask hard". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Don't even get me started on all my super-knife-fighter builds. Razor Eddie alone took three incarnations, and he was based on a book.

[ElFenrir]

One thing I do notice, is that the later incarnations many times just have a higher...coolness factor. In the things I'm reading here, Nigel's Troll thrower sounds so badass in the last version, as does your Chinese Ork fireworks guy(I can SO picture that guy in some sort of Hong Kong Action movie. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

Recently I have a merc type I'm working with. Simple concept...27 or so year old human fellow, in the military for awhile(18-25 or so-though you wouldn't guess it by looking at him with his long, green hair. I dunno why that jumped out at me, but it did. One of those oddities I just wanted him to have.) Ended up out, still working out his backstory why he left. But he has a dependent...a young girl, around eight, who is showing strong signs of technomancer type things(she loves machines and tends to talk with them, she's a little distant, etc.) I wanted to use the Dependent flaw. I figure she might have been the kid of an old higher-up or something that he ended up taking as a favor.

He started as your ''basic merc'' skill-wise, but now he's starting to go toward a ''battle artist'' type, with a good Artisan skill in some sort of metalcrafting, as well as a very high Armorer skill, and he has his own little shadow-business. Battle-artistry goes with just taking all kinds of combat and making it not only effective, but look good as well(he's got Firearms Group, martial arts at level 3 or so and a high skill, some skill in Heavy Weapons and blades, and even dabbles in thrown.) I just need to do some points-shifting to get the Armorer skill. The original idea had him being a sort of leader-type with a good Leadership skill, but that might change. He's a mundane with some nice cyber at the moment. I don't see that changing...yet. Who knows, I might come up with a different idea yet-so far the idea is KIND of the same, but it's got enough differences to warrant the possible ''start to change''. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I am considering working with the GM on making a cyber-suite for him that's perfect for him, since he's that battle artist type, down to his cyberware.

[BullZeye]

I've done maybe... 30 or so different characters (never played single one yet myself, tho one is in use by one of the players) to see, as my players like to complain about "It's impossible to make [insert char idea here] work properly", could such be done. So far haven't found a build that can't be done (reasonable ones, that is) but it just takes a LOT of time. Now if all goes well, I might soon get to play SR for the first time ever (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) and the char what I've been planning for a month or so has been reworked so many times I can't even remember how it was originally. The simplified concept of it is a corp bodyguard who has taken a huge dept and has to gain some additional cash from somewhere else = running. First he was merely a close combat specialist (MA and automatics) but as the group needed a face as well, I had to change the build to be able to handle negotiations adequately (empathy software is ok in the game so that's "easy" +6DP).

Making a quick char with charbuilder program takes about... 5 mins, but to make it "alive" takes at least from me loooong time and the ideas of "how to" make the character change during that time. Tho the mage->adept->mundane doesn't happen (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) That's always the base where the build wraps around from the start on me at least (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

In SR4, if I have two skills at 5, I have to juggle a lot of them if I want to raise one skill to 6.

If you have two Skills at 5 and want one Skill at 6, you decrease one Skill to 4 and increase the other to 6.
What about that is 'a lot'?

[Wasabi]

Am I the only one here?

Nope, I am guilty as *ell of this too. LOL

[Rad]

One thing I do notice, is that the later incarnations many times just have a higher...coolness factor. In the things I'm reading here, Nigel's Troll thrower sounds so badass in the last version, as does your Chinese Ork fireworks guy(I can SO picture that guy in some sort of Hong Kong Action movie. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

Well, our group's style is pretty much like a Hong Kong action movie, so that's basically where he's going--if my current character ever dies, which so far the GM hasn't been able to do, despite much trying. (Finally managed to hit the guy last session, first time I'd taken a bullet since I started playing 7 weeks ago.)

Reworking the character definitely tends to add more depth, as you spend more time thinking about the stats and where they come from. Sometimes it's almost like the numbers and qualities write the backstory. Martial Arts + Explosives Shop + In Debt = Fireworks merchant in hock to the triads forced to work it off using his skills.

If I were a cynic I might call that retconning to explain away any questionable build tweaks.

Wait, I am a cynic--damn. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Cain]

If you have two Skills at 5 and want one Skill at 6, you decrease one Skill to 4 and increase the other to 6.
What about that is 'a lot'?

You're assuming you want one of those two skills at 6. Gods help you if you decide you need a skill you haven't bought yet at 6; or worse, at 7.

[ElFenrir]

You're assuming you want one of those two skills at 6. Gods help you if you decide you need a skill you haven't bought yet at 6; or worse, at 7.

I was thinking the same thing. I mean, sure it's easy if it's just a switcheroo...but one of the things with changing concepts usually involves much more than a couple of points shifted. When your Ork Gunbunny with Pistols 5, Automatics 5 and Longarms 4 suddenly turns to an elven melee dude(whom doesn't suck with guns, mind you), you first drop off the gun skills, regaining 56 Bps. Taking Firearms Group 2 for 20, you load in 6(+2) into Unarmed Combat for 26 points, leaving 10. But wait, you wanted him to have Blades(Swords) 3(+2), and that's 14 BPs. And...wait, the Athletics Group of 1 that the other guy had due to a slightly higher Reaction(you already shifted some Reaction to Strength for the elf...not to mention retooling the attributes in general to make a more melee centric build, since the Ork didn't have to overload his Strength and Body too much...), isn't going to cut it in melee with the Gymnastics Dodge. You need to boost THAT up(or just take Gymnastics separate, etc.)

Retooling can be a real pain in the arse sometimes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I'm lucking out on this merc I'm playing around with, since his basic idea isn't TOO much different. Just a bit of skill retooling(though with karma it's also a bit of a pain, since dropping a skill from 3 to 2 does not give you enough to up something from 4 to 5.) So far. Who knows where else this is going.

[kanislatrans]

I rarely end up with the concept I start out with. I blame the Dev. for putting out so many goodies to play with. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

lately I have been toying with a rigger concept that is in the 6th draft on scratch paper and hasn't even hit a character sheet yet.

I think its either a case of too many choices or my inabily to make a decision. I can't decide which one at the moment. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Cain]

Too many choices, not enough direction.

Again, look at GURPS. It has at least as many choices, but offers more advice in selecting a direction and sticking to it. Hero is similar.

The SR4 core book says: "You do it this way. Unless you don't feel like it". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) The way it's written, you end up having to undo a lot of previous choices if you want to make a different one later. Gurps and Hero don't have that problem.

[awolfromlife]

I had a character concept morph from human " Face " with a MIB kinda theme to an ex Lone Star SWAT officer that got turned into a Ghoul to the latest an elf Hedge Witch talk about point shuffling (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[DTFarstar]

I don't retool, I make more characters. I start with a blank slate every time. I see no reason to do otherwise unless the concepts are so similar as to take it a small hassle. I have a small pile of finished concepts that can be pulled out at any given time for one-shots or as templates to help new players build their characters. I don't understand why you retool in the middle of a build instead of just finishing it off and starting over if you have a different concept you prefer.

Chris

[Cain]

There's no reason to finish it if the character isn't working. You're right, however, that the only real solution is to start over, but that can be a hassle in and of itself.