From: clanti55@ursa.calvin.edu (Christopher Lantinga)
Subject: Solution to Classic Problem: Forget Character Generation
Summary: why bother with character generation
Keywords: character generation alternative
Organization: Calvin College
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 04:38:15 GMT

Fellows, here's (to my knowledge) a radical idea in roleplaying games;
I came up with it after reading Umberto Eco's "The Role Of The
Reader".

The problem: players very often design characters which look great on
the character sheet but are unrecognizable in play. Classic
illustration: in Star Wars, you (the player) are required to actually
imitate a Wookee roar before you can play a Wookie.  That is one way
to solve a particular instance of the problem, but how do you prevent
a player from making a smooth-talking slick thief and then stuttering
his way through ever NPC encounter?  General advice about "don't make
something too difficult for you to play" or "are you sure you can play
that?" often doesn't work, and it discourages creativity.

Here's a solution I've tried...  Don't generate the character before
you start playing.  Just start playing, and define who the character
is by what the player claims he is during play, and makes him do.  The
first time I tried this, I just sat down and said, "Hey, Joe, what
genre you want to play in?" "Horror." "OK, you're walking down the
big-city street towards your favorite bookstore. You've finally
gathered the nerve to make the purchase. Just as you walk in the door,
however, a tall bearded man walks out with something large and
rectangular under his coat... What do you do, follow him or walk into
the bookstore?"  In the ensuing dialogue, it came out that the
character was an extremely knowledgeable occultist and amateur
sorcerer.  He eventually caught up with the bearded man, who
recognized him by reputation.  And so on.  The point is that it was a
very interesting character, everything interesting about him was in
the GAME SESSION, not on the character sheet, and it was very easy.

I've tried this with several other players, and invariably, when
presented with a situation in which they could define themselves, they
instantly came up with an interesting, memorable character.

I was playing without a system (Amber-style).  If you wanted, however,
you could do the same thing and stop after twenty minutes or so, once
the story was started, and stat out the character according to the
conception you had gained.

What do people think of this idea?  Playing without generating a
character first?  I know the Amber game suggests generating a
character by roleplaying out his background and development... but I
believe this is not nearly as useful as simply starting him out in the
middle of a story such as will be told during the campaign.

I got the idea by considering the following: when you read a book, you
learn about the character solely by actions and descriptions within
the text.  Sure, the author may have made up a description of him (a
"character sheet") beforehand. And then again he may not have. As a
reader you have no idea which is true and no way to tell, so it's
really irrelevant.  Why not simulate that situation in a game? Have
the character solely defined by the text (the game session) in which
he lives, and not by pieces of paper lying around on the table?

It works very well for me. I think I'd like to write an article on it
eventually and send it to some magazine...  Comments? Questions?

Ed Heil
c/o Chris Lantinga
clanti55@ursa.calvin.edu\