Best Character Creation System

GothicGothicness

GothicGothicness

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Ok, as some of you know I have started a thread here about a game I will make, and I want to use the expertise of the RPGWatch members, I am still trying to find more talented people, but I am going to start with the character generation process since it can start right now!!

So I need your guys help, which game or game series do you think have the best Charecter Creation?? For me it is definetely Wizardry series, I spent so many hours making characters there!!! But I want as many suggestions as possible from you guys, and I will make a poll after I got a lot of suggestions.

After that I will try to take the best for each of the most popular ones, and create something great, REMMEBER to say WHAT you love about the character creation of a certain game.

About the wizardry creation system I like everything, a lot of different races to choose from with differet abilities, a lot of differet classes to choose from, and interesting skills, point distrubition feels balanced, and it is interesting to choose spells from the different realms.
 
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To me, the best character creation is in fallout.
I love choosing the skills and the freedom it gives you in making a character.
 
Can you be more specific Zakhary? Which unique points about fallout do you like the best? Just that you are free about choosing skills?? I think you are fairly free in Wizardry too, or you mean that in wiz it is limited by which class you choose?? etc etc?
 
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Yeah, well I did like the classless system and the wide selection of skills and most of the skills were actually usefull during the game. The SPECIAL system also "makes sense" in some way I can't really explain.. just that.. even a newbie can easily create a good character and pretty much know what he's doing by just reading the descriptions within the generation screen itself. I love to start playing fallout1/2 cause I can create a new character and I love that part. I always end up with a completely different character and gaming experience.

The perk system is also extremely fun. And I like the tag-skill system. Kinda forces you (in a good way) to focus on certain skills.
 
I'm a fan of classless systems too, but I think whats most important to me is that options in character design have an effect in the game. Lots of skills are great but they only get used once or twice I'd rather a less complex system.
 
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There are quite a few good systems out there, ranging from classless systems like Arcanum, to very class specific ones like M&M. I enjoy them all as long as they are done right.

M&M and Arcanum are both excellent examples of solid systems.
 
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I liked Daggerfall. I especially enjoyed how you could add and create skills and abilities, but there was a penalty associated with each choice.
 
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Oh, almost forgot! I loved morrowinds too. It's pretty much the same as daggerfall. You can build a custom class etc.. Oblivion was not as good. It was a bit dumbed down (many skills removed/combined which were actually useful & fun).
 
For me it was Megatraveller. Basically you start a character and then choose various career options to enchance your skills (such as signing up to the army for 5 years). This is a great trade as do you make an older character with more skills but who is not as physically strong as a younger character or do you start adventuring as a young strong buck who has lower skill levels. There was even a chance that your character could die during character Creation (KIA or even just of old age). For someone like me who has spent hours tinkering with character in a simple tool such as NWN2 or Morrowind, Megatraveller was mana from heaven.
 
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I'd say it partly depends on how the system should work.

Should the values of the character stats be determined by random dice rolls ? Or should they be "bought" in what I know as a "shop-system", where (like in TDE = The Dark Eye RPG v4) have a fixed number of points which you are free to spend over your character stats.

About character creation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_creation
Here under "Making Decisions" is listed what I mean.

About stats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistic_(role-playing_games)

Additional stuff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game#Game_systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game_theory





I'm quite surprised, by the way, that Wikipedia doesn't even list the various systems available !
Strange. Especially meanwhile considering how many deep-into-the-details articles Wikipedia has !
 
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I created this thread in order to decide, I do like rolling my characters, but I also think in computer roleplaying it is quite pointless since you can keep re-rolling forever or even create a re-rolling script. There was one system to prevent this in one game I played by keeping the rolls secret, For example if you choose 18 in strength, the roll would be added in parts until the character reached level 10, so at level 10 you'd know what was rolled. But it didn't make that much sense, since if you created a fighter and his roll was very bad in strength, he wouldn't become that strong of a character even if you placed 18 as a base.

So unless there is a massive, vote for rolling the stats from here, I will not have stat roll,,, hmm, I guess I should make a poll for that too!
 
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I was just reading "Knights of the Dinner Table" Number 118 yesterday (I know that it's quite old now), and in it there is a funny remark:

"See KODT #114 : Fighting Old Habits - Brian uses a pda to generate 10,000 player characters only to find out that B.A. is forcing him to play EVERY character he rolled in the ORDER they were generated. Brian has been attempting to suicide his characters to move down the list to #52 which apparently has the BEST stats."
Click to expand...

;)
 
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I would agree with you and decide against rolling anything, as it is - as you well put it - quite pointless in a computer game.
 
I prefer either Point-Buy or real choices in character-creation - i.e. in RoA you could raise your good abilities by taking Flaws, so you could raise your Strength, but you had to raise also your Superstition and so your Saving-throws against Magic would suffer. Or in Darklands, where you could buy more Abilities i.e. by sending your Alchemist for a long time to the academy, but your character would age.
 
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Since you're doing party-based, I'd copy the Wiz8 model pretty closely. The critical thing in whatever system you decide to use is to make certain that it's nearly impossible to have access to every skill in any given party. That gives depth to character development since there are choices and consequences to consider as you build your party. It adds to the replay value as well. That guideline can also be applied to a single character game. Morrowind's system had some good points, but it wasn't too difficult to design a character with a solid footing in every archetype (fighter, thief, ranger, caster, healer), which makes character design and development pretty pointless.
 
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You do have a good point DTE , most of the suggestions here comes from single player games, but since I am making a party based one, acctually I am aiming for 1-6 chars and 2 NPCS, and maybe followers just like another game HEHE. But I want all suggestions anyway, you can always take good points from one game and apply it to the settings of another. Maybe it would be fun if the characters could have some backgrounds for example? Like grow up on the steet, pickpocketing + 2, sneaking + 2, lockpicking +2. Charisma - 4. Well it is just an example. So maybe I should ask, which party based games has the best character creation system instead???
 
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Might & Magic 6-7 is really nice, especially in 7 where you can choose dark/light paths for the classes (i.e: Archmage or Lich for the mage types, depending on alignement).
 
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I'd have to go with Ultima IV's virtue based selection system. Though it didn't seem to be as important in the later games, I like that I didn't chose a class or stats, rather my answers selected the best fit.
 
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I think you can take good points from several systems--though how to implement them might be harder to do than say. :) I'm with those who like the Wizardry and Might and Magic party creation , and while I like it far better than the dnd roll up system, even that is better than something too simple or too general.

There's no doubt that the perks and traits that added small but very defining characteristics in games like Arcanum and FO were really fun, too. I think you're smart to start with party creation, since it really has a lot to do with the player getting involved in the game through his characters.

Whatever you decide to do, creating a party should be detailed and give the player lots of choices, yet not to the point of being unlimited and unrealistic. I have to admit I do like the way Wizardry8 and several other games let you improve skills through use, though there's nothing really wrong with having to "train" them in specific places at specific times and with specific amounts of cash as in M&M. Improving them through use just seems to flow a little better.
 
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One thing to consider with a system similar to Wiz (and which is found in Grimoire, for example ) is that not all classes are available at creation, but can be accessed later with an opportunity to switch class when your stats have improved.
 
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