Decline Character creation screen starts with race selection or worse

[Darth Canoli]

In a Pen & Paper RPG, at least when I used to play, you'd start to pick your role in the party.
And the role was basically your class, sub-class and skills specializations

• Fighter (Tank or damage dealer)
• Rogue (A lot of specializations possible, from party's "face" to Assassin with a lot of possibilities in between like classic pick locks thief or jack-of-all-trades )
• Cleric (specializations possible)
• Mage (same)
• And so on

Some systems allow for more complex roles depending on the social and general skills.

Then, you pick your character's race according to its role, and then roll attributes and skills and eventually, you'd draw your character or print something.


How it's done in 90% of recent cRPG

1. Pick your race first, then your class.
2. Or, pick your appearance first, then your gender, then your race and then your class.

Some games have complex synergies between races and classes, like Wizardry where your attributes limit class choices so I get why the order is not the obvious class first.

BUT, most recent games dropped attributes requirements for classes and if they have any, they're so low it's irrelevant anyway, so why?

I find it extremely disturbing and even more when some races don't have access to certain classes.
When creating a party, I usually go by roles, starting with the fighters, so at some point, when the character creation start by races, you might have to restart halfway through because the race you selected doesn't have access to the class you want.
Or the race you selected gives some bonus more suited for a fighter and you're creating a mage.

Am I alone in this?

Why the hell 95% of the cRPG don't start character creation with class selection?

 

[Butter]

Genetics matter more than your vocation. It's pretty based.

 

[Darth Roxor]

you'd start to pick your role in the party

pffffffffffffff

real men roll d100 and accept that they are now going to play a rat catcher

 

[luj1]

Since Ive been playing CRPGs it was always Gender > Race > Class > Attributes > Template/Package

 

[V_K]

Some games have complex synergies between races and classes, like Wizardry where your attributes limit class choices so I get why the order is not the obvious class first.

I don't think that's a problem either. As it currently works, you pick a race and then you're offered a limited class selection depending on your attributes. But it could work just as well in reverse: pick a class first, then get a limited race selectio that only includes races that can provide required attribute values.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Read the manual before playing and you won't have to worry about the order in which you set up your characters.

 

[luj1]

Never read a manual in my life

 

[KateMicucci]

I want to delay picking my class for as long as possible- preferably a few hours into the game.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

, you'd start to pick your role in the party.

you'd roll your ability scores then pick your class based on what you rolled

 

[Pound Meat]

Big-tittied white girl every time.

 

[OSK]

How it's done in 90% of recent cRPG

1. Pick your race first, then your class.
2. Or, pick your appearance first, then your gender, then your race and then your class.

It makes sense. The things that most greatly impact the physical appearance of your character comes first so the paper doll can be generated and updated throughout the character creation process. You might not be the target demographic for that, but it appeases the ones that are without any drawback for anyone else.

 

[Ismaul]

Who cares man.

As long as the interaction between the things you choose is clear (for example if race affects class choice), and there's a back button that doesn't clear all your choices, I couldn't give a fuck about the order.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

last RPG I've played where race actually mattered to some degree was basically DDO

 

[Darth Canoli]

Examples of good character creation screens (=/= system)


Isles of Terra (M&M III, 1991, New World Computing)

Everything in one screen, clear and focused.
Classes all have attributes prerequisites and you can see which ones are allowed with the current roll in the top right corner.
Reroll is one click away.

g

The Mandate of Heaven (M&M VI, 1998, New World Computing)

Slight decline with the attribute and class system, dropped from 10 to 6 classes and not more attributes prerequisites.
On the other hand, they improved upon the skill system which you can now level up (you gain skill points mostly from level up)
No dice roll for attributes, they switched to point buy, I like both systems but with a soft spot for good and well designed (not Wizardry 1-7) attribute roll systems.

Still, the character creation process takes one unique screen, just like in M&M III, IV and V.

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (1993, Strategy Simulations Inc. )

One of the best character creation screen, from UI to looks, cheat options aside, a really unfortunate feature.

Age of Decadence (2015, Iron Tower Studio)

Picture probably from an early build, less polished but looks quite good.
Once again, everything is done with only one screen, even cosmetic options for the ******* ******* ****** *******
And later Dungeon Rats will put Iron Tower back on the rails with a party-based formula.

Eschallon book II (Yeah, no)

I really like rolling dices here, great dice rolls sound effects.
Unfortunately, the game engine is a three legged land turtle...
Good Character creation screen though, almost there.

Order doesn't matter here as everything is on a single screen and that's exactly how it should be done.

In my eyes, Wizardry 8 still has the best character creation and since it's point buy instead of dice rolls, you don't have to start over.
Besides, there is a printed manual available.

I don't think that's a problem either. As it currently works, you pick a race and then you're offered a limited class selection depending on your attributes. But it could work just as well in reverse: pick a class first, then get a limited race selectio that only includes races that can provide required attribute values.

It doesn't work in reverse at all.
When I launch a cRPG, depending on what it offers, I want to play specific classes, not races.
From the class selection, you start to imagine your character, pick a race and go on.

Read the manual before playing and you won't have to worry about the order in which you set up your characters.

I used to do this back when manuals were at the very least informative.
The other great thing was paper manuals you could easily browse while on the character screen.

Now, you get a shitty pdf with little info when you get one and you have to ALT TAB and scroll through that garbage.

 

[JarlFrank]

The best character creation screens have everything in one screen. Knights of the Chalice 2 has a great character creation screen, for example.

 

[gurugeorge]

It is incredibly irritating when you pick something and find that a later pick is incompatible so you have to go back and re-do earlier choices. You'd think that with computers it would be easy to sort out (and some systems do, where a race choice greys out a class choice, or vice-versa - but you also want to have boni and mali quickly connable).

Also, as it's the first thing a player encounters, you'd think it would be quite highly polished for ease of use, to give the player a positive first impression.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

So one day, I think this was back before I realized what a cancer RPG Net was, someone asked for a recommendation for an RPG that has character customization but no gender option. I was confused, and I asked for some clarification, and I said, "Are you sure? Because character customization without gender selection sounds like the opposite of what you want." Dude said he was sure that was what he wanted--character customization with no gender option.

The gentleman gets what the gentleman wants, I guess. In the original Fable, you play a dude, no option to change gender, but you can change his hair and stuff at the barber shop. In Kingdom Come Deliverance you play Henry, no gender options, but you can change his hair and whatnot at the bathhouse. Those were the only two games I could think of.

That's not what this guy wanted. He wanted to play an RPG where you can customize your androgynous humanoid avatar with gay cross-dressing stuff without specifying whether they/them is male or female.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

So one day, I think this was back before I realized what a cancer RPG Net was, someone asked for a recommendation for an RPG that has character customization but no gender option. I was confused, and I asked for some clarification, and I said, "Are you sure? Because character customization without gender selection sounds like the opposite of what you want." Dude said he was sure that was what he wanted--character customization with no gender option.

The gentleman gets what the gentleman wants, I guess. In the original Fable, you play a dude, no option to change gender, but you can change his hair and stuff at the barber shop. In Kingdom Come Deliverance you play Henry, no gender options, but you can change his hair and whatnot at the bathhouse. Those were the only two games I could think of.

That's not what this guy wanted. He wanted to play an RPG where you can customize your androgynous humanoid avatar with gay cross-dressing stuff without specifying whether they/them is male or female.

rated this funny then despair because I slowly realized most rpgs do this now
thanks for reminding me

 

[Daemongar]

Hi everyone! I started D&D in 4th edition where you'd pick your role!

• Fighter (Tank or damage dealer)
• Rogue (A lot of specializations possible, from party's "face" to Assassin with a lot of possibilities in between like classic pick locks thief or jack-of-all-trades )
• Cleric (specializations possible)
• Mage (same)
• And so on

Just like in the pnp World of Warcraft!

Why the hell 95% of the cPG have you do anything that doesn't involve dealing damage, healing, stealing or casting spells?

 

[Lyric Suite]

I find it extremely disturbing and even more when some races don't have access to certain classes.

It's called world building retard.

I see the dumb fuckery of third edition D&D has produced a generation of idiots who don't seem to know the roots of a lot of this stuff.

The "why can't i play as a Drow Paladin!" generation has destroyed RPGs forever. They literally traded every Tolkienesque element in favor of the capeshit wannabe modern fantasy settings have become.

 

[hivemind]

In a Pen & Paper RPG, at least when I used to play, you'd start to pick your role in the party.

In Pen and Paper RPGs, at least when your group isn't autistic grognards who should play video games instead, you'd start by talking about what kind of story you want to tell and what are the dramatic drives of your character.

 

[JarlFrank]

Pen and Paper RPGs
story

I wanna be a guy who likes treasure!
Let's go raid some dungeons.

dusts off some old 1st and 2nd edition D&D modules

 

[Humbaba]

The "why can't i play as a Drow Paladin!" generation has destroyed RPGs forever. They literally traded every Tolkienesque element in favor of the capeshit wannabe modern fantasy settings have become.

Pulp fantasy > tolkienesque fantasy.

Explain to me why having a Drow Paladin is a bad thing without using the term "special snowflake" or its derivatives. Because I don't see a problem with that as long as the setting can justify it.

 

[hivemind]

the Absolute demands a level of inherent universal hierarchy to shine through all aspects of Beauty in art, hence we see clearly that Tolkienesque fantasy is superior as it is Art in the sense of celebration of beauty and Truth. It is not about a "setting"(there is no setting) justifying it any more than lies justifying truth or mathematics justifying that 5+6 = 17, it is not possible and it should not be attempted, the setting itself is the meta setting of the context of fantasy adventures and their place within the universally shared human soul-experience that calls for a celebration of the aristocratic and a rejection of the forced equality coming from corrosive forces of capeshit production - which are art as means of material acquisition by the materialists and is therefore not connected to the true underlying experience of the fantastical in aspirational sense of Beauty and transcendence

 

[Reinhardt]

playing drow "male" is probably gayest thing you could do