Character Creation

[Razzinold]

So the other day I had a player remark to me "I wish I could roll up a character like you do in

Spoiler:

D&D

, but play in Rifts because I prefer that setting"

Now please don't ban this thread, I'm not looking for conversions from the above mentioned compeitor, because it got me thinking on it.

What are some ideas my fellow GMs have that helped streamline the very long character creation process, especially for new players, that could help speed things along?

One idea I had was to eliminate skills like running, swimming, fishing, speak native language, etc. and just using a D20 roll only if the character gets into trouble while performing one of those skills.

[Curbludgeon]

Indexed pdfs help, as does a fillable character sheet.

[Mogge]

Why not invest in the Character generator?? Then they have a character in a very short period of time.

[Warshield73]

In my experience the most time-consuming part of creating a Rifts, or indeed most other PB games, is the large number of decisions. What species, what OCC, what powers, and yes what skills. Instead of reducing those choices I usually just try help those decisions along.

First what kind of campaign is it? CS. North America. Europe. Mercenary. Tolkeen resistance. The type of campaign can really narrow down what species and OCCs the characters can have.

Second what kind of character do they want to play? If they want to pilot a giant robot that eliminates a lot of races and OCCs right there. Mage, same thing.

Finally, what do they want the character to be able to do? I have a mage but I want him to also have some espionage or thief skills. I have an Operator but I want some combat skills. These can narrow down OCCs but really it helps select abilities and skills.

All of this can be done over email and once you have this you can just make suggestions. Here is the OCC they may want, some powers, even skills. I often take a few things and just create the character for them and then give a certain amount of time to make revisions.

Removing skills, especially those that have attribute or other bonuses like running, can be a problem. What I have found to be the easiest way to get characters rolled up is to just to do as much on line as possible and just start playing. The characters can be revised, even completely rewritten as the game goes on.

I had one group that I met through a local convention that wanted to play Phase World and we started with them playing my prgens. The five of them rotated through my 8 or 9 pregens trying to decide what they wanted and after about 2 or 3 secessions they started rolling up there characters. I let them apply all earned experience points and the story just continued.

The important thing is to get them playing, the rest is paperwork.

Indexed pdfs help, as does a fillable character sheet.

The PDFs are great for building characters but I prefer an excel sheet for characters as they are easier to update with level. Also don't think of it as "a" sheet. My characters are often 4 or 5 pages with vehicle and equipment. Personal data on one sheet, skills on another, saving and combat bonuses on a third, so on.

Why not invest in the Character generator?? Then they have a character in a very short period of time.

To my knowledge there is no current character generator for Rifts. THere is the excel character sheets you can get on DriveThru but that's all I know of.

Just my two cents.

[ShadowLogan]

I'd suggest going in with an organized plan on what is available and what the player is looking to play. There are things the GM (or player) can do to speed things up before hand.

I'd also suggest looking at what areas in the process are the main sources of the time drag for the player(s). Some of said drag can be reduced by more familiarity with the material. You might also have to make condensed "cheatsheets" (we did this for skills with the necessary points only, making a master list so we don't have to jump through multiple books, and if there are questions on details of the skill we could look them up directly).

I don't think getting rid of things (like skills) will necessarily be for the better. You might end up with stale "cookie cutter" characters this way (a problem I noticed in 1E RT due to the short skill list and often restrictive list for OCCs when I would roll up NPCs).

One idea to speed things up might be to create random generator program (or tables, HU has tables like that for Super Powers) that will randomly sort skills (or powers, spells, bionic features), the players then take skills from the top of the list skipping only skills they can't take or already have as part of their class (maybe allow a designated number of "skips"). Then its more of a update the character's base stats due to the skill/whatever which could go quickly (especially if using cheatsheet).

Another idea might be to adapt the Quick-Roll method of character creation to Rifts for a given campaign (its found in 2E RT, not sure if other newer lines in the Megaverse have them or not).

[Razzinold]

Indexed pdfs help, as does a fillable character sheet.

Both good suggestions, and two things that I do use and it does help.

[Razzinold]

Some of said drag can be reduced by more familiarity with the material. You might also have to make condensed "cheatsheets" (we did this for skills with the necessary points only, making a master list so we don't have to jump through multiple books, and if there are questions on details of the skill we could look them up directly).

I'm turning 45 in a few weeks and have been playing since I was like 16, so while I pretty much have the material memorized my players do not. Some are more familiar with it than others, I still find they find character creation tedious.

One idea to speed things up might be to create random generator program (or tables, HU has tables like that for Super Powers) that will randomly sort skills (or powers, spells, bionic features), the players then take skills from the top of the list skipping only skills they can't take or already have as part of their class (maybe allow a designated number of "skips"). Then its more of a update the character's base stats due to the skill/whatever which could go quickly (especially if using cheatsheet).

I think I might try the random generation, my players love the randomness when making Nightbane characters.

[Grazzik]

I'm turning 45 in a few weeks

And an early Happy Birthday to you!

Re chargen... roleplay rather than rollplay. I like to turn the "chore" of chargen around - work through the steps with each player in a narrative sense and have them run the session 0 (or even session -1) to really flesh out the PC. Backstory goes from a quick few notes to a florid tsunami of detail that helps inform me as a GM as to what the PC's hopes, dreams and (maybe more importantly) fears are that motivate them. The choices a player makes on powers and such tells me what they want to see happen in the story and what they may not be prepared for. Sometimes I relish the groan from across the table when the PCs run up against something they discounted and chose not to take that skill or power.

The important point though is that chargen is not devoid of roleplaying - its should BE roleplaying! Fast chargen to swing an axe or shoot a lasergun is kinda like just dipping a tea bag in your cup for a few seconds so you can drink some tasteless hot water. Good roleplaying, like tea, needs a bit of time to steep. By weaving roleplay INTO the chore of chargen, players don't feel like they are wasting good session time to fill out a form. That's what makes PB's chargen a good cuppa.

[Fenris2020]

The most time-consuming bit for the groups I've been in is writing down the skills.
Most people generally know what they want to play

[ShadowLogan]

The most time-consuming bit for the groups I've been in is writing down the skills.
Most people generally know what they want to play

Yeah that can be a potential time waster compared to other RPG companies approach, but one that is unavoidable given the shear number of skills (and this ignores the repeatability of Language/Literacy). You can sort of save time with OCC/RCC skills using Palladium's character sheets specific to that class, but I don't think PB has every OCC/RCC with its own "starting" sheet (maybe core book for given lines) but you'd still have to do the elective skill types.

Something like an automated form with drop downs for printing out might be faster (and more legible), but then you'd have to take the time to set such a form(s) up (there is an Excel Automated Spreadsheet on DriveThru for Rifts IIRC). Though how much faster it will be for those unfamiliar with the material I don't know.

[Jockitch74]

my group uses Microsoft OneNote pretty heavily. All skills, attributes, bonues and house rules are all there for a one stop shop and all shared in real time. We find it helps alot

[Warshield73]

Skills can be a time consuming approach, but a lot of that comes down to players being afraid of leaving something essential out. Allowing my players to make revisions to the character for a given amount of time takes that stress right off and I have found it makes the process go a lot faster. The same is true for choosing equipment and vehicles.

During the session zero I also go through what skills the group might want. In games like BTS, NB and RIfts this often comes down to languages and lores. This often leads to players sort of divvying those up which takes care of some of the choices and moves it along. On top of this the limits placed by an OCC on what skills can be taken and you often drop the pool of skills down to about half.

It's at this point I often give players a list of available skills by category and the process goes pretty smooth.

I also think this conversation is just too stuck in the past. Yes sitting around a table making five characters can take forever but this isn't the '90's. We have email, goodle drive/One drive, message boards. Before session zero give each player a questionnaire to determine what kind of campaign they want to play and what kind of character they want. This means you can have a list of races and OCCs to choose from. Then at session zero roll attributes and make a final selection on type of campaign and initial species and OCC selection as well as rolling attributes. Then build the characters online before the first session. It's still work but the time it consumes is reduced and it's not costing game time.

[Devjannz]

I use an Excel based character sheet that I found online many years ago (before the RUE) but have made several updates to so that it is compatible with the RUE rules. It works pretty good for most classes, though I will admit it falls short for Robot/Power Armor characters (I need to work on that part). It has a Several Tabs for entering Attributes and Bonuses, Skill List (list of skills to use), OCC Skills Tab, Related Skills Tab, Secondary Skills Tab, Physical Skills Tab, Combat Skill Tab, Weapons Tab (enter WP's and Weapons character carries) for character creation and then there is a Page 1 and Page 2 tab for the actual character sheet with spaces for misc information and notes as well as equipment, basic vehicle/riding animal stats, Armor worn, etc and then there are Tabs for Entering Spells and Psychic powers as well. There are tabs for Robot Combat Skills (Needs work) and a Robot Combat Sheet (Needs even more work) so I usually track those on different sheets right now. All in all, it makes a clean easy to read character sheet that I really like.

[Razzinold]

And an early Happy Birthday to you!

Thank you sir, it was one hell of a birthday!!

Anways, loving all of the feedback so here is an update.
Everyone came over on the holiday monday, the 20th, and we spent hours rolling up characters.

It was a beautiful day and my wife had all kinds of snacks and different flavours of soda in a metal tub outside with ice. We sat around the table and everybody rolled up their human stats and skills.
Then people went inside to game and i rolled up their Nightspawn form in secret with one player at a time at the outside table so everybody will have a cool reveal moment the first time they transform in game.

All of the players had a great time and didn't mind spending hours making up their characters

[Grazzik]

And an early Happy Birthday to you!

Thank you sir, it was one hell of a birthday!!

Anways, loving all of the feedback so here is an update.
Everyone came over on the holiday monday, the 20th, and we spent hours rolling up characters.

It was a beautiful day and my wife had all kinds of snacks and different flavours of soda in a metal tub outside with ice. We sat around the table and everybody rolled up their human stats and skills.
Then people went inside to game and i rolled up their Nightspawn form in secret with one player at a time at the outside table so everybody will have a cool reveal moment the first time they transform in game.

All of the players had a great time and didn't mind spending hours making up their characters

That sounds like an awesome time had by all! Totally cool!

[darthauthor]

That does sound like a good time

[Fenris2020]

I ask my players what they generally want to play, then give them the options for it. Really the longest part of the character creation process for me is just writing everything down on the sheet. It's Rifts; it's meant to be a comprehensive game, which is one of the things I like most about it.
As for character sheets, I suggest the Phase World general sheet in the Cutting Room Floor area; it works for most OCCs, and three sheets is enough to get all of your skills, gear and so on. I pretty much despise excel sheets; guess I've had too many bad experiences with the GMs who insist on them

[Ice Dragon]

As a GM I always take time for the character creation in the "first" gaming session. Some (experianced) players bring their characters along or are reusing existing characters. This helps with starting the game. I also ask, what they want to play, since I have to say this character is fitting to the gamer or I have to modify my game.