Character Rosters

[3543thrh67]

@Apu Same here! It's nice to have a jump in buit and make them my own. Hence why I don't want them to go back to roster because then it eliminates the past PC interactions and trying to live up to some ideal way of playing the PC.

@DnvnQuinn Totally makes sense to me. Though, at the same time I have seen amazing background stories that are in depth and well done but then the PC falls flat. So, I don't know that how people CG is hugely indicative to how they will RP and the effort they will put in. So, I think both roster and no roster have pros and cons in that aspect.

[Deleted]

I like the idea of a roster without the crunchy bits filled in.

Leave the name and some other stuff out, but give them a vague backstory and a +sheet and let the player just run with it.

[Pandora]

My experience with rosters is that the less-crunchy characters, or characters that are specifically not beautiful, or powerful, or special - they don't leave the roster. Every now and then you'll get one of them taken by someone new - who then laments not taking that uber-looking guy that had been available, back when they had the chance.

If the goal is to give people a feel for the RP of a place without having to CG a character, I don't know how useful throwaway characters would be. Current active chars (not players, mind you, but their characters) wouldn't have some specific reason to draw them in. What impression do you want to give new people?

A suggestion I might have is to gild these wilting flowers. If someone takes Footsoldier #356 off the roster, have it notify people in the military that So-n-So's reenlistment date is upcoming, and they should all be making their best effort to keep him within the ranks. It's a reason to RP. If someone takes Petty Criminal #837 off the roster, have it notify other criminals that he recently got out of jail and that they should find out if he snitched on someone/throw him a welcome home party, etc. Basically little plot hooks that would make sense even if they happened every single day.

TLDR; there's nothing quite like a character with no plot hooks or ties to other characters or organizations to cause a new player to never log back in again. There are obviously going to be exceptions to this rule because people are individuals, but by and large, you want to draw new people in, not set them adrift on an open sea and hope they wash up on the shore of an uncharted island of exciting RP.

[ThatGuyThere]

Honestly I would be more likely to try a game I was border line on if there was a roster available to choose from.
I enjoy making characters trust me I have note books full of them in systems I know i will never play, but C-gen online is a fairly steep time investment even when I have already done a creative investment. Even in WoD where I have more character ideas in my head then I could ever possibly play, going from first log in on a bit to character being ready for the approval process is 2 hours on average,(I think Fallcoast was one of my quicker times at 1:30 for c-genning) then figure in the wiki creation time since while not an official requirement anyway has definitely become a standard part of the process.
If a game uses a original system or table top I do not know that increases the time cost of starting a lot more.
I think the rosters are even more helpful in getting new people into the hobby, after all most people have already played Console RPGs with characters they did not make, and it removes the biggest stumbling block I have found with new folks and that is waiting days to be able to actually play. I think an optional grab and go roster is a good thing. Now make it a mandatory you can't make your own character situation and my opinion changes.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere said in Character Rosters:

I enjoy making characters trust me

Dammit, use punctuation. I read that a couple of times at first trying to figure out what 'making characters trust you' meant.

But also - the rosters idea isn't aimed at people who are able to and enjoy making their own characters. They're there to provide those who don't, or just want to perhaps try a game out for a couple of days without investing anything else than on-grid time yet, the chance to do exactly that.

[Coin]

@Arkandel said in Character Rosters:

@ThatGuyThere said in Character Rosters:

I enjoy making characters trust me

Dammit, use punctuation. I read that a couple of times at first trying to figure out what 'making characters trust you' meant.

Srsly.

But also - the rosters idea isn't aimed at people who are able to and enjoy making their own characters. They're there to provide those who don't, or just want to perhaps try a game out for a couple of days without investing anything else than on-grid time yet, the chance to do exactly that.

I honestly never understood the hate-on for roster characters. They are an addition to the game, they don't subtract anything substantial in my experience. I don't know of any games thata re exclusively roster?

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel
Be glad I use the punctuation I do and capitalize I could be all e e cummings up in here.

[Coin]

@ThatGuyThere said in Character Rosters:

@Arkandel
Be glad I use the punctuation I do and capitalize I could be all e e cummings up in here.

a) this isn't poetry;
b) e. e. cummings had consistency within his own rebellion against grammar;
c) you aren't e. e. cummings.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Coin
All of those are true but it is also informal communication, so I will continue to not care overly much about it.
and two the only people who have complained are you and Ark, he is a hippy and we agree on very little so don't be surprised if my posting style doesn't change.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere said in Character Rosters:

@Coin
All of those are true but it is also informal communication, so I will continue to not care overly much about it.
and two the only people who have complained are you and Ark, he is a hippy and we agree on very little so don't be surprised if my posting style doesn't change.

None of that makes any sense. I disagree with Coin all the time and we can agree it's not because of his posting style!

And I'm not complaining, I'm trying to understand what you're saying so we can communicate. Yes, this is all part of an informal communication but comprehension still matters; if was hanging out and talking about games in real life but someone was mumbling their words to the point I couldn't tell what they were saying then that, too, would have been an issue.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel
But you yourself said it took you a while but you understood what I meant. Therefore communication occurred, since this is on a forum and not real time the extra time involved means little. You have stated in previous posts on here you mainly post and read here during work down time and I am the same with adding in reading and posting here between poses in the evenings I rp as well. Neither of us is pressed for time while we are here.
If the extra time makes you not want to read what I post then don't read it.
As for agree with Coin I mention that because we have pretty much diametrically opposed views even we are posting on the same topics we are rarely attempting to communicate with each other, at least on my side of things.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere said in Character Rosters:

But you yourself said it took you a while but you understood what I meant. Therefore communication occurred, since this is on a forum and not real time the extra time involved means little.

Does the extra time it takes to add a couple of punctuation marks here and there mean more? This is a text-based medium, it's just a common courtesy.

If the extra time makes you not want to read what I post then don't read it.

Do you think if I didn't value your opinions - some of which I have disagreed with in the past as you noted - we would be having this conversation?

I'm not asking you to type better to insult you, dude. That'd be a low blow, worse even than Webster dictionary-based arguments (and that's saying something). It's not like this is harping on one typo or an isolated badly spelled word - hell, English isn't my mother tongue or anything.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel
I understand and I ma not taking it as an insult. But I am a math person not a language person.
I can do language when I need to, and managed to get a 650 on that part of the SAT by putting in a crap ton of work, and got solid grades in the English classes I had to take in college.
I am glad you respect my opinions and do enjoy conversing on the topics with you, but part of me is not being the best with words unless I really focus. Now I do that on games and on formal work stuff when money is on the line but am never really going to bother in other informal areas.
We are on an on-line board talking about online games it gets a quick glance over not a real proof read, that is what it will always get. To me that is where conversations here are on the priority scale to me, enjoyable and sometimes edifying but not actually important.

[Coin]

@ThatGuyThere said in Character Rosters:

@Arkandel
I understand and I ma not taking it as an insult. But I am a math person not a language person.
I can do language when I need to, and managed to get a 650 on that part of the SAT by putting in a crap ton of work, and got solid grades in the English classes I had to take in college.
I am glad you respect my opinions and do enjoy conversing on the topics with you, but part of me is not being the best with words unless I really focus. Now I do that on games and on formal work stuff when money is on the line but am never really going to bother in other informal areas.
We are on an on-line board talking about online games it gets a quick glance over not a real proof read, that is what it will always get. To me that is where conversations here are on the priority scale to me, enjoyable and sometimes edifying but not actually important.

My reaction to this is essentially: you're expecting us to put extra effort in deciphering your bad syntax because you're unwilling to put in the extra effort to employ good syntax.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Coin
Well you are completely free to ignore me, there is even a helpful thread on the code magic that would allow you to do that.
As to the issue that started this long digression, I can see how it could be hard to parse, however I know that the only way I would catch that without it being pointed out my someone else would be to wait do something else so my mind is not focused on the topic then come back. If you think I will do that for every post, you are crazy.

[Lithium]

@Coin said in Character Rosters:

I honestly never understood the hate-on for roster characters. They are an addition to the game, they don't subtract anything substantial in my experience. I don't know of any games thata re exclusively roster?

My experiences with Roster character games have been the opposite. Unless you were a rostered character created by the staff you couldn't really succeed at much in the game. The character was inherently weaker than the roster characters and in some cases was forced into a family you didn't even want just like a rostered character anyway.

I don't mind there being a roster of characters that can be picked up and played, and dropped if desired, or sacrificed to Cthulhu or whatnot, just so long as there's not a bevy of roster characters who are more powerful than people's own ideas.

I want to play /my/ character, not someone else's.

[Lithium]

@ThatGuyThere said in Character Rosters:

@Coin
Well you are completely free to ignore me, there is even a helpful thread on the code magic that would allow you to do that.
As to the issue that started this long digression, I can see how it could be hard to parse, however I know that the only way I would catch that without it being pointed out my someone else would be to wait do something else so my mind is not focused on the topic then come back. If you think I will do that for every post, you are crazy.

If only we had a way to actually ignore people that was easily done and didn't require code work!

(Ducks and runs before she can be hit with flying tomatoes and/or any other objects etc)

[Arkandel]

@Lithium Why would you be thrown tomatoes for it?

I'd ignore anyone I didn't want to read from. That's not the issue with @ThatGuyThere, the problem is that I want to but his posts give me a headache.

[Lithium]

@Arkandel I was just making comment about how we are free to ignore him...

[Tributary]

Rosters or the like make the most sense on dynastic games or games where immigration makes very little sense. Rosters of roles, on army type games, can also make sense, but there you're setting the rank/station/stats more so than the characters.

Otherwise, if you're going to have people in flux, give them a template and move along. Want to play a something? Use the something template.