Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel
It might just me my character creation style that makes it easy for me. Since before i enter a single command on game I have the character fully made on a sheet of paper in front of me. (I have to do this otherwise I will miss something important like the time I made a werewolf that lacked the skill that was used for two of his gifts, and no matter how much I use a computer I am still 100 times better at noticing errors on paper then I am on screen)
So no matter how odd the command might seem it is just learning it once then banging it out a bunch of times and done. (though i have noticed that the majority of the time it is some variation of +set.)

[ixokai]

@Ganymede said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

I don't know if this is rosy nostalgia or just that your experience was on simpler systems, but I think this wrong: I think there are notably less problems with chargen and notably less frustration with players (especially players who are not experts on the system).

I'm going to nitpick because: why not?

There's nothing inaccurate in my statement. If staff hand-statted everything, players would not have the frustration of having to figure out commands to generate their character.

They would have other frustrations, how to properly format their submission, having to do the math, having to deal with inevitable back and forth delays in problems hand-statting creates.

Is chargen perfect? No. I never claimed so, but it is IMHO beyond argument that it is superior -- it has fewer problems for everyone but the coder, fewer frustrations, lower wait, less issues with players having difficulties.

But, as I also said: you are trading one headache for another. Now the onus is on staff to do the work. So, players have to play the waiting game, which is only really solved by a fully-automated CGen with no approval process.

Man, "the waiting game" is there no matter what-- except in open chargen games which I don't play-- but in m experience, the waiting game for hand statting is FAR in excess of the waiting game in a chargen game. So while its true only "open chargen" solves it, the waiting game is mitigated by an extreme degree by chargen.

That good benefit, making the wait far less, is IMHO extremely important. If all someone needs is a look over for approval players will have far less frustration and difficulties with getting in and getting started.

And think about efficiency: if staff must generate PCs for players, they will become better at it. Some staff will be good at it, some will be bad, but those who are good will get better. After hand-statting about a dozen PCs, I could reliably crank one out in 2 minutes using MIAM's code. All I needed was a @mail with the stats.

Yeah, I played on MIAMs. I mostly have done WOD over the years, though I have ventured beyond periodically. You could crank one character out in 2 minutes? Great, you can't argue efficiency though. +approve x is unarguably more efficient of staff's time. The question is does it put too much on the player? I think not. On the contrary, I think expecting players to write up their stats in notepad and send it as a mail or +request is a MUCH higher barrier to entry to put on players.

But, as I said: I think players want control over the process. They may want to hand-wring over where to place their dots, and to shift their stats around on a whim. I know I do that, so I can see why others would too. But if you want that power, then you'll have to put up with the attendant problem of learning CGen commands.

Sorry I really don't see "learning cgen commands" as this serious obstacle for the vast majority of users in the vast majority of cases. Yeah, every so often it is, but those are outliers and is rare.

[ixokai]

@Arkandel said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

I asked Theno once if character data was all in MySQL tables anyway so that we could just make a web interface for CGen. That'd be as ideal as I can think of it, because then we could have a character sheet taken straight out of a WoD book (or whatever) to let players fill out the dots, then magically they'd have the corresponding +sheet in-game. Unfortunately that's not possible with the codebase.

Me, I like wikis, I like the web, but IME there is a significant subset of our player population who do not want to so much as touch anything outside of the game.

So having a web chargen has been something I've thought about from time to time but ultimately a no-go for my priorities.

[Arkandel]

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

Me, I like wikis, I like the web, but IME there is a significant subset of our player population who do not want to so much as touch anything outside of the game.

Almost everyone already has to do with the wiki as it is. It's where policies are, where your character profile is, etc.

But we can argue about it if you have theories as to why people might be adverse to using a GUI for CGen.

[ixokai]

@Arkandel said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

Me, I like wikis, I like the web, but IME there is a significant subset of our player population who do not want to so much as touch anything outside of the game.

Almost everyone already has to do with the wiki as it is. It's where policies are, where your character profile is, etc.

But we can argue about it if you have theories as to why people might be adverse to using a GUI for CGen.

I... don't play on games where everything is on the wiki. Policies are in +news, and while I like wiki character profiles, they're optional everywhere I've ever played. (On my current two projects, Marvel:1963 and unnamed Shadowrun 5E, the first automakes very basic profiles because one staffer is intent on it but otherwise we do not have any information on the wiki. On the latter, everything will be simultaneously and automatically in sync between wiki and in-game cuz I'm reading +news and +help right out of the Mediawiki database in game)

I don't have theories as to why, I just know getting people to want to care about doing anything on the wiki for some people is worse then pulling teeth. Its completely impossible: they will not have anything to do with it. I go out of my way to explain it in clear detail and make it as easy as possible and they absolutely will not do it.

I've no idea why.

I just know that in my experience its an absolute fact that there is a not-insignificant subset of the mushing population who want/need/will tolerate everything being in-game.

[Ganymede]

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

You know, I can't even figure out where we began to disagree, or even why. So, I'll just start over again.

Most of the time on WoD games, a player goes through CGen and waits in the end for approval. Some people go through CGen without incident; for others, it is a siege of frustration. I'm in the former category. I can't remember the last time I really had a problem with getting approved, other than delay by staff.

I can argue efficiency simply because it's demonstrable. People hire me because I'm a lawyer: they can learn the law themselves to petition courts, but I'm frankly better at it because I do it all the time. The same applies here: players don't need to learn how to use CGen commands if staff is handling the statting. All players have to do is send a list of desired stats; that seems pretty easy to me.

I seriously doubt that any CGen involves one command to complete. Even @Thenomain's code requires the review of +notes and the occasion hand-setting.

I'm not suggesting we all go back to hand-statting because it's better. I'm trying to point out that it presents different challenges and different merits. Back in the day, I had a much-closer attachment with my players as well. Why? Because I was the one that helped them cobble together their PCs, for one thing. The other thing was that I had a heart back then.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel
I know I wouldn't want to cgen on the web. right now I look at the wiki when checking out a game, policies etc, and then rarely if at all.
I mean yes I make a char page for my characters but it never gets updated. (And I do mean never. I have played a char for 3 years and not touched the wiki page after making it.)

[Arkandel]

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

I... don't play on games where everything is on the wiki.

I think one of the problems here then is that you base your resolutions exclsively on your preferences. Wikis are very widely used these days, for example, and you already rejected open CGen games because you don't play those either.

Not to say there's something wrong with the practice, but excluding any scenario that either doesn't fit with or is comparable to your solution doesn't lead to robust approaches.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

@Arkandel
I know I wouldn't want to cgen on the web.

Sure, and I'm asking - why?

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

Sure, and I'm asking - why?

CG is a necessary part of the game, I want all the necessary part of the game on the game. Just like i am fine with policies on the wiki but I also wan them on the game as well.
Do me having CG on the wiki or having policy only on the wiki would be like the bad Copy protection schemes in the old days where you needed to looks codes up in a manual while playing the game, at least that had the understandable reason of attempting to protect profit margin.
When I log on to play the game I want to be able to play the game, not log on to the game, bring up a browser then be able to play the game.

[ixokai]

@Arkandel said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

I... don't play on games where everything is on the wiki.

I think one of the problems here then is that you base your resolutions exclsively on your preferences. Wikis are very widely used these days, for example, and you already rejected open CGen games because you don't play those either.

Not to say there's something wrong with the practice, but excluding any scenario that either doesn't fit with or is comparable to your solution doesn't lead to robust approaches.

I'm not excluding scenarios, I'm expressing that I have no experience with some scenarios so have no way of knowing if that scenario would change my opinion. I'm admitting ignorance of certain situations: I can not reliably have an opinion on something that I know only in theory. I am basing my conclusions on my experience, and yes, part of that is my preferences, but those preferences are informed by the experience.

I didn't say I don't play on games with wikis: I can't remember the last time I played a game without a wiki. LA, maybe? But we had web export code and tried to keep everything on the web pre-wiki. What I said was I've never played on a game that required wiki's (this is more what I meant and less what I said), or where everything was on the wiki (this is more what I said which is also true but misses a subtle point of mandatory wiki being the thing I've never seen). Everything was a very important qualifier there in my statement.

I don't choose not to play on games because they put everything on the wiki, I've simply never happened to experience it. I know some games try for everything on the wiki, and some games (to my great loathing) have stuff only on the wiki, and I can have opinions on those. But successful, wiki-mandatory games? I haven't played one yet. Don't know what it would be like or if it would change the basis for my opinions.

That said, I DO choose not to play on any game with open chargen because I did back in the day and had a series of very, very bad experiences that I (rightly or wrongly) attributed to the 'open' nature of chargen. I don't wish to repeat those experiences so I avoid those games.

But still that choice means I am left ignorant of every open chargen game that's younger then about fifteen years, so maybe the truth of those bad experiences aren't valid anymore. But I don't play on them so I don't know. So I can't intelligently speak to an opinion on them beyond not wanting to play on them.

[ixokai]

@Ganymede said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

Most of the time on WoD games, a player goes through CGen and waits in the end for approval. Some people go through CGen without incident; for others, it is a siege of frustration. I'm in the former category. I can't remember the last time I really had a problem with getting approved, other than delay by staff.

None of this I disagree with. But I believe that writing up a sheet in notepad and submitting it is for some people also a seige of frustration, and in my experience it is more frustrating for more people. Does that mean chargens are frustration-free and never an issue? No.

I can argue efficiency simply because it's demonstrable. People hire me because I'm a lawyer: they can learn the law themselves to petition courts, but I'm frankly better at it because I do it all the time. The same applies here: players don't need to learn how to use CGen commands if staff is handling the statting. All players have to do is send a list of desired stats; that seems pretty easy to me.

I know multiple people who find working out stats on paper very difficult.

I seriously doubt that any CGen involves one command to complete. Even @Thenomain's code requires the review of +notes and the occasion hand-setting.

My chargen always includes single command approval; at most there is a one command review that does various checks, but these days I've moved all these checks into chargen itself and run/enforce them before submission. Note setting is automated and fully integrated: if a note is required its prompted for, and yes, when the staffer +cg/review's they get all notes at once and do not need individual approval. It may happen they need to send back a note or make an occasional change: hand-statting must never be required, I define that as a bug to be fixed. Notes may need to be sent back. But these are the exceptions and not the rule.

For most cases with most players there's a review and an approve and that's it. This can't be argued as anything but more efficient then hand-statting to my mind. Maybe I'm missing something entirely.

I'm not suggesting we all go back to hand-statting because it's better. I'm trying to point out that it presents different challenges and different merits. Back in the day, I had a much-closer attachment with my players as well. Why? Because I was the one that helped them cobble together their PCs, for one thing. The other thing was that I had a heart back then.

Me, I believe hand-statting is empirically worse in nearly every way. Yes, it can work. I've played games where it was required. But works is a very low bar. Everyone keeping their stats on a wikipage and +rolling numbers directly works.

But its worse.

Yes, some players will have trouble in chargen. Most, by a large margin I believe, won't. Approval will be faster with chargen: you may be a superstar at entering stats but most staffers, by a large margin I believe, aren't.

Is it perfect? No. But it solves more problems then it causes, and at the end of the day, I, as the coder, am responsible for making problems mine. I'm the one who should be burdened and inconvenienced in the name of making lives for players first, staffers second, faster and easier. That's why I code.

[Thenomain]

@ixokai

And this is why I don't agree to disagree. You're spending more time defending your viewpoint than answering the question, tho your viewpoint nor theirs nor mine have changed. Not a whole lot of agreeing, there.

I have never encountered a game where chargen needed to be coded anything but last. If I weren't in a tub I'd come up with more reasons than one, but this is my main one: If you change anyone about the stat system, you're going to have to change chargen. Each time you need to add, remove, alter stat lookup and recording, you're going to have to consider changing chargen.

Trust me, don't bother giving yourself that level of headache and just do it last.

[ixokai]

@Thenomain said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

I have never encountered a game where chargen needed to be coded anything but last. If I weren't in a tub I'd come up with more reasons than one, but this is my main one: If you change anyone about the stat system, you're going to have to change chargen. Each time you need to add, remove, alter stat lookup and recording, you're going to have to consider changing chargen.

Trust me, don't bother giving yourself that level of headache and just do it last.

I do not engage into designing chargen until my stat system is fully designed to encompass the full requirements.

I have never had to change any fundamental of the stat system in any chargen I have ever coded.

Perhaps the difference is, your history tells you that you've done a situation where you code for Game A on System B, and when Game B on System Be came out, you had to reconfigure?

Valid. I can see the difficulties there. I'd handle them with difficulty: I always seek first to player convenience, second to player convenience, then to staff convenience and finally to my own annoyance. This determines what I'm willing to code or not. Perhaps you've been hit by coding games for systems where there's more games coming you need to support: I don't envy you that and agree its a quite hard problem to design around. I, fortunately, haven't.

I can say: I have repeatedly encountered a game which in no way required the chargen to be coded last. That it was true that you had not to take into account some weird new variance. That you couldn't fully plan out the chargen and then take that plan and implement it and be done. I have experienced this multiple times.

No. I don't trust you. Our experience do not match. I absolutely loathe recoding and redoing stuff and avoid it at all costs: doing cg last has never been an issue on this point. I don't start a project until I have a plan, I don't have a plan until I have the full grasp of the scope in my mind. Admittedly, in current project? Shadowrun 5E is escaping me. But I'm committed.

Also, don't say 'trust me'.

[Ganymede]

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

For most cases with most players there's a review and an approve and that's it. This can't be argued as anything but more efficient then hand-statting to my mind. Maybe I'm missing something entirely.

I think the disconnect exists at a circumstantial level.

What you seem to be describing is a system that checks on a pure point-by-point basis; that is, the only function of staff in the process is to ensure that all the dots are put in the right place. On that level, I concur that CGen functions that allow players to set them are more efficient from a staff perspective. But maybe you and I worked on different WoD MU*s; that's just not how it goes or went. (It's entirely likely that we both worked on the same games, actually.)

The general WoD character approval process also involves, generally: (1) looking at a background; (2) checking Breaking Points to make sure they are sensible; (3) reviewing +notes for Merits to make sure they are sensible; and (4) hand-setting XP spends out of CGen. This presumes that the automated CGen checks for pre-requisites, otherwise that's another thing to check. And that could be another thing to check if there are problems with the pre-requisite checks. So, there's going to be staff-involvement -- generally -- above and beyond simply checking point totals.

Plus, as I said before: I like having interaction with my players. Back when, I didn't just point them to the room and say GO FORTH AND MAKE THYSELF. Players interested in joining asked me what I was looking for or wanted or needed, and we actually had conversations to that end. Players wanted to discuss their concepts and how they'd fit in. Players wanted to talk about rule interpretations. Players wanted to talk, and I was happy to talk with them.

I know times have changed. I have less time to fudgel when I'm connected. Still, when I had to hand-stat everything, I could say "trust me," and players would.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Ganymede said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

The general WoD character approval process also involves, generally: (1) looking at a background; (2) checking Breaking Points to make sure they are sensible; (3) reviewing +notes for Merits to make sure they are sensible; and (4) hand-setting XP spends out of CGen. This presumes that the automated CGen checks for pre-requisites, otherwise that's another thing to check. And that could be another thing to check if there are problems with the pre-requisite checks. So, there's going to be staff-involvement -- generally -- above and beyond simply checking point totals.

That might be the theory, but I am pretty sure I have had characters approved without anyone bothering to run a math check. (In fact one place I know didn't do a math scan because I had made a math error and it was not noticed until I noticed and reported it 6 months after my char had been approved)
I definitely agree that communication before approval/cgen between player and staff would be ideal and should happen more then it does, however that is not the situation on the ground on any game I have been to recently. The last time I got the feeling that the person approving me was actually looking over my character besides a quick math scan and error check was Haunted Memories.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

I definitely agree that communication before approval/cgen between player and staff would be ideal and should happen more then it does, however that is not the situation on the ground on any game I have been to recently. The last time I got the feeling that the person approving me was actually looking over my character besides a quick math scan and error check was Haunted Memories.

It depends on what you expect 'approval' to do. If it's only a check to make sure the character isn't horrible, or that the numbers add up, then that's one thing; but I think that's not useful enough to enforce what we've been referring to as the waiting game in this thread. All of it could happen past CGen, after all, allowing the character to be playable in the mean time.

My counter-example was on Arx. When I made a character there the interaction I had with staff about proving he wasn't inappropriate or that his stats were okay took... probably a couple of minutes. No shits were given.

On the other hand Apos had probably an hour's worth of a talk with me pointing out different ways his background could he shaped, things I could take advantage of from the game's history, ways I could make him relevant to his House. And instead of it being a waste of everyone's time and an annoyance it was actually something truly useful - it improved how I played the game.

Anything standing between a player and the game which can be automated, should. Everything that can't should either advance gameplay or be removed.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel

Maybe I am an outlier but approval for me on most games is pretty much staff looking at the sheet and stamping approved with little or no conversation at all. The wait comes from waiting my turn in line, my issue is more if that is all approval is going to be automate that shit.
I have no problem with a staffer sitting down and discussing my character with me, hell that would be worth the wait time if that was the approval process.

[Misadventure]

If you are adept at producing a character without need for a conversation, it may be that simple. As long as staff are actually looking each time, for whatever reason, then you can't just have self approval.

[Thenomain]

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

Also, don't say 'trust me'.

Wow, you've gone from conversational to confrontational in short order. For someone who spent almost the entire post positing what I may have been thinking, I can imagine where these trust issues may be coming from, but maybe a little less of the defensiveness.