Throwing the gauntlet on character creation

[Deleted]

Feb 21, 2021 18:55:58 GMT -6 derv said:

[4 minutes 14 seconds is good in my book. My best time was 2 minutes 45 seconds with a Fighter.

If I can shoot lower than five minutes for a single char gen I'm happy as can be.

[clownboss]

So haste is of the essence, huh? I've coded a table for myself in TableSmith. 9 seconds.

jeez this guy is so squishy

[derv]

Feb 22, 2021 12:53:21 GMT -6 clownboss said:

So haste is of the essence, huh? I've coded a table for myself in TableSmith. 9 seconds.

9 seconds to code a table!

What about your gold and equipment?

How long would it take you to roll one up?

[clownboss]

9 seconds to launch the application and click on the "Generate" button, the coding process itself is much longer obviously, hahaha.

I can not really program it to select equipment for me or something so dependent on creative human decisions, but for my purposes when I wanna roll hireable NPCs, it's great stuff. Coding these is a hobby of mine and I translated nearly all of the OD&D rules into Tablesmith. When it's done I'm thinking of sharing them here.

[robertsconley]

For a while I been running sessions at game stores and convention using Swords & Wizardry, and my Majestic Fantasy rules. I want to give players the experience of creating character but because I only have a four hour time block I have to keep it short and sweet, yet complete. I even try do this with D&D 5e.

I am going to illustrate this first with Swords & Wizardry then with my Majestic Fantasy Rules. Click the image for the full view.

First I hand this card with common character creation details for attributes.



On the back are the spell lists.



I also hand this card outlining the choices of race and classes. You will note the equipment packs which is something swiped from 5e to make purchasing equipment easier. All of them are priced in accordance with S&W.



And the back of the card



So once the players picks a class, I then hand them the class card.



On the back of which is the equipment list.



I have found by doing this I make character creation scalable for even a large group. And most get done within 20 minutes with S&W.

[robertsconley]

For my Majestic Fantasy Rules I do the following.

Start with an overview of character creation.



On the back are which the character class choices and background (which are the same as races in my basic rules).



They pick a class. You will note I have equipment packs listed.



On the back of which is the equipment list


Finally if they are spellcasters I hand them the spell card.

The front for arcane spells.


and the back for divine spells.

[robertsconley]

For 5th edition I use the following printed out as a booklet. It is a work in progress. I have not found it to be working as smoothly as the classic edition versions.

Quick Character Generation for 5e.

If folks are interested I am selling the PDFs and printed cards at

Swords and Wizardry
Majestic Fantasy, Basic Rules

I will be straight, it is far more cost effective to buy the PDF and print them out on card stock. But the coated stock is nice.

[clownboss]

The design for these is so nifty.

[acodispo]

I finally rolled up a few characters last night. Dice throws were digital (and therefore quicker than usual), and I was typing the character into a text file as I created it, but this was basically done "the old fashioned way". Two magic users were 04:45, and 05:00, and a Fighter was 03:22.

Then I rolled up 3 more characters in under a minute, which includes the time it took to open a new browser tab to the following URL, copy-paste the response into a file, and decide a name:

character.totalpartykill.ca/lbb/text/



The latter (fully random, computer-generated character with a human-generated name) is how I'd suggest a player get into one of my games these days. It's quick, doesn't require knowledge of the rules, it generates interesting/unexpected results (esp. with a few campaign-specific tweaks to the generator). If someone asked: "may I create the character myself?" of course I'd say yes, but come to think of it nobody's asked.

[Deleted]

Mar 5, 2021 15:11:30 GMT -6 acodispo said:

I finally rolled up a few characters last night. Dice throws were digital (and therefore quicker than usual), and I was typing the character into a text file as I created it, but this was basically done "the old fashioned way". Two magic users were 04:45, and 05:00, and a Fighter was 03:22.

Then I rolled up 3 more characters in under a minute, which includes the time it took to open a new browser tab to the following URL, copy-paste the response into a file, and decide a name:

character.totalpartykill.ca/lbb/text/



The latter (fully random, computer-generated character with a human-generated name) is how I'd suggest a player get into one of my games these days. It's quick, doesn't require knowledge of the rules, it generates interesting/unexpected results (esp. with a few campaign-specific tweaks to the generator). If someone asked: "may I create the character myself?" of course I'd say yes, but come to think of it nobody's asked.

That last one is the one I'm gonna be using for my pbps on this forum, or at least backup characters and classed henchmen. It falls perfectly in line with my ethic that 3lbb character generation is mostly a cosmetic formality, as exceptional rolls notwithstanding, the majority of generated characters are interchangeable at level 1. (Exceptions definitely happen. I've got a Hobbit party member in my poll-based story that knows like eight languages. That's an atypical character. Also had an Elf with 17 Charisma who immediately failed a save vs all wands and was taken out of the party via charm, which further reinforces my core ethic.)