Can you make mistakes when creating a character for a ttrpg?

Can you make mistakes when creating a character for a ttrpg?
Is being a character bad at its job bad?

Yes.
Yes.

Why though? I want to know

yes.
no.
what is bad is not being able to contribute to the campaign. if you're a pampered, squishy noble and the campaign takes place in the wilderness and dungeons/caves, you're essentially dead weight and can just watch how the other characters do stuff. you're just an observer.

The former is obvious, missing parts of character creation, making a character that is far weaker than the rest of the party, or making a character concept you don't actually like.

The latter is debatable but characters are supposed to be exceptional and exceptional people tend to be good at their jobs. Having a character who is bad at their job is like a cook who burns everything they make and expecting them to accomplish great things.

It's only bad when A: The party expected you to play a competent character and B: When the GM doesn't factor it in when making encounters.

Trap options exist in systems it true.
Yes, being a subclass whelp of a PC will drag the game down

What if everybody is a schmuck, according to the GM, and he's annoyed, pretty upset even, because we can't deal even with the easiest difficulties in our path? is it bad then?

Yes

In especially shitty games, it is possible to choose an option that's so bad that you're critically weaker than the rest of the party.

Yes

Because in a party of 3-6 people, having someone who is bad at their job is like having a soldier who can't even shoot the side of a barn.

A party is only as strong as its weakest member, and if everyone is leagues better than you, you just end up in a situation where everyone has to support themselves and you.

And for the record, if everyone in the party sucks, then you're just basically the three stooges.

Yes.
Depends.
In something like D&D where the game is about heroic fantasy and/or playing as an effective group creating a character who is likely to not contribute effectively or drag the party down will lead to frustration for the rest of the group. In something like CoC where the PCs are just regular people and being "good" in the sense of having high stats isn't the primary concern it's a bit more acceptable.

It still begs the question of why you would want to play a character who is unable to contribute to the game as much as everyone else.

It sounds like there was a miscommunication in what kind of game you all wanted to play. If all of the players are satisfied with having a hard time that's fine but if not the GM should consider toning the challenges down or the players should re-roll their characters.

>A party is only as strong as its weakest member
What? A party is as strong as its strongest member. A wizard in a party full of shitty fighters is still going to end encounters all the same.

>Can you make mistakes when creating a character for a ttrpg?

In principle? Background-wise almost anything could work. From the mechanical side you could end up making mistakes if people around you are either inexperienced themselves or are That Guys who don't offer you any insights or tips.

>Is being a character bad at its job bad?

More often it is just annoying. Take someone like Ricewind for example. In the books it's probably for the better that he can't do any magic and his only feats are a) running fast, b) knack for foreign languages. In the RPG? That could be a semi-useful NPC since it will get out of the harms way and can pick up translator duty so that PCs don't have to buy linguistics or whatever. As a player character… it could be a fun experiment provided that the rest of the group, including GM, is on board.
But in the long run it's simply annoying. Imagine having to deal with something as inept as 10th level bard with Charisma score of 8. That's just a really shitty rogue, and you likely have a competent one in your team.

Being an incompetent character is not fun. I actually had it forced on me due to having little time to familiarize myself with a new system.

It was a D6 Star Wars system. I picked a race based on personal interest of being a bit of a niche weirdo. I decided that, flicking over the rules a bit, I could basically make myself a combat droid, and have that instead of doing fighting myself, and I'd be kind of an amazing technician sort.

So, I spec myself hugely into Tech, and Mech. Tech allowing me to build and repair stuff, and Mech revolving around piloting. I basically actively avoided direct combat skills, as the party already had 3 Jedi, and varies gun bunny sorts.

Turns out after the game started, the GM would not allow me to make a combat droid, but I could buy one if I fronted an extortionate amount of money. So, when it came down to combat, which I had to take part in, I was rolling a single D6 to do anything.

Furthermore, Tech checks were exceedingly rare. The most I ever got to do was a couple of minor repairs, and the ability to upgrade my blaster with a custom grip for +1 to my dice rolls to hit. Other than being decent at driving, and useful when someone actually broke something, I basically was stuck as a spectator.

Meanwhile, everyone else did Jedi shenanigans and intrigue.

I even tried to get myself killed a couple of times, as the GM wouldn't let me make a new character, but he just retconned me back in.

The only bad character is one you don't have fun with.

You should have ask GM about that combat droid. While I don't want to defend him, since a GM that simply rejects something that's within the character's capability (has he given you any reason for it btw?) or retconns shit as he wises even against the request of a player, I can get a GM who does not want to allow something that's easy to exploit.
This comes from someone who due to inexperience allowed stuff like combat robots etc in one game. Turned out that system was not balanced in that regard or clear about some of the rules. It got fucking ridiculous when a player was basically sending his automatons and making any engagement a joke. Problem like yours usually boils down to either miscommunication or GM being too afraid of situations like the one I had. In your case I'm willing to assume that he holds most of the blame, but as a genuine advice: tell GMs about what do you expect out of character. If it would be me I would go for it, but ask for "gentleman's agreement" along the lines of "Sure, but no matter what the rules say you get to operate AT MOST two at the time and you have to clear their modifications with me before doing any rolls during construction. Also bare in mind that most parts have rare or scarcer occurrence rates so don't get miffed AT ME that you can't find some tachyon projector on a backwater planet".

He was basically the sort that rewards backstabbing powergamers. I'm not over exaggerating here, I was repeatedly punished in his games for not min-maxing and player killing. I just wanted to be a somewhat quirky little technician. Was my first every character, and I even made my idea clear to him, which he said was quite feasible at the time.

Once I got involved, I wasn't even able to cobble a droid together from scrap parts. I wasn't looking for an exploit, or a powerful win method. Just a different approach than "Jedi who is immune to blasters" or "Smuggler/Mercenary with a dozen guns"

It was a few years ago. What added insult to injury, was that one of the guys who joined after me, got to do exactly what I wanted to because instead of using a single, large droid, he was using several smaller ones. I quit after that.

>GM dislikes optimization
>Gets angry when we can't deal with his encounters

He kind of sounds like a jackass honestly, this GM.

Good riddance.

I quit that group, got sick of the bull. Sadly, my experience is as follows:

If I don't min max, I hold everyone back, or become completely useless.

If I do min max, I get called out for "trying to hard" instead of having "fun"

Being a little quirky can be fun, but avoid being actively inept. Being inept is never fun.

>What added insult to injury, was that one of the guys who joined after me, got to do exactly what I wanted to because instead of using a single, large droid, he was using several smaller ones. I quit after that.

Whelp… if that's the case I can tell you that it got an out loud "what an asshole" from me. I think I would have walked out from his game MUCH earlier than you, so that's a lot of patience you have there.
Just to be clear, I was not accusing you (or assuming that that's your intent) of power-gaming or looking for an exploit. It's just that many systems treat that aspect with little to no care aside of making it look cool. Oftentimes you don't even need to actively look for an exploit with droid/servitor/mech/robot/whatever construction… overpowered option is simply the more logical one while keeping you from the harm's way.

Nahh, that's fair, I understand where you were coming from. But yeah, I literally made it clear from the get go that I didn't wanna get directly involved in a fight, I just wanted a droid to protect me when I was in trouble, not go murderhobo.

I stuck with the group for as long as I did because.. Well, yeah, I'm patient. I didn't want to be insulting. But, I had my limits tested in the end.

1. Yeah, you can make a character you're uncomfortable playing. It might be too fantastical (a bloodthirsty blind lizardman that knows no love), or too far away from what you like (being forced into a nice healbot cleric role while you like playing gruff rangers). Or it might've been something that sounded cool at the moment, like a rock-n-roll Bard but turned out to be obnoxious, boring or unplayable. A GM should let you reroll.

1.5. Sometimes, you might get a build wrong, take the wrong feats/classes and so on, especially if you're new to a system. A GM/other player should help you build a character and the GM should let you reroll the one you have, within reason (if you're asking for a feat-change every session, the GM has the right to tell you off).

2. Adventurers are extremely capable people. If everyone else is a murder-machine, and you're a dandy, you're in for a shit time. If everyone else is a silvertongued backstabber, and you're a dumbfuck, you're in for a shit time. There's rarely an exception to this.

An adventurer should be very capable (maybe start out as barely capable, but quickly become one of the best in realm).
We're talking Olympians here, in strength, dexterity, brawn, intelligence and spellpower. Don't make a character that's dead weight because it sounded interesting at the start or you'll be forced to (read 1.).

Word of caution, most GMs don't like players rerolling. It shows a lack of grit and commitment. If you're new, you can make mistakes and any GM that gives you shit is a fag. If you're a veteran, don't fuck around too much unless it's a one-shot fuckery game.

>Can you make mistakes when creating a character for a ttrpg?
Sure, you can make outright rules violations

>Is being a character bad at its job bad?
Well, yes. But not necessarily "useless" But a character can still talk, be a meat shield, contribute ideas and strategies, carry stuff, and so forth.

>I just wanted a droid to protect me when I was in trouble, not go murderhobo.

See, with that caveat I would probably just give it to you as part of your starting equipment, since I have always hated to see the squishier PCs being forced to basically hide or flee for first ten or so sessions; but you would have to fill most of the functional slots aside of some shied generator during the game proper.
If you would still like to play a character like that I could recommend you a techie in Cyberpunk 2020 game. Setting is pretty cool and detailed, but techies class ability is quite literally "you are MacGuyver, but your constructions will fail after nd6 rounds" where n stands for amount of ranks in mentioned class ability. I had a blast with making traps from whatever scrap I had around fixed together with powertape and moving thanks to WD-40 and prayer. :D

See, that is totally the kind of thing I would have enjoyed. Scrap wizardry.

I'm actually looking to get involved in a Pathfinder game or something similar. I recently got done watching Stargate, and I was kinda thinking about trying a Mage based around the researcher nerd types, like Daniel Jackson, Milo from Atlantis etc.. Young, a little unwise, real vim for life, instead of some stuffy old scholastic prune, as is the industry standard.

imagine hating your consumer base this much

>I was kinda thinking about trying a Mage based around the researcher nerd types, like Daniel Jackson, Milo from Atlantis etc.. Young, a little unwise, real vim for life, instead of some stuffy old scholastic prune, as is the industry standard.

I think that it could be more mechanically viable in something like Savage Worlds system. It encourages player to take up a balancing act between Edges and Flaws. I don't have a book at me so I can't give you proper names, but from the top of my head you would likely take:

Edges:
- Alertness - nothing escapes your attention, you basically GET plot important clues for free.
- Arcane Background - Gadgets or something with techno-magic, depends on the setting.
- Gadgeteer - Optional, but recommended.
- Scholar or MacGuyver (yeah, literally named after him) - Both if you would not take Gadgeteer. Scholar gives you nice bonus to two(or three?) knowledge-based skills, MacGuyver can do the scrap wizardry that I have talked about in Cyberpunk 2020 post.

Hindrances:
-Curious - Curious character is going to check every nook and cranny or follow any potential mystery. For better or worse.
-Stubborn - you are NEVER wrong and you gonna show them!
-Quirk - You have some (most of the time) harmless habit that you simply need to perform.
-Heroic - Optional, but will allows you to make more Edges. You basically don't say 'no' to people in need.

yes to both

It is very possible to make mistakes during Chargen, both by creating a nonfunctioning character and by unintentionally breaking the rules, blame lies partially on the player and partially on the system, sometimes more one way than the other (Fuck you Shadowrun, how did anyone working there think the example chargen makes any sense)

There is nothing wrong with making a FLAWED character, there is absolutely everything wrong with making a character unable to fufill his role in the party. a soldier with PTSD that falls into a blubbering mess after his bloodlust wears off has good roleplay potential. An alcoholic rogue who must resist the urge to fuck off to the bar while casing a stooge has the potential for good character growth and can introduce fun twists into the session. A ranger who fails basic survival checks and lets the party starve is bullshit, or a cleric who refuses to cast healing spells. Intentionally making a character that subverts its job is a dick move to the party.