Do you allow your players to create their own characters, or do they have to choose from a set of pre-made characters?

Do you allow your players to create their own characters, or do they have to choose from a set of pre-made characters?
I prefer the pre-made option, to prevent cheating and mitigate powergaming.

I have literally never seen pre-made characters, at least pre-built. My current DM is doing pre-made backgrounds gimmick, however.
Also, in the middle of my last campaign, I've suddenly handed the party character sheets of their NPC allies and told them to choose four for a sidequest.

If you have players who take the roleplaying seriously, it makes sense to allow them to create their own.

If they don't, pre-made is best. Without it you end up with at minimum 3 characters that are edgelords.

>DM requires pre-made characters
>DM literally doesn't trust his players to make good characters
>DM wonders why he has no IRL game and only gets retards on Roll20
>DM wonders why my game where the players can do whatever they want has players actually roleplaying and not quitting after half a session

I fail to see the point in playing on a campaign that doesn't let me make my own character. That's where I derive like, 50% of my total enjoyment in this whole tabletop thing.

Pre-gens are for demo games only.

>Do you allow your players to create their own characters
Yes
>do they have to choose from a set of pre-made characters?
No. I want my players to have fun playing.

With new players, premade, always. It mitigates foolishness and long start up times. With players that I've been playing a while with, let them make them. I can trust them after 6 months of playing to understand what I will want form them.

>to prevent cheating and mitigate powergaming
Couldn't you just...read their sheets?

>Allowing powergamers at your table

I would not play under a DM that made my character for me.

/thread.

I don't want to be the voice of a character in someone's script. It's a roleplaying game not for the dm to demonstrate how much of an amazing author he is with a few scrambled together pages of notes on lore that he came up with daydreaming that morning.

>can't make own character
I'm pretty sure the theater club is in another board.

What system?

I let my players build their own characters ahead of time, but I keep 3-4 barebones pre-generated characters ready for the first session.

This is because there's always at least one guy who forgot to make a character. So instead of killing the excitement by having everyone wait while the faggot spends 30 minutes rushing to make something that's generic as fuck anyway, I have him choose one of my generic pregens. If he makes his own character later, he can switch to playing it.

I've found this helps speed things up a lot, especially for players new to TTRPGs who would be overwhelmed by the character creation process.

You can't stop me from being a magnificent bastard even with the most un-optimised of the characters. Hiss all you like. I will shuffle your cards and spoil your game.

I had some players competing in a tournament. Handed over some gimicky npc sheets to the players not in a round of the tournament. Gave a bit of character direction let them play to keep players involved. A few of the NPC's were already known to the PC's had grudges, friendly rivalry etc.

The real question is should the DM keep the sheets or let the players take them home and forget to bring them? I like having my sheets of previous characters I've played but one game I was in fizzled out due to other commitments and the DM still has the sheet.

Or oneshots when a regular is out sick

This has got to be bait.
I use them for one-shots and that's it.

Depends who I'm playing with and what they're interested in.
I played with one group that had never played rpgs before and created a bunch of pre-gens but allowed them to create their own characters too if they felt like it (only one did at the time). In subsequent games I had them create their own characters but a few just asked to go with pregens they hadn't used last time. From then on I always kept a few on hand for them when starting new campaigns.

I do allow my players to create their characters but depending on the system and the campaign tone and themes I do place either hard (no, you can't have this) or soft (I advise against taking this)

Except fucking one shots because THERE IS NO TIME FOR SESSION 0 IF WE ARE PLAYING A ONESHOT AND YOU DUMBFUCKS DIDN'T EVEN READ THE CHARGEN CHAPTER OF THE RULEBOOK FOR SURE - then they get premade sheets. But there's more sheets than players for better choice.

Enforcing random element in character creation, like some systems do either as an option or default procedure is a pure shit though.

Any halfway decent roleplayer playing a roleplay game to roleplay any character given to them.

But all this bitching is from rollplayers, so go fuck yourselves.

i run wild talents for context

My players tried to make characters the first time around, and I basically took care of the stating out since they didn't quite get it yet (its a tad complicated in power gen if you're new to that type of game)

I've found that if the players don't understand char gen, they'll have a hard time understanding what a character is built to do.

that being said, two of my players eventually figured it out, one relies on me entirely to build guys, and one actually took over an npc i made cause they needed another character for a sidequest and really liked them.

so in short, help them out. Let them have freedom, but be clear in what kind of game you run, and what is/isnt allowed.

but in the end it really depends on the players

random character gen is THE BEST

Did you just have an aneurysm and then shit on your keyboard?

I usually make pre-gens for the first session or so, so they get an idea of the games's theme, and a handle on the system, if it's something they're new too.

I kind of like playing pre-generated characters. It's sort of nice to stretch your chops.

D&D, quite obviously.

Do you allow your players to create their own decisions, or do they have to choose from a set of pre-made actions?
I prefer the pre-made option, to prevent cheating and mitigate powergaming.

I only use pre-gen if the player doesn't want to make a toon but wants to play.

That's really it, i don't want to play a game with pregen (if i was going to play a pregen i'd play a board game), and if you
re the type of DM that's scared of cheating metagaming or powergaming, you are a shitty DM.

what you are talking about is an actor, not roleplayer.

I've only done (all) premade characters once, as part of a specific module with a group of friends who agreed to the idea. Basically we were all in theater together and we liked the idea of playing the same story out three times, each time with a different person playing a different character.
Part of the trick of it though was that each character had a piece of the mystery as their backstory (designed by myself) that they couldn't reveal without breaking character. This meant that as we played, switching players to different positions, the players themselves gradually gained OOC knowledge that allowed them to pierce deeper into the mystery of the story, until on our fourth playthrough, with everyone back in their original positions, they all knew exactly what to say to get the other characters to reveal their secrets and open the way to the eldritch truth of the museum.

And of course, that eldritch truth killed them all, but at least they'd solved the mystery. Premade characters are fundamentally a resource for new players, but they can ALSO be a tool for running an interesting game if your players are into that sort of thing. You just have to plan ahead.

That sounds rad as hell

Yeah, that sounds like hella fun.

I usually make them. They tell me what they want, I do the crunch, we make changes as needed - including during play - to better fit their concept.

I have no problem with players making their own characters. It is just the above that usually happens, at least of late.

Running a game for some newbies I had premades, but also said I'd help em build a character if they want.
Only one of them took me up on it, and it was mostly to That Guy, but yeah.

>pre-made character
For a one shot game, if and only if a player didn't follow instructions and and did not arrive with a completed character sheet. I usually give more than a week notice before the game date of a one shot to players on what to have.

This. This. This.

pre-made characters, no way is this actually a thing?

Anyone who doesn't realise this thread was created solely to get (you)s is probably a retard.

>i'm too lazy to bother spending 5 minutes going through the different class options and combos and banning the overpowered ones or doing literally anything else to prevent powergaming

>pre-made characters

Absolutely love occasional games with pre-made characters or randomly rolled ones (in the case of Paranoia). Forces the players to think of different ways of making their character interesting instead of numbers being the be-all and end-all.

Fucking these!

The most fun I had however was at a game which had absolutely no rules.

So I was an angel paladin, my friend was a spartan warrior, another was a elf ninja wizard and the last one was a thief werewolf.

Any halfway decent DM would be able to let his players design a character that they'd want to play without having to worry about them trying to cheese the game.

I do both.

I'm kind of a new GM, and in this campaign and the previous game I ran, several of my players were pretty new to rpgs and to the system in question in particular, so I made around 15 pregens so we could start playing right then and there and people could learn the rules as they play (kind of how I did it when I was a kid).

Having the pregens available ensures all the new players understand how characters are supposed to look like, and ensures everyone has a reasonably balanced, wellrounded, and decent character to play regardless of their ability to optimize.

Making the pregens was incredibly helpful for me so I as a GM understand the abilities of the characters much more intuitively.

After several sessions, if someone isn't a huge fan of their concept, or if they died, I let them roll up and create their own character. By that point everyone understands the rules enough so that isn't an issue.

My first campaign was rather silly and gonzo, but this one is rather serious and it's working out wonderfully so far.

If I gave my players a set of pre-made characters, I might as well just write my story as a novel instead of a role-play. The players need to generate the characters themselves in order to best interact with the setting, world, etc.

That said, I will now always give them some objective or shared interest on creation. This goes a long way in ensuring party cohesion and sense. My current campaign has started with all the party being hired on by a noble house to do a job, which has kept them on a common path and together even when one or two start to get their own things going. I'll also try and do quick personal sessions of like an hour or so after the first game to help better define their character in the world, and balance the player's ideals and thoughts with myself and the setting so that it all fits together nicely. This has worked great for my current campaign and I think has made things a lot more enjoyable for all, not to mention easier for me.

being able to do something decently and being able to have fun while doing it are two different things tho

good man, doing it right

Dealing with power gamers is easy. Kick them out of the game, typically I give them a chance to not power game. If you can't trust your players to make good characters, don't allow them in your game.

You are the ass, the piece of shit if you will, if you force all of your players to make premade characters because you don't trust them to make good characters. There are different reasons to use pre-made characters. You are using the worst one. Essentially, diminishing their fun because YOU can't properly convey that power gaming will not be tolerated. It is your responsibility to communicate your expectations with your players. It is literally impossible for there to be a trust issue if you do that properly, because if someone steps out of line you give them the axe.

At the same time though, what counts as power-gaming though?

Because I've been accused of power-gaming for grappling a dude before using my character's breath weapon but I've also been able to render at least 50% of every issue in the plot moot due to preparing the right spell...but suddenly it's cool because I'm using magic.

I dunno, whenever I hear of people like OP, I generally just dismiss them as people who can't handle a proper challenge and lack the wherewithal to learn how to engage people in terms of mechanics as well as narrative.

If they're a newbie just joining the game, we'll hand them a workable Pre-made character.
Newbie has a good time playing a session like that and wants to come back, we go into character creation either at the end of that session, or before the next one.

I agree with your point, that's why I usually give people multiple chances myself. Personally power gaming only bothers me in my games if a) the player is bringing player knowledge into character knowledge; or b) is using his knowledge of the rules to undermine the fun of others at the table. It doesn't bother me if people want to use a build that they know is really good in the system so long as they can back it up with good RP reasoning.

This is all personal preference though. My original post was mostly intended to call out the OP for not being able to talk and communicate with his players, and diminishing their fun because he/she is a bad GM (because he/she is incapable of talking with his/her players).

That sounds insane, I can't imagine a player who would agree to play a premade character. Probably a troll thread.

But aren't you willing to try anything to prevent cheating and mitigate powergaming?

see

If you have to force premades on your group just to prevent cheating and powergaming, that says more about why you shouldn't be a DM than why they shouldn't be doing those things.

There are several reasons to use pregens. Maybe you're running a one- or two-shot, maybe your group is trying out a new system and you want to let them just start playing so they can see how things work in that system before they try to make their own characters, maybe you want to have spares around in case someone dies or forgets to make a character.

Forcing pregens on players because you don't trust them to not powergame, however, is just dumb. Do you also level their characters up for them?

The way I look at it is this: if you don't trust your players to not overshadow each other or impinge upon each other's fun, you probably shouldn't be playing with them. If you don't trust them to accurately tell you what they rolled, you probably shouldn't be playing with them. If you don't trust them to play reasonable characters who aren't lolsorandumb in your super srs campaigns (or vice versa), you probably shouldn't be playing with them. And so on.

Obviously you have to give people room to occasionally make mistakes, but if you trust them to do the right thing 95+ percent of the time, you don't need to force stuff like pregens on them.

The answer is always, ALWAYS, "it depends". There's so many factors involved with this question, not limited to but including: player and GM experience, the seriousness of the campaign, and what kind of players they are (from hardcore roleplayers to video game-esque loot mongers). But despite the fact that this thread is probably bait, I'm going to try to give an honest, in-depth answer.

>If the GM is experienced and the players are experienced
Then by all means, let the players make their own characters. Of course, the GM can and should skim over each player's character sheets to make sure that there's a decent party balance and/or dynamic (unless they're doing a fun, gimmicky campaign a-la the All Barbarians greentext). Same goes for character backstories, if any. The GM should be involved, but more so just to give the OK, and minor editing and/or vetoing if a player steps too far out of line (especially in systems where breaking the game is very easy, and players need to put a conscious effort to prevent game imbalance, such as 3.PF and M&M 3E). But in some cases, such as running an official adventure book, it can be better to run pre-generated characters if everyone's cool with it, to make the experience "as intended" by the adventure book creators.

>If the GM is experienced, but the players are not
Then the best option would be to run a one-off session with pre-generated characters, and once the players grow accustomed to the system, to run the actual campaign, letting the players either make new characters, or even keep their pre-generated ones if they've gotten attached to them. I would urge this further if the system has a more complex character creation setup (looking at Song of Swords, some combinations of GURPS, and some of the 40K FFG systems).

Cont.

>If the players are experienced, but the GM is not
At this point it would be more on the players to make their own characters, keeping a courtesy to make their characters fair and fun. The last thing you want is someone making a broken and overpowered character that largely outshines the rest of the party, or causes issues for the GM, when the GM is still learning. Of course, defaulting to a one-off adventure book campaign is a good way to get the GM's toes in the water as well, and using pre-generated characters would make it easier on the GM to interact with each character specifically, as some character-specific plot hooks are already written in the adventure books themselves.

>If neither the players or the GM are experienced
If you somehow manage to get a group going with nobody having any reasonable experience with tabletop RPGs, and you browse Veeky Forums regularily to find this thread and this post, either find a friend with some experience and run a one-off session with them, or sign up at your FLGS for a volatile experience, that although might suck (or rock), will at least show you how to use the system under the wing of more experienced players.

I hope this helps some of you decide, and make this shitty discussion we have every other day less of a problem.

/thread

were you looking for this image?

I don't really collect reaction images, but this one is fairly appropriate.

You are me

>closing the thread on your own reply

Wew

This guy has really stupid looking hair.

I have a habit of making my players backstoy for them. They never come up with good ones or cant't think of one at all. I don't like doing it but I always find myself doing it.

Ignoring obvious bait, the closest I ever got to that with regular players was giving them a vague background to build character around, such as bandit, doctor, hedge wizard, exiled royal, and so on.

For new players I generally sit down with them and help them build characters off of vague descriptions of what they'd like to play, say sneaky thief or brawny warrior. Luckily our home brew system is quick to learn or build characters in, and has no real trap choices.

I've never played a campaign that had pre-made chars but I don't see why everyone's so angry about the concept. It sounds like fun honestly, being presented a character and turning that into your baby.

To some it may seem that they are having control wrested away from them to make them potentially play something they do not want. For that, I can understand why they would be mad, especially if they are the normal player who actually role plays their character well, or does not have a new player in their regular group.

If that's presented as being a gimmick of a particular campaign, sure. If it's regularly forced upon you for bad reasons, it sucks.

I like making my own characters, both the stats and the personality/backstory/etc. Never getting to do that ever would probably make me quit the group.

You seem to be basically saying that a decent DM doesn't have bad players.

t. 3.pfag

...

This honestly sounds way worse than what most people are enraged about in this thread. This is the ultimate "my character is nothing beyond the numbers on my sheet", to the point that the DM is picking up the slack for a terrible player.
This attitude of being willing to experiment now and then is fantastic. It's like a rare challenge to test your worth as a roleplayer, seeing if you can make a character interesting and individual without relying on feats and stat blocks.