Game Chinwagging

As per DeJoker's opportune advice, to help ameliorate communications between players and myself, please use this thread if you have any questions about the system, campaign, or character creation.

Okay obvious questions

#1) Since it seems to so greatly affect character creation, how do we gain access to this expansive randomly-rolled generator which can be altered by each Player to suit?

#2) What exactly do you mean by mostly bells and whistles-free that is very unclear as to what is being excluded from the basic SRD versus what might be excluded from the Core Guidelines for those of us that have them.

Hey DeJoker,

Both great questions:

1) Once I have a larger core of players I will contact you to set up a time to get the character creation process rolling; it involves random numbers generated between 1 and the current cap (which I believe is just over 60,000), which when applied to a spreadsheet supply us with our base abilities. These base abilities can then be morphed to suite the player's aim for their character.

2) Essentially I am referring to contest types within the game. Since I'm not super-adept with HQ/QW at the moment, the campaign will begin with heavier usage of Simple Contests. As the game progresses and I manage to grow more contentedly familiar with the system, I will start to coalesce the SRD's selection of contest options.

I hope I have provided you with adequate answers!

Best,
Slay

I wanted to play - just for the character gen, sounds like a lotta work went into it.

My perpetually-sore eyes would suggest so, yes; alas, it was a labour of love.

Well how many rolls will need to be made ?

It depends on the individual. Some people might find that a single roll, say, a roll bringing up GENETICALLY-UPLIFTED IGUANA, has supplied them with enough creative presto down the pipeline and they don't need to roll again. Other folk might prefer a series of rolls, perhaps up to 6 or 7, to give their potential character life.

To wit, there isn't a set number of rolls as it wholly depends on the player's creative needs.

Let's do a bracketed example, just for clarity. I'll preface the example by mentioning that by 'rolling up characters' I mean this in a representative sense, for pulling up random numbers is not rolling a die, although a 60K+ sided die would be a psychic-breaking marvel, wouldn't it?

To begin, there will be two options for drawing numbers: using any kind of random number generator capable of reaching into the tens of thousands; or the player provides me with the numbers they wish to draw.

Let's use option two as an example.

Say the player wants to generate three random abilities from the spreadsheet. They give me the following numbers:

112
8093
15600

I take these numbers and cross-reference them on the spreadsheet and, hypothetically (because I don't have access to the spreadsheet at the moment - which, after all, I might eventually export as a PDF), come up with the three subsequent abilities:

PARANORMAL HIJINKS
FAILED POET
OBSESSED WITH A FAILED ROMANCE

At this point an "a-ha" moment, a Eureka!, occurs for the player and there is no more need to 'roll'. The player feels satisfied with their results and proceeds to the QuestWorlds/HeroQuest technique of character creation (which is listed in the SRD and I will slightly modify and post in a separate thread soon enough).

Interesting so hmm 1 to 60,000 .... does not seem to be handle-able by the dice roller (to bad) that is a basic dynamic and worse it crashes rather than handling it cleanly

Had to go HERE

My results for 3 rolls were : 44911 55961 34423

So I am kind of curious to see what each one of those returns in order --- that way I can also get a jump start on the character creation process since this kind creation methodology sometimes requires a bit more thought and consideration

Now lets say I get 3 results but do not like 1 or all 3 can I discard those and re-roll --- I am asking because one could roll indefinitely until one got what they wanted exactly even if they do not know what is contained within your 60,000 choices -- further I cannot imagine all combinations of those 60,000 items are going to be compatible but I could be wrong

Note in most random character generation processes there is generally some kind of limit to the rolling in order to keep someone from doing what I have stated above because often in random generators there is a grouping of results that end up just simply hands down THE BEST set of results and some players are going to go for those if they have the option to do so regardless of how many times they have to roll. I know because I have done this in the past, sat and rolled 3d6 6 times while someone watched until I got a set of 6 numbers I was happy with -- took a while but it paid off. Granted I have not done that in a long long while.

A soft limit of two individual 're-rolls' will likely be in place. Otherwise, like you aptly mentioned, this could gum up the process and take away a main point of character creation.

When I get home later this afternoon (Pacific Time) I'll send you a PM with your results.

No need to PM them Slaydunderhead I am cool with sharing the experience help others see what might happen

Instead of allowing 2 re-rolls why not just give an allotment of rolls like maybe 10 rolls and the player can do with them as they wish using all 10 or combining the ones they want to keep and discarding the rest. -- I mean that is assuming what 3 rolls per instance -- not sure how many rolls you would allow in a single character if you were to allow 5 per character (to be considered a reasonable combination of rolls) then go with 5 x 3 or 15 total rolls combine what you want disregard the rest --- if you do plan to may have an upper limit to the number of rolls a character can keep then simply take that number x 3 and have someone make that many rolls -- letting them combine and keep up to the maximum you are allowing per character and they have to discard the rest kind of thing -- this would speed things up.

You could then start get an export that puts your values into a specified format that you could simply copy/paste into its own thread and arrange it for easy look up, streamlining the process even more -- just some thoughts

Thanks for all the advice, DeJoker. Noted. I think for the most part the inherent elasticity of the system will stymie most of the hiccups associated with an undesirable ability dump: words can be tweaked, concepts adjusted, almost everything is malleable by the player's imagination. For now, we'll play it by ear.

Here are your results:

JASON THE RENEGADE
A FLAGON OF OGRE'S BLOOD
UNWANTED POWER

Now, keep in mind that the abstract nature of QW/HQ abilities allow for anything to be an ability. You could, as a quick and rough example, use a band's name or film name as an ability, such as MEGADETH, or BEING THERE. These abilities could represent any number of things, and their meanings can be explored before the game begins (in a short descriptive paragraph or something) or during the campaign.

Anywho, I bring the abstract nature up because I noticed one of your abilities (JASON THE RENEGADE) could have quite a few connotations.

Okay that makes for an interesting starting point but I think I would like to see two more as such I rolled : 11277 58236

Here you are:

A DIRECTED WEAPONS MASTER
MIND YOU, HE IS INSANE...

This definitely looks interesting. I'm rolling three numbers on a RNG site. Let me know what my results are and I'll think about how to make a character from them...

52119 16759 51727

I'm a big fan of totally random - I'd take three rolls and deal with what may come.

Before I proceed: do you want your results in a PM or does it matter to you that they are posted here for all the other players to see?

Doesn't matter to me. We can do it here in public

That being said -- if anyone would like to interject their thoughts on those 5 items I received I am more than happy to hear them sometimes things I would never have thought of myself can come out of this that makes for an even better character.