When you've created a character that was hypothetically meant to slot into a game that never came to be, how long should you keep the sheet around before you throw away the hours of work you put into designing the character and declare you'll never play it? I would say after three weeks. Your "character" means absolutely nothing to GMs and it is obnoxious to regale them with a character that has existed for longer in your head than it has in theirs. Give up.
>>96571259>hours of workWhat?
>>96571259>Your "character" means absolutely nothing to GMsthat's true regardless of how old or fresh it is
>>96571385Designing characters and their place in the world takes some time.>>96571405That depends on the system.
>>96571259>should you keep the sheet around before you throw away the hours of work you put into designing the character and declare you'll never play it?I don't understand your entire premise. When I play a game, we sit down and make characters together and then start playing.If you're spending hours writing characters for games you hoped would start... well I guess keep it as long as you want. It's the same as when I write 20 pages of lore for a game I'm running. It's not for anyone but me. It's just something I enjoy doing and I'll never try to make anyone else read it. If it comes up and they're interested, sure! Maybe that's how you should look at these characters. But honestly... I can't think of any game where creating a character should ever take more than an hour.
>>96571475>Maybe that's how you should look at these charactersWhen they were designed to be played in real games with real players?>But honestly... I can't think of any game where creating a character should ever take more than an hour.Have you tried playing more games besides D&D?
>>96571487>When they were designed to be played in real games with real players?Did you make them before sitting down at the table with your friends? If so, then they were designed 'cuz you wanted to design them.>Have you tried playing more games besides D&D?Not Gurps, Rifts, Star Trek, Star Wars, Whatever Without Number, any WOD game... I can't think of ONE game where it takes more than an hour. Maybe Amber Diceless or Lords of Gossamer and Shadow, if you've got a lot of players and bidding takes a while.
>>96571519>If so, then they were designed 'cuz you wanted to design themFor a purpose, which was to play them in a game. Obviously tweaks could go into them if they ever managed to see a table but as if anything good like that would happen.>Whatever Without NumberThat's effectively D&D. >any WOD gameSo you've never tried to make a real character in one of those, considering their backstory and life up to that point?
>>96571548Ah, I see the problem.I thought you were looking for answers to your questions. You're just looking to rant that no one cared about your OC do not steal.If you're taking hours to create characters, by yourself before sitting down to play the game, because you've spent large amounts of time on backstories?You're doing something wrong.And that's the answer to your question. Now feel free to rant about how unfair the world is, instead of learning.
>>96571566You don't sound like you've played many story-heavy games. But consider it was actually designed with a group initially before the game fell apart. What is meant to happen then? Give up on the character?
>>96571587Don't start making the character until you've sat down with the group, and don't spend hours on "backstories." The games you're trying to be played are meant to be played together. Not by yourself. Play a solo game if you just wanna wank to your writing. Problem solved.
>>96571606But we spent those hours together writing these backstories. You don't sound like you've ever played a story-intensive game and believe in a prepackaged version of tabletop RPGs you were sold.
>>96571519Shadowrun, L5R... There's lots of games where character creation takes a while if you're unprepared.
>>96571259The answer is actually to design characters around broad strokes likely to apply to many campaigns in the first place, so you can do the campaign-specific fine details in much shorter order. Importantly, the sheet tracks very little of this, so even if you can't wrap your head around the required balance of structure and ambiguity in the first pass you can still work backwards by softening and pruning details until you get a campaign-agnostic ad-lib anyways.>>96571519>Not Gurps, Rifts, Star Trek, Star Wars, Whatever Without Number, any WOD game... I can't think of ONE game where it takes more than an hour.Either you have a truly spectacular faculty for rules memorization, speed-reading, or mechanical calculations, or rush it resulting in loose-if-functional characters. Rummaging around fucking GURPS to settle any decent use of available options is an INCREDIBLY tedious and campaign-specific process.>>96571617>You don't sound like you've ever played a story-intensive game"Story-intensive games" that actually work well with TTRPGs tend to be looser ones driven by how the dice happen to land, as they can very easily wreck backstory follow-through unexpectedly unless the playgroup is VERY good at managing the risks of it.
>>96571259>the hours of work you put into designing the characterDon't play games like this.
>>96571814>The answer is actually to design characters around broad strokes likely to apply to many campaigns in the first place, so you can do the campaign-specific fine details in much shorter orderBut what happens when you're never able to find games for the system on top of that?
>>96571259What, like throwing away the character sheet? Why not just reuse it?>I would say after three weeks. Your "character" means absolutely nothing to GMs and it is obnoxious to regale them with a character that has existed for longer in your head than it has in theirs. Give up.Oh, you're one of those guys. Frankly, it legitimately doesn't matter how long you hold onto a sheet. If someone is so enamored with their character, they'll just write a book. Anyone else with common sense will just readjust the character to fit the game properly per talking to the GM. Which is the kind of thing you'd know if you actually, you know, played a game.
>>96571259Up until you start creating stories about them in your head. There's a critical mass where they stop being player characters and are instead just characters.
>>96571929>If someone is so enamored with their character, they'll just write a bookThat's effectively throwing away the sheet. >>96571932>Up until you start creating stories about them in your headIf it happens as you're making the sheet is it already over?>There's a critical mass where they stop being player characters and are instead just charactersThat's why I set a time limit of 3 weeks. It's still possible to discard the character that was forming in your head at that point but you've crossed the line of no return and you're doing them and yourself a disservice by not writing a story instead.
>>96571945>That's effectively throwing away the sheet. Not really. The character sheet is just that, a sheet of paper with numbers and words meant to represent your little dude when you're playing a game. Whatever else the character is springs directly from your brow, meaning the people who don't want to wait for a game to bring this character to will just make a medium to tell their tales in on their own aka will write a book. Otherwise, people will just keep the piece of paper around until the time is right. Not like anyone loses out on just waiting around on it. Unless you're hyper autistic about that kind of thing, which you seem to be.
>>96571999>Not like anyone loses out on just waiting around on itUnless you've spent too much time on the character. Plus, depending on the system and your approach the numbers on the sheet are what dictate the character, not the other way around.
>>96572029You might be hyper autistic, anon.
>>96572035Sorry, I've encountered enough hyperautists to know my autism is mild. Mechanics-first isn't an unusual stance.
>>96571259You create characters in 10 minutes at the beginning of the session.
>>96572048Most people with the mild tisms don't get hung up on whether or not they can recycle a piece of paper they doodled on ages ago. They're usually more hung up on other shit than that.
>>96572060True, it's only rarely that they get too attached to something they should've let go of once they spent too much time daydreaming about it.
>>96572073Legitimately, the only one who can determine whether or not you've "spent too much time" on something is you and you alone. Some people spend decades working on their OC Donut Steel and feel no less satisfied by it, some are ready to move on in minutes. The character sheet is just that, a character sheet. The only way it'll :go bad" is if the paper itself gets too damaged and illegible to read and be usable. So at this point it's all academic.
>>96572105So expecting to be able to play the game in question is asking too much.
>>96572385I think you're missing the point, anon
>>96571259I have a pool of characters I just pick from for any situation including GMing. I don’t see the need in tossing them.>hours of work??? it takes minutes unless you’re writing a gigantic backstory in which case I think you’re putting too much care into this. Characters aint shit just make up some personality traits, a short blurb about how they became who they are, and improv everything else.
>>96572389You're missing my point so we're even.
>>96572422>Characters aint shit just make up some personality traits, a short blurb about how they became who they are, and improv everything elseYou wouldn't last a second under me.
>>96572490my bad, warren buffett
>>96572450Yeah, pretty sure you're autistic then, cause you're overthinking the shit out of this.
>>96571870>But what happens when you're never able to find games for the system on top of that?It just means you have to go a bit broader in characterization strokes for it to be system-agnostic. And I am deeply curious how you end up consistently getting just one shot at a game per system to run into such a problem, unless you aren't OP in which case this is a non-sequitur.>>96572048Mechanics-first has to be extended to frankly unreasonable extents to reach campaign-specific, unless a really weird mix of available options or homebrew is present and heavily used. Either find those lines and fucking stop there or since you keep falling down the rabbit hole this far become a GM yourself and use it for NPCs.>>96572385Playing the EXACT SINGLE CAMPAIGN is, given the nature of playgroups making it an incredibly annoying but constant risk of TTRPGs as a hobby. Compulsively overfitting your characters is in fact a skill issue.
>>96572571>It just means you have to go a bit broader in characterization strokes for it to be system-agnostic.I'm not interested in playing these characters in any other system. They're made for one system and one setting, they don't work as intended outside of that.>become a GM yourselfNo luck there, the player market is all dried up.>>96572558>can't refute>call autisticTale as old as time.
>>96571259>Give upNever. I keep all my characters backed up on google sheets. Even if I didn't use them, I might rework them and use them in the future. Not every system is as narrow in character concept as D&Dogshit you know.>>96571405This is also false. A good GM wants you to have a character you are invested in and will in turn be invested in the player characters, as they should be; the PCs are the heroes. The protagonists. The Main characters. They are the focus of the game, and if you as a GM fail to make them the focus, then you have failed as a GM and should go write a fucking book for your super speshul OCs to take priority in.
>>96572833Anon, there's nothing to refute since you've made it clear that you equate not being able to use a character for one single campaign to never being able to use them ever again for anything else. Even were I to say you obviously could once you've edited them to fit in whatever campaign you choose, up to and including your own campaign, and that the only one stopping you is your own fixation on a false dichotomy, you've made it clear you're not changing from that position no matter what anyone says, so I've got no other recourse but to acknowledge your autism and step away. That's just how it goes here.
>>96572859It's not about the campaign, it's about getting a chance to play them in the system mainly as-is. >up to and including your own campaign If by campaign you mean book because as I said there's no players anymore
>>96572833>I'm not interested in playing these characters in any other system. They're made for one system and one setting, they don't work as intended outside of that.Again, compulsively overfitting your characters is in fact a skill issue because sessions falling through are fucking inescapable in this hobby.>No luck there, the player market is all dried up....I call bullshit. The trend in every single TTRPG community I have ever seen is to have more interested players than GMs. As the GM, you are capable of defining the campaign to the players available, reducing your need to a single other person.You can work your way down a list like this one until you find a system you can stand:>https://startplaying.games/blog/posts/the-most-popular-ttrpgs-on-startplaying-games-in-2024
>>96571259You're fucking retarded. Spending hours creating a character is absurd, unless it's for the sake of enjoying the process itself in which case the time isn't wasted anyway. Learning a complex game at the same time doesn't count, as the time is spent learning.
>>96572874Then you have an indefinite amount of time since the only way for your character sheet to go bad is the paper has to outright curdle.> If by campaign you mean book because as I said there's no players anymoreTry online
>>96573027.>...I call bullshit. The trend in every single TTRPG community I have ever seen is to have more interested players than GMs. As the GM, you are capable of defining the campaign to the players available, reducing your need to a single other person.You're a very sheltered fa/tg/uy if you think every ttrpg community is overflowing with players. It's actually incredibly easy to fall into a situation where you're the only GM and the players are looking for a reason to play rather than fuck around doing anything else. >>96573176I've only ever played online and don't use physical sheets.
>>96575630You're insane or a /pol/shitter who's just mad every player isn't a crazy schizo nazi like (You). Every single place I see people looking for games? 99% players. Tons of them. dozens, hundreds.
Wowwee another obvious bait thread that will hit bump limit because you retards can't help yourselves, I hate this place.
>>96577460You're the one who bumped it when it was on page 10 bumpfag
Is that a Barq's?
why don't you guys just spend more time playing games and less time preparing for them?
>>96571259Play a solo game/campaign with them and some of your other unused characters. Get their stories over and done with. If you really wanted to play them.If there were no expectations, plans or even background for them then just throw them out immediately.
>>96575630>I've only ever played online and don't use physical sheetsThen you have even less excuse to bitch, lol
