Confused and Combative Character Creation

 Character Creation is the final hurdle before actually playing, and therefore the most loathsome one.

Ian Cunliffe: Combe Gibbet

I exaggerate, but the sentiment does hold some water. Characters are simply not my favorite part of tabletop games, no offense to any readers who do adore that aspect. The issue is made worse by the frequent repetition of character creation required when dealing with a constantly changing and inconsistently scheduled homebrew system as I do. How about a quick method then? Something tactile too, a sort of minigame.

Imagine wind-swept and barren cliffside. There stands a gibbet, or a hanging tree, or perhaps cages. The party awakens as a distant figure rides away on horseback, just crossing the horizon. About their necks are nooses, snapped or cut. If they were in cages the rusted doors are opened, the locks snapped. On the tree, or gibbet, or a board near the cages is a notice. Well, was a notice. Only the top portion remains nailed, the lower paper shredded and used as tinder for a fire now dying. The top reads:

"CONDEMMED HERE THESE WRETCHED CRIMINALS:"

And nothing more. The characters look down to the scraps of paper, and the game begins.

At this point the game master spreads some lovingly singed and scribbled scraps of paper onto the table. There should be a collection of adjectives, sentence fragments, names, nouns, and crimes. The players then try to piece together a character. Of course, the papers are singed and as such cannot be restored to their original formation, but assure the players that whichever character they reconstruct is a good approximation of the person their character once was, and perhaps who they will soon be again.

After the reconstruction is complete glue the fragments onto a fresh sheet and then pull out a key. It should detail the skill and stat bonuses that each scrap provides. For example:

"Red-River O'Shea: Pernicious Gunner. Condemned for Dueling, Setting fire to The Governor's Mansion."

Assume that the segments are "Red", "River", "O'Shea", "Pernicious", "Gunner", "Condemned for", "Dueling", "Setting fire to", "The Governor's", and "Mansion".

The name establishes background and personality, so to do the particualr targets of the crimes and any other minor details. The adjectives establish specific abilities. Clearly Red-River is a duelist of some renown and a gunner at that. The arson ties together a very explosives-focused character build while being pernicious grants him a deception bonus. But the character could just as easily been known as "The Governor's Gunner", a loyal servant unjustly betrayed perhaps? It is also possible to rearrange the scraps so that the character once set fire to a river, quite an intriguing feat.

There could be issues should two players equally desire a specific adjective. My ad-hoc solution would be to place it in dispute, where neither player receives any benefit from it until they can prove themselves worthy of the title. For example, if two players were arguing over the "swordsman" monicker then one would have to beat the other in a duel, or otherwise accomplish a daring feat of swordsmanship before the other can. Luckily, the homebrew we use allows for these sorts of accomplishments to be dependent on player skill more than luck for the most part.

The idea is in a nascent shape, but I imagine it could be quite fun to try at least once with the right assortment of players.