My Approach to Character Creation

This is my revised list of design principles for character creation going forward. Some of it has already existed unspoken, and has been inconsistently followed, but I’m here to codify it.

Mechanical character creation has to be simple, intuitive, and above all, reasonably fast. You should have to put more thought into who the person is and what they want than into picking abilities and assigning numbers.

There need to be official abilities, for people who want a basic pick list and examples, as well as a clear system for creating your own. All abilities need to function in a consistent manner to allow you to focus on roleplaying rather than looking up rules.

You can rename abilities to suit the setting, the genre, and personal preferences. Two people can have the same thing with different names to reflect either the character or nuances with the ability itself. All that matters is that everyone understands.

You’ve always been able to do the above with any system, but I want to state it explicitly. Permission is granted.

Rules lawyers are the enemy of creativity. Some guidelines need to exist for consistency, but it’s more important that the character makes sense and functions in the context of the scenario than conforms to the book.

Balance is created by the gamemaster, not by enforcing character build restrictions but in giving each individual character things to do that challenge their abilities.

There will likely be a few more things added to this over time, but for now, this is where I stand for all project going forward.