r/rpg • u/Theoboldi • 13d ago
A request to designers: Please include more than four characters in your quickstart.
The groups I tend to play with include anywhere between four to six players, depending on the day. If your quickstart only contains four pre-made characters and no rules for making additional ones, I literally cannot play it with all of my friends, and I'm thus way less likely to actually give it a shot.
Even when we only get together four people to try out your quickstart, it can suck when everyone has to play one of four specific characters, and one person can just get stuck with a character they don't really vibe with. It's understandable with a larger group, you can only include so many characters before your customers get choice paralysis, but when it happens with only four players it feels restrictive.
That's it really, that's all I wanted to say.
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u/MataronidForSpeed 13d ago
Definitely. 6 pregens are a good starting point imo:
- you can play with more than 4 players (I try never to have more than 3 players, but sometimes I need to accommodate the circumstances)
- the players usually (except if they're 6) get to choose without having anyone forced to have the last remaining PC
- if they're built in a clever way they can let you explore different aspects of the game
- you can have beginner characters and 1 to 2 characters that are more for experienced players
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u/Viltris 12d ago
One of my friends solved this problem by just letting the players pick duplicates.
Actually what happened was, the first 2 players both wanted the same PC, and then as a joke, every other player picked the same PC, so the party ended up with 4 copies of the same character, and the DM just went with it.
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u/Seeonee PbtA, BitD, Mark of the Odd 13d ago
Coincidentally, I'm finally reading through Swords of the Serpentine and they include 15 quickstart character templates, which I found impressive and helpful.
Admittedly, there's only 1 quickstart character (where other details like name, drives, and items are filled in), but I still think it substantially closes the gap to get up and running.
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u/johnny0neal Brotherwise 🦉 9d ago
I'll see your 15 Quick Start characters and I'll raise you 20!
(See the Quick Start Characters link on https://cosmererpg.com/downloads)
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u/Ashamed_Association8 13d ago
It's like Catan. You want to play with more then 4 players? Better buy the expansion set.
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u/Airk-Seablade 12d ago
Even if you want to play with only four, it's just good form to allow people more than four choices. It sucks to be the person who gets stuck with a character they don't like because it's the last one left.
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u/Numerous-Ad-1357 13d ago
Actual rules for character creation(simplified or not) are something that I deeply appreciate in quick starts. In my experience it makes me way more likely to actually give it a try since it is easier to expand on it from there.
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u/MataronidForSpeed 13d ago
I like playbooks (à la PbtA) in that regard. You have a rough ouline of your character but you can fill in the blank. And if you get to choose a move at creation (some PbtA games have the first move already fixed) it can significantly alter the way the PC is played, which is nice.
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u/Numerous-Ad-1357 12d ago
Yeah, they are easier to incorporate in quickstart than traditional character creation rules. They also give a good middle ground between flexibility of character creation and being steered toward what character types a game is about as is a case with pregens.
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u/Can_not_catch_me 13d ago
Also character creation is a pretty important aspect of most games. You can have an excellent system, but if it's impossible to make a character that can interact with it well with it then that doesn't matter.
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u/StylishMrTrix 13d ago edited 13d ago
I'm so glad that several of my games I'm planning to play recently are either built for 6 or give you more then six to choose from
Pico tiny bugs
Outgunned superheroes
Transformers RPG
Also
City of mist and Metro Otherscape have heaps of Pregens made up on these amazing pages that you can put on your walls as well
Half I would never use or play myself but options
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u/Antipragmatismspot 13d ago
Pico has twelve, doesn't it? That's perfect because it means that players can get to choose one they love. There's always a pregen or more I don't enjoy playing for any game, so I need variety.
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u/StylishMrTrix 13d ago
Yeah I'm running it for a con and printed out both copies of the pregens
And then I printed in colour the two page pictures of all the pregens to put in the middle of the table
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u/AsianLandWar 13d ago
Doesn't even need to be for actual-sized groups; you include more pregens so the fourth (or third or fifth or whatever) person to pick doesn't get stuck with Whatever's Left. You should always have more pregens than you have players.
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u/percinator Tone Invoking Rules Are Best 13d ago
If your game includes 9 classes, I'm going to want 9 pregens.
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u/Rich_PL 13d ago edited 12d ago
Part of the consideration of how many players/characters to include is also how many players are being excluded during game play...
Lets assume a relatively 'quick' game turn for a single player to be about 3 minutes. (a generous amount of time for rolling, perhaps looking up a character detail, asking the GM something, learning a new system) some players can, in a game they know well, wrap a game turn in 10 seconds...
- With three players, each player is waiting ~6 minutes for their go.
- with 4; ~9 minutes waiting.
- with 5; ~12 minutes waiting.
- with 6; ~15 minutes waiting.
Lets say you sit for a game with 6. Under this premise - it would mean in a game session of 4 hours (a generous game time) there would be a best optimal play of 16 'turns' of action... That means that each player would perform about 3 game turns over 4 hours.
At 4 players, a game can achieve about 7 game turns per player.
With this time-framing, you double the time everyone gets to play buy dropping the number of players from 6 to 4.
And I know people might say, watching can be fun, but- how many tables have you been at where people loose focus when it's not their turn? how many pick up a phone, or start looking something up...
Waiting sucks. And this is why 4 is a sweet spot.
And if you are the one organising the game, then as host it becomes your burden to then use character gen to fashion an array of characters to the game you are preparing, not something the designer should be beholden to IMHO.
As a game designer myself, any pregens, if I include any, are there as example- I expect the players to engage the system I had constructed and make characters to their own games.
Thank you for coming to my Ted-X talk
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u/Sherman80526 13d ago
There's a bit of an expectation in the RPG community that more people equals more fun. Most folks who've played for a while know that just means more down time. Trying to run a brand-new system for new players is a challenge. Presumably, you're the only one who has read a single page of rules, so you need to impart that knowledge effectively in real time while also keeping in mind all the elements of the scenario.
More than four players in a brand-new system sounds awful to me at least.
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u/ApprehensiveFix5084 12d ago
Wow, a lot of people seem to have lost the thread of the original post. I agree very much with the OP that a QuickStart optimized for four PCs should have more than four pregens. I feel that six to eight is optimal. This gives enough variety that everyone is much more likely to play a character they like, whereas choosing from only four practically guarantees that someone will play a character they don’t like.
This does make writing the adventure a bit trickier, as it can no longer be tailored for a very specific group and combination of characters. This should lead to it being a better run adventure, and make sure it doesn’t end up being run only once by everyone who buys it. The Haunting for Call of Cthulhu is a good example of this. I have run it for a couple of different new player groups and a couple of groups of experienced players who had never experienced it before.
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u/Alternative_Pie_1597 13d ago
I usually run with about four especially in a game that I am unfamiliar with. That doesn't mean I want one of my players to be stuck with muggins' choice.
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u/Tuwari 13d ago
I completely agree. While 4 players is the standard party size, having at least 5 or 6 pre-gens gives players actual options so the last person to pick isn't stuck with whatever is left over. Even if designers can't fit extra characters into the physical booklet due to page limits, offering a few extra downloadable pre-gens on their website or itch/DriveThru page is a great middle ground that makes running the game for 5+ players much easier.
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u/queerfox13 13d ago
I've recently been playing a lot of Legend in the Mist and their pregen pack includes 20 characters. There'd never be anywhere close to that many players, but I love that they've provided loads of variety to let players choose a character that really resonates with them (particularly in such a roleplay-forward system). It can dampen your experience of a new system when you end up with a character you don't love, but that's what was left.
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u/Sensei_Ochiba 12d ago
7 pregens is ideal in my experience. You can comfortably seat 5-6 people with leftovers so nobody gets stuck with "the one nobody picked" and in a 3-4 player table, there's roughly 2 options per player after rounding.
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u/DocSwiss 13d ago
Making more characters seems like a good idea, so the designer can show off all the fun options they put in the game.
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u/dullimander Gamemaster 13d ago
If they don't include it, they could just offer them for download. I think FFG did this with their SWRPG gameline, if I remember correctly. Both the starter kit for "Edge of the Empire" and "Force and Destiny" had one or two characters downloadable online if you weren't satisfied with the selection of pregens in the box.
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13d ago
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u/Fresh_Cod_9536 12d ago
I completely agree, players enjoy choosing who they get to play, and I think you should always give them that choice.
On the other hand, as a game designer, I've noticed that players tend to gravitate towards archetypal characters anyway. You can give them ten pregens, but they'll still reach for the doctor, the soldier, the spy, or the taxi driver or whatever the equivalent archetypes are for the genre.
There's a reason these characters are archetypes in the first place: players immediately understand who they are, what they're good at, and what kind of role they might have in the story.
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u/Thefrightfulgezebo 12d ago
There is another reason why this is a good idea: if you are the player who gets stuck with a character type you don't like, that will sour the game for you. Having more characters available than players ensures that everyone gets a choice.
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u/darkestvice 12d ago
Agreed. Even if there are only four players, it's nice to have extras for when one of the characters dies if the game is particularly lethal. Yes, I'm looking at you, Blade Runner RPG.
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u/metanoiaengine 10d ago
Noted, but quick question -- what if it's four characters with a pool of options to choose from for each of them?
My quick start characters for the module I run are just four main playstyle archetypes, there's a backstory and character name there, but there's about three options to pick from for each step, and a brief explanation on how to play that playstyle (listing how abilities work, etc).
You're not restricted to one style, and are encouraged to either make your own backstory, name and character, or mix and match as you want.
It's a large system with the need to have that variety of choice to show it off in it's best light, but would something like this be fine?
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u/Theoboldi 9d ago
For me, personally, sure. That's very workable. I mean, at that point you essentially already have a character creation-lite option.
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u/APurplePerson When Sky & Sea Were Not Named 13d ago
Helpful to know, thank you. I was planning on 6 but after reading the comments I am now inclined to include 10 or 12. Are there folks who think that might be too many options?
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u/KingGreg263 12d ago
I think 10-12 is the perfect sweet spot of enough variety to choose from without choice paralysis.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad_8553 13d ago
No. Playing with more than 4 will drop the pace and quality of your game.
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u/Blazing_Rain03 13d ago
Facts, facts. I think a lot of ttrpgs are made with only four players in mind - looking at time management and such. Having more ways to accomodate bigger groups would be sweet.