Character Burning=Clock Burning?

[donbaloo]

For those of you that are newer to the game (or those that can remember being new to it) what kind of experience have you had with burning characters in regards to time consumption? In the beginning of the Burner it states that character burning usually takes 45 minutes to an hour initially, until you get the hang of it. Is this holding true for you? If so, then I'm really killing the class average here. My first one took in excess of two hours to complete which included a narrative paragraph about his background.

Last night I had one of my players over to let him get a look at the character creation process. So we started. After an hour we had just finished skills and traits allotment. We stopped there to be picked up later. It was an all out page turning extravaganza. Having only one Character Burner (I've kept an eye on the related thread in the BW Clinic forum) there's just no way I could hold a group character burning session. Have you other beginners found the time requirements significanly reduced after the initial break-in period? Any guidance beyond what the book offers that my help speed things along a little?

[Kublai]

Having a very tight character concept will make the process so much easier. This would even allow the GM to suggest LPs that fit into the concept. This bit of guidance could cut down the time for Sparks (new Burners?). This means the GM should have a good idea of the LPs, which might be difficult in your case since you're a Spark yourself (Is this Spark thing working?).

For instance, say I had one book and my players knew what they wanted. One guy says he wants to play a chivalrous knight. That's easy - I would suggest Born Noble, Page, Squire, Knight. Another player wants a burglar - I suggest Born City, Cutpurse, and Thief x 2 (Does Thief even exist? I don't have the books in front of me!).

Asking players for a little backstory of thier own will help refine the concept. For instance, instead of a noble knight, the player instead imagined a peasant turned knight. This instantly tells me as a GM to start them off in the Peasant Setting, get to Soldier, then finally select Knight.

The glory of the Character Burner is that is has soooo many options. Unless you open it with a firm concept in mind, you can meander for hours and hours picking and choosing. It's like the difference between me and my fiance when we go to the mall. I know exactly what I want and go straight for it then leave. She, though knowing what she wants, revels in taking her time, comparing, fitting, finding other deals, and generally enjoying the experience of shopping itself. Such can be Burning.

Time will be shortened with familiarity - or by other Character Burners. One hour to fully complete a character is about right, which all those who burned up champions for 555's tournament can attest to.

[Thor Olavsrud]

I can burn a character in about 20 minutes these days. It's all about concept. If you have a good concept of your character, you should be able to narrow the choices considerably, and really speed up burning.

Start with a strong concept. It helps tremendously if you have a good idea of what you want you character to be all about before you start. I like to work up Beliefs and Instincts early on, but Luke prefers to wait until the end. Do whichever feels better to you.

Choose the lifepath you'd like to end at first! Then work your way backward through the requirements. Obviously you need to double-check that the leads of the next lifepath you take will allow you to go back and take the previous lifepath you chose.

So, for instance, let's say I want to burn a Noble Court Knight who came up from the ranks. I start with Knight from the Noble Court sub-setting. I check the requirements and see that he needs either Squire or Cavalryman.

I like the sound of Cavalryman. First I check the leads. And sure enough, it goes to Noble Court. No problem. Then I check the requirements. Cavalryman requires a prior lifepath that has to do with horses -- Knight, Squire, Groom, Master of Horses, etc.

Ok. I'll probably find a Lifepath in the Village Setting that has to do with horses. And there it is: Groom. Groom has a lead to Soldier. Excellent. And it has no requirements. Perfect.

I wind up with Born Village, Groom (lead to Soldier), Cavalryman (lead to Noble Court), Knight.

Since he's not Born Noble, he doesn't get the Mark of Privilege Trait. That's excellent. I'll play on that. I'd like for him to have a reputation among the Nobility as a lowborn thug seeking to rise above his station. I definitely won't take the Sense of Entitlement character trait from the Knight lifepath, but I will buy a relationship with the baron to whom I've Sworn Homage.

This character has definitely got to be strong willed in order to get where he's gotten. Since I only have 7 Mental points, I'll put 4 in Will and leave Perception at 3. That will be rough, but hopefully I'll be able to Advance my Perception quickly. After distributing my 18 physical points, I turn to skills. I'll place 5 in Speed and 5 in Power. 4s in Agility and Forte. You should be able to do almost all your Derived Attributes now.

I quickly jot down the skills that I know I need for my concept (or that are required). From Groom I definitely need Animal Husbandry, Riding and Horse-wise. Mending and Road-wise are really tempting, but I'll hold off until I see how many skill points I've got left.

From Cavalryman, I've already got Riding, so I don't need to worry about that. I'll grab Mounted Combat, Armor Training, Shield, probably Lance and Sword or Mace from Appropriate Weapons, and leave it at that for now. I may come back for Haggling and I already have Horse-wise.

From Knight I've got most of the skills already, but Intimidation and Conspicuous will be useful. I'll pass up Falconry because this guy has no clue about the noble sport.

Now I've got 10 skills that I know I want and they all are part of my concept. I've got 25 skill points and 3 general points to work with. I've decided on 3 trainings, so that takes care of 6 points right there. Down to 19 skill points and 3 general points. I spend 7 points to open the remaining skills at a root of B2 each. 12 skill points and 3 general points left.

I've spent a lot of time with Horses, so I want my Animal Husbandry and Riding skills to be pretty good. I'll add 2 additional points to each to bring them both up to B4. 8 skill points and 3 general remaining. I also want to be proficient in the lance and the sword, as that's my trade. I'll also put 2 additional points in each of those to bring them up to B4. Now I've got 4 skill points and 3 general points remaining.

I'll spend a point each in Horse-wise, Intimidation and Conspicuous to bring each up to B3. 1 skill point and 3 general points left. This guy has spent a lot of time in the saddle, so I'm going to take that remaining skill point and open up Road-wise at B2. I've also established him as a thug, so I'm going to spend a general point to open up Brawling at B2 and spend another point to increase it to B3.

Finally, this guy has to put the fear of god into his enemies at court, so I'll dump the final general point into Intimidation, bringing it up to B4.

I've got 4 trait points left after buying Sworn Homage (required). I'll pick up Fearless for 3 (he saved the day when others fled, that's how he got knighted), and I'll throw in Thick Skinned for 1 (he'll have to be to deal with the insults he gets a court for being base born).

He'll start with 40 Resource points. I'll pay 5 for Run-of-the-Mill arms to outfit him with a lance, sword and good knife. He's base born so he couldn't afford a decent set of armor. I'll buy him some poor quality chainmail for 5 Resource points. He's got to have a Knight's fee, so I'll spend 15 Resource points there. Clothes and Shoes cost an additional 2 Resource points. He has to have a Warhorse, so that's 12 Resource points. I've got 13 Resource points left. He has to have a relationship with his baron, but the baron is not very well received at court or wealth (why else would he have some jumped up dirt-farmer in his retinue) so I'll spend 5 Resource points on that. That leaves me with 8 Resource Points left. That's just enough to buy my 1D Reputation and some Traveling Gear.

And we're done. Although now that I have the poor quality armor, I'm tempted to go back and rejigger my skills to allow me to at least open the Mending skill. I think I'll drop Conspicuous to B2 and use the additional point to open Mending. I won't be very good at it, but with Poor Quality armor I'll get lots of practice!

[Thor Olavsrud]

Oh, and just in case you're wondering: normally I would give a knight an affiliation with the knighthood/his liege lord's house, but I don't see this guy as part of the 'in' group, so I passed on it.

[luke]

ok, i'll bite, how much time did this take you, oh master burner?

[Thor Olavsrud]

ok, i'll bite, how much time did this take you, oh master burner?

Well, I had to stop to do some actual work in between, but I think I spent roughly 25 minutes on him. I would say about 5 to 8 of those minutes were spent figuring out how to properly allocate his Resource Points, and another 8 were spent figuring out which Traits would be most appropriate. Granted, I didn't write out his Beliefs or Instincts, so the total would probably get up to about 30 minutes or so once all is said and done, though I wouldn't need the Character Burner for that.

Although I was also explaining what I was doing as I went, so that probably ate up about 5 minutes of it.

[donbaloo]

Yeah, being a "spark" myself isn't speeding things along very well. The biggest problem I think is just unfamiliarity with the lifepaths. There's just a ton of page turning the two times I've burned characters. So far Thor, our method is similar in that I think choosing the final life path first makes for a good start. But then I've been going back and working up to that life path. And we've been trying to keep our concept pretty loose in the beginning as per the Character Burner's instructions.

For example, when I sat down with my player to show him character generation I explained some of the fundamentals of the system just as guide posts. So, his concept was a bounty-hunter. Now for us, the first thing we have to do is flip through all the lifepaths to see if there is something actually called "Bounty Hunter" or anything similar. That takes a couple of minutes. We don't see it and aren't surprised since pretty much anyone can be a bounty-hunter...but we had to check. Okay, so no specific end point yet but he knows he wants to start out poor and already has his motivation for leading himself into bounty hunting. Then it turns into simply trying to figure out what skills he thinks he's gonna want the final product to have so as to guide his life path selection. Getting a grasp of needed skills is easy...finding the lifepaths that grant them is not. So mostly its simply a matter of slowly building our way up to some envisioned end point by fumbling around for life paths that seem appropriate for his life's journey. Its a page turner.

Edit, added: Don't get me wrong, we both loved the process and how it just instinctively brings the character to life. We're just looking forward to when it becomes a bit more smooth for us.

[Thor Olavsrud]

No bounty hunter lifepath?! Page 136 of the Character Burner. Bailiff.

[donbaloo]

We actually liked the way Justiciar looked better but he didn't really want to be so closely involved with the noble setting. We ended up going Peasant born, Trapper, Village Guard, Corrupt Seargent. We built the story into the path and it turned out pretty nice. Just took us a while to get there.

[Thor Olavsrud]

We actually liked the way Justiciar looked better but he didn't really want to be so closely involved with the noble setting. We ended up going Peasant born, Trapper, Village Guard, Corrupt Seargent. We built the story into the path and it turned out pretty nice. Just took us a while to get there.

Well, Justiciar would be the chief judicial officer of an area. He's a judge and probably a noble. The Bailiffs are the guys the Justiciar sends out to take out outlaws or arrest people who can't pay their debts or taxes.

Remember that our Bounty Hunter is a modern conception. The originals were the Bailiffs that worked for the Judge (Justiciar).

Still, sounds like you built a pretty good concept anyway.

[Bill Cook]

My group had a similiar experience burning characters. It can be a bit of a time investment. We had two CB's (book form) and the PDF on a couple of computers. So that helped. (Probably the single most investing thing I did was to give my players PDF's.) Everyone did a different race which made it harder since each one is a modified process. By the end, everyone knew their own well but had no clue about the others:)

I think lifepaths more than beliefs inspire character burning. I find my concept arises from that effort. Comfortably so.

One advice no one's given yet that helped us: as you plot your lifepaths, just pick the skills you like from the list and write them down. Once your points are totaled, then pay for your selections.

[donbaloo]

I think lifepaths more than beliefs inspire character burning. I find my concept arises from that effort. Comfortably so.

I agree. When I was making my character I felt that the lifepaths really identified my character and built the story that was his concept. The beliefs added color and put me inside his head.

One advice no one's given yet that helped us: as you plot your lifepaths, just pick the skills you like from the list and write them down. Once your points are totaled, then pay for your selections.

Noted. Sounds like a good way to alleviate that last layer of page turning.

[Michael S. Miller]

The write-up of my own group's character burning session can be found here. (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=15363)

It was long, we're not done, but we have some truly great characters!

BTW, I think we should lobby Luke to release those $5-per-character-stock PDFs he mentions. That would certainly help.

[Mencelus]

I recently went through some character burning myself, made up two guys at random with the 4 and 5 LP ideas. Took about 40 minutes each, and it was mostly looking through the trait and skill examples that ate up time. Also, since the LPs aren't arranged alphabetically, I found them a little difficult to navigate (like, I knew I wanted a captain, for example, but WHERE IS THE CAPTAIN LP? A touch confusing at times...

Otherwise, not so bad. Not like the first time I made a mage character in Ars Magica - that took me forever, and my group took even longer with it, even after I photocopied the pages we needed for character gen. I think BW will actually be easier. Or at least it feels so.

Any tips on speeding this up? I don't mean "Have your concept in mind" type tips but "There's a five-dollar pdf for character generation and it has lists of stuff" type advice. Especially since I live in Japan and I think there were maybe three copies of the new books at the two stores we have here in Tokyo for English-langauge gaming.

(On a side note, most of us here in Japan order stuff from outside - I just ordered the Monster Burner from FRP Games - much cheaper, even with shipping, than buying it in the store anyway).

[donbaloo]

Any tips on speeding this up? I don't mean "Have your concept in mind" type tips but "There's a five-dollar pdf for character generation and it has lists of stuff" type advice.
Well, close...there's $7 PDFs available. They're broken out by race, 7 dollars for each race and that includes special racial traits and skills descriptions for each. You can get 'em at Key20 Direct (http://www.key20direct.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=22&osCsid=f58cb58f73a59783b99d4a4f46827260). Other than that the ideas that have been posted in this thread are pretty good...write down the skills you're gonna potentially want from each lifepath as you go, same for traits; find your end target lifepath first so that you know where you need to work towards setting wise; don't be afraid to use the index of traits and skills; and use the character burner worksheet that you can download for free from the download section.

Welcome to the boards!

[Thor Olavsrud]

Well, close...there's $7 PDFs available. They're broken out by race, 7 dollars for each race and that includes special racial traits and skills descriptions for each. You can get 'em at Key20 Direct (http://www.key20direct.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=22&osCsid=f58cb58f73a59783b99d4a4f46827260).

Just in case it's not clear though, these are PDF versions of the lifepath chapters taken straight from the book (the Orcs chapter is available in PDF from this site for free in the downloads section). So it won't speed you up as an individual, but if you've got three or four friends over for a character burning session, it will be a big help.