character generation suggestions.

[Gorwin]

Hi, so as you all know, I love making alts. Have a ton of them. One thing i always wish we could maybe do is have it to where we set our own hiegth and weight within the normal listed ranges for the race. Same with wich hand you prefer. Not sure how difficult would be to implement this though. So instead of seeing the screen short average tall, you could see something that gives a base guide line and you would type in the feet and the inches like 6 4 or 4 2. Same could be done with wieght with wich hand you use could still be coice where you see a. right b. left and if we ever add in ambidexterity could add in a c option for it. Definatley would be a low priority, but I think it would allow you a bit more control in your characters design.

[Nylo]

I might not be up to date on this - but last I heard, you aren't at all restricted by the height and weight chargen gives you, you can put any appropriate value in your desc.

[Gorwin]

Well, yes you can always roleplay it being taller and shorter then what is listed, no reason it should not be able to be reflected on the score sheet as well.

[Alitar]

I agree with Gorwin... although the score-sheet values appear to be guidance, not rule, I'd love to be able to make them match my own preference.

[Casamir]

There is already a glut of very tall and very short people, if anything I would vote for randomizing the system better. Almost invariably one seems to get stuck with the maximum, minimum, or dead centre values. I would even vote for having this enforced. However, another alternative is having an actual randomized character generator, with perhaps even more additional character values such as hair and eye colour, personality archetype, or type of origin, etc. Not that it would be compulsory, and certainly one could say break out the dice and do this on your own. Moreover, I always found the system giving you these things more rewarding and more 'real,' like the excitement whenever you finally spawn a lefty. (Though, I would even be in favour of enforcing the randomized characters and earning kismet to buy the custom character.)

[Trillarel]

I agree, a randomized system such as the one described above would help newbies the most.

[Briek]

A nice idea, but ultimately I think not worth the effort.

[Mele]

Forgive me - we're saying we are aware we are allowed to play away from our score height and weight as long as it is within boundaries of the race(and the choices we made in creation IE: Don't pick tall and go 4'7"), but we need to see it in the score?

I'm not trying to be facetious, I just want to be clear that the desire is seeing your exact numbers in your score even though your description is free game. :)

[Tarven]

Forgive me - we're saying we are aware we are allowed to play away from our score height and weight as long as it is within boundaries of the race(and the choices we made in creation IE: Don't pick tall and go 4'7"), but we need to see it in the score?

I'm not trying to be facetious, I just want to be clear that the desire is seeing your exact numbers in your score even though your description is free game.

I am interpreting that as being part of the issue, but also a couple other things.

1) People might not know what standard ranges are for various races. At 6'7", a human is definitely tall! But what stops being average? Granted, someone can just input from their knowledge of humans, but, what about gnomes? Dwarves? Sun elf vs Moon elf? For me, forming an image of a character in my head is a big part of roleplaying it, so I could see this being a factor for others as well.

2) I think people like the random factor. They know they want to be average in height, but can't decide to be 5'5" or 5'9" or somewhere in between. Let's have the game decide for us!

From my recollection of the tabletop rolls, when you roll height and weight, you only roll once, and it factors that in. If this is something that people really find crucial to their RP, I could crunch some number tables out, factoring in things like strength and constitution, that would then just require some very basic coding. Though, with all the work being done on the combat system, I would anticipate that being a low priority. I am willing to do so, however.

Alternatively, maybe it'd just be easier to create a pair of help files, "Help weight" and "help height" and then directions to an online random number generator.

[Gorwin]

Guess it comes down to how you make your character. And i have gone both ways really. If you just leave it to the random generator to pick it then that's fine. But sometimes you have an exact idea in your head of how the character looks. some things like handness do reflect outside the descritiption. I was just merely thinking of a way where you would have the ability to make a character exactly like you imagine. And yes i woulld love it being reflected in the score sheet the exact hieght and weight. And heres why. Consistancy. How i might view well over 6 ft and how someone else thinks it is could be totally different. Ever seen two folks with just the description well over six foot. How you tell who is taller? with folks just making things up, its just a guess. with it on the score sheet you are able to say hmm well i am 6'6 oh he is 6'9. Affects the way you would interact with each other. Wouldnt make much sense for the 6'9 guy to be looking up at the 6'6 guy now would it. Anyhoo hope ya'll can understand my rambling makes sense in my brain, anyways. lol

[Tarven]

But... you can't see their score sheet anyway...

As far as the 'well over 6 feet'.. you'd have to kind of guess. *shrugs* It's not always easy to judge exactly what someone's height is, unless you stand back to back. My friend Paul is 6'2", and I'm 6'4", but unless we're back to back, people generally look at Paul and think he's taller (mostly because he's skinny as a rail, where I'm... not. <.< )

[Mele]

You should have a number in mind if you're setting your description vaguely. :) If I write 'a few inches under five feet' my player should have decided five seven. That's not an argument against this, but something people should be doing by habit. Your characters should look exactly like you want within the realm of reason for fr regardless of what two numbers say. They affect nothing more than a nice guide.