So I’m trying to put together the living campaign (obviously late to the party, but still) and I see the games are intended for pregenerated characters. I cannot find these said characters, can anyone point me in the right direction?
The start of the living campaign was originally used as a playtest, using pregenerated characters provided by the person running it, I believe. There are some pregenerated characters in the Starter Set, and possibly also the quickstart rules that you could use if you wanted to. However, if your group is full of regular players, I would suggest letting them make their own characters. They would have more fun that way, in my opinion.
What SSiron said. The quick start does have pregens, and it’s free, but making their own might be more fun.
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The Playtest PCs were a wonderful mix, but the rules changes have rendered them unusable as is…
They had 3 additional traits, 0-1 fewer foci, 1 fewer attribute points, and many talents were overpoweringly string.
I’m going through and picking my favorites to use when I run a one-shot next week, and it’s rebuild (using the quick method).
Yeah, I should go through that pile so I have a few handy in case of a sudden new player. Most of that is a pretty easy set of fixes.
I always use the supporting character set-up for guest players. It gives them a sense of ownership for the character, but at the same time, if they never come back, it’s another supporting character for later use!
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Not a bad approach, but it’s kind of a pain if they do stick around and happen to like the character. Supporting Characters are inherently weaker than Main Character PCs.
Which brings me to a different issue regarding NPCs, but I’ll make a separate thread for that later.
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Imo the pre-gens are great, but it is better to let the players create there one ones. First they get more what they want. And second, you could introduce the core rules right through character generation.
Well, it depends. For new players, pregenerated characters could be a smooth way to introduce them to the setting and, obviously when playing the starter set, to see if they wish to embrace a new game, pregens are a way for the players to jump straight into the scenario. For a long run campaign though I’d agree with you.
Ah, but they get better fairly rapidly…
I also have the advantage of already being at my limit for regular players (6). Due to the club setting, I allow guests to drop in if one or more of the regulars is missing…
Not as easy as I had hoped. A lot of the foci are overly broad compared to corebook… and I’m narrowing some down.
I found (during the playtest) that letting players generate new characters without having played a pregen resulted in those players wanting to rewrite and/or replace their PC’s in 2-4 sessions. A session or two of pregens really helps grasp both the value of various ratings, and the value of Traits (including Species and Values) and talents.
I’ve had similar issues with Mouse Guard, L5R 5E, and Marvel Heroic.
Likewise, for convention or demo use, pregens are much better for getting into play.
I know this habit even from experienced players who have played a system longer than they did not. To those, regarding STA, I will say: Fear not! The system is designed to let change to even the core of your character happen over time. 
[quote=“MisterX, post:13, topic:5940, full:true”]
I know this habit even from experienced players who have played a system longer than they did not. To those, regarding STA, I will say: Fear not! The system is designed to let change to even the core of your character happen over time. 
[/quote]Not fast enough to repair a “I totally borked my concept character, and he is totally broken…” before a player either demands a new character or just walks.
If a player’s read the rules, and generates a character using the lifepath method, they’re not going to be too far from expected, but talent selection is highly responsive to system knowledge. And talent swaps are a long way off…
The oft-overlooked “creation in play” option allows players to create their characters as they learn the rules, selecting focuses and talents and values as needed during the first session.
I don’t know why everyone ignores those…
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Yep. I’ve been making custom Character sheets since launch and only just remembered those rules exist.
I think it is because I like the Lifepath system so much.
Can I take this opportunity to ask something? As it isn’t clearly stated, do you check for eligibility for talents at the lifepath stage you take them or once the character is finalised? If it as you go along, creation in play has a distinct advantage in that respect.
You can choose at the moment you receive the option to take a talent, but I see nothing wrong in waiting to pick talents at the end of character creation. For a start, it involves less page-flipping.
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Thanks Nathan. That’s how I have played it, but I was playing with the Official Character App and it forces you to take Talents you qualified for at each step and it got me wondering.
What’s really nice about creation in play is that you can actually end up with talent combinations that aren’t possible through the lifepath option. The flip-side of that coin is that your range of possible attribute combinations is not quite as diverse.
Why and how? Per my query to Nathan above the end result is the same between the two methods.