Character creation?

[Doc Sportello]

I'm wondering how GMs typically handle character creation for campaigns and other games not using pre-generated characters. Do you ask your players to roll their own characters offline, then post the results here (or PM/email them to you)? Then the GM inputs the characters into the game, to save time when gameplay starts? Or do you all just have a character-creation session at game start? That would share the workload more, and the GM could oversee dice rolls for gear and whatnot. I imagine either way works, but I'm curious what people find works best. Thanks.

[damned]

i think you will find every possible combination/option in use.
i think these days a point buy/build system is the most common - allows players to play what they want and no over/under powered PCs...

you might have a character creation session - especially if you have some inexperienced players - or you might just leave your server up one or two nights prior to the game night for the players to logon and get their stuff done :)

[Doc Sportello]

Thanks! Sensible suggestions. I had meant to ask about point-buy systems, so I'm glad you weighed in on that. Thanks again.

[JohnD]

Hero Lab is a good choice if you have it and it has your game system.

[Doc Sportello]

Thanks for your reply. It looks like Hero Lab lets you export characters directly to FG. Nice! I'm most interested in 5e and the FFG Star Wars games, though; not sure those are supported by Hero Lab.

[Nickademus]

If you use Hero Labs, you will still want to check the character (both player and GM) after export. I have yet to see a character that didn't have some minor glitch or omission in the conversion.

[Valarian]

Thanks for your reply. It looks like Hero Lab lets you export characters directly to FG. Nice! I'm most interested in 5e and the FFG Star Wars games, though; not sure those are supported by Hero Lab.
This one's pretty good for FFG Star Wars. It has page references throughout for the books.
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/89135-another-character-generator/

[GunnarGreybeard]

I don't think HeroLab supports 5e yet.

[Trenloe]

Keep in mind that the Fantasy Grounds character converter only support 3.5E and Pathfinder for HeroLab file conversion.

[Blacky]

It really depend on the game.

First of all, I did not “roll” for a character in quite some time (like 15+ years), it's always by point or something.

Usually I give a detail version of the character creation, including what I require in terms of background, images, whatever. And what I demand for the campaign (I don't want elves, I want characters that care for the Empire in some way, I want this or don't want that, etc). Then I wait for first draft, correct what's wrong, second draft, again, and so on until it's ready. I do it all asynchronous, I play long campaigns where characters are important, not throw away.

A thing I did once a lot was to ask the players to write the story and personality of their character in plain language, according to the demands of the campaign, and translate that into a technical version myself. It can work quite well for some games, although as I player I'm not fond of it, because my concept can heavily be influenced by the mechanics of the game (like I want to play a professional X, but if the game doesn't let me, I prefer to play Y).

As for FG, I usually input the new characters myself, as a stage to check everything is kosher. But sometimes players input it themselves.

[Nylanfs]

I like using PCGen and point buy for Pathfinder and 35e. I use Herolab for SR4 & 5, although with our new formula system we should be able to support Shadowrun style of character creation.