POLL: Time Spent on Character Creation

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How Long does it usually take for you take make a good character for a campaign?

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 31 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Time Spent on Character Creation (31 votes.)

Time Spent on Character Creation (Choose 1)
* Less Than An Hour... - 10% (3)
* 1-2 hours - 29% (9)
* 2-3 hours - 39% (12)
* A Session - 3% (1)
* A Week - 10% (3)
* More Then A Week - 10% (3)

 

A week or more. Well the few characters that I have created that is...

 

When I make a character I throw myself into it, taking about an hour or so. I can't understand why people take so long in many cases *glares at several people who know who they are*

 

I work out my characters to the point where it's insane Think 10 page long backgrounds, which lay the foundations for my character's uhm... character

The building of the character stat/feat/skillwise usually takes me an hour or so to get the general idea. But if I'm given longer, I will constantly make changes to get what I think would be best.

Hell, I've got characters that I've been working on for 5 months, and that are only now nearing completion

 

I filled in the character sheet of my last character in about half an hour. I spend another ten minutes writing his bio.

Another player in my campaign spent about 3 hours filling in his character sheet. It took him about 15 minutes to decide what color eyes his character should have. It took him another week to write a bio of three sentences stating that he was hunting the murderers of his family.

 

Over a month. Ask Oaz

 

A character can never be truly complete - just as people change over the course of their lives, so do characters grow and mature and change over the course of a campaign. I take maybe half an hour to come up with a plausible and coherent, if sketchy, background that explains why the character will act in particular way to particular situations. That's all that's really needed for me to roleplay - I find much more than that to be confining. From then on, I let the character's experiences determine how those base-level motivations and reactions evolve.

 

I usually use 3 days.

I pour myself into the first draft of the numeral design, then add some tidbit guidelines for his bio.
Think it over for a night, next day make finishing touches on the character numeral design making it match the bio I have outlined in my head. Then start writing bio.
Third day I usually finish/make additions to the bio, while editing the all to fit final touches.

the longer time I have for the concept, the more I return and edit it. (start the game Oaz! lol)

 

, Chev, Lokken.

A character? An hour to start off, a campaign to complete.

 

I'm with Rallymama on this one. For the initial backstory of a PC, I can spend as little as ten minutes to at most half an hour.

The character develops personality-wise as the campaign moves along.

For me, my PCs to the DM usually are: " A soldier of fortune, selling his services as a warrior to the highest bidder."

Then I work from there, fleshing him out as I go along. After all, how much of a backstory does a LVL 1 character have?

As I almost always play fighters or fighter/rogues, my builds are much similar for each PC: weapon focus, specialization, expertise, improved disarm/trip, sometimes TWF, etc etc.

Other classes either bore or put me off. Wizards and sorcerers? Nice but no thanks, I like a sword or knife in hand. Monks? Cool, I might want to try one someday. Druids/Rangers? 'Burn trees! Kill squirrels! Wear fur!' sums up my view on environmental issues. Barbarians? Too mindless in combat. The fighter is much more tactical. Clerics? It's always someone else. Paladins? Yeah right.

And bards...just...suck.

 

Oh, probably creating a paladin takes times longer than some other character... You know, preparing the pedigree takes at least a week, and you must also prepare heraldic achievement, especially coat-of-arms, the blazon, all the titles to be used in different places on different occasions - it does need time.

 

I dislike getting into too much detail with the backgrounds. I did once, where I really worked it all through, but he wasn't fun to play. I could think of nothing new. So now I just start out with a sketchy start, or just quickly think of something if my character is asked.

 

I answered 2-3 hours on your poll but that is simply for basic creation. As it was said above, a character is never finish. Your character continues to grow and change as the game progresses. Your learn more about them, why they do what they do, and how they act in certain situation. This help you fill in more of the blank spaces in your character. I've run PCs for over 2 years and still consider then a work in progress.

 

I usually DM, so i haven't made many characters, though a character that I made for a different RPG in my friend's campain took mabye 30 minutes, mabye more for his sheet, and is backround I had been thinking off and on for a a few weeks.

 

It takes me about 5 hours... without the background...

My DM created a character in half an hour... that was quick.

But it really depends on the dice. I mean I rolled about 21 times for the abilities but none of them was good enough . Then the DM -tottaly irritated and annoyed by my bad luck- invented his own.

 

It really depends if my character was to have a biography etc.

So basically, a bog standard character would hit about 1/2 hour to an hour but a fully fledged character would take about 2 or so hours

 

My characters develop over time (never fully completed like Rallymana, Shura and Voltric pointed out) but I usually take about an hour or two to write (or type up) a good character outline and all the statistics and stuff -- unless I really throw myself into the character. Like I spent 6 hours "creating" this one character because I wanted all of the details to be perfect. But my D&D characters often end up like the characters for my books. I start off with a vague idea of who they are and add on loads of detail (everything from their history to why they do what they do) as I go along. Works better for me that way, then I don't feel restricted to keep within my character's role the whole time but my character grows with me.