Not that inspiring

[smascrns]

For a column focuzed on inspiration in character creation you spend very little time writting about your subject. Actually there's just a paragraph on the issue, the next: "Inspiration can come from many, many places. Books, movies, role-playing source books, the dreams of players, and my current personal favorite – sad old-style country songs – are just the tip of the iceberg for what might be driving a player to make a particular character".

Yes, you are not shy on bold statements.

For instance, it's good to know which games allow for turning the inspiring idea into a full character concept (your terminology, not mine), even if I don't exactly consider HERO or GURPS as the best on this account. HeroQuest, for instance, is much better. My opinion, of course, but I am not writting a column. I would expect from you some demonstration on why your chosen games are specially suited to inspiration-guided character creation.

Or take this, "My opinion on the matter on inspiration based character creation is very clear – it creates the best characters. The reason for this is that the player has a great interest in playing the character". A little shalow as a demonstration that inspiration based character creation produces better characters.

Still, my main problem with the column comes with the last paragraph: "But to get back to inspiration - you just have to ask yourself: what inspires you to role-play? What inspires your characters? What do you want to play?" Well, my expectations were that these questions would be stated at the begining of the column, not the end; and that the column would attempt to answer then instead of discussing things that may be very nice but that are not about inspiration.

[gschneider]

I am sorry you did not get what you expected from my column. I think you may end up being disappointed with the rest of my current series as well - just as I didn't spend too much time on "what is inspiration", I have no plans to spend a lot of time on what is conceptualization, mechanization or dramatization. The reason for this is that I think it is more useful for role-players for me to talk about how to use these rather then what they are. I guess I am assuming that people have a pretty good grasp on inspiration, and are likely to have a pretty good grasp on the others, so spending a lot of time talking about "what is or how to" will have less net benefit.

That being said, I would expect from you some demonstration on why your chosen games are specially suited to inspiration-guided character creation. is a very valid criticism and probably speaks to a problem with haste while writing the column. Something such the following should have been inserted into the column:

"These systems do not start with a set template or idea for any of their characters, requiring the base picture of the character to be truly player generated, not mechanics driven."

I am sorry that I do not have experience with HeroQuest, so I cannot comment on it in comparison to the other systems I mention.

It is true that I make bold statements. That is, in some sense, my job as a columnist. If I did not have confidence in what I was talking about, I shouldn't be writing a column. Of course, I do need to offer some backing to my statements (generally) and that may have been a bit lacking in this column. However, I am also fighting against the fact that I need to keep the columns relatively short and to the point so that the average web reader will be able to get through them, gain some insight from them, and not be bored. This certainly drives some of my decisions to leave out such things as involved character creation examples – or more to the point – save them for later when I can focus on them.

Thanks for the input! At least I know somebody (even if they are displeased) is reading the column!

Greg

[smascrns]

just as I didn't spend too much time on "what is inspiration", I have no plans to spend a lot of time on what is conceptualization, mechanization or dramatization. The reason for this is that I think it is more useful for role-players for me to talk about how to use these rather then what they are.
I may not have explained myself. I was not expecting that you would explain what is inspiration. What I was looking was for more on how inspiration may drive character creation. You almost didn't write about this.

Something such the following should have been inserted into the column:

"These systems do not start with a set template or idea for any of their characters, requiring the base picture of the character to be truly player generated, not mechanics driven."
Definitely, this would make clear the choice of systems. Still, I think that this has not much to do with inspiration. To use your terms, what these systems facilitate is the moving from inspiration (the idea of a character) to concept (the details of the character in system terms). Yes, this is a very important issue but it is about something other than inspiration.

I am sorry that I do not have experience with HeroQuest, so I cannot comment on it in comparison to the other systems I mention.
I understand that, you don't have to know every system on earth. In any case, please check its character creation rules if possible (IMO these are the best of the system), or check the many descriptions that can be found in the internet, including my RPGnet review.

I am also fighting against the fact that I need to keep the columns relatively short and to the point so that the average web reader will be able to get through them, gain some insight from them, and not be bored.
I perfectly understand this as a fellow RPGnet columnist.

I was not displeased reading the column, there are some very interesting ideas in it. It just did not correspond to my expectations.