Optimization in Character Creation

Every gaming group has experienced the player character who has constructed the most optimized character possible — every character creation choice is based on what will make the most powerful fighter, the best spellcaster, the sneakiest thief, etc. Your entire party may be built that way. There are guides online for optimal builds that rate every spell, feat, weapon, etc. And why not — you want your character to be good at what they do so they can do heroic things and pull off kickass stunts!

If you play the same game a lot, though, you notice the inevitable — optimized characters are almost all built the same. There’s no rogue who is not an olympic-level acrobat, no barbarian who is not as stacked as Schwarzenegger, no wizard who does not have fireball bookmarked in their spellbook. Let’s just say it — optimized characters can be kind of vanilla and boring over repeated play.

Your gaming group has also probably experienced the player character who breaks the mold — who is intentionally built inefficiently. Maybe the player wants a challenge, or they settle all chargen choices with dice rolls, or maybe you’re playing an OSR game where your stats are completely random. The bard who isn’t as smooth as they think they are, the warlock who fumbles spells but delivers a mean punch, the druid who gets lost in the woods. Non-optimized characters are often flawed, but they’re also more fun, as long as you’re comfortable with sometimes failing! Not only do you get more diverse characters this way, you also encourage more creative roleplaying as the PCs need to work around their flaws to resolve problems. At the same time, you don’t want a character who is completely useless and not fun to play, so there needs to be some middle ground.

When designing character creation for The Snarl, we opted to include non-optimization as a specific but balanced choice. You can make a fully optimized and heroic character if that’s your thing, assigning your stats so that they line up with your character’s primary strengths. Kick ass and be the hero! But if you want a character who sticks out from their peers, who is non-optimized and who has flaws but is still capable, there’s a an option for that as well. In this case, you pick your path first and then assign your stats randomly. To keep it balanced, you start off with a decent amount of Grit — points that let you modify dice rolls in certain situations. You may not be the ideal person for the job, but you can still pull it off when the stakes are high!

One thing we’ll be playtesting is how much Grit the non-optimized characters should start with. We think we’ve settled on a good balance, but we need more people to give the system a spin to be sure.

If you want a sneak peek, we’ve posted a draft of the chargen rules to our patreon. If you back it, you’ll get access to that plus a few other Snarl previews and several years of Eclipse Phase content. You can also keep an eye on out for our open playtest — we’ll be kicking that off soon!