Character creation is good, actually.

 That's my hill

One of the lovely aspects of the game industry is that everyone has an opinion on literally everything, and they speak with an air of absolute authority whenever they do. Let it never be forgotten the absolute numbskull who insisted, in the wake of the GTA VI leaks, that visual assets are the first things completed in game development. Truly astounding. Of course, Twitter creeps are always full of nonsense, it's how their bodies function, but you get that 'authoritative drivel' pouring out of the lips of actual card-carrying games journalists too. I should know, I read half of them. And to be fair the industry is not always writhe with interesting goings-onsand explosive releases wrapped in historic pump and dump schemes from mysterious studios who may or may not be called 'Fntastic'. Sometimes you need to fill up page space so you can afford to eat. Then the editorials come out and they reign hellfire.

An editorial I recently read shall go unnamed, because it honestly doesn't deserve the view, but it rubbed me so very wrong with it's message that I simply had to say something. The topic, character creation. The Target, CRPGs. The title? Something along the lines of 'Modern RPGs are doing character creation wrong', with the subheading providing the thesis which the entire length of the article pains to try and justify 'Character creation should not be a test you can fail'. So you can see where this is going, right? It's another plea made in the guise of 'inclusivity', which is always a good thing- right? Heck, I think the more people that get the ability to play games, the better. And I've said it before but it's the accessibility of Baldur's Gate 3 which made it a shoe in for game of the year more than anything else. As long as you were willing to engage with Baldur's Gate on even the base-most level- you would be welcomed into the fold with open arms. But here's the kicker- that can't be every game.

Regardless what some antisemitic, homophobic, loud mouthed fake TV calibrator might have to whine about the topic, not every game is made for everyone. It's kind of one of those base most lessons that everyone is forced to learn as a child- you can't please everyone. There's logic there and it rings doubly true when we're talking about entertainment. Different strokes and all that? It's a religion in the world of design and marketing, hence the existence of demographics and genre lovers. I remember recently hearing some grumblings from Final Fantasy developers about the designation of 'JPRG', as opposed to just RPG- as though they saw some sort of racial prejudice behind the label. It's not that deep. JRPGs are just built in a fundamentally different way to Western RPGs and attract wildly different core audiences. I'm a chameleon, I love both. But ask your average Bioware fan what they thought of Final Fantasy X and they'll probably collapse on the floor and cry crystal tears of solid boredom. Different strokes, different folks.

Now the 'problem' in question was actually directed at Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader, with Baldur's Gate tacked on as another use case, so you can see why I'm taking this so damned personal. (I love both these games passionately.) Their thesis is this; these games both present extensive character creation tasks you have to navigate through in order to build characters including deciding their stats, class, ancestry and vocation- these provide significant chances for players to screw up and in doing so make a character who has no chance of standing up to the events to come. Essentially this creates a trap that requires extensive knowledge of the systems you'll be interacting with beforehand, which hardly seems fair to a fresh audience member trying to pick up the game- "be more accessible- character creation should be about being goofy and naming your character something really stupid and silly because I'm a games journalist and apparently we all do this and then share it in op eds in lieu of a personality." (Seriously, does anyone really smile when they hear some journalist recount the adventures of their 'wittily' named character who is just an appendage? It's just a bit sad they still find that funny, honestly.)

Firstly I think I should really impress that there's a certain amount of heavy lifting the statement is doing that is not reflective of the experience of either of these games. Namely, he's ignoring the fact that both Baldur's Gate 3 and Rouge Trader actually default optimal choices for every parameter in the character creation process and tweaking is only really for specialist players who know what they're doing. If you don't: no worries the game will give you a solid character just by clicking through. What the article is more about, is actually a common problem I've heard a lot about for new adopters of Baldur's Gate 3, or simply anyone wondering into a genre they aren't familiar with. They are unwilling to actually engage with the product, whether out of reticence or lack of investment, and see that as a failing of the game. The contributor under the spotlight, he just didn't want to read. He waxed lyrical about the many 'complicated' calculations the game throws his way in tooltips- (apparently single attribute multiplication was considered 'advanced calculus' in his school's curriculum.) and just generally outed himself as someone who doesn't want to read. In a CRPG. Which is kind of a problem.

You see, CRPGs are themselves attempts at recreating text-intensive tabletop RPGs onto a video game format; keeping that creative aura of imagination through description over visual representation in most cases. Baldur's Gate 3 was a vast exception to this rule, given their budget to depict literally everything. (Aside from the darker manifestations of the Dark Urge's memory. But that was probably for the best considering all the shrinking violets out there.) Rouge Trader is rife with evocative paragraphs painting inexplicable and emotional portraits, covering the perils of breaking through the warp, being dogged by the corrupting influence of heresy and seeing the world awash in warring pirouettes of colourful splotches. That's because it expects the audience to have the time and patience to read and absorb this sort of content, to involve themselves in the immersion of a world as one would with a fine book. And if you don't have that patience, then... how do I put this... the game ain't for you.  

Now back to the actual Character Creation. Both Baldur's Gate 3 and Rogue Trader do the art of character creation so right it actually hurts to see someone miss the mark so horrendously. You see because unlike the thousands of other games which keep character creation as little more than a vapid vanity show- creation choices mean something. When you rock up to the original Baldur's Gate and make yourself a gnome cleric with 8 Strength, (>cough< like me >cough<) you've created a unique situation where you are a cleric totally incapable of wielding any weapon heavier than the starting stick. (Which you then use to clobber the main villain to death. Somehow. Still working that one out in my head.) These choices translate into a dynamic canvass that reacts to the adventure before you in a way that brings you back to the creation screen time and time again across your adventure. And when you start again, the journey will feel fundamentally different for the new choices you make. This, ladies and gentlemen, is effective replayability. And it's getting all too rare in the world of RPG-lights that inflict our shelves.

Giving players a choice is giving them the power to screw up. But screwing up isn't the end of the world. Making the wrong choice and living with it, growing past it and becoming better is the fun of consequence, and as I hinted at with my cleric story- it can leave an impression that sticks with you. It can also be frustrating, however, which is why some of the more intensive RPGs out there don't expect you to be an expert and hand you perfectly viable character builds off rip. There's comes a point when a player, after blasting through every warning and roadblock designed to guide them in the right direction, loses the right to blame their misfortune on the accessibility of the game. If you ignore all the warnings, intentionally chance all the game's recommendations and then complain that you don't even know what any of these stats or abilities even do- then hell, maybe interactive media is a bit too much for you. At least for today.