I like pre gens especially if I’m getting to know a game. For instance, I got the Pendragon starter set for Xmas. It came with great choices of pre gens and I’m really happy with them. It has enough info for me to build upon and I can focus on learning g the mechanics of the game first.
There's a lot of really great sets out there that have killer pregens. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 4E I think has a few really cool pregens with their own motivations and kits that interact with one another.
I only use pretend for brand new players or at a convention. My experiences over the years was people hate pregens and sometimes even newbie players groaned at them. But everyone’s experience may vary
Thanks for sharing your perspective! I definitely get why folks often associate pregens with newbie sessions or quick con games—most of us have sat down to a one-shot with a bare-bones “Fighter” or “Wizard” that didn’t have much to latch onto beyond stats.
But my point is that well-designed pregens can be way more than that: they can offer ready-made backstories, rich motivations, and immediate reasons to engage with other players. They do a lot of the heavy lifting typically left to the player when creating a character from scratch (which, frankly, can take forever and be super underwhelming when you spent all this time working on a backstory only for the GM to just say "ehhh... that doesn't really work with this game.").
People may have only ever seen “bad” or “bare-bones” pregens—and, honestly, I don’t blame them for groaning at those. But if pregens are thoughtfully written to include roleplaying hooks, distinct personalities, and ties to the adventure, they can be super fun for everyone, new or not.
They skip the less exciting parts of character creation and drop you right into the action with a character that has a reason to exist in the story rather than "Generic Hero with Dead Parents who Hates Evil".
I’m the moderator for my school’s D&D Club, and I’m always using pre-generated characters for various reasons (RPG newbies, time, new system, etc.). And you’re right—they are just the basic version of a “cleric” or a “rogue.” I’m going to apply your suggestions and add some personality traits, backgrounds, and maybe short-term agendas.
Pregens have always felt strange to me when the efforts fail to meet a sense of intrigue about a character or tell any kind of story about them. When they lack all creative juice and are just a generic writeup of initial details that give the player of said character nothing to build upon. The Yazebas reference is pretty cool and counter to those shortcomings.
In games where characters can meet unfortunate fates easily and often, the ability to spin up a character fast can also be a necessary part of the experience to provide relief from fatigue. This is where I think the idea of a pregen can be morphed. This is adjacent to pregens but when I was in a coding class, I had a ttrpg I wanted to make focused around space exploration without combat. Just something to pull a player in for the thrill of the hunt. So I made a location generator to give them details of what the next discovery *might* be like. It was a pregen that spurred them to fill in the blanks. It never actually went anywhere and sits in my backlog for something to revisit but my hope was to take out the monotony but also fight the ever threatening writers block and fatigue of "building yet another [insert item] from scratch."
This article gives me inspiration to return to that project and make some needed improvements and to think about how my own "pregens" can actually be exciting and thought-provoking. Thank you!
I've seen people jump off into creating some of the most memorable characters out of a pre-gen that they may have never even thought to play. I love pre-gens. But you're right, they have to give those good hooks to inspire interesting play.
I like pre gens especially if I’m getting to know a game. For instance, I got the Pendragon starter set for Xmas. It came with great choices of pre gens and I’m really happy with them. It has enough info for me to build upon and I can focus on learning g the mechanics of the game first.
Realized I never responded to this - sorry Robin!
There's a lot of really great sets out there that have killer pregens. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 4E I think has a few really cool pregens with their own motivations and kits that interact with one another.
No Problem! 😊😊 it’s easy to do!
I only use pretend for brand new players or at a convention. My experiences over the years was people hate pregens and sometimes even newbie players groaned at them. But everyone’s experience may vary
Thanks for sharing your perspective! I definitely get why folks often associate pregens with newbie sessions or quick con games—most of us have sat down to a one-shot with a bare-bones “Fighter” or “Wizard” that didn’t have much to latch onto beyond stats.
But my point is that well-designed pregens can be way more than that: they can offer ready-made backstories, rich motivations, and immediate reasons to engage with other players. They do a lot of the heavy lifting typically left to the player when creating a character from scratch (which, frankly, can take forever and be super underwhelming when you spent all this time working on a backstory only for the GM to just say "ehhh... that doesn't really work with this game.").
People may have only ever seen “bad” or “bare-bones” pregens—and, honestly, I don’t blame them for groaning at those. But if pregens are thoughtfully written to include roleplaying hooks, distinct personalities, and ties to the adventure, they can be super fun for everyone, new or not.
They skip the less exciting parts of character creation and drop you right into the action with a character that has a reason to exist in the story rather than "Generic Hero with Dead Parents who Hates Evil".
Great article! Well written.
I’m the moderator for my school’s D&D Club, and I’m always using pre-generated characters for various reasons (RPG newbies, time, new system, etc.). And you’re right—they are just the basic version of a “cleric” or a “rogue.” I’m going to apply your suggestions and add some personality traits, backgrounds, and maybe short-term agendas.
Good stuff!
Glad this was of some use! Let me know how it goes - I'm super interested to see this in more places in the wild.
Plus you'll do me a favor of making my prediction come true. :)
Pregens have always felt strange to me when the efforts fail to meet a sense of intrigue about a character or tell any kind of story about them. When they lack all creative juice and are just a generic writeup of initial details that give the player of said character nothing to build upon. The Yazebas reference is pretty cool and counter to those shortcomings.
In games where characters can meet unfortunate fates easily and often, the ability to spin up a character fast can also be a necessary part of the experience to provide relief from fatigue. This is where I think the idea of a pregen can be morphed. This is adjacent to pregens but when I was in a coding class, I had a ttrpg I wanted to make focused around space exploration without combat. Just something to pull a player in for the thrill of the hunt. So I made a location generator to give them details of what the next discovery *might* be like. It was a pregen that spurred them to fill in the blanks. It never actually went anywhere and sits in my backlog for something to revisit but my hope was to take out the monotony but also fight the ever threatening writers block and fatigue of "building yet another [insert item] from scratch."
This article gives me inspiration to return to that project and make some needed improvements and to think about how my own "pregens" can actually be exciting and thought-provoking. Thank you!
I've seen people jump off into creating some of the most memorable characters out of a pre-gen that they may have never even thought to play. I love pre-gens. But you're right, they have to give those good hooks to inspire interesting play.