[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by drohem

If one person finds it a problem, then I don't see it as a problem. I see it as that person's issue. RQ3 didn't force random character

And if it was one person out of all gamers, I'd find that a relevant statement, but given I've personally seen it be an issue for at least a dozen people at one time or another, and heard of many more, that's clearly incorrect, so I return to my statement that the only question can be how widespread a problem it is.

generation down anyone's throat: it was the default method and the rules expicitly provided other options for those who didn't like completely random generation.

Except they clearly weren't the default case, and as such, if a GM had no problem with it but a player did, he was simply stuck. In addition, the alternate methods had their own issues.

Also, I would like to note that useless and inferior characters are subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would say that it is poor role-playing

To a degree, but I don't think there's much subjectivity in saying that a character who does everything worse than other characters is inferior by a reasonable objective metric.

skills that would cause a player to dismiss a character due to inexperience from age or lack of combat skills due to occupation.

No, I'd say its a desire to have a character that doesn't feel like a second stringer. To dismiss that as poor roleplaying is to have an essentially pointlessly elitist definition of roleplaying.

In addition, it a poor game master that doesn't tailor their game so that every

And I'd characterize it as poor design that makes it necessary for him to do so. A routinely generated character shouldn't require extra effort on a GM's part to feel involved.

Specifically addressing your example of the sailor, I would say that it was a failing of that GM not to include some elements into the sessions and campaign that would allow the use of some of the sailor's skills and abilities.

And I'd claim that if I needed to do so in every session, that's the game expecting more than is reasonable. It shouldn't be necessary to make sure every adventure involves a boat to make a character feel useful.