Dungeons & Dragons Next Will Emphasize Fast, Easy Character Creation

[Kyrian007]

So... templates?

The thing I love about RPGs is coming up with interesting characters within a stereotype, giving them a background and a goal to try and achieve.

I've always thought that's the way to go. When I create a character, the nuts and bolts numbers, abilities and skills, and equipment and money... that's the easy part. I play several different systems and I don't consider any of them (well, maybe Palladium) to have character creations that are too long. The fun part is background, personality, goals, and skeletons in the closet. I always give the GM something that he can use in my characters backstory. Usually not to my benefit (they generally use it to screw with me, but when I GM I do the same,) but it creates a more personal adventure for me AND my comrades.

Deadlands (my favorite pnp game) has a great character creation process. It's class and level-less with plenty of character type "templates" to give new players an idea of what a type of character may need. A gunfighter will have fairly different skills than a mad scientist or a priest, but then again there's no reason a preacher can't be fast with with a .45. You just might have to sacrifice a couple of other things for the skills. But where Deadlands shines in character creation in 3 sections. First is a section called Edges and Hinderances where you can beat your character up with flaws to boost other abilities. Edges help you, and properly role-playing Hindrances is worth xp. Second, in drawing for ability scores (a deck of cards is used) some of the cards worth the best scores come with random problems of their own (a more powerful starting character may wind up with a dangerous supernatural foe, or a mysterious unlucky streak... etc.) And thirdly, each character sheet has a section called "My Worst Nightmare." That's EXACTLY what it sounds like and any good GM makes it manditory.

 

[TheCaptain]

But the best part about roleplaying games is character creation O.O

I must admit that I never played D&D. Back in the day the go-to fantasy pen & paper RPG was The Dark Eye / Realms of Arkania and I stuck with it - particularly it's 3rd edition - since then. Stopped getting new supplements when they completely revamped the thing for the 4th - one of the changes was, by the way, a streamlined character creation.

 

[ShadowStar42]

I worry about "streamlining" the process to making characters in an RPG like D&D. It seems to only benefit people who don't care about the roll-playing aspect at all. I feel like making the character in the long form is an important step in being able to get yourself in their shoes. There was something to poring over the books to find the right balance between flavor and effect that brought your character to life in your eyes. I don't feel like it's possible to really get into the head of a character thrown together in under twenty minutes. How are you supposed to have a realized personality for a character in such a short time period. I find with all of my characters they evolve and become unique over the process of picking feats, skills, and weapons. How could that happen if you can spit a character out that quickly? I agree that making characters can be tedious, but I don't see any way to get at the heart of a role-playing experience without characters crafted with time and care.

You see and I find it to be exactly the opposite. The more niggling little details you have to choose for your character the more it just becomes a pile of numbers, this has always been my issue with Pathfinder/3.5. Making characters in those systems takes so much combing through books and weighing feats and gear against each other that it can take hours by the end of which you have to remind yourself who the hell you were in the first place. Give me a game like Fate or Numenera with a sparse handful of mechanical choices to make and a lot of room for whatever personality and back story you want to bring to it any day of the week.

 

[ShadowStar42]

Hmm, I wonder why it always took so long to create a character. Could it be because we had a lot of options to choose from? I suppose if you dumb it down and limit what choices there are than you do end up with a faster process.

But hey, go ahead, its not like D&D is a RPG or anything, not like we need a lot of choice and customization to be able to create the characters we want to play right?

If every choice you made for your character was a feat, skill or piece of gear, I can't say you are much of a role player.

 

[Qvar]

NOT ON MY WATCH.

Just kidding. It wouldn't hurt, I've DM'd several D&D campaigns and specially with new players, it was a pain. Often it took the whole first session just to create the sheets, which frankly isn't that appealing to convince the players to come a second time.

I just hope this won't mean generic chars like it did on 4th, for what I've heard. Aaaaand well if it does, who's gonna love my 3.5 books, if not me?

Frankly, I always thought the mundane equipment micromanagement fetish some people have in D&D was rather silly. Why on earth would anyone carry a 10 ft wooden pole? Where are they carrying it? Gear packages for starting adventurers just makes sense to me for the vast majorities of play styles. The only real exception I can see would be the gritty wilderness hex-crawl. And if you're playing that way, it's likely you have all the equipment you would carry memorized anyway and don't need a book to tell you that you need flint and tender to light fires.

You kidding? One of the most hilarious sessions I've had DM'ing D&D was this one when I started going over every single item aviable for purchase in the general goods of the D&D player book. They started fighting over what and who should buy every little piece of crap that seemed remotely useful.

They ended up with, among maaaany many others, a mule, a wagon, and several barrels full of ale.

That, and of course the mythical 10ft wooden pole, which for some reason somebody buys every single campaign (playing with different people).