I want faster character creation. Also, I’m a monster.

TwoSix · Jan 17, 2019

Satyrn said:
I used to say the same thing about City of Heroes/Villains.

Now you're just bringing up painful nostalgia. I miss you, CoH!

Wiseblood · Jan 17, 2019

Elfcrusher, It’s not satire. I do try to make it humorous though.

I am almost always the DM. So character creation is kinda dull from my side. I love 5e but I am always restlessly seeking a better game. One that is bigger, faster and stronger. Sometimes it’s just a matter of my perception and I can enlist the help of my fellow EnWorlders to show me what I might be missing.

I’ve looked at Dungeon World it just doesn’t fit my style. I have played older versions of D&D, Rolemaster, Champions, Shadowrun so it’s not brand fidelity that keeps me from it. If I ever stop swimming “figuratively speaking” I’ll die.

Charlaquin · Jan 17, 2019

Removing all decision points from character creation would certainly make character creation faster, but at the cost of sucking all the fun out of it. Decision points are what the game is all about. Imagining yourself as another person and/or in a fictional situation and making decisions as you imagine you or that person would in that situation is the definition of roleplaying. All parts of the game should facilitate roleplaying (which is to say decision making), and character creation is part of the game.

Charlaquin · Jan 17, 2019

And what’s with all this “point buy slows character creation to a crawl” nonsense? Point buy is incredibly fast and easy. Put a 14 or 15 in your prime requisite ability (depending on if it gets +2 or +1 from your race), put 12, 13, or 14 in your secondary ability (depending on if it gets +2, +1, or +0 from your race), put an 8 in your least important ability, and put a 12 and a 10 in the other two. Boom, done, point buy over. Hell of a lot better than rolling 4d6, finding the lowest, adding up the other three, writing down that number, repeating the process 5 more times, pottentially repeating the whole process several more times until you get a set of numbers that doesn’t suck, and THEN deciding what abilities to put each of those scores in (or what Race and Class to play, if you do them in order). Standard array is faster than either, if you don’t mind ending up with some odd-numbered ability scores. And all three methods could be sped up significantly by ditching the vestigial score/mod split.

Henry · Jan 17, 2019

FrogReaver said:
The problem with character generation in 5e is that I can make hundreds of slight variations for almost any character concept. Most of those variations are point buy related. Point buy makes character creation crawl to a stand still. Allowing feats and multiclassing forces a player that wants to optimize any to make decisions up front on whether he’s going multiclass and when etc. Feats also factor in here as well.

Eliminate those 3 things and character creation goes “fast”. Using standard array makes it a magnitude of speed even faster as most decision points get removed. Using rolled stats is going to be even faster as virtually all decision points get removed.

Using the standard array and the "default" equipment given for each class and background, you can make a 5e level 1 character in approximately 10 minutes. I can't think of getting any faster while still maintaining a sense of meaningful choice about your character. For some, the existing character options, even including multiclassing and feats, are still too small. Personally, I'd really love to see a good optional skill system that allowed a bit more tweaking of numbers, or even more mechanical options for what you can do with a trained skill.

FrogReaver · Jan 17, 2019

Henry said:
Using the standard array and the "default" equipment given for each class and background, you can make a 5e level 1 character in approximately 10 minutes. I can't think of getting any faster while still maintaining a sense of meaningful choice about your character. For some, the existing character options, even including multiclassing and feats, are still too small. Personally, I'd really love to see a good optional skill system that allowed a bit more tweaking of numbers, or even more mechanical options for what you can do with a trained skill.

The slow part comes from comparing multiple variations of the classes I’m interested in playing with each other. This gets even worse with feats and multiclassing options.

Maybe not everyone character builds that way but I do and I don’t think I’m alone. So once I’ve actually went through the mental gymnastics of comparing my various options which can take a long time then I can actually write up my character in about 10 minutes.

FrogReaver · Jan 17, 2019

Charlaquin said:
And what’s with all this “point buy slows character creation to a crawl” nonsense? Point buy is incredibly fast and easy. Put a 14 or 15 in your prime requisite ability (depending on if it gets +2 or +1 from your race), put 12, 13, or 14 in your secondary ability (depending on if it gets +2, +1, or +0 from your race), put an 8 in your least important ability, and put a 12 and a 10 in the other two. Boom, done, point buy over. Hell of a lot better than rolling 4d6, finding the lowest, adding up the other three, writing down that number, repeating the process 5 more times, pottentially repeating the whole process several more times until you get a set of numbers that doesn’t suck, and THEN deciding what abilities to put each of those scores in (or what Race and Class to play, if you do them in order). Standard array is faster than either, if you don’t mind ending up with some odd-numbered ability scores. And all three methods could be sped up significantly by ditching the vestigial score/mod split.

There’s a reason I said roll in order. You don’t choose what ability to place the score in when you do that.

jasper · Jan 17, 2019

FrogReaver said:
Rolling is fast. Decision points are slow.

Ok. Here are 3 arrays.
All 10s.
All 12s
All 14s
No decisions.

FrogReaver · Jan 17, 2019

Charlaquin said:
Removing all decision points from character creation would certainly make character creation faster, but at the cost of sucking all the fun out of it. Decision points are what the game is all about. Imagining yourself as another person and/or in a fictional situation and making decisions as you imagine you or that person would in that situation is the definition of roleplaying. All parts of the game should facilitate roleplaying (which is to say decision making), and character creation is part of the game.

I think class choice, skill choices and background choice makes for plenty of decision points. I don’t consider character creation to be role playing.

FrogReaver · Jan 17, 2019

jasper said:
Ok. Here are 3 arrays.
All 10s.
All 12s
All 14s
No decisions.

Lol. If that’s the array in question then of course that’s a little faster than rolling in order.

I want faster character creation. Also, I’m a monster.

TwoSix

Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer

Wiseblood

Adventurer

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)

Henry

Autoexreginated

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

jasper

Rotten DM

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

Similar Threads