D&D 5E I want my players to ignore class in character creation

[Smackpixi]

Ok. I accept that I’m understood, and it’s generally understood that my plan doesn’t. I haven’t accepted that yet, but I’m sure I will eventually.

 

[Gorck]

Seems like a psychological trick. I'm not sure I wouldn't be offended if someone tried to pull that on me.

Huh. I’m not even sure how to respond to this. If people are new to a game and I try to help them get an idea of what class they might be interested in playing, without getting them bogged down in the specific class mechanics, that’s some kind of psychological trick!?!? You’ve left me utterly stupefied.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Huh. I’m not even sure how to respond to this. If people are new to a game and I try to help them get an idea of what class they might be interested in playing, without getting them bogged down in the specific class mechanics, that’s some kind of psychological trick!?!? You’ve left me utterly stupefied.

You are actively deceiving them by hiding information they would otherwise use to make a decision important to the experience. Possibly the most important decision.

 

[FrogReaver]

Ok. I accept that I’m understood, and it’s generally understood that my plan doesn’t. I haven’t accepted that yet, but I’m sure I will eventually.

Or prove us wrong. You know your players better than any of us. I can only say I probably wouldn’t like your proposal, but really good execution could change that.

 

[FrogReaver]

You are actively deceiving them by hiding information they would otherwise use to make a decision important to the experience. Possibly the most important decision.

Ummm…. Thats’s not deceit.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ummm…. Thats’s not deceit.

Choosing to provide less information when you could provide more with less effort is deceptive, even if done for "good" reasons.

 

[MGibster]

Okay... I'm gonna throw something out there that I'm sure you don't wanna hear:

Madam, I can assure you this is exactly what I wanted to hear.

In a CBGS you use large building blocks to create characters. Race, Class, Subclass, Background, Skills, done. Yes, there are a lot of individual choices in each of those five categories, but it's a streamlined mechanical structure compared to, say, GURPS. For all the variety of character types and flavors, each character is basically made up of those five categories. And aside from the Skills category, you get -one- choice for the other four.

Testify, Sister Steampunkette! For players who aren't familiar with the the game, my suggestion is they get a decent idea of what each class does and figure out their characters from there. Reverse engineering a character, that is figuring out what you want them to do and then trying to fight that concept into a class based game, is just asking for trouble as players grow frustrated with not knowing what they're doing.

Let them play with the blocks they have available to them until they're ready to start reshaping the blocks to better fit... and then move to the next system freeform level. Or, y'know... get deeply invested into Homebrewing.

Bingo. At the very least, let the players grow comfortable playing with the blocks in front of them. Once they're more comfortable then you can start switching things up.

 

[FrogReaver]

Choosing to provide less information when you could provide more with less effort is deceptive, even if done for "good" reasons.

So what’s the deception???

 

[jmartkdr2]

Yeah, I don’t think most people get what I’m going for esp. with the thoughts DnD can’t do this. My players tend toward, ”I’ll be an elf cleric cause it seems cool, tell me what they can do“. Where I’m trying to instead draw out what they want to do, whatever they want to do or look like will be allowed, and once we know that, we‘ll figure out what race and class will get closest to that…and then we’ll bend rules of those races an classes to make whatever possible.

I actually think the Lego block idea is very helpful. Here’s a pile of stuff, take the parts and build a character. Let them grow it up from parts.

All I’m trying for is to get players build characters up rather than down, ”I want to be able to do this and that, tell me what I am” as opposed to, “I am X, tell me what I can do”.

Make them find a picture of their character online. That'll push them one step beyond the headline (elf cleric)

Or something else that pushes them to add an extra layer of characterization. I find art works well for me, though.