Why D&D Should Be More Like WoW

[Victim]

The one issue with immediate character gen ala WoW is that mechanical effects are still hidden initially. How a class functions at low levels when the player is first starting to make formative choices is often vastly different from the way the class plays at higher levels. In many ways, you don't start getting a good idea of what your class is until after level 20 or so, and the in game information doesn't offer much of a clue. You can invest a lot of time playing a character that grows into something you don't like. More up front information can avoid these problems - WoW doesn't provide a player with much info at all. Even important mechanics are buried on 3rd party websites and the forums. So while you can make a snap choice and start playing, the game itself doesn't provide enough information to make an informed choice.

 

[blargney the second]

Interesting post, mattcolville! I agree with most of what you're saying - WoW is a very popular phenomenon, and with good reason.

no decisions that you can only understand through many many hours of play.​

Honestly, you can only really understand the actual ramifications of character generation once you've reached the endgame. On the upside, you only usually choose between about a half-dozen alternatives at a time. On the downside, that's a lot of trickle-down opportunity costs to evaluate. There are so many options and variables in that game that there's a good reason it promotes the build mentality.

You are rewarded very quickly.​

Whoever made that business model has an astonishingly good grasp on stimulating pleasure centers to induce addictive behaviour. (I had to force myself to go cold turkey once I figured that out...)
-blarg

 

[Yair]

Very good post indeed.

 

[Bagpuss]

Good post. However, What if you like spending hours or days making a character. I can make a 3e character in 5 minutes, but If i like I will take days. I took a week making the character for my brothers DL game.

It took a week to do the 1st level? Or more likely it took a week to do a character background, plan his advancement up a few level (perhaps even all 20).

He isn't saying remove all complexity, just the entry level complexity. It will still be possible to have varied and characters, if you use one of those character planners for WoW it can take a will to plan all your advancement, but starting is still straight forward.

Besides even if 1st level is simple, there is nothing to stop you spending a week on character background.

 

[MightyTev]

There already is a mechanism for players getting started quickly - remember the starting kits in the PHB and the new ones they added in PHBII? Thats what they are for. You can roll up some abilities, pick the feats, skills, and equipment it advises, and play.

 

[Cadfan]

I like the initial post. It brings up some good points. Here's some short responses.

1) Decisions only understandable through experience: I think this is inevitable to a certain extent in a game like D&D. In WoW, getting a hundred combats under your belt isn't that huge of a time investment. In D&D, its enormous. By the speed at which I tend to play, that's about 25 game sessions, or 6 months of aggressive gaming.

There are some ways you could work to fix this for newer players, however. Feat retraining is one big one. I'd go further, and advise DMs to help new players in the following way- before they even look at the PHB, tell them to give you a character concept, in words, not in game stats. Then have them build it as best they feel they can. After a level or two, let them completely recreate their character, as long as they attempt to stay true to the concept. Once a player is experienced, they won't need this assistance, but its a good idea for new players.

2) Speed of character creation. I think this is going to be faster in 4th, due to skill points probably going the way of the dodo. In my experience, that's always a hangup for new players. Further, the example level 1 characters can help speed up character creation for a new player. I know a lot of us roll our eyes at these, because they often feature sub optimal choices. But they're really great if they give sample gear to purchase, as that's another place players get hung up.

For advanced players, who are really the only people who should be building higher level characters, the time of character creation is less important because they know how to do meaningful things with that time. I've never had anyone complain about the time it takes to put together a 10th level character, because they felt that the time was spent doing something fun.

3) Regarding the speed of advancement at early level. I half agree with you. I do feel that it might be nice if early level advancement were quicker. However, I think that to do this, you need to make early level advancement a little less important. Right now, going from first to second level is a huge increase in power. I wouldn't want to just hand that out after session 1. If early level advancement were a little less important, I'd prefer it go faster.

Right now, D&D handles early level "rewards" with gold coins that let you buy all the gear you wanted to buy at first level but couldn't afford. That's not a terrible system, but I can see why people might want a shift.

 

[Abe.ebA]

I'm pretty sure that you're never going to see a system like that for character creation in d&d or any particularly successful pen-and-paper RPG. MMO's and CCGs have very low barriers to initial gameplay because gameplay is exactly what the focus is for those games. You don't go buy WoW to make an awesome and unique character starting out. You buy it to play with other people, to explore Azeroth, and to eventually have exactly the same max-level character as everyone else who chose your race and class (though this last one just tends to happen once people figure out what the best set of gear is in the game). Pen-and-paper RPGs are a fundamentally different exercise.

Pen-and-paper RPGs aren't about instant gratification. They're not really about gratification at all. The fact that gaining a level gives you a buzz as a player is really kind of beside the point in what playing d&d is about. You're interacting with a group of friends in order to do some collaborative story-telling. Getting treasure and xp is nice, but it's not really necessary to a good game of d&d. There are plenty of RPGs out there were getting loot and xp aren't really even a part of the equation and given the popularity of the whole E6 thing, continues reward-cycles aren't even that important to d&d. MMOs need a constant stream of rewards in order to keep up player interest because unless you get some new shiny every so often, you'll pretty quickly get tired of grinding for a few hours before moving to a new place to grind for some more hours. Under a halfway competent GM, the game is about the characters rather than about the things that the characters have the option to go and do. As such, character creation is just as much a part of the game as the actual adventure. You're still sitting around together talking about your characters (albeit characters-in-potentia), about what the party needs, and about what kind of adventures you're going to have.

 

[GreatLemur]

Ha. "Making a dude."

EDIT:

SHARK's game

Oh, wow. I am saving that, and reposting it elsewhere.

 

[mattcolville]

Pen-and-paper RPGs aren't about instant gratification. They're not really about gratification at all.

...

I find playing D&D pretty gratifying.

 

[Abisashi]

Pen-and-paper RPGs aren't about instant gratification. They're not really about gratification at all. The fact that gaining a level gives you a buzz as a player is really kind of beside the point in what playing d&d is about. You're interacting with a group of friends in order to do some collaborative story-telling. Getting treasure and xp is nice, but it's not really necessary to a good game of d&d. There are plenty of RPGs out there were getting loot and xp aren't really even a part of the equation and given the popularity of the whole E6 thing, continues reward-cycles aren't even that important to d&d.

I thought one of the design decisions behind E6 was to allow for continued advancement, rather than just stopping advancement cold at 6th. Not everyone plays D&D to tell a story; some people like to smash some monsters and get some l00t and k3wl powers. I like doing both.

To the OP: I do think that character creation is a lot of fun, but it isn't for some people; I think 4e should do a better job with its quick-play PCs to support the second group, while still allowing a reasonably large set of choices for the interested.