D&D 5E A better basics

[jaelis]

The starter set rules are excellent to start with, I don't see why anything else would be needed.

And if you've gotten used to the basic rules, I don't see how you could have much trouble moving on the the full PHB.

But you might be able to convince me that there's room for something between the starter set and the basic rules, I don't know for sure.

 

[The Old Crow]

Maybe a reduced spell list with spells by level and class, so players can see their choices side by side when doing up their characters.

 

[ccs]

If I were making your simplified D&D it'd srongly resemble my Basic set from 1980.
That was simple enough that an average 11 year old, and two average 9 year olds - who had ZERO rpg experience - taught themselves how to play over Christmas break.

It would have fighters, rogues, clerics, & wizards as your classes. The xp chart would go up to lv.3
The races would be human, elf, dwarf, & 1/2ling.
PC alignments would be limited to good or neutral. Evil would be an option only for npcs & monsters.

 

[the Jester]

That's nice for you, but the last group I was in, for an example, spent five hours creating the mechanical side of their level 1 characters because of decision paralysis.

Holy cow. Okay, I can see why you are looking for something to cut that down.

I guess my question would be, where did their paralysis come from? What choices took them so long, and why? If it's spell choices, you could slim the spell lists down to about 10 first level spells per class. I'd stick with the existing Basic options for classes and races (classic 4), but only show them like levels 1 through 3 when they start making their characters. Cut out variant humans so there's no need to read through feats. Make them stick to the prepackaged equipment rather than buying starting gear. You could even randomly generate spellbooks for the wizards, a la 1e- roll two each random offensive, defensive, and utility spells.

I'd also leave alignment out and assign one after several sessions of play, based on the pc's actions. Assuming you even use it at all.

If you want to really simplify, you could also eliminate choosing backgrounds, and simply assign all starting fighters the soldier background, wizards sage, clerics acolyte, and rogues criminal.

Really simplifying things another step would be to make everyone human until they're familiar enough with the game to make choices a little more quickly.

 

[happyhermit]

That's nice for you, but the last group I was in, for an example, spent five hours creating the mechanical side of their level 1 characters because of decision paralysis.

Then wouldn't pre-gens or suggested quickbuilds be the obvious solution? IME with new or very young players that have had issues like this, GM-guided or even group character creation in a session 0 has been useful. Whereas having groups with new-to-ttrpg players all pick from a selection of "simple" classes has been less successful. Tastes and preferences vary greatly and some people like classes with lots of stuff spelled out on their sheet while others just want basic capabilities. Forcing everyone into the same type of style just because of their amount of experience takes away some huge benefits of D&D IMO, with mixed results. I have seen brand new players excel at playing Wizards by diving into the rules and using spellcards in a spellbook, often taking less time and making less mistakes than experienced ones.

Maybe they could have come up with some optional chargen rules or even something like those "adventures" that aided with it back in the day, but I actually think the best outcomes occur when the GM is involved as much as necessary even if that means listening to a new player's character concept and deciding on how to implement that mechanically.

 

[Croesus]

That's nice for you, but the last group I was in, for an example, spent five hours creating the mechanical side of their level 1 characters because of decision paralysis.

In any event, all the player would have to do is say "I wanna be an elf fighter with a bow" and you hand him the book and he copies the stats down. It's pregens, basically, just a lot of them.

Yeah, I've seen this a lot when designing characters in Champions - so many options, all of which interact with each other, new players don't know what to choose. I handled this much the way guachi suggested: have the new player describe what character they want. Ask questions to flesh things out: where did the character grow up, what's the character's favorite weapon, what cool thing would they like the character to do, do they have a particular character from a book, movie or tv show they're thinking of? Then put the character together for them.

If a GM doesn't want to put such individual effort into it, use pre-gens until the players show an interest in creating their own characters. There's a reason many computer RPG's offer a default party, so a player can learn the basics, then come back later and create their own characters.

 

[guachi]

New players aren't stupid. They're fine with the full suite of options. They don't need a simple, for-dummies version, at least in my experience and opinion. I bring new players into the game fairly often and have never found it necessary to dumb the game down or limit their options.

I've done a lot of AL with brand new players. A simple pre-gen list of choices is a great way to them to started playing.

Since even kids have internet access I can always send them to the Basic pdf to read at home and come next week with ideas for their PC if they don't want to buy a book. It's AL so they can change whatever they want (except name and equipment) for the next session, anyway.

It's not about dumbing down or limiting options because the person can't deal with them; it's a time issue to get them playing right away.

As for quick builds, those are great if you have multiple people who are all creating characters at once and no one else has created a character (or maybe one has and can help the newbies) but pregens are great for both when there are all new players or there is just one new player in a group.

I broke down and made a bunch of basic 1st level pregens of typical PCs for AL play. I didn't make anything wacky like a heavy armor wearing Dwarf wizard, just obvious and synergistic choices (like where the ability bonus and class align).

 

[S'mon]

New players aren't stupid. They're fine with the full suite of options. They don't need a simple, for-dummies version, at least in my experience and opinion. I bring new players into the game fairly often and have never found it necessary to dumb the game down or limit their options.

I just spent an hour or so today trying to explain Wizard spell memorisation, Concentration, slots
etc to a not very gearhead new player. Wish I could have given him a pregen but he's making a
level 8 PC to join an existing group & needs to be fairly optimised for survival.

 

[S'mon]

The starter set rules are excellent to start with, I don't see why anything else would be needed.

And if you've gotten used to the basic rules, I don't see how you could have much trouble moving on the the full PHB.

But you might be able to convince me that there's room for something between the starter set and the basic rules, I don't know for sure.

The Pathfinder Beginner Box gets it right. Has full basic chargen rules AND pregens AND a starter
adventure AND full campaign rules (monsters, treasure, encounter & item tables, GMing advice etc)...

And pawns and a battlemat (dungeon & blank sides) and dice and...

 

[jaelis]

The Pathfinder Beginner Box gets it right. Has full basic chargen rules AND pregens AND a starter
adventure AND full campaign rules (monsters, treasure, encounter & item tables, GMing advice etc)...

Do you feel like starter set + basic rules does not provide all that?

(Not including the mat and pawns, fair enough )