D&D 5E A Key Issue for 5e: Quick Character Generation

[the Jester]

It occurs to me that there is a key issue for 5e that I haven't seen any discussion of: the speed of character creation.

The more elements a character has- class, race, theme, background, feat choices, skill points, power choices, equipment, etc- the longer it takes to generate. In od&d through about Basic, character generation was 15-minutes-fast; roll dice, choose class (which sometimes subsumed the racial choice), roll for money, buy stuff, you're ready. 1e added a few things, like weapon proficiencies and chance of psionics in the PH and a few more later (nonweapon profs, honor in OA, etc). Character generation was usually still pretty quick. Each edition that followed has increased the number of character elements and therefore the time required to make a new character.

For me, when I was working on my personal ideal D&D system, it looked a good deal like what we've seen so far of 5e. However, quick character generation was one of my explicit design goals and we haven't seen anything about this yet for 5e.

I hope that the base game allows for "15 minute pc generation"; I think this is a worthy design goal, especially given that some playstyles prefer a fairly lethal low-level period. If you have a good chance of losing a pc in any given session without exceptionally good play and/or luck, it's very important to be able to get back in quickly.

Thoughts?

 

[Yora]

Backgrounds and especially themes seem to be primarily tools for quicker character creation.

 

[Gold Roger]

Themes and background should vastly reduce the time spend on choosing skills and feats before. It has also been mentioned that the designers want backgrounds to include starting equipment, so that eleminates that timesink.

So it looks like roll stats (or use point buy-I will not), choose race, background theme and class-done. It's been mentioned classes come with a "default" theme and background. If you use that it goes down to generate stats, choose race and class.

However, with the modularity thing, I suspect there will be a lot of in-class choices players will need to make. Let's hope those don't bog down gameplay.

 

[keterys]

It looks like D&D Next is choose 4 things:
1) Race
2) Class
3) Background
4) Theme

And determine stats and hp however that happens in your game.

And the rumor is that your class and background determine your starting equipment largely for you.

So, seems reasonable so far.

 

[Morrus]

It's been mentioned, albeit briefly:

From the class design seminar:

Character creation 15 mins for experienced players, 30 mins for a new player.

• "What we're really getting at is that character creation should take as long as you want. If you want to jump into a game quickly, you can put together an easy character and not worry about too many of those options. But if you want to build the more complex character and go through the options and tweak it to be exactly what you want, then you have the time and options for that."

 

[Trance-Zg]

It's been mentioned, albeit briefly:

From the class design seminar:

Character creation 15 mins for experienced players, 30 mins for a new player.

• "What we're really getting at is that character creation should take as long as you want. If you want to jump into a game quickly, you can put together an easy character and not worry about too many of those options. But if you want to build the more complex character and go through the options and tweak it to be exactly what you want, then you have the time and options for that."

That's great if they can deliver it in finished product.

I like the "easy to learn, hard to master" learning curve.

 

[YRUSirius]

Roll attributes.

Chose race.

Chose class.

Chose background.

Chose theme.

Chose equipement.

Note race, class, backround, theme features.

Calculate hitpoint, attacks, AC, spells, etc.



Seems pretty quick to me if you go all the way.

-YRUSirius

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think the background and theme packaging and defaults by class are pretty much the main focus for speed. In a lot of cases, with beginners, it should work out faster than that 30 minutes they mentioned.

Back in my Basic days, it went something like this: Roll stats, see high Int, "Darn, I'm the wizard," roll hit points, complain about not getting to use a different weapon or whatever.

If we had Next, it would have gone like this: Get stats, (discussion) "Ok, I'm playing the wizard," determine hit points, "Why can't I use a sword?" So we take a few minutes to find something besides the default theme that fits the player's rough concept better, and off we go.

 

[Lanefan]

And the rumor is that your class and background determine your starting equipment largely for you.

That would be fine - in fact, excellent - at 1st level but how would it work at higher levels when an incoming PC can be expected to have acquired a few magic toys? I could see a few solutions, none of which is perfect:

1. If char-gen is done online the system randomly (or randomly within class/race parameters) determines what you have; or
2. All characters of level x and class y come in with z-list of magic possessions; or
3. Incoming PCs have no magic items period.

1 above fails if you're not doing online char-gen, unless one of the player or DM wants to do a lot of rolling on charts. 2 fails because it's just too predictable and thus dull. 1 and 2 both fail if the campaign is higher- or lower-magic than the tables allow for. 3 flat-out fails unless the whole campaign is very low or no magic.

Even for mundane equipment character level would have to be considered - a raw 1st level type might not be able to afford all the non-magical weapons, armour, etc. she thinks she should have; but a 4th-level certainly could and have backups as well.

Lan-"you can never have enough longswords - never"-efan

 

[Crazy Jerome]

1 above fails if you're not doing online char-gen, unless one of the player or DM wants to do a lot of rolling on charts. 2 fails because it's just too predictable and thus dull. 1 and 2 both fail if the campaign is higher- or lower-magic than the tables allow for. 3 flat-out fails unless the whole campaign is very low or no magic.

You could solve that the way I've handled it in 3E and 4E, where my campaigns have often featured characters of different levels: Use a variant of 3, where higher level characters do get magic items, but it is a bare minimum set. At higher levels, treasure never becomes truly optional, the way they want, but with the flatter math, nothing says that a party starting at 10th level can't manage with a single magic weapon about one plus below average expectations, ditto with armor, wands, etc.

In other words, be really conservative, almost stingy, with granting items for characters generated at higher levels. The characters will manage ok, and any treasure they find over those first few adventures is apt to be greatly appreciated.