Much of the "3E is too complex" complaining that I hear are a result of players and GM's who want to use ever and all options available.
Even in the Core Rulebooks, 3.5e has some shocking complexity. Two weeks ago, I walked a new player through the process of creating a new character. At the outset, the question was asked, "what is the simplest character?" to which the table's answer was "Human Fighter". (I actually disagree - a Half-orc Barbarian is probably easier, but never mind.)
So, to create his 1st level Human Fighter, our new player had to:
Assign ability scores. By default, this involves rolling dice six times and then assigning the numbers. But then, assigning the numbers requires at least some understanding of what each score does. And that's not even getting into Point Buy systems.
Choose race and class. Okay, that was easy in this case - but it isn't always. (Or are new players forever to be limited to the 'beginner' class?)
Assign skills. Here, the player was at least willing to accept the advice to specialise in a few skills, rather than spread out his points, so he 'only' had to choose three skills from the list of ~20.
Pick three feats from a big long list, each with a unique set of prerequisites (that he didn't understand), and each with a unique effect in-game (which he didn't understand). And, of course, because of the System Mastery effects built into the game, woe betide the player who makes a bad choice at first level!
Buy equipment. At least here it was mostly quite simple: choose a weapon or two, get the best armour he could afford (and maybe a shield), and then a few other items.
There was then the mechanical process of finishing off the character - calculate hit points, armour class, total skill/save/attack modifiers, and so forth.
The entire process of creating a
first level Human Fighter took about 45 minutes, with some heavy guidance from the table. (Granted, he was slowed somewhat by us using Point Buy, but he was also speeded a lot by the table essentially picking his feats for him.) And that's one of the simplest characters in the game - for a Wizard he would have had to choose half a dozen spells from a list of ~40, and then choose two subsets from two different lists to prepare before the game began. The Cleric has dozens of spells to juggle right away. The Rogue has many more skills to choose (and is also more likely to want to split the ranks up rather than just specialise in a few skills). And so on.
In 4e, many of the character classes are easier to build characters for - the Cleric and Wizard both have few fewer choices to make, and all the classes are at least consistent in structure. (Which also has the advantage that the new player isn't stuck with a "beginner" class.) On the other hand, there's no such thing as a "beginner" class in 4e, which means that a new player has to grok a large part of the rules right from the outset.
It's too much, and I'm absolutely convinced that this loses the game an awful lot of players. So what's to be done?
The options I see are as follows:
- Do nothing. Force new players to accept and deal with the complexity. Watch their enthusiasm quickly die, and see them leave the game behind, never to come back.
- Force new players to stick with pre-generated characters for their first game(s), then with "beginner" classes for the next few, and then move them on to "advanced" options. This sort-of works, but is frankly a poor solution. One of the great strengths of the game is that it allows you to play your own custom character, and forcing the use of pre-gen characters denies that. Also, if you come into the game dreaming of being Gandalf the magic wizard, you're not going to be too pleased at being told (either effectively or in reality) that that class is too hard and you have to start with something simpler, potentially for several months.
- Reduce complexity, at least at the outset. If we want the game to be more popular (possibly if we want the game even to survive) this is a must. I'm not even saying we need to ditch all those options entirely; just defer them to higher levels so that the new player can play the game without first absorbing the 100 pages of choices and options needed just to create a character.
To that end, I recommend the following:
First, elminate System Mastery - pretty much any more-or-less reasonable choice of Race/Class/Feats/whatever must give a character that is at least somewhat reasonable to play. Otherwise, it becomes very difficult for new players and old hands to sit at the same table together - the new player will constantly fall into the "system traps" that the old hands have long since learned to avoid.
Second, reduce choices at first level. The distinction between "Elf" and "Eladrin" is probably a bit fiddly for the new player. And it would similarly be a bad idea to have several core classes that are all minor variations on the same theme. Race and class choices should consist of a fairly small set of iconic and well-distinguished options. (To be fair, D&D has always done pretty well in this regard.)
For new players, the best ability score generation method may well be 4d6-drop-lowest
in order (the importance of atttributes would probably need reduced quite a lot to compensate). It's probably best if characters don't gain their first feat until 2nd level, and maybe at 1st level they should gain a rank in each class skill, rather than having to choose skills. Finally, each class should probably give a fixed set of core powers at first level.
And so, you get back to character creation consisting of: roll attributes, choose race, choose class, choose alignment (if used), choose equipment, play!
