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<blockquote data-quote="Grainger" data-source="post: 6486378" data-attributes="member: 6779234">Character creation is by far the most complex part of the game, and it absolutely made sense to omit this. Amazon.co.uk is full of people saying &quot;wahh, it isn't a starter set, because you can't create characters!&quot;, but really they're missing the point: to get started you're best off playing with pre-gens and then do character creation when you know what those choices mean. These complaints seem to be coming from experienced role-players who haven't considered that the box set is for everyone, including newcomers to RPGs.All the effort is front-loaded in 5e - it takes a lot of time to create a character (until you're au-fair with the system); once these details are on your character sheet the game is really easy to play, but you do need to do all the planning and calculations first. This is not OD&amp;D or the old Basic set, where you essentially just roll six stats and go.For total newcomers (or people coming back after 30 years' absence), having character creation before play would only guarantee that most of them wouldn't even get to the part where they actually play the game, and then they're lost to the system, and probably to future editions, if not roleplaying altogether. Having an adventure that hand-holds new DMs and players through the game was the right way to go (whether the included adventure booklet does a good job of this is a different matter).Also, including character creation rules would hugely bump the page count, making the (already quite large) rulebook look even more intimidating.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Grainger, post: 6486378, member: 6779234"] Character creation is by far the most complex part of the game, and it absolutely made sense to omit this. Amazon.co.uk is full of people saying "wahh, it isn't a starter set, because you can't create characters!", but really they're missing the point: to get started you're best off playing with pre-gens and then do character creation when you know what those choices mean. These complaints seem to be coming from experienced role-players who haven't considered that the box set is for everyone, including newcomers to RPGs. All the effort is front-loaded in 5e - it takes a lot of time to create a character (until you're au-fair with the system); once these details are on your character sheet the game is really easy to play, but you do need to do all the planning and calculations first. This is not OD&D or the old Basic set, where you essentially just roll six stats and go. For total newcomers (or people coming back after 30 years' absence), having character creation before play would only guarantee that most of them wouldn't even get to the part where they actually play the game, and then they're lost to the system, and probably to future editions, if not roleplaying altogether. Having an adventure that hand-holds new DMs and players through the game was the right way to go (whether the included adventure booklet does a good job of this is a different matter). Also, including character creation rules would hugely bump the page count, making the (already quite large) rulebook look even more intimidating. [/QUOTE]

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