Expecting all new players to have read hundreds of pages before ever playing is not only a huge barrier to entry, it's not at all founded in real life.
Players can learn D&D without reading everything if everything is explained to them enough times and in enough detail that it sinks in. Players can continue to play D&D knowing only enough to play their ONE PC. More players is good and we should all game on and be happy. BUT, if a player wants to learn it faster, without other players opinions and house rules getting in the way, and if they want to learn the WHOLE game and not just enough to get by, then YES, they need to accept that they have to read hundreds of pages of rules and learn stuff about it that they may never need or care about. YES, this is a barrier to entry, but that is NOT going to change unless you're going to play 3 booklet OD&D or Holmes Basic. NO, I am not saying, "Thou Shalt Not Play Without Thou Hast Memorized the PH and DMG and Passed Master Level Exams to Earn Thy Geek Accreditation."
I'm sorry, I have to dismiss this out of hand. "Some" definitely will. "All" or "most" is a different story.
If you want to learn not just enough to get by, not just enough to run one PC, not just what the guy in the chair next to you tells you the rules are (whether he's right or wrong - and some percentage will invariably be wrong [again - hundreds of pages...]) then you read the rules (ALL the rules, even if you don't memorize them) if you want to learn THE GAME, and not just enough to play a session or three.
In some circumstances, sure. Someone getting invited into a home group. But a big place lowering the barrier to entry to new players is AL. If a new player shows up at a FLGS wanting to try this new game, you're saying in every case the experienced players will take time from the slot to instead critique the character, change it mechanically without alienating a new player who just made a character and may resent "oh don't play a beastmaster and you should have picked a race that gives you a bonus to dex and while you may want a high CHR it leaves you with odd numbers so you should redo you scores like this".
No DM worth gaming with will require a player to read all the rules and pass a test. AL participants would not expect to hand-hold someone through everything, but if they're decent people who are interested in getting a new player up to speed, then I WOULD expect them to take time from the slot to lend some assistance without being overbearing. But if that player takes a solid interest and wants to make D&D their new hobby, DANG TOOTIN that player better be buying a PH and reading the whole thing and
learning the game, and that means reading hundreds of pages and investing more time than just at a table during a session.
So it's better to only have the option to trash a character, rather than the options to trash it OR fix it.
Not what I'm saying at all. If you have a DM who wants to be obnoxious about FORBIDDING the change of a feat early in a campaign because... whatever dumbarse reasons they have, then you can still get around that by simply creating a new PC. Is a DM going to forbid you from creating a new PC? If so there are FAR bigger issues involved. But if a DM WILL let you create a new PC, there's no sensible justification to deny changing your mind (in a reasonable time frame) about a choice of feats because you haven't yet "mastered" the game.
I'm saying you don't need rules for the player as leverage to force the DM's hand in this. You need advice to the DM to
Not Be A Richard. Apparently you need that in the DMG if a DM can't figure out how on their own.
And "Sir Brandar the II, exactly the same as Sir Brandar but I changed a few mechanical things" is now a best practice.
Not sure why you need to try so hard to misread and misrepresent a fairly simple point. No - it's not a "best practice." It's a demonstration that re-choosing a feat early in a campaign because you don't yet have the working knowledge as a player to NOT choose lame feats should not be a problem. If it is a problem it's because a DM forbids making that change. That DM is a DM not worth gaming with - IN MY OPINION. This would be how a newb gets around a DM being an obstinate crank and driving new people away from the game.
No DM worth gaming with really wants to be the one who says, "Ha! You were stupid enough to pick a lame feat! Eat it! It doesn't matter if you spend the rest of the campaign feeling like your PC sucks. The rest of us get to wallow in your disappointment and ineffectiveness and laugh at you. Stupid newbs..." If there is a change to be made it is to simply add relevant advice along these lines prominently in the DMG.
This is a quote from this thread, today, where a DM is saying exactly what you said no DM would ever say:
If that were put into a book as a rule, I'd ban it at my table instantly. So what if your character takes a less than optimal path? Decisions have consequences.
I'll stand by my assertion - and I didn't say "no DM ever", I said "no DM worth gaming with". Do you think a new player, heck ANY player, is better served by a DM who will allow a change of feats because it is discovered too late that the feat sucks, or a DM whose invariable rule says, "You chose it. You eat it."? I might take the latter IF we were talking about a table of all experienced players who should know better. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I
thought we were talking about the circumstance of a player new enough to the game to NOT inherently know better, who HASN'T yet read all the rules and passed The Sacred Tests of Advanced Gamer Knowledge.
We don't need rules that say, "Players are allowed to respec characters at points X, Y, or Z." We need DM's who know when not to be slaves to the rules, or force players to be slaves to rules. Rules don't run games of D&D. DM's run games of D&D. Therefore, if there is to be changes to the rule books, it would be advice to DM's about reasonable thresholds for respec'ing PC's while still learning the game.
