I've been using DNDBeyond for nearly 2 years, and I love it for many things. But I HATE the random character generator.
Today I played with a player who used the random character generator to make a level 3 wizard. He picked his race and his class. Then he was given a wizard with 10 Int and mostly-useless spells, so he had to sling around a mediocre cantrip the entire time. I felt bad for the guy because everyone else was doing much cooler stuff during combat.
When I DM, I often want to generate NPCs, or I want to make pre-generated sheets for characters if I run a 1-shot. But I can't depend on DNDBeyond to actually do this. The random character generator is USELESS! Most importantly, it shouldn't be completely random. It should have some sort of AI guiding it into sensible choices. After 2 years, I can't believe you haven't figured out a decent way to make a character generator actually builds smart and functional characters. I'm not even talking about optimizing -- I'm just talking about playable characters.
I haven't tried the encounter builder, but I don't see how I can possibly trust it if DNDB can't figure out how to first develop a decent character generator.
huh... random is random... you can't expect dndbeyond to come up with a generator that gives "playable" characters, which is too much to ask imo... if you want to randomize just randomize yourself... and tweak the stats.
Most importantly, it shouldn't be completely random. It should have some sort of AI guiding it into sensible choices. After 2 years, I can't believe you haven't figured out a decent way to make a character generator actually builds smart and functional characters. I'm not even talking about optimizing -- I'm just talking about playable characters.
That would not be a random generator now would it.
No where in the randomizer does it claim it is going to be a good & well built character. No where do they promise or promote this feature a way to may PCs other than if you want randomness. If you want a PCs generator that has restrictions on how it can be made.... well then.... maybe don't look for a random generator, and build the PCs?
The random character generator is “just for fun,” something that was explicitly stated in early days here but hasn’t been as obvious to folks who,weren’t here from the beginning. While I can absolutely see the appeal of a more “rational” random character generator, There are a lot of other things I’d like to see addressed/added here that are higher priority for me than the random character generator. I would guess that’s why nothings been done with it: because the DDB team has lots of other features that are higher priority than this.
The encounter builder doesn't randomize anything. It just lets you pick your monsters and your players and tells you the encounter difficulty from trivial to deadly. It uses the formula from the DMG. So I think you can trust it. I mean it's not 100% reliable, but that's on WotC.
The encounter builder doesn't randomize anything. It just lets you pick your monsters and your players and tells you the encounter difficulty from trivial to deadly. It uses the formula from the DMG. So I think you can trust it. I mean it's not 100% reliable, but that's on WotC.
But the encounter builder isn’t the subject of this thread. This thread is about the character builder, and specifically the “random” option in the character builder.
The encounter builder doesn't randomize anything. It just lets you pick your monsters and your players and tells you the encounter difficulty from trivial to deadly. It uses the formula from the DMG. So I think you can trust it. I mean it's not 100% reliable, but that's on WotC.
But the encounter builder isn’t the subject of this thread. This thread is about the character builder, and specifically the “random” option in the character builder.
OP made a comment about his disdain for random and hoped it wouldn't carry over to the encounter builder....
I haven't tried the encounter builder, but I don't see how I can possibly trust it if DNDB can't figure out how to first develop a decent character generator.
IMO, DndB character builder is the most advanced one in all dnd builders. And you're expecting a random character generator that somehow makes it "playable", which isn't even defined properly. If you call the character builder not decent you may as well give up on character builders and come back 10 years later for a generator that does that
OK, so I can see the appeal... to some folks... of a random character generator. But there are sites that do a decent job of generating useful characters. I have never known anyone to intentionally use a random character on DNDBeyond in a campaign. www.Fastcharacter.com is one site that I like, for example. You can pick between one and a dozen or so variables, and it fills in the rest. It's not totally random, but has elements of randomness. For example, you might get a random name, race, subclass and feats, but the stats and ASIs will make sense based on the class. Downsides are that the char sheets looks weird to players, and it's not compatible with the cool online stuff that DNDB is.
As a player and a DM, I'd REALLY like to have a way to instantly generate characters on D&D beyond that are USABLE in actual campaigns by players and as NPCs.
For example, I just used DNDB to randomly generate a 10th level character. I got a druid with a wis of 8 and no equipment, zero 1st level spells, and pretty mediocre high level spells, unless players really like creating food and water. While this might be funny to some people, any player who was given this character for a one-shot would not have a good time. To me, that's not funny at all.
So maybe what DNDB needs is an (additional?) option to make a semi-random character. When my friend saw "Random Character Generator" he probably thought he was going to get a playable character. Instead, using a random character is at-best a joke that wears thin, and at-worst a very unpleasant evening for a player.
QUESTION: I can see why people who are in on the joke might find this sort of thing funny. But even so, wouldn't you still like a "random-ish" fast character generator to instantly generate usable characters? Wouldn't that be much more useful than something totally random?
As for tweaking the stats -- suddenly it's a lot more work to quick generate a character, and a LOT of work to quick generate a full party of pregens. Inexperienced players might not even know what to tweak or how to do so easily.
I do get that implementing Tasha's is a higher priority, for example. But having said that, this is something that would be very useful to some folk, probably not too hard to implement in some way, and based on comments, certainly something that seems to have been brought up in the past 3 years. It can't sit on the backburner forever. They really should prioritize it at some point.
I do get that implementing Tasha's is a higher priority, for example. But having said that, this is something that would be very useful to some folk, probably not too hard to implement in some way, and based on comments, certainly something that seems to have been brought up in the past 3 years. It can't sit on the backburner forever. They really should prioritize it at some point.
The list of requested features that are on the back burner is huge! Many of those have far more requests in the forums than this one.
But how many folks have requested it in the past? If you add up the number of requests over the years, it might be quite sizable. Folks might also have given up on continuing to ask for this feature if they sensed that DNDB wasn't ever going to give us a serious character generator.
But how many folks have requested it in the past? If you add up the number of requests over the years, it might be quite sizable. Folks might also have given up on continuing to ask for this feature if they sensed that DNDB wasn't ever going to give us a serious character generator.
Since I have been active here from the moment the public beta was released (having signed up for it before release), I can say with confidence that at least on the forums here, there are a large number of other features that are requested more far more frequently than improving the random character generator. Again, I have no objection to the improvements you desire. But it is a matter of limited resources and the reality that not everything can be done at once.
As for tweaking the stats -- suddenly it's a lot more work to quick generate a character, and a LOT of work to quick generate a full party of pregens. Inexperienced players might not even know what to tweak or how to do so easily.
Stat tweaking is not a big deal in my opinion, and that is something that should be delegated to players.
Even for inexperienced players, they can just use Standard Array and as long as they assign the two highest stat allocations to their class's saving throws (and maybe third to CON if CON is not one of the saving throws), how they assign the rest of the stats does not matter too much.
If you're going to play a long-term campaign, players definitely should create their own characters the traditional way. However, if you want to throw together a character in 3 minutes for a 1-shot you're about to play in, or if you're a DM who's running a 1-shot and you want to throw together 10 characters in 10 minutes (so the PCs have some choices) then there really isn't time to tweak stats and equipment. Or maybe you have a guest player in a campaign who needs a high level character ASAP.
At minimum, it's probably 7-10 minutes to make a level 5 character from scratch on DNDB, and that's only if you know what you're doing. And it can easily be a LOT longer if you're really taking your time or don't know how to use DNDB well. Making pre-gens for a 1-shot can be very time consuming on DNDB. That's primarily why I'd want a fast character generator. I play with a people who have families and are really busy, so they don't have time to to commit to making a character for a one-shot.
Maybe I'm alone in this. Maybe other DMs don't hand out pre-gens to players for a 1-shot or for guest appearances. Maybe players who are playing in a 1-shot don't mind investing a bunch of time to generate characters. Or maybe (like my friend) players who use the random character generator don't care too much that their characters are largely ineffective.
I just know that I'd be really frustrated if I were playing a "random character," and that I feel a lot of frustration on the part of players who have had to play random characters. And I've felt a lot of frustration when running one-shots and I haven't had a quick and easy way to create characters for the players to use.
If you're going to play a long-term campaign, players definitely should create their own characters the traditional way. However, if you want to throw together a character in 3 minutes for a 1-shot you're about to play in, or if you're a DM who's running a 1-shot and you want to throw together 10 characters in 10 minutes (so the PCs have some choices) then there really isn't time to tweak stats and equipment. Or maybe you have a guest player in a campaign who needs a high level character ASAP.
At minimum, it's probably 7-10 minutes to make a level 5 character from scratch on DNDB, and that's only if you know what you're doing. And it can easily be a LOT longer if you're really taking your time or don't know how to use DNDB well. Making pre-gens for a 1-shot can be very time consuming on DNDB. That's primarily why I'd want a fast character generator. I play with a people who have families and are really busy, so they don't have time to to commit to making a character for a one-shot.
Maybe I'm alone in this. Maybe other DMs don't hand out pre-gens to players for a 1-shot or for guest appearances. Maybe players who are playing in a 1-shot don't mind investing a bunch of time to generate characters. Or maybe (like my friend) players who use the random character generator don't care too much that their characters are largely ineffective.
I just know that I'd be really frustrated if I were playing a "random character," and that I feel a lot of frustration on the part of players who have had to play random characters. And I've felt a lot of frustration when running one-shots and I haven't had a quick and easy way to create characters for the players to use.
I am not sure what is taking you so long to create a random level 5 character with edited ASIs, but I did it in under a minute. Even if you are a bit picky about spells, it should still be under two minutes per character.
I select the level, and maybe race and class. Then I go to the class page to check what saves the class has, and pick prepare a few spells if applicable. And finally I go to the Abilities page and reassign ASIs, and the character is done.
If you do not mind level 1 characters and want something competent right out out the box with absolutely no editing involved, there is the Quick Build option and it takes like five or ten seconds to create a character.
If you are a Master Tier Subscriber, you can quickly spam dozens of random level 5 pregens in under an hour, and you can easily make copies of those pregens and put them in the campaign for players to pick. There is also no need to create pregens for every new one shot, and there is nothing wrong with recycling pregens, and recycling pregens will save you a bunch of time. Spending one evening on the weekend to create a massive bank of pregens is going to last you at least a year, and with a big enough bank of pregens, I doubt many players are going to notice that they played the same character two months ago if they happened to pick the same character twice.
I have to agree with the OP. Every time I listen to Dragon Talk when they do a random character they make the worst characters. You can make an awesome backstory for such characters but that really doesn't translate to a useful feature. There needs to be some probability in the randomness. A wizard character isn't going to have to have a 7 Intelligence. Also the races shouldn't be given 1:1 weight where a variant feral tiefling is just as probable as a vanilla human. Alignment should weigh towards good alignments. That way we CAN use it to make a quick character. After trying a few times I have to wonder if they even do 4d6k3 for the stats. I would suggest dials to adjust things much like how a 4x type strategy game creates the world along with the "Just for Fun" button.
Thanks! I know that some folks don't really understand how a random character generator could useful. But for some of us, especially for DMs who want to quickly generate characters for either NPCs or PCs to use, it would be super useful.
For example, I just used DNDB to randomly generate a 10th level character. I got a druid with a wis of 8 and no equipment, zero 1st level spells, and pretty mediocre high level spells, unless players really like creating food and water. While this might be funny to some people, any player who was given this character for a one-shot would not have a good time. To me, that's not funny at all.
1. Druids prepare spells so you can legitimately change non-cantrip spells after a long rest.
2. You still get the normal starting equipment with a randomizer. Just go to the EQUIPMENT section on the character sheet. Then you can choose starting equipment or gold.
The Circle of Hedgehogs Druid Beholder/Animated Armor Level -20 Bardof the OIADSB Cult, here are our rules.Sig.Also a sauce council member, but it's been dead for a while.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I've been using DNDBeyond for nearly 2 years, and I love it for many things. But I HATE the random character generator.
Today I played with a player who used the random character generator to make a level 3 wizard. He picked his race and his class. Then he was given a wizard with 10 Int and mostly-useless spells, so he had to sling around a mediocre cantrip the entire time. I felt bad for the guy because everyone else was doing much cooler stuff during combat.
When I DM, I often want to generate NPCs, or I want to make pre-generated sheets for characters if I run a 1-shot. But I can't depend on DNDBeyond to actually do this. The random character generator is USELESS! Most importantly, it shouldn't be completely random. It should have some sort of AI guiding it into sensible choices. After 2 years, I can't believe you haven't figured out a decent way to make a character generator actually builds smart and functional characters. I'm not even talking about optimizing -- I'm just talking about playable characters.
I haven't tried the encounter builder, but I don't see how I can possibly trust it if DNDB can't figure out how to first develop a decent character generator.
huh... random is random... you can't expect dndbeyond to come up with a generator that gives "playable" characters, which is too much to ask imo... if you want to randomize just randomize yourself... and tweak the stats.
That would not be a random generator now would it.
No where in the randomizer does it claim it is going to be a good & well built character. No where do they promise or promote this feature a way to may PCs other than if you want randomness. If you want a PCs generator that has restrictions on how it can be made.... well then.... maybe don't look for a random generator, and build the PCs?
The random character generator is “just for fun,” something that was explicitly stated in early days here but hasn’t been as obvious to folks who,weren’t here from the beginning. While I can absolutely see the appeal of a more “rational” random character generator, There are a lot of other things I’d like to see addressed/added here that are higher priority for me than the random character generator. I would guess that’s why nothings been done with it: because the DDB team has lots of other features that are higher priority than this.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
Maybe the RANDOMIZE button should have a "JUST FOR FUN" line printed clearly on it!
The encounter builder doesn't randomize anything. It just lets you pick your monsters and your players and tells you the encounter difficulty from trivial to deadly. It uses the formula from the DMG. So I think you can trust it. I mean it's not 100% reliable, but that's on WotC.
But the encounter builder isn’t the subject of this thread. This thread is about the character builder, and specifically the “random” option in the character builder.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
OP made a comment about his disdain for random and hoped it wouldn't carry over to the encounter builder....
IMO, DndB character builder is the most advanced one in all dnd builders. And you're expecting a random character generator that somehow makes it "playable", which isn't even defined properly. If you call the character builder not decent you may as well give up on character builders and come back 10 years later for a generator that does that
OK, so I can see the appeal... to some folks... of a random character generator. But there are sites that do a decent job of generating useful characters. I have never known anyone to intentionally use a random character on DNDBeyond in a campaign. www.Fastcharacter.com is one site that I like, for example. You can pick between one and a dozen or so variables, and it fills in the rest. It's not totally random, but has elements of randomness. For example, you might get a random name, race, subclass and feats, but the stats and ASIs will make sense based on the class. Downsides are that the char sheets looks weird to players, and it's not compatible with the cool online stuff that DNDB is.
As a player and a DM, I'd REALLY like to have a way to instantly generate characters on D&D beyond that are USABLE in actual campaigns by players and as NPCs.
For example, I just used DNDB to randomly generate a 10th level character. I got a druid with a wis of 8 and no equipment, zero 1st level spells, and pretty mediocre high level spells, unless players really like creating food and water. While this might be funny to some people, any player who was given this character for a one-shot would not have a good time. To me, that's not funny at all.
So maybe what DNDB needs is an (additional?) option to make a semi-random character. When my friend saw "Random Character Generator" he probably thought he was going to get a playable character. Instead, using a random character is at-best a joke that wears thin, and at-worst a very unpleasant evening for a player.
QUESTION: I can see why people who are in on the joke might find this sort of thing funny. But even so, wouldn't you still like a "random-ish" fast character generator to instantly generate usable characters? Wouldn't that be much more useful than something totally random?
As for tweaking the stats -- suddenly it's a lot more work to quick generate a character, and a LOT of work to quick generate a full party of pregens. Inexperienced players might not even know what to tweak or how to do so easily.
I do get that implementing Tasha's is a higher priority, for example. But having said that, this is something that would be very useful to some folk, probably not too hard to implement in some way, and based on comments, certainly something that seems to have been brought up in the past 3 years. It can't sit on the backburner forever. They really should prioritize it at some point.
The list of requested features that are on the back burner is huge! Many of those have far more requests in the forums than this one.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
But how many folks have requested it in the past? If you add up the number of requests over the years, it might be quite sizable. Folks might also have given up on continuing to ask for this feature if they sensed that DNDB wasn't ever going to give us a serious character generator.
Since I have been active here from the moment the public beta was released (having signed up for it before release), I can say with confidence that at least on the forums here, there are a large number of other features that are requested more far more frequently than improving the random character generator. Again, I have no objection to the improvements you desire. But it is a matter of limited resources and the reality that not everything can be done at once.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
Stat tweaking is not a big deal in my opinion, and that is something that should be delegated to players.
Even for inexperienced players, they can just use Standard Array and as long as they assign the two highest stat allocations to their class's saving throws (and maybe third to CON if CON is not one of the saving throws), how they assign the rest of the stats does not matter too much.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
If you're going to play a long-term campaign, players definitely should create their own characters the traditional way. However, if you want to throw together a character in 3 minutes for a 1-shot you're about to play in, or if you're a DM who's running a 1-shot and you want to throw together 10 characters in 10 minutes (so the PCs have some choices) then there really isn't time to tweak stats and equipment. Or maybe you have a guest player in a campaign who needs a high level character ASAP.
At minimum, it's probably 7-10 minutes to make a level 5 character from scratch on DNDB, and that's only if you know what you're doing. And it can easily be a LOT longer if you're really taking your time or don't know how to use DNDB well. Making pre-gens for a 1-shot can be very time consuming on DNDB. That's primarily why I'd want a fast character generator. I play with a people who have families and are really busy, so they don't have time to to commit to making a character for a one-shot.
Maybe I'm alone in this. Maybe other DMs don't hand out pre-gens to players for a 1-shot or for guest appearances. Maybe players who are playing in a 1-shot don't mind investing a bunch of time to generate characters. Or maybe (like my friend) players who use the random character generator don't care too much that their characters are largely ineffective.
I just know that I'd be really frustrated if I were playing a "random character," and that I feel a lot of frustration on the part of players who have had to play random characters. And I've felt a lot of frustration when running one-shots and I haven't had a quick and easy way to create characters for the players to use.
I am not sure what is taking you so long to create a random level 5 character with edited ASIs, but I did it in under a minute. Even if you are a bit picky about spells, it should still be under two minutes per character.
I select the level, and maybe race and class. Then I go to the class page to check what saves the class has, and pick prepare a few spells if applicable. And finally I go to the Abilities page and reassign ASIs, and the character is done.
If you do not mind level 1 characters and want something competent right out out the box with absolutely no editing involved, there is the Quick Build option and it takes like five or ten seconds to create a character.
If you are a Master Tier Subscriber, you can quickly spam dozens of random level 5 pregens in under an hour, and you can easily make copies of those pregens and put them in the campaign for players to pick. There is also no need to create pregens for every new one shot, and there is nothing wrong with recycling pregens, and recycling pregens will save you a bunch of time. Spending one evening on the weekend to create a massive bank of pregens is going to last you at least a year, and with a big enough bank of pregens, I doubt many players are going to notice that they played the same character two months ago if they happened to pick the same character twice.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
I have to agree with the OP. Every time I listen to Dragon Talk when they do a random character they make the worst characters. You can make an awesome backstory for such characters but that really doesn't translate to a useful feature. There needs to be some probability in the randomness. A wizard character isn't going to have to have a 7 Intelligence. Also the races shouldn't be given 1:1 weight where a variant feral tiefling is just as probable as a vanilla human. Alignment should weigh towards good alignments. That way we CAN use it to make a quick character. After trying a few times I have to wonder if they even do 4d6k3 for the stats. I would suggest dials to adjust things much like how a 4x type strategy game creates the world along with the "Just for Fun" button.
Thanks! I know that some folks don't really understand how a random character generator could useful. But for some of us, especially for DMs who want to quickly generate characters for either NPCs or PCs to use, it would be super useful.
1. Druids prepare spells so you can legitimately change non-cantrip spells after a long rest.
2. You still get the normal starting equipment with a randomizer. Just go to the EQUIPMENT section on the character sheet. Then you can choose starting equipment or gold.
3. You can only go so far with randomizers.
The Circle of Hedgehogs Druid Beholder/Animated Armor Level -20 Bard of the OIADSB Cult, here are our rules. Sig. Also a sauce council member, but it's been dead for a while.