Message to the future from the present- try again. My 2024 characters are 2024 characters, my 2014 characters have remained 2014 characters. If you’re going to try and stir up trouble please get your facts straight first - don’t lead with your fears.
2014 characters have not remained 2014 characters. The changes are on the minor side—the most notable thing to me after my group’s first session since the update is that a handful of the tooltips on the character sheet reflect only the 2024 information. It’s really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, especially considering how monumentally different the character sheets could have been however it is completely untrue and utterly disingenuous to claim that 2014 characters are unchanged by the release of 2024. Even the people who have purposely invested nothing into switching to the new rules, who have entirely declined to purchase the new ruleset as a matter of choice for whatever reason, have a different character sheet since 2024 dropped.
While these changes are manageable, it is unbelievably rude to insist that a thing that has objectively occurred to the character sheets has not. It is very definition of gaslighting: insistently declaring a glaringly obvious truth is not true. Crayontheseer, and anyone else interested in doing so, are 100% unable to use the DDB character sheet without it including some 5.5e rules, even with only the legacy options active. Minor changes =/= no changes. Miniscule changes =/= no changes. Change is change. Whether that change troubles people is not for you to decide. No one has to justify their life’s experience to you, no one has to qualify their preferences with you and you alone do not define reality.
The only issue that people are having between 2014 and 2024 is related to the absolute dependency on digital tools. Without them, this is not an issue, use your 2014 books to manage 2014 characters and your 2024 books to manage 2024 characters. The same way you would with any other edition of the game.
The issue is that the dependency on digital is so extreme today, I'm not even sure most modern D&D players know how to make characters without DnDBeyond and character generators and it is not surprising given that the systems are so convoluted and overcooked at this point, that character creation is about the equivalent to filling out a tax form.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools. If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
The only issue that people are having between 2014 and 2024 is related to the absolute dependency on digital tools. Without them, this is not an issue, use your 2014 books to manage 2014 characters and your 2024 books to manage 2024 characters. The same way you would with any other edition of the game.
The issue is that the dependency on digital is so extreme today, I'm not even sure most modern D&D players know how to make characters without DnDBeyond and character generators and it is not surprising given that the systems are so convoluted and overcooked at this point, that character creation is about the equivalent to filling out a tax form.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools. If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
I have witnessed at in-person tables the truth of what you say. I have had at least 5 different people across 2 tables who had no clue how to build a PC without the D&D B portal. We had the wi-fi go out at the one location. I pushed my hard copies in front of two of them, and they were hopelessly lost. Conversely, I ran a Shadowdark session 2 weeks ago. It took the players 5 minutes, with a brand new system for them, to build a PC. That included rolling the 4d6 choose 3.
The only issue that people are having between 2014 and 2024 is related to the absolute dependency on digital tools. Without them, this is not an issue, use your 2014 books to manage 2014 characters and your 2024 books to manage 2024 characters. The same way you would with any other edition of the game.
The issue is that the dependency on digital is so extreme today, I'm not even sure most modern D&D players know how to make characters without DnDBeyond and character generators and it is not surprising given that the systems are so convoluted and overcooked at this point, that character creation is about the equivalent to filling out a tax form.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools. If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
I have witnessed at in-person tables the truth of what you say. I have had at least 5 different people across 2 tables who had no clue how to build a PC without the D&D B portal. We had the wi-fi go out at the one location. I pushed my hard copies in front of two of them, and they were hopelessly lost. Conversely, I ran a Shadowdark session 2 weeks ago. It took the players 5 minutes, with a brand new system for them, to build a PC. That included rolling the 4d6 choose 3.
The 2024 PHB goes a long way toward solving this problem, actually laying out the individual steps to creating a character in a far, far more clear manner than any prior PHB ever has. That was one of the main design goals with revising the base 5e rules - fixing five decades worth of poorly organized PHBs. Each step is clearly laid out, the calculations made clear, and the writing itself has been cleaned up.
I know that doesn’t help your table, since you both have made it clear you are vehemently against 5.24, but it should help new players who are coming to the game through pen and paper, or who are using digital tools, but read the PHB and have seen the clearly laid out reasons for why the digital tools calculate figures the way they do.
The only issue that people are having between 2014 and 2024 is related to the absolute dependency on digital tools. Without them, this is not an issue, use your 2014 books to manage 2014 characters and your 2024 books to manage 2024 characters. The same way you would with any other edition of the game.
The issue is that the dependency on digital is so extreme today, I'm not even sure most modern D&D players know how to make characters without DnDBeyond and character generators and it is not surprising given that the systems are so convoluted and overcooked at this point, that character creation is about the equivalent to filling out a tax form.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools. If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
I have witnessed at in-person tables the truth of what you say. I have had at least 5 different people across 2 tables who had no clue how to build a PC without the D&D B portal. We had the wi-fi go out at the one location. I pushed my hard copies in front of two of them, and they were hopelessly lost. Conversely, I ran a Shadowdark session 2 weeks ago. It took the players 5 minutes, with a brand new system for them, to build a PC. That included rolling the 4d6 choose 3.
The 2024 PHB goes a long way toward solving this problem, actually laying out the individual steps to creating a character in a far, far more clear manner than any prior PHB ever has. That was one of the main design goals with revising the base 5e rules - fixing five decades worth of poorly organized PHBs. Each step is clearly laid out, the calculations made clear, and the writing itself has been cleaned up.
I know that doesn’t help your table, since you both have made it clear you are vehemently against 5.24, but it should help new players who are coming to the game through pen and paper, or who are using digital tools, but read the PHB and have seen the clearly laid out reasons for why the digital tools calculate figures the way they do.
Not to mention the books are still close to 2 weeks away from being available to everyone, makes it hard on lots of tables now, in the future most will likely have issues. This whole roll out was done with only sales in mind, not a smooth transition.
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
The only issue that people are having between 2014 and 2024 is related to the absolute dependency on digital tools. Without them, this is not an issue, use your 2014 books to manage 2014 characters and your 2024 books to manage 2024 characters. The same way you would with any other edition of the game.
The issue is that the dependency on digital is so extreme today, I'm not even sure most modern D&D players know how to make characters without DnDBeyond and character generators and it is not surprising given that the systems are so convoluted and overcooked at this point, that character creation is about the equivalent to filling out a tax form.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools. If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
I have witnessed at in-person tables the truth of what you say. I have had at least 5 different people across 2 tables who had no clue how to build a PC without the D&D B portal. We had the wi-fi go out at the one location. I pushed my hard copies in front of two of them, and they were hopelessly lost. Conversely, I ran a Shadowdark session 2 weeks ago. It took the players 5 minutes, with a brand new system for them, to build a PC. That included rolling the 4d6 choose 3.
The 2024 PHB goes a long way toward solving this problem, actually laying out the individual steps to creating a character in a far, far more clear manner than any prior PHB ever has. That was one of the main design goals with revising the base 5e rules - fixing five decades worth of poorly organized PHBs. Each step is clearly laid out, the calculations made clear, and the writing itself has been cleaned up.
I know that doesn’t help your table, since you both have made it clear you are vehemently against 5.24, but it should help new players who are coming to the game through pen and paper, or who are using digital tools, but read the PHB and have seen the clearly laid out reasons for why the digital tools calculate figures the way they do.
We'll see, I have heard these promises but I don't have the book yet so I can't say one way or the other. I'm glad to hear it though, if it's true then perhaps there is some hope that this game might grace our tables in the future. I know with 5e, strangely enough, one of the main reasons people didn't want to play it in my circles was that character creation was a colossal pain in the butt and no one in my circles is willing to pay for a character generator that demands they re-buy all the books on a digital platform that has a clause that says "you own nothing here, even if you paid for it".
DnD Beyond is still a terrible offer, I don't know anyone willing to pay for it so the new book is going to have to be usable with a pencil, paper and dice, if not, it's going to be another D&D edition dust collector. At this stage though I have to agree with JustAFarmer. With games like ShadowDark completely blowing the doors off when it comes to simplicity and efficiency, this edition of D&D has got a lot to contend with.
Right now, I'm still not sure what the sales pitch is though. Here is the same game you already have, but slightly different except the rulebook is now 380 pages? I'm not sure I get it. I hope the writing is good.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools.
Nah. It's entirely playable without. Digital tools do speed up the process significantly, though, mostly by centralizing reference. No more flipping back and forth between your spell list and the spell descriptions.
If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
While five minute character creation is certainly a goal one could emphasize in design, it requires making priority choices. Specifically, it requires a lack of options and customization, and will lead to, at a minimum, all low-level characters being very similar and feeling kind of disposable.
It's a design goal that one could want, but it's definitely not the only way to approach D&D.
Also, even as an experienced player with familiarity with the rules, I doubt I could get anything but roll-in-order red box D&D done in only five minutes.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools.
Nah. It's entirely playable without. Digital tools do speed up the process significantly, though, mostly by centralizing reference. No more flipping back and forth between your spell list and the spell descriptions.
If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
While five minute character creation is certainly a goal one could emphasize in design, it requires making priority choices. Specifically, it requires a lack of options and customization, and will lead to, at a minimum, all low-level characters being very similar and feeling kind of disposable.
It's a design goal that one could want, but it's definitely not the only way to approach D&D.
Also, even as an experienced player with familiarity with the rules, I doubt I could get anything but roll-in-order red box D&D done in only five minutes.
Building a PC in Shadowdark, or 1e, takes 5 minutes, most of that in rolling dice. I have seen it happen at my tables many many times. 5e and whatever you want to call this new version has literally infinite possibilities of PC builds. It is way way too much for a new player. And for an experienced player, why bother? I dare anyone to tell me how they have actually played more than 10 5e PC's in the past 10 years IF that person is actually in games that last, as opposed to the typical less than 6 session number that even wotc acknowledges is the reality of D&D. Now, are there people out there that have a hobby of just making PC's up, consulting myriad sites and videos for the most powerful combos? Of course. But that is not the same as actually USING that PC in a campaign.
If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
All I can say to this is that I feel differently. For many people, character creation is a game in itself. I easily spend 5+ minutes on deciding eye/hair color, age, height/weight etc. I love poring over backgrounds and thinking about what skill proficiencies make sense for my character. Those differently inclined can fill out these sections in well under a minute.
Maybe part of your problem is that you seem to approach character creation as a chore that must be overcome before you play the real game. Personally I feel that its a vital part of the game and I'm happy spending most of session 0 hashing it out and sharing my decisions and thoughts with the group. It's an opportunity for imagination, storytelling, and roleplaying, and it sets the foundation for a player's place in the campaign world.
Yes, if you're doing a one-shot with a bunch of strangers, this is typically a part of the game you want to get through quickly. But it would be a mistake to deprive other players of the opportunity to dive deeper just to accommodate this. Best to go with pregens in this case. People already complain 5e is too skewed towards onboarding new players at the cost of depth.
I'm glad to hear that ShadowDark seems to be a good alternative for those unhappy with D&D. A variety of options makes the whole industry stronger.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools.
Nah. It's entirely playable without. Digital tools do speed up the process significantly, though, mostly by centralizing reference. No more flipping back and forth between your spell list and the spell descriptions.
If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
While five minute character creation is certainly a goal one could emphasize in design, it requires making priority choices. Specifically, it requires a lack of options and customization, and will lead to, at a minimum, all low-level characters being very similar and feeling kind of disposable.
It's a design goal that one could want, but it's definitely not the only way to approach D&D.
Also, even as an experienced player with familiarity with the rules, I doubt I could get anything but roll-in-order red box D&D done in only five minutes.
Building a PC in Shadowdark, or 1e, takes 5 minutes, most of that in rolling dice. I have seen it happen at my tables many many times. 5e and whatever you want to call this new version has literally infinite possibilities of PC builds. It is way way too much for a new player. And for an experienced player, why bother? I dare anyone to tell me how they have actually played more than 10 5e PC's in the past 10 years IF that person is actually in games that last, as opposed to the typical less than 6 session number that even wotc acknowledges is the reality of D&D. Now, are there people out there that have a hobby of just making PC's up, consulting myriad sites and videos for the most powerful combos? Of course. But that is not the same as actually USING that PC in a campaign.
I don't think I understand what is so hard to believe that people have played more than 10 characters over the course of 10 years? Since I first started playing about 10 years ago, I have played at least once a week, with twice a week being more common and there have been times that I have been in 3 different campaigns at the same time. I have been in a few short campaigns (2-3 months) but most of them have been 6-9 months long with the ones my dad ran being about 2 years each. 10 characters seems like such a low number to me.
Sorry, I will not vote in this poll. My problem with 6E is that it is supplanting 5E. This needs to be it's own ruleset and players need to be able to continue use the rule set that they agreed to. But suddenly we are forced to convert, and if you don't convert you are just scared! Right? No. If this is the way it is... I am gone.
The reason people are actually scared of 6th edition is because we might finally get a stat block for the monster that eats tarrasques
Yes tarrasques are prey animals because they are covered in a spiky carapace and animals that have spikes specifically evolved to get them so they can ward of predators. Thus the tarrasque evolved spikes to prevent something from eating it
While these changes are manageable, it is unbelievably rude to insist that a thing that has objectively occurred to the character sheets has not. It is very definition of gaslighting: insistently declaring a glaringly obvious truth is not true. Crayontheseer, and anyone else interested in doing so, are 100% unable to use the DDB character sheet without it including some 5.5e rules, even with only the legacy options active. Minor changes =/= no changes. Miniscule changes =/= no changes. Change is change. Whether that change troubles people is not for you to decide. No one has to justify their life’s experience to you, no one has to qualify their preferences with you and you alone do not define reality.
The changes are extremely minor and cosmetic, and I do not think it warrants the extremely negative response you gave. What issue are you having with the character sheet? I can still create 2014 characters as before, and track the old spells and items just fine. The only major difference I see is the slight change in character creation order and few changes in words/terms, but that is about it.
How many characters have I played in the last 5 years?
There was the one guy for our attempt to homebrew rules to adapt an anime we liked to 5e that got a decent run of sessions
There was the second one for that who was only used for a higher level one shot
The rogue in a campaign with a whole different group of players
The druid I played in few Candlekeep adventures with some of the group when the DM took a hiatus for the holidays
The wizard I played for a few Radiant Citadel adventures with that DM and a mostly different group
The warlock I've been playing with my original group for something like two years now
Looking at that trend, it's not exactly hard to expect to hit 10 characters in 10 years.
And you ignored the one statement I made: "I dare anyone to tell me how they have actually played more than 10 5e PC's in the past 10 years IF that person is actually in games that last, as opposed to the typical less than 6 session number that even wotc acknowledges is the reality of D&D".
But thank you for proving my point for me about the longevity of the typical game, and the fact you have been playing the same PC for multiple years in the ONLY actual campaign among the 6 you listed. I guess we can add your second example with the Rogue, as you listed that a campaign, of unknown length.
How many characters have I played in the last 5 years?
There was the one guy for our attempt to homebrew rules to adapt an anime we liked to 5e that got a decent run of sessions
There was the second one for that who was only used for a higher level one shot
The rogue in a campaign with a whole different group of players
The druid I played in few Candlekeep adventures with some of the group when the DM took a hiatus for the holidays
The wizard I played for a few Radiant Citadel adventures with that DM and a mostly different group
The warlock I've been playing with my original group for something like two years now
Looking at that trend, it's not exactly hard to expect to hit 10 characters in 10 years.
And you ignored the one statement I made: "I dare anyone to tell me how they have actually played more than 10 5e PC's in the past 10 years IF that person is actually in games that last, as opposed to the typical less than 6 session number that even wotc acknowledges is the reality of D&D".
But thank you for proving my point for me about the longevity of the typical game, and the fact you have been playing the same PC for multiple years in the ONLY actual campaign among the 6 you listed. I guess we can add your second example with the Rogue, as you listed that a campaign, of unknown length.
In point of fact, half of them ran for more than six sessions.
I don't know much about D&D Beyond, I don't use it and probably never will, but I do know that when I run D&D, I don't know anyone who produces a 5e character just using the books, it always comes from DnD Beyond. People here are acting like doing manual character creation is easy and done all the time, it is most definitely not. The vast majority of people have no idea how to make a 5e character without this tool, its why there are so many complaints about the changes and issues related to this update.
People are extremely reliant on DnD Beyond to play the game and that reliance is going to get worse and worse as the new edition hits and they inevitably drown this game in digital splash books which we all know are going to be DLC exclusives for the VTT.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools.
Nah. It's entirely playable without. Digital tools do speed up the process significantly, though, mostly by centralizing reference. No more flipping back and forth between your spell list and the spell descriptions.
If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
While five minute character creation is certainly a goal one could emphasize in design, it requires making priority choices. Specifically, it requires a lack of options and customization, and will lead to, at a minimum, all low-level characters being very similar and feeling kind of disposable.
It's a design goal that one could want, but it's definitely not the only way to approach D&D.
Also, even as an experienced player with familiarity with the rules, I doubt I could get anything but roll-in-order red box D&D done in only five minutes.
Building a PC in Shadowdark, or 1e, takes 5 minutes, most of that in rolling dice. I have seen it happen at my tables many many times.
Cool. It's good that you have a game for you, since character creation is not your thing.
I admit I find five minutes hard to believe for AD&D, unless you're rolling stats in order. Once you're choosing stats, just figuring out what you can play is gonna take more than five, unless you've played so much you've got the stat requirements for each class memorized. (Or you're going in with an idea of what you want to play, of course, but I'd count pregaming like that against the five minutes.)
5e and whatever you want to call this new version has literally infinite possibilities of PC builds. It is way way too much for a new player. And for an experienced player, why bother? I dare anyone to tell me how they have actually played more than 10 5e PC's in the past 10 years IF that person is actually in games that last, as opposed to the typical less than 6 session number that even wotc acknowledges is the reality of D&D. Now, are there people out there that have a hobby of just making PC's up, consulting myriad sites and videos for the most powerful combos? Of course. But that is not the same as actually USING that PC in a campaign.
So, if we play so few characters, why would we want to spend so little effort on each one? Five-minute generation is for the interchangeable, expendable, characters. The ones who might well get shanked by an orc five minutes in. If that's your jam, go for it. I hear shadowdark caters to your style of play.
But lack of five-minute generation is not a failure of game design. It's decision to give players options from the get-go. If I wanted to get a bunch of new players up and running ASAP, including basic rules explanation, I'd guess 20 minutes total if I had pre-prep. There'd be a bunch of "you can choose that when it comes up in play" deferments, but it's basically "here's the top-level class descriptions. Pick one that sounds fun. Take the default stat array. Here's the top-level backgrounds and species. Choose. Take the default equipment from your background and class." Most of the stuff I'd be using is straight from the new PHB. Having DDB would make it easier, because less writing.
If I were running an actual one-shot, I'd have pregens ready.
Spending only five minutes on a character you're hoping to play for many sessions is not the way most people operate. Even ignoring game mechanics, most people take longer than that for a name, much less "who is this person, and what do they want in life so much that they're going adventuring?"
(There's probably an interesting system design where you make no choices at character generation, but instead each player has a resource they can spend to establish things that are true about their character when they become relevant. Want to cast a spell? Pay your money, now you're a caster. Something tries to hit you, and should succeed? Pay, and now you're wearing and trained in armor. Etc. Probably can't be made to work for D&D, because classes are too big a block of decisions, but it could still be something D&Dish.)
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2014 characters have not remained 2014 characters. The changes are on the minor side—the most notable thing to me after my group’s first session since the update is that a handful of the tooltips on the character sheet reflect only the 2024 information. It’s really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, especially considering how monumentally different the character sheets could have been however it is completely untrue and utterly disingenuous to claim that 2014 characters are unchanged by the release of 2024. Even the people who have purposely invested nothing into switching to the new rules, who have entirely declined to purchase the new ruleset as a matter of choice for whatever reason, have a different character sheet since 2024 dropped.
While these changes are manageable, it is unbelievably rude to insist that a thing that has objectively occurred to the character sheets has not. It is very definition of gaslighting: insistently declaring a glaringly obvious truth is not true. Crayontheseer, and anyone else interested in doing so, are 100% unable to use the DDB character sheet without it including some 5.5e rules, even with only the legacy options active. Minor changes =/= no changes. Miniscule changes =/= no changes. Change is change. Whether that change troubles people is not for you to decide. No one has to justify their life’s experience to you, no one has to qualify their preferences with you and you alone do not define reality.
The only issue that people are having between 2014 and 2024 is related to the absolute dependency on digital tools. Without them, this is not an issue, use your 2014 books to manage 2014 characters and your 2024 books to manage 2024 characters. The same way you would with any other edition of the game.
The issue is that the dependency on digital is so extreme today, I'm not even sure most modern D&D players know how to make characters without DnDBeyond and character generators and it is not surprising given that the systems are so convoluted and overcooked at this point, that character creation is about the equivalent to filling out a tax form.
When people say D&D is going digital, it's not an exaggeration, this game is already now unplayable without digital tools. If creating a D&D character takes more than 5 minutes, you have completely failed as a game designer.
I have witnessed at in-person tables the truth of what you say. I have had at least 5 different people across 2 tables who had no clue how to build a PC without the D&D B portal. We had the wi-fi go out at the one location. I pushed my hard copies in front of two of them, and they were hopelessly lost. Conversely, I ran a Shadowdark session 2 weeks ago. It took the players 5 minutes, with a brand new system for them, to build a PC. That included rolling the 4d6 choose 3.
The 2024 PHB goes a long way toward solving this problem, actually laying out the individual steps to creating a character in a far, far more clear manner than any prior PHB ever has. That was one of the main design goals with revising the base 5e rules - fixing five decades worth of poorly organized PHBs. Each step is clearly laid out, the calculations made clear, and the writing itself has been cleaned up.
I know that doesn’t help your table, since you both have made it clear you are vehemently against 5.24, but it should help new players who are coming to the game through pen and paper, or who are using digital tools, but read the PHB and have seen the clearly laid out reasons for why the digital tools calculate figures the way they do.
Not to mention the books are still close to 2 weeks away from being available to everyone, makes it hard on lots of tables now, in the future most will likely have issues. This whole roll out was done with only sales in mind, not a smooth transition.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
We'll see, I have heard these promises but I don't have the book yet so I can't say one way or the other. I'm glad to hear it though, if it's true then perhaps there is some hope that this game might grace our tables in the future. I know with 5e, strangely enough, one of the main reasons people didn't want to play it in my circles was that character creation was a colossal pain in the butt and no one in my circles is willing to pay for a character generator that demands they re-buy all the books on a digital platform that has a clause that says "you own nothing here, even if you paid for it".
DnD Beyond is still a terrible offer, I don't know anyone willing to pay for it so the new book is going to have to be usable with a pencil, paper and dice, if not, it's going to be another D&D edition dust collector. At this stage though I have to agree with JustAFarmer. With games like ShadowDark completely blowing the doors off when it comes to simplicity and efficiency, this edition of D&D has got a lot to contend with.
Right now, I'm still not sure what the sales pitch is though. Here is the same game you already have, but slightly different except the rulebook is now 380 pages? I'm not sure I get it. I hope the writing is good.
I'm not worried about a 6th edition that probably won't be coming for at least another 10 years.
Nah. It's entirely playable without. Digital tools do speed up the process significantly, though, mostly by centralizing reference. No more flipping back and forth between your spell list and the spell descriptions.
While five minute character creation is certainly a goal one could emphasize in design, it requires making priority choices. Specifically, it requires a lack of options and customization, and will lead to, at a minimum, all low-level characters being very similar and feeling kind of disposable.
It's a design goal that one could want, but it's definitely not the only way to approach D&D.
Also, even as an experienced player with familiarity with the rules, I doubt I could get anything but roll-in-order red box D&D done in only five minutes.
Building a PC in Shadowdark, or 1e, takes 5 minutes, most of that in rolling dice. I have seen it happen at my tables many many times. 5e and whatever you want to call this new version has literally infinite possibilities of PC builds. It is way way too much for a new player. And for an experienced player, why bother? I dare anyone to tell me how they have actually played more than 10 5e PC's in the past 10 years IF that person is actually in games that last, as opposed to the typical less than 6 session number that even wotc acknowledges is the reality of D&D. Now, are there people out there that have a hobby of just making PC's up, consulting myriad sites and videos for the most powerful combos? Of course. But that is not the same as actually USING that PC in a campaign.
All I can say to this is that I feel differently. For many people, character creation is a game in itself. I easily spend 5+ minutes on deciding eye/hair color, age, height/weight etc. I love poring over backgrounds and thinking about what skill proficiencies make sense for my character. Those differently inclined can fill out these sections in well under a minute.
Maybe part of your problem is that you seem to approach character creation as a chore that must be overcome before you play the real game. Personally I feel that its a vital part of the game and I'm happy spending most of session 0 hashing it out and sharing my decisions and thoughts with the group. It's an opportunity for imagination, storytelling, and roleplaying, and it sets the foundation for a player's place in the campaign world.
Yes, if you're doing a one-shot with a bunch of strangers, this is typically a part of the game you want to get through quickly. But it would be a mistake to deprive other players of the opportunity to dive deeper just to accommodate this. Best to go with pregens in this case. People already complain 5e is too skewed towards onboarding new players at the cost of depth.
I'm glad to hear that ShadowDark seems to be a good alternative for those unhappy with D&D. A variety of options makes the whole industry stronger.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I don't think I understand what is so hard to believe that people have played more than 10 characters over the course of 10 years? Since I first started playing about 10 years ago, I have played at least once a week, with twice a week being more common and there have been times that I have been in 3 different campaigns at the same time. I have been in a few short campaigns (2-3 months) but most of them have been 6-9 months long with the ones my dad ran being about 2 years each. 10 characters seems like such a low number to me.
She/Her College Student Player and Dungeon Master
Sorry, I will not vote in this poll. My problem with 6E is that it is supplanting 5E. This needs to be it's own ruleset and players need to be able to continue use the rule set that they agreed to. But suddenly we are forced to convert, and if you don't convert you are just scared! Right? No. If this is the way it is... I am gone.
Goodbye
DND Beyond Legendary Bundle Holder
The reason people are actually scared of 6th edition is because we might finally get a stat block for the monster that eats tarrasques
Yes tarrasques are prey animals because they are covered in a spiky carapace and animals that have spikes specifically evolved to get them so they can ward of predators. Thus the tarrasque evolved spikes to prevent something from eating it
The changes are extremely minor and cosmetic, and I do not think it warrants the extremely negative response you gave. What issue are you having with the character sheet? I can still create 2014 characters as before, and track the old spells and items just fine. The only major difference I see is the slight change in character creation order and few changes in words/terms, but that is about it.
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How many characters have I played in the last 5 years?
Looking at that trend, it's not exactly hard to expect to hit 10 characters in 10 years.
And you ignored the one statement I made: "I dare anyone to tell me how they have actually played more than 10 5e PC's in the past 10 years IF that person is actually in games that last, as opposed to the typical less than 6 session number that even wotc acknowledges is the reality of D&D".
But thank you for proving my point for me about the longevity of the typical game, and the fact you have been playing the same PC for multiple years in the ONLY actual campaign among the 6 you listed. I guess we can add your second example with the Rogue, as you listed that a campaign, of unknown length.
In point of fact, half of them ran for more than six sessions.
I don't know much about D&D Beyond, I don't use it and probably never will, but I do know that when I run D&D, I don't know anyone who produces a 5e character just using the books, it always comes from DnD Beyond. People here are acting like doing manual character creation is easy and done all the time, it is most definitely not. The vast majority of people have no idea how to make a 5e character without this tool, its why there are so many complaints about the changes and issues related to this update.
People are extremely reliant on DnD Beyond to play the game and that reliance is going to get worse and worse as the new edition hits and they inevitably drown this game in digital splash books which we all know are going to be DLC exclusives for the VTT.
Who's this "we" that knows all this? Particularly given we know nothing about the pricing model of the VTT at this point.
Cool. It's good that you have a game for you, since character creation is not your thing.
I admit I find five minutes hard to believe for AD&D, unless you're rolling stats in order. Once you're choosing stats, just figuring out what you can play is gonna take more than five, unless you've played so much you've got the stat requirements for each class memorized. (Or you're going in with an idea of what you want to play, of course, but I'd count pregaming like that against the five minutes.)
So, if we play so few characters, why would we want to spend so little effort on each one? Five-minute generation is for the interchangeable, expendable, characters. The ones who might well get shanked by an orc five minutes in. If that's your jam, go for it. I hear shadowdark caters to your style of play.
But lack of five-minute generation is not a failure of game design. It's decision to give players options from the get-go. If I wanted to get a bunch of new players up and running ASAP, including basic rules explanation, I'd guess 20 minutes total if I had pre-prep. There'd be a bunch of "you can choose that when it comes up in play" deferments, but it's basically "here's the top-level class descriptions. Pick one that sounds fun. Take the default stat array. Here's the top-level backgrounds and species. Choose. Take the default equipment from your background and class." Most of the stuff I'd be using is straight from the new PHB. Having DDB would make it easier, because less writing.
If I were running an actual one-shot, I'd have pregens ready.
Spending only five minutes on a character you're hoping to play for many sessions is not the way most people operate. Even ignoring game mechanics, most people take longer than that for a name, much less "who is this person, and what do they want in life so much that they're going adventuring?"
(There's probably an interesting system design where you make no choices at character generation, but instead each player has a resource they can spend to establish things that are true about their character when they become relevant. Want to cast a spell? Pay your money, now you're a caster. Something tries to hit you, and should succeed? Pay, and now you're wearing and trained in armor. Etc. Probably can't be made to work for D&D, because classes are too big a block of decisions, but it could still be something D&Dish.)