The other day, I noticed someone on the 5e FB page asking for opinions on a 5e supplement that added additional character classes and such. Nothing special here, there are a lot of supplements that do so (including one by Legendary Pants). But it got me thinking, and I think 5e’s character creation is out of control, and I have no interest in making it more complex.
(Just to be clear, I jumped from playing AD&D in the 80s to playing 5e. So we’re leaving everything between completely out of this discussion. I literally know nothing about them and I don’t want to know because I don’t care.)
This is part of the ongoing opinion series “Chief Yells at Clouds”. LP’s Curmudgeon in Residence, Shawn Stanford (call him ‘Chief’), takes issue with everything that isn’t exactly the way it was when he started playing D&D on papyrus and clay tablets.
“This guy only wears bunny slippers and fights with a whip made of Red Vines!”
Now, I may not know a lot about 5e (I’m just a pretty face), but back when I was playing 1e, we’d pick a race (there were like a half dozen), pick a class (also about a half dozen), and declare, “This guy only wears bunny slippers and fights with a whip made of Red Vines!” You’d work with the GM to figure out damage numbers for your licorice whip, and then tromp around the Land of Oladalay in your bunny slippers and make the best of it.
But in 5e, he’d be a Licorice Enclave Ranger with a Lagomorph Boot focus, and there would be bonuses for it.
I have serious heartburn with the proliferation of classes, subclasses, archetypes, etc. being encoded into the rules. Why? Because you don’t need stats to give a character personality, or to be unique or weird. So, it’s clearly not about trying to play an interesting character. It’s about using your character’s ‘quirks’ as an excuse to tweak combat stats.
And I see it constantly: People asking what the best build for maximizing this ability or that skill or another stat. The primary driver in character creation for these folks is the combat. I can’t imagine what it’s like to play with someone so focused on mechanics and gaining the maximum advantage in every encounter. It must be exhausting.
I’m a story guy, I always have been and I always will be.
I played AD&D though the 80s and into the early 90s. Back then I just picked a race and class, rolled some stats, came up with a four-sentence backstory and I was ready. That’s also my approach to 5e. That’s because I’m a story guy, I always have been and I always will be. Combat is one tool in the box, and it’s never been my focus. I don’t want to waste hours figuring out how build my toon to tease out another point of damage per round. If I did, I’d play WoW, not D&D.
And I’m not the only one who isn’t geeked about combat. A recurring question is how to speed up long combats. I never see people asking how to speed up long social encounters, or long exploration encounters. Combat seems to be the only thing that people want to speed up.
Uhh, yeah. Because it often sucks. Combat is the most mechanical part of DnD: Calculate your numbers, pull out a die, roll it when it’s your turn, wait while it isn’t. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. To quote Tank in The Matrix, “That’s major boring shit.” (In that, DnD is pretty realistic: Real world combat is also hours of boredom interspersed with moments of terror. )
Let me put it this way: When it comes to characters, 5e’s character creation system is Starbucks, and I can get a double half-cafe mocha latte supremo with a twist of ginger and a squirt of motor oil, and a slice of lemon expresso sesame seed pumpkin egnogg summer breeze muffin cake with it.
I don’t have time for those decisions! I’m a Dunkin’ Donuts guy; I just want to get some coffee and go! Give me a large hot with four cream and two sugars. And, if I’m feeling froggy, a cruller.
The point being: 5e’s character creation options aren’t doing a damn thing for the social or exploration parts of the game; they’re only for maximizing combat stats. They taking up an unreasonable amount of the rules, of the focus during character creation, and of time during sessions.
