Character Creation During Play

I hate character creation. I want to play the game and introducing people to the game is super difficult with creation in the way. This is especially true in games like 5e where creation is such a chore to guide multiple people through. Even super simple character creation becomes a hassle with multiple people who have no idea what's going on.

I asked myself, why don't we just roll for stats as we need them and choose classes when we need to? That's crazy! Or is it? You can probably really easily create characters during play by just making choices and rolling as you go if you have a system that permits it.

So I have formulated a super simple modular system skeleton. Everything in play is disintegrated. Con doesn't affect HP. Dex doesn't affect AC. Everything in the classes and Backgrounds is additive.

Basic Mechanic: Roll high on a d20, adding modifiers. All checks must meet or exceed 15, though especially favorable or negative circumstances can raise as high as 20 or lower as far as 10.

Basic Stats: The usual suspects. Roll for them as necessary during play. I used DCC modifiers which was fine. It might also be good to do just Might, Mind, and Agility, thus reducing the amount of stats to roll for.

AC is 10 which should be written down whenever the PC is attacked. Dex does not affect AC.

Everyone starts play with 1d6 HP and 4 Equipment Points. These are really the only two things I would have players make a note of before the game starts, in order to give characters a better sense of how much of a risk they can take.

Equipment points can be traded in for weapons, or armor or other supplies at any time with a few restrictions. I know this borders on storygames, but it would be just for character creation with the explicit design of having zero pregame shopping which is something I hate in any game as a player or gm. Packages are another solution but that requires handouts or writing a lot of things down on your sheet before play which I want to avoid.

1 Point buys three rations or torches. 1 Point for Light Armor (+2 AC). 2 Points for Heavy Armor (+4 AC). 1 Point for a Light Weapon. 2 Points for a Heavy Weapon. Ranged Weapons come with a d6 Usage Die of Ammo. Most things are 1 Point for 1 Item or a 1d6 Usage Die of a supply.

You might want them to roll 1d6 to see how many rations or torches they have before play as a freebie so they aren't spending precious Equipment Points on something so minor.

It might be wise to pass these out with props at the table so that there is a nice distinction between the Equipment Points as a special mechanic for character creation as opposed to a regular part of post-creation play.

In the course of play as the occasion occurs, in addition to rolling stats, call upon the players to choose their class and make up a Background.

A Background provides an additional Equipment Point for an item that a person in your profession might reasonably possess and a +2 when rolling a check related to said profession.

Classes:

Fighter:

• +1d6 HP
• +1 to Attacks and Damage
• Reroll a Failed Attack Once Per Combat

Thief:

• + 1d6 to Thief Skills (including Backstab Attacks and Damage)
• +1d6 to Dex Saves
• Can Cast a Spell from a Scroll with a 2 in 6 Chance of Failure.

Wizard:

• 3 Spells to be created during play through negotiation with GM
• Can Cast Spells from Scrolls

Cleric: (You may wish to remove Clerics under certain conditions. Simply remove the restriction on Wizards having healing spells and you are good.)

• 1 Spell to be created during play through negotiation
• Cure Wounds: Touch to Heal 1d6+1. Useable once per day or you can burn spells to get more uses.
• Turn Unholy: Roll 1d4 per level to Turn that Many Creatures worth of HD. All targets must make Saves/Wis Checks or be turned.

What about Demi-humans?

I want to be able to make fairly definitive statements about the different options. Like, "If you want Health, you could be a Fighter." "If you want to be better at dodging, you could be a Thief." "If you want to cast spells, be a Wizard." "If you want to heal your allies, be a Cleric."

Those are all really easy and definitive statements to make which have an immediate impact and clear usefulness during play. Backgrounds, likewise, are fairly intuitive. "Do I know anything about this plant?" "Do you have some background in botany?" "Yeah I was a Gardener before I became an adventurer." "Fair enough, your background is Gardener, roll an Int check with a +2."

So what the heck do I do with Demihumans? Picking a race in a lot of later games means making a choice that vastly alters your character from the get-go in ways that are connected to lots of other areas of the character sheet. This is obviously an issue for our modular system. Race-as-Class seems to force a lot of complexity onto the classes and harms our ability to make pretty definite statements about what each class does. Cleric already muddies the waters in ways that I only tolerate because it still has a pretty distinctive class identity that allows me to make a definite statement about it. "Wanna heal or support? Go Cleric."

If I want each to give some kind of specific benefit in the same modular fashion as the rest of the game, the only things which come to mind are highly situational and thus not very intuitive or practical. All of it leaves the question, what is the benefit for being human? Normally humans are the baseline but if all races get some benefit then it would just be dumb to be human. Here are some ideas. (I also don't like Darkvision on any race so that is an issue.) I don't like them, but here they are.

Elves: +5 to Hearing related Checks.

Dwarves: Can smell the direction of treasure.

Halflings: Are Small.

Humans: 1 Extra Equipment Point.

The only one of these that I think I actually like is the Halfling one. It has problems but being Small is often a benefit that players can look to take advantage of, thus it is pretty intuitive.

By Henry Justice Ford

Actual Play:

I ran a few people: Jozo, Sam, and Thoobn through Through Ultan's Door #1 by Ben Laurence.

We began with just Jozo and Sam. They rolled HP and entered the Door.

They entered and saw the claw marks on the west door and concluded that a beast was somewhere in the dungeon and they wanted to kill it. Jozo got the idea to spend an EP on some exotic spices so I proposed he take a Background that would give him his spices so he decided to be a Merchant of Exotic Spices.

They proceeded to the east toward the antechamber where they came upon the hanged Zyanese men in masks. Sam got the idea to perform a benediction over the corpses and be a Priest by Background. I suggested he also be a Cleric if he was interested in holy duties so he decided on a class.

They pulled up one of the bodies from the balcony and took its mask which Jozo put on. In the process, Jozo rolled for Strength to see if he needed help hauling up the bodies. They approached the closed door to the east and Jozo wanted to examine it for traps, I suggested he become a Thief if he wanted to check for traps and he agreed.

They proceeded to the next room and rooted around in the detritus and looted the chest and a censer. Sam spent some time and rolled for Int to see if he could put back together a broken noise maker and did so. They went north and lit a candle behind some stained glass, revealing an image of a puppet dancer. They found the next room had arrow slits in the walls so Jozo spent an EP on a round shield and approached the portcullis to the east.

Around this time Thoobn joined.

Beyond the portcullis lay a patch of sparkly slime that smelled of fond childhood memories, felt like melancholy, and tasted of bitter longing. Thoobn endeavored to snort it to mixed but ultimately minor results.

They went towards the docks and Thoobn approached the green canoe anchored there. The rotting pier broke beneath her weight and Thoobn just managed to keep from losing her grip on the pier as the river rushed around her. Sam and Jozo attempted to throw her a rope to bring her up but Sam rolled a Nat 1, revealing that the water was running much faster than anticipated. The rpe ripped out of his hands and Thoobne fell into the water. Jozo pounced on the rope, keeping it from falling through the pier.

Sam walked onto the pier to help pull back Jozo and Thoobn, but fell through the pier. Thoobn tried to swim to shore but couldn't against the current. Jozo used his shield to spread out his bodyweight to safely roll into the boat and took off in pursuit, throwing his shied tied to a rope tied to the boat.

Thoobn managed to grab onto the shield and climbed into the canoe. Sam continued to be washed downriver. With the two of them at the oars, Jozo and Thoobn managed to gain some ground on their drowning companion but still failed to get him a line.

Sam decided now was the time to reveal his secret shame and chose his spell. His spell turned him into a Deep One but there would be an increasing chance each time he used it that some fishy trait would stay with him, eating away at his Charisma.

He leaped onto the boat and they found themselves next to a fabulous glowing door smelling of fond childhood memories. They tried to anchor themselves onto the door handles but found the door hungrily absorbing their ropes. The Oneiric Pudding dragged them in as battle commenced!

Jozo splashed lantern oil on the rope and creature while Sam, now Brother Icthus, lit it, harming the creature immensely. Thoobn chose to be a wizard and crafted a Cantrip magic missile, requiring an attack roll. She missed and the creature slapped at Brother Icthus.

Brother Icthus returned in kind with a hefty blow of his club, popping the pudding's nucleus. They harvested its valuable pudding juices (Oneiric Pudding Juice is a potent hallucinogen.) They returned to the dungeon and rested in the well room and we ended the session.

Player's sheets weren't finished by the time we ended the session and that is probably fine. I will likely return to these character in the future so I can report if spreading the creation adventure out over multiple sessions is a good or bad thing.


Player feedback was mostly positive. There was some concern over the storygamey aspects of it and over the Cleric from Thoobn, who was quite wise and I have expressed some of those concerns earlier.

Sam liked it but wondered about the lack of direction that really not having a sheet might bring to a truly new person. I would really have to try it with an honestly new player to rpgs to see.

Jozo was very positive about it and liked how it made characters they could care about and how earned that care was, given that the characters had actually done something to earn that attachment, plus it was less random than something like DCC which, while he also likes, has the issue of being a little random for his tastes.

I would like to do more testing but I think this method has a lot of benefits one of which is as Spwack says you get to "Just play the damn game!"