There's an apparent paradox in character creation for an unfamiliar game: to effectively and confidently make a character requires knowing the game, but to know the game you have to already have made and played a character. It's not really a paradox, but it can feel like it when you have limited time to play and want to get started as soon as possible in order to get right into the fun of an ongoing campaign.
There's a simple solution that has worked well and consistently for me, but which requires trusting that patience pays off.
Play a demo session first
What has been successful for me across RPGs is to run a one-shot demo session using the new game before we make our real characters in our real campaign. This introduces the players to the moving parts of a character through hands-on playing experience, which gives them a basic understanding of what's important when making characters. This can also effectively introduce the players to the setting and playstyle that they will be making characters for later.
Whether the demo characters are pre-made or made by the players doesn't seem to matter. (If they know these are throw-away characters, they don't suffer nearly as much analysis paralysis in making their own.) What matters most is that the demo session gives them an experience that reflects the realities of play that should be informing their character creation choices.
For example, in a game where understanding the skill system is critical for character creation and evaluating character effectiveness (RuneQuest 6), I have run an "obstacle course" session where they made characters and then played through an in-setting coming-of-age trial that involved a lot of skill use (but no combat or risk of death). By the end, players had a visceral understanding of what was and wasn't a good skill rating — one player initially thought that 35% was a good skill and spread their points around to hit that number in as many skills as possible, and came out of the demo realising that she'd underestimated that by half and that choosing a few core skills to maximise first, before spreading the other points around, was key. They all also profited from the crash course in the cultural context they'd later be playing in.
In another game where the interplay of character creation choices and combat is a big deal (Savage Worlds), I had them make one-off characters and then threw them into a dungeon that I knew well enough to run on-the-fly. They had the freedom to go where they wished and test their characters in a variety of non-combat and combat situations. As a result, they got a good sense of how the game functions overall and in its combat, magic, opposed skill, and healing subsystems in a very short time, and were confident making characters for the longer-scale fantasy campaign we later kicked off. Notably, when we started that campaign we had a new player, who had a much harder time creating her character than the ones who had the demo session initiation.
In both these examples, taking the time to give the group early hands-on experience with characters and the system meant that the players were confident and quick in future character creation for the real game. The difference was like night and day: where before they were lost and stumbling through the options, afterwards they were focused and dove into the chargen process with clear goals in mind.
For reference:
From Rolemaster 2nd Edition Spell Law (English Version) pg 121
14.4: Seer Base Lists
Future Visions
1 - Intuitions I : Caster gets a vision of what will happen in the next minute if he takes a specified action.
There is a II, V, & X level that extend the visions out to 3, 5, and 10 mins respectively.
In my opinion, playing out the encounter and letting them choose to "keep" the results if they like them is WAY too powerful for at best a tenth level (out of 50 levels) spell.
Not only that, this is a large time sink for the game, and can make gameplay boring and repetitive.
But that only answers half of your question. If you don't go that option, how should you handle this spell without making it too lame?
This is tough, but I appreciate your attempt to address this. Many GMs brush right over divination spells because adjudicating them them can be hard.
First you want to keep it short, and set up a quick vignette that you can describe to them. You can look to real world to see how they do it for an example. Present outcomes as a set of probabilities, like a forecast. ex. You sense that there is a 70% probability that you go right, and come the the locked door, 20% you go straight and fall into the pit, and 10% you turn back.
Or look to how Hollywood does it. TV shows & Movies like the Flash, Harry Potter, and Buffy have characters who have visions all the time. Use the imagery there to set the scene for the vision.
Examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa09OhAak4I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0vyVT4HFgM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5y99rpk8to
Or perhaps combine the two where they see the top three most likely outcomes. in a vision that rewinds and plays forward through each of the probable threads.
As for how to play it out mechanically, I would first give the seer story hints.
If that is not an option then look to similar level spells to get an idea of what kind of benefit this should confer.
For example, Leaping I allows the caster to clear a pit easily; Balance allows the caster to get 50 to any roll for a slow maneuver; Blur subtracts 10 from all attacks. And so on.
So find an appropriate spell of the same level that fits the obstacle that the seer faces next and just give them this mechanical bonus. Sure the seer has much more flexibility, but this is offset by the fact that the seer may cast the spell when there is not much happening in the next ten minutes.
Also don't be afraid to tell them every now and then - not much happens in the next ten minutes. Maybe set up a random mechanic to determine this?
Best Answer
The solution is for the PCs to experiment with each of the spells to get a better feel for how useful they are during an actual game. Once your players have a chance to experiment a bit with the spells they have available to choose from, the task of deciding which ones are worth picking will be significantly easier. Also, as the DM, you may wish to reward good Intelligence or Wisdom checks made by the PCs during research activities by giving them suggestions as to which spells might prove useful over the course of the adventure. For example, if you're running the Lost Mine of Phandelver, you may wish to reward a player who spends time researching dragons that Green Dragons are masters of poison, so a Protection from Poison spell may be worth the Cleric's time to have prepared.
Because many of the 5th Edition mechanics and spell changes will likely be new for many players who did not participate in the playtest, the Adventurer's League Player's Guide also offers a nice solution to this problem. During levels 1-4 (the first major tier of gameplay) you can rebuild your character at the end of an episode or an adventure. This will allow you to try out low-level spell combinations without fear of being stuck with poor choices. Encourage low-level players to pick spells that sound cool and appear useful but not to fret over making bad choices because at the end of the session they can retcon their choices anyway.
It's worth mentioning that this should be significantly less of a problem for the Cleric, Druid, or Paladin because they each automatically have access to their entire class's spell list. If they wish to change the spells they have prepared, they can do so at the end of a long rest.
Lastly, note that some spells (those with the ritual tag) can be cast as rituals. This means the casting time is increased by 10 minutes (to prevent them from being used in combat), but the spell doesn't use up a spell slot. Bards can cast any ritual that they know. Clerics and Druids must prepare their rituals just like any other spell they plan to cast, but Wizards can use their spellbooks to avoid preparing rituals ahead of time. Warlocks who take Pact of the Tome have an invocation option which gives them the ability to learn every class's rituals in the same way as a Wizard. There is also a feat (Ritual Caster) which can grant ritual spellcasting to the other classes. This too will allow your players to try out more utility spells that may or may not be useful without making them sacrifice more pragmatic options like combat spells.