I DM for some players who aren’t that into the game. My question is this: can I somehow make Character creation less writing heavy, and quicker and simpler for my beginning players? Each player has had to make at least three different characters, due to a new game being started or character deaths. They are getting kind of sick of it. I want to make it more enjoyable, short of making FastCharacters.
Any advice?
Best Answer
One option I have tried with success is to leave as many choices as possible out of initial character creation, only making them when they become relevant in the game. This gets you into the action much quicker, the delay of which is likely a major reason your players are sick of character creation.
For example, I never ask players to decide in advance what bonus languages their characters speak. Instead, when they encounter a language for the first time, I ask if anyone with a free language choice speaks it, and to tell us where and how they learned it. This gives them a chance to pick something that’s definitely plot relevant, and also helps them contextualise what speaking that language means, since they’re encountering it as part of the story.
This technique can also be extended to starting skill proficiencies (“you’ll need to roll a Perception check - is that something you think your character is particularly good at?”), choice of primary weapon (“it’s your turn to attack - what weapon do you pull out of your pack?”), and spells (“on your turn, you can cast a spell if you want - which one do you know?”), so long as you’re okay with pausing the game to explain and assist with these choices at the time.
I recommend prepping a shortlist of good options with brief descriptions, drawn from the choices available during character creation, rather than giving them the full list of options from the books; you can revisit and change afterwards if they’re not happy. It also works best if you choose one thing at a time - i.e. let them choose and cast just that first spell, then when it’s time to cast again, see if they want to choose another different one.