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As the exploration of 10 years of Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons continues, Shawn and Teos explore character creation: how has it changed, what’s better, and what’s not as good?
Breaking News Links
- New D&D Book Listed on Amazon.ca for December 6 Release
- Heroscape Reboot from Avalon Hill
- Here Come the Movie Toys!
- The Yawning Portal Board Game Pre-Order on Hasbro Pulse
- ICv2: RPGs are “the Story of the Year”
- Jeff Talks RPGs returns with Scott Gray!
- Mike Shea on Building Resilient Campaigns
- 13th Age new “Escalation Edition” coming in 2024
- Sebastian Crowe’s Guide to Drakkenheim on Kickstarter
Get in Touch
- Follow Teos at @Alphastream on Twitter and check out his blog at alphastream.org.
- Follow Shawn at @shawnmerwin on Twitter.
- Follow the show at @MasteringDnD on Twitter.
uh… I can’t find the podcast link
Sorry about that! Should be fixed!
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comment!
FWIW, as a Systems Engineer by trade, and also approach the topic from a holistic and extensible design perspective.
My comments were not meant to reflect my personal preferences, but to use those preferences and anecdotes to illustrate the flexibility of the current system, which it sounds like you are too willing to discard. While my table enjoyed having PCs with unequal abilities, what I appreciate about the existing system is that it also supports options like Standard Array or Point Buy that facilitate equal PC abilities.
Similarly, as much as I prefer using Standard XP and Theater of the Mind, I appreciate that the systems provides us with options to use Milestone/Story-based Leveling and gridded play.
I really liked your comment about the possibility of some suggestions possibly being scrapped after being explored. I would never object to exploring any ways to make the game better. I’m only opining on the results of my own intuition and analysis, having already given these topics ample thought over the years.
Regarding alignment, you left out what I consider my secret sauce, which is the definitions of Lawful and Chaotic. This is where I found the most debate and disagreement in the community, and I wish D&D would formally redefine them as I have:
Lawful characters tend to place a higher value on moral consistency and order. Chaotic characters tend to place a higher value on moral flexibility and freedom.
Is that too abstract? In my life, I have found these to be essential building blocks of everyone’s personality.