Redesigning The 5th Edition Character Sheet

My recent forays into character creation in 5th edition have inspired me to do some information rearranging. I'm particularly inspired by the way that the LoTFP players handbook lays out the character sheet with what everything means. It's a helpful addition for new players and I don't know why it hasn't been more widely adapted.

It inspired me at first to do something similar with the 5e sheet. Which takes it a bit farther and just says what everything is. Which I know is something I frequently take for granted. It's amazing how many people don't know or care what hit dice are.

At first I was like, PERFECT. I'll just pass this around the table when people are making characters and everything will be good. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that it's still pretty confusing. I think this stems from the fact that the way that the PHB and the character sheet weren't really designed as a set, or at least it doesn't feel that way.

click to make it bigger

I decided to take it upon myself to do something that I know has been talked about a lot. A character sheet for 5e that teaches you how to make a character RIGHT ON THE SHEET.

This is a tall order- there's a lot of shit on this sheet and it's organized in such a way that it all fits all nice and neat on (mostly) 1 piece of copy paper (Why the fuck is there no spell save/spell attack portion on this sheet it's like the only thing missing).

So I decided to at least take a swing at sheet that has everything (mostly) that you need to make a level 1 character. It's definitely still going to take a more experienced person to run you through it but I think at least it all goes in the right order and has labels for where to find everything in the PHB.

Here's the link to download for yourself. Enjoy!
And if you can make it better, please do.

5e Character Creation And Cellular Telephones.

Okay so I started a new 5e game.

Why did I do this? I usually run LoTFP, which is cool because I'm usually running a dungeon crawl. I find this is my preferred setting when I have a specific set piece in mind, like a megadungeon or something similarly big and set-piecey. But between listening to the Adventure Zone and re-reading I Roved Out (NSFW)  I was really in the mood for that new school, player character based adventure vibe. Sometimes it's nice to let the players be in charge of what the world turns out like.

So I gathered my gaming group together and had a character creation session. I like doing a session 0 type night. It lets me gauge a few things, like who actually shows up, regardless of facebook invitations, and it gives me a solid idea of where everyone is at experience wise. We spent about 3 hours making characters for 4 people, which sounds like a long time but it actually went pretty smoothly and we were all drinking and chilling so it wasn't a HARD 3 hours.

I only have 1 copy of the PHB so I instructed everyone to use the D&D Beyond character builder. Which was kind of a mixed bag in terms of usefulness. WoTC proves to again and again create things that are supposed to be for "new" folks but are complicated enough that I have to take your phone and click through a screen of sliders that say things like "use standard encumbrance rules" before you feel comfortable making choices. I don't know the last time you played with new people but that's exactly the kind of shit that sends folks running to the hills.

On the positive side the site does all the math for you, on the negative side it's composed of approximately 999 dropdown menus. Why so many dropdown menus? Why does it let you skip over making a background? Shouldn't it at least say "Do you want a background?" I feel like it should be hard to skip past that. I'm honestly not sure how she managed to skip past that.

So after double checking everything that people were making I had them copy all of that information on to a paper sheet because I'll be damned if everyone is going to be staring at their phones while I DM. I may be a millennial but that shit is rude.

All in all it worked out, and the party of

Kenje Sandersong, Dwarf Rogue (based on a real life local handyman that some of us knew RIP)
Clubion Stieve, Tiefling Druid (Who's demonic bloodline is evil tree)
Ovaria Blüdcunt, Drow Warlock (the name really says it all) and
Vorodor Twitchel, Human Fighter (who I'm pretty sure chose that name because you have to make a Twitch account to use DndBeyond)

Was born. Can we talk about how new people make the best fucking names? I want 100 pages of Ovaria Blüdcunt OC fanfictions stat. She's a Warlock of Lilith and my least experienced player. The minute she found out about R.A Salvatore's take on Drow women she had like a whole bit locked and loaded.

I hold fast by the rule of "never play D&D with someone you wouldn't go on a 3 hour car trip with" and It's steered me right so far.

As far as D&D Beyond goes I'll use it for looking up spells and monster stats (never bothered to by a $50 fucking monster manual and between the basic set monster and homebrew tools why would I now), but I think I need to find a more organized way to do the character creation.