Stop talking about your books; play the darn game.
This is one huge problem with a lot of content creators; they talk about a lot of games, but they never actually play them. I played a month of A5E last summer, so I can speak to the game. This time, I am coming back with a new set of characters in the old-school Lost Lands world.
So I was creating characters tonight, and it took me about 30 minutes per character to create them by hand using the walkthrough on the A5E tools site. I like doing characters by hand, I am reading the rules, making choices, understanding a class, and making all the choices the rules tell me to make. Too often, with programs like Hero Lab or Pathbuilder, I will click through, make a character, and know nothing about the class or how it plays.
Is it tedious? Yes. But I am learning a lot more and reading the books.
Can I make mistakes? Yes. Who cares? This character was unique.
Do I have the freedom to pull in any 3rd party content I want? Yes.
Can I make tweaks to characters depending on unique backgrounds? Yes.
Are characters supposed to follow the exact letter of the rules? Yes and no. The secret is it doesn't matter as long as most of them are correct, and you get better every time as you learn and evolve your understanding of the game.
Doing characters by hand beats web or app-based character creation considerably. If your game, character sheet, and math are so complicated, you need a program to create a character - fix your game. I am not playing it. I know, and I play GURPS. Truth be told, I am rethinking GURPS these days.
Did I need 30 expansion books to create a character with so many options I need to scroll through substantial drop-down dialog controls? No. The basic books are fine here, and since A5E has more detail per character, I don't need to make up for flat, uninteresting character choices with tons of options. A5E lets you make five choices per character - plus more when you finally pick a class. So, the build-diversity and granular depth are very high, like in Pathfinder 2.
A5E gives you 8-12 special abilities based on your choices, spread across combat, social, and exploration pillars. The roleplaying aspects of many of the options give these characters incredible depth. My stock D&D 5E characters built with Hero Lab seem more like "combat characters" with zero social and exploration abilities. They fall very flat. They feel like they don't have any tools to work with outside of combat.
5E has too much combat focus; the characters feel flat, hurting the game. I opened up Hero Lab and built the same characters, and it took me about 3 minutes to do each one - ten times faster. When I was done, I printed them out and looked them over. Same abilities, gear, and spells - okay. I could play with this, but it seems thin.
The skills? No specialties and expertise dice. Do you mean I can't have a character specializing in a skill area? A background can't give one of my skills expertise dice? Well, that sucks.
Are connections, mementos, and backstories coded in with character creation? Bleh.
No Destiny system? The entire inspiration mechanic in A5E is tied into inspiration, and you can achieve your goals and gain a unique ability! Do you mean I am back to having the players get nothing for completing their backstory character arcs beyond a "good job" from the GM? Does the inspiration system have nothing to do with character goals? Ugh. Bland.
Do my exploration-focused characters have unique knacks for creating shelters, tracking, or finding food? Are the resting mechanics tied into having a safe place to rest to regain everything? Can rangers build those safe places? No? Wow, the ranger class sucks again.
Martial characters can't train in fighting styles and learn special moves? Fighters and other non-magic martial characters will be boring during combat again. Magic characters have all the fun again. Ugh. Why play martials?
Where is my list of special abilities my heritage, culture, and background give me? All the cool roleplaying bonuses like half training time, expertise dice in particular situations, cantrips gained, rules tweaks, minimum rolls for activities, advantage on some rolls, and allowed rerolls for some tasks? I usually have 9-12 of these to write down for each character, and they fuel roleplaying and give me benefits in all of the game systems, like exploration?
This is a massive part of A5E vs. 5E; all my characters have a list of special abilities gained through their choices in character creation. Tales of the Valiant also does this (about half the number A5E gives you). This is a massive part of "modern 5E" for me; having these game and roleplaying abilities adds so much to the game that I can't play without them.
Plan 2014 and 2024 5E are boring compared to this, with very shallow, combat-focused characters where players need to bring in "pages of backstory" to justify arguing a benefit to the GM. If you don't write a backstory novella, good luck being anything other than a boring wargame miniature - a generic soldier or tank like any other on the board. This is what D&D is missing; it does not look like we are getting anything as in-depth as this. Wizards are pushing backward compatibility to a flavorless base system with broken expansion books. This will not end well.
With A5E, the character creation system allows you to merge templates of backstory benefits and list those on your character sheet for use during play, directly affecting the rules. Every character's mechanical interactions with the rules are different.
Yes, it takes me 30 minutes to create a character here, but I am saving three days of writing a novella for my character story. I still could write that backstory, using my abilities as a guide and framework, but that is optional. Here, I will have something to base that story on, and in-game effects will be tied to that special ability list.
I have an idea of the adventure I want to play, an amazing one from Frog God set in the Lost Lands setting, Splinters of Faith. Frog God has been delivering some fantastic 500-page hardcover 5E adventures with an old-school feeling that should not be missed. The cover alone on this is fantastic.
More on this one next time.
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