I recently wrote about the experience of simultaneously DMing 3 campaigns for an event at the school where I teach. It was a wild time, and I look forward to doing it again next year. But I faced a challenge in preparing for that event that I didn't mention in my guide to creating a murder mystery--I had 30 players who needed to develop characters as quickly as possible. I wanted my players to have as much time as possible to actually play, so creating characters quickly was vital.
Another related issue was in making characters which I wouldn't need to constantly be double-checking their character sheets. Since many of these players were first time players, the guide for creating characters would need to cover most of the details without my having to help players individually very often. To this end, I wanted to create something which could essentially walk the players through the process with most things explained.
So I ended up with this PowerPoint presentation. I'll walk us through each page below, but you can download the file at that link in order to use the presentation yourself. Read on for the full guide to this presentation, and good luck getting your players to create satisfying characters.
The first thing to do, of course, is to ensure that all your players have character sheets, dice, writing utensils (pencils are preferable at this stage), and access to a Player's Handbook (physical or digital are fine). Then, when everyone is ready, dive into the presentation.
This overview is simple--it provides basic definitions of what each of these important ideas means within the game, and it prepares the players for what is to come. Again, I designed this guide with first time players in mind, and so it absolutely needed to start from square one and truly cover all the bases. It also shows that we are essentially only dealing with 6 overall concepts, which makes the process seem less daunting than the big blank character sheet is.
Now, I am well-aware that the descriptions of classes on this slide are not the way that people traditionally describe classes in D&D. I mean, for instance, than not everyone would call a Druid a "tank"--but consider this from the perspective not of party construction (thinking about how the players' classes complement each other) but of character creation. I needed to simply indicate to players what experiences they would have as each class. This model oversimplifies things, I know, but any model that fits 12 distinct classes into 4 neat categories is going to lose some details in the matter.
Remember too that the goal here is to communicate what combat and skill use is actually like. My list of tanks consist of classes that can wade into melee combat with little fear. This was a primary concern for many of my players--"how do I kill things?" The next slides cover individual classes so that players can write down the details when they select a class.
Here, I have taken the vital information for all of my "Tank" classes and condensed it into a simple list of basics. This side-by-side comparison allows players who know they want to play a tanky character to compare the benefits of each class. A character who wants heavy armor and use of magic can see that Paladin is their best bet, for instance. I had my players copy the information down for the class they wanted so that in future steps, everything is right in front of them.
Similarly, here are the magic using classes. Because these classes are more differentiated by in-game lore than by actual statistical variation, I wanted to include the source of the magic so that players could factor roleplaying into the decision. Again, the side-by-side comparison make it easier to make this choice.
Again we show the difference between the classes with our vital information. And again because so many of my players were new players, I made an announcement during the class selection phase that clerics are usually pretty necessary to a campaign, especially one with lots of combat. As a result of this announcement, every party had at least one cleric. Tips like this don't spoil the game; they prevent unnecessary player frustration.
And finally, the expert classes--here we show that rogues and monks have specialized combat and skill styles compared to the other classes. You'll notice that I give a simple definition of "sneak attack" (it is "extra damage") because new players will not automatically know what "sneak attack" does. This is a problem for a lot of veteran DMs--we forget that once upon a time, we too were nervous first-time players at a table covered by rules and numbers we didn't understand. And so offering this really basic information is actually an important thing--we want our players to be able to make informed decisions.
Now we're into races. I had fun designing this table--I think that it manages to pretty clearly show the attribute bonuses of each race. The asterisk system of identifying which races get extra decisions about the bonuses is not a perfect workaround for the rules, but I think that it serves its purpose. My favorite thing about this table (and I will admit I am proud of how it came out) is that a player who knows what class they want (and thereby which attributes they need to focus on) can quickly and easily make a decision about which race to select to maximize their class experience. Think about that--a first time player making an informed choice about a class-race combo!
These slides show the breakdowns for subraces for the four races that have them. In the first one, the overall dwarven bonus (+2 Constitution) is shown again at the top, along with the choices granted by the subraces. The others follow this format as well. Again, the goal with the side-by-side comparison is to make it easy to consider and decide. At this point, your players will have selected a class and a race that complement each other and be ready to roll the dice to determine attribute scores.
Moving into attributes is a delicate step. Even if a beginning player does know a bit about the game, they probably don't know this part specifically. So really take your time walking your players through these ideas, because this framework affects most of the rolls made in the game.
These definitions of the attributes are not exhaustive. An exhaustive list, while potentially helpful, would also bury new players under a mountain of details. So I stuck with some basic definitions just to help the players get started.
This page helps us to actually get some scores on the page. These instructions guide the players through the experience of rolling the dice and coming up with final scores. You may notice that I had my players drop low scores both for each attribute and one overall score--this is simply because I wanted to ensure that my players (many of who were playing 1st level characters) would not be cursed by a single bad roll. I'm pleased with the way that the little table came out--it really helped my players figure out the attribute bonus system, which can be very confusing at first. It also visually illustrates the "even-odd" rule in increasing bonuses, where you benefit from moving an attribute score up to an even number more than an odd number. Think about that--a first-time player who builds a character to obey that restriction!
Now we're into the granular stuff. Choosing skills can be time-consuming and confusing, and for many new players, it's unclear how it even affects the game. That's why I made sure to explain (with examples) just how skills work. As the slide says, I've broken down each class's skills on individual slides so each class can easily complete their information as quickly as possible. Here are the slides for the skill choices:
I will readily acknowledge that a downside of using these skills slides is that there's a 5 out of 6 chance that any given player is not doing anything productive during this phase. That's why I direct players to start tending to other details while they wait for their class's turn on the skills slides. I suggested drawing portraits of characters, imagining backstory, and reading about specific abilities and weapons ahead of time to be ready. I'd say that overall, the process worked well, and people didn't have to spend too long picking skills when they were laid out in this way (almost exactly like they are in the PHB).
Of course, new players don't know what to do with skills that they haven't chosen for proficiency. That's why I added this slide which explains the rest of the skill system and directs the players fill in all their other skill bonuses. It's worth noting here that my last entry on the slide directs my players to lobby for bonuses and advantage on rolls when the context fits. This is a lesson that it requires time to instill in a player, and so I didn't have very many requests in this vein during the event. But still, it's important to establish with players early on that they will have the ability to advocate for their characters using their reasoning and creativity.
The final rules-based consideration to make is in starting equipment. I'm a pretty generous DM when it comes to equipment; if it doesn't totally break the game and there's a decent reason your character would have it, they have it. I can adjust to the item easily enough, so there's no reason to restrict my players' options. To that end, I granted them several free items and let them pick what they wanted most. Way back in the class selection step, we had our players write down what kinds of equipment they can use--have them refer to that for this next step. The following slides display all equipment based on category (simple/martial, melee/ranged, etc.).
These are not pretty slides by any means, but they are very functional. Players who have selected a Barbarian know to search the light and medium armors and shields as well as simple and martial weapons, whereas a Rogue knows to look only at light armors and simple weapons because of our earlier slides on the classes. By the end of this step, you should have players with almost ready-to-play characters, and all without having to individually guide every player through the process. This way, you can actually focus your attention on helping players who need it.
At the end of the process, I felt there were still some details that needed attention. Determining initiative modifiers, hit points, and spellcasting factors are also important, but they hadn't neatly fit anywhere earlier, so I used this slide to catch all the details. After this slide, your characters should be ready to go. With my 30 schoolchildren, it took about one hour to go through this process, but you should have better luck with a small or more mature group.
This final slide is an invitation to the players to develop their characters' personalities. It's an optional step unless you require them to do some writing, although I have never required something like that from players, so I cannot vouch for the usefulness of it. Still, the suggestion that a biographical profile would be important can really inspire some players, and I recommend at least offering the option.
That's it! Now you're ready to play. If you'd like to use this presentation, you can access it
here.
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