Sean Merwin

I know that for world building purposes, for role-playing purposes, it might be important to a lot of people, but if we are going to say species doesn't matter in terms of rules, it belongs in that place for this particular purpose. Then later you can say, species may be the most important thing about your world if there are rigid kingdoms or rigid nations that are based on species.

But if it's not, and we're trying to de-emphasize that species doesn't mean as much, then let species not mean as much. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And, and I think, I don't want to say like, old school mindset. But it is, it is an old school mindset, right? It's a mindset of what you look like matters. And where we're going, hopefully, as a society, what you look like doesn't matter. It's what you do. It's who you are on the inside, Teos. It's the magic that's inside of you that's important. And so I totally get that looks matter.

I totally get that for cognitive purposes, but for storytelling purposes and for purposes of what you do in the world, I think there is a movement to de-emphasize that, not to eliminate it, but to de-emphasize it.

It is a part of the concept of VR, which is why it's still in the game. You still do pick your species. And that's why with Aurora, I want to get rid of that concept for story reasons, but also for the fact that pick what you're made of

Yeah. Yeah, I can understand why. Well, speaking of ability score, step three is determined ability score. And as we have this succession, I'm like, no, I want this to be step two now. I want step one, choose your class. Step two, these are the ability scores you want to take. Then step three, the other stuff. But since it's there, they give us the three ways you can do them now.

Standard array, random generation, or point cost, it used to be point by.

And we also get a standard array chart by class. So standard array by class chart, which says if you're a barbarian, these are what you should take. You don't have to, but you will be okay. You won't be handicapping your...

most powerful abilities if you do this and i like that i think it's pretty clear for players especially new players to say all right i just want to make a character i don't want to deal with rolling dice or point buys or anything i'm just going to do this and then the next step of course is choose your ability modifier so once you know your score the chart only goes to 20.

And I guess that makes sense in the fact that you're not going to have a higher number than that. At this time, yeah. At this time, but it will go up probably later. So I thought that was strange that the chart ended there.

Then it says, describe your appearance and personality. And it's odd to me that you put that there. And I guess it's got to be put somewhere. So there it goes. But then following that, we get a bunch of charts that show...

roll a d4 if you have a high strength and that will describe your character so if you have a high strength and you roll a d4 you could be muscular sinewy protective or direct i'm like can you not be direct or protective if you're not strong and and so this just

wet and just a weird weird way for me it's and it's like what i'm saying about species it's like don't don't let species tell you who you are don't let your ability scores tell you your personality or your sure if you have a high strength you might look muscular totally totally reasonable and and this is also devoid of culture right this which is to me a giant mistake here because it's

Yeah, it sort of goes in a different direction than I want the game to go. Is it horrible? No. But it just doesn't do all that much for me, and I don't think it helps a player. Let the rules, teach the rules here. Don't try to tell the player how to play their character.

And then we get to the point, step four, where I just start banging my head on the desk. And if I was jokingly saying, oh, you cowards for not getting rid of ability scores, step four, choose an alignment. I just went, why? why there's so many better ways to tell you who your character is. And yeah, we've been around and around and around on this.

Yeah, exactly.

Yep. So I will, if I start talking in the third person, you know, I'm upset. So Sean, Sean's just going to leave step four out of character creation that doesn't exist.

Yep. Because lawful people are never greedy, apparently. Okay. Yeah. So step five, fill in the details. And this is where you've made your smaller choices or your bigger choices. Now go back and fill in your class features.

fill in your saving throws skills passive perception hit points hit point dice not hit dice hit point dice armor class attacks spell slots good i i like that i like the make these quick choices they're big but they're quick now go back and don't worry about the details until you get the rest of it okay here you go and then give your name and the final details

Yeah.