We’re talking about making characters by hand, with no app.

Recently a well-known proponent of the OSR was heard saying that he wouldn’t play 5E because “character creation takes too long.” I agree with that statement. If you think character creation takes too long, it’s time to consider another game.

I’m old fashioned. I make pretty much the first character for any TTRPG I try for the first time completely by hand. I.E., no app, no Excel spreadsheet, and no character mapping program. It’s just me, my notebook or character sheet, and the core/player’s book. Most of the time I even write out the character’s backstory by hand.

Why do I do things the “hard” way?

I mean, I’m pretty old. I learned how to run house wiring, assemble ceiling fans, and install various household outlets/fixtures by doing the work for my dear old Dad. I learned how to do theatre lighting on two systems that were built in the 1930s or 40s. (One of the sound systems still used vacuum tubes.)

I like breaking things down by hand, the old fashioned way. Once you really dig into something manually with your bare hands, it’s easy to get a fair idea of the principles behind the way it works. The same can easily be applied to TTRPGs.

Take Dungeons & Dragons for example. In Basic/Expert or BECMI, you start out with a very simple character. It probably takes less time to roll up a character and get going than it does to come up with a viable backstory. I once literally saw a guy make a character in the time it took to introduce the rest of the group.

As editions progressed, character creation became more complex. Wizards of the Coast added Skills and Feats for 3rd Edition D&D. Prior to those days, I kept most of my AD&D characters on an 11 x 17 legal pad because I wanted room for backstory and gear. After 3rd, it became almost necessary to use a character sheet to save on the writer’s cramp of copying every single skill and what attribute it was tied to.

Then came the character creation app.

Characters became a snap to make with all of the software being developed officially and unofficially for use with D&D. That’s also true of 4E and 5E. Now D&D Beyond allows for character creation of up to six characters stored on their server for free. You get more character slots with a subscription. It can be as simple as rolling and choosing every little detail or one button push and done.

Need an NPC or even a character for a new player even faster? Steal one of the pregenerated characters and change the name. Make heaps of characters in advance for just such an occasion. That way there’s no waiting around if someone’s character manages to die. It used to mean returning to character creation.

Sometimes replacing a dead character was as simple as erasing the old character’s name at the top of the page and shifting around some backstory.

“Oh no! Elmo the Fighter is dead!”
(Furious erasing and then scribbling.) “Meet Burt the Fighter.”
Oh, Elmo wore his eyepatch on his right eye. This character wears it on the left. He also walks with a limp or something.

In the year 2023 such actions might be unthinkable to most. Even making a character in the app can take several minutes of precious game time. That’s what backup characters are for, but I digress.