On Character Creation

It behooves any Dungeon Master to write out their character creation rules for their players. I include these rules in the same document as any house rules I might be using. Obviously, if character creation in the game adheres to the rules laid out in the Player's Handbook, this isn't strictly necessary. 

While character options (races, classes and subclasses, backgrounds, feats, spells, etc.) presented in later supplements (and in the PHB, page 163, in the case of feats and multiclassing) often include a disclaimer that they are options only at the DM's discretion, in my experience, players will often assume that every published option is available to them regardless of the campaign unless the DM makes the (un)available options explicit. Thus it's important to have at least a bulleted list with general guidelines (or, a short conversation between DM and players). 

This post summarizes the character creation rules I use in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons (and some thoughts on how to use them for other versions of the game).

Choose a Race

The player can choose what race their character will be, or they can roll on a table to randomly determine this. The table is as follows:

d20

1-13      Human

14-17    Roll d6 (1-2: Elf; 3-4: Dwarf; 5-6: Halfling)

18-19    Roll d10 (1-2: Dragonborn; 3-4: Gnome; 5-6: Half-elf; 7-8: Half-orc; 9-10 Tiefling)

20         Anything else

If the player chooses to randomly roll, they can add +1 to an ability score of their choice after determining ability scores.

The conceit of this table is thus: 

• I want the races in the Player's Handbook to be most common (thus why "Anything else" makes up only 5% of the table).
• Of those in the PHB, I want humans to be most common (65%).
• Of the remaining races, the latter five are specifically called out in the PHB as being uncommon, so elves, dwarves, and halflings must be the "secondary" races to humans (20%), where the latter five are tertiary (10%).

A DM can easily take these same percentages and change the races associated with each to suit their setting. If the game is OD&D, I would omit everything except humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings. In AD&D, I would also include gnomes and half-elves, and the final 5% might be the various race options found in the edition's many splat books (if I wanted to ruin my game by allowing players to make firbolgs, pixies, ogre magi, and the like, which I've done in the past). 

My guiding star is that whatever's in the PHB should be most common, and all supplemental options should be relatively rare, but this can vary by setting. For example, I have a separate setting where these "common" races are all but extinct, and "monstrous" races are the predominant inhabitants, and I use the more granular d100 to create a table with a greater array of race options inspired by the Monster Manual. The point of providing a table like this is that the players can instantly get an idea of what races are most common as well as what others are present in the setting. The exact composition of races and their rarities is important only to the individual campaign.

The actual percentage breakdowns are modified from certain tables in AD&D, namely random encounter tables (where common, uncommon, rare, and very rare monsters are typically broken up almost exactly like this, 65/20/10/5). I use this same breakdown for my own random encounters. 

At the DM's option, the percentages provided to players can also be used when creating NPCs, ensuring that the racial distribution of NPCs is similar to that of player characters. 

I grant a +1 to an ability score for rolling on the table because I want to incentivize players to randomize character creation. Most of my character creation rules attempt to incentivize this. This is an attempt to make party composition more interesting and varied than the characters the players might tend to create. (Interesting and varied, in this case, is relative to the usual choices made by the players - obviously this method creates a lot of human PCs, which is certainly less varied, though not inherently less interesting, than a party consisting of a tiefling, dragonborn, automaton, half-hag, and owl person. But if the players in that group always make those exact characters, this method is meant to encourage them to try something else.)

I've been in too many games where each player essentially makes the same character every time, and I wanted to try to break up those habits. If the players want to continue playing the same types of characters anyway, they can still do that, of course.

Determine Ability Scores

Players can determine their characters' ability scores using the standard array or point buy methods presented in the Player's Handbook (page 12) or by rolling dice. If the player chooses to roll, they can roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die six times or roll 3d6 six times. If the player chooses to roll 3d6, they can choose a feat of their choice at 1st-level (in editions which don't include feats, I would just choose whether players roll 3d6 or 4d6, or I would offer both and grant some other appropriate benefit for choosing to roll 3d6).

Rolling 3d6 may seem odd in 5e, but I think 5e characters are robust enough to cope with having more average ability scores. I have had a few players take me up on this in the past - the extra feat is too tempting to pass up. More new-school players who are concerned about having "bad" ability scores are free to choose 4d6 or one of the more dependable ability score generation options from the PHB.

Whether the player rolls 4d6 or 3d6, they can either assign the scores in any order they like, or assign the scores in the order they are rolled (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma in 5e, but the order might differ by edition, for example in OD&D I believe it would be Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma). 

If the player chooses to roll their ability scores in order, they can add +1 to an ability score of their choice after determining ability scores (again, I want players to roll their stats in order, so I'm trying to incentivize it by offering a mechanical benefit in exchange).

The player then adds any ability score adjustments from their chosen race.

Players can also choose or roll to determine their character's age category, as follows:

d20

1-13     Young                    

14-17   Middle Aged    -1 Str, -1 Con, +1 Int, +1 Wis

18-19   Old                   -3 Str, -2 Dex, -2 Con, +1 Int, +2 Wis

20        Venerable         -4 Str, -3 Dex, -3 Con, +2 Int, +3 Wis

If the player chooses to roll to determine their character's age category and gets a result of Old or Venerable, they can add +1 to an ability score of their choice after determining ability scores (the benefits to Intelligence and Wisdom don't balance out the penalties to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution in these age categories, so I'm offering another mechanical incentive to mitigate the hurt a bit).

The age categories are pulled from AD&D, and may seem overly punitive for a 5e game, however all this really amounts to is that older characters are less likely to be physically-oriented and more likely to be clerics, druids, and wizards, which I think is fine.

I have thought at times that players should choose their class before determining their age, thus allowing for the possibility of an "old fighter", for example, however I'm of the opinion that character creation represents only a snapshot of the character at a moment in their life. After all, according to Gary Gygax, Conan's class levels change with age.

At this time, the player adds any ability score adjustments accumulated from rolling to determine race, age category, or rolling ability scores in order. No ability score can exceed 20 (if the DM wants a more "balanced" 5e experience, they might cap it at 16 instead, but I personally don't care if a 1st-level character starts with a 20 - the faster the players maxes out their character's important ability scores, the sooner they can consider actually interesting ways to use their ability score improvements, such as by choosing feats or preparing to multiclass by increasing secondary or tertiary ability scores).

Choose a Background

I have no special rules for this, but one could easily use the percentage spread I've used so far to create common, uncommon, rare, and very rare backgrounds determined by the setting, if they wish.

Choose Languages

When choosing which languages a player character knows, exotic languages count for two language proficiencies. Thus, if a background allows you to learn "any two languages", a player can choose for their character to know two standard languages or one exotic language.

Standard and exotic languages are laid out in the PHB (page 123), but a DM can further customize these lists by adding or subtracting languages or switching standard and exotic languages according to the setting. For example, in my setting where "common" races are extinct, those races' languages are considered exotic, and other, traditionally exotic languages are considered standard.

Choose a Class

At this point, character creation can proceed according to the chosen system without much or any changes. In 5e, I use the following prerequisites, meaning a player character has to have at least the following score(s) in a given ability in order to choose the class (these are based on the ability score requirements for multiclassing into a given class, which are included in the 5e PHB):

Barbarain    Strength 13

Bard            Charisma 13

Cleric          Wisdom 13

Druid          Wisdom 13

Fighter        Strength or Dexterity 13

Monk          Dexterity and Wisdom 13

Paladin        Strength and Charisma 13

Ranger        Dexterity and Wisdom 13

Rogue         Dexterity 13

Sorcerer      Charisma 13

Warlock      Charisma 13

Wizard        Intelligence 13

The DM could take this a bit further, using something like the ability score requirements from AD&D if for example they wanted bards, druids, monks, paladins, rangers, and the like to be especially rare. I haven't done this in my 5e games, but I like the idea. I'd have to come up with something for warlock, since as far as I know they're the only class to never appear in an edition where ability score requirements were the norm (I didn't DM 3e or 4e, so I could be wrong).

That's pretty much it. The point of this is to customize character creation to facilitate the kind of game I want to run. I like truly randomly generated characters over carefully crafted ones, and I don't mind more or less powerful characters that may result from rolling ability scores, aging penalties, free feats, and extra ability score bonuses. 

Rolling ability scores in order produces more varied characters with interesting arrays (the buff wizard or the smart fighter). It allows for more interesting multiclass combinations that you wouldn't normally see, and starting with higher stats allows players to spend fewer of their ability score improvements on maxing out their primary ability score, which allows for more robust character customization much earlier in the level progression.

It's not for everyone, and I've had more than one person claim that this somehow completely "breaks" 5e, and that's fine. They can find another game to play or run their own. The customizability of procedures like this is one of TTRPGs' greatest strengths!