In a prior blog, I wrote about starting up a new table of brand new players -- folks that had never seen a 20-sided die before. I gave them premade characters for that game, and used simplified character sheets. Now, I am about to lead the very same players through the majesty of creating characters of their very own for our continued play.
But instead of throwing the Player Handbook at them, I have made some character creation aids in the form of Race, Class, and Background flashcards! Wizards of the Coast's new online tool, D&D Beyond, has some excellent sections of the website that already have info-cards for each of the character creation options -- so I simply took those as-is, and reformatted a little to fit them on 4x6 index cards! My players have not seen these yet, so I'm showing them here as a sneak peak!
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I think that my players will find having manipulable 4x6 index cards with concise thematic information for each Race, Class, and Background will be a more palatable introduction to character creation than delving straight into the textbook. The info-cards also list ability score bonuses and other mechanics numbers that I expect will make for a nice segue to the extended ruleset for our next sessions.
If you haven't already checked out the D&D Beyond website -- I highly recommend doing so. Not only does it provide searchable databases for players and DMs alike, it also provides the unique option to buy digital versions of the 5e sourcebooks for use at your table. Digital, searchable sourcebooks have been on the wish-list of many players since 5e's release, and its finally here! There's also a wonderful pronunciation guide for monster names included on the site, to finally shed some light on all those strange words people have been mispronouncing for decades!
All of the images and text used in my character creation aids are taken directly from the D&D Beyond website and are so used in intentional cooperation with the Open Gaming License v1.0a as distributed by Wizards of the Coast. Any and all images, text, logos or trademarks are the respective property of their rightful owners.
You can download the flashcards and print them out yourself! I printed them directly on card stock and laminated them, but they're sized to fit on 4x6 index cards too. Download the files using the links below!
Races Flashcards
Classes Flashcards
Backgrounds Reference Table
As always, share this blog with your friends using the buttons below. Also please do let me know how you like using the flashcards at your table -- I'd love to know how you found using them. You can comment here, or use the hashtag #themoderngamer on social media. I'll report back in a later post about how it went with my own players.
Until next time -- have more fun, would ya? It's good for you.
~ Alex
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