Thread by @Mandowookie18

Hey @JamesIntrocaso @Dan_Dillon_1 @sherlock_hulmes @stonefly_ky @cconowitch @WebDMshow @matthewmercer @Wizards_DnD I had an idea about A.S.I.’s in regards to character creations. I’ve seen a few ideas thrown around on Twitter and a couple other places about alternatives for
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assigning ability score improvements. I’ve seen suggestions to make it based on class for optimization, on background for relevance, and some for player’s to choose entirely free and independent of any other choices.
I agree that just having one’s attributes determined by
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a broad generalization of their race is limiting and unrealistic (look at the broad scope of humans or even sub-species among families of the animal kingdom). And it wouldn’t make sense to create a subrace for every ASI combo (imagine that players hand book!).
Additionally
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I’ve been feeling recently that backgrounds should play a larger role in a characters creation.
If we operate under the premise that most PC’s are created as adults and/or that their background represents at least a few years of their life, then that would affect their
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development (especially a young adult).
Now with all that said, I don’t think we should completely disregard the attributes of the races as presented. Because sometimes those racial tendencies can be relevant or informative (it would make sense that orcs and goliaths
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of such large size would lend themselves to being physically stronger or hearty).
So now that I see two viable options on how a person’s attributes would be determined, which system makes more sense?
My answer came to that it depend entirely on the player. And then I
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started to run with that idea, “the player’s choice.”
Each character is a representation of the players imagination or sense of representation, often as a way for them to excessive agency in ways that they may not always find able to in their day-to-day lives.
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So my proposed system would be: each race would have an ASI point total equal to their RAW score increases after sub-race is chosen (Wood Elf; +2 Dex, +1 Wis —> 3 points).
Now, once the player has picked their race, applicable sub-race, and background they would get to assign
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those points based on their racial tendencies and the influence of their background. With each background having two Stats associated with it. The Sage might have Wis and Char for all their time giving advice and guiding others as a small scale leader. A folk hero would
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perhaps have Con and Char. And so on and so forth with the backgrounds.
With those options from race and background, a player would then use their ASI points to choose which stats THEY WANT boosted limited to no more than +2 in a stat (humans don’t get to add +6 lol)
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So, using the Wood elf example, the point placement options would be Dex and Wis. But let’s say our elf spent their formative years before adventuring as a sage of their town, so they would also have Wis (again) and Charisma. With our 3 ASI points we can put those points into
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Those specified stats. Let’s say we are making a good ol’ elven Druid. So we’d probably want two points in Wis, but we also feel we should have some Dex since our imagined elf fits the standard graceful elf archetype. But wait, we kinda want our character to be able to lead
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and be taken seriously so maybe we decide to take one of those points from Wis and add it instead to Charisma. We’d end up with a wood elf Druid (all the RAW traits/features) but with a customized ASI distribution +1 dex, +1 wis, +1 char.
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This allows players to customize their play experience even further while still providing guidelines for creating a character so they fit thematically, and it makes the backgrounds feel a bit more relevant and impactful.
Just some random D&D thoughts 🤷‍♂️
#dnd
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Also, I am sorry for the wall of text. I’m not a particularly succinct writer. Love all that you all do for the community!