Narrative-Driven Character Creation

In Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition, characters have traditionally gained an ability score increase trait through their race. Critiques have been raised questioning the narrative this mechanic evokes, and I ultimately agreed that, even with politics aside, race doesn’t feel like a pleasing place to put ability score increases. It causes certain race and class pairings to perform notably weaker than others, which may dissuade players from playing a race and class combination they had envisioned.

Though a new Lineage system is being created for Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything that proposes a solution, I’m of the opinion that the system previews we have seen as of writing this material wind up causing a massive shift in the overall balance behind character creation in several races, and min-maxing players will ultimately just see the system as a means to create “optimal” characters instead of compelling ones.

Narrative-Driven Character Creation seeks to meaningfully address this by proposing a new system for Ability Score Improvement based off of you character's Background and Class, then a change to alternate proficiencies that seeks to reduce the potential for tool proficiency bloat.