Why D&D should be more like WoW

[Kiero]

This is a post from elsewhere that I thought was intriguing:

I posted this on my forums, which have, like, 10 users total. But they're almost all game developers of one stripe or another.

My friend John responded with "D&D should not try and be more like WoW." Here's my reply;

There are lots of ways in which D&D should be more like WoW. Though I don't think they're evident to the average player of either.

In D&D, when you make a character, even a level one character, you have a lot to learn and a lot of decisions to make. You have to buy your stats. In an official RPGA game, this means spending points on stats, and the points are not linear. a 16 STR is not 6 more expensive than a 10 INT. Then you learn that the stat doesn't do anything, it's just the input for a lookup table. Then, for some stats, the result of the lookup table is applied to a secondary stat called a Saving Throw.

You pick your race and your class. You then get to customize your class with feats, and there are dozens in the PHB alone. Thousands if you use all the official supplements. Dozens, and it's not clear which are good and which are bad. A wizard might think Cleave was cool. Because while Cleave is a feat Fighters can take with a Bonus Feat, Wizards can take it too. A first time player might think a Wizard with Cleave is a cool idea. Experienced players know this is non-viable or suboptimal, but character creation keeps that secret.

You have to learn the difference between class skills and cross class skills and then learn the difference between skill points and skill ranks and that sometimes there's not a 1:1 ratio between them. And, of course, you've never used any of these skills before. You might think Ride would be super useful, even though 90% of your skill checks will happen in dungeons.

If you're a caster, you have dozens more spells to choose from, again having never cast any before if you're a new player.

Compare this to WoW. You buy the game, install it, and make two decisions before you're in the game and playing. Class and Race and that's it. No other game-play related choices. This means you're in and playing the game in...seconds. Maybe a few minutes if you spend a while reading all the descriptions.

You can customize the **** out of your character, but you do it through play. You don't get your first talent until 10th level. By which time you've been through hundreds of battles. And it's only taken you 2-4 hours to get there.

So WoW beats D&D on three critical levels.

1. Character creation is vastly simpler.
2. With the exception of class and race; no decisions that you can only understand through many many hours of play. Video game players have long moved away from the model where making a dude takes a long time because of all the decisions you have to make. Customization and specialization come as you learn about the game and this is superior.
3. You get into the game faster. You're in WoW much, much, much faster than any other pen and paper RPG. In and playing. People who buy a game want to play it. They don't want to then spend 30 minutes making a dude. Remember when we made dudes for Houses of the Blooded at Strategicon? Took maybe 2 hours. An experienced player might be able to make a dude in 10 minutes. That's still 20 times longer than it takes a WoW player to make a dude.

The first 30 minutes of play in WoW result in several encounters, and 3 or 4 levels. You are rewarded very quickly. It eventually levels out. It can take MANY hours to gain a level once you're 60. Much longer than in D&D. In D&D, they imagine it takes 4 sessions to level, even at first level. The "power up" mechanic is a proven winner. Players like the sense of accomplishment and having discreet levels to gauge their progress. You can argue that players need time to live with their new abilities, I won't argue that. But why give them abilities so powerful or complex it take 16 hours just to get used to them? Why not give them small increases early on, so they feel good about playing early on. Maybe not a level every 30 minutes, but at least at first level, why not one level a session?

Players like being rewarded for play. WoW and D&D both do it, but WoW does it better.

WoW has roles for characters in groups. This is something I think D&D will do better than WoW with their Defender/Leader/Attacker/Otherthing breakdown, and the ability for anyone to do any of those things.

In WoW, there are "jobs" in the party. In D&D there's only two jobs; heal and fight. Thieves can disarm traps, but that happens mostly out of combat. Rangers can track, but that happens mostly out of combat. In WoW, you need a Tank, a Healer, a DPS character, there are secondary roles; Crowd Control, Buffs, DeBuffs.

I don't think WoW does this very well, the roles aren't clearly defined, nor ever made explicit to the player. But unlike D&D, WoW does have clearly defined roles for the team. Players like feeling like they know what they're supposed to do. They like knowing what's expected of them. It takes an experienced player to understand why a Warrior in WoW doesn't do more damage than a Rogue.

D&D4, I think, will take this idea and improve on it, I think. Imagine the players making their dudes, and then choose Role Cards with special abilities printed on them. The Defender can make a bad guy concentrate on
him, keeping everyone else safe. The Leader can grant teammates bonuses and exploit weaknesses in the enemy. And anyone can do it. Maybe it can switch from session to session. Some classes will be better at it than others, but unlike WoW, anyone will be able to take on any role.

Now imagine the monsters having roles. Makes it easier to build encounters. The GM knows what roles to fill.

Because it's online, and uses technology, WoW makes it easy for friends anywhere in the world to hook up and play together. Because there's content you must have a group to do, there's a way to make new friends through playing WoW. The next patch has built-in VOIP, they're testing it on the Test Servers now. So everyone will be able to play and talk to their friends.

D&D requires you to not only know 3 other people who want to play, but have a place to get together. That's a barrier to entry. Using some simple web tools, they can remove that for anyone with a computer and the internet. Why not do it? Why not allow people to play online with anyone in the world?

In all these arenas, WoW beats D&D. But I don't see any reason D&D can't beat WoW pretty easily if they put their mind to it. And I don't see any reason these changes will make D&D less like D&D. None of these things are things I particularly associate with the D&D experience. They're all improvements. The stuff that makes D&D the best game I've ever played across any category or genre...with the possible exception of NetHack, in only improved by these changes.

Discuss.

[kpenguin]

I disagree, but lack the articulation to properly explain why.

[Matthew]

Yeah, I saw this Thread on EnWorld as well. Clearly, the author and I have a different idea of what makes for a good Tabletop RPG. Not to worry, though, I won't have to suffer through a WoW version of D&D any more than I will have to play the actual CRPG (though I have a copy of WoW D20 somewhere around here).

[Spiryt]

I have almost nothing common with powergaming, and yet I like "making dude"
30 minutes. Or longer.

And besides, author of this post have mistaken MMORPG with paper RPG.

D&D is for some people who know each other. ANd WoW isn't beating D&D, D&D also isn't beating WoW. They're completely different things.

Not to mention that no Voip will allow to make good session. For gods sake, they are fortunately still plenty things that can't be done with computer. Good RPG session is one of them.

This guy is treating gamers like idiots. And keep assuming that everything in RPG is around combat and this stupid "roles" which everyone should have cleraly definied. It's dumb. For my RPG is great beacuse good DM can describe situation fantastically, so players can use their skills in way designers will never think of.
Making things that designers already defined for me was obvious disadvantage of any, even greatest computer game for me.

[Kiero]

And besides, author of this post have mistaken MMORPG with paper RPG.

They haven't "mistaken" them at all; they're saying that there's things D&D should learn from the WoW model in terms of accessibility.

[Morty]

That's wrong on so many levels. But the tho main mistakes made by author of this post are:
1) He apparently didn't notice that WoW is MMORPG and D&D is tabletop game. Which means they're completely different.
2) Simplicity and quickness isn't the first priority for game design. Author seems to think that there should be no customization on first levels because players can screw something up, so he apparently treats new D&D players like mental retarded.
The paragraph about roles make completely no sense. Author apparently didn't notice that even in 3.x "fight" role can be performed in several ways. Not to mention forgetting that D&D isn't all about combat.
In short: maybe you've found it intriguing, I found it a proof that author of the post doesn't know what he's talking about.

[Ruerl]

They haven't "mistaken" them at all; they're saying that there's things D&D should learn from the WoW model in terms of accessibility.

Indeed there are things to be learned, but those things are not to be learned from WOW.

WOW is designed as a MMO, D&D is a game that has evolved over many years till it has becomen this complicated set of rules that it is today, D&D has evolved with its custemors and changed them both during the years, but to claim that they should follow the examples set by WOW is ludicrious at best, if you want a valid comparison between WOW and D&D then look at the WOW PnP RPG -it exists, and yes, character generation takes a lot longer than it does in the MMO.

because of this, the above post fails utterly, it makes a comparison between an MMO and a PnP game forgetting the valid source of comparison -the WOW PnP game, because of this simple fact I claim that you are wrong in the text I quoted above, the OP have indeed mistaken the MMO and the PnP.

Regards

Lars

p.s.
What I personally believe has a point is that D&D should put more focus on RP and less on the rules, these days the rules are more important than the RP to some.

[Ashtar]

By removing many of the choices at character creations, you help new players play; but at the same time, you remove what is so interesting for so many players... tinkering.

In my group, we have players who create characters, by the dozen, sometimes not even to play them, just to tinker, to create, to give life. The choices made at creation are the things that interest them, so if you must make it simpler give templates (i.e. "elven wizard template l1, fully equipped, feated, skilled, with spells known" isn't that the wizard starting package in the PHB ?) but allow the experienced users to be versatile.

In fact, how many times in a system do you create your first character ? Once.

How many times to you create a character in a RPG system? Hopefully more than once.

And usually, you have help to create your character, you are not alone in front of your books, so I say, give more options, not less!

[Matthew]

D&D already does this anyway. That was the idea behind Starting Packages.

[Tormsskull]

This doesn't suprise me in the slightest, I've felt like D&D has been moving in just this direction for some time now. I'll address a few points specifically:

Character Creation:

Spoiler

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There are lots of ways in which D&D should be more like WoW. Though I don't think they're evident to the average player of either.

In D&D, when you make a character, even a level one character, you have a lot to learn and a lot of decisions to make. You have to buy your stats. In an official RPGA game, this means spending points on stats, and the points are not linear. a 16 STR is not 6 more expensive than a 10 INT. Then you learn that the stat doesn't do anything, it's just the input for a lookup table. Then, for some stats, the result of the lookup table is applied to a secondary stat called a Saving Throw.

You pick your race and your class. You then get to customize your class with feats, and there are dozens in the PHB alone. Thousands if you use all the official supplements. Dozens, and it's not clear which are good and which are bad. A wizard might think Cleave was cool. Because while Cleave is a feat Fighters can take with a Bonus Feat, Wizards can take it too. A first time player might think a Wizard with Cleave is a cool idea. Experienced players know this is non-viable or suboptimal, but character creation keeps that secret.

You have to learn the difference between class skills and cross class skills and then learn the difference between skill points and skill ranks and that sometimes there's not a 1:1 ratio between them. And, of course, you've never used any of these skills before. You might think Ride would be super useful, even though 90% of your skill checks will happen in dungeons.

If you're a caster, you have dozens more spells to choose from, again having never cast any before if you're a new player.

Compare this to WoW. You buy the game, install it, and make two decisions before you're in the game and playing. Class and Race and that's it. No other game-play related choices. This means you're in and playing the game in...seconds. Maybe a few minutes if you spend a while reading all the descriptions.

Yeah, D&D can be confusing for new people. But the difference between D&D and WoW is that D&D is supposed to be a roleplaying game, where the players are playing the role of a character and trying to bring that character to life.

WoW is a CRPG, where the point is killing things and taking their stuff so that your toon becomes more powerful and can kill stronger things and take their stuff.

If you play D&D like WoW, then a lot of these suggestions that the OP quoted would probably be a good thing for you.

Overall Gameplay

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So WoW beats D&D on three critical levels.
Character creation is vastly simpler.
With the exception of class and race; no decisions that you can only understand through many many hours of play. Video game players have long moved away from the model where making a dude takes a long time because of all the decisions you have to make. Customization and specialization come as you learn about the game and this is superior.
You get into the game faster. You're in WoW much, much, much faster than any other pen and paper RPG. In and playing. People who buy a game want to play it. They don't want to then spend 30 minutes making a dude. Remember when we made dudes for Houses of the Blooded at Strategicon? Took maybe 2 hours. An experienced player might be able to make a dude in 10 minutes. That's still 20 times longer than it takes a WoW player to make a dude.

I'll agree with 1 & 2 (character creation is faster in WoW, and you don't have to make any important decisions early on in WoW). While I'll agree with #3 as well (you do get into WoW much faster than you'd get into a campaign), I think that is due to the fact that D&D offers more options, which I tote as a good thing.

If I roll up a Night Elf Hunter & so does a friend of mine, besides the way we look we are exactly the same. D&D allows you to customize your characters to make them more personal to you, and to make it easier to envision them.

Speed of Advancement

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Players like being rewarded for play. WoW and D&D both do it, but WoW does it better.

I'd disagree, but I'm from old school D&D where leveling was very slow, and it wasn't a problem. They say that today's culture always looks for Instant Gratification, and I think that's showcased in statements like this. Rather than people (and I have to say it, mostly younger people) working for something, they expect to get it immediately or with minimal effort. I would not be surprised if that is one of the reasons that D&D 4e will move to 30 levels; provide more levels so that player can advance faster so they aren't bored.

Roles

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WoW has roles for characters in groups. This is something I think D&D will do better than WoW with their Defender/Leader/Attacker/Otherthing breakdown, and the ability for anyone to do any of those things.

In WoW, there are "jobs" in the party. In D&D there's only two jobs; heal and fight. Thieves can disarm traps, but that happens mostly out of combat. Rangers can track, but that happens mostly out of combat. In WoW, you need a Tank, a Healer, a DPS character, there are secondary roles; Crowd Control, Buffs, DeBuffs.

I don't think WoW does this very well, the roles aren't clearly defined, nor ever made explicit to the player. But unlike D&D, WoW does have clearly defined roles for the team. Players like feeling like they know what they're supposed to do. They like knowing what's expected of them. It takes an experienced player to understand why a Warrior in WoW doesn't do more damage than a Rogue.

D&D4, I think, will take this idea and improve on it, I think. Imagine the players making their dudes, and then choose Role Cards with special abilities printed on them. The Defender can make a bad guy concentrate on
him, keeping everyone else safe. The Leader can grant teammates bonuses and exploit weaknesses in the enemy. And anyone can do it. Maybe it can switch from session to session. Some classes will be better at it than others, but unlike WoW, anyone will be able to take on any role.

Now imagine the monsters having roles. Makes it easier to build encounters. The GM knows what roles to fill.

The idea of roles is very contrasting with the purpose of a PnP RPG. They make sense for WoW because the game is very limited in scope. All classes/roles have to have nearly balanced viability in combat because that's the entire point of the game. In D&D, the whole game is not supposed to revolve around combat, and as such, different classes can focus on different things.

"WoW beats D&D"

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In all these arenas, WoW beats D&D. But I don't see any reason D&D can't beat WoW pretty easily if they put their mind to it. And I don't see any reason these changes will make D&D less like D&D. None of these things are things I particularly associate with the D&D experience. They're all improvements. The stuff that makes D&D the best game I've ever played across any category or genre...with the possible exception of NetHack, in only improved by these changes.

emphasis mine

I'd guess that whoever wrote this article has only been playing D&D since the 3rd edition, and probably only with DMs who have gamed 3rd edition.

I would heavily associate roleplaying with D&D, and as such anything that detracts from roleplaying would be tearing apart the D&D experience.


Just for the record, I play both D&D and WoW, and both are fun. But I don't confuse the two at all. D&D I play to sit around with a bunch of friends and tell an amazing story of heroes, villians, magic, etc. WoW I play to explore pretty new areas, kill cool-looking monsters, get shiny new equipment, and try to be really good at PVP. If I tried to play D&D like WoW, or WoW like D&D, I'd be really disappointed.

[warmachine]

I always create my characters with some basic values and beliefs, defining his motivation to be an adventurer, and his strengths and weaknesses. Even teenagers have their defining skills and abilities, let alone trained, young adults. Only being able to pick race and class would... drive... me... absolutely... fricking... nuts. AD&D is a roleplaying game, not a computer-based battle simulator.

If a player cannot see that Cleave is not applicable for Wizards, then he has no tactical or mathematical sense and should not play AD&D, let alone WoW. For less clear cut cases, an experienced DM or player will give guidance. I fail to see the problem. The PHB feat list, for example, only covers 2 pages. Enough for beginners. Then they can learn the 1st level spells and the higher level spells later on. It is GURPS that has the overwhelming character creation options, not AD&D. I'd recommend AD&D to beginners, until they're ready for other settings and styles.

[dr.cello]

When I say "you" I am probably talking rhetorically, as the OP did not write the article.

I posted this on my forums, which have, like, 10 users total. But they're almost all game developers of one stripe or another.

Hey, I think you dropped something. Oh look, it's a name.

You have to buy your stats. In an official RPGA game, this means spending points on stats, and the points are not linear. a 16 STR is not 6 more expensive than a 10 INT. Then you learn that the stat doesn't do anything, it's just the input for a lookup table. Then, for some stats, the result of the lookup table is applied to a secondary stat called a Saving Throw.

I've never played a game in RL with point buy. And I'm not exactly sure how a stat is supposed to "do something." Doesn't strength affect how much damage you do and how much you can carry? Shouldn't dexterity affect your manual skills and accuracy? Since when do stats "do something?"

A wizard might think Cleave was cool. Because while Cleave is a feat Fighters can take with a Bonus Feat, Wizards can take it too.

That DM must be really, really terrible. If I'm DMing (or even playing) with some new players, I help them out. I suggest skills, suggest where to allocate stats, suggest feats. I definitely discourage them from taking completely useless feats.

And, of course, you've never used any of these skills before. You might think Ride would be super useful, even though 90% of your skill checks will happen in dungeons.

More DM problems, and I really think this guy must be playing with the worst DM ever. If my campaign does not feature a lot of places for people with horses, I will let them know when they choose Ride as a skill. Or, even better, when one of my characters is clearly designed as a horseman, I will give him the chance to use those skills.

If you're a caster, you have dozens more spells to choose from, again having never cast any before if you're a new player.

If you're starting at level 1 or 2 (which, if you're a new player, your DM should be doing for you) that list is pretty small, actually. And despite all the millions of spells in various splatbooks, I seldom choose spells outside of core--especially at level 0 and level 1. By the time you've leveled up, you've hopefully had time to look through some new spells and pick them out.

Compare this to WoW. You buy the game, install it, and make two decisions before you're in the game and playing. Class and Race and that's it. No other game-play related choices. This means you're in and playing the game in...seconds. Maybe a few minutes if you spend a while reading all the descriptions.

I think our friend here has missed the point. People like developing characters in D&D. That's sort of the point. There are books upon books out there for letting you develop your character. There's countless base classes, innumerable races, hundreds of feats, variant uses for skills, new spells--guess what? D&D players like character design. I like to sit down from the process of "I think I want to make a rogue" and then sit down and decide what feats I want to take, decide what skills I want--should I be sneaky? A trapfinding rogue? Bluff? Combat mobility? Do I want to multiclass later? This is fun.

In WoW, there are "jobs" in the party. In D&D there's only two jobs; heal and fight. Thieves can disarm traps, but that happens mostly out of combat. Rangers can track, but that happens mostly out of combat. In WoW, you need a Tank, a Healer, a DPS character, there are secondary roles; Crowd Control, Buffs, DeBuffs.

Has he ever played D&D? Has he ever looked at the spell lists? What about illusions? Buff spells? Debuff spells? I take it he's never seen a caster used as anything besides a blaster. What about the scout? It's always nice to have someone who can spot trouble ahead of time. There's no Clean-Cut defined roles, but that means you aren't playing the exact same character as everyone else.

The first 30 minutes of play in WoW result in several encounters, and 3 or 4 levels. You are rewarded very quickly. It eventually levels out. It can take MANY hours to gain a level once you're 60.

D&D is primarily a social thing. You hang out with a group of friends and play a game. It's designed to take a while. Campaigns are designed to last weeks and months. And in my experience, the long time spent doing character development makes those characters even more fun. My favorite character ever was level 7; the reason she was my favorite is because we spent those weeks and months gaming.

D&D requires you to not only know 3 other people who want to play, but have a place to get together. That's a barrier to entry. Using some simple web tools, they can remove that for anyone with a computer and the internet. Why not do it? Why not allow people to play online with anyone in the world?

In other words: "D&D means you have to have friends, and I don't have any." Please.

The Defender can make a bad guy concentrate on him, keeping everyone else safe. The Leader can grant teammates bonuses and exploit weaknesses in the enemy.

So fighters and wizards and bards aren't currently doing that? Really?

with the possible exception of NetHack,

Nethack is without a doubt the greatest game ever made, ever. It's not a possible exception.

[Kiero]

In my group, we have players who create characters, by the dozen, sometimes not even to play them, just to tinker, to create, to give life. The choices made at creation are the things that interest them, so if you must make it simpler give templates (i.e. "elven wizard template l1, fully equipped, feated, skilled, with spells known" isn't that the wizard starting package in the PHB ?) but allow the experienced users to be versatile.

Complete opposite to me. I find chargen to be a necessary chore that I will only do if there's a real game to be played with that character.

[Krursk]

I have a simple explanation as to why I play D&D instead of WoW. I have crap all internet download credit. It seems useless. Sure, I can play Battlefield 2142 once in a while, but not too much. In short, you can run out of internet download credit, disabling your WoW playing. The only thing I can think of that disables D&Ding is running out of existance, which will hinder you in most situations.

Oh, and who says Cleave isn't useful for wizards? It's been done (mostly for the hell of it) in a D&D session we play with Kieran, who can fight worth a damn when he runs out of spells

[dr.cello]

Complete opposite to me. I find chargen to be a necessary chore that I will only do if there's a real game to be played with that character.

I love rolling up characters. Sometimes I do it just to play with a new rule, sometimes because I have a character in a story I want to roll up, sometimes because I just have this cool character idea. While the ones I roll up on my own tend to be levels 4-6, I enjoy first level characters, as well. Indeed, the reason I tend to do later levels is because first level characters are over too quickly.

[Kiero]

That DM must be really, really terrible. If I'm DMing (or even playing) with some new players, I help them out. I suggest skills, suggest where to allocate stats, suggest feats. I definitely discourage them from taking completely useless feats.

More DM problems, and I really think this guy must be playing with the worst DM ever. If my campaign does not feature a lot of places for people with horses, I will let them know when they choose Ride as a skill. Or, even better, when one of my characters is clearly designed as a horseman, I will give him the chance to use those skills.

I just want to take these points, because there's a nested assumption in there I think is misplaced. Namely that you're expecting the GM to be experienced enough to know these things.

What if the GM (and indeed the whole group) are new to roleplaying, having just picked up a book and formed a group? That's exactly how I started playing, people tend to assume that everyone starts out by finding an existing group and joining it.

Something else that is relevant: most people playing RPGs aren't on the internet talking about them. Which means you don't have any means of learning (except by trial and error) what works and what doesn't.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Yah, but, with 4th edition, DnD is becoming more like WoW. both of my groups are calling it 'DnD for WoWers'

[Ashtar]

What if the GM (and indeed the whole group) are new to roleplaying, having just picked up a book and formed a group? That's exactly how I started playing, people tend to assume that everyone starts out by finding an existing group and joining it.

When I started at 10 years old, I had my D&D books, in english, in a french speaking country and still managed to get a group of players (one of them with whom I am still playing 17+ years later). When we did something wrong, made a mistake in the rules or something, we just kept on playing and corrected it for the next campaign. Making mistakes was part of the fun!

Even if you choose Cleave as your first feat for your wizard, and after two battles realise that it doesn't allow you to cast a second magic missile if you kill the monster with the first, you change feat. Simple as that (or you bribe the DM into allowing your "cleaving magic" feat!).

[Hannes]

You know... D&D is designed for people with intelligence. If you take a look at the wizard... And take a look at cleave... And take a look at the wizard's BAB and HD, you can DEDUCT that it will totally fail working. So you take another feat! Really, people seem to get dumber =/
EDIT: Also, yes, the possibility of correction at any time... In WoW, do you get to decide on taking a different talent after clicking on it right away?

[Tengu]

I like WoW a lot but what works for a MMO just won't work for a pencil and paper RPG.

Plus, making characters is indeed fun.

Hannes - yes, you can unlearn all talents and assign the points to different ones, but it costs.

[Solo]

Yah, but, with 4th edition, DnD is becoming more like WoW. both of my groups are calling it 'DnD for WoWers'

Did you get a peek at DnD 4.0 before the rest of us or something?

[Dausuul]

Did you get a peek at DnD 4.0 before the rest of us or something?

Nah, he doesn't need to. Every new D&D edition, and every major D&D sourcebook, turns D&D into a video game and ruins it. Weren't you there when 3E came out and suddenly our realistic, three-dimensional characters turned into little sprites with badly translated dialogue? My party went in to fight the BBEG, and instead of a traditional evil overlord monologue, he just said, "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US."

[dr.cello]

I just want to take these points, because there's a nested assumption in there I think is misplaced. Namely that you're expecting the GM to be experienced enough to know these things.

What if the GM (and indeed the whole group) are new to roleplaying, having just picked up a book and formed a group? That's exactly how I started playing, people tend to assume that everyone starts out by finding an existing group and joining it.

Something else that is relevant: most people playing RPGs aren't on the internet talking about them. Which means you don't have any means of learning (except by trial and error) what works and what doesn't.

I'm expecting the GM to have a modicum of competence. They don't need to know all the rules, but a GM should spend a little time reading through the rules and have a vague idea how things work. A wizard with Cleave? If your DM has been doing his homework, he should probably get the nagging suspicion that the wizard will never actually use this feat. ("Hmm. You have d4 hit dice and your base attack bonus is negligible. You aren't proficient with many weapons, and with none that do lots of damage. Might I suggest something else?") Okay, maybe the GM will miss that. But it doesn't take a genius to notice when something is horribly out of place.

The worst that is realistically likely to happen is some misplaced skill points, and maybe someone will take a feat that sounds cooler than it is. Learning the system can be fun.

I learned most of my basics without the internet. Indeed, most of my knowledge of Star Wars d20 comes from playing it and reading through books. Admittedly, the internet has greatly broadened my horizons, but it didn't take me long before I was reasonably competent. Oh, and I believe I only ever got one piece of feat-related advice: don't take both Stealthy and Deceptive at first level.

[Citizen Joe]

Power Attack and STR 13 are prerequisites for cleave. That should be enough to stop a foolish wizard from taking it off the start.

Actually, spellcasting is kind of complicated and very limiting at first level. So I wouldn't recommend a spellcaster to first time player.

[Solo]

Nah, he doesn't need to. Every new D&D edition, and every major D&D sourcebook, turns D&D into a video game and ruins it. Weren't you there when 3E came out and suddenly our realistic, three-dimensional characters turned into little sprites with badly translated dialogue? My party went in to fight the BBEG, and instead of a traditional evil overlord monologue, he just said, "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US."

Egads! He wasn't even polite to greet the party with a "HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN?"

[NullAshton]

One way I thought of making character creation easier is to only decide on, basically, your class race and attributes.

After you do so, then you play through a short balanced adventure. During that time, you can use any feats/spells/skills that you can get with your remaining empty feats/spell slots/skill points. Eventually, by the end of the adventure, you'll have your entire character sheet filled in, with stuff that you KNOW that you will use, a character perfectly suited for your playstyle.

[Indon]

-I take issue with the assumption that faster is better for character creation. Many people, including myself (and much of my gaming group) enjoys character creation.

-WoW is _not_ a tabletop RPG. You never, never complete an encounter in WoW. You kill mobiles and finish quests. There are no encounters in Warcraft.

-Because WoW 'rewards characters for play', it discourages party designs other than the single, most efficient template. Namely, Tank/Healer/DPS/etc. D&D, however, because it isn't about killing the monster neccessarily, can reward innovative approaches to problems, and non-'Cookie-Cutter' specialization.

-Furthermore, because of the fact that D&D does not have static objectives, no roles are required. Need to get through the goblin cave to save someone with your low-level Fighter/Rogue/Bard/Wizard party? Wizard casts invisibility on the Fighter, the Fighter and the Rogue sneak around to find goblins, who get surprised and Sleeped by the Wizard or Fascinated by the Bard. The Fighter and the Rogue continue on to the prisoner and bring them back through the entranced or sleeping enemies.

-D&D, being a text-based game, can be played with a simple instant-messaging program. Generally, though, IRC chat or similar with a built-in dice roller is preferred.

Really, WoW isn't an RPG. Not in the way D&D is. WoW is a computer game, like Civilization or Halo, and it bears more in common with those games than it does with D&D.

Now, the WoW D20 is pretty sweet, if you ask me.

[Arlanthe]

That OP has to be a joke.

[Telonius]

I was going to tear into this one, but it looks like Dr. Cello already did it for me, using approximately the same words I would have.

[TheLogman]

You see, the thing is, there is a difference between Dungeons and Dragons, and World of Warcraft. In World of Warcraft, you slog around in a boring fashion until you can enjoy fun stuff at higher levels, that's why those first levels are so easy, because they are boring.

As for D&D, it is supposed to be fun no matter what, at all times, accumulating numbers shouldn't be your main concern, your main concern should be having fun.