One of the first things I do when I’m preparing to run an adventure is to take out a blank sheet of paper, and list all the character’s proficiencies, particularly skills, languages and tools. I began this DMing practice after a string of experiences as a player where my creative character building choices never got to see the light of day. I want to reward the various choices my players made at character creation, by ensuring I make opportunities for them to utilized those proficiencies in the game. Lets walk through the what, and why, then really dig into the how.
Unsung Heroes
Sometimes DMs complain that every character takes the same main proficiencies. Perception and Investigation can so easily feel dominate, while more minor and specific skills often feel forgotten. Animal Handling, Medicine, Religion, and even History can be underutilized. Even lesser seen are the vast repository of tool proficiencies in fifth edition. D&D 5e has streamlined choices in some ways— there aren’t a dozen different “knowledge” skills, for example— but the tool certainly add additional complexity. With over 20 different tool options, we easily default to a small handful: alchemist supplies, herbalism kit, thieves tools, and tinkers tools. Finally, languages can easily be forgotten, particularly the game’s so-called “exotic languages”, like Abyssal, Celestial, and Primordial. All in all, the more obscure proficiencies are often left to languish, while a handful of common ones pop up again and again.
What is the Point in Caring About This?
This particular practice began, for me, after I made a number of characters with more obscure choices. At the time, I was brand new to D&D, and didn’t have the experience to know which choices were commonly made, and what things were most likely to pop up in the game. I simply made the choices that made the most sense to the character I was building. As I played those early games, I eagerly looked for opportunities to use all my choices, abilities, and proficiencies. I quickly learned that Perception was queen, herbalism was situational, and my leatherworking and gaming sets were all-but-useless. And my languages never came up. As I created my next characters, I certainly kept that in mind. I still made choices mostly according to what made sense to my character, but I choose my proficiencies from a much smaller list. Perception, Investigation, or Arcana? Alchemist, herbalism, or thieves tools? Dwarvish, Draconic, or Elvish? Why bother taking painters supplies or potters tools if they wouldn’t come up? To me, taking those rarely seen options was, and still feels like, a wasted choice. I still create characters with this frame of reference— I still haven’t found many DMs who actively work to include opportunities for the players to use those more obscure choices in the game.
Because those choices are not actively rewarded, they are passively discouraged. And that sucks! It does not feel good to have your list of options artificially reduced, but it feels ever worse to be the new player who didn’t know there were “bad choices”, while all the experienced players know what to focus on. Being the sole character with seemingly useless abilities is unfun. I strongly believe that an important part of being a dungeon master, especially one who DMs for newer players, is ensuring their choices a don’t disappear into the void. Rewarding character choices is a vital part of DMing, and players who do not get their character choices rewarded inevitable feel disappointed. That, in and of itself is a problem, but it also creates a cascade reaction.
That sense of “unfun” is remembered, and compensated for the next time, leading to the domination of a handful of skills and tools. Why does everyone take thieves tools? Because they have seen that choice always be useful. Folks watch that decision be rewarded, desire that same reward, and choose accordingly. The same goes for dominate skills, such as perception. Everyone wants to make a perception check, often creating what is colloquially called a “skill dogpile” —when your entire table wants to make a check, all but eliminating the chance of failure, it also removes the tension that possibility creates.
There are all kinds of workarounds for this, but most come with it’s own problems. Allowing only one character to make the check, perhaps utilizing the Help action from another player, means that is the only player rewarded for that choice. And restricting checks to proficient characters only increases the reward for those few skills, making them even more must-haves. In both cases, the original problem— the lack of reward for other choices— remains.
What is a DM To Do?
The best way to address the skill, tool, and language disparity is to be intentional in correcting the bias. Literally, make yourself a cheat-sheet with all your player’s skills, tools, and languages. You can also include background features (you know, like the acolytes Shelter of the Faithful, or an urchin’s City Secrets), or some of the lesser used feats or more flavorful racial traits. Any of your players features and choices that you want to intentionally reward. Then plan your encounters around them.
“That sounds like railroading! I don’t want to prepare a particular solution in advance!” Planning encounters with your player’s special abilities in mind isn’t railroading, and it doesn’t mean you’re planning plots instead of situations. What it does mean is that you’re planning to include those elements in your situation. It can be as simple as changing the language on an inscription from elvish to celestial and tweaking the content to be more religious for a religion proficiency, or making your objects shoes for the cobblers tools and a special pack of cards for the gaming set. It’s tiny but intentional changes that will make a world of difference.
It will also do more for your game than reduce mild annoyances like skill piling, or lessen the ubiquity of dominant skills. It will also free the creativity of both yourself, as the DM, and your players. Many players will start to investigate things more deeply, because they too have a chance to solve a problem. They will start looking at forgotten areas of their character sheets, become more interested in things around them, and follow more of their character’s interests— which are generally mechanically denoted by such proficiencies. There is a deep connection between rewarding these kinds of character choices, and between exploration— but that’s a deep dive for another day!
In the meantime, I really suggest that if you don’t have a cheat sheet with your character’s proficiencies on it, make one! Pull it out when you’re prepping, and try to incorporate just a few of them into your next couple of encounters. In the beginning, you might need to prompt the players. “Sharice, doesn’t Alecia speak celestial?” or “Alex, Tilab is proficient with leatherworking tools, right?” After all, they might not be accustomed to checking those areas on their character sheets. But that will likely change over time!
On the whole, I have never once regretted making a change to an encounter to include a characters choice that hasn’t yet seen the light of day. The excitement of the druid that finally gets to use Druidic or the barbarian who finally gets to use their land vehicle proficiency is so fun, and so rewarding. I have, on the other hand, kicked myself mentally, for not making a tiny change such as that, in order to make space for those characters.
Alyssa Visscher 