Ironically he hates playing it because of all the extra rules, but loves creating characters because of all the extra rules. Writing that out I think I just realized if I take out BAB progression and replace it with proficiency bonuses and have multi attack rules just be 5e rules I think all his issues would evaporate.

I would be, but one of our friends has decided that 5e is the only system he wants to play, and we all love him too much to play without him. We don’t hate 5e, we just don’t love it.

Back in my day we got an extra attack at 6th, 11th, and 16th level, and each one was at a cumulative -5 penalty, AND WE LIKED IT!

You are absolutely right, and I have always got buy in from players, I just never thought about how badly things could have gone if I hadn’t been doing that so I have edited my comment. For narrative reasons I always think players should have a say in their characters death, it helps me as a DM and can lead to fantastic world building opportunities. Thankfully I’ve never killed a PC without consent for that reason.

I play versions of myself in a fantasy setting. I emphasize a particular part of my personality and give them funny voices, so no one has caught on. Thankfully people tend to like me for some reason, and therefore my characters, but that is why I always forget to make the player versus player character distinction.

Played a control/support wizard for almost two years. Died to a power word kill and BBG used his soul as a bargaining chip. Party was too full of themselves and newer players, they called his bluff, my wizard was perma dead. The rest of the session was them as players and characters coming to terms with his death. It was god damn beautiful and one of my favorite memories in gaming.

Please DMs, kill your players player’s characters. For the character development.

Edit: being neurodivergent I sometimes forget that people can have personal feelings that I find illogical, so as the comment under mine says; please make sure your player or players are not going to be traumatized if you kill their characters. As a DM I have always done this, because even if they are killed off I want the players input on how it goes, but that is for narrative reasons and I had not considered how badly it could have gone if I hadn’t been asking. I have never been asked by a DM, it just doesn’t bother me because to me it is a part of the fun and magic of TTRPGs.

To shreds, you say?