Are RPG's getting too complex?

I started rolling characters for RPG's properly with the dawn of Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition in 1989 (up until then I only had a partial first edition Players Handbook and probably wasn't doing it right) and it was relatively straight forward. You rolled your dice, assigned them to your ability scores, worked out a couple of bonuses, picked skills bought equipment and you were done. The whole process took maybe 20, 30 minutes tops, if you already had an idea as to what you wanted then it was even quicker. This process stayed the same through poractiucally every tabletop RPG I played back then, Shadowrun, GURPS, Vampire, etc. I was a pretty consistent player until the very late 1990's when interest faded, groups drifted apart, etc.

Fast forward to 2008, the fourth edition of D&D is released and I get the bug again, I pick up all the books that I would expect to but before I roll up a character I read about the "Character Builder", an officially sanctioned application to help create and manage characters. This was great, you could create characters, print out sheets in almost no time at all. Even when the downloadable app was replaced by a web version, it was still simple to use and easy to create characters. All of this is great so far and has undoubtedly spoiled me as when I come to create a character for a system, this probably explains why I'm struggling so much with rolling one now. The actual idea is similar to what has come before (assign points to stats, etc) but the number of skills and the huge amount of equipment options are almost bewildering. I find myself yearning for an online version or even a Tablet application (I'm surprised there seems to be a lack in this department). Hero Lab seems like a good option but when it doesn't support the system you want to play then your back to square one. This might come over as being a bit whingy but I want to play the game and not get bogged down right at the beginning of the game. It's the same reason I never got into painting miniatures, I would rather buy pre-painted ones and play the game rather than painting my own army.

I will get there eventually but I do yearn for an electronic sheet to handle some of this.

If you were wondering, I'm rolling a character for Shadowrun 5th edition.

 

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