system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are English words phonetically explained with strange symbols? Why not just include those symbols in the alphabet?

For example, Gabe Newell's shorthand Gaben, from Wikipedia: 
Gaben (/ˈɡeɪbɛn/ "Gabe N." or /ˈɡeɪbən/ GAY-bən)
There is a mini capital 'I', a backwards '3' numeral, and an upside down lowercase 'e', which all have meaning in what I assume to be a "non-condensed English alphabet." Why do we need that?
gpt
First, they're not an English alphabet — each symbol in IPA is meant to represent a distinct and unambiguous sound that humans make to communicate. There are *some* sounds used by humans that aren't represented in IPA yet — so, it isn't complete. 

Second: there are *hundreds* of symbols in IPA — far more than there are in any other phonetic alphabet. Memorising them all in order to cover cases that a student will never or rarely encounter, is pointless (even linguists don't memorise them all, that's why we have reference books).

There are actually different ways to pronounce "Gabe", depending on which accent the speaker has — the "a" varies, from long (amongst minnesotans and michiganders) to the rising-to-I tone of modern Southern United States speakers (represented in your example above) to a dropping tone amongst modern Germanic speakers.

IPA allows for a written description of how a word is sounded, not of the meaning of the word.