Beautiful dice, but please don't lose it. It will give "caltrops" a new painful meaning during a night craw to the fridge. Looks like someone rolled a natural 1 and stomped a d4! Ouch!
I'd go as far as to say that it doesn't even need the first act... "Dude's an orphan, who doesn't know his parents. He grows up on his uncle's farm, far away from civilization. He dreams about becoming a space pilot, but his uncle wouldn't let him go to the academy for one reason or another. All his friends already left the place, so he sits alone in the middle of nowhere when adventure finds him." ...is a way better backstory than any of my players ever gave me.
@Wolfsspinne To me, that doesn't justify 1st level. That's a commoner with proficiencies from their background. If your backstory was until a week ago you were a town guard, you haven't made a 1st level fighter, you've made a guard.
I love the ones saying allow any printed material, Either they are too innocent, not yet having encountered an owlin chronurgy wizard with silverby barbs, lucky and the like, or they are the ones playing those kind of characters.
I think half-hobbitism can work with certain character personalities. Like, they physically go on the adventure but simply fail to acknowledge it. I've had characters who gained a few levels before they stopped seeing themselves as merely working a job, having a wild night out, or whatever it was that got them out of the house. It can still be used as a callback later on in the campaign. Something like if Merry and Pip asked the Orcs in The Two Towers "you're not taking us to Farmer Maggot, are you?" "No, to Saruman!" "Oh thank goodness!" "Uh, Pip, I think Saruman might be just as bad." "Why? It's not like we've stolen any of his vegetables yet." "...Yet?" "Oh, aye, he probably will be just as angry after."
I've done something like that with one of my most recent characters. He's a storm sorcerer with a severe case of amnesia who found himself travelling with this group of adventurers and since he neither knows how to get home nor where home even is he just sticks with the party. But he is still convinced that he's not an adventurer, he's just a lost commoner far from home who screams out loud when he sees a homunculus or just at the mention of a dragon roaming around in the area.
Yes! There's a player in my campaign who plays the "reluctant adventurer" cleric who just wants to stay home but his god makes him go adventure to spread awareness about the god. So the character is always moaning and complaining about everything, but without actually avoiding the adventure. And it's friggen hilarious!
For me I usually come up with a silly little concept like "what if there is a wizard who got kicked out of wizard school for messing up spells and she has a pet frog she calls Professor" And then I build her giving her more and more depth from there. Like she was accepted in the school because of a scholarship and her family thinks she is just on an internship now. I even ended up naming all 6 of her sisters and her parents.
I play a character who attended "Alchemy School" and immediately upon graduation was struck on the head. Living as a bumbling gross thief for a decade before said thief was rebrain damaged and my wizard sprung back out. Love some goofy stuff 😌 (This was just an excuse to pop my character in in the middle of a dungeon from one of the NPCs they had)
I do the same, I take a silly idea or a bit it like and then fully flesh it out and give full story and personality to the characters. My main 5e character really just started as "What if druid but dinosaur" and then fully developed the idea, background and story so that it works out
i have a somewhat similar character actually! his name is jupiter and he is a small tabaxi who's parents enrolled him into a fancy magic school, but he was kicked out because he just couldn't learn to cast any magic no matter how hard he tried. he then decided to move into a hut in the woods and start brewing magic potions to replicate spell effects instead. mechanically he plays like a standard evocation wizard, flavor wise he is just chucking around explosive bottles to cast fireball and what have you. he loves blowing stuff up :]
I am so stealing this idea. LOL In fact I may take it a step farther and say the frog literally IS his professor who he accidentally permanently trapped in a Frog form and his quest is to someday find out what he did and reverse it. LOL I love this!
What's interesting is that I almost always start by picking a race/class/sub-class combo that I like, roll a random background, and then asking myself "what would it take for someone of this race and background to become this class and sub-class?" That usually makes for something interesting and imagining that upbringing or the trials the character went through informs what the personality (and funny voice) should be like.
I love the idea of the reluctant adventurer, but I've only pulled it off once. My Fiancé was playing my characters twin, and my character's only reason to go on the adventure was to make sure her twin didn't end up dead. So even though my character was reluctant, she didn't need convincing to go as long as her twin was off to the races. (and my Fiancé leaned into the plucky adventuring type)
As a GM, as long as you want the Reluctant hero to go on the adventure as a player, and are willing to come up with reasons to come along, its fine....but its super annoying when the reluctant hero player is maybe new, and gets frustrated and just says "I don't want to go into the dungeon guys, I'll see you at the tavern" and then gets mad at me for somehow not making an adventure for a character that doesn't want to go on an adventure.
Yea I think you can make a reluctant adventurer if you also build in the reason they have to adventure from the beginning. Like they are in debt, or they are being blackmailed etc.
@@AndrewJHayford Even "this isn't my jam, see you guys when you get back" can work if the player then doesn't get mad when their narrative "involvement" boils down to "you spend the night drinking in the tavern". Obviously if the rest of the party _needs_ their capabilities to not die or whatever, that's a problem. But if it's a "milk run", and especially if you have a player that's there, but isn't up to a serious game for the night, parking their character in a tavern can be a reasonable solution.
@@lperkins2 That player effectively does nothing though while the rest of the folks play the game. Typically in my session zero I tell people, if you decide your character would not participate in the party any longer, as in your goals no longer align with the group, its time to roll up a new character and your old character becomes an NPC.
My neighbour bob back in the day had floor to ceiling bookshelves almost overflowing with notebooks containing nothing but characters. He didn't even really like playing,he just loved creation. They were organised by edition, he had over 11k books. Truly a man prepared for any encounter
There's a huge difference between a reluctant adventurer and one who gets homesick. Also, if you're running an adventure like ravnica or dungeon dudes' setting, where it's all in the same city, your character might not want to leave the city, and that's fine. I like to play a reluctant adventurer more for story purposes, and usually when they meet the party they're trying to get back home. I don't like the kind of reluctance that means they need convincing to adventure, I like the kind of reluctance that leads to adventure. Think Arnold from the magic school bus, he's always "I knew I should've stayed home today" but he is still going on the adventure. Possibly more important, he's the one making sure everyone gets home safely.
That sounds like a good way to go. I like the idea of the reluctant adventurer, when it is done right. A character who is an adventurer due to circumstance and gradually grows into the role certainly could work out. One straightforward example would be a person from a small village who would have been perfectly happy to stay there, but something bad happened (i.e. family conflict, political conflict, lack of economic opportunity, or the village is destroyed by stinky ogres), and the character has to leave. Another example could be a character that signed on to a mundane job (i.e. miner, caravan laborer, bureaucrat), but the job led to some unexpected events. This situation could be a good starting point for a DM who wants to do something other than "everyone randomly meets in the tavern." If the event in the character's back story that caused the character to start to wander is somehow tied to the DM's overall story, that could help keep the character motivated throughout the campaign. A good reluctant adventurer needs a motivation in the back story to embark upon an adventurer.
I’d add: leave room to grow out of your concept. IME, every character I’ve played for any real length of time started out as some kind of concept, but eventually grew into a unique & complex individual. A concept works best as a scaffolding to help you find the character; don’t make it into a straight jacket.
I agree. Lots of people plan out their character progression before the campaign even starts. I never do that. I let the game story direct my development. Sometimes it will mean taking some multiclassing. Sometimes it will steer me towards retaining prior choices.
Thank you for featuring my take, and thanks to all in this wonderful community for upvotes! I love your take on the class, and totally agree with your view. Dnd and TTRPGs are not video games. They are not limited mechanically to one single path of what constitutes a valid build, class or anything in that vein. Just do you, and let everyone playing with you have a chance to do their own thing too, including the DM.
Preach. My favorite character I've played, leading to me playing them repeatedly, is a hobgoblin war wizard (no multiclass) who wields a sword and wears half plate and a shield. Supremely good ac and saves, maxing con with the hobgoblin bonus means my hp is competitive with most martials, and my damage is the weakest portion but between buffs like haste, vampiric touch, and tenser's transformation when I reach higher levels, blade cantrips, etc even his damage is not super lacking. He pulls his weight. Plus as a hobgoblin noble it gives me an excuse to play a loyal and trustworthy but arrogant and vindictive noble type. It's hardly the most out there build but it is definitely "non standard"
Was about to comment a similar thing, altho, i have a video game that doessomething similar to that, FF V, the final fantasy game where they pulled the mechanic where, you can swap your class at will, to put in FF XIV, go take a look, that game sure would be inspiration to use as a DM when a player would request swapping their class
As an argument for sometimes having long, complex backstories: Id look at Beastboy. Beastboy has a very long, complex, and tragic backstory. But its not crucial. You can still watch him in the team titans while hes not the main character and have fun. This long background simply provides interesting context for the complex character and gives the dm options for the rare instance when it comes up. So feel free to make a novel long backstory for character. Just also make it so the character is interesting even if that backstory hasnt come up.
Yep the last line is crucial. The character is not their past! Furthermore, long backstories ARE cool, but the player who writes it should also be able to provide the GM with a short summary or ideas of how to incorporate some elements if they're expecting the GM to do that
Most of the time I start with the mini. I create the mini, print it, paint it, and as I do this I create a narrative of who they are based on their distinctive features. Then I consider what class I can shape into something that looks like the character. The answer is usually warlock, because they are so good at bending into just about any theme, even to the point of basically replicating other classes.
In this one campaign I'm playing in we had a "community array". There are five players, including myself, and the DM. SO all of us would roll 4d6 and drop the lowest. That way all of the players had the same stat pool and felt involved with each others characters even before the campaign started. We could put those stats where we wanted.
I'm playing at a table that did something similar, but everyone rolled their own set of 6 stats, and then those arrays were treated as a community pool of arrays to pick from. Being able to make choices typically feels better as a player, but it also kept anyone from feeling stuck with subpar stats. That didn't stop two people from picking the array that had both a 4 and a 7 in it, but at least it was a choice they made. :P
@@MarcusNoble One of my favorite characters I've played recently was a swashbuckler rogue with a wisdom score of 6. Very charming, very dashing, not a lick of common sense in her head. Having that one major stat can be a lot of fun for some people, but it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea.
I LOVE characters with weaknesses. I find myself virtually always making a character with both low AC and HP, because then they can do cool stuff, but also need protection and cooperation from the rest of the team.
Careful.... you don't want to go SO far as to make your character useless and incompetent. Then why is this character even here? The party would've been better off kicking this character off the team. If you're talking about spellcaster characters, that's fine (hopefully you didn't put a dump stat into the primary spellcasting stat though).
@@guyman1570 It is possible to make a functional spellcasting build that never calls on your spellcasting modifier for any of the spells and avoiding features that use it as well. The big issue is being locked out of multiclassing. Like, for instance, a nonHexblade melee (or even ranged weapon later on if you want) Warlock that relies on Booming Blade and Prestidigitation, with buffing spells like Armor of Agathys or Spirit Shroud, and various interesting Invocation choices. Could be a meathead jock type with all mental stats dumped that accidentally made a pact with an otherworldly entity, or the lawful stupid paladin that's not actually a paladin.
Rather than rolling 3d6 in order, I prefer rolling 2d6+3 (also in order). It's true, it delivers a more centered set of stats. Some might say the results are dull or grey, but I like my campaign settings to be more credible and so I think the resulting PCs are more grounded to the world they inhabit.
This is relevant but not exactly only related to character creation, but I think its important and waaay more fun to set limits on what source books or even what subclasses you are using in this game. Boundaries introduce creativity and also then the DM and player has a better idea of what the world looks like, and how things play together
All the tables I play ban Tasha's and one of them even bans Xanathar's. I love overcoming creative obstacles in order to get what I want. Beats having to curate wildly different homebrews, arbitrarily picking favorites and making people jealous.
i love restricted settings, they can have so much more intent and flavor behind the few choices instead of the dm needing to half assedly fit everything into the same setting! i take my restricted settings into a bit of a different direction though, picking some species from source books and adding a bunch of homebrew species on top of that, to build on the specific theme i want. like my homebrew setting where all allowed species are stuff like lizardfolk, grung (i remade the lore because wtf is the official lore), bullywug, locathah, tortle, a homebrew snail people, etc. humans and more human-like species just wouldn't work in my setting!
I so disagree with you guys on that. Not saying that you are wrong. But I think really differently on that but I am trying to understand your guys point of vue, because I tend to see more people to be vocale online about limiting races and classes and subclasses then the other way around I don't understand. I get the point where you like a race and don't like another but to prevent other players from enjoying their favorite race I don't get it.
@@fishsticxz But why wouldn't they work. Even if the human are treated poorly so what. Personally I can handle npc being angry or r*cist or hateful or whatever toward my character. Maybe you are a humanoid that somehow found their way to that region, maybe they were teleported to this realm, or dimension by an evil wizard or a magical door or trap or a planeswalker who teleported into the wrong plane. I think that most often these decision are born of elitism, selfish behavior, lazyiness and lack of imagination. And I am not saying that you are any of those things, these are based on my anecdotal experience of DM and other player thinking like that.
@@Barthenn It's like OP said. It's a question of boundaries. The presence of a flying bird man character may ruin the enjoyment of some people in certain instances. Or in Fishsticxz's setting, it's the "normal" races that would ruin what he is going for. Art only exists because of boundaries. The fun comes from making choices, and this process would not be possible without boundaries. Also, this is a communal game. You have to deal with other people to play, and so, the setting of boundaries is vital. It's not because "do whatever" is an option that everyone is forced to take that option. Like everything in human interactions, it's a question of negociation, not of possibilities.
I came up with an idea for my players in my campaign that sounded good in my head, but probably would only work with a better DM. I told my players to come up with two secrets. 1. Something you know, but your character doesn't know. 2. Something your character knows, that the other players don't know. Then I would add a third after seeing these with something the DM knows that the player nor his character knows. My idea was to work all of these into the campaign story. Unfortunately our game became a 'dungeon of the week' campaign and all the 'secret' backstory hooks were either abandoned or forced into the game without much impact.
Definitely an interesting concept! It's a bummer when that kind of planning doesn't build to much, but if it was fun making the secrets, it was still worth it
I think anything is okay as long as everyone at the table agrees on it. Everything depends on the people you're playing with and if someone has an idea that won't be fun for you, it's your responsibility to speak up about it, or listen to the others when they say your idea might not work at that table. There are as many different kinds of groups as different kinds of people (which is to say, essentially infinite)
For me, the way I make a character changes every time. For my last game where I played a Dwarf Barbarian, it started with the setting and race almost at the same time. (I am well known for loving my dwarfs when it comes to fantasy setting among my family and friends). My brother, who was DMing had specifically written the dwarfs in his world for me to play, giving several options, and after I had picked one of those options that seemed interesting to me, I then chose the class and then my first level feat (we homebrew that every character gets a feat at creation to help find that uniqueness) and then built my backstory around why I ended up with that feat and why I was out adventuring. So the backstory was informed by all the choices made up to that point and made sense within the world. Stats came at the very end as they didn't really matter for the character other than the mechanics of the game. I can give an overview of my character if it's wanted! :-P
I create a character at level 20 to get an idea of where I would want it to end up in terms of ability, and then scale it back down to the appropriate campaign level
0:19 I've seen a DM find a great way to use player characters he made. We're playing a module where canonically many adventurers have tried and failed to overthrow the BBEG before. The DM used a few PCs he had created, to be former adventurers who had long ago been charmed/persuaded by the BBEG, so they acted as antagonists.
I was in a campaign once, not gming but just playing in, where after a while a player decided he really didnt like his character class, the GM refused to allow him to change because it would "break immersion" so the player just started playing progressively riskier until they were inevitably killed off and got to role up a new character. Having to role play like it wasn't super jarring that one of our years long friends had been killed in front of us and then we immediately turned around and started hanging out with a new dude who behaved largely the same but had different colored hair and punchd good instead of playing the harp was WAY MORE IMMERSION BREAKING, so I very much believe in letting players re-class if they want/
I had no idea that creating a character starting with the name was such a rare thing. Every character I've ever created for anything has always started with the name.
@@patrickbateman3146 Same, unless I have a name ahead of time it's the most difficult aspect of any character system. But othertimes a joke or interesting name can lead to some great character ideas.
The name is always the last thing I come up with. I will make a full character sheet, backstory outline, and come up with every backstory proper noun before I name my character. I have joined a pre-existing campaign without a name for my character and let the other PCs come up with one for me in-character. I do not know why I am like this. It has never not worked out.
Even though I don't have a group to play with:( I have created 6 different characters in case I ever found a group (and if the DM accepts them). 1. A Female Drow Death Domain Cleric sworn to the Raven Queen. Her background is Feylost. 2. A Male Mountain Dwarf Wizard(planning School of Necromancy) with the Rune Carver background. 3. A Female custom Race Half-Moon Elf Half-Frost Giant Barbarian (planning Path of Giants) with Planar Philosopher background. 4. A Female Half-Moon Elf Half-Sun Elf Ranger (planning Drakewarden) with Sage background. 5. A Female Astral Elf Paladin (planning Oath of Conquest) with Anthropologist background. 6. A Female Sun Elf Druid (planning Circle of Spores) with Gate Warden background. What's really fun is the Wizard, the Ranger, and the Barbarian all have distant connections in their backstories:) Additionally, none of my characters have the stereotypical "Tragic Backstory/Dead Family" trope.
balance is key, make a character that is both fun to play (combat and skills and stats) but also fun to roleplay (backstory and personality ). You can start with either, but make sure you develop both, also talk to your dm, he will give you great tips that will also help him in making an interesting story and relate to the plot
I can understand the idea of someone “building” their character like it was a utility knife. However I strongly prefer the random DCC creation process. Living through their level 0 funnel made me more emotionally attached to them and to the other party members.
As a GM, I have my players do 4d6 drop the lowest once or twice each (minimum of 4 total arrays) and then have then pick between all of the available arrays. Edit: spelling
I like this method as well. It makes it feel like rolling stats is collaborative between the players rather than adversarial. It allows the players who want high stats either for powergaming or to pull off some weird build to have the opportunity to do so while not harming the players who don't care much about their stats being high. It also helps ward off the minor resentment or jealousy between players who just rolled different numbers and some didn't get the stats they might have wanted.
I read something a while ago that has stuck with me that I think I'll use when I DM my upcoming campaign: each player rolls 4d6 drop the lowest one time (or two if there's only 3 players) and the resulting rooms become the array for all players. Still gives the fun of rolling stats but also gives everyone the same ability scores to play with
Following the line of "dont be good a everything leave something where you will the teams help" and one character i really enjoyed recently was Vinur, my half orc ranger jack of all trades in PF2e, he was at least trained in every single skill except lore skills (history, arcana, religion...)
I came up with a rolling method where you roll 4d6 drop the lowest then you flip the die upside down, one roll 2 ability scores much tighter ranges for characters a 6,6,6,1 becomes a 1,1,1,6 if you get something great you are bound to be lacking somewhere and if you roll average you’re probably going to be a good all rounder!
My first experience as a GM was with players whom created nice simple backgrounds with blanks and mysteries to be solved. I used this hooks to incorporate the players on the setting, campaign, puzzles and NPCs and it was so fun to DM that campaign. Thank guys ❤
I've done most of these but I think my favorite is to write down very broad concept and strengths and weaknesses, then class & stats to match the concept, then finally flush out a short backstory usually in a conversation with the dm.
I like to start with Job Title and then figure out what would be the best way to represent that. Wizard Sage Librarian is pretty commonplace, but Fae Bard Lawyer is 👌
I like doing the "starting with names" thing, or at least something similar to it. Certain names evoke certain concepts and visuals and ideas, and sometimes a name would just pop into my head and I'd go "oh! That's a cool character name! Now who are they?" - sometimes these bursts of inspiration can come from something I watched or read recently, a lot of the times I find unique names and naming schemes in fantasy media fascinating. For example, in GOT/ASOIAF where a given house has a tradition of repeating the same name (i.e. the Brandons of house Stark) or the same syllable (i.e. the many 'Ty's of house Lannister - Tywin, Tyrion, Tytos, etc)
I don't like starting with names because I can't make up names to safe my life so any character I make will ultimately be named "Jemand" literaly meaning "someone" in german
I like to check all the different classes and subclasses to see what I find enjoyable to play first. And I also use the basis of "my character was a nobody until they got flung into an adventure" because that is what I personally like, watching them grow from zero to hero. My last character that I did this way (not vetoed because everyone was new to the system) was an Ancestors Oracle from PF2e, essentially three ancestors haunt your character (1 martial, 1 spellcaster, 1 skill monkey) and affect your gameplay differently every day. So she was a coffee salesman that because of her addiction to coffee couldn't hear her ancestors but once the occupying force stopped the trade she not only went into slight withdrawal but could also hear the ancestors for the first time. I was having so much fun with it that I made small anecdotal stories about each ancestor like how the martial ancestor invented whipped cream...
I agree with you about the DCC comments - the DCC character creation process has a great deal of appeal and I would love to see more "startup builds" done in that fashion!
The “thinks they are different alignment” thing reminded me that one of my favourite things to do with D&D especially is characters who want to be/think they are a different profession to their class, like my smooth conwoman dragged back in for one last heist who just happens to be a fae chalock, or my hapless professional musician who is actually a wild magic sorc and not happy about it. It just gives some instant details from the ‘how did this happen’ bit. Rolls wise though I’m usually 4d6-dropLowest and assign at will, pointsBuy or standardArray.
I agree - if you're playing like, an eberron setting, an elephant character is not gonna fit. Also I think eventful or long backstories can work so long as you give a tldr to the DM and it makes sense. I played a grandma character once who had done lots of stuff because of her age, but just nothing epic. And then she died to a wolf at level 3 haha. Vague or a sketch outline can work too - I love discovering stuff about characters during play
Yep I think providing a summary is key. Much like how the GM can create chapters and chapters of lore, but they still have to find easy and simple ways to share that info in ways that matter to the players
I think that it’s valuable to leave blank spaces in your character’s backstory so that you can fill them in at the table. This is a particularly useful way to create connections with other PCs. “Oh, gods! I had that professor too! Horrible, right?! She’s the one that got me expelled, so that I had to learn spell crafting basics on my own.” “You like that song? Heinous Halflings is my favorite group! Ooooh, that dulcimer player is SO cute!” “Your father taught you that? I never knew mine, but yours sounds so nice. Tell me more.”
i often find a cool mini, and use it as an inspiration for a character. as far as stats go, my table just does hero stats, 72 points divided however we like
One of my favorite characters was inspired by a pathfinder npc standee. Standee was a barmaid wielding a tankerd of ale like she was gonna hit somone. Nerrah firefist became a rouge specializing in makeshift weapons, after having to put a stop to one to many bar fights and drunken catcallers.
I generally begin a new story with level-0 generic characters. they are a step above being commoners. all stats begin as 10 and you get to add 1D6 (up to 6 total points) to the base stats. the generic classes are; acolyte adept expert warrior the character cannot evolve into an actual class, until they acquire a mentor. (if they live that long)
Treantmonk posted a while back about a method for determining stats using a deck of cards that I thought was interesting. Our table's experience rolling stats in traditional ways for longer campaigns hasn't been positive - even with guaranteed sums it just sucks to have one player who can't contribute because their stats are too "flat" and so their primary stat isn't high enough to land attacks or spells.
Thanks for sharing the info about Treantmonk’s alternative stat process. Much of our group has been playing for decades and I’m always looking for ways to mix things up.
What I do for character creation, although I advise that NOBODY ELSE DO THIS, is to roll for stats, but instead of dropping the lowest value, I drop the second highest, or the highest depending on the DM. I like to think it reassures DMs that I'm not cheating. I also always make the character first, both race and story wise. Then I choose a class, then roll for stats and allocate them according to personality.
i usually just use standard array for stats, but the idea of 4d6 drop the highest is really interesting. maybe for two stats you roll 4d6 drop the highest, two stats you roll 3d6, and for two stats you roll 4d6 drop the lowest?
That can work okay and as long as you are playing with a group that has a good grasp of the stat rolling method. I could see someone that hasn't heard/used it before getting confused or frustrated by the fluctuating rules for the stats.
My favorite way to create a character is either to roll stats down the line and see what that inspires or come up with a FATE style core identity/Cypher style “adjective noun that verbs”. I’ll normally come up with a few loose ideas there and then find what fits with the party well.
I've seen the end point of this. One of the longest running campaigns I've been a part of, my best friend was playing a classic Dwarf Cleric of the life domain. He started the campaign bright eyed and optimistic. Over the course of the campaign, the entire party around him changed around 4 times, due to a very, very high rate of character death. He was the only one that survived the entire course of the campaign. By the end, when all was said and done, he had completely lost his optimism, and felt it was his obligation to bear witness to the nobility of the doomed adventurers who would accompany him.
When I roll stats I use a fun method I found that forces weaknesses in charcters while keeping everyone's total points equal. Roll a d8, d10, and d12. Then you do the following math: d8+10/-15 D10+8/-17 D12+6/-19 Just like that you have a party of characters all equally capable whther through being fantastic and terrible at things or being average and a jack of all trades across the board. It has allowed for amazing characters while allowing more freedom than some stricter rolling types and none of us really enjoy point buy and love the randomness of dice
It's ok to be a reluctant adventurer if played from the angle that you exhibit reluctance for a task but do it anyway without the group having to convince you in game. Also this character shouldn't stay static. For growth over time this character should come to realize the importance of what you're group is doing long term and the reluctance should end IMO.
randomly generating characters through online resources is one of my favorite ways of getting a base to work from. its fun to mold that collection of ideas into a fleshed out character.
Whenever I start making a character, I'll have a chat with the DM about the setting and campaign, then put together a backstory with 3 goals: 1. Give the character a reason to be adventuring with the party. 2. Make the character make sense in the context of the setting and the start of the first session. 3. Add in a little adventure in the backstory itself. Level 0 characters are the exception to that last point, but even just a level 1 character must have gone through some shit to get to where they are. Sarsaparilla Greg the cabbage farmer would get his shit kicked in by a level 1 fighter, so logically, it tracks that the aforementioned fighter didn't just sit around apprenticing a candlemaker or something all their life. I do my best to keep my backstories concise, confining them to a paragraph or so at most. In my experience, letting the DM fill in the blanks makes for easier side-quest fodder/campaign integration.
Came up with a stat rolling thing recently. Start with standard array/point buy. Then roll for a bit of variance - this roll could depend on what you/your DM/group are feeling, but 1d6 is the sweet spot for me. That result gives you a pool of... I dunno, Change Points to spend modifying your generated stats. Spend one by increasing one stat by one, and decreasing another by one. Probably best to give increases a hard limit of two or three. For when you want mostly balanced characters with just a little extra pizzazz given out in different dollops by the hands of fate.
Reluctant hobbit can work, I think, if everyone at the table agrees that the character may not want to go on the journey, but the player does. That includes the player, who must be willing to accept a flimsy or uncompelling argument for why they should go. My rule of thumb is... the Irish tea offer rule. You should refuse once, they must ask again, you can refuse a second time, but you should be less obstinate about it, and they must ask again if you do, and then you must stay for tea, because you always wanted tea, its just polite to refuse once or twice first. "Do you want some tea?" "No I don't want to put you out." "No really I'll get you some tea." "Nah you don't have to." "Let me get you some tea." "Alright, and thank you."
I recently played in a campaign where the whole thing was about secrets. That ended up being super cool, because part of the adventure was being suspicious of other characters. We also start off at third level, which meant that we had to have some kind of a backstory. I was especially proud of my character, who was in essence using rules from 5E, a clone, who could be called back to a new body, and then teleported to where his previous body died. That was a secret. The other players didn’t know, and it made for some very interesting problems, when they thought he died, but then he returned. I also played a race, I don’t remember what the race was, but it was a race that was pretty taciturn and aloof, which added to the feelings of suspicion. The race that has blue skin, I don’t remember, and I don’t wanna look it up right now cause it’ll screw up the comment. But overall it was super fun, the main reason being that we all knew that they were going to be secrets involved.
Honestly, my go-to move is to see what everyone else is playing first and then take a class that is left over because I like the challenge of rounding out the party. I also try to play deeply flawed characters because I LOVE the "Climb to Cool". Eventually, you're gonna get a win, but having a character with guaranteed "losses" that will fall on their face makes those successes so much more worthwhile.
im in my first DnD campaign right now and my guy is a reluctant hero. He is uncaring about being a hero, he just wants the money and then wants to leave. But the part of that which is so much more fun than a regular old hero is that throughout the campaign he is slowly gaining reasons to stay. First he was just being paid to be a body guard for another PC, but then he starts to actually care about PC and then a new player gets him into a contract to help him find his long lost lover so now he has all these different responsibilities and emotions and slowly realizes he actually cares about these people and wants to help them no matter what over this long character arc of going from "Pay me money" to "I'll fight by your side no matter what"
For some people that is a good tactic. Hating backstories is a bit much but if they mean they hate characters starting with a LOT of backstory i could understand the sentiment.
One of my players "hates" backstories, so she loved to play Mausritter and DCC where background is randomized. She can roleplay past occupations very well, she just doesn't like to come up with them.
The way I made Plague was picking his name and designing him and working from there. I haven’t had a chance to play with him, but it meant i could go through classes and homebrew until I found one that really fits. In case you’re wondering, this has left him as a plague doctor-robed frail man with a medical degree and as modern of medical knowledge as the DM will allow.
We've all heard of 4d6DL1 but if you want slightly beefier rolls consider 6d4DH1 for a max of 20 and a low of 5, with a +2 higher average than 4d6dl1 its hard to roll too poorly, plus more dice is more fun.
I'm not a regular player, but recently I had a back story written for a (pretty heavily LOTR-inspired) character. I copied it all into ChatGPT and asked it to suggest what class might be suitable, given the details in their back story... it was interesting, and it was helpful to me.
I created a character with a bunch of multiclass stuff, its how I realized how much Im not a major fan of multiclassing in a campaign. Talked with my DM about it, decided to go single class, asked if he could find a way to make it lore relevant, he did, I appreciate it, and I love how it works for my character now. Ya there is "specific rules for changing subclasses" but seriously sometimes "It happens because magic" is enough.
I like the thought of building ur backstory together. Like you start with a base concept, and u work with your dm and either solo or with your party to add to it. Like "I am a child" as a base, then you ask, who is your family? "My mother is a high ranking drow. My father is leonin" you all figure out what that means mechanically. Other questions like what do you do. What do you like. Why are you here. I had a list I found somewhere to build a backstory... I dunno where it is lol
I’m constantly impressed by how thoroughly and thoughtfully you engage with your community in your videos, Bob, keep it up! As for how I have my players generate stats, at least in 5e, I like the PCs to feel powerful, so I have them roll 4d6 drop lowest, but I have them roll 7 times and keep the highest 6 stats, then assign them wherever they want. 5e is a heroic fantasy game, and I like my players to feel like heroes. If they want to play a character with weaker stats or with built-in mechanical flaws, which I enjoy doing as a player, I’ll let them go for the lowest six if they want to, but I like not having to worry too much about throwing “unbalanced” encounters at them if it suits the story.
Regarding funny voices, I once played a grung spore druid that didn't speak common. Understood it, so I could go along with the party, but chaotic poison frog communicating entirely through facial emotion was a great challenge (especially because I tend to lead the group, and wanted to encourage others to take charge instead).
A method I found works for myself is a character web to show how different elements either connect into one another or create branches. For example, I had a super speed hero in a M&M game who had a successful business career before the cowl called. These elements came together to inspire how the character did not see much use for their speed in their daily life growing up and that they were hounded by school sports teams, inspiring them to downplay their abilities. This method is great for visual thinkers or those who have issues keep track of details in blocks of text/notes
I got a player whose character is refusing to kill, but whose character sheet requires them to kill in order to gain certain bonuses this was the player’s idea and I’m totally with it. The main thing I do is offer him conflicts that he’s got to find a way to resolve, or he gains the point from killing his enemies like the character sheet need him to. He wins either way but it encourages him to attempt peaceful resolutions while keeping him in the combat that he loves
The 5e total conversion mod I've been working on for a while has requirements for all class abilities, letting you take any ability you meet the requirements for. You can also unlearn class abilities if they no longer seem applicable and then learn new ones to replace them. You just need to find a mentor first and convince them that you're worthy of learning their secrets. It makes it so that you can effectively change classes in a way that makes sense in the game world.
I actually think it's possible to have fun wrong, I don't mean that in a "my way is better" way, but I mean there are some behaviors that can be easy to indulge that will lower the quality of the experience for yourself and others. It's the difference between a good and a great time.
For my first big campaign, I set up some custom races in addition to those available in 4e (at the time). I had everyone roll for their race or choose one. After that, our session zero was all about random backstory using Heroes of Legend by Central Casting. From there, everyone selected their classes, rolled stats, etc. and got little boons from what they generated in their backstories. One of the players was the son of our FLGS and after creation was done, we walked happily by his dad and said "I'm a eunuch!" which confused his dad as to why the player was so happy about it. The fun thing about all of this? I had them give me their backstory worksheets and I used those for campaign building which lead to some awesome chase scenes in a ruins/sewer system area, a time travel story, and an escape from a deranged man trying to remove his curse by killing one of the player characters. It was a riot and we had lots of fun for about 3 years :) I have pretty much used a variant of this type of session zero for every campaign since.
Changing your class and stuff actually happened in one of the Dungeons of Drakkenheim Campaigns. I believe they were using a 2 handed axe with a bunch of feats n stuff but they asked if they could change & dual wield axes or vice versa, pretty good...
For rolling stats, we use one of the methods from the 1st edition DMG, where you roll 3d6 six times for each stat, and take the best result for each. You usually end up with at least a couple stats that are pretty good, and the rest are at least average.
Someone on Reddit told me about a "Grid System" for group creation. Roll up 6 numbers for each player, put 'em all in a grid, and players take turns picking and assigning one stat at a time. Players get to discuss who gets what stat. Turns it into a team task that creates a party, instead of just a bunch of characters.
We started at level 3 and all of my PCs have a page of backstory at least, if not more. I like this kind of depth. It gives the characters texture. I do make it clear that whatever they did in their backstory, they will be joining the party for one reason or another. It's a homebrew world and we work together on character backstories. One character grew up an orphan, stole something valuable, was found out as a changeling, then hired by the house he stole from to steal for them and deliver the item to a buyer, he got a ton of money from it, sailed off with his friends to a new country to deliver the item. When they arrived the item was delivered, but another group ambushed them and killed three teammates, and so now he's on the run.
We just wrote less than a page for our characters (wife and me) - gave background on them, and gave a reason for why adventuring. I multiclassed but made it thematic. A wild warrior who has some formal training.
My rule of thumb is every 3 or 5 levels above 0 we start your character at, they should have one journey or reason for being that level. Running a pirate game and had 2 players join at 5th level so they are fairly high ranking naval officers that are now a part of the crew. Not so experienced and powerful they overpower the others but have a reason to be powerful at level 6 still
The "One Cool Thing" thing is something I'm doing in an upcoming game. It's basically a reboot of one of my players games that he doesn't want to run. But basically, everyone has "Myths", which are basically rumors about things they do that give them special abilities. So one of them is known for being fast, and so they have a myth about being so fast people can't react to their movements, which allows them to not provoke opportunity attacks. Just stuff like that, and everyone gets 3. It's really interesting I think, and it allows every character to feel unique.
The latest session I Dm'd for my usual 5e group, we played ShadowDark, and we had five characters up and playing in 20 mins, including randomly rolled backstories that the players really got into. "So, my wizard was a pirate, huh, that's cool" and as the DM that gives me a chance somewhere down the line to put those skills to work, maybe they know how to tie really good knots, build a boat, or sail the seas. ShadowDark has a great table for random backstories.
One of the strengths of systems like Runecairn and Cairn is changing your class is as easy as switching your weapon. In Runecairn, different items bring different abilities and playstyles. Want to cast spells? Grab a staff and runestone. Your abilities determine how well you can use the item, but you're free to customise your playstyle at any point.
I have custom Tables, similiar to DCC, where you Roll d100s to determine a Background, a Vice, a verse and an event that formed the character (For each two and you choose one). They give you your Attributes and already ideas for a characters personality and history. Always Had interesting characters come Out Like an attractive gladiator with a gambling addiction whos fife completly changed, when he was hit by a lightning Strike
This is a stat roll method I saw elsewhere and really liked. All the players roll a combined total of 18d6. (Rerolling 1s is my house rule, but could also be fun without.) Individually, the players then take the pool of 18 numbers they have rolled, adding them together in groups of three to get their 6 ability scores.
My take on reluctant adventurer: Write both the reluctance, and the event that inspired them to leave that reluctance behind, into the backstory. Then everyone is moving forward together at the start of the campaign.
something interesting i found that's worked for me recently came from a workshop on DnD in a theater context - and the advice given there was to start with looking at what you want to do/explore with your character, then seeing what game mechanics/backstory elements will enable that the most.
How I roll stats: generally standard array, sometimes point buy. However, for a recent campaign the DM had us roll 3d6 straight down: ended up with 8 STR and 6 CON, which actually lead to a great backstory where my once-beefy dragonborn was almost consumed by a forest fire (ended up being a Wildfire Druid) but was saved at the last minute by another character (instant bond with that other character). Low STR and CON were a reflection of his burned, desiccated body which drove his quest for an Amulet of Health.
I first start with what kind of role I what to play. Sneaky scout who go ahead and search for traps and informs a party what is in front of them, or some kind of healer, or maybe charming spell caster who is master in illusion and mind control magic etc. Then I pick a Class who will enable me to do so. Many Classes can do one this role but I pick one based on feel. Then I pick Race that is good for this Class and role I chose. For example: Elf for Rogue because of +2 on Dex. Then custom background so that I can chose Skill and Tool Proficiency for my PC that I want. Then I creating background story based on all this. Try to justify what I chose. For example: If I am Proficient with Longbow, why so? Maybe my parents teach me how to hut. If I have Proficiency in Poisoner's kit, why so? Maybe as part of criminal organization I was in they teach me how to be poisoner there etc. Also don’t like full min maxing like what is highest possible AC at level 1 or highest possible damage etc, but also don’t like to harm my PC on purpose. Like Rogue with low Dex. Someone will say but this can be fun. Sure maybe for you, but it’s not for me. You need some optimization to be combat effective so… If I what to play some archer for example, ofc that I what high Dex and Sharpshooter feet.
i always create my characters from visual design first. i draw out the cool character idea i had, then i start figuring out what species and class my character concept could work with. often i end up needing to ask the dm to homebrew/adjust fluff a bit to make my character work, like allowing dragonborn to have tails. my character would just look weird without! the design might change a bit along the way but my initial vision does stay mostly the same. as for backstory, writing an in depth one isn't my thing at all, i usually just brainstorm a few pointers with the dm and if they want to check some of it later they need to go digging for my backstory stuff in our dms, oops. another person in our group LOVES writing at least a good couple pages of backstory complete with multiple related npcs, so we've really got players from both ends of the spectrum, haha
13:50 In my favourite characters backstory, my druid dwar left the mountains and went into the forest to seek peace. He then settled in a small village and opened an inn. So my DM made me able to cook for the party and if I mix in the right ingredients I am able to give them temporary hp or a strength buff for a few hours after eating/long rests. (But If I want to cook I must have enough meat and ingredients so every player has a hungercapacity based of its height to "balance" it)
When I'm GMing, we use lots of different ways to roll stats, but the one constant is that all ones are re-rolled. Because as one of the group said, "Rolling ones just sucks."
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Beautiful dice, but please don't lose it. It will give "caltrops" a new painful meaning during a night craw to the fridge. Looks like someone rolled a natural 1 and stomped a d4! Ouch!
"DnD is not something to have imposter syndrome about" is such a good quote. Need to remind myself of that both as a DM and player regularly.
Thanks! It's about fun first :)
This made me think: for level 1, the first act of "A New Hope" is a good amount of backstory, all of "A New Hope" is too much backstory.
I'd go as far as to say that it doesn't even need the first act...
"Dude's an orphan, who doesn't know his parents. He grows up on his uncle's farm, far away from civilization. He dreams about becoming a space pilot, but his uncle wouldn't let him go to the academy for one reason or another. All his friends already left the place, so he sits alone in the middle of nowhere when adventure finds him."
...is a way better backstory than any of my players ever gave me.
this is going to be my new standard, this is perfect framing
Right up til he finds his aunt and uncle dead. That's where the adventure starts. Great way to put it. I'm stealing this.
The campaign starts in the cantina 😅
@Wolfsspinne To me, that doesn't justify 1st level. That's a commoner with proficiencies from their background.
If your backstory was until a week ago you were a town guard, you haven't made a 1st level fighter, you've made a guard.
I love the ones saying allow any printed material,
Either they are too innocent, not yet having encountered an owlin chronurgy wizard with silverby barbs, lucky and the like, or they are the ones playing those kind of characters.
I think half-hobbitism can work with certain character personalities. Like, they physically go on the adventure but simply fail to acknowledge it. I've had characters who gained a few levels before they stopped seeing themselves as merely working a job, having a wild night out, or whatever it was that got them out of the house. It can still be used as a callback later on in the campaign. Something like if Merry and Pip asked the Orcs in The Two Towers "you're not taking us to Farmer Maggot, are you?" "No, to Saruman!" "Oh thank goodness!" "Uh, Pip, I think Saruman might be just as bad." "Why? It's not like we've stolen any of his vegetables yet." "...Yet?" "Oh, aye, he probably will be just as angry after."
I've done something like that with one of my most recent characters. He's a storm sorcerer with a severe case of amnesia who found himself travelling with this group of adventurers and since he neither knows how to get home nor where home even is he just sticks with the party. But he is still convinced that he's not an adventurer, he's just a lost commoner far from home who screams out loud when he sees a homunculus or just at the mention of a dragon roaming around in the area.
Yes! There's a player in my campaign who plays the "reluctant adventurer" cleric who just wants to stay home but his god makes him go adventure to spread awareness about the god. So the character is always moaning and complaining about everything, but without actually avoiding the adventure. And it's friggen hilarious!
For me I usually come up with a silly little concept like "what if there is a wizard who got kicked out of wizard school for messing up spells and she has a pet frog she calls Professor"
And then I build her giving her more and more depth from there. Like she was accepted in the school because of a scholarship and her family thinks she is just on an internship now.
I even ended up naming all 6 of her sisters and her parents.
I play a character who attended "Alchemy School" and immediately upon graduation was struck on the head. Living as a bumbling gross thief for a decade before said thief was rebrain damaged and my wizard sprung back out. Love some goofy stuff 😌
(This was just an excuse to pop my character in in the middle of a dungeon from one of the NPCs they had)
I do the same, I take a silly idea or a bit it like and then fully flesh it out and give full story and personality to the characters.
My main 5e character really just started as "What if druid but dinosaur" and then fully developed the idea, background and story so that it works out
Yeah that's a great concept to start from!
i have a somewhat similar character actually! his name is jupiter and he is a small tabaxi who's parents enrolled him into a fancy magic school, but he was kicked out because he just couldn't learn to cast any magic no matter how hard he tried. he then decided to move into a hut in the woods and start brewing magic potions to replicate spell effects instead. mechanically he plays like a standard evocation wizard, flavor wise he is just chucking around explosive bottles to cast fireball and what have you. he loves blowing stuff up :]
I am so stealing this idea. LOL In fact I may take it a step farther and say the frog literally IS his professor who he accidentally permanently trapped in a Frog form and his quest is to someday find out what he did and reverse it. LOL I love this!
What's interesting is that I almost always start by picking a race/class/sub-class combo that I like, roll a random background, and then asking myself "what would it take for someone of this race and background to become this class and sub-class?" That usually makes for something interesting and imagining that upbringing or the trials the character went through informs what the personality (and funny voice) should be like.
I really like that
I love the idea of the reluctant adventurer, but I've only pulled it off once. My Fiancé was playing my characters twin, and my character's only reason to go on the adventure was to make sure her twin didn't end up dead. So even though my character was reluctant, she didn't need convincing to go as long as her twin was off to the races. (and my Fiancé leaned into the plucky adventuring type)
As a GM, as long as you want the Reluctant hero to go on the adventure as a player, and are willing to come up with reasons to come along, its fine....but its super annoying when the reluctant hero player is maybe new, and gets frustrated and just says "I don't want to go into the dungeon guys, I'll see you at the tavern" and then gets mad at me for somehow not making an adventure for a character that doesn't want to go on an adventure.
Yea I think you can make a reluctant adventurer if you also build in the reason they have to adventure from the beginning. Like they are in debt, or they are being blackmailed etc.
That's actually a really good way to make the reluctant character. Well done!
@@AndrewJHayford Even "this isn't my jam, see you guys when you get back" can work if the player then doesn't get mad when their narrative "involvement" boils down to "you spend the night drinking in the tavern". Obviously if the rest of the party _needs_ their capabilities to not die or whatever, that's a problem. But if it's a "milk run", and especially if you have a player that's there, but isn't up to a serious game for the night, parking their character in a tavern can be a reasonable solution.
@@lperkins2 That player effectively does nothing though while the rest of the folks play the game. Typically in my session zero I tell people, if you decide your character would not participate in the party any longer, as in your goals no longer align with the group, its time to roll up a new character and your old character becomes an NPC.
My neighbour bob back in the day had floor to ceiling bookshelves almost overflowing with notebooks containing nothing but characters. He didn't even really like playing,he just loved creation. They were organised by edition, he had over 11k books. Truly a man prepared for any encounter
Clearly a Tomb of Horrors veteran.
There's a huge difference between a reluctant adventurer and one who gets homesick.
Also, if you're running an adventure like ravnica or dungeon dudes' setting, where it's all in the same city, your character might not want to leave the city, and that's fine.
I like to play a reluctant adventurer more for story purposes, and usually when they meet the party they're trying to get back home. I don't like the kind of reluctance that means they need convincing to adventure, I like the kind of reluctance that leads to adventure. Think Arnold from the magic school bus, he's always "I knew I should've stayed home today" but he is still going on the adventure. Possibly more important, he's the one making sure everyone gets home safely.
That sounds like a good way to go. I like the idea of the reluctant adventurer, when it is done right. A character who is an adventurer due to circumstance and gradually grows into the role certainly could work out. One straightforward example would be a person from a small village who would have been perfectly happy to stay there, but something bad happened (i.e. family conflict, political conflict, lack of economic opportunity, or the village is destroyed by stinky ogres), and the character has to leave. Another example could be a character that signed on to a mundane job (i.e. miner, caravan laborer, bureaucrat), but the job led to some unexpected events. This situation could be a good starting point for a DM who wants to do something other than "everyone randomly meets in the tavern." If the event in the character's back story that caused the character to start to wander is somehow tied to the DM's overall story, that could help keep the character motivated throughout the campaign. A good reluctant adventurer needs a motivation in the back story to embark upon an adventurer.
Magic School Bus analogy sold me 👍
I’d add: leave room to grow out of your concept. IME, every character I’ve played for any real length of time started out as some kind of concept, but eventually grew into a unique & complex individual. A concept works best as a scaffolding to help you find the character; don’t make it into a straight jacket.
I agree. Lots of people plan out their character progression before the campaign even starts. I never do that. I let the game story direct my development. Sometimes it will mean taking some multiclassing. Sometimes it will steer me towards retaining prior choices.
Thank you for featuring my take, and thanks to all in this wonderful community for upvotes! I love your take on the class, and totally agree with your view. Dnd and TTRPGs are not video games. They are not limited mechanically to one single path of what constitutes a valid build, class or anything in that vein. Just do you, and let everyone playing with you have a chance to do their own thing too, including the DM.
Preach. My favorite character I've played, leading to me playing them repeatedly, is a hobgoblin war wizard (no multiclass) who wields a sword and wears half plate and a shield. Supremely good ac and saves, maxing con with the hobgoblin bonus means my hp is competitive with most martials, and my damage is the weakest portion but between buffs like haste, vampiric touch, and tenser's transformation when I reach higher levels, blade cantrips, etc even his damage is not super lacking. He pulls his weight.
Plus as a hobgoblin noble it gives me an excuse to play a loyal and trustworthy but arrogant and vindictive noble type.
It's hardly the most out there build but it is definitely "non standard"
@@sassyviking6003 That is such a cool build, love the concept!
@@jemleye thanks
Was about to comment a similar thing, altho, i have a video game that doessomething similar to that, FF V, the final fantasy game where they pulled the mechanic where, you can swap your class at will, to put in FF XIV, go take a look, that game sure would be inspiration to use as a DM when a player would request swapping their class
It was a great comment! :)
Thank you for your superb comment for our Ember Dice Bob! Early Bird pledge is still available at our campaign!! :)
As an argument for sometimes having long, complex backstories: Id look at Beastboy.
Beastboy has a very long, complex, and tragic backstory. But its not crucial. You can still watch him in the team titans while hes not the main character and have fun. This long background simply provides interesting context for the complex character and gives the dm options for the rare instance when it comes up.
So feel free to make a novel long backstory for character. Just also make it so the character is interesting even if that backstory hasnt come up.
Yep the last line is crucial. The character is not their past! Furthermore, long backstories ARE cool, but the player who writes it should also be able to provide the GM with a short summary or ideas of how to incorporate some elements if they're expecting the GM to do that
Most of the time I start with the mini. I create the mini, print it, paint it, and as I do this I create a narrative of who they are based on their distinctive features. Then I consider what class I can shape into something that looks like the character. The answer is usually warlock, because they are so good at bending into just about any theme, even to the point of basically replicating other classes.
In this one campaign I'm playing in we had a "community array". There are five players, including myself, and the DM. SO all of us would roll 4d6 and drop the lowest. That way all of the players had the same stat pool and felt involved with each others characters even before the campaign started. We could put those stats where we wanted.
That’s how I like to do it when everyone’s making characters together
Yes, this is exactly what I do. It also prevents the best rolled character front totally overshadowing the worst rolled character during the game.
I'm playing at a table that did something similar, but everyone rolled their own set of 6 stats, and then those arrays were treated as a community pool of arrays to pick from. Being able to make choices typically feels better as a player, but it also kept anyone from feeling stuck with subpar stats.
That didn't stop two people from picking the array that had both a 4 and a 7 in it, but at least it was a choice they made. :P
@@jorih3995 I saw a Curse of Strahd campaign do this and someone rolled four 1s. But they've been enjoying it.
@@MarcusNoble One of my favorite characters I've played recently was a swashbuckler rogue with a wisdom score of 6. Very charming, very dashing, not a lick of common sense in her head. Having that one major stat can be a lot of fun for some people, but it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea.
I LOVE characters with weaknesses. I find myself virtually always making a character with both low AC and HP, because then they can do cool stuff, but also need protection and cooperation from the rest of the team.
Careful.... you don't want to go SO far as to make your character useless and incompetent. Then why is this character even here? The party would've been better off kicking this character off the team.
If you're talking about spellcaster characters, that's fine (hopefully you didn't put a dump stat into the primary spellcasting stat though).
@@guyman1570 It is possible to make a functional spellcasting build that never calls on your spellcasting modifier for any of the spells and avoiding features that use it as well. The big issue is being locked out of multiclassing. Like, for instance, a nonHexblade melee (or even ranged weapon later on if you want) Warlock that relies on Booming Blade and Prestidigitation, with buffing spells like Armor of Agathys or Spirit Shroud, and various interesting Invocation choices.
Could be a meathead jock type with all mental stats dumped that accidentally made a pact with an otherworldly entity, or the lawful stupid paladin that's not actually a paladin.
Rather than rolling 3d6 in order, I prefer rolling 2d6+3 (also in order).
It's true, it delivers a more centered set of stats. Some might say the results are dull or grey, but I like my campaign settings to be more credible and so I think the resulting PCs are more grounded to the world they inhabit.
Yeah finding a stat generation method that fits the setting/tone is more important than making big numbers
This is relevant but not exactly only related to character creation, but I think its important and waaay more fun to set limits on what source books or even what subclasses you are using in this game. Boundaries introduce creativity and also then the DM and player has a better idea of what the world looks like, and how things play together
All the tables I play ban Tasha's and one of them even bans Xanathar's.
I love overcoming creative obstacles in order to get what I want.
Beats having to curate wildly different homebrews, arbitrarily picking favorites and making people jealous.
i love restricted settings, they can have so much more intent and flavor behind the few choices instead of the dm needing to half assedly fit everything into the same setting! i take my restricted settings into a bit of a different direction though, picking some species from source books and adding a bunch of homebrew species on top of that, to build on the specific theme i want. like my homebrew setting where all allowed species are stuff like lizardfolk, grung (i remade the lore because wtf is the official lore), bullywug, locathah, tortle, a homebrew snail people, etc. humans and more human-like species just wouldn't work in my setting!
I so disagree with you guys on that. Not saying that you are wrong. But I think really differently on that but I am trying to understand your guys point of vue, because I tend to see more people to be vocale online about limiting races and classes and subclasses then the other way around I don't understand. I get the point where you like a race and don't like another but to prevent other players from enjoying their favorite race I don't get it.
@@fishsticxz But why wouldn't they work. Even if the human are treated poorly so what. Personally I can handle npc being angry or r*cist or hateful or whatever toward my character. Maybe you are a humanoid that somehow found their way to that region, maybe they were teleported to this realm, or dimension by an evil wizard or a magical door or trap or a planeswalker who teleported into the wrong plane. I think that most often these decision are born of elitism, selfish behavior, lazyiness and lack of imagination. And I am not saying that you are any of those things, these are based on my anecdotal experience of DM and other player thinking like that.
@@Barthenn It's like OP said. It's a question of boundaries.
The presence of a flying bird man character may ruin the enjoyment of some people in certain instances. Or in Fishsticxz's setting, it's the "normal" races that would ruin what he is going for.
Art only exists because of boundaries. The fun comes from making choices, and this process would not be possible without boundaries.
Also, this is a communal game. You have to deal with other people to play, and so, the setting of boundaries is vital. It's not because "do whatever" is an option that everyone is forced to take that option.
Like everything in human interactions, it's a question of negociation, not of possibilities.
I came up with an idea for my players in my campaign that sounded good in my head, but probably would only work with a better DM. I told my players to come up with two secrets.
1. Something you know, but your character doesn't know.
2. Something your character knows, that the other players don't know.
Then I would add a third after seeing these with something the DM knows that the player nor his character knows. My idea was to work all of these into the campaign story.
Unfortunately our game became a 'dungeon of the week' campaign and all the 'secret' backstory hooks were either abandoned or forced into the game without much impact.
Definitely an interesting concept! It's a bummer when that kind of planning doesn't build to much, but if it was fun making the secrets, it was still worth it
I think anything is okay as long as everyone at the table agrees on it. Everything depends on the people you're playing with and if someone has an idea that won't be fun for you, it's your responsibility to speak up about it, or listen to the others when they say your idea might not work at that table. There are as many different kinds of groups as different kinds of people (which is to say, essentially infinite)
For me, the way I make a character changes every time. For my last game where I played a Dwarf Barbarian, it started with the setting and race almost at the same time. (I am well known for loving my dwarfs when it comes to fantasy setting among my family and friends). My brother, who was DMing had specifically written the dwarfs in his world for me to play, giving several options, and after I had picked one of those options that seemed interesting to me, I then chose the class and then my first level feat (we homebrew that every character gets a feat at creation to help find that uniqueness) and then built my backstory around why I ended up with that feat and why I was out adventuring. So the backstory was informed by all the choices made up to that point and made sense within the world. Stats came at the very end as they didn't really matter for the character other than the mechanics of the game. I can give an overview of my character if it's wanted! :-P
I create a character at level 20 to get an idea of where I would want it to end up in terms of ability, and then scale it back down to the appropriate campaign level
0:19 I've seen a DM find a great way to use player characters he made. We're playing a module where canonically many adventurers have tried and failed to overthrow the BBEG before. The DM used a few PCs he had created, to be former adventurers who had long ago been charmed/persuaded by the BBEG, so they acted as antagonists.
I was in a campaign once, not gming but just playing in, where after a while a player decided he really didnt like his character class, the GM refused to allow him to change because it would "break immersion" so the player just started playing progressively riskier until they were inevitably killed off and got to role up a new character. Having to role play like it wasn't super jarring that one of our years long friends had been killed in front of us and then we immediately turned around and started hanging out with a new dude who behaved largely the same but had different colored hair and punchd good instead of playing the harp was WAY MORE IMMERSION BREAKING, so I very much believe in letting players re-class if they want/
I had no idea that creating a character starting with the name was such a rare thing. Every character I've ever created for anything has always started with the name.
I've never started with a name. The name is literally the hardest part for me.
@@patrickbateman3146 Same with me, but I've always gone with the rule that if I can come up with a good name, everything else will fall into place.
for me the name was the hardest but most important part of Making my character. I never understood why so many never cared.
@@patrickbateman3146 Same, unless I have a name ahead of time it's the most difficult aspect of any character system. But othertimes a joke or interesting name can lead to some great character ideas.
The name is always the last thing I come up with. I will make a full character sheet, backstory outline, and come up with every backstory proper noun before I name my character. I have joined a pre-existing campaign without a name for my character and let the other PCs come up with one for me in-character. I do not know why I am like this. It has never not worked out.
I always start with "which class haven't I played recently?" Backstories are rarely important to me.
hey bob just wanted to say i really appreciate your videos and the way you present your points. Thank you!
I appreciate that! :)
Even though I don't have a group to play with:(
I have created 6 different characters in case I ever found a group (and if the DM accepts them).
1. A Female Drow Death Domain Cleric sworn to the Raven Queen. Her background is Feylost.
2. A Male Mountain Dwarf Wizard(planning School of Necromancy) with the Rune Carver background.
3. A Female custom Race Half-Moon Elf Half-Frost Giant Barbarian (planning Path of Giants) with Planar Philosopher background.
4. A Female Half-Moon Elf Half-Sun Elf Ranger (planning Drakewarden) with Sage background.
5. A Female Astral Elf Paladin (planning Oath of Conquest) with Anthropologist background.
6. A Female Sun Elf Druid (planning Circle of Spores) with Gate Warden background.
What's really fun is the Wizard, the Ranger, and the Barbarian all have distant connections in their backstories:)
Additionally, none of my characters have the stereotypical "Tragic Backstory/Dead Family" trope.
balance is key, make a character that is both fun to play (combat and skills and stats) but also fun to roleplay (backstory and personality ). You can start with either, but make sure you develop both, also talk to your dm, he will give you great tips that will also help him in making an interesting story and relate to the plot
I can understand the idea of someone “building” their character like it was a utility knife. However I strongly prefer the random DCC creation process. Living through their level 0 funnel made me more emotionally attached to them and to the other party members.
As a GM, I have my players do 4d6 drop the lowest once or twice each (minimum of 4 total arrays) and then have then pick between all of the available arrays.
Edit: spelling
I like this method as well. It makes it feel like rolling stats is collaborative between the players rather than adversarial.
It allows the players who want high stats either for powergaming or to pull off some weird build to have the opportunity to do so while not harming the players who don't care much about their stats being high.
It also helps ward off the minor resentment or jealousy between players who just rolled different numbers and some didn't get the stats they might have wanted.
Yeah I think 4d6 drop lowest seven times has become a pretty popular method for 5e
I read something a while ago that has stuck with me that I think I'll use when I DM my upcoming campaign: each player rolls 4d6 drop the lowest one time (or two if there's only 3 players) and the resulting rooms become the array for all players. Still gives the fun of rolling stats but also gives everyone the same ability scores to play with
Following the line of "dont be good a everything leave something where you will the teams help" and one character i really enjoyed recently was Vinur, my half orc ranger jack of all trades in PF2e, he was at least trained in every single skill except lore skills (history, arcana, religion...)
Yep even the jack of all trades should be missing a trade or two :P
I came up with a rolling method where you roll 4d6 drop the lowest then you flip the die upside down, one roll 2 ability scores much tighter ranges for characters a 6,6,6,1 becomes a 1,1,1,6 if you get something great you are bound to be lacking somewhere and if you roll average you’re probably going to be a good all rounder!
My first experience as a GM was with players whom created nice simple backgrounds with blanks and mysteries to be solved. I used this hooks to incorporate the players on the setting, campaign, puzzles and NPCs and it was so fun to DM that campaign. Thank guys ❤
I've done most of these but I think my favorite is to write down very broad concept and strengths and weaknesses, then class & stats to match the concept, then finally flush out a short backstory usually in a conversation with the dm.
I like to start with Job Title and then figure out what would be the best way to represent that. Wizard Sage Librarian is pretty commonplace, but Fae Bard Lawyer is 👌
Another point for DCC basing level 0 characters on their "Occupation"!
I start off a character with either art I find or music, either the way it makes me feel or the lyrics.
I like doing the "starting with names" thing, or at least something similar to it. Certain names evoke certain concepts and visuals and ideas, and sometimes a name would just pop into my head and I'd go "oh! That's a cool character name! Now who are they?" - sometimes these bursts of inspiration can come from something I watched or read recently, a lot of the times I find unique names and naming schemes in fantasy media fascinating. For example, in GOT/ASOIAF where a given house has a tradition of repeating the same name (i.e. the Brandons of house Stark) or the same syllable (i.e. the many 'Ty's of house Lannister - Tywin, Tyrion, Tytos, etc)
I don't like starting with names because I can't make up names to safe my life so any character I make will ultimately be named "Jemand" literaly meaning "someone" in german
I like to check all the different classes and subclasses to see what I find enjoyable to play first. And I also use the basis of "my character was a nobody until they got flung into an adventure" because that is what I personally like, watching them grow from zero to hero.
My last character that I did this way (not vetoed because everyone was new to the system) was an Ancestors Oracle from PF2e, essentially three ancestors haunt your character (1 martial, 1 spellcaster, 1 skill monkey) and affect your gameplay differently every day. So she was a coffee salesman that because of her addiction to coffee couldn't hear her ancestors but once the occupying force stopped the trade she not only went into slight withdrawal but could also hear the ancestors for the first time.
I was having so much fun with it that I made small anecdotal stories about each ancestor like how the martial ancestor invented whipped cream...
I agree with you about the DCC comments - the DCC character creation process has a great deal of appeal and I would love to see more "startup builds" done in that fashion!
The “thinks they are different alignment” thing reminded me that one of my favourite things to do with D&D especially is characters who want to be/think they are a different profession to their class, like my smooth conwoman dragged back in for one last heist who just happens to be a fae chalock, or my hapless professional musician who is actually a wild magic sorc and not happy about it. It just gives some instant details from the ‘how did this happen’ bit. Rolls wise though I’m usually 4d6-dropLowest and assign at will, pointsBuy or standardArray.
I agree - if you're playing like, an eberron setting, an elephant character is not gonna fit.
Also I think eventful or long backstories can work so long as you give a tldr to the DM and it makes sense. I played a grandma character once who had done lots of stuff because of her age, but just nothing epic. And then she died to a wolf at level 3 haha. Vague or a sketch outline can work too - I love discovering stuff about characters during play
Yep I think providing a summary is key. Much like how the GM can create chapters and chapters of lore, but they still have to find easy and simple ways to share that info in ways that matter to the players
bob i love your videos so smart and friendly it’s rare
Thank you!
I think that it’s valuable to leave blank spaces in your character’s backstory so that you can fill them in at the table. This is a particularly useful way to create connections with other PCs. “Oh, gods! I had that professor too! Horrible, right?! She’s the one that got me expelled, so that I had to learn spell crafting basics on my own.” “You like that song? Heinous Halflings is my favorite group! Ooooh, that dulcimer player is SO cute!” “Your father taught you that? I never knew mine, but yours sounds so nice. Tell me more.”
i often find a cool mini, and use it as an inspiration for a character. as far as stats go, my table just does hero stats, 72 points divided however we like
One of my favorite characters was inspired by a pathfinder npc standee. Standee was a barmaid wielding a tankerd of ale like she was gonna hit somone. Nerrah firefist became a rouge specializing in makeshift weapons, after having to put a stop to one to many bar fights and drunken catcallers.
My favorite is everyone rolls on a chart to determine what headgear they have. It doesn't offer any stats whatsoever. It's just a style of hat.
🤠
10:12 I like to use random name generators using real names, then find the meaning of those names to help create the character’s personality.
I generally begin a new story with level-0 generic characters. they are a step above being commoners. all stats begin as 10 and you get to add 1D6 (up to 6 total points) to the base stats.
the generic classes are;
acolyte
adept
expert
warrior
the character cannot evolve into an actual class, until they acquire a mentor. (if they live that long)
Treantmonk posted a while back about a method for determining stats using a deck of cards that I thought was interesting. Our table's experience rolling stats in traditional ways for longer campaigns hasn't been positive - even with guaranteed sums it just sucks to have one player who can't contribute because their stats are too "flat" and so their primary stat isn't high enough to land attacks or spells.
That's why I use point buy
Thanks for sharing the info about Treantmonk’s alternative stat process. Much of our group has been playing for decades and I’m always looking for ways to mix things up.
I'll have to look into TM's method!
What I do for character creation, although I advise that NOBODY ELSE DO THIS, is to roll for stats, but instead of dropping the lowest value, I drop the second highest, or the highest depending on the DM. I like to think it reassures DMs that I'm not cheating.
I also always make the character first, both race and story wise. Then I choose a class, then roll for stats and allocate them according to personality.
i usually just use standard array for stats, but the idea of 4d6 drop the highest is really interesting. maybe for two stats you roll 4d6 drop the highest, two stats you roll 3d6, and for two stats you roll 4d6 drop the lowest?
That can work okay and as long as you are playing with a group that has a good grasp of the stat rolling method. I could see someone that hasn't heard/used it before getting confused or frustrated by the fluctuating rules for the stats.
Yeah mix it up!
My favorite way to create a character is either to roll stats down the line and see what that inspires or come up with a FATE style core identity/Cypher style “adjective noun that verbs”.
I’ll normally come up with a few loose ideas there and then find what fits with the party well.
I think a reluctant healer who doesn't want to see a new group of friends run off and die is an okay start.
I've seen the end point of this. One of the longest running campaigns I've been a part of, my best friend was playing a classic Dwarf Cleric of the life domain. He started the campaign bright eyed and optimistic. Over the course of the campaign, the entire party around him changed around 4 times, due to a very, very high rate of character death. He was the only one that survived the entire course of the campaign. By the end, when all was said and done, he had completely lost his optimism, and felt it was his obligation to bear witness to the nobility of the doomed adventurers who would accompany him.
@@infinitesheldon5710 That's epic. Sad, but Epic.
When I roll stats I use a fun method I found that forces weaknesses in charcters while keeping everyone's total points equal.
Roll a d8, d10, and d12. Then you do the following math: d8+10/-15 D10+8/-17 D12+6/-19
Just like that you have a party of characters all equally capable whther through being fantastic and terrible at things or being average and a jack of all trades across the board. It has allowed for amazing characters while allowing more freedom than some stricter rolling types and none of us really enjoy point buy and love the randomness of dice
Those metal dice are beautiful.
But please bring something sturdy to roll on. Those don’t need to touch my table 😂
Yeah the one set is spiky!
It's ok to be a reluctant adventurer if played from the angle that you exhibit reluctance for a task but do it anyway without the group having to convince you in game. Also this character shouldn't stay static. For growth over time this character should come to realize the importance of what you're group is doing long term and the reluctance should end IMO.
Great points!
randomly generating characters through online resources is one of my favorite ways of getting a base to work from. its fun to mold that collection of ideas into a fleshed out character.
Whenever I start making a character, I'll have a chat with the DM about the setting and campaign, then put together a backstory with 3 goals:
1. Give the character a reason to be adventuring with the party.
2. Make the character make sense in the context of the setting and the start of the first session.
3. Add in a little adventure in the backstory itself.
Level 0 characters are the exception to that last point, but even just a level 1 character must have gone through some shit to get to where they are. Sarsaparilla Greg the cabbage farmer would get his shit kicked in by a level 1 fighter, so logically, it tracks that the aforementioned fighter didn't just sit around apprenticing a candlemaker or something all their life. I do my best to keep my backstories concise, confining them to a paragraph or so at most. In my experience, letting the DM fill in the blanks makes for easier side-quest fodder/campaign integration.
That sounds like a good process!
Came up with a stat rolling thing recently. Start with standard array/point buy. Then roll for a bit of variance - this roll could depend on what you/your DM/group are feeling, but 1d6 is the sweet spot for me. That result gives you a pool of... I dunno, Change Points to spend modifying your generated stats. Spend one by increasing one stat by one, and decreasing another by one. Probably best to give increases a hard limit of two or three.
For when you want mostly balanced characters with just a little extra pizzazz given out in different dollops by the hands of fate.
Reluctant hobbit can work, I think, if everyone at the table agrees that the character may not want to go on the journey, but the player does. That includes the player, who must be willing to accept a flimsy or uncompelling argument for why they should go. My rule of thumb is... the Irish tea offer rule. You should refuse once, they must ask again, you can refuse a second time, but you should be less obstinate about it, and they must ask again if you do, and then you must stay for tea, because you always wanted tea, its just polite to refuse once or twice first.
"Do you want some tea?"
"No I don't want to put you out."
"No really I'll get you some tea."
"Nah you don't have to."
"Let me get you some tea."
"Alright, and thank you."
100%
Haha yes if it's understood like that, and seems to be done with quickly, that would work for me :)
I recently played in a campaign where the whole thing was about secrets. That ended up being super cool, because part of the adventure was being suspicious of other characters. We also start off at third level, which meant that we had to have some kind of a backstory. I was especially proud of my character, who was in essence using rules from 5E, a clone, who could be called back to a new body, and then teleported to where his previous body died. That was a secret. The other players didn’t know, and it made for some very interesting problems, when they thought he died, but then he returned. I also played a race, I don’t remember what the race was, but it was a race that was pretty taciturn and aloof, which added to the feelings of suspicion. The race that has blue skin, I don’t remember, and I don’t wanna look it up right now cause it’ll screw up the comment. But overall it was super fun, the main reason being that we all knew that they were going to be secrets involved.
Honestly, my go-to move is to see what everyone else is playing first and then take a class that is left over because I like the challenge of rounding out the party. I also try to play deeply flawed characters because I LOVE the "Climb to Cool". Eventually, you're gonna get a win, but having a character with guaranteed "losses" that will fall on their face makes those successes so much more worthwhile.
im in my first DnD campaign right now and my guy is a reluctant hero. He is uncaring about being a hero, he just wants the money and then wants to leave. But the part of that which is so much more fun than a regular old hero is that throughout the campaign he is slowly gaining reasons to stay. First he was just being paid to be a body guard for another PC, but then he starts to actually care about PC and then a new player gets him into a contract to help him find his long lost lover so now he has all these different responsibilities and emotions and slowly realizes he actually cares about these people and wants to help them no matter what over this long character arc of going from "Pay me money" to "I'll fight by your side no matter what"
How can someone hate backstories ? Like the charscters just spring into existence ? Lol
For some people that is a good tactic. Hating backstories is a bit much but if they mean they hate characters starting with a LOT of backstory i could understand the sentiment.
One of my players "hates" backstories, so she loved to play Mausritter and DCC where background is randomized.
She can roleplay past occupations very well, she just doesn't like to come up with them.
yeah if the backstorie is more then 7 words is trash, just "farmer", "city-guard" or "librarian" is enough.
There's probably a bad experience involved, maybe a player made this elaborate backstory and kept pushing it on the other players/DM.
I always keep my backstories very simple for D&D type games. Only ever get in depth for call of cthulhu type stuff.
The way I made Plague was picking his name and designing him and working from there. I haven’t had a chance to play with him, but it meant i could go through classes and homebrew until I found one that really fits. In case you’re wondering, this has left him as a plague doctor-robed frail man with a medical degree and as modern of medical knowledge as the DM will allow.
Best character creation advice I got. Character creation = 3D6!!!! 3D6!!!! 3D6!!!! 3D6!!!!
It works!
After 35 years+ as the only DM, I'd just like to use even one of the hundreds and hundreds of characters that I've rolled up over the years.
We've all heard of 4d6DL1 but if you want slightly beefier rolls consider 6d4DH1 for a max of 20 and a low of 5, with a +2 higher average than 4d6dl1 its hard to roll too poorly, plus more dice is more fun.
I'm not a regular player, but recently I had a back story written for a (pretty heavily LOTR-inspired) character. I copied it all into ChatGPT and asked it to suggest what class might be suitable, given the details in their back story... it was interesting, and it was helpful to me.
I’m building a LotR one shot right now, I’m ecstatic
But it said Monk and you said hell no
@@trappedinamerica7740 ...what insinuates that?
I created a character with a bunch of multiclass stuff, its how I realized how much Im not a major fan of multiclassing in a campaign. Talked with my DM about it, decided to go single class, asked if he could find a way to make it lore relevant, he did, I appreciate it, and I love how it works for my character now. Ya there is "specific rules for changing subclasses" but seriously sometimes "It happens because magic" is enough.
I like the thought of building ur backstory together. Like you start with a base concept, and u work with your dm and either solo or with your party to add to it.
Like "I am a child" as a base, then you ask, who is your family? "My mother is a high ranking drow. My father is leonin" you all figure out what that means mechanically. Other questions like what do you do. What do you like. Why are you here.
I had a list I found somewhere to build a backstory... I dunno where it is lol
Thanks for featuring my comment, Bob. Skills, feats and mechanics can quickly become a prison if you let them. And like you said... DCC rocks!
I’m constantly impressed by how thoroughly and thoughtfully you engage with your community in your videos, Bob, keep it up! As for how I have my players generate stats, at least in 5e, I like the PCs to feel powerful, so I have them roll 4d6 drop lowest, but I have them roll 7 times and keep the highest 6 stats, then assign them wherever they want. 5e is a heroic fantasy game, and I like my players to feel like heroes. If they want to play a character with weaker stats or with built-in mechanical flaws, which I enjoy doing as a player, I’ll let them go for the lowest six if they want to, but I like not having to worry too much about throwing “unbalanced” encounters at them if it suits the story.
Regarding funny voices, I once played a grung spore druid that didn't speak common. Understood it, so I could go along with the party, but chaotic poison frog communicating entirely through facial emotion was a great challenge (especially because I tend to lead the group, and wanted to encourage others to take charge instead).
A method I found works for myself is a character web to show how different elements either connect into one another or create branches. For example, I had a super speed hero in a M&M game who had a successful business career before the cowl called. These elements came together to inspire how the character did not see much use for their speed in their daily life growing up and that they were hounded by school sports teams, inspiring them to downplay their abilities.
This method is great for visual thinkers or those who have issues keep track of details in blocks of text/notes
I got a player whose character is refusing to kill, but whose character sheet requires them to kill in order to gain certain bonuses
this was the player’s idea and I’m totally with it.
The main thing I do is offer him conflicts that he’s got to find a way to resolve, or he gains the point from killing his enemies like the character sheet need him to.
He wins either way but it encourages him to attempt peaceful resolutions while keeping him in the combat that he loves
The 5e total conversion mod I've been working on for a while has requirements for all class abilities, letting you take any ability you meet the requirements for. You can also unlearn class abilities if they no longer seem applicable and then learn new ones to replace them. You just need to find a mentor first and convince them that you're worthy of learning their secrets. It makes it so that you can effectively change classes in a way that makes sense in the game world.
I actually think it's possible to have fun wrong, I don't mean that in a "my way is better" way, but I mean there are some behaviors that can be easy to indulge that will lower the quality of the experience for yourself and others. It's the difference between a good and a great time.
For my first big campaign, I set up some custom races in addition to those available in 4e (at the time). I had everyone roll for their race or choose one. After that, our session zero was all about random backstory using Heroes of Legend by Central Casting. From there, everyone selected their classes, rolled stats, etc. and got little boons from what they generated in their backstories. One of the players was the son of our FLGS and after creation was done, we walked happily by his dad and said "I'm a eunuch!" which confused his dad as to why the player was so happy about it. The fun thing about all of this? I had them give me their backstory worksheets and I used those for campaign building which lead to some awesome chase scenes in a ruins/sewer system area, a time travel story, and an escape from a deranged man trying to remove his curse by killing one of the player characters. It was a riot and we had lots of fun for about 3 years :) I have pretty much used a variant of this type of session zero for every campaign since.
Changing your class and stuff actually happened in one of the Dungeons of Drakkenheim Campaigns. I believe they were using a 2 handed axe with a bunch of feats n stuff but they asked if they could change & dual wield axes or vice versa, pretty good...
For rolling stats, we use one of the methods from the 1st edition DMG, where you roll 3d6 six times for each stat, and take the best result for each. You usually end up with at least a couple stats that are pretty good, and the rest are at least average.
Someone on Reddit told me about a "Grid System" for group creation. Roll up 6 numbers for each player, put 'em all in a grid, and players take turns picking and assigning one stat at a time. Players get to discuss who gets what stat. Turns it into a team task that creates a party, instead of just a bunch of characters.
We started at level 3 and all of my PCs have a page of backstory at least, if not more. I like this kind of depth. It gives the characters texture.
I do make it clear that whatever they did in their backstory, they will be joining the party for one reason or another.
It's a homebrew world and we work together on character backstories.
One character grew up an orphan, stole something valuable, was found out as a changeling, then hired by the house he stole from to steal for them and deliver the item to a buyer, he got a ton of money from it, sailed off with his friends to a new country to deliver the item. When they arrived the item was delivered, but another group ambushed them and killed three teammates, and so now he's on the run.
We just wrote less than a page for our characters (wife and me) - gave background on them, and gave a reason for why adventuring. I multiclassed but made it thematic. A wild warrior who has some formal training.
My rule of thumb is every 3 or 5 levels above 0 we start your character at, they should have one journey or reason for being that level. Running a pirate game and had 2 players join at 5th level so they are fairly high ranking naval officers that are now a part of the crew. Not so experienced and powerful they overpower the others but have a reason to be powerful at level 6 still
The "One Cool Thing" thing is something I'm doing in an upcoming game. It's basically a reboot of one of my players games that he doesn't want to run. But basically, everyone has "Myths", which are basically rumors about things they do that give them special abilities. So one of them is known for being fast, and so they have a myth about being so fast people can't react to their movements, which allows them to not provoke opportunity attacks. Just stuff like that, and everyone gets 3. It's really interesting I think, and it allows every character to feel unique.
The latest session I Dm'd for my usual 5e group, we played ShadowDark, and we had five characters up and playing in 20 mins, including randomly rolled backstories that the players really got into. "So, my wizard was a pirate, huh, that's cool" and as the DM that gives me a chance somewhere down the line to put those skills to work, maybe they know how to tie really good knots, build a boat, or sail the seas. ShadowDark has a great table for random backstories.
One of the strengths of systems like Runecairn and Cairn is changing your class is as easy as switching your weapon. In Runecairn, different items bring different abilities and playstyles. Want to cast spells? Grab a staff and runestone. Your abilities determine how well you can use the item, but you're free to customise your playstyle at any point.
I have custom Tables, similiar to DCC, where you Roll d100s to determine a Background, a Vice, a verse and an event that formed the character (For each two and you choose one). They give you your Attributes and already ideas for a characters personality and history. Always Had interesting characters come Out Like an attractive gladiator with a gambling addiction whos fife completly changed, when he was hit by a lightning Strike
This is a stat roll method I saw elsewhere and really liked.
All the players roll a combined total of 18d6. (Rerolling 1s is my house rule, but could also be fun without.) Individually, the players then take the pool of 18 numbers they have rolled, adding them together in groups of three to get their 6 ability scores.
My take on reluctant adventurer:
Write both the reluctance, and the event that inspired them to leave that reluctance behind, into the backstory. Then everyone is moving forward together at the start of the campaign.
something interesting i found that's worked for me recently came from a workshop on DnD in a theater context - and the advice given there was to start with looking at what you want to do/explore with your character, then seeing what game mechanics/backstory elements will enable that the most.
How I roll stats: generally standard array, sometimes point buy. However, for a recent campaign the DM had us roll 3d6 straight down: ended up with 8 STR and 6 CON, which actually lead to a great backstory where my once-beefy dragonborn was almost consumed by a forest fire (ended up being a Wildfire Druid) but was saved at the last minute by another character (instant bond with that other character). Low STR and CON were a reflection of his burned, desiccated body which drove his quest for an Amulet of Health.
I first start with what kind of role I what to play. Sneaky scout who go ahead and search for traps and informs a party what is in front of them, or some kind of healer, or maybe charming spell caster who is master in illusion and mind control magic etc.
Then I pick a Class who will enable me to do so. Many Classes can do one this role but I pick one based on feel.
Then I pick Race that is good for this Class and role I chose. For example: Elf for Rogue because of +2 on Dex.
Then custom background so that I can chose Skill and Tool Proficiency for my PC that I want.
Then I creating background story based on all this. Try to justify what I chose. For example: If I am Proficient with Longbow, why so? Maybe my parents teach me how to hut. If I have Proficiency in Poisoner's kit, why so? Maybe as part of criminal organization I was in they teach me how to be poisoner there etc.
Also don’t like full min maxing like what is highest possible AC at level 1 or highest possible damage etc, but also don’t like to harm my PC on purpose. Like Rogue with low Dex. Someone will say but this can be fun. Sure maybe for you, but it’s not for me. You need some optimization to be combat effective so…
If I what to play some archer for example, ofc that I what high Dex and Sharpshooter feet.
i always create my characters from visual design first. i draw out the cool character idea i had, then i start figuring out what species and class my character concept could work with. often i end up needing to ask the dm to homebrew/adjust fluff a bit to make my character work, like allowing dragonborn to have tails. my character would just look weird without! the design might change a bit along the way but my initial vision does stay mostly the same. as for backstory, writing an in depth one isn't my thing at all, i usually just brainstorm a few pointers with the dm and if they want to check some of it later they need to go digging for my backstory stuff in our dms, oops. another person in our group LOVES writing at least a good couple pages of backstory complete with multiple related npcs, so we've really got players from both ends of the spectrum, haha
13:50 In my favourite characters backstory, my druid dwar left the mountains and went into the forest to seek peace. He then settled in a small village and opened an inn.
So my DM made me able to cook for the party and if I mix in the right ingredients I am able to give them temporary hp or a strength buff for a few hours after eating/long rests. (But If I want to cook I must have enough meat and ingredients so every player has a hungercapacity based of its height to "balance" it)
When I'm GMing, we use lots of different ways to roll stats, but the one constant is that all ones are re-rolled. Because as one of the group said, "Rolling ones just sucks."