Here's a printable list of questions from the video! docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTvrd1K4s8nwkxbT6eNQmje4_tDVoufweRmxMRecCT9F5PhNjyFOy43ydu-DJ--UGp8Z2Y6oMlvh0TB/pub
"what do you think happens after you die?" in the case of my current character, Troy Avelane, paladin of Athena, you get turned into a warforged. (backstory reasons)
Several of my characters: Well I’d have to _know_ my parents first. But I guess the people who wound up raising me were pretty cool. My one character with a ludicrously convoluted story: Technically I was my parent for a bit, so I guess I don’t have a choice in the matter.
my OC difinitly not i dont want to be a politician who refuses to admit our empire has fallen apart that and 3 months after their mothers death their father re married
Funny story, I actually had a Tabaxi Werewolf. Was playing a Tabaxi in CoS and my character decided to help the Werewolves out by joining them. Some of the other characters were not happy about that twist and some of the players weren't either but that was their problem. I thought it would be fun and funny.
Ginny: "Did you have to grow up fast?" My Character: "Not really, considering how short I am." Ginny: "Who do you look up to?" My Character: "Very funny..."
@@vn0688 that is oddly similar to my half-elf illusionist who grew up being abused for his elf blood...so he disguised himself as a tiefling so people would have a real reason to fear him
4 года назад+17
My Changeling Bard "To have my mother love and accept me for who i am, not for what she wants from me."
Ginny staring into my eyes as she dead pan says "Do you think you're attractive? What's your worst habit? When was the last time your cried?" put me in shock
@@GinnyDi As an adult male working on a teenage girl, this one made me realize I have to work on her looks and style more. Than I can try to answer the question.
@@dascientist8443 Is there anything I can say to make my comment more clear & straight forward? Like... She's the 2nd least developed character I have so I figgured Ginny Di's questions could help flush her out a bit? A reason she's so young is her story starts with her finding a relic as she was wondering off as a young teen.
kairon156 No, your comment is perfectly clear. But if you were to read it without the context of it being on a RUclips video about character developing questions, it would certainly sound strange. She sounds like an interesting character!
Ginny: "Are you a good cook?" Kirsti, my dwarf bard with a decent survival skill who can never roll higher than a 12 even with advantage from a magic cookbook: "In theory"
My dwarf who has mastered traditional dwarven cooking, yes, but the dragonborn is the only one willing to eat it, that one time with the carrion crawler notwithstanding.
@@veggiedragon1000 Evasion only works on dex saves. If you change it to something else, he's fucked. If you want you can have a cold damage fireball that reqyires a wisdom saving throw.
i've got a wip and that very adequately describes what i'm thinking of doing with the protagonist in regards to what magic i give her (and obviously she's gonna have more magic than just light shape shifting, but still)
Me: *Writes their own document full of the questions* Ginny at the end of the video: And I will link a document below with all the questions Me: I am...a fool
"when was the last time you cried?" My sorcerer: "What, I never cry. I'm a warrior" "are you a god liar" My sorcerer: "Well yes, I lied just now and none of y'all noticed. You never notice anything about me" *cries
Well I could just hit you with my really big stick, though I prefer to never forget to remind them I'm not happy with them and me not being happy with them is not a good place to be given I'm the cleric... Not that I couldn't kill them instead, that seems a little harsh when they could always apologise...eventually, any time really, you know before you need me to heal you basically.
I've got a few more. "What's your favourite colour?" "What is your quest?" "What is the captial of Assyria?" "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
I come back to this questionnaire regularly; even if I never end up sharing the results for a particular character, filling it out for myself is just _fun_ Thanks two years later for the consistently useful resource, GInny.
“Want to breathe underwater? Locatha’s a fish! A straight up fish; literally, just a fish. Your armour is high, you get tons of resists; Stay dry and you die, you’re still just a fish.” ~ Jocat
I've been playing d&d for about 5 years and it amazes me that the community can still be so helpful. These questions gave me so much inspiration! Now I have 3 more character ideas haha
I mean, even if you physically and psychologically mature at a different rate than average it would still be a proportionally valid question, just becomes something like "had to fend for yourself at 3" rather than "had to fend for yourself at 13" or whatever yeah?
“Do you see Swiper? Is he in range for Fireball?” This hit me right as I was rolling my eyes at the first question, and it took me minutes to stop laughing.
Ginny: "the goal isn't for these questions to be big charackter defining questions" also Ginny:" if you could change one descision in the past what would you change?"
For some people, that may not be a character-defining question! But... yeah, I mean, if you killed your own family or something I could see that being pretty core. 😬
“You see a huge spider in your room, what do you do?” Me: burn my house down My character, a circle of the moon wood elf Druid: Say hello, offer to help with scouting a web location, discuss the benefits of hanging upside down, typical roommate stuff.
My Drow Cleric of Lolth: build a small room of its own, train it to attack intruders and feed it whatever it wanted. She would also think it was a sign for Lolth.
“When was the last time you cried?” “Do you want to have kids someday?” “Did you have to grow up fast?” “How do you deal with being sick?” “Do you want to grow up to be like your parents?” My Warforged PC: 🤖???
I know these were for D&D characters, but I felt like these were really good real life introspective questions. Taking time to go over everything I’ve been through in my life and where I want to head next. Thank you 😊
@@Malevolent74 omfg now that i think about it... He has this thing where he watches people and learns their habits. Our Paladin has a shield that tells him when there is danger around so as soon as he hears he paladin mumble something (one time it was bird because of an incoming Roc) he gets ready to fight. But then we bypassed a possible dangerous treant ambush because he cried, told it no (he's eladrin so he's friends with trees), and cried more that he didn't want to attack it on his turn of combat (I rolled a fail for the attack so we claimed it was him not even trying.) So maybe like, you know, a bit of Deku.
ahaha, something I always ask my players when they create their character is “if you’re character lived in our world, what would they think of the film: ‘mamma mia’?”
That question is great!! I'm still a bit unsure and trying to get a feel for my character so the fact that I had an immediate response to that made me very happy lol
Hero Smith Mine would lack the intelligence to recognize of the similarities between cats and big cats. A house cat is a fundamentally different animal to him than a mountain lion, and he is uninterested in learning otherwise.
I was writing my answers for these, and I almost skipped the first kiss question, but my initial idea spiraled into a fleshed out story that perfectly painted who my character was as a teen. A great exercise for sure
@@dragoknight589 same here. I wanted to skip it but my character is a bard so even though he's not a stereotypical horny one I had to give him a first kiss. And this is how Azálea, his classmate+girlfriend in the bardic school was formed.
@@akale2620 yes it does, An Adult Dragon sized spider would close to the size of a house where as a Goliath Birdeater is about a half a foot long and weighs 6 ounces.
It’s probably colloquially huge, since a spider the size of a dragon will never fit in your room, especially if you don’t have the noble background. But even then, who knows?
Me, currently not playing and with no reason to really flesh out a character rn: Oh man, maybe I should sit down and answer all these about myself. See what unexpected answers come up for my own life. PS: It also just felt really nice to feel like someone is genuinely asking me all these questions :)
I can say from experience, a fleshed out character can be used to make anything a bit better. Kinda flipped between one of mine and the protagonist of a collab project I’m doing with a friend. I actually might send this, or pop off a few here and there to kinda try an consolidate ideas about the acute traits of a few central characters personalities. Edit: I dabble in writing a lot by the way. It’s fun, and I always like to encourage people to express, explore, and share their creativity however they can.
"We all know that dice are happiness polyhedrals." I'm stealing this...along with just about everything from this vid. I like the idea of doing a question for these at the beginning a lot. I think this will really bring some nice life to my players. Thanks a bunches!
just in time, I'm having trouble developing a character that's very different from me. I have a hard time just figuring out random traits, but anwering questions was much more fun and easy! thanks
“Do you give people second chances?” Penter, fifthist cleric: “I will give them exactly five chances, on the failure after the fifth I will spend five hours slaughtering them” I have never played a single session of dnd. But I still have this character I want to play. But oh boy, how do you play a character whose alignment is the number five?
@@blankflank3488 the character tends towards the closest multiple of five. so they might both do very good and admirable things, just as much as heinous things. his actions can swing a lot, and fitting him into one part of the alignment chart just makes his other actions stick out of it like a sore thumb. well, have you heard of blue-orange alignment? essentially, if you have something that is completely fucking insane and alien, it might not fit into a regular alignment chart.
@@lava2istrue lawful is just their dedication to the number 5, and neutral because dedication to good or evil doesn't matter to them. I think that works. I know a lot of people aren't crazy about sticking to alignment charts, but I think it just gives an idea of your character traits, not that it has to be super duper strict, altho it should make some amount of sense (like how I explained my reasoning for LN).
@@blankflank3488 "Is your character good?" and "Does your character believe in and follow the law?" are but two questions that are not that different from the 50 ones asked by Ginny Di. Maybe they are a bit harder to answer due to how vague the concepts or good and law are. But they don't tell us that much more about the character. So better not to overthink it. If you feel the standard alignment spectrum doesn't apply, you should be free to ignore it.
@@olafmeiner4496 As a quick note, being lawful doesn't necessarily have to do with what is legal. I dunno if that was your intention, I'm just pointing that out from your wording. I'm not sure what you mean by the two questions not being that different from the 50 asked by Ginny. "Does your character have a code they live by" and "do they care about being mean" (simplified, obviously, and I'll add that I didn't actually watch the entire video, so maybe these were two questions she asked) are supposed to be overarching concepts that don't give a lot of detail; they simply guide you toward the direction you want your character to go in, even if it's not perfect, hence why I said it shouldn't be super strict. Some of the answers you give to the 50 questions could certainly influence your alignment, and some are just flavor. There is of course the issue of perspective; as you said, the concepts are vague and sometimes hard to answer. The people who initiated the Crusades would have thought they are the pinnacle of lawful good, while everyone around them is like "well you're clearly doing evil things tho." That's where the details come in, and you should discuss with DM, who will decide how much it really matters. tl;dr - alignment charts are like the pirates' code, more like guidelines rather than rules.
"Do you find yourself attractive?" I have a changeling bard that mostly takes the form of a Tabaxi. So I imegine them flicking their ears before answering "when I want to I guess". These questions are so fun because I could see my character answering them and how they would react.
I stumbled upon this precious channel some weeks ago and just had to give those questions a try for my small group of new players. In the beginning, they were rather shy to explore their roleplaying potential and flesh their characters out, but I've now made it a habit to start each session with three random questions from this list. They love it!
"You see a huge spider in your room, what do you do?" My thief: Aw, poor thing's trying to feed it's family, I leave him be. My wizard: Is it within fireball range? my trickster warlock: get up on the table and screech like a frightened housewife in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. my cleric: Stomp it to oblivion while loudly and with the most vulgar language I can muster blame Vekna for this.
My wholesome, oblivious tiefling: Her name is Artemis, and she rides on my shoulder, despite my crush being scared half to death by them. (Yes, She actually has a pet tarantula, and her crush is deathly afraid of spooders.)
Im a fan of the seasonal goth aesthetic 😁 Do you ever have table questions like: what does your character respect most about [other character at the table] Or like 'character X and Character Y, whats one thing you both vibe on?'
I love that idea!! We did an exercise with my campaign where at session zero, we randomized pairs of characters and everyone had to come up with some connection they had with their partner - it ranged from "we're cousins" to "I beat him at cards yesterday and took all his money"
*Laughs back 2 years later* Whats the name of that one black cat owned by that old lady living in that oddly specifically placed run down house in that one ominously quiet forest again?
@@RivalHelicopter as a DM who just put her own NPC through these, I really did think you meant every single of your NPCs would answer yes to every single question. I get now you meant 'yes' as their collective answer but, man, imagine that. That would be a wild setting!
“You see a huge spider in your room, what do you do?” Ignilo, my fire genasi rouge: “I would probably scream. And jump out the window. And if it accidentally caught on fire, what can I say?” Moonstone, my eladrin druid: I would run away. Quickly. Then I’d feel bad and bring it a mosquito. But then I’d feel bad for the mosquito! Can I have an easier question, please? Everest, my human druid: I’d do my best not to stab it, cause I’d feel bad. I guess I’d set my cat on it so I can just call it the circle of life. I know I’m the animal guy and shit but like spiders are a hard pass from me-” Garlic Bread, my half-orc druid: Spider friend. I will give it headpat.
My half-elf bard Tieru: I'd scream. Then I'd run out of the room and hide behind the first person I find, preferably the knight of our party. Then I'd feel ashamed because now they have something to mock me with and I got scared of a creature that is surely even more afraid of me. Then I would go into the room, grab a broomstick or something, manage to get the spider climb on it's end, and take it out to a bush. At least in theory. It's most likely that I would get scared again and I couldn't go back in my room for a week. The only bad thing is that this is exactly what I'd do in real life. I feel like I'm putting too much of my own personality in my character. But hey, he's my first one ever so I guess it's better this way, it makes roleplaying a bit easier.
"Do you love or hate being alone?" My Treesinger Druid: "Alone is great... Alone includes Gwinye right?" (Gwinye is his emotional support vine i.e. plant companion)
This is by far my favorite one of these character building exercises! It's so easy to get trapped in thinking about huge defining parts of your character rather then the small stuff. Great video!
I’ve watched this video every time I needed help fleshing out a character! Now my arrogant jock teenaged Dragonborn Barbarian has actual depth beneath those anger issues and is actually a believable and sympathetic character. Love it.
This is how I like to flesh out characters, too! Here's a few questions from my list: Do you have any addictions? What would you grab if your house was on fire? Do you have a good sense of direction? What are your taboo topics (if any)? What is your ideal birthday celebration? What would you do if you had to use a nasty public restroom? What would you do if you discovered you were a ghost? Thanks for sharing some of your questions! 😊
What would you do if you had to use a nasty public restroom My pc who out of all of the party members bonded most with an otyugh some other pc tamed: "So is the restroom not dirty enough or what. Like most of those are filthy, I don't see how one clean enough to be considered nasty could even exist. That's impossible even in a world as ridiculous as this one"
These are great, though I'd use vices rather than addiction as it opens up a broader spectrum. ... also avoids the cop-out "it's only an addiction if you lose control". That said, Wizards have the nasty toilet problem figured out. I dunno, but if one of my players was a Bard, I might break the seriousness by asking "What would you do if I sang you a tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?"
Honestly, same. My boi tried to start a revolution when he was 16, got exiled, fought in an illegal underground fight ring, got recruited by an adventuring party to close a portal to the Abyss, endured psychological torture, then lost the only friend he had made in 15 years. ALL BEFORE LEVEL 3!
@@joelheinitz2139 oh hey, my character was also exiled at 16! We have something in common! except...well, my character killed his entire family with a magical pact weapon.
The reverse for me. His backstory is depressing as all hell, but he is (to make a long story short) at this point literally immune to boredom. And the guy had an existential crisis when he got sad about something because he's not used to that anymore. And he's just a human.
This one kinda stumped me cause my character is an older teen so I'm not sure if she had time to have a first kiss. I do think she's a lesbian but is mostly blind to people flirting with her.
My teifling/Aaisimar Druid is a pure bab who grew up in a commune and has never even held hands with anyone. Well except when half the party didn't have dark vision so she led a handholding daisy chain so the non dark vision party members could find their way through a dungeon without falling off the ledge. It was very wholesome.
@@kairon156 Most of my characters are lesbian or bi. My half orc barbarian is just now beginning to realize she may not be straight (or that something like not straight even exists). Also I have one ace bard. I only played him once but can't wait to play him again :) He just wants to bring more music, entertainment and happiness to the world.
This really does flesh out a back story. It fleshed out my moon druids back story. She runs from her problems When her mom died she ran off to school. When she flunked out of school she ran off and joined the druids When she met a nice druid girl she ran away from that. Born into responsibility she has spent most her life trying to get away from it.
I thought the same thing! My character isn't a big fan of huge spiders that can grab her (it's happened before), but the house spiders? Yeah they're fine.
I like using "Who's your favorite person in the entire world?" It gives DMs a backstory character to play with, or a reason to build teamwork if they answer "myself, of course!"
Hey, I get anxious about the DnD sessions I have in one campaign and this helped me realise it was because I didn't know the guy! Thank you, I've done all of them now and hopefully I'll be happier with my the session tomorrow.
Number 21: "What do you think happens when you die?" In a setting where there is literally a million and one afterlives, ranging from being tortured for eternity by demons, to become a demon, to feasting forever, to being cement in the Wall of the Faithless, to reincarnation, and every one of them can be explained in detail to you by any given cleric, or well-educated mage? Very difficult question there. Before anyone responds, yes I realize that you can have games in settings other than Abeir-Toril, but Forgotten Realms is the default setting and it was what my mind went to.
That can be quite a fun question if your character doesn't know jack shit about any of those things. For instance, my 10 INT goblin bard said that you go to a giant eternal party with all the other good goblins, and my 8 INT tiefling bard was like, "You're just...dead. You die. You're dead."
My High-elf (formerly halfling, she was reincarnated) bard, age 16, does her best to describe a tortured mass of souls that are getting ripped apart and sewn back together due to the specific setting she is in. Although this isn't normal, it is in fact what our current setting subjects us to Which given she's not particularly educated on death she believes is normal everywhere, and is therefore terrified of the prospect of dying again
Almost exactly how my character would respond, Catfolk Wizard with a teaching background: "I do not need to wonder, I have collogues who frequent a variety of after lives and communicate with people they know who are simply in another stage of their existance."
You can adapt many of the questions that seem irrelevant. For example, "Do you want to grow up to be like your parents" could be: "Were there authority figures who were a big part of your life when you were first created? If so, are they role models you'd like to emulate?"
As a DM, I ask my players a character question at the beginning of every session. Thanks for giving me more fodder! We've been running the campaign with the same characters for years and I've asked A LOT of questions.
Do you have your players respond in front of everyone and have conversations about the questions? Or is it kind of a think about it before we play kind of thing. I’m just about to start doing this with my party that I’m DMing and I was curious.
@@thogan1202 I ask them at the top of the session and everybody shares their answer with the group. I have also done it where I text my players the question ahead of time so they have more time to ponder before our session. Both have worked great!
My only aro-ace character: It's a bit fuzzy, but basically I was drunk as heck and I woke up the next morning with the slutty doctor. So in short, non-consensual.
This was super helpful for me! I've tried imagining an interview with a character to flesh them out, but I was always thrown off by switching from my mentality to ask and theirs to answer. Having questions spoken/directed like this and answering them out loud helped me stay in character for better answers. I hope you do another video or two with more questions like this, I loved it so much!
I absolutely loved this, Ginny! This has been one of my favorite activities with my character by far, and I can't wait to drees up and record this in interview like you did, maybe with the rest of my party . Thank you so much!
🤔 Not being able to answer could be seen as an answer in its own way. It's something the character could explore or be more aware of in the future... 😊 If I were to answer these for myself, a lot would be "both", "sometimes", or "depends", and it's mostly because I've found I'm not a very decisive person, who also has a lot of interests. I've learned a lot about myself as a result. lol
Same! Also, "Are you a morning person, or more of a night owl?" Well, I like the morning and the night, and sometimes I'm a person and sometimes I'm an owl. So I really have no way to answer this question.
My druid hates cats because she had some really bad encounters with them being ABSOLUTE *DICKS* (and one of them ended up being a cursed demi-god but it's okay)
I WISH I had this before my first session! My first game was with a group of newly-formed friends since I'd just started uni, and I was the only newbie to the game. This was when RUclips was in its infancy, so I hadn't really seen it played in depth, whereas my new friends had all played for years at school. We woke up in a cell and, rather than being an elven rogue, I was a university student who found themselves in an elf's body. My character did what I would do, which was back into the corner and wait to see what everyone else did. Of course, everyone else felt that I wasn't contributing to the story or the adventure, so a guide like this makes it seem like like your character has lived a life rather than being born at the beginning of the first session. Your questions should be MANDATORY for first-time players if you want them to feel welcome to the game! You've really got some amazing insight here!
It´s not an insult, it´s a probe about selfesteem. :D One of my charries would go "Wellp, I ain´t gonna argue with them guys." ;D Another would be all "Who cares?"
I need to use these when my Pirates of Dark Water themed campaign is ready to go. That will give me all sorts of fun tools to torment my players with. Also, getting a spooky Sailor Moon vibe here, probably because the big bow on the chest. I dig it, its a good vibe.
Ok, I'm making up my first DnD character ever now so I'm gonna try and write all of these out: 1. "I can do both." 2. "How fast they can reach for a weapon" 3. "Kill it!" (Is what he would say, he'd actually just silently appreciate it before letting it outside) 4. "...I'd be stronger, I'd fight be better at fighting" 5. "K-kissing's stupid! I'd be totally fine not kissing anyone in my life!" (If you couldn't tell from that one, he's in his early to mid-teens) 6. "Only if I think they deserve it" 7. "Don't have time to think about what I'd want as a pet. Unless it's some kind of war animal or something." (He likes both, anything that's nice to pet) 8. "No" 9. "I guess I bite my nails sometimes?" (He also likes to loudly sharpen his weapons and practice with them) 10. "Pfft! Like I ever cry!" (actually cries quite frequently) 11. "I guess I can lie pretty well." 12. "People talking down to me" 13. "Not romantically" 14. "Fists! Fists all the way!" 15. "I guess the one benefit to being so scrawny is that I'm pretty flexible. Some consolation" 16. "Sword fighting" 17. "Yeah, and if they are I'll knock their teeth out!" 18. "I don't know...maybe?" 19. "I guess. But I think it's something that you can, at least a little bit." 20. "I can cook. Taste doesn't really matter as long as you can eat it, right?" 21. "I'm not really sure. All I do know is that you need to leave your mark on the world before you do." 22. "Yes." 23. "Was that about how tall I am?!?!" 24. "Something big!" 25. "My resilience!" 26. "How scrawny and weak I still am." 27. "I-I don't know! What kind of question even is that?" 28. "I guess you could say spontaneous." 29. "Yeah." 30. "If i've done something worthy of attention, then yeah." 31. "...I dunno." 32. "Ugh. No, armor is so much more comfortable." 33. "On my own, I guess." 34. "I can live with it." 35. "....I don't wanna talk about it." 36. "No." 37. "Yeah." 38. "I'd be stoic as hell! You wouldn't even know I was sick!" (He'd try to act all cool but eventually he'd start complaining a bit) 39. "To be the exact opposite of what I turned out to be. At least that's the case with my father." 40. "If armor is a style then I guess." 41. "Outdoors." 42. "I don't think so. I guess bone marrow? Everyone I've ever heard raves about it, but it's just... goop." 43. "Minimalist." 44. "I am a little bit. I take all the luck I can get!" 45. "Why would I care about that?" (would probably secretly memorize the birthdays of all his party members) 46. "Usually I just hit trees or other stuff like that when I'm sad. Sometimes it helps, other-times it doesn't" 47. "Yes." 48. "No!" (He totally is) 49. "Why would I stop adventuring? I guess if I had to I would teach other people how to fight. Or maybe be a leader of some kind" 50. "Well, I wanted to be a Prince. I guess I sort of am." That was actually really fun and interesting!
I just used this list. It really helped me develop my character, and even take her in directions i never thought about. Thank you! This video was amazing.
After hearing question 7, Corra, having taken the question too literally, stares back at them puzzled at the idea that they would even ask whether a Tabaxi was a cat person or a dog person, simply replies, what exactly do I look like to you?
Ginny: Tell me about your first kiss. My Tiefling Warlock with Venus as a patron: My first kiss was with a goddess. I think it was pretty fucking great.
Some good things to ponder when making any character really. Thanks Ginny. Generally when I think about questions like these I find it helpful to answer them in first person as if pretending the character is being interviewed to really get into the character's headspace. It's a small thing but I think it helps me personally.
Here's a printable list of questions from the video! docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTvrd1K4s8nwkxbT6eNQmje4_tDVoufweRmxMRecCT9F5PhNjyFOy43ydu-DJ--UGp8Z2Y6oMlvh0TB/pub
I mean.. close to everyone of them can be answered with fireball so....
"what do you think happens after you die?"
in the case of my current character, Troy Avelane, paladin of Athena, you get turned into a warforged.
(backstory reasons)
No swiper swiper, you failed your pickpocket role.
Spooky? ....... What an odd way to pronounce "glorious!"
@@oliviertremblay8546 "Tell me about your first kiss."
"Fireball."
Yeah, it works.
"Do you want to be like your parents when you grow up?"
Rogues: visible sweating
Several of my characters: Well I’d have to _know_ my parents first. But I guess the people who wound up raising me were pretty cool.
My one character with a ludicrously convoluted story: Technically I was my parent for a bit, so I guess I don’t have a choice in the matter.
My noble elf whose father was an esteemed leader and mother was a traitorous and abusing bitch: "Half and half..."
@@JustinTK416 Thank you. That comment made my day! I laughed so hard, I'm still catching my breath.
My rogue is just a happy go lucky guy who steals everything he's interested in.
my OC difinitly not i dont want to be a politician who refuses to admit our empire has fallen apart that and 3 months after their mothers death their father re married
Ginny: "Are you a Cat person, or a Dog person?"
Tabaxi Werewolf: "...Yes"
Funny story, I actually had a Tabaxi Werewolf. Was playing a Tabaxi in CoS and my character decided to help the Werewolves out by joining them. Some of the other characters were not happy about that twist and some of the players weren't either but that was their problem. I thought it would be fun and funny.
Catdog!
@@LunarFaerie I too had a tabaxi werewolf. However, she was forcefully turned into a werewolf instead of wanting to help out.
@@LunarFaerie cat-dog! cat-dooooog! cat-dog catdooooooog!
Imagine an old cat lady but instead she was a gnoll that had a cat obsession. Reverse psychology.
Ginny: "What's the first thing you notice about a person?"
My Deep Gnome Wizard: Their knees.
My goliath bardbarian: their hair or lack of
My changeling druid: bird?
As a Gnome Wizardress: Same! XD
My tabaxi bard: their clothing (cultural clothing)
My wood elf ranger: posture, and whether they have good climbing hands and running legs. 🤷
Ginny: "Did you have to grow up fast?"
My Character: "Not really, considering how short I am."
Ginny: "Who do you look up to?"
My Character: "Very funny..."
I'm crying, this is amazing.
Lol
My 4'7" genasi barbarian: *growls*
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA-💀✨💕
My 6 foot 7 bard: i look down upon everyone.
"Do you think you are attractive?"
Changelings: *Reality can be whatever I want.*
ISUGBSIRBUGOBUEGOS
@@BoilingHotTea I have no idea what you said but sure
And that, kids, is why I always play changelings
My changeling rogue: **sighs in insecurity about having an unattractive personality**
Do you find yourself attractive from the inside? 😉
“Are you more likely to use your words or your fists in an argument?”
Bard-barians: “Yes.”
Or, my take on it, The Barfight.
Barbarian Fighter
That's an interesting combo. 2 of the earlier classes I ever made into one.
I had a bardbarian in one of my campaigns
Bardbarians are my favourite of all dual-classes
All I can imagine now is a bardbarian beating someone to a pulp while aggressively singing Ragnar the Red.
"As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"
My goblin monk who grew up homeless in Waterdeep: "Alive"
My high elf blood hunter who lived life as a political pawn until she encountered her fey patron (Order of the Profane Soul): "Free"
My Illusionist tiefling who grew up orphaned and abused for having abyssal blood, to the point shes always disguised as a human.
"Accepted"
@@vn0688 that is oddly similar to my half-elf illusionist who grew up being abused for his elf blood...so he disguised himself as a tiefling so people would have a real reason to fear him
My Changeling Bard
"To have my mother love and accept me for who i am, not for what she wants from me."
My Celestial Warlock Aasimar. "To make my guide, my patron truly proud."
Ginny staring into my eyes as she dead pan says "Do you think you're attractive? What's your worst habit? When was the last time your cried?" put me in shock
No matter how I said "do you think you're attractive?" it felt like an accusation 😂 BUT I THINK IT'S AN INTERESTING QUESTION
@@GinnyDi As an adult male working on a teenage girl, this one made me realize I have to work on her looks and style more.
Than I can try to answer the question.
kairon156 this comment out of context though like yikes
@@dascientist8443 Is there anything I can say to make my comment more clear & straight forward?
Like... She's the 2nd least developed character I have so I figgured Ginny Di's questions could help flush her out a bit?
A reason she's so young is her story starts with her finding a relic as she was wondering off as a young teen.
kairon156 No, your comment is perfectly clear. But if you were to read it without the context of it being on a RUclips video about character developing questions, it would certainly sound strange.
She sounds like an interesting character!
Ginny: "Are you a good cook?"
Kirsti, my dwarf bard with a decent survival skill who can never roll higher than a 12 even with advantage from a magic cookbook: "In theory"
My dwarf who has mastered traditional dwarven cooking, yes, but the dragonborn is the only one willing to eat it, that one time with the carrion crawler notwithstanding.
My character theoretically has no skill at cooking (not great Wisdom and grew up eating stuff raw or roasted) but somehow usually rolls 18+
“Do you see Swiper? Is he in range for Fireball?”
**Lore Wizard** : “They’re the same question”
Just fireball
I'd recommend against fireball though, swiper is a rogue build and most likely has evasion, if not even improved evasion.
@@Merrsharr that doesn't matter to lore wizard, he can just swap the saving throw from Dex and use Intelligence based fireball
@@ziglaus If Swiper saves but has evasion he'll only take half damage though.
@@veggiedragon1000 Evasion only works on dex saves. If you change it to something else, he's fucked. If you want you can have a cold damage fireball that reqyires a wisdom saving throw.
"Are you more likely to use your fists or your words in an argument?"
My Wizard: ... Do Verbal components count?
My Light Cleric: "I prefer to use FIRE!"
@@sadiemcc9363 fireball solves everything
My snarky bard: both are preferred but words do just fine
@@MarkEdwardRom I am a Light cleric and I felt that.
Tabaxi monk with 16 CHA. Why not both?
“Do you think you’re attractive?” Me a transmutation wizard: not yet
My abjuration wizard: I don't know how to answer that
My Haunted one artificer: “I have bandages covering my body. What do you think?”
i've got a wip and that very adequately describes what i'm thinking of doing with the protagonist in regards to what magic i give her (and obviously she's gonna have more magic than just light shape shifting, but still)
Me, a changeling: bitch I can be
me, the haunted one warlock : what’s attractive?
Me: *Writes their own document full of the questions*
Ginny at the end of the video: And I will link a document below with all the questions
Me: I am...a fool
hahahaha. tooo same... especially as i paused and went through the video with an open sticky note to make sure i didnt miss any XD
So glad I saw this comment.
I did the same, r.i.p.
@@MrBizteck Aww. Glad I could help make your day better.
SAMEEEE
"when was the last time you cried?"
My sorcerer: "What, I never cry. I'm a warrior"
"are you a god liar"
My sorcerer: "Well yes, I lied just now and none of y'all noticed. You never notice anything about me" *cries
Those questions being back to back is a beautiful line up indeed
my depressed Fallen Aasimar Swarm keep ranger: "i- i dont cry........"
Are you a good liar? : "No" cries
"What's your worst habit?"
Me, a cleric: The red one. Much too garish. Promotes vanity.
Okay I like this one. This one is good.
Bard (+14 on Deception Checks) - Answer: "Honesty"
Why did this not make it in the Tasha episode?
"What do you think happens after you die?"
My necromancer half-ghostly wizard: "Do... you want a short answer or an essay?"
not necromancer but also half-ghostly thanks to reborn lineage wizard: "i guess that you blind or smth" :D
My phantom rouge that can communicate with the dead: "Give me a sec, I will ask them"
My ageless character actively hunted by a death God: Sweating literal buckets
"You come back as a zombie slave."
“Do you see Swiper? Is he in range for Fireball?” ded
I shrieked out loud at that xD
I chuckled on that one for most of the video. I feel like I now want to build a Dora module for 5e...
@@apparition668 we need an investigation/detective themed ranger subclass
The laugh that came out of me was not pretty, but at least it was genuine
@@bizghost Hm. You could multiclass Ranger / Rogue?
"Are you more likely to use your words, or your fists in an argument?"
My mute mystic with 9 strength : *long stare*
My Knowledge Cleric / Wizard with 9 Charisma but a hate for violence: ... W-w-worsds
Well I could just hit you with my really big stick, though I prefer to never forget to remind them I'm not happy with them and me not being happy with them is not a good place to be given I'm the cleric...
Not that I couldn't kill them instead, that seems a little harsh when they could always apologise...eventually, any time really, you know before you need me to heal you basically.
Casters use their words, more specifically verbal spell components
Maya, my glass cannon of a twilight cleric: Why not both?
Same, I'm playing an artificer with -1 strength mod. I'd probably somehow heal them by punching them
I've got a few more.
"What's your favourite colour?"
"What is your quest?"
"What is the captial of Assyria?"
"What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
African or European swallow?
@@ondras5241 dang it, I was gonna say that
Uh... Green? No, blue!
Purple.
Purple.
Purple.
Purple.
(those are the correct answers)
The last question perfectly represents my druid, who is obsessed with birds and avian creatures
I come back to this questionnaire regularly; even if I never end up sharing the results for a particular character, filling it out for myself is just _fun_
Thanks two years later for the consistently useful resource, GInny.
Tell me about your first kiss.
(My flirty ranger): It's hard when you're making me think about my next one.
AYOOOOO 😎👉👉
Damn that was smooth
Noice
WRITE THAT DOWN, WRITE THAT DOWN
stealing this one
- What's something you are naturally good at?
"Swimming."
- What’s something you had to work hard to be good at?
"Everything else."
Soooo, a fish?
“Want to breathe underwater? Locatha’s a fish!
A straight up fish; literally, just a fish.
Your armour is high, you get tons of resists;
Stay dry and you die, you’re still just a fish.”
~ Jocat
Munchkin of Pern YES! A jocat reference!
you just described my life except replace swimming with art
I've been playing d&d for about 5 years and it amazes me that the community can still be so helpful. These questions gave me so much inspiration! Now I have 3 more character ideas haha
That makes me so happy to hear!!
@@Fgway This was a beautiful response. Possibly the most wholesome comment on RUclips.
"Did you have to grow up fast?"
My Ratfolk who reaches maturity at the age of 5: I don't understand the question
I mean, even if you physically and psychologically mature at a different rate than average it would still be a proportionally valid question, just becomes something like "had to fend for yourself at 3" rather than "had to fend for yourself at 13" or whatever yeah?
@@neoman4426 Maybe but then my joke wouldn't work
What is there not to understand? Clearly, the answer is yes
A Goliath: "I had little choice."
Any Warforged: Me neither.
“Do you see Swiper? Is he in range for Fireball?”
This hit me right as I was rolling my eyes at the first question, and it took me minutes to stop laughing.
Ginny: "the goal isn't for these questions to be big charackter defining questions"
also Ginny:" if you could change one descision in the past what would you change?"
For some people, that may not be a character-defining question! But... yeah, I mean, if you killed your own family or something I could see that being pretty core. 😬
Ginny Di *cough* Caleb *cough*
@@GinnyDi I abandoned my best friend to someone who I expected to kill them in order to save myself.
VariantDM Nah nah, that’s just an expression! “I’ll throw you off a bridge, I killed my whole family!”
@@quinnsinclair7028 Yikes!
“You see a huge spider in your room, what do you do?”
Me: burn my house down
My character, a circle of the moon wood elf Druid: Say hello, offer to help with scouting a web location, discuss the benefits of hanging upside down, typical roommate stuff.
cute.
My character is the same! 😍
Same but include a "let's find you a snack,"
My Drow Cleric of Lolth: build a small room of its own, train it to attack intruders and feed it whatever it wanted. She would also think it was a sign for Lolth.
Me: [screams]
My old wizard: "FIREBALL!"
"what happens when you die"
winged, eyeless, blood soaked, drow path of the beast Barbarian: "Hell gets new management"
My bardbarian fist bumps him: Asmodius doesn't stand a chance
I can just see this scene and it looks so dang cool
My money would be on the abyss, actually. that being said, my paladin of bane would probably join in.
“When was the last time you cried?”
“Do you want to have kids someday?”
“Did you have to grow up fast?”
“How do you deal with being sick?”
“Do you want to grow up to be like your parents?”
My Warforged PC: 🤖???
She did say you didn't need to answer all of them.
Well warforged do learn real quick how to fight, so you could say that they do grow up fast on the mental side of thing.
@@silverseth7 its a joke
"When you go to a tavern, what do you order?"
Motor oil
Why are you looking at me that way? Isn't it a drink?
This is why I love Warforgeds.
I know these were for D&D characters, but I felt like these were really good real life introspective questions. Taking time to go over everything I’ve been through in my life and where I want to head next.
Thank you 😊
"When was the last time you cried?"
Me looking at my crybaby druid: Like... probably 3 minutes ag- oh, nope. nevermind. he's crying now.
hashtag relatable
deku is that you???
@@Malevolent74 omfg now that i think about it... He has this thing where he watches people and learns their habits. Our Paladin has a shield that tells him when there is danger around so as soon as he hears he paladin mumble something (one time it was bird because of an incoming Roc) he gets ready to fight.
But then we bypassed a possible dangerous treant ambush because he cried, told it no (he's eladrin so he's friends with trees), and cried more that he didn't want to attack it on his turn of combat (I rolled a fail for the attack so we claimed it was him not even trying.)
So maybe like, you know, a bit of Deku.
Looking at my kobold: ummm......
My poor ghost child Alistor in monsterhearts. Kid was done real dirty in his previous life.
ahaha, something I always ask my players when they create their character is “if you’re character lived in our world, what would they think of the film: ‘mamma mia’?”
oh man, THAT is a telling question!!
That question is great!!
I'm still a bit unsure and trying to get a feel for my character so the fact that I had an immediate response to that made me very happy lol
Oh here we go again
My sheltered Tiefling Druid would love it so much and I hate that I knew that answer so quickly lolol
@@williamsexton1389 this right here
“Are you a dog person or a cat person?”
“Dog. They usually have more meat on them.”
that's what the Lizardfolk PC in my game would answer! lol
JG R Probably with less words.
I found the lizardfolk
JG R My Lizardfolk would probably answer cats cause there would be more jungle ones than canines where he grew up.
Hero Smith Mine would lack the intelligence to recognize of the similarities between cats and big cats.
A house cat is a fundamentally different animal to him than a mountain lion, and he is uninterested in learning otherwise.
I was writing my answers for these, and I almost skipped the first kiss question, but my initial idea spiraled into a fleshed out story that perfectly painted who my character was as a teen. A great exercise for sure
Same here, but I kind of invisioned mine as being in his early 20s.
@@dragoknight589 same here. I wanted to skip it but my character is a bard so even though he's not a stereotypical horny one I had to give him a first kiss. And this is how Azálea, his classmate+girlfriend in the bardic school was formed.
Great content, but
when you say "huge spider"
do you mean "colloquially huge"
or "D&D size category huge"?
As in Huge compared to other spiders (like a Goliath Birdeater) or huge (Same size as Adult Dragon)?
@@akale2620 yes it does, An Adult Dragon sized spider would close to the size of a house where as a Goliath Birdeater is about a half a foot long and weighs 6 ounces.
@@akale2620 it was a joke
@@akale2620 Oh, I get you now XD
It’s probably colloquially huge, since a spider the size of a dragon will never fit in your room, especially if you don’t have the noble background. But even then, who knows?
Me, currently not playing and with no reason to really flesh out a character rn: Oh man, maybe I should sit down and answer all these about myself. See what unexpected answers come up for my own life.
PS: It also just felt really nice to feel like someone is genuinely asking me all these questions :)
I can say from experience, a fleshed out character can be used to make anything a bit better.
Kinda flipped between one of mine and the protagonist of a collab project I’m doing with a friend.
I actually might send this, or pop off a few here and there to kinda try an consolidate ideas about the acute traits of a few central characters personalities.
Edit: I dabble in writing a lot by the way. It’s fun, and I always like to encourage people to express, explore, and share their creativity however they can.
"We all know that dice are happiness polyhedrals." I'm stealing this...along with just about everything from this vid. I like the idea of doing a question for these at the beginning a lot. I think this will really bring some nice life to my players. Thanks a bunches!
just in time, I'm having trouble developing a character that's very different from me. I have a hard time just figuring out random traits, but anwering questions was much more fun and easy! thanks
Glad it was useful!!
Die rolls can solve it. Tarot cards is another way. Some people ask Magic 8 Ball.
If I roll dice and don’t like what I get I just keep rolling till I end up getting something generic but I like it-
Are you a cat person or a dog person?
My Kenku: neither, I'm a bird person.
It's Phoenix person
@@UniverseAres My red-tailed hawk: Also bird. But not person.
Your Kenku? Wouldn't that be more like "Click brrrr tsk-tsk kaw 'Welcome to the Mighty Nein!'" **wild feathery gesturing**
@@chompythebeast I am not Kiri, but I am very sweet.
My kenku is a druid and makes the Pokémon centre noise when he heals.
What about my tabaxiiiii
Ginny: "Are you a cat person or a dog person?"
My Tabaxi character: "Quite literally a CAT PERSON"
My half-lythari elf: A wolf.
Bruh same
My tabaxi character: youre not a cat, youre a tabaxi. Stop associating us with the comparison
“Do you give people second chances?”
Penter, fifthist cleric: “I will give them exactly five chances, on the failure after the fifth I will spend five hours slaughtering them”
I have never played a single session of dnd. But I still have this character I want to play. But oh boy, how do you play a character whose alignment is the number five?
I feel like that makes you lawful neutral. If good/evil doesn't matter, then the only thing that matters is the number 5. I like this character lol.
@@blankflank3488 the character tends towards the closest multiple of five. so they might both do very good and admirable things, just as much as heinous things. his actions can swing a lot, and fitting him into one part of the alignment chart just makes his other actions stick out of it like a sore thumb.
well, have you heard of blue-orange alignment?
essentially, if you have something that is completely fucking insane and alien, it might not fit into a regular alignment chart.
@@lava2istrue lawful is just their dedication to the number 5, and neutral because dedication to good or evil doesn't matter to them. I think that works.
I know a lot of people aren't crazy about sticking to alignment charts, but I think it just gives an idea of your character traits, not that it has to be super duper strict, altho it should make some amount of sense (like how I explained my reasoning for LN).
@@blankflank3488 "Is your character good?" and "Does your character believe in and follow the law?" are but two questions that are not that different from the 50 ones asked by Ginny Di. Maybe they are a bit harder to answer due to how vague the concepts or good and law are. But they don't tell us that much more about the character. So better not to overthink it. If you feel the standard alignment spectrum doesn't apply, you should be free to ignore it.
@@olafmeiner4496 As a quick note, being lawful doesn't necessarily have to do with what is legal. I dunno if that was your intention, I'm just pointing that out from your wording.
I'm not sure what you mean by the two questions not being that different from the 50 asked by Ginny. "Does your character have a code they live by" and "do they care about being mean" (simplified, obviously, and I'll add that I didn't actually watch the entire video, so maybe these were two questions she asked) are supposed to be overarching concepts that don't give a lot of detail; they simply guide you toward the direction you want your character to go in, even if it's not perfect, hence why I said it shouldn't be super strict. Some of the answers you give to the 50 questions could certainly influence your alignment, and some are just flavor.
There is of course the issue of perspective; as you said, the concepts are vague and sometimes hard to answer. The people who initiated the Crusades would have thought they are the pinnacle of lawful good, while everyone around them is like "well you're clearly doing evil things tho." That's where the details come in, and you should discuss with DM, who will decide how much it really matters.
tl;dr - alignment charts are like the pirates' code, more like guidelines rather than rules.
"Do you find yourself attractive?"
I have a changeling bard that mostly takes the form of a Tabaxi. So I imegine them flicking their ears before answering "when I want to I guess". These questions are so fun because I could see my character answering them and how they would react.
"What's your worst habit?"
Undying Warlock: Well sometimes I forget to blink...
I stumbled upon this precious channel some weeks ago and just had to give those questions a try for my small group of new players. In the beginning, they were rather shy to explore their roleplaying potential and flesh their characters out, but I've now made it a habit to start each session with three random questions from this list. They love it!
"You see a huge spider in your room, what do you do?"
My thief: Aw, poor thing's trying to feed it's family, I leave him be.
My wizard: Is it within fireball range?
my trickster warlock: get up on the table and screech like a frightened housewife in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
my cleric: Stomp it to oblivion while loudly and with the most vulgar language I can muster blame Vekna for this.
I hope your wizard has strong furniture.
Barbarian: I run away...to get my warhammer.
My tiefling Monk: eat it, protein
My wholesome, oblivious tiefling: Her name is Artemis, and she rides on my shoulder, despite my crush being scared half to death by them. (Yes, She actually has a pet tarantula, and her crush is deathly afraid of spooders.)
My Warlock Amit: "I don't own that room anymore. It's theirs now."
Im a fan of the seasonal goth aesthetic 😁
Do you ever have table questions like: what does your character respect most about [other character at the table]
Or like 'character X and Character Y, whats one thing you both vibe on?'
I love that idea!! We did an exercise with my campaign where at session zero, we randomized pairs of characters and everyone had to come up with some connection they had with their partner - it ranged from "we're cousins" to "I beat him at cards yesterday and took all his money"
@@GinnyDi i think i picked it up from playing Fiasco, a few years ago, but I love the random non-adventuring connections between characters 😁
These really helped me with a character that is the complete opposite of me! I found it very hard to develop her completely 😅. Thanks!
That's awesome!! I'm glad I could help out!
Oh hi gurl❤️ good to see you under a Ginny Di video
This was actually just a fun exercise for me because I know my character but I'm still glad these questions exist. They make you think and that's good
Same. They helped me flesh mine out a bit. She is so unlike me that playing her is going to be a lot of fun, and challenging.
Ginny: What's the last nightmare you remember having?
My Warlock: .....
"Are you the kind of person who remembers people's birthdays and pet's names and stuff"
*Laughs in Keen Mind*
*Laughs back 2 years later*
Whats the name of that one black cat owned by that old lady living in that oddly specifically placed run down house in that one ominously quiet forest again?
More of those "out-of-character" questions would be awesome and much appreciated!!!
Ginny: 31 "If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?"
My character: "Cast Clone on myself"
... it takes 120 days to incubate...
Get a cleric
Soooo, I have this vat of Love Potion, yes? Time to make Calistria proud =D
First cast Simulacrum to gestate the incubation state, and then trap your soul in a soul jar.
@@MegaKhelditia thats what wish is for
Ginny: "Do you believe in destiny?"
Me: start crying remembering RWBY.
RWBY gave us a pavlovian response to that phrase
It DID omg that's where my mind went too
I THOUGHT THE EXACT THING!! ...and i always will
As a DM I think I can answer these for all the NPCs in my world as Yes.
As a child, what job did you want when you grew up? yes.
@@donutnarwhal135 Yes, all the jobs no one NPC has the same.
@@RivalHelicopter yea but that's obviously gonna be the case.
"My man!"
"Slow down!"
@@RivalHelicopter as a DM who just put her own NPC through these, I really did think you meant every single of your NPCs would answer yes to every single question. I get now you meant 'yes' as their collective answer but, man, imagine that. That would be a wild setting!
“You see a huge spider in your room, what do you do?”
Ignilo, my fire genasi rouge: “I would probably scream. And jump out the window. And if it accidentally caught on fire, what can I say?”
Moonstone, my eladrin druid: I would run away. Quickly. Then I’d feel bad and bring it a mosquito. But then I’d feel bad for the mosquito! Can I have an easier question, please?
Everest, my human druid: I’d do my best not to stab it, cause I’d feel bad. I guess I’d set my cat on it so I can just call it the circle of life. I know I’m the animal guy and shit but like spiders are a hard pass from me-”
Garlic Bread, my half-orc druid: Spider friend. I will give it headpat.
You like druids, what subclasses are they?
I’m guessing you named your Half-Orc Druid Garlic Bread because they’re both awesome.
My character, a were-spider: Tha- that's me. I am the spider.
My half-elf bard Tieru: I'd scream. Then I'd run out of the room and hide behind the first person I find, preferably the knight of our party. Then I'd feel ashamed because now they have something to mock me with and I got scared of a creature that is surely even more afraid of me. Then I would go into the room, grab a broomstick or something, manage to get the spider climb on it's end, and take it out to a bush. At least in theory. It's most likely that I would get scared again and I couldn't go back in my room for a week.
The only bad thing is that this is exactly what I'd do in real life. I feel like I'm putting too much of my own personality in my character. But hey, he's my first one ever so I guess it's better this way, it makes roleplaying a bit easier.
Eh, vicious mockery. It’ll die from that eventually
"Do you love or hate being alone?"
My Treesinger Druid: "Alone is great... Alone includes Gwinye right?"
(Gwinye is his emotional support vine i.e. plant companion)
That’s cool
This is by far my favorite one of these character building exercises! It's so easy to get trapped in thinking about huge defining parts of your character rather then the small stuff. Great video!
"when you go to a tavern what do you order?"
*Playing a wealthy, noble college of eloquence bard:* a round of drinks for everyone in the place!
"Are you a good liar?"
My gunslinger who is a (terrible) and compulsive liar - "....yes"
“I’m here…to fix…the boiler.”
“…”
“…”
“Roll to lie to a golem.”
questions like these rly make me realize how hard making a consistent character is
You only need to be consistent up to a point. We, humans, aren't consistent.
@@vladgdc true, true
I’ve watched this video every time I needed help fleshing out a character!
Now my arrogant jock teenaged Dragonborn Barbarian has actual depth beneath those anger issues and is actually a believable and sympathetic character. Love it.
This is how I like to flesh out characters, too! Here's a few questions from my list:
Do you have any addictions?
What would you grab if your house was on fire?
Do you have a good sense of direction?
What are your taboo topics (if any)?
What is your ideal birthday celebration?
What would you do if you had to use a nasty public restroom?
What would you do if you discovered you were a ghost?
Thanks for sharing some of your questions! 😊
What would you do if you had to use a nasty public restroom?
My character: burn it down and shit in the bushes
Do you have any addictions?
My Teifling sorcerer with no self control: Yes?
What would you do if you had to use a nasty public restroom
My pc who out of all of the party members bonded most with an otyugh some other pc tamed:
"So is the restroom not dirty enough or what. Like most of those are filthy, I don't see how one clean enough to be considered nasty could even exist. That's impossible even in a world as ridiculous as this one"
These are great, though I'd use vices rather than addiction as it opens up a broader spectrum. ... also avoids the cop-out "it's only an addiction if you lose control".
That said, Wizards have the nasty toilet problem figured out.
I dunno, but if one of my players was a Bard, I might break the seriousness by asking "What would you do if I sang you a tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?"
Do you have any addictions?
My Drow unchained summoner: she takes a long drag from a pipe filled with flayleaf and unironically says, "No."
it was through this I discovered just how depressing my character is
Honestly, same. My boi tried to start a revolution when he was 16, got exiled, fought in an illegal underground fight ring, got recruited by an adventuring party to close a portal to the Abyss, endured psychological torture, then lost the only friend he had made in 15 years. ALL BEFORE LEVEL 3!
@@joelheinitz2139 oh hey, my character was also exiled at 16! We have something in common! except...well, my character killed his entire family with a magical pact weapon.
@@spidergirlfibula4663 That's a mood honestly
The reverse for me. His backstory is depressing as all hell, but he is (to make a long story short) at this point literally immune to boredom. And the guy had an existential crisis when he got sad about something because he's not used to that anymore. And he's just a human.
Ginny Di: do you have difficulty trusting people
My walking pile of trust issues rogue: oh, you
"Have you ever had your heart broken?" My character with the Haunted One background:👁👄👁
Yep, feeling that one
My Bardbarian who lost his tribe,family and the love of his life:......fuck this interview
I often give this channel crap, but it is one of the best when it comes to character depth.
"tell me about your first kiss."
My very closeted bisexual disaster wizard: "aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
This one kinda stumped me cause my character is an older teen so I'm not sure if she had time to have a first kiss. I do think she's a lesbian but is mostly blind to people flirting with her.
My teifling/Aaisimar Druid is a pure bab who grew up in a commune and has never even held hands with anyone.
Well except when half the party didn't have dark vision so she led a handholding daisy chain so the non dark vision party members could find their way through a dungeon without falling off the ledge.
It was very wholesome.
@@kairon156 Most of my characters are lesbian or bi. My half orc barbarian is just now beginning to realize she may not be straight (or that something like not straight even exists).
Also I have one ace bard. I only played him once but can't wait to play him again :) He just wants to bring more music, entertainment and happiness to the world.
@@TheSassi14 That must be fun to role play. Most of my characters are straight so this will be something different.
This really does flesh out a back story.
It fleshed out my moon druids back story.
She runs from her problems
When her mom died she ran off to school.
When she flunked out of school she ran off and joined the druids
When she met a nice druid girl she ran away from that.
Born into responsibility she has spent most her life trying to get away from it.
“Do you have a strong sense of style?”
Yes, for I wear no shirt.
My bardbarian: HELL YA!!
How big is this 'huge spider'? Three inches, or six feet?
I thought the same thing! My character isn't a big fan of huge spiders that can grab her (it's happened before), but the house spiders? Yeah they're fine.
Rules As Written a huge creature takes up 15 feet by 15 feet. So...fireball. If it were a 3 inch spider, save the spell slot and just go firebolt.
@@jasonmiller6017 Use fireball either way just to be sure
My character has a huge arachnophobia so the size wouldn't matter for her xD
Chris I mean, same but for myself. Lol.
I like using "Who's your favorite person in the entire world?" It gives DMs a backstory character to play with, or a reason to build teamwork if they answer "myself, of course!"
Hey, I get anxious about the DnD sessions I have in one campaign and this helped me realise it was because I didn't know the guy! Thank you, I've done all of them now and hopefully I'll be happier with my the session tomorrow.
Number 21: "What do you think happens when you die?"
In a setting where there is literally a million and one afterlives, ranging from being tortured for eternity by demons, to become a demon, to feasting forever, to being cement in the Wall of the Faithless, to reincarnation, and every one of them can be explained in detail to you by any given cleric, or well-educated mage? Very difficult question there.
Before anyone responds, yes I realize that you can have games in settings other than Abeir-Toril, but Forgotten Realms is the default setting and it was what my mind went to.
That can be quite a fun question if your character doesn't know jack shit about any of those things. For instance, my 10 INT goblin bard said that you go to a giant eternal party with all the other good goblins, and my 8 INT tiefling bard was like, "You're just...dead. You die. You're dead."
@@tabathamoonstone8633 The character with 8 intelligence having the most accurate to real life answer tickles me more than it should. 😂
My High-elf (formerly halfling, she was reincarnated) bard, age 16, does her best to describe a tortured mass of souls that are getting ripped apart and sewn back together due to the specific setting she is in. Although this isn't normal, it is in fact what our current setting subjects us to
Which given she's not particularly educated on death she believes is normal everywhere, and is therefore terrified of the prospect of dying again
My red-tailed hawk: "Happens a lot. I just get resummoned."
I'm playing my familiar; the warlock/sorcerer shall never be on-screen.
Almost exactly how my character would respond,
Catfolk Wizard with a teaching background: "I do not need to wonder, I have collogues who frequent a variety of after lives and communicate with people they know who are simply in another stage of their existance."
“As a kid what did you want to be when you grow up?” My urchin half-elf sorcerer: full
Thank you so much for making this video! It's a huge help with fleshing out the concept of a character you have in mind.
Thank you! I'm so glad it was helpful 😊
i'm playing as a Warforged so a lot of my answer were "i'm a robot"
You can adapt many of the questions that seem irrelevant. For example, "Do you want to grow up to be like your parents" could be: "Were there authority figures who were a big part of your life when you were first created? If so, are they role models you'd like to emulate?"
@@bigdream_dreambig my warforged has amnesia so I just stared blankly at the screen lol
As a DM, I ask my players a character question at the beginning of every session. Thanks for giving me more fodder! We've been running the campaign with the same characters for years and I've asked A LOT of questions.
Do you have your players respond in front of everyone and have conversations about the questions? Or is it kind of a think about it before we play kind of thing. I’m just about to start doing this with my party that I’m DMing and I was curious.
@@thogan1202 I ask them at the top of the session and everybody shares their answer with the group. I have also done it where I text my players the question ahead of time so they have more time to ponder before our session. Both have worked great!
"Tell me about your first kiss"
Me aro-ace ass and my lineup of aro-ace characters: uhhhhh
My only aro-ace character: It's a bit fuzzy, but basically I was drunk as heck and I woke up the next morning with the slutty doctor. So in short, non-consensual.
sameee
Hah same
same, might start making a flirty or engaged character to break the cycle
i thought ace/aro people could still have sex/otherwise engage in physical affection?
This was super helpful for me! I've tried imagining an interview with a character to flesh them out, but I was always thrown off by switching from my mentality to ask and theirs to answer. Having questions spoken/directed like this and answering them out loud helped me stay in character for better answers. I hope you do another video or two with more questions like this, I loved it so much!
This is useful for any kind of character writing, not only d&d. If you're a writer these questions are mega helpful to make your characters feel alive
I absolutely loved this, Ginny! This has been one of my favorite activities with my character by far, and I can't wait to drees up and record this in interview like you did, maybe with the rest of my party . Thank you so much!
I nearly spit out my water at the Swiper bit. hilarious.
I'm not sure I can answer all of these honestly about _myself_ let alone my characters, but definitely interesting things to think about.
🤔 Not being able to answer could be seen as an answer in its own way. It's something the character could explore or be more aware of in the future... 😊 If I were to answer these for myself, a lot would be "both", "sometimes", or "depends", and it's mostly because I've found I'm not a very decisive person, who also has a lot of interests. I've learned a lot about myself as a result. lol
About halfway through I stopped thinking in character and sort of stumbled into an existential crisis. Who am I? Do I even know?
This video's aesthetics and 60fps are just so pleasing! Glad I stumbled upon this channel. Thanks for the tips.
these are UNRULEY GOOD I’ve been using this video for my ocs and WOW
Dammit the second she mentioned dice and kickstarter I immediately pledged and bought three ;-; my obsession only grows from here..
"When was your first kiss?"
My anxious teen ace druid is internally screaming
Ginny "Are you a cat person or a dog person?"
My druid: "I'm more of a 'all-animals' sort of person."
Same! Also, "Are you a morning person, or more of a night owl?" Well, I like the morning and the night, and sometimes I'm a person and sometimes I'm an owl. So I really have no way to answer this question.
My warlock whats a cat?
@@allisonhomiak2336 hahahaha yeah, exactly
My druid hates cats because she had some really bad encounters with them being ABSOLUTE *DICKS* (and one of them ended up being a cursed demi-god but it's okay)
I WISH I had this before my first session! My first game was with a group of newly-formed friends since I'd just started uni, and I was the only newbie to the game. This was when RUclips was in its infancy, so I hadn't really seen it played in depth, whereas my new friends had all played for years at school. We woke up in a cell and, rather than being an elven rogue, I was a university student who found themselves in an elf's body. My character did what I would do, which was back into the corner and wait to see what everyone else did. Of course, everyone else felt that I wasn't contributing to the story or the adventure, so a guide like this makes it seem like like your character has lived a life rather than being born at the beginning of the first session. Your questions should be MANDATORY for first-time players if you want them to feel welcome to the game! You've really got some amazing insight here!
Answering some of these questions about my character made me SUPER emotional, like wow this was extremely helpful. Favoriting this video for sure.
"Do you think you're attractive?"
Feels like "You can't sit with us!", only more vicious
It´s not an insult, it´s a probe about selfesteem. :D One of my charries would go "Wellp, I ain´t gonna argue with them guys." ;D Another would be all "Who cares?"
I need to use these when my Pirates of Dark Water themed campaign is ready to go. That will give me all sorts of fun tools to torment my players with.
Also, getting a spooky Sailor Moon vibe here, probably because the big bow on the chest. I dig it, its a good vibe.
Ok, I'm making up my first DnD character ever now so I'm gonna try and write all of these out:
1. "I can do both."
2. "How fast they can reach for a weapon"
3. "Kill it!" (Is what he would say, he'd actually just silently appreciate it before letting it outside)
4. "...I'd be stronger, I'd fight be better at fighting"
5. "K-kissing's stupid! I'd be totally fine not kissing anyone in my life!" (If you couldn't tell from that one, he's in his early to mid-teens)
6. "Only if I think they deserve it"
7. "Don't have time to think about what I'd want as a pet. Unless it's some kind of war animal or something." (He likes both, anything that's nice to pet)
8. "No"
9. "I guess I bite my nails sometimes?" (He also likes to loudly sharpen his weapons and practice with them)
10. "Pfft! Like I ever cry!" (actually cries quite frequently)
11. "I guess I can lie pretty well."
12. "People talking down to me"
13. "Not romantically"
14. "Fists! Fists all the way!"
15. "I guess the one benefit to being so scrawny is that I'm pretty flexible. Some consolation"
16. "Sword fighting"
17. "Yeah, and if they are I'll knock their teeth out!"
18. "I don't know...maybe?"
19. "I guess. But I think it's something that you can, at least a little bit."
20. "I can cook. Taste doesn't really matter as long as you can eat it, right?"
21. "I'm not really sure. All I do know is that you need to leave your mark on the world before you do."
22. "Yes."
23. "Was that about how tall I am?!?!"
24. "Something big!"
25. "My resilience!"
26. "How scrawny and weak I still am."
27. "I-I don't know! What kind of question even is that?"
28. "I guess you could say spontaneous."
29. "Yeah."
30. "If i've done something worthy of attention, then yeah."
31. "...I dunno."
32. "Ugh. No, armor is so much more comfortable."
33. "On my own, I guess."
34. "I can live with it."
35. "....I don't wanna talk about it."
36. "No."
37. "Yeah."
38. "I'd be stoic as hell! You wouldn't even know I was sick!" (He'd try to act all cool but eventually he'd start complaining a bit)
39. "To be the exact opposite of what I turned out to be. At least that's the case with my father."
40. "If armor is a style then I guess."
41. "Outdoors."
42. "I don't think so. I guess bone marrow? Everyone I've ever heard raves about it, but it's just... goop."
43. "Minimalist."
44. "I am a little bit. I take all the luck I can get!"
45. "Why would I care about that?" (would probably secretly memorize the birthdays of all his party members)
46. "Usually I just hit trees or other stuff like that when I'm sad. Sometimes it helps, other-times it doesn't"
47. "Yes."
48. "No!" (He totally is)
49. "Why would I stop adventuring? I guess if I had to I would teach other people how to fight. Or maybe be a leader of some kind"
50. "Well, I wanted to be a Prince. I guess I sort of am."
That was actually really fun and interesting!
I just used this list. It really helped me develop my character, and even take her in directions i never thought about. Thank you! This video was amazing.
"Who do you look up to?'
My gnome: "Everybody."
I really want to be a player in one of her games.
And I look forward to the more spooky wardrobe
After hearing question 7, Corra, having taken the question too literally, stares back at them puzzled at the idea that they would even ask whether a Tabaxi was a cat person or a dog person, simply replies, what exactly do I look like to you?
Ginny: Tell me about your first kiss.
My Tiefling Warlock with Venus as a patron: My first kiss was with a goddess. I think it was pretty fucking great.
The only bad thing about dating a love goddess is that you probably wind up with a ton of performance anxiety.
@@CharlesUrban Good thing warlocks have high charisma, and therefore a good bonus to performance.
You see a huge spider in your room, what do you do?
My ranger: Talk. Spiders make good conversation
Some good things to ponder when making any character really. Thanks Ginny. Generally when I think about questions like these I find it helpful to answer them in first person as if pretending the character is being interviewed to really get into the character's headspace. It's a small thing but I think it helps me personally.
Ginny Di: "Are you a cat person or a dog person?"
Tabaxi: "Ummm... that's racist."
Is Neither an option?
@@kairon156 assuming the tabaxi was a werewolf, it could answer: "yes."
My crow familiar-having sorcerer: Bird person. Non negociable.