You’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons for a little while and you have your character. You start out with a story in your head, this is my character at the start of the game. Now your character is eight levels higher and is your character the same character as the start of the game? The answer might be yes, so my follow-up question to you is should they be?

Why Do Character Development?

Why do you do it, because people change over time. Now, sometimes it is a small amount of time. But for eight levels higher, you spent some time in the game world. Both in game and outside of the game. And your character now has way more experiences than they did before.

When creating characters we think of big backstories for them. Well, that big backstory isn’t that much compared to where they are now. If you start playing at level one and then progress, you start somewhat better than the average person. Now at level eight you are impressive, and also you have just experienced more of the world for better and worse than the NPC who runs a shop or many other characters.

So, naturally it feels like there is a story progression there. I think for the players as well, it is useful to progress and develop your character as you go. You might start playing a character, realize you like one or two things about it which you lean into and that changes how your character interacts with the world. Yes, that is character development through the eyes of the players desires.

How Do You Do Character Development?

So how do you do character development well? And honestly, well is a relative term. You don’t need to do character development at all. But for a longer campaign it can be fun to toy around with that as time progresses to think about how your character is going to progress as well.

For example, I have in a game I’m running, a player who has a character who is scared of water. Were they at the start of the campaign, no, but now they are through things that have happened. They even bought an umbrella to make sure they could be dry in a given situation. Or another character who started out as a fighter and has since started thinking about how he can develop business and grow his own little business empire.

And I can put it down to a few different things, which you might recognize from the character sheet. You can grown your character development through your characters changing Personality Traits, Bonds, Flaws, and Ideals.

These are all the elements of your character that you start out with. But you can see in my above example of gaining a fear of water, rain in particular, a new flaw or personality trait has come out. For the other one, his personality trait and ideal life have changed to where he wants to run a business and spends time on that as much as he can. let’s dive into each.

Personality Traits

Probably the easiest, your character gains a new interest. It might be running a business. Or you might find out that like or dislike something a lot. Now you interact in situations differently. And you grow that over time.

Bonds

Bonds is one that I haven’t mentioned yet, but I’ve had a character in a game develop in that too. They were in close contact and connection with a demon lord, as time progressed, they drifted away from them, so that demon lord is not longer a bond. Oddly enough, another one is forming more of a bond as time goes on.

But who you know matters and who you are most connected with. If you join a thieves guild mid game, that might be a new bond that you have. Bonds are easy in some ways because you might have an old master, if they die, who fills that spot? It might be the adventuring party, but how does that change how you play.

Flaws

Flaws, being scared of rain in a world where they travel a lot is a big deal. But is there something new that your character dislikes a lot now that gets in the way. Rain works, but maybe you had a run in with the city guard, so even though you are good, you really dislike the city guard. Or a religion or anything like that which you now really dislike.

Or maybe it is a situation where you spoke your mind once and through a great roll got what you wanted in a situation where it was dicey. How does that change your character, do you believe you can do it all the time, maybe to a detriment when a roll doesn’t go as well?

Ideals

And this one ties some into what I mentioned above about starting to dislike a religion, city guard, whatever it might be. Your ideal can change because you find something better. Or your ideal can change because you no longer believe as much as you did before. Either way, that can cause your character to develop over time.

Final Thoughts on Character Development in Dungeons and Dragons

I think that developing your character throughout a campaign is that it is something good that you can do. But it is something optional for a Dungeons and Dragons game. Some people have an idea and want to stick to it. Though, when creating a character, you can develop that idea over time. So you want to end up at this point, how does your character grow to that.

But for other people, they start out where they want to be. The trickster character who is just in adventuring for fun. Maybe they develop a bit of a heart for their party. But they likely stay as the trickster in the adventure for fun versus developing deep connections.

But when you can develop and change your character over time, I think it offers a chance to developing a bigger story. To create those more memorable moments that stand out because they changed the campaign when they changed your character.

Do you try and do character development through a Dungeons and Dragons or any RPG campaign?

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