Dungeons and Dragons Player Tools – Character Creation

One of the first things that you do when you start out as a player is come up with an idea for your character. I want to give you some help when coming up for a character because I think players often struggle with coming up with a character in two major ways. Plus then there are just practical things to think about as well. But let’s talk about the two big things to think about as you come up with your character idea.

The Struggle of a Character Idea

So, there is a struggle in two areas that I think players consistently run across. Both are around when you come up with the concept for the character. A player generally ends up on either of two extremes. They come up with a good starting character idea but don’t know where to build their character towards. Or they come up with a level twenty backstory and the character is level one.

So how do you combat that as a player? I think there are two things to think about. Because both starting at the right point and having an idea where you want to build to, that level twenty powerful character, are important. And it’s more than just what class do you want to take.

Coming Up With A Character Idea

So let’s come up with that character idea. And yes, you are starting the campaign at level one. But that means the world is your oyster. You get to come up with the answer to the question, why did I get into adventuring?

Let’s start there. This is a simple question that is meant to prompt the thought process of character creation. It is meant to also limit the scope of your character. It’s not a question of, what amazing things have I done? Or what great skills do I have? It’s a simple question of, why did I become an adventurer. And the reason for keeping it that simple is that the skills come from your class and background. And you will do amazing things in the campaign. But right now you are starting out. So what is the characters motivation.

Then I also want you to think about, where is the character going? And by this I mean, why do you keep being an adventurer in some ways. What is the end goal that would make you character feel satisfied as an adventurer? Because this is going to be the big thing that you roleplay towards. Again it’s not the skills or levels of a certain class, but what motivates your character to be an adventurer and go as far as they want.

Example – Character Idea

Let’s say I sit down and I want to create my character. I have some ideas for it especially around class and background. I know that I want to be a Monk who was an Urchin and then was brought into a monastery to learn martial arts and have a place to live. So I got that bit of a backstory, now I need to answer my two questions.

Why am I an adventurer? I head off adventuring because the monastery needs more money. There used to be a bunch of people who donated money but after the charismatic head monk passed away, people have slowly drifted away. But this is the place that saved me, so I want to venture out to find fortune or make money in any way that I can to keep the monastery going so it can help more kids like I was.

What is my end goal? It’s two part really. The first step is that I want to get the monastery back to the point where it is financially stable. And then eventually, once it is there and I feel like it won’t fall into a bad spot again, I want to return to the monastery and take over running it and bringing in more kids.

What About Race, Class, and Background?

So how do you plan those in as well? Well, you easily see that I tossed them into my backstory idea. I think that most people generally can come up with some idea of what they want to play in those areas. But I do want to toss out especially with background, think about how it ties into your character idea, and the same can be said for class. It wouldn’t make sense for me to have my backstory with the monastery and be a well trained Wizard.

While they are important to making a mechanically solid character, I don’t think that it’s the end of the world to focus more on what makes thematic sense. That is going to provide a more interesting gaming experience. And this is also where it’s great to collaborate in a session 0 with your Dungeon Master and the other players to create a balanced party, if you want, but to iron out any wrinkles between characters and players and their character builds.

Stats

Finally, let’s talk about stats. And I went over in the Character Creation article for Dungeon Masters some different options for rolling up stats. And there are more options as well that can be done. But the first step when getting stats is ask the Dungeon Master how they want you to get stats. Every Dungeon Master is going to have a preferred way. And even if they don’t, they are going to want it consistent across everyone. You get characters with unbalanced stats if someone does points buy and another player rolls.

But there is more to stats then just how you get stats, there is how you allocate them. And there are two things I want to talk about here. What is your best stat and what is your worst stat?

Best Stat

So the reason why you think about this is that your best stat is going to affect your best skills. And that is probably going to be what you are leaning into. If I character my monk, I might go with high dexterity as my top stat. The reason that I do that is two-fold. Firstly it helps with the character build and making it functional. But also, it stems from my background and idea for my character. I want to be light on my feet from being an urchin who stole some and didn’t want to get caught and then being trained in martial arts.

In fact, that’ll also influence how I solve problems too, I might just try and fadeaway in the shadows. So that’d again make sense for dexterity to be my best stat because it means that my stealth will be solid.

Dump Stat

So the worst stat is also called the dump stat. And every character should have a dump stat of some sort. That means a stat that is below 10 so you get a negative to your rolls on it. Because as much as your good stat helps determine how you roleplay, your dump stat is going to be as well.

Let’s look at my monk urchin. They came the monastery when they were a little bit older, probably a teenager, so they don’t have the formal schooling that you’d expect. The monks did what they could, but while the character is street smart from living on the streets, they aren’t book smart. So intelligence would make a great dump stat.

Especially because thinking about the backstory, how poor intelligence could work in. The character is focused on doing well themselves. They learned as a kid how to rely only on themselves. And while they love their monastery, they think it’s only on them to save it. So even though they maybe know they aren’t the brightest, they aren’t going to consult others for it. They are going to try and do those things themself.

Don’t Be Batman

Final thing about stats is don’t be Batman. What do I mean about that? Batman is generally good at everything in DC. He can take on almost any villain and with enough time and his tons of resources, he’ll beat them. But when you play you don’t want to be Batman. Batman isn’t fun for everyone at the table.

So let’s talk about it a bit more. First off, give yourself a dump stat. Even if everything rolled high, give yourself an 7 or 8 in some area and roleplay into it. Also don’t pick all the good skills. If you are a rogue who is proficient or have expertise with stealth, persuasion, deception, intimidation, perception, and insight, you are just going to do everything. Don’t be good at everything, and this part of character creation to make sure that every player at the table has some area where they will shine.

Final Thoughts

We’re going to have a few more articles in this series for players in Dungeons and Dragons, or really any RPG system. So as a player what topics do you want covered? I am going to toss out a few, but let me know if there are more you want to learn about?

• Flaws, Bonds, Ideals, and Personality Traits
• Roleplaying your character
• Character Arcs

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So in Sword Art Online, we get introduced to Battle of Bullets, a player versus player and eventually a free for all last man standing tournament. Now, we have an eccentric millionaire/billionaire who has decided that they want to spend their money to create a team version of that, and that’s where we hop in. Karen, her real world name, hasn’t ever felt like she’s fit in, mainly because she’s so tall. A friend of hers tells her that in online gaming she can be anyone she wants to be and so she starts trying out various VR games, and all of them make her tall, except eventually when she hits GGO. There, she’s a really fast little character with a machine gun. She meets a mysterious character, Pitohui, in game name. She seems pretty easy going, all about shooting things and always up for the next thing, but there’s something off about her. Karen and Pitohui are going to enter this tournament but Pitohui has a conflict and gets another one of her friends, simply known as M to team up with Karen.

That’s the basics of the story without getting into spoiler level details. I feel like this show is lacking a bunch in plot. Now, I’m a tall person, and I standout in crowds depending on where I am, and I can understand for some people why it would be a big deal, but also as driving factor for Karen’s character motivations and actions, it’s a little bit weak. Compare this to season 2 of SAO, the main character in GGO there is someone who is trying to overcome a fear of guns after having to kill someone in self defense as a child and going to PTSD whenever she interacts with a gun or an image of a gun in real life. And she’s found that in GGO it feels different and hoping it’ll help her overcome some of that trauma. That, compared to being tall. Now, not to dismiss the bullying and everything that can go on with that in real life, but for the stakes of the show, it feels lacking.

The other things is the character of Pitohui. She’s this awesome fighter who has a bit of an eccentric personality. Who she is in real life is supposed to be a mystery, it isn’t. And her motivations are again a bit weird. This is going to have some spoilers coming up here, so you’ve been warned, I won’t give away home she is outside of the game though. Her biggest motivation is that she’s trying to find danger and excitement in a game. All because she was supposed to have gone into SAO when it launched but hadn’t been able to, and once she realized it was a death game, she wanted to even more so. There are obviously people who do things because of the adrenaline rush that are dangerous, but her idea is to find a game that’ll give her the same feeling, and because of Death Gun from SAO season 2, she’s decided on GGO. I think that this could have been done more interesting, make it a more subtle part of her character that slowly unfolds over time, but you get it quite quickly, that tied together with the other “twist” doesn’t work all that well.

Finally, I think that the story as a whole is lacking. The characters aren’t as interesting and the plot feels like it’s been vastly simplified. The motivations are weaker, the character development is slower, and the stakes feel so much lower throughout, even with Pitohui’s death wish. I think with SAO they were able to delve more into the psychology of people and what makes them tick as well as some simpler plot lines, and in GGO they want to do that, but everything is done on more of a simpler laid out level than it was in SAO. With that, they are also trying to be clever about stuff and just not managing to pull it off. M, this really mysterious character, turns out to be kind of a bust in real life and a cliche when he’s finally brought in that way. They try and have a number of twists or more shocking moments, but overall it’s too telegraphed and nothing really feels surprising about it. It also tries to pack the story with more action than SAO did, and that was part of the charm of SAO, you got to see a few boss fights or a few fights that really mattered, but not all of them, here we have multiple episodes that stretch over the tournaments and they try and do some plot in them, but it’s mainly action.

So, you can see that I’m down on this. I wouldn’t say that it’s horrible, it’s just lacking. They had a lot of things they could have done with the story, character developments that they could have had, but instead it’s more your typical anime where it doesn’t handle anything with finesse, it’s just simplified down. Would I recommend checking it out, not really, again, it’s just lacking. Will you be upset that you watched it, probably not, it does have a few moments, but it doesn’t feel like there’s all that much going on, so good background noise type of anime, in my opinion.

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