Great PC: D&D Character Creation 101 

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Vanderish the Black, also known as The Brute with The Flute! He hits all the right notes.. with his sledge hammer.

"Why were you looking at dogs on Google for the past 6 hours?" "I'm doing important research for my backstory"

I'd very much like to hear your extended thoughts on min-maxing, if time and demand allows.

Awesome video, Guy! I have never followed your steps but my goal was the same. In the adventure I am currently playing in I rolled for stats, and the rolls were awesome. My friends inmediately told me: "with those stats play a paladin, play a fighter, play a wizard, etc" but I refused. It is true that I wanted to play a female gnome bard but, first of all, I had the concept of my character. She was a very happy, cheerful gnome, the daughter of a merchant, whose legacy was going to end in her brother's hand because he was the man. Because of that, she was determined to prove she was worthy and capable of great things, not only to his father, but to the rest of the world. By doing this she also wanted to show the rest of the world, the tall races, that gnomes shouldn't be taken lightly and they are as competent as everybody else. So she decided to go on an adventure because of all I said above and because of a mutual bet she made with a friend of hers. There are much more things in her background to make her a bard but this is the main concept. I don't care about min-maxing if the character is soulless. I will try your method in the next campaign. I see it very appealing and interesting. Thank you for all your work. It's being very helpful and inspiring. Disclaimer: sorry if some mistakes were made. English is not my mother tongue.

I created my most loved PC starting with just an name. A friend of mine misread the word antlion and said "Antonillo"... and out of nowhere that character poped into my head: Antonillo Pomodori, a would be ladykiller, never prepared but always ready.

A few years back, a friend invited me to join his 4th edition game and I accepted. I normally DM, so I figured it would be nice to play in someone else's game. I decided I wanted to be Ferdinand - the name came first, followed swiftly by the inspiration - "Ferdinand the Bull", the story about the bull that didn't want to be a fighter. I put together my character proposal - he'd be from somewhere warm, he'd be a bit on the lazy side - preferring to sit under a tree instead of going to war. His backstory was that he was the middle son of a middling noble family - he had none of the pressure of his brother, who would inherit the family lands and title, nor did he have the desire to prove himself that his younger siblings had. He was content to hang around the villa and just mooch off the family fortune. His father and mother grew tired of this and demanded he do something with his life, and forced him into fighting lessons and religious studies. He was given an heirloom weapon and armor for his training, but he never cared for them properly, so his chain mail was always a bit tattered and his axe needs sharpening most of the time. For his religious studies, he was given a tome about the adventures of the gods, and this was when he discovered a minor god that was somewhat similar to Bacchus - basically, a party god. Ferdinand had found his calling. He would leave home to go mooch off the church of this party god, which he did. Only, the clerics that took him in were not terribly wealthy, so he ended up living with these party god beggers, and through this, he ended up learning a lot about life and what he can do to help others. So, he had his mission: avoid work, help people, and basically avoid too much responsibility. The DM approved with some minor changes, and away we went. Seeing your approach, I find that I've been doing a lot of what you suggested without even knowing it. It is nice to see the process presented in such an accessible manner - I've already showed it to my group which is in the early planning stages for our next Pathfinder Adventure Path.

great timing considering I'm building my first character rn

I will always go to bat for the orphan backstory. I know it's overdone, but it's a classic and has obviously resonated with people for centuries. The orphan, the neglected child, the child abandoned in the wilderness, these are all fairly similar, but they have been prominent in many cultures. I think it A) gives a character a chance/need to build their own identity, no matter who their parents were, B) it wipes the slate clean to let the character feel like someone who can adventure without it feeling like they are neglecting their family obligations, C) personally, I think it gives a good way to show a character who is coming from nowhere. All things considered, I don't mind a cliché, but I prefer to go back to the origins of the trope to identify why it's there. The orphan character who exists just because it's cool is pretty annoying, but it can serve a purpose that is quite interesting and dramatic.

I'm not sure about naming your character at ONLY the start. Mid way through my first session with a new character (like 2-3 hrs in) my fellow party members had asked me my characters name and I realized I hadn't actually made one yet. (got caught up making the character). So on the fly i had to make up a name, my character had been killing / cooking everything he found whether it was rocks or human carcasses so I aptly named him "Roadkill". One of my best names yet. Sometimes happy accidents can happen :)

Can you do a video discussing the various aspects of what should happen during a session zero? Like what topics should be covered, whether there is any role playing involved and some dice throwing for a sample encounter, etc... I'm not too sure what actually goes into getting players ready for a campaign and game sessions.

Did someone mention food? Off to the Tavern! All joking aside, solid video, and a great complement to the other offerings so far as creating a new character. The idea of coming up with a name FIRST is interesting, and not something I've historically done, but I may have to give it a go! I'm also going to look into implementing this for my repeat NPCs, to help breath new life into them and give them points of reference and discussion that they may not have had in the past.

This video is amazing, thank you! It felt so good actually combining the horror/comedy/drama backstories and having an even better backstory.

Very well phrased. I’ve been playing RPGs for decades and it is very refreshing to see another’s process in character creation. This will help so many who struggle in making characters whom they can invest in.

This video is very helpful, thank you! This is a very close method of how I was originally taught to make my characters and NPCs. I have taught my current players how to play d&d and think this will be the little extra they all need to think outside the box.

Nice! This will definitely get linked on my discord server for all the newbies :D

As someone who just is starting to get a grasp on the depths of D&D, this was really helpful. So thank you very much! This had me notice just how much I have to learn, although I am kind of proud of myself for doing better than I'd assumed on my Bard and my Cleric characters.

Raj of Redgloom. By far my shortest lived character but my favorite! A war cleric who abandoned her duties as a broodmother to worship Maglubiyet, believing herself to be his chosen one. She was judge, jury, and executioner in Gladiator fights, and hadn’t lost one yet. She was very quickly banned from a kingdom when she was supposed to throw a fight for a noble’s son, and she absolutely did not do it because that is dishonorable. She ended up dying to snake bites. 😒

My pet peeve for backstories is that so many people do the "my village was destroyed and I was the only survivor" narrative. There is inevitably an allusion to vengeance as the motivation for adventuring but so rarely does this become part of the role-playing. Most of the time, the characters are happy and well-adjusted rather than haunted and/or obsessive.

I don't typically advocate min/max characters, but I'd still love your take on how to do it while maintaining a great story

That right there is a great vid! Thank you so much for sharing this! I’ve always struggled with making a character with depth

I followed this guide to make a unique character and got some good results. Thanks for the vid!

Great job Guy! This video seems more immediately relevant to the character than a far reaching historical backstory. This method helps a player create a motive while leaving esoterica to be filled in later with more consideration.

Since alignment is so important to character creation, make your characters backstory answer the question: what happened to your character to make take such a hard moral stance in the world that they believe in it enough to fight monsters.

I always found choosing the class that i want to play first and then filling it in with a backstory that justifies / supports the choices made mechanically worked better for me. Making a mold first and then pouring a character into it, rather than growing a character first and then putting a class corset around it.

This is nice, I will probably use this for a basic structure to make characters with my new players later this month.

There's a good reason to have the name last and that's to key off the other players to the rest of the character-or to sprinkle in some symbolism, for example; my dual wielding character named King despite being a female because the King of spades is depicted with two blades-and the king of spaces is a card in divination that protects the reader from the negative effects of other cards. King also because she presented as a male. I make a character based on the music I was listening to at the time, and that also comes up in the names-Carolina Blackmore, Annie Dreamboat, its also a neat minigame for other players to put two and two toghether.

Love your take on creation.

Very good video, this goes over my progress well through I do tend to choose name last lol

actually, in TDDC they managed a sci-fi element as part of the artificer class, where he constantly devopes items that manipulate the campaign in science fiction ways.

Scifi-D&D 15:36 Movies off the top of my head: Time Bandits, Krull, The City of Ember Tv series off the top of my head: Firefly, Andromeda and of course DoctorWho (edited to add time code)

You should definitely do a min max tutorial while still keeping a great story! I have a player that could make use of that

Very cool process. You mentioned you had a process for making a more min-maxed style of character while still retaining this kind of detail. It's not something that my current group would be that interested in, but I have a friend in another city whose group is much more about mechanics and hardcore challenges, so I feel the more story-driven character design here would fall flat if I ever had the opportunity to join in on one of their games. I can see some potential in making the statistical decisions first with that focused minmaxing approach, then extrapolating it back to find the kind of person who might have those stats. Is that the essence of what you were alluding to, or do you have a completely different approach there?

Weapon Master Fighter might be a good choice for this character - they've got a focus that's a little more practiced and considered, which plays strongly into the mentality that is taught to blacksmiths. It's not a stereotype so much as a survival trait - blacksmithing workshops of all kinds have lots of hot things, heavy tools to work with, at least one anvil to trip over, and you're working on something of a time limit because every time you pull an ingot out of the forge, it's got a set time before it cools to the point of being unusuable. All of this means you need to be careful to not maim yourself, and if you need to be careful and have time limitations, practice lets you do that. It's so inherent to being a successful blacksmith that it's something that every decent teacher would try to instill in his apprentices. Weapon Master just takes that practiced, considered approach to things and applies it to combat. It's also one of the few ways a character can get a tool proficiency outside of background or long term downtime training (or having a DM willing to bend rules to make stats reflect backstory.) This particular character would probably get blacksmithing proficiency from his background choice, but it seems possible they might work on learning to use a tinkering set, since that's a logical extension ("I'm traveling now, I might as well figure out what I can do with my blacksmithing skills with these tools I can carry with me.")

I would love a video about min-maxing and roleplaying together, though personally I like to min-max my roleplay!

Ha! that Bob reference made me smile.

I once made a Goliath black smith who became a bard. His instrument was a “drum or cymbals” aka his hammer pounding his small anvil.

Well this is absolutely perfect timing. I'm going to be a part of a game for the first time tomorrow.

You should collaborate with Critical Role who is doing their "Handbooker Helper" series right now too. If you make more in depth videos about the simple topics they're covering, it could help make a series that coincides very well and helps a lot of new players.

What was the dog's name? You said we'd get back to that, but we didn't. Ah, I'm just teasing. Great video and process.

This is a good jumping off point for developing my character better! I wrote a darker backstory, so perhaps going through these steps will result in a better background. Actually, it’s a mix between Sci-Horror and Drama.

I create from the end back... kinda. So my newest character I decided I wanted to create an exorcist with aspects of a monster hunter drawing inspiration from constantine and the Belmonts; he would be a bit cocksure and arrogant and to an extent a coward- he believes that of he does his soul will be damned so he will do almost anything to stay alive HOWEVER he has hope that in doing good he can redeem the soul he has lost. I then went back and built from that end point deciding what events in life had taken him to this place, that became my backstory. Finally, I used the class, equipment spells and stats systems to build a character that fulfilled that role mechanically.

Thats actually a solid question I have. How do you make new goals that feel natural? A lot of my playerd have this one and final goal that as a DM im.always trying to avoid so they dont endup pointless.

My second (actually 3rd but was only able to play the first character once so I don't count it) is a half elf rogue. Decent backstory but grew up in a family of rogues, mom died in line of business while working with my father. I replaced her as his partner in crime (literally) but we had too very different morals due to me being raised more by other people in the guild instead of them. Caused a rift between that lead us to a fight to the death (or was it?, dm has yet to decide). Might seem edgy but I love my character so far and love the backstory I made

Character Name: Yaroslav Li Location: Harbin-type city Occupation: Poet Three Cool Things: Authentic painting from the 1500s Pet lizard Genie lamp Story: Yaroslav Li was a poet living in a major cultural center in an otherwise backwater country. From time to time, he would do various odd jobs working for a baker across the street. His aunt at a faraway farm had cancer, so he was forced to attend to her. When she died and he came back to the town, he found out that the quality of life in the town wasn’t the same as it was before he went back. Having his money embezzled by a major criminal, he was forced to join an adventuring group to start his life anew. Horror: Yaroslav Li was a poet living in a major cultural center in an otherwise backwater country. From time to time, he would do various odd jobs working for a baker across the street. His aunt at a faraway farm had cancer, so he was forced to attend to her. When she died and he came back to the town, he found out that it had been taken over by malicious spirits. People weren’t the same, things began to move erratically, banshee screams were heard everywhere, and he was nearly possessed on separate occasions. Eventually, the town became too haunted for him to remain within it, so he rushed off to become an adventurer. However, one of the ghosts nearly possessed him in the process. Comedy: Yaroslav Li was a poet living in a major cultural center in an otherwise backwater country. From time to time, he would do various odd jobs working for a baker across the street. His aunt at a faraway farm had cancer, so he was forced to attend to her. When she died and he came back to the town, he found out that it had been taken over by various spirits. A lizard within a cage was possessed by a ghost, and eventually became a companion of Mr Li. He left the town once again because he was on the search for adventure. Drama: In order to win the approval of his aunt, Yaroslav Li moved to a cultural center within his backwater country to become a poet. However, he was forced to go back to his aunt, who later got cancer and died. When he returned to the town, he found out that his money was embezzled, and, with his last few coins left, he was forced to become an adventurer. Final Story: In order to win the approval of his aunt, Yaroslav Li moved to a cultural center within his backwater country to become a poet. However, he was forced to go back to his aunt, who later got cancer and died. When he returned to the town, he found out that it had been taken over by malicious spirits. People weren’t the same, things began to move erratically, banshee screams were heard everywhere, and he was nearly possessed on separate occasions. Eventually, the town became too haunted for him to remain within it, so he rushed off to become an adventurer. On the way, he met a charming lizard, who became his pet. Statistics: Low on strength and constitution, yet high in wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. Class: Bard, because he’s a poet Equipment: Normal clothing, some type of instrument, pen, and paper. Goals: Save his town from ghastly spirits, become a renowned poet Attitudes: Creative, wandering, sometimes seen as borderline insane. Values: Independence, freedom, individual purity. Tries to be as wise as possible, but sometimes fails.

Great video. You said you didnt know how to pull something in that was sci-fi? If he lived at the edge of the barrier peaks and his cave lead into the mountain then you have all you need. (Module S3, AD&D, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, by Gary Gygax 1980)

My favorite backstory is something like "My immature self did something extra shitty and got ran out of town". It's not the same old edgelord tragedy, but it's a bit more than "I got really bored with the provincial life"

"... the LAST thing we need is an occupation" I couldn't agree more!! #slackerlife

Hello. I'm early. Keep up the great videos!

I rarelynever start a character with a name. I have - my character Tag was a name first, technically 3 times before I finally settled on who he was - but starting with a name without having other aspects chosen doesn't take into consideration race and culture and the specific naming conventions they might have. I always start with a concept, an idea, a feel for how I want the character to be. Then I contemplate where that character is from - to a certain extent, nothing specific yet, just broad stokes. Something to inform my choices. Often I think about what I haven't played yet, what would be interesting to play. Sometimes my character comes from thinking it might be fun to try a certain race or class or race/class combo. Then, once I have an idea what kind of character this is, what kind of race, what kind of personality, what kind of genre of class, then I will get a feeling of name. Just a feeling, all of this is just feeling out the character, almost until I have a kind of fuzzy image of them. Then, either I finally come up with a name, one might just pop into my head, or I keep that fuzzy name, that feeling until the end, then I'll scour through different methods of finding names until one jumps out at me that fit - like a puzzle piece. But I can't really start with a name

The problem I have with the orphan trope is when it is used to avoid having to come up with a backstory or - even worse - to create a character with no connections to the campaign world. But I only really have a problem with it from the perspective that I'm not going to be able to create adventures tied to that character's backstory. That player is going to be missing out when I move into a phase of dealing with backstory issues. The first thing to check then is if the player is _fine with this._ Seriously. There are players who want to take a backseat to other players when it comes to deep character development, who are still great to have playing at your table. Others may have been burnt by bad GMs in the past who used any hint of humanity invested in a PC as a club to beat the players with*. If this is the case, then that just might mean you can devote more game time to PCs whose players want a more "personal" story. You certainly don't "fix" the problem by forcing the player to change their character. That's not going to be fun for you _or_ them. One thing you might try - if it _is_ the case that the player doesn't want to have an arc based off their character's backstory - is asking the player to give their character a distinctive mark (a brand, a scar, a tattoo, a birthmark) as a potential plot hook. If they change their mind later in the campaign about having an arc focus on their character (perhaps they like what you did for the other PCs, perhaps they've just come to trust that it's not just an excuse to screw then over), you've got an easy way of kicking off an investigation into who this character really is. * I'm looking at _you, _ Cyberpunk/Shadowrun GMs. You know what you did.

Bob from acouting

HGGM: Start by coming up with a name... Me: FUCK!

In my opinion, the best way to create a character is to start from 2-3 things that you like, and then expand from there. It can be anything; a voice, a playstyle, an ability, an attitude, a race, or a class. That way you are guaranteed to end up with something that resonates with you. For example, once upon a time I said the phrase "The power of Christ flips you over, pulls down your pants, and sodomizes you royally!" in a very gruff and forceful voice. And I liked that phrase so much that I used it as a starting point to create a cleric, who could use it when he turned undead. With that single phrase I already had the character's voice and attitude, and then I could use that to find out what kind of person he was, and how he could've become like that.

After Your Warlock video i've been slowly making a warlock character. I fear now the character has a bit too big a Backstory however. :D

Now do one for RoleMaster FRP!

Somehow 4 of 6 PCs in my campaign have chosen to be orphans. The loaner backstory is popular!

I imagined Vanderash the Black as an friendly African guy with creative parents. But also a wizard.

Coming up with a name...a female half elf with draconic blood, second daughter of a noble family, her origin in her name, her rank in nobility, her rank in the military, her rank in the true silver champions order (homebrew modification of dragon disciple to fighter/paladin variant) a scion and the great-great-great granddaughter of a now ancient silver dragon... Hmm...yeah that'd make a gnome squeel in pain Edit: addendum: I usually find a concept or a picture and look at the rules of a game if it can be made viable. If yes, I make it, if not, noted and shelved until sufficient expansions/editions come out

I got to the bit where he had a dog and a flute and I found it really hard to maintain interest, as other sources of advice I saw prioritizes the character's primary skill set (magic, stealth, or combat) over backstory stuff like the name and cool things.

My Psion is an academic and adventures because she is told of weird stuff to learn

I have a character that i recently started to play, and its a weird character concept that can be hard to pull off. The character is a con-artist pretending to be a paladin with a noble background. I do have some backstory from having impoverished parents and wanting to leave it behind and with no skills or a background to get reputable jobs he started lying and conning people to get higher in social circles and higher paying jobs. At One point he was able to secure a job as a noble's secretary, and learned as much as he can about the nobility, after a while he started to embezzle money from the noble. Knowing that getting caught is possible he started setting up an identity to hide. He was caught finally and he fled and assumed his new identity as a paladin with a noble background and promptly looked for adventurers to leave the city and make a bigger name for himself. Some parts of this was inspired by the movie "catch me if you can". What are some ways i can play this off successfully and interestingly. I feel like the character can work from chaotic neutral, lawful evil and neutral evil.

But....... what's the dog's name? I feel invested i Vandash's story now!

2:56 is that a Bob the drag queen reference?

Beast master ranger find your dog at level 3 haha

Never played RPGs growing up. Just wasn't really tolerated in our small town. Too much religion makes story telling bad I guess. Too much competition for the suspension of disbelief. But in my late 20s, I was invited to play. A new group was forming up. Since I was a total noob, an experienced DM took me under his wing to help me build my character. I named my character first! I was the only thing I felt qualified to do on my own. I just came up with a name that I liked and went from there. But from there I built my character and when the night came, he joined the new adventure. Not 20 minutes into the game, a much more experienced player (probably chaotic neutral or evil) convinced the group to rest in a cave - where he used surprise to kill all of us and take the small amount of gold we had mostly because the player needed to go home. I was absolutely devastated! And I couldn't understand it. Why was I so attached to this character. I think this video helped me figure it out. It made such an impact because I had named him and then built him around that name. I had invested to much time to just have him killed off casually. He wasn't just a bunch of stats written down on a sheet of paper. He had value. And then he was gone. Sure, I could have kept him around and used him elsewhere, but that seemed wrong - unless I was bringing him back as undead - lol. That episode killed that new adventuring group. We never got back together because no one wanted to play with that player again. So I haven't played since. Which is a shame because I loved that first 20 minutes! LOL. Now I'm trying to find a group "my age" or accepting of an old, but new, player. And when I viewed this video as part of my prep for a new character, it all came back to me. So yes, I can speak to the fact that names are important.

Yeah, the hammer is the one HE stole, not the dog 😉

Are there any other games like DnD?

"abso-flute-ly" ... ... I'll see myself out.

My usual character creation method goes something like this: I wanna play a bard! His name is Bardy McBardface. He went to the bard college to become a bard because his parents were bards and he always wanted to be a bard! Yay, Bardy! I think, if nothing else, I know enough about characters these days to at least put some sort of goal in the backstory. That's really the bare minimum you need to actually have a roleplaying character instead of just a character sheet.

What kind of Bobs have you met?

Bob the Blob

Don't make the backstory too long and complex. The DM/GM has to have room t fit your character into his world. If you build too big f a backstory, there's no place for your selfcenteredness. No, you can't be the heir to the reigning monarch with ownership of your own castle and 500 magic items gifted on your 14th birthday