What Do Character Arcs Look Like in Dungeons and Dragons? 

I'm currently playing a Monk who I wanted to be a bit of an examination and subversion of the typical "heroic" type. He was always one to put others first, and jump out in front of danger to protect others, and had a ton of empathy and so on, like the archetypical hero. But, I wanted to examine WHY he would be that way, because no one would be completely selfless or that moralistic without motivation. So, with my DM, we told a story over 3 years of playing that my Monk (who was abandoned by his parents and raised by others) that exposed the weaknesses of this seemingly pure heroic character, that he had an incredible fear of abandonment driving him. He thought all relationships and any form of love he received was conditional on him being useful to the other party, so he would constantly push himself to never be complacent or backslide because he was terrified that if his "use" to others came into question they would leave him behind again. So, despite his heroic antics, there would be these moments where he was almost manic in trying to be everything to everyone, and when the mask would slip, he would lapse into intense self-loathing and melancholy that the other players had to try and help him through. Eventually, he (and the whole group) took a bunch of L's and he had a crisis and he ran away. But when his friends came looking for him, and had his back, he was able to grow and begin to trust others unconditionally. It was the most satisfying thing I've ever done in D&D (aside from getting friends hooked into playing for the first time), and it was surprisingly emotional not just for me, but for the other players too. I can't imagine not trying to have a deeper story to every character I roll up now, it's such a rush to play through.

That's the main strength of DnD, it's ability to be not only a narrative device, but and 'empathy simulator'. It's more analogous to a Drama therapy than to improv: you try to get on someone's else shoes again and again, and try to respond accordingly. P.S.: I'm not trying to say that DND is therapeutic by any means, only that it helps developing important abilities.

As a GM, I would like to say; communicate with "me". I cannot read thoughts. Give me a short backstory, roleplay your weaknesses and struggles very obviously if you want me to notice it. And tell me if you want to explore your character arc or not. There. I said my part, and I fed the algorithm.

Just a little constructive criticism, you topics are real interesting, and I would love to watch more, but my adhd strikes real hard when I'm not visually engaged, and I know it's a lot more work, but coordinating visuals with what ur saying would be great ! Instead of a sped up 3d print, you might see ur viewer retention go up :) Much love.

One of my favorite characrers was a Half Elf Light Cleric by the name of Talia Fenchild, born into a renowned family with vast range of skills and abilites, as such she had a lot of expectations placed upon her she simply couldn't achieve. She had a difficult relationship with her family because unlike the rest of them she wasn't a full flooded elf. Her mother was unreasonably harsh with her and pitted her siblings against her. She was youngest at 99 years old and ended up devoted herself to the church of Istmus the Godess of fate. At the start of the campaign she ran away from home under the guise of a Holy Pilgramage and ventured into a land unknown to her, little did she know the land was plagued with Evil forces and her services would be needed. She ended up forming a party with a group of chaotic individuals and ended up basically becoming the mom of the group, and they ended up having multiple encounters with vampires and other planar beings that wanted to bring darkness to the world and one of my favorite moments was when she discovered the wizard was a Necromancer, she ended up having the Im not mad im disappointed conversation which lead to an interesting dynamic because she cared for the wizard and viewed her as her own daughter in a way and didn't want her getting hurt. Though probably the defining moment for her was when she was at an all time low, she found herself questioning her faith and what she waa doing, she was lost and confused with little direction and it forced her to acknowledge why she started her journey and where she wanted to end up. She would later fall in love with a half elven woman who was a librarian who helped her become the best version of herself and realise she didn't have to live in her mother's shadow. They would end up running off together to return to her home where she would show her mother how much better off she was without her. This reflected in my life as I had a complicated relationship with my own mother and wanted to just run away and prove to her I'm capable of taking care of myself and didn't need her telling me how to live my life. Playing Talia helped me understand what I was feeling and gave me hope for the future.

A lot of my experience with D&D hasn’t been very good since the DMs I’ve been able to play with didn't seem to care about character arcs and certainly didn’t care about my character’s arc. My worst experience ended with the DM killing my character “off screen” and not even telling me how he died.

just realized that my PCs are Gary Stu’s.... damn gave me a lot to think about, great vid!

Guess my fellow player has a secret child since his character does 😂 JK, great analysis!!

One of my favorite characters I've played was a Monk-Ranger, kensai-beast master, and through being enslaved for almost a decade he had given up on the world. He even had the catchphrase "That's life. Shit happens," on one of our adventures we found this little girl all alone and my character got very defensive over her. Eventually he adopted the child because her actual parent was a villian. Through that my character learned gained something worth fighting for and his mindset changed to "shit happens, but we cant ever stop trying"

I love this kind of play but I also know it’s not for everyone or every time. Roleplay is what I call “undirected drama”, it can be as powerful as drama therapy but it’s the players at the table (that includes the GM) who decide where things go. For this I think it’s incredibly important you get but in from everyone. Some people might “just” prefer to relax from their everyday life for a while without digging deeper into the psyche, abs that’s just as valid and important as well. This all comes down to: what kind of game/story do you and the others at your table want to play/tell.

I played a gnome for 8sh months (2 months in game). I had him slightly heal from some of his past trauma with the help of his new friends, develop new bonds and then his best friend in the party randomly died in a random encounter. I then had him try to emulate this friend by being a better person, trying to be someone his dead friend would be proud of, this caused him to waste spells healing a mind flayer and arguing with a party member. The loss of the spellslots caused the entire party to die. The death of my character and party hit me way harder than it should of, i genuinely felt like i lost a part of myself. Had to write a little eulogy for him to help myself move on. Long and short of it is idk if i'm ready to give a character that much depth ever again just to die.

We just finished up our first campaign after a couple of years with the same characters. The rogue that has been there every week since the first session went out in a blaze of glory. Literally, after doing nothing but chasing gold and riches, in the end, Alerendale the Rogue sacrificed himself by combining two bags of holding to destroy the big bad. RIP elf boi. Only thing he needs now is a Ron Pearlmen narration.

I find some of the best character arcs in D&D are based on discovery rather than narration like it would be in a traditional story. For example, one of the characters in my campaign is a warforged who's backstory is that he was originally supposed to be a golem who was infused with a true soul when his dwarven creators were finishing his crafting. He was "raised" among the dwarves and has a bizarre outlook on the world because of it. His character arc is based on his discovery of the world and learning about a scope beyond what he originally experienced. Over time, that discovery will lead him towards an ultimate confrontation with his past; basically, he's going to discover why he exists and moreover how.

I’ll tell a story about Jebeddo Turen. The warforged Artificer that went through a pretty big change of character. I play a warforged that had spent his whole life being told by his parents that his inventions were stupid. He wasn’t always a warforged though. He grew up as a gnome, born to a dwarven blacksmith and told to be a smith not make pointless inventions. He hated it and decided to make the greatest invention of all time to prove it: A warforged. Some malfunctions had happened though which caused his creation to bug out and start attacking him and thus killing him. Though upon death something had offered him a choice: to either die or have his mind and soul transferred to his creation, which he quickly accepted as he had work that needed to be done. He had quickly left home without saying another word to his family. He’s a very selfish man, believing that his creations are perfect and because he made his body that he himself is perfect. He didn’t care for others but would go along to help him become the worlds greatest inventor. I initially had him as chaotic neutral but I now believe that he could’ve been considered neutral evil at the time. He had met his party and nobody took him seriously but he didn’t care as he was socially inept (having a -2 to charisma and a good ol 0 to wisdom). Though his party grew to care for him, they talked about where they grew up and be shared his until he eventually dropped the ball that he wasn’t meant to be a warforged and that it was an accident. We ended up in Avernus (due to playing descent into Avernus) and the whole group got close. He suddenly had something to fight for and protect. He went from using the dex based armourer stuff to using the frontline. He still is an asshole and is selfish to others that isn’t apart of his party, his family. We are still playing the game and have reached level 10 and it’s the most fun I’ve had playing DnD because of his progression. I’m sure he’ll eventually learn to put standard peoples lives at higher value but his whole journey has just been one of self discovery. It also helped to talk to kinda a monk guy that really put things into perspective for him.

I've been loving your videos so I'm commenting for the algorithm. Your videos need to be seen by more people!

I mostly dm these days and one thing I always try to do when crafting a campaign is make sure I understand my players and the characters very well, so that if they don’t have a planned arc for their character I can have one come forth. This might not make sense so I’ll use an example: One of my players once made a character who had a convoluted Gary Stu backstory band part of it was like 4 women who were all in love with his character, but he was an edge lord who was seeking vengeance so he had no time for them or whatever. So I decided to make them interesting characters each one reflecting an aspect of his character, and inevitably pulling and pushing his development in various ways. In the end he got together with a completely different character and then had to do some rough rejection role play that made him reflect on what could have been had things gone differently. In summation, I always tell players if you have a good dm give them the tools that will twist and push your character

I’ve got a character named Grimm. He’s a struggling homeless druid, wandering alone with very few friends aside from a magic talking flower only he can talk to. He hears a voice from the rose that no one else hears that seems to know many things and acts as his guide. (The DM plays as the rose and may use it to give Grimm vague hints and point him in the direction of the plot.) He’s well meaning, but generally shy and very slow to trust others. As far as he’s concerned, the rose is the only thing he can trust. He’s also on the run, with a bounty on his head for crimes he didn’t commit, framed by the corrupt nobles of his hometown who used to treat him like dirt for fun. As he travels with a party, he’s slow to consider them friends and worries they may one day turn on him if they learn about his bounty. There are multiple ways his character arc can go, and that depends on the game and the party. Will he learn to put his trust in the party or retreat inwards when he realizes the party can’t be trusted? Will he confront his enemies and clear his name or keep living on the run? If something happens to the rose, can he continue on his own?

Great advice to focus on character arc. I remember my table felt unsatisfied with our six month play-through that just fizzle out. Looking back on it now, I see that our DM didn’t focus on anyone’s backstory except for one player. Towards the end, I forced my own character development into the story because of the lack of opportunities. To be fair, our DM was an invoice and new to the game. The lack of experience did not help help them. The DM was more focus on telling their story at times instead of the players to the point when they asked what we wanted to do, no one cared anymore.

I'm currently getting into D&D, going in my first campaign and using my first character. So you can imagine that when I made my character, I really didn't have much planned for him. The more my team and I got closer to the true lore of the campaign the more I started to plan out my character. He's a 57 year-old Human Barbarian who came from a corrupted noble family and basically dads everyone and actually adopted one of the other characters (it's even a joke between the players to call him "Papa Finn", it's like his new nickname), that's all I had to work with. First, I wanted to give a message involving his background as a noble and how he became a barbarian. His own father banished him from the kingdom because he saw the damage his family does and tried to repair it, now he's an anarchist that fights to empower the powerless. I wanted to talk about the corrupted system, police brutality and clasism, while keeping in mind that he's a white cisgender high-class man. I'm still working on this part, but so far I got the idea I could write about a privilege boy that learns about the situation of minorities and tries to help them only then to get punched by that same system. And I also really wanted to tackle the topic of masculinity and gender normativity. I gave him a set of traditional masculine traits and traditional feminine traits which I remark way more than the masculine ones. I also gave him a male love interest in his backstory, and considering the topics I used I added 'heteronormativity' to the list, give the story of a boy that all this time he thought what he felt for his friend was just friendship when in reality was love, and he didn't realize until much later because he was taught that two men can't be lovers and everyone said they were just really nice friends. (Giving the the homie to homo slow-burn). Now for the roleplay, I decided to use his age and title as 'Dad' to talk about experience, he's 57 years old, and sure there's always something to learn (especially since he's *pretty young* considering the longer lives-spans of other races, though he's the oldest one of our team) but I especially was interested in what to do with someone that pretty much is happy with themselves and has learnt everything they needed about life, maybe teach other people and change the world like the video says or deal with his past demonds or unlearn everything. I think it's a good opportunity because it's a coincidence that many of the other characters of the team lack a parental figure and he's *right there* while he also grew up with either toxic or absent parents. I find that ironic. Finn has become a really extensive character for what I usually do. And there's so much I planned ahead, I even wrote my back-up character to be the complete opposite of him so his absence would be more noticed to the characters and my friends

Can't wait to experience this one way or another! You're making me hyped!

Holy shit, 3 comments? For the algorithm, brothers and sisters!

I wish I had a group into this. I LOVE exploring the depth of characters and watching them be deconstructed or closely examined just as much as the world is.

Also see Fantasy High or Unsleeping City for outstanding examples of character role playing

Personally I *need* a character arc where my character could reasonably fail or I will grow bored of my character. -Will my paladin commit to living a better life or is he going to sacrifice himself pointlessly in a miss guided attempt at redemption. -Will my necromancer pressue revenge and murder a harmless old man instead of moving on. -Will my light cleric grow to see his kind (and himself) as more then just monsters or will he continue to pursue genocide.

Very interesting video. I would like to add that characters who aren't primed for arcs from the start can be really healthy for the campaign. I tend to find that we can sometimes lean towards characters who have really dramatic things they have to deal with that takes a lot to work through and having a character who is stable in their worldview can be really helpful for those characters. I've had one where most characters in the group had stuff to deal with and they kinda ended up colliding spectacularly or winding into an introspective ball that other characters had too many problems to notice. It was a lot of fun but it could've been a little less hectic.

Really excellent video, a great watch.

Damn amazing video! I’m always thinking about the arc of characters both as a dm and player and just being able to logic through them in this video helps a lot!

I have litterally written examines about this topic! how the medial/temporal/performative traits of D&D facilitates interaction, cocreation, and a very specific aesthetic value in-of-itself. Its such an interesting topic!

New sub, I'm looking to get into GMing and i appreciate your insights when it comes to running with PC characteristics and building situations they can roleplay into. I hate being a player that sirens a ton of time creating backstory for literally no reason when it really doesn't matter beyond flavor. Good stuff.

Very insightful! Just found this channel and I love it!

My Half-Orc Barbarian 'Caesar' is my way of giving the party a scapegoat for doing ‘what must be done’ in order to complete an objective or obtain an information. He’s a brute and I’ve recently been examining his mindset of how he truly feels about doing these things. While the other PC don’t know the specifics, they know that they probably don’t want to know exactly how Caesar did it. Caesar came from a Pit Slave background, so violence has been a constant in his life. Over the course of this campaign, he’s been competing against his violent nature, but he also has to battle with his desire for power and control of his life and choices, which this violence permits. While it’s a simple concept, I believe that simple ideas can create terrific stories.

Rad video my dude. Keep up the work. I enjoy this stuff

Great video definitely helps me with how I can grow a story with my players

Quality content. Thanks a bunch!

One of my favorites is for my most recent character Tobias (half orc fey Ranger) our campaign is set in fantasy American Revolution times and Tobias’s main drive was 1). To get out of his town he had lived for 19-20 years and 2). He wanted to do good things in the world cause that’s how he was raised. For a bit he saw things differently from how others did, where the other members saw nothing but victory, Tobias saw that they were barely breaking even considering making up for the mistakes that put the group in the situation to begin with. It all came to a head in the Delaware crossing episode, we took back the town in a ballsy stealth maneuver and celebrated as heroes in the eyes of the Colonials….. but all that Tobias saw, was the burning armory, the ruined houses that’ll take months to rebuild, the lives of men who were even younger than HIM that were lost in this battle. Combine this with being the least useful half caster of the bunch compared to what felt like god tier teammates, seeing the grand battles taking place with bloody dragons, and the desperation of wanting to protecting his home of Red Larch from the Empire yet not strong enough, NEVER strong enough, just never felt enough. He was cynical of their chances, would try to think of non-confrontational methods to keep people safe, to the point where he is now… where the loss is starting to get to the other members and HE of all of them, reminds them of the First Wardens faith in them, and that they should have faith themselves.

Inside a homebrew campaign, this is easier to put in place than a pre-written one, but this is a great tip to remember. Characters don't only accumulate experience points to get level up, but to experiment with other things too. I've added it to my "rewatch it later again" list

This is the kind of stuff that makes me LOVE D&D and games like it. In one game I'm in we have my character and another character kind of going through opposite arcs while finding comfort in each other. The other character started the campaign as chaotic evil but over the course of it has been learning to care about and do things for others, and has been working his way up to chaotic neutral. And my character started as chaotic neutral, but has been nose-diving toward chaotic evil because the war we're in is taking a toll on him in the worst possible way. The funny part of my character's arc though is that bonding with the evil character hasn't had nearly as negative an effect on him as the attempts of the good characters to change him. Because the evil character hasn't really tried to hard to influence him either way, but when he does something the good characters don't like they try to "knock some sense into him". With their fists. And he doesn't respond well to that and pushes back and gets worse. I'm eager to see how it all turns out by the end.

My first PC was a Dragonborn barbarian named Tarhunn. Originally I wrote him as this perfect Mary Sue type character and he could do no wrong. Then he did a lot of wrong up until the point where he realized that his clan who he was fighting for were actually fighting for his enemy completely of their own free will, which completely broke him until he was eventually arrested and executed. All in all a very fun ride

When I create a character, I usually give them a backstory and some prompts my DMs can work with or at least be aware of when creating the story. The best example I like to give is an astral self monk I created a few years ago. He was born to a family of servants to some nobles in a feudal Japan-inspired setting. At some point, the nobles started acting violent towards the servants, which eventually triggered fits of rage in my character. One day, however, a monk from a nearby temple came seeking shelter and my PC's parents begged him to take my PC away so he would be safe and in a healthier environment. From then on, he was trained as a monk and eventually awakened his Astral self, which to his horror, was a representation of his anger. With that, my DM could work from a few angles, my character's relationship with himself and his anger, his desire to bring down the nobles who mistreated him and his family, as well as his desire to offer others the same chance at a safe haven that his masters gave him. From then on, I just let the story roll and always had an eye out for opportunities for character development, in case my DM snuck something into the story

Haven't quite finished the video, but I will point out that a character's vice doesn't always reflect the player's in any way. As a writer, I like to give my characters varied and unique flaws. Many of them are based on flaws I've observed in myself, but many are instead based on flaws I've observed in others and find particularly interesting.

Something it do is I have my players list out two things 1. What are their wants and goals it can be anything like "I want to become the best [X]" or "I want to find [X]" and 2 .their pre existing relationships these can be family or close friends somebody who has history with the character and it doesn't necessarily have to be positive. Then I try to integrate those into the story combining the character's story into the main story.

Great video, as always

Currently my character is a wild magic sorcerer who hates the fact that it's wild magic, mainly because he can't go casting charm person without the risk of turning into a potted plant and overall tried to reject the chaotic nature in general, becoming Lawful Evil but around the point they gave the ability Bend Luck, they grew to like it slightly more, albeit still hating the surges and I think that's really interesting. My big goal for him was to use wish to change his origin to something like Clockwork Soul, however now I imagine he himself is debating on if he _wants_ to

I personally like to take three figures (Usually one historical, one fictional, and a misc.) and blend aspects of them together incorparating a major strength and weakness from each of them. My first character in my 5E campaign was a lot of fun because it was a play on the cavalier, with his ambition eventually draining all his good attributes as a chance at a shortcut to power was dangled in infront of him, losing the respect of his party members.

Commenting for the algorithm so it knows this channel is super-useful and interesting!

One thing I do with my characters, and ask my players to do when I DM, is to write down what themes I want to explore with the character and get an idea about what kind of ways the character's arc might progress, which gives a lot more potential to develop them

My dragonborn druid went from someone with no empathy for nature, animals or others and with no problem in running away when he saw he couldn’t deal with something himself to an altruistic warrior that saw worth in life after descent into avernus and seeing people fight to protect what they loved and going out of their way to help others. When he got a dire wolf spirit as his undying familiar he begun to respect animals as partners since his very life was saved by that dire wolf. He met kind and hardworking people even in a bloody hell and understood why Nature had blessed him with power. He fought Arkham, another dragonborn and saw what following the path of the warrior without thinking would do to him. In the end he built a leaderless nation run by druids that would protect druids and woodlands beings and would teach their ways to those who were lost.

Thank you so much! I was just scouring RU-vid and the Googles for a video on this topic but decided to give up, until...

I love this subject. The character I'm going to play in an upcoming Cuberpunk Red Campaign is a Solo (expert killer, Badlands Nomad Barbarian Brawler type) who went from a having a happy life with her extended Nomad family to essentially being pressed into Raider gang due to her father's selfish decisions. Out of misplaced loyalty, she sticks with the gang to please her father, whose skills as a ripperdoc (doctor specializing in cyberware enhancements) gave him the status and power he'd always craved within this brutal, Darwinist environment. She ends up part of a raid that includes members of her original Nomad family, and after failing to stop it, she flees the gang to Night City. Predictably, rather than examine the reasons why she stayed so long, witnessing and sometimes performing terrible acts at the behest of her father and the gang, she instead aims that irrational loyalty at the first edge runner crew she runs with. Proving worthy of their trust is her full time job, protecting them at any cost, violently lashing out to defend their honor, losing herself to blackout rages when one of them is seriously hurt, throwing herself in front of bullets time after time. Anything that goes wrong she'll often blame herself for, and will undergo intrusive or even dangerous cyberware "upgrades" to correct whatever perceived personal shortcoming she holds responsible. Aggressively overcompensating for guilt and self-hatred, and always hiding it all with a warm smile or a bad joke. Time will only tell if her new partners notice this, or how they'll respond to it, or how it might get us in or out of trouble. But I'm looking forward to finding out.

About characters who change their arcs based on the story: I heard of a story about a Warforged who started true neutral, who became lawful evil due to his understanding of his chaotic and lawful good allies’ actions. His backstory was that he was the guardian of an ancient vault of a cryogenically frozen civilization’s remnants. So when he saw how the surface world treated enemies, as well as their cultural differences, the Warforged determine their civilization to be worse than the one stored in his databanks. So he began efforts to destroy the kingdom to make room for the return of his masters. But he started as true neutral. If the party was better at explaining their ethics, maybe he would have sympathized with them. It was entirely possible for him to deem this culture enlightened, and bring back his past people to integrate with the future world. My current character’s arc is a positive growth. He has to learn how to trust again, face his traumatic past, and regain confidence in his identity and self. He almost broke his shell with a character he called brother, but a member of my party-the one he trusted the absolute least-stopped him from opening up twice.

This is why I always use the Stock Shonen Hero. Lots of storytelling potentional.

Also, I'm digging the background music

I'm late to the comment section xD but I had to think about a section in Monte Cooks "Your best game ever". I know, the title really sounds douchey, but the book is pretty cool. In it, there's also a section about character arcs, with a long list of example arcs that each have certain milestones (minor and major ones). You can change arcs, if the story progresses differently (or want to persue something else), so you're not restricted it rather is a guideline. I can recommend it tbh.

I have a barbarian who is trying to overcome his fear/rage. Like, he rages when he loses control due to fear. And is now off to try to find his mom, a paladin assimar and become better

Another thing I see in a lot of actual play shows, is the dice playing a big part in your character arc.

In my current game I'm playing a homebrewed Sorcerous origin melee Sorcerer. I specifically built him with 10 int (so not stupid but no smart) and 8 wis (I knew this would get me killed (not yet, though) but the character is supposed to be sort of clueless). I am a VHuman but I used my feat on Gourmand (not for power but because I had interest in cooking, which eventually grew to me earning the Chef feat and becoming the party cook). I was TWF in our first outing (my character's first real battle) and I got knocked out (rolled a nat 20, stood up, and got knocked out again). I designed the character to start off as a trained combatant out on his first mission in the real world, and I got my ass kicked. Because of this, I stopped TWF, I played more defensively, I took more support-y spells instead of all offense, and now my character is actually quite useful a lot of the time. The influence of my party members and me just naturally rolling shitty (not cursed like Wheaton but I don't roll well) has changed my entire vision of the character. Due to our actions in the story, my character has also been promoted twice in his organization and got a powerful weapon early on as a mark of his station. Because of my low int and wis, I am sort of steering into the character becoming more confident (headstrong) in his abilities and now that we have finally got a party name (they went with Seven Deadly Sins because there are 7 of us) I am supposed to be 'gluttony' (because cook, I guess) and I'm going to let that go to my character's head also. I plan to be a glutton for power (I've already dropped hints that I think we're all too weak to do what we need to do) and just keep sort of spiraling into a less and less righteous individual until either the party sets me straight or I betray them for ultimate power. Either way, this is precisely the kind of thing that makes D&D so good in comparison to other games. I had an idea for a character originally. My idea worked early on, which led to me sort of growing as a character. But it was the party that has shaped me into what I am. And it is the party that will shape my future. Edit: And it's the party that will kill me, if it comes to it.

Actually, most TV shows work as you describe. There's one person that's the showrunner, and the other writers collaboratively tell a story that the showrunner vets. There are no dice rolls, but the mechanics are very similar.

I am commenting for the 45vp flow

We were gonna have a nice long character arc where one of our players freed herself from the gang that was controlling her….. but then my fighter threw a fridge down the stairs and that plot point was resolved by session four. Yes, those two things are directly related. No I will not explain. Now she gets a “so what now?” Arc.

The concept of 3 types of character arcs and not having control of where it goes rings very true. It was most evident when I played a Slime from the Underdark that gained sentience, gained Sorcerer abilities, went to The Surface, and disguised itself as a mute Human named Miles. Aside from being a really interesting build, Miles began the campaign as a True Neutral aligned character who wanted to better understand sentient creatures that they were now counted among. Their personality was very similar to that of a factory-fresh Warforged without directional or behavioral programming, but being a Slime, Miles understood survival, which becoming sentient helped with, yet everything about being sentient both confused and intrigued them, sparking their integration into society. From that starting point in the campaign, Miles could have gone anywhere in terms of morality, judging everything they learned through the filter of 'does it help with survival?' and gradually attempting to learn if there was anything of value beyond that. By fighting criminals and villains and assisting their companions with performing righteous actions, Miles' alignment could shift to Good and/or Lawful as he became a respected member of a larger community, helping others survive attempts to kill them and getting helped with his own survival in turn. Then again, those criminals/villains were often alone when fought against and were feared by the entire city or kingdom; surely the path of terror and death provided some benefits that would ensure their survival coupled with the sentience and knowledge Miles' had gained, meaning becoming Chaotic and/or Evil was the path to go. Or maybe it would be wiser to remain Neutral and keep out of these perplexing matters of Good and Evil, especially when the clashes made things so dangerous, and just focusing on enhancing their own arcane powers, or if necessary returning to The Underdark, was the right choice. Depending on the events of the campaign and the selfless and/or selfish actions of Miles' companions and the people around them, Miles' mindset could shift and lean to favor any of these perspectives. In the end, Miles ended up Lawful Neutral, cross-classing into Druid and viewing itself as a predator, and while not an animal, did fit in the natural order of the world and viewing too much of either the BBEG's march of conquest or emotion-fueled virtuousness of the kingdom's heroes as a disruption to the balance of nature that Miles, animal or not, was part of and relied on for his survival. Then again, in another timeline, in another campaign, Miles could have turned out differently. And that's why I love playing Warforged characters who started out as blank or near-blank slates and letting experiences shape them into something else, be it good or evil, but always a partial reflection of the other players, allowing my character to potentially become a critical element of their own characters' arcs if the party falls into self-conflict. The only reason I didn't play another Warforged with Miles was because I just wanted to play something different mechanically while maintaining the mentality, and just came up with idea of a sentient slime.

The beautiful bastards in the end made me want to give a like

I have nothing long to say, I was just nodding in agreement to every point made in this video :)

I'd say this is very similar to written Roleplays, which I've done plenty with friends, it's a lot like this but with no DM. I'd think Larping is similar based on what I've been told, ironically by a guy named Squirrel in my Improv class.

you simply cannot convince me that every single DnD-like book isn't just one DnD party written down by one of players

My current character that I'm playing kinda had a character arch that I wasn't expecting. I was thinking theirs was maybe going to be excepting others or maybe trying to show that despite how other people act weather they fail or win there will always be people who love them or maybe that people should love each other no matter what. I also had a thing where she was trying to figure out where her powers came from as I was sorta playing it more like a Divine Soul sorcerer but didn't want to bother multi classing to get armor. However with her Husband and father being killed and her sister being part of the reason this happened went over into darkness, I did know before hand that if something had happened to her family she would want revenge so I had her go for more dark spells (she's a grave cleric so she had access to some brutal spells) and when she did have to fight in combat she scared her child that up until the attack no one knew was hers. Now the interesting part is something that the other players talked about out of character her doing that I did not have planed and me deciding to go with it. They thought that she was going to run away and go on ahead of them. That wasn't my plan my plan was that I was going to deal with her guilt of how she was part of a group of heroes and could do nothing to save her people especially the ones she loved. But after I had her dealing with I had her run away and cause the party to separate to which she found out that she was the reincarnation of a hero to her religion. Which of course she didn't believe because how could someone with this darkness inside be this great hero. Now it became a story about her dealing with the darkness inside of her and I'm planing on having her go with that she will accept both the darkness and the light inside of her and choose to walk the path of both that of darkness and light. Sorta like trying to keep a balance between the two. How I manage to do that though would be interesting.

“We have stories because people want to see how the story progresses!” Monte Python: Hold my Holy Hand Grenade!

It's a bit of a jump to conclude that pcs desires and vices are always based on the traits of the player behind them, while that can happen I don't think it's a constant with the variety of characters one could make and play

This is a great video. My players have a habit of just... not... giving me their backstory. So that makes shit a little more difficult for me, so I pull at them with what I can. One of them is a vampire that has lived for a long time and is very reserved, doesn't open up to people a lot, and struggles with anger when faced with emotion; very much like my best friend (the player), whether they know it or not. The character now has a best friend that he's had for 100 years that he's comfortable with to the point of weakness (you know, kind of like how we are), and I'm going to force him to react to this NPC on the verge of death and a dangerous situation to see what he will do about this. In the same frame, there's an archangel that my Paladin worships whose followers are a zealous inquisition against magic-users, to the point of burning the condemned alive, and forcing evidence through a dangerous labyrinth dungeon that the players will have to go through to save the boss of their monster hunting guild, a guild who's giving their lives to keep the darkness from taking over their world, the final bastion against all the horrors in the world. This character is a very cheerful Oath of Glory Paladin, and I want to confront them with the fact that their archangel, of righteous war and valour, is overlooking the prisons where people are being tortured and die in his name, and he doesn't stop it. I want to see how both these characters come out on the other side while using the NPC Cleric that's on their team as the escaped "convicted witch" of this inquisition and witness first hand that even if you survive, you will not be spared. Hopefully it actually goes anywhere.

Currently playing a what was formerly A Lawful Evil Hobgoblin fighter for an Out of The Abyss campaign. Character originally had a very prideful and dismissive and had a mercenary attitude towards the party and NPC's. He was around because they were fodder to buy him time for his survival and if necessary he was prepared to sacrifice some of the weaker ones. Party put up with him because he could take a hit. After multiple fights he started to see the party as Useful and started to talk more with them and slowly started to open up. After a point the party started calling the character out of his attitude and manage to break through his shell. The uncaring and unfeeling mercenary personality was just a facade and my character was stuck in a situation he had no idea how to handle and was defaulting to that personality to not appear weak. (I did foreshadow that my character did care while on the darklake. We had gone over a waterfall and one of the weaker NPC had come loose. My character grabbed him and took the fall damage on his behalf) Anyway My character started to admit he knew his actions in his past were wrong, but was too afraid of his superiors to ever do anything about it. He changed Lawful Neural. Just last week he challenged his Band's warlord to combat, was able to slay him and took control of the band putting an end to a war that was obvious to everyone but the warlord that the goblins were going to lose. This was symbolical for him, the warlord represented all of the characters fears and now he can be himself rather than be a raider for hire. I Can't wait to see where his story-line goes for the next part of the campaign .

My character is a little angel girl sorceress (Aasimar Divine Soul) who is quite possibly the strongest in the party in terms of damage and healing (this last encounter we had she killed 10 out of the 12 enemies), but at the same time she has deep mental trauma from her parents, who used her essentially as a healer for the dangerous slum in which they lived to get some coin. She ran to them when she knows they're nearby and she's out of healing. She wants to be punished for being "useless" momentarily. Every day if she doesn't do her quota from when she was 1st level of healing touch and 2 cure wounds, she doesn't know what to do with herself. Most recently she had a distressing nightmare of injuries she couldn't heal. She distances herself from the party's morals a little bit, half subconsciously, half on purpose. But she can't help but be curious. They're kinda awkwardly like a family. The older brotherly Paladin, who held her hand after her nightmare. The protective younger brother fiend Warlock who watched her father to see if he would hit her when they had a secret meeting together- her mother is the aggressive one- the motherly, or perhaps aunt, artificer and the pet-having uncle wizard.

Eventually i'm going to present my player who's a dhampir, with a choice between siding with their prominent noble family and potentially curing themselves, or siding with the vampire that changed them, killing their family and becoming a full vampire

3:15 minmaxers smiling in the distance

Never would've guessed that character arcs looked like a 3D printer

Dude, what music was that at the end??

I had a feeling in my bones that you would release a video today turns out I was right

Did we indirectly kill the Halfling child we really liked? yes... Was it the best story I have ever played... It is definitely up there!

"Players put parts of themselves in their PCs" *looks at my cast of traumatized characters with a variety of mental health issues* Yep, sounds about right. And I can say, if you are aware of it, it can be a very interesting device to work through some things.

👍 jazz soundtrack

My dwarf palidin and the party he is traveling with came up to a bandit camp. Our artificer and rouge went to scout the perimeter, the rest of the party stayed back hiding near by. The artificer tried to throw a stone enchanted to make a dragon's roar into the camp (which was surrounded by a wall). He fails the strength check to throw the rock and it bounces off the wall (still making the sound when it fell) my palidin starts to run forward to try and set fire to the wall to make the illusion more realistic sadly chain armor and a -3 to dex made him VERY easy to spot by the guy in the watch tower alerting the 10 other bandits who then swarm my palidin (our party was lvl 2 at the time) my AC of 18 kept the horde from getting too many hits on me and I held my ground for a couple rounds..... then our artificer cast faire fire on the horde..... myself including (failed the save so now everything gets adv. To hit me) I take 3 blows and I'm unconscious. Long story short I was stabilized and healed but my palidin couldn't shake the weight of failure (what the other players still don't know is that my palidin's father was a famous warrior (he was a palidin too).... and my character never felt that he would ever be the man his father was so he (my character) chose to devote his life to becoming a blacksmith. Now my character has been thrust into the one role he never thought he could fulfill..... a hero and he struggles to find the confidence he needs to keep fighting constantly doubting himself with every failure even if the party is successful in the end.) Honestly I've always felt that way in my life. Never living up to the expectations others have for you and the ones you put on yourself, always doubting your own strength and never having the courage to just do something because your afraid of the failure and the consequences of said failure.

Im currently running a ranger and had him be a cold calculated individual with moments of showing some humanity since he is a sociopath due to his father accidentally affecting him and his siblings so there is something off about them. I didnt want him to be the edgy character but as of the recent session someone actually did something to set up one of his triggers on accident that being the reveal that he wears makeup constantly. He has these permanent markings done by his younger sister and has struggled to get it removed either normally and magically so he gave up. This in turn led to some jokes from the family which they say is in good fun but this included people outside from strangers to fellow classmates. This has led a negative impact on his development as a person since he was still a kid(not a teen) when it happened. His need to hide these markings are based on the anxiety on what people will think if they saw the real him. It doesnt end there however. His family is of noble descent known to make very good wizards to spread their knowledge in many ways. He deviated from this lifestyle with full acceptance from the family (caring family but make unintentional mistakes that cause more harm). It explains why he is lacking in magic as a half caster but it also goes further into his end goal in the campaign that being he has no idea what he wants. Originally stating he wanted to be a chef to make good food for anyone in any condition or place but it may have been a grasping of straws to find purpose in his life. Having so much doubt in his choice and second guessing if it was the right thing to do.(it helps that he is the weakest character in the party due to bad rolls breaking his weapons and forcing him to fight outside his specific build). So with all this stated he has become the asshole of the group. With them unintentionally bringing back old memories with him having no healthy way to let his stress out. It makes him act out like attempting to steal books he cant afford because he wasted all his money for the group since everyone but him was poor. It also gave him more reason to believe that he cant really trust the majority of the party if they would do this to him out of a simple mistake of accidentally spraying water on them. So now he is even more distant after throwing a book at their druid pixie and after finding out that him losing all his money was for nothing made him become his old 15 year old self of keeping to himself in isolation. I dont doubt the party will try to mend this in the future but it will be interesting to play out since without his backstory context he just looks like an a-hole. Only two party members have his respect and theyre the wise ones of the group. Tl:Dr: unintentional childhood bullying made him hide secrets and dislike strangers. A lot of self doubt on his choices of life like a college student especially being unable to afford the things he needs/wants since he wanted to help the group

I like to give my characters clear and pronounced flaws, then work through them over a campaign. Gror the Bear has issues with personal attachment after having had the causes he's fought for repeatedly massacred by powers beyond his control. Jeremiah-Antony Jackstraw is a psychopath with no concept of the sanctity of life and a hatred of the church. Tipps Fedd'rah is naive to the point of almost getting herself killed by trying to be a storybook hero. Lukas Brighthammer is literally incapable of saying no to people by the nature of being the top left corner of Lawful Good. Naturally, I've yet to play any of these characters past one session. I should just write a book.

I'm currently playing though one of the most satisfying RP experiences in my group. The character is a spin on the classic "edgy rogue" that grows out of it. Shes a 16 year old noble that was sheltered and burdened by her parent's expectations of class. This causes her to eventually run away from home and join the group at large. She starts off as essentially a moody teen, naggy, negative, edgy etc. Shes even is kind of shaken up after the first combat as the first time shes had to experience actual violence (and kill someone) Over time, as the story progresses (and playing with a relatively lawful good party), she steps into her role as a hero, and takes meaning from helping others. This is where we are currently at in our campaign. Having those little moments where the normally edgy character does a good deed, or admits they LIKE their companions really hits hard. Plan is to culminate with a homecoming story where she goes back home and saves her parents or something. Essentially retiring the character to step into her role as a noble, but with a genuine desire to help others now that shes been "molded" by her experiences. Its a cliche coming of age story with some anime anti-hero redemption shit mixed it. But its genuinely the most satisfying RP ive had playing DnD in a loooong time, seeing this character grow up.

Actually starts at 2:05

engagement

Forever DM here. One player im getting ready to spring up his creator as hes a young clone experiment of a eldrich knight so said knight can retrieve him and transfer his mind to the PC and overtake him. I have other arc plans for my players like the formless order going after my changeling player im still cooking up an ark for the owl paladin in our game.

WRAAAAAAAAHHH KILL THINGS ~> Hm, kill things… for good

Well... I could need some help right now. I'm playing a true neutral character. She's a artificer armorer wild magic sourcerer and to summon up her backstory: ¶Her brother and her are children/experiments of the draco lich Daurgothoth. We found out that the is an avatar of an evil sealed away creature who was one of the seven first creations of one of the gods who created the world. That creatures father has been killed by Daurgothoth and his uncle. The other creations sacrificed their lives to seal away Daurgothoth and his uncle (that's all something my DM made up for his world 😅 I'm slightly panicking of what big of a role my PC has because I don't wanna steal the spot light). ¶Her brother and my PC are suppose to be new and better avatars for him that can endure more of his magic and strength. ¶she grew up with her brother by her father until she was 9 years old and had to endure harsh training including that the twins have been forced to fight each other. But they still cared about each other. Their father called my PCs strong empathy towards those she bonded with a defect. ¶when she was 9 years old her brother and she was kidnapped by enemies of their father followers of a lawful good God of war who thinks that the twins are suppose to be used as weapons in a war they are fighting with him/his avatar. They have been seperate as soon as they managed to get them outside of their home. ¶ My PC has been carried from temple to temple and had to endure more and even harsher experiments because the followers tried to find out the weaknesses of that new race (half draco lich. I play a re-flavored dragonborn do it's balanced) but hadn't kill her (we don't know why at the moment) until the age of 16. ¶in the last temple she was in she met a priest that took pitty and befriended her, helped her endure the experiment etc. Since the moment she was kidnapped she tried to reach and figure out where her brother was. Afraid of what they do to him. She constantly asked her prist friend who claimed he is looking for him. With the help of her friend, the town folks and another PC of the party she escaped and disguised herself as an adventure. She got a mask and glove which covers up her lich spots which are spilling out wild magic. That cover the most important bits. Now she met the rest of our party when we were fighting off robbers and took the same exam. Since than the PC who helped her escape who became her friend and she traveled with the capeless crusaders. She learned about technology from one of the PCs and started to build and experiment with her own ideas. She was excited to use something that would be out of her control and she powers her inventions through the energy from her cursed spots. We completed some tasks and figured out that one of our members is the rightful heir to the throne of the country we are in. Her mother has been murdered and she was looking for those people. She is also a half elf when all nobles in that country are humans... My PC and her became really close and started to have a mother child relationship (I made it so that half dragons mentally age differently. They are really childlike till the point they can fully transform into their dragon form which is around 20 years old and mature pretty fast in less than a year. Practically "skipping" puberty. I agreed with my DM about this after the group treated her more like a child than a teen so I adapted that because it sounded funny). And .... We met her brother...we wasn't hold captive who wasn't in a temple but was the general leading an attack against the nation we are in... The other PCs nation and home. Our Aarakocra saw him and when he described him my PC recognized the description and now there was no way holding her back. She told her friend (the PC who helped her escape) and they both claimed to have a plan to get to him. The rest of the party agreed after some arguing and they managed to get through the military and to her brother after she took off her mask to reveal who she was (most except one OC thought it was only to cover up scares and not to cover up exposed bones). She was really excited to see him again and he was really happy as well but than he asked if they wanna see father. The only people who told her that her father is suppose to be bad where the same people who captured and basically tutored her for 7 year's. The only reason why she was looking for excuses to not meet him is because the priest he helped her excape told her that she should avoid him. He was the only one she trusted. Things escalated and her brother started to scream out while he was yelling at us to run because he can't hold him back forever. We managed to flee but my PC was obviously devastated. Some of the PCs tried to comfort her but we were unsure of what to do. The guy who helped us escape ordered us to find and bring him a person, a noble lady he had problems with. When we "rescued" her from her captivity our half elf was told to kill her by a messager from the guy who helped us. My PC tried to step in because our bard hasn't murdered anyone yet and my PC didn't want that she is forced to kill like she has been forced. But our bard killed her anyway with no regret. My PC asked her multiple times but she said she was fine and no signs showed that she was lying. So here are some things I decided for my character: Normally: ¶ She highly dislikes any kind of torture. She already stept in multiple times when the party was even attempting to torture someone to get Informationen. She always talked with the people and figured out most of the information without torture. ¶ She is ok with killing but she hopes to make it as quickly and painless as possible. ¶ she does feel neutral towards pretty much everything around her (except if she sees torture) and also doesn't care about other people's lives. She acts like she cares because she experienced empathy and goodness once when the town helped her escape... So she *tries* to be good and defend other's because that's what her friend told her is suppose to be good and she likes to spread the feeling of helping someone unconditionally. So she doesn't feel much but she has been convinced that she should strive to be good. But I made two of her sides which are common among people to two high extrems one belongs more to the good alignment and the other to the bad alignment which are the following: Good: high attachment. When she learned to like someone and let's them in she'll do everything in her control to protect that person and prevent them from harm. This includes her brother, the capeless crusaders, the town folks and the prister friend *and* an npc who we help cure from a curse who reminded her a lot of her brother (they look similar and his curse was on his leg same as the lich spots are on her brothers leg and part of his face). She was ready to fire a simple arrow towards an npc who killed George with just one hand wave and had a break down when she realized he was dead. That's the side her father called a "defect" and it was the first time my PC experienced the drawbacks of that side because until than it always have her a reason to strive forward and help those close to her. Bad: Extrem euphoria and actually happiness when she is able to take revange than last for as long as she can remember that moment. She hasn't been able to take revange (yet) but the people who she feels lots of resentment towards are the main three supervisor who experimented on her when she was still hold captive and that npc who killed George. There is a reason why I differ between normal and those two categories because she'll love to see the people suffer who hurt her that much. She won't try to just kill them when it comes to it (she isn't aware of that yet). She will be fully onboard to kill them as slowly as possible and she'll enjoy every second of it. But that's a side that hasn't been shown yet and will be surprised for her, too. Ok but after all of that... What I do I need help with? Well... We escaped to the main city and he were trying to warn them and figure out how to fight my PCs brother when... The armee arrived at the main city. At first we tried to escape again... But it wasn't possible this time so instead we planned an attack on the general's in hopes to disorganized the enemies armee and protect the city. Before we started my PC begged the rest of the party that when we meet her brother again to spare his live and try to take him with us. They promised to try to knock him out in worst case and the bard was the first one to promise it and hug her. The plan worked out and we managed to get to the general's with a few other adventures help... There we met my PCs brother for the second... and last time. He... was changed. He looked older, he didn't sound as naive and joyful anymore and was surprised to see us but told my PC to sit down. She froze and bagged him to call off the attack and come with her away from her father. He told her he doesn't want to. She said she would never voluntary come back to the family but she would do it if he stops the attack on the city now. He said that this wasn't up to debate and that he'll just take her back after he is done with the attack. She asked him why she helped them escape when he didn't believe that's a good thing to be away from their father. He replied that he was punished for it, that it was a foolish thing to do and he'll never repeat it because he now knows how idiotic it is to not listen to their father. When someone attacked him from behind he broke his arm without even looking at that person but while they were talking one of our PCs managed to capture him in a beacon of which he was unable to escape. He became angry and ordered us to let him out and than it happened...

As long as your character Ark. Isn't a straight line.

Don't know if it's just me, but that 3D printer thing or whatever made it hard to focus on the actual video info XD

Anybody else curious as to what he was 3D printing?

TTRPGs are very dialectic when it comes to their storytelling. While both players and GMs have their ideas for where a story will go and bring assumptions and plans for story arcs, those assumptions and plans are literally gambled on with dice so you never really know how a game will go, you can only roleplay with the punches and try to get wherever enjoyment you can out of it. A player who went in trying to make a tough, battle-hardened ranger who never misses only to roll low whenever they shoot their bow is now playing a character who is a blow-hard who is either lying or delusional about being good with their bow. A player who plays a cute innocent character who relies on others only to crit non-stop whenever they do damage now seems comically unaware of how much of a powerhouse they are and how much their party relies on them.

Algrothum

I love to give my characters huuuuuge flaws that are healed over the campaign. I played a Monk once who was a very Ryu type character. He was all about honor and fame, and would do anything to achieve it. My DM let me make a magic item for him and I decided to make a red headband for him (naturally). The thing was, whenever I had this headband on and I was fighting one enemy, nobody could attack that enemy and nobody could attack me, so it basically put us in a duel. The part of this item that tied into my character was the other ability it had. Anybody who viewed this fight from the outside would assume it to be fair, as I could sculpt how onlookers saw it. This would lead to my character singling out the weaker characters in packs and then making a grand show of beating them up, but make it look fair to everybody else. This eventually lead to my character having a reputation for such an honorable lifestyle, until we had our own tournament arc. He met another martial artist, and he was way more powerful, so when they were matched up in the tournament my character got some extra magic items to help him out (since he's an asshole). This all backfired on him when the round came and the other guy had some sort of magical nullification. This made my character instantly go into a desperate scramble, and it's safe to say he lost. This all lead to my character slowly being ok with losing, and letting his bright moments shine through instead of being all he was. Right now I am playing my favorite character ever: a noble dragonborn bard. His backstory is basically a privileged brat who, after the death of his older brother, assumed his father's (a very important noble) inheritance would be his. His father and mother both recognized his decent, and banished him from the house until he was of age. This forced him to live on his own, which he was awful at. This is where the campaign starts and right now he is working on helping people instead of using them. I have so much stuff I've talked with my DM about for him and god I love how D&D does this. great vid!

My character became a pimp

Whelp, might as well: First lol

I know the feeling keeping dropping hint toward Yagi (Goat) of Tori (Bird). My PC is named Astraea Karasu (Raven) and is a Satyr (Goat) yet none of the other players catch the hint.

algorithm

pog

That 3d print is hard to watch. I'd rather have a black background with words

Bonds, ideals, and flaws are pointless