Character Creation Part 2: Now With More Creation

After my last article, I happened to find the notes that I had made about character creation. Well, it turns out that my memory is shot because I didn’t even manage to hit half of those points. Character creation is important though, so I decided to revisit this topic in Character Creation Part 2!

Rather than a long series of paragraph, I’m going to keep this short and simple.

So, here’s my dos and don’ts of character creation:

• DO pick a trait that makes your character memorable.

This can be a quirk, or an interesting background, or a strange physical appearance. The point in this is to be able to differentiate your character from the hundreds of NPC’s in the world and from your own stable of characters. There should be a reason to play one character over another.

• DO fit the character to your play style.

If you love keeping track of spells and blasting enemies away with fireballs, don’t play a magicless knight. Likewise, a person that loves to lead the group and talk should not play a character with low charisma who hides in the shadows. This should be pretty self explanatory, but it may take a while to fine tune which leads straight to the next point..  

• When you’re just starting out, DO try out a wide variety of characters.

My first character was a quiet, assassin rogue. I was bored to tears. You may think that you know your character type, but until you’ve tried a few out it’s a good idea to be diverse. Another of our players started out as a straight-laced paladin before finding out that he loved to play a slightly evil, glory driven, rogue. You just never know.

• And on the heels of that one, DON’T play a quiet recluse/stoic loner type.

It’s really boring. That character has no reason to interact with the party, so you’ll find yourself unable to interact with your friends if you are being true to your character. Don’t put yourself in that position. Chances are if you’re playing a tabletop RPG it’s because you want to talk to real humans. So make a character that likewise wants to, or has to, play with the party.

• DO play with the ridiculous.

Don’t feel like your character needs to be the kind of epic hero that tales are told about. Roleplaying games are often written with a tongue-in-cheek humor that allows for the strange and the silly while carrying on in a faux-serious manner. Remind yourself that you’re playing a game, so if you want to be a witch that rides a bouncing pumpkin or a con-man who introduces himself with a new name every day, do it!

That being said, it can be pretty funny in its own right to be the straight man (humor not orientation, ‘cause who gives a shit) in an otherwise ridiculous party. Allowing your character to be a little silly can also keep things from getting overly competitive within the party or with the DM. After all, failing a saving throw and falling in love with an orc maiden is just another day in the life for a funny character while it may be a devastating blow for the knight attempting to save a kingdom from tyrants as he maintains a sterling reputation.

• Finally, DON’T min-max.

Hashtag real talks, it’s annoying as hell, both to the other players and to the DM. For those of you unfamiliar with min-maxing, it’s when a player chooses everything about the character from race to feats to make a specific skill as unstoppable as possible. These characters are often useless to do anything else, but the chosen maxed skill will be ridiculously good. So, why do I hate it? Min-maxing is often done to the detriment of being a well-rounded, interesting character. In fact, this technique seems solely designed to thwart the DM.

As an example, the character may have been made to only be good at finding and undoing traps. That’s all they do. The DM sets up a really cool crypt, designed with traps that would challenge the party to find clever ways around some of them, while getting caught by some and being able to disarm others. Instead, the min-max player walks straight through the crypt, disarming even the most difficult traps with ease and allowing the rest of the party to follow without having to actually do anything.

So, the DM has just wasted a lot of time and effort into making a dungeon and the rest of the party has had absolutely no fun. The next time the DM wants to design something, they will have to specifically target the weaknesses of the min-maxed player or try to make something difficult enough to stop that player from simply walking through it. This often leads to tension between the player and the DM, or makes things so difficult that the other players still cannot participate. It’s a lose-lose situation. So for the love of gaming, just don’t do it.

Making a good character will completely change the way that you play the game, so try things out and fine tune your processes. To all you min-maxers out there, I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings. Not really, knock your shit off.

Baby DM out.