The Many Adventures of So-and-So: Creating Player Characters

Friday Night: The new mission was to find a ship, the North Wind, which the party had acquired the deed to. There were rumors that it was being kept under a new name, secretly having been... liberated... by Captain Ark Kyness. Carolina quickly decided that Ark was a tool, songs about him notwithstanding. Challenging him for the ship would be too simple, no finesse. Poisoning him would be too quick. No, better by far to outmaneuver and humiliate him before sailing off in his ship on a hunt for profit. Carolina watched from the bar as Ark began another hand of cards. 

Now was the time to act. Gathering the party, she set off to the ship. A few lies, told with enough haughty disdain to keep questions to a minimum, got the party onto the ship and behind the closed doors of the captain's quarters. There were about 20 crew members, and only 4 members of the party. Odds were against them should the crew attack. Zugg barred the door with his crowbar. Carolina quickly searched the room for leverage. On the desk, a ledger listed the ship under both of its names, confirming that the Penitent Ark was actually the North Wind. The door was unbarred by the time Ark boarded the ship and entered his quarters. Carolina sat at his table waiting for him. Her feet were propped up on the table top and her chair tipped back as she downed a tumbler of scotch, "So, what brings you to my ship?"

As a player, there are really two important elements to having fun in any role-playing game. The first, as we've touched on before, is having a good DM that wants to make things enjoyable for the players. The second, and the topic of this post, is having a character that you love to play.

Carolina is one of my many characters. She's a mercenary, swashbuckling treasure hunter with an irreverent attitude and an inability to tell the complete truth about anything. There's a chip on her shoulder that comes from constantly being in the shadow of her mom, a retired adventurer and upstanding noblewoman. Her greatest fear is magic that plays with her mind or takes away her will. This is a character with depth and backstory. She has her own motivations and reasons for being with the party. When I play her, I get to be cocky and snarky, while leading the party towards whatever new treasure or con she sets her sights on.

All of my characters are vastly different. I have in my repertoire a vengeful and religious water witch, a desert druid from a violently matriarchal tribe who rides a giant tortoise, a lazy but talented illusionist, a one-eyed charlatan rogue who tricks people into thinking she's using magic, a scythe-wielding halfling assassin, and Carolina. My characters are all female and most of them use some kind of magic, but the similarities end there.

I tend to play characters that are fantasy versions of myself. I like to find a connection with my character, some trait that we share. It makes it easier to understand the character, and more fun to role-play an exaggerated version of myself. Another player in the group makes characters in the same way that I do. His favorite characters tend to be charismatic leaders, regardless of their class or background.

When thinking about how the rest of group creates characters, I came up with 3 types of players.

1. The player that wants to play themselves. This may be a character that reflects your personality fully or in parts. In some way, there is a direct connection between the player and the character.
2. The player that likes to play someone that is their opposite, which allows them to experience some kind of escapism. One of our most lawful good, paladin-type friends only seems to play evil characters. It allows him to be something different than what he is in day-to-day life.
3. The player that picks a class or a personality and sticks with it. Sometimes, this is just a particular character that the player enjoys using. It is not necessarily like them or not like them. This character may be based on a book or movie or a childhood hero. One of our players in particular loves to play crazy magicians. Literally crazy, as in slightly unhinged. They're usually impulsive and obsessive, and simultaneously make the DM face-palm and laugh.

Finding which of these 3 types describes you as a player can make it much easier to create a character that you enjoy playing.

Ultimately, what makes a character isn't what is on the character sheet. Your DEX score can't tell you whether your character was raised as an acrobat or an assassin, if they're afraid of heights, or whether they prefer prowling a city to exploring caves. Enjoying your character means seeing them as a complete person, so give them fears, hopes, vices, and loves. Figure out who their parents were and why they started adventuring. Do they have a spouse at home or a lover waiting for them in a far off port city? Create a story around your character in which they are the protagonist.

Unfortunately, I can't create a complete formula to maximize fun for everyone. Try out different characters. Take inspiration from every source available to you and play with it. If a character isn't working, try something completely different. You may be surprised by what you find.

Baby DM out.