Making RPG Characters

It’s time to make your new character, and while you want to fit them into the world you know little about. So how do we navigate this brave new world of backstory and motivation in uncertain climes?

Flexibly.

Now this article will be about fleshing out your character rather than rolling stats and picking skills. Whether you do that before or after figuring out who they are is up to you. But I find it’s a back and forth as pieces come together.

First Chapters Get Cut

As a writer, I get asked to read things and give feedback. Many is the time I’d see a draft for a fantasy story where chapter one is a speed run through the character’s birth and trials of adolescence. Then, chapter two arrives with our protagonist getting dragged into the plot. Chapter one always needs cutting. Adventures start days or moments from a status quo of normal for the hero.

Now it’s great to know all that stuff about your character. But in a book, it should be sprinkled in later. Just as you don’t know all that stuff about a stranger you just met. For a role-playing game, I advise keeping it just as light. You don’t even know if your PC will survive the first adventure.

Get To Know Your DM

The more you know your DM and the world they prepared (or are preparing), the better you can fit in. What is the name of the town and country the game will start in. Neighboring places. Government, religions. Your character would probably tie into that.

More of my approach will be about not knowing these answers, because you can always plug in facts as they become known. Conversely, if you make up a huge backstory that isn’t compatible with the setting that is revealed, you’ll be bummed.

Silly or Serious and Creative License

Game masters vary in their skill and flexibility in accounting for player-generated material. In other words, if you make up a whole monastic order where your cleric is from, will the DM accept that? What if everything about the order is based on puns and joke names?

Sir An-ahl Rectablast isn’t going to mesh well with the thematic styling of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings campaign setting. Funny things can happen in serious games, but a group trying for a serious vibe wants to start with serious characters. Find that out early on.

A Kind of Family

Everybody has a family. At least in a very loose definition. The chances of surviving to adulthood with zero help and knowing nobody seems unlikely. Even orphans knew somebody in the orphanage or on the street.

Here’s a slew of generic ideas:

1. Parents still alive

2. One died, other still alive

3. One parent dead, but replaced

4. Foundling

5. Orphaned, lived in orphanage

6. Adopted

7. Orphaned, grew up on the streets

8. Parents kicked you out

9. Parents just died

10. Parents missing

Tragedy makes for dramatic storytelling, though you might also be tempted to be an orphan so the DM can’t kidnap your parents. But leaving no hooks for stories to grow around you means the DM won’t make much material about you.

Now’s the time to think about siblings, too. Sure, one of them might get into trouble that you’ll get roped into saving them, but that’s fun and worth XP.

As indicated by some of the examples, a character may or may not be on good terms with their parents. You’ll want to consider that as well for each related character. You do not need to make up more than a name. Just knowing they exist can be a seed for fleshing out later.

Social Class and Finances

The two extremes of starting character backgrounds are being a poor orphan driven to a life of adventuring, which easily aligns with the starting wealth of character generation. Or wanting to be the offspring of Lord and Lady Whatsthereiname with a goodly amount of resources and wealth, so why can’t I start with Full Plate armor. Which you can’t because the rules say so.

No matter what, you will need to rationalize your background to reflect the actual circumstances of the starting equipment. Or keep mum on the subject. Some players don’t work up any background.

But it’s easy enough to assume they scrounged up the gear they have or that’s all they grabbed when they left home. Or even lost “the good stuff” in the time before the first adventure.

Here’s some ideas though:

1. Dirt poor family

2. Lean, but we had enough

3. We lived well enough

4. I had more rooms than this inn

Where Did You Get Those Skills?

Next up is your character was not born knowing how to fight or sneak, or cast spells. Somebody taught them a little bit. Even if it was an older kid who wanted to keep the young one alive long enough to be useful.

So, make up that person, too. Here’s a few ideas conveniently numbered in a range of common RPG dice.

1. Parent taught you

2. An older kid showed you the ropes

3. A mentor or master trained you

4. A formal education at a school

5. Trial, error, and observation (self-taught)

6. A knack for this

Unfinished Business

As a brand new, low-level character, you’re not awesome at anything. Probably better at something than somebody who sucks. So whatever dramatic stuff happened in the past, you didn’t kick ass. You either ran, or were soundly beaten. This is the stuff of comeuppance, where your PC returns to solve the problem. I’m not saying your PC literally fled like a coward or what have you. That you shouldn’t bother inventing an action hero success for a backstory. It’s implausible, and more importantly, doesn’t leave the GM reason to bring this up ever.

Here’s some stereotypical, but usable ideas for what you might have left unresolved:

1. Family (member) hurt/killed by villain

2. Invaders took over your homeland

3. The local tough stole something from you/family

4. You need to pass a trial to be worthy

5. You need to prove yourself to someone whose respect matters to you

6. You’ve been accused of a crime and fled

7. You are not who you say you are

8. You have something somebody wants

Make More Knives

I ran across an article awhile back about backstory, and giving the GM material to use for future adventures. It’s called Knife Theory. Here’s a link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/775caq/my_friends_and_i_have_something_called_knife/

The takeaway is, which you can sense from this article as well, is don’t be afraid to leave dangling threads for the GM to pull on and stab your character with adventure written specifically about them. This is what makes table-top RPGs a great experience, and why I favor writing my own material. I feel that the game is more personal when the quests revolve around things you left for me to reference. Rather than you being Tav who has zero backstory material in the Balder’s Gate 3 video game. Great game mind you, but as of yet, a video game like BG3 can’t make stuff up about a character you invented after they shipped the game.