Character Creation, where to start?

So in order to play Dungeons and Dragons, you need a character. How do you do that?

There are two sides to creating a character for your new campaign. The first is normal character building, creating a personality and backstory for them, and the second is the mechanical part, which makes your character work in the game. Today, we’ll be diving into what makes characters unique and even giving some tips for the next character you create! We’ll get to the mechanical junk some other time.

Personality starts out simple but gets more complex as you dive deeper into it, a good character is flawed even despite their favourable traits. 

Say you want to make a righteous knight in training, that character may have a strong moral code and a heightened sense of justice, someone who cannot handle seeing injustices being committed. On the surface, this character is a good person, but good traits can be twisted into deep flaws. Sure, their sense of justice is good and right, but justice could lead to ruthlessness. It could turn them into someone who, no matter what the consequences, follow their moral code into a ditch and doesn’t care for the damage they’ve done as long as it seems right to them.

Characters are always more interesting when they’re flawed, if every character were perfect in a show, movie or book nobody would find that interesting. Flaws are needed to create tension, unique interactions and goals.

Now for backstory. The backstory can be mostly anything, though it should fit within the campaign’s narrative. For example, a character that starts at level one shouldn’t be a renowned slayer of gods and dragons, instead, they are most likely a beginner traveller who is trying to get their ground on the whole adventuring thing. 

Backstories should expand on your character, and give them a reason to be how they are. Usually, this results in many characters having tragic backstories involving blood and loss, and I myself am not innocent of this troupe. I mean who doesn’t love giving their characters tragic stories and a cool redemption arch that helps them find security and friendship?

Regardless, character backstories can be mostly anything as long as it’s realistic for the setting. Sure, magic is relatively normal in most D&D societies, but you don’t see god slayers every day. So when you write your backstory make sure to run it by your game master first! Collaboration is key. Who knows, maybe your GM wants to add something to tie it into the world better :)

Creating a character that bounces off the rest of the party well is key to a campaign’s success! D&D is built on collaboration between GM and players! So go on try some things, make a little character, baby steps! We’ll get to the complicated junk that is character sheets later.

And remember, all will be well :)!