Are you perhaps like me and have hundreds of ideas for characters, but can only bring one to the table? How do resolve this problem? I may not necessarily have an answer for you and perhaps other people will find themselves in shoes on the other side of the fence, but I'm hoping some of my thoughts regarding the matter can be of some service to those lost wanderers who have many stories they want to tell.
I get so excited with a tool like DNDbeyond. I spend my time idly crafting characters and putting my subscription to excellent use as I tempt the limits of the Unlimited characters I can create here in my free time. Theory crafting is fun and all the classes look so fun to play. I love every part of character building, but most especially I love the story. We have heroes and icons in movies and books an the idea that I can live such adventures in a tabletop game with my friends is just awesome. I can't get enough. So are you like me? A thousand characters but not one to play?
My advice? Tell them all. Now this certainly sounds like DMing, and I don't deny that this is one way to overcome this - but that isn't what I'm getting at. Combine the features and traits of your many character ideas into one. What this does is it creates a character with a lot more depth than they may have had otherwise. Of course there is the potential of going overboard - so make sure you compare your character's level to the backstory your writing. Just as it was so kindly mentioned in a article recently on this website by DungeonCommandr, the "Frontstory" is where the story happens, so don't go too crazy on the history and have them do all the events in those backstories you combined, save those for the present and work with your DM to tell the story that you want to tell.
These are just my thoughts. I hope it helps someone out there. I couldn't help but to be disappointed when I tried to search the net for anyone with the same disposition. So I wish you happy gaming you, fellow lovers of the story. I hope to meet you around the table someday. Now if you have any tips for me regarding this topic please do share. I am by no means an expert and would be greatly interested in narrowing down my character selection to an actual playable amount!
I suffer from the same enthusiasm, currently have two character concepts I want to play. I suggested to my DM that the current character could retire from adventuring to help run the restored church, and I could start a new character. Unfortunately he's very reluctant for me to do this. He won't stop me, but he'll limit me to being 3-4 levels lower than the other characters to start with.
I think part of his reluctance is that he has "plot" worked out for the current character.
I like your idea, and hope it works to scratch your character creation itch, but I don't think it's the solution for me. I may just have to take the hit to my level and retire the current character.
I can relate very much to how you feel. One of the big draws for me for this edition was the sheer number of possible combinations or race/class/background you could have. For me while playing my creations is very enjoyable I also get a great deal of satisfaction from the creation process itself.
I love picking a class then come up with a theme for them, fleshing out the possible class combinations (it's rare that I don't multi-class) and the mixing in the background. Once I have that foundation then the real story telling bit begins and I map out my characters progression to level 20. Not that I'll ever get to play them, let alone to 20, but so I can see how well they function and how I can work that development into their story. Then I head over to Heroforge and work up a mini for them too.
A lot of my characters end up being NPCs in campaigns at some point.
It's interesting that most of your characters end up multi class. I tend towards exactly the opposite, of the 60 some odd characters I have created less than 10% are multi class. Not all of them have backstories made but probably only one or two multi classes have a backstory of some sort. I look at all the subclasses out there and I want to give them all a chance to do what they do best. I see all this interesting story potential in each subclass, not just from gameplay/combat mechanics. Perhaps that is because I scratched the itch of multi class powerhouses back in 3e or something, but I generally like the idea of straight class unless I have a good story related reason.
Something I also enjoy is using the random traits and working them into something extraordinary. For those I like the best I sometimes go through the extended process in some of the supplemental books. Is it truly important how many siblings I have? Eh not really, but maybe that means I have strong familial bonds that makes a basis for what my character wants to protect. Was I raised by wolves? Guess that explains why my character eats with his hands instead of a knife and fork.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I like the multi-classing aspect because it gives me another angle to explain in their story arc. Plus having a more varied skill set is just more interesting to me. I also use background tables for siblings etc. Again just adds another facet to that characters personality.
Are you perhaps like me and have hundreds of ideas for characters, but can only bring one to the table? How do resolve this problem? I may not necessarily have an answer for you and perhaps other people will find themselves in shoes on the other side of the fence, but I'm hoping some of my thoughts regarding the matter can be of some service to those lost wanderers who have many stories they want to tell.
I get so excited with a tool like DNDbeyond. I spend my time idly crafting characters and putting my subscription to excellent use as I tempt the limits of the Unlimited characters I can create here in my free time. Theory crafting is fun and all the classes look so fun to play. I love every part of character building, but most especially I love the story. We have heroes and icons in movies and books an the idea that I can live such adventures in a tabletop game with my friends is just awesome. I can't get enough. So are you like me? A thousand characters but not one to play?
My advice? Tell them all. Now this certainly sounds like DMing, and I don't deny that this is one way to overcome this - but that isn't what I'm getting at. Combine the features and traits of your many character ideas into one. What this does is it creates a character with a lot more depth than they may have had otherwise. Of course there is the potential of going overboard - so make sure you compare your character's level to the backstory your writing. Just as it was so kindly mentioned in a article recently on this website by DungeonCommandr, the "Frontstory" is where the story happens, so don't go too crazy on the history and have them do all the events in those backstories you combined, save those for the present and work with your DM to tell the story that you want to tell.
These are just my thoughts. I hope it helps someone out there. I couldn't help but to be disappointed when I tried to search the net for anyone with the same disposition. So I wish you happy gaming you, fellow lovers of the story. I hope to meet you around the table someday. Now if you have any tips for me regarding this topic please do share. I am by no means an expert and would be greatly interested in narrowing down my character selection to an actual playable amount!
I suffer from the same enthusiasm, currently have two character concepts I want to play. I suggested to my DM that the current character could retire from adventuring to help run the restored church, and I could start a new character. Unfortunately he's very reluctant for me to do this. He won't stop me, but he'll limit me to being 3-4 levels lower than the other characters to start with.
I think part of his reluctance is that he has "plot" worked out for the current character.
I like your idea, and hope it works to scratch your character creation itch, but I don't think it's the solution for me. I may just have to take the hit to my level and retire the current character.
I can relate very much to how you feel. One of the big draws for me for this edition was the sheer number of possible combinations or race/class/background you could have. For me while playing my creations is very enjoyable I also get a great deal of satisfaction from the creation process itself.
I love picking a class then come up with a theme for them, fleshing out the possible class combinations (it's rare that I don't multi-class) and the mixing in the background. Once I have that foundation then the real story telling bit begins and I map out my characters progression to level 20. Not that I'll ever get to play them, let alone to 20, but so I can see how well they function and how I can work that development into their story. Then I head over to Heroforge and work up a mini for them too.
A lot of my characters end up being NPCs in campaigns at some point.
It's interesting that most of your characters end up multi class. I tend towards exactly the opposite, of the 60 some odd characters I have created less than 10% are multi class. Not all of them have backstories made but probably only one or two multi classes have a backstory of some sort. I look at all the subclasses out there and I want to give them all a chance to do what they do best. I see all this interesting story potential in each subclass, not just from gameplay/combat mechanics. Perhaps that is because I scratched the itch of multi class powerhouses back in 3e or something, but I generally like the idea of straight class unless I have a good story related reason.
Something I also enjoy is using the random traits and working them into something extraordinary. For those I like the best I sometimes go through the extended process in some of the supplemental books. Is it truly important how many siblings I have? Eh not really, but maybe that means I have strong familial bonds that makes a basis for what my character wants to protect. Was I raised by wolves? Guess that explains why my character eats with his hands instead of a knife and fork.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I like the multi-classing aspect because it gives me another angle to explain in their story arc. Plus having a more varied skill set is just more interesting to me. I also use background tables for siblings etc. Again just adds another facet to that characters personality.
Some Dungeon Masters allow each person more than one character, especially if it's a small group