I am really struggling with the creation of the Yuan-ti character that I have been trying to make. I can't seem to focus on the overall character design and keep getting caught up in the minutia of the lore surrounding Yuan-ti and how all those little details fit into his pre-adventuring backstory.
In short, I keep getting stuck on some little detail that I then go off and write pages of a story about, which has nothing to do with the character. It is like all these different story characters end up on the page and I keep writing and rewriting, trying to find the character that I originally wanted to make. No matter how hard I try though I just can't seem to focus on one thing, because everything that I read and see is distracting me into going, "and this happens", and some other character comes out of that, which is not the one I want to make.
How do you guys do it? How do you focus on character creation when your brain is going a million miles an hour in all directions, resulting in an uncoordinated hodgepodge of blah instead of the awesome character idea you originally had?
I mostly start gameplay-first. Like... let's say I want to create a Ranger with a focus on melee combat. So from there I decide what race the character should be, and then what background fits those details. Let's say for this melee ranger I decide I want to go for Gloomstalker, since that additional movement at the start of combat pairs well for covering ground, and even gives an additional attack right off the bat. With that I'd probably go for Two-weapon fighting to add in another solid attack. With all those attacks in the first round of combat I would probably go with Half-Orc for the chance to land extra damage with Savage Attacks.
So from there I have a rough idea for a character. As a Gloomstalker he most likely comes from a dark environment... so let's say he's from the Underdark. Maybe he's an escaped Drow slave. That gives me an idea for his Favored enemies as well... so he would favor elves, and probably aberrations, since they're a common threat in the Underdark. So that gives me a character concept... someone who hates slavery and spends time in the dark hunting for slavers.
As for backgrounds... it might make the most sense to homebrew something, but going off of the official backgrounds I'd probably go for smuggler. Granted, he's smuggling people to freedom, but he'd still have the same skillsets and bonuses related to that.
Beyond that any more would depend on conversing with my DM... figuring out how this character would fit into the game world and what the composition of the rest of the party is.
I pretty much ignore my character backstory (except for overviews like "my father was killed by the evil Duke and I want revenge" or "I was an orphan adopted by dwarves who always wanted to prove herself to them"). The details get filled in at the end or during gameplay, if at all. Instead, I focus on developing my character's voice, tics, habits, phrases, likes, dislikes, etc. Some of my favorite characters have almost no backstory, but a ton of personality.
First I usually start with a PC concept. That’s not a character, just an archetype. I pick a Class and a Subclass I plan to use. Then I pick a race that makes an interesting pair, then a background to flesh things out. I usually then start with the suggestions from the background, pick the ones that fit, and come up with an idea for the actual character. Then I shoot for 500-1,000 backstory. Even if I do go over, I know I won’t go off for page after page that way. I try not to do more than that if I can avoid it. I start the early life, pop in a few details to develop the character and them move closer chronologically towards “1st level.” The closer I get to “now” the vaguer things get. I like to leave plenty unwritten for the DM to fill in as needed for story hooks.
I make sure that the details I give are full of characterization. How it makes the character feel. Like say, this:
When I was still a baby, my parents moved us to a foreign city far away from the lands of our people. As a small child I had no idea that we were different than our neighbors. Gradually, as I got older, I began to notice the differences between myself and most of the other children. I was faster and more nimble than the other children. Rarely could they lay a hand on me in games of Catch Me. My eyes were keener than theirs as well. Rarely could they escape my notice in games of Seekers and Hiders. I regularly outpaced them all in games of climbing and sneaking as well. I could always tell which hand the kola nut was in, but my hands moved too fast for their notice. One day, while we were exploring some tunnels that we had found hidden between two abandoned buildings, the other children began to get frightened. It was dark, and while we had a candle, none of us had a tinderbox. Eager to explore, I used my other gift to light the candle. At first, the other children were frightened of me and ran away. Soon, they accused me of using my magic to cheat them at our games. Eventually most of the other children stopped asking me to play at all.
By the beginning of my second decade, a strange and terrible illness began to sweep through the city. Most people were unaffected, only the elven population seemed to be susceptible. For years, every winter many around the city would catch a variety of illnesses, and they would always speak enviously of how my family’s Elven blood protected us. That year, no one was envious of their Elven neighbors. Before my parents fell as the rest of our kind who had populated the city had, my parents made arrangements for me with their solicitor. After the funeral, the solicitor took me straight to the children’s home he had placed me in. I remember, I was still wearing my black lace.... The women who ran the home were nice enough. They were always sure that all of our needs were provided for as best the could. We never lacked for clothing, or food, or education. But the children.... Children can be very cruel. Eventually, they were cruel enough that I ran away, and somehow never went back.
The first year or so on the streets of the city was rough, but also interesting. The skills that had left me so alienated my whole life were to my advantage here. Where other urchins slowly starved, or got caught and beaten for stealing, I was able to procure for myself, and slip away unnoticed. I was soon discovering parts of the city that I doubt many others know about to this day. Interesting corners and eaves and out of the way places where two buildings almost meet. The tunnels underneath the city, a labyrinth of intentional structures built on top of and through the remains of older cities. Those highest rooftops where one could truly sleep just beneath the stars themselves.... There are nights I still go to those rooftops. Eventually, some of the less fortunate children began to notice my success. They eventually realized that it was easier to take from me what they could not from the shopkeepers and vapid nobles’ sons. Like I said, children can be cruel. The next few years were easier. I was better able to see to myself and look out for the other children. They were also less interesting, as I was beginning to run out of places to explore safely enough all alone.
But that fourth winter was bad. The cold was so extreme that to be out for more than a few minutes could mean the loss of toes or worse. And the wind never stopped howling for weeks, the sound of a predator joyous in the hunt. At first I was fairly secure with a supply of food and ale that I had laid up in a warm and secure nook within the tunnels where the heat from who knows where bled through the wall into a space that the world had forgotten. Things were okay for a week, then two weeks.... Eventually I was forced to go out for more food and water. Water was the hard part. Dispute the cold there had been no snow, and the cold had been so strong for so long that liquid water was hard to come by, and dangerous to collect. If your fingers got wet, the frost could have bitten into them before you could stopper the skin again. You can live a long time without food, but water.... I ventured out from the warmth and safety of my hidden spot into the greater tunnels beyond. The cold was there waiting for me. As I ventured further into the darkness of the underground, even the biting wind from above seemed to scythe it’s way down into the world beneath the city. Soon, I had exhausted me search of the nearby network, and had resigned myself to attempt a brief trip above. I must have only made it about a dozen steps.
When I awoke, I was warm and clean and dry for the first time in years. The air around me smelled of fresh food, a delicious bitter aroma I had never known before, and the somehow familiar scent of chemicals and burnt metal that reminded me of my father. When I sat up, I was greeted by a face I vaguely recognized. He was very obviously Gnomish. His stature was small, but his proportions were a little off. His head was bald on top, but tufts of white stuck out several inches and in all directions in a sort of demi-halo around the sides and back of his head. His nose was almost bulbose on his tiny face, his head almost too large for someone barely three feet tall. His frame was tiny by comparison, save for the enormous potbelly in front of him. He was bedecked in an exquisitely expensive suit of grey wool with black pinstripes, and a wine colored brocade vest over a white collared shirt with a bootstring-tie clasped with a silver band. “Good heavens boy, I thought you had died with your parents. Would you like some coffee?” It was my father’s old colleague, Doomagee Hermannsburge.
As we spoke, I began to explore the room we were in. It was full of books and gadgets of all sorts. Bookshelves lined most of the walls from floor to ceiling. There was a set of glass vials and beakers bubbling away on a table in the corner. In another alcove there were half-finished pieces of weapons and armor set in racks. Finally I came upon a workstation where I found piles of gears and springs and other mechanical pieces. It was there that I found a simple music box that played a familiar melody. It was a song my mother used to sing to me when I was little. Doomagee said that he had learned to make it by studying the one my father had made for my mother. Doomagee was kind enough to let me keep it. He took me in and raised me as his ward. He took note of my nimbleness and encouraged it. He took notice of my cleverness and honed it. He taught me the ways of the Artificer, as apparently my father had taught to him a century ago. And when I was ready, he enrolled me into The Society of Monitors, with whom I am enguilded to this day.
I think the hardest part about coming up with a character backstory sometimes is giving them something interesting... but also something where they would still logically be only level 1 at the start of the game.
I usually start by picking one of the personality types using the Myers-Briggs system. I preferentially use Keirsey's method of organizing/describing them from his book Please Understand Me II (I don't use the book -- I use the website). You can find an overview here: https://keirsey.com/temperament-overview/.
For example, making a Bard, I would probably go for the "performer" personality type (under Artisan temperament). As a Performer, she is, according to Kiersey, engaging, charming, optimistic, likes to make a big splash, and lives in the here and now. I would use these traits to not only figure out how to RP her in the present, but to determine what her past was like. For example, maybe she got into trouble for being a showoff when she was younger. That kind of thing.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
One of the things I do from time to time is look through subclasses and see if anything sparks an idea, and depending on the idea I'll either look for further inspiration by reading through race options or start working on something immediately. For instance, when looking at the Inquisitive subclass for Rogues, I had a vague idea that served as the basis for two characters: Lydia, a methodical ghostwise halfling who took careful stock of her surroundings and used her innate telepathy to coordinate with her allies or interrogate her foes, and Clyde, a glasya tiefling with a more hardboiled outlook on life who is prone to sarcasm. More recently, I looked at the UA Phantom and instantly thought "church assassin", and from there I started making Sister Moira, a human who as a young girl had a run-in with the undead and was saved by a cleric; after being taken in by the cleric's church she began receiving minor clerical training before catching the notice of the local archbishop, who secretly recruited her and began honing her talents in a much different direction than her initial savior had intended.
There's other ways I've used to come up with character concepts, but the most memorable ones tend to come up through this method.
Also, IamSposta, I couldn't help but notice you've used the 'throwing-darts-at-a-map-of-Australia' naming convention for gnomes in your example; Adelaide Brisbane Rockhampton approves of this method greatly.
1) Concept: a word, sentence, or a song title etc, something to sum up the type of character I want to play/portray and give a hint toward motivations and a couple of notes or paragraph for story and about what I want feat wise or skill wise.
2) Race: What was the character born as.
3) Background: How was the character brought up or what job did they hold prior to taking up adventuring.
4) Character class: what role fits the concept and story.
**
A few more indepth examples:
Concept: Cry Wolf (Requires Str 14/Folk Hero, Athlete Feat)
You were a hero to your village, you would patrol the village walls, help the farmers and retrieve any errant animals that wandered off. They hung on your every word when you regaled them with tales of the wolves that hunted the woods that you had to fight off to bring sheep or goats back alive, all armed with nothing more than your trusty stick and butter knife. You would routinely go out of town and run through the woods, climb trees, hike up hills and dive into and swim streams and each time you came back you would have more stories of defeating the animals of the woods to add to your repertoire, from the day you defeated the huge red furred dire wolf, to the time villagers starting hearing a strange noise coming from the woods which you told them lured you into a misty glade, the shrill but haunting noise was created by a Hag which you fought and drove off. Eventually though someone called your bluff, a bear walked into the village and started to rifle through the food stores, the call went out for you to drive the bear off, but you had already fled. When the bear was driven off by the rest of the village you were found hiding and brought before the village elders to explain yourself and so your sorry tale of lies was found out. Now, nothing more than a laughing stock, you feel forced to leave and find a new life.
Concept: The Aristocratic Brawler (Requires Str 15, Dex 15, Noble Background, Tavern Brawler and Grappler Feats),
In your late teens you were called a wild child by some, a drunken wastrel by others and foppish dandy by your detractors. You snuck out of the châteaux at night and went into town to frequent the local taverns, bars and bordello's and more often than not started, or got involved in, fights; from bar room brawls to underground bare knuckle fight clubs you earned a name and soon had people seek you out to test themselves out against your fighting prowess, commoners buying you drinks to get you drunk before starting a brawl with you and other nobles challenge you to duels over some imagined matter of honour. You became adept at using weapons from the humble tavern tankard to the finest rapier as well as knowing just when to low blow an opponent as well as how to fight multiple people at one with whatever weapon comes to hand. Eventually your family grew tired of covering up your various escapades sent you out into the world with a modest amount of money and told you to come back once you had made a name for yourself.
Concept: The Drumhead (Requires Str 13, Soldier Background)
The army recruiter sat in the village hall, an upturned bass drum serving as a makeshift table, a pile of Gold Shillings (coins) on it. "Sign up, take the Kings Shilling and serve your country" He said. The had been a drought which led to a famine which led to fewer opportunities for work in area and so you signed up. Training was hard and rigorous but you mastered the basics and then you were sent to the front line where you learned to adapt or you died, you saw numerous battles and dangerous engagements, saw the bravery of your fellow soldiers, the cowardness of some of your officers and the lack of tactical acumen of some Generals. But then the orders came through, due to the war, pay would now be issued once you finished your tour of duty and after you were discharged. Rumours circulated soon after that this was a ruse and word had come back about someone; a friend of a friend of the company cook, who went to pick up their pay and were turned away empty handed. Desertions started not long after this. The hangings starts almost the same time, anyone caught trying to desert was hung, their bodies left on display as a warning. You know you could try and sneak off but could you leave your friend on the front line?
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* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
Once I have a few bullet points of what I want my character's background/ personality to be, I generally intentionally don't try and plan too much more out.
Creating characters in D&D is not like creating characters for a novel or a screenplay. For those, you as the author need to have all those little details planned out in advance in order to immerse your readers in the character, but in a ttrpg, some of the most characterizing moments for your character will generally come in the moment during good roleplay. When writing, detail comes first, followed by immersion. In roleplay, immersion comes first, and details fill themselves in as you get a feel for the character.
Resist the temptation to start a game with a character that is "complete." Then you have nothing to discover, and little room to develope. Also remember that you're just starting in a campaign, so your backstory should not have the complexities of someone halfway through one. It's nice to maybe have some headcanon (for want of a better word) of how your character typically spent their lives and who with before becoming an adventurer, but you really don't want your character's backstory to have the appearance of an epic quest with a rich tapestry of supporting characters. That's what the campaign is for. If you want your DM to include NPC's from your backstory that's fine, just try not to overdo it-- 3 or 4 NPC's they might know from their travels/studies that might pop up in the world with some accompanying drama is perfectly sufficient.
Basically, if the reason you're struggling is that you feel like your character is half-finished, then I would say that means you're done. Or at least as done as you can be until you actually start playing them.
H How do you focus on character creation when your brain is going a million miles an hour in all directions, resulting in an uncoordinated hodgepodge of blah instead of the awesome character idea you originally had?
Medication?
How about you allocate one hour to character creation and then grow the character while you play it.
Also, IamSposta, I couldn't help but notice you've used the 'throwing-darts-at-a-map-of-Australia' naming convention for gnomes in your example; Adelaide Brisbane Rockhampton approves of this method greatly.
I start with a race/class combination as the key concept. Then I decide on a role - Tank, Healer, DPR, Social, etc. Then I get the stats.
Once that is done, I look at this character and try to think what made them decide to adventure, because that is frankly fairly strange thing for anyone to do. His stats play a key part of this- was an intelligent decision, a wise decision, or did he simply get pushed into it? Was he an outcast? After vengeance? Greedy as hell? Looking for someone/thing?
I take forever to make characters compared to someone who can bang out a completed sheet in seven minutes, but I'm also consistently told I have some of the coolest/strongest character concepts at the table. A lot of that is because I let my brain have its head and follow these wild-ass tangents. I write them down, let my brain follow along and get it all out. Once I have a huge-ass document of all the shit my brain wanted to say about the idea, it's time to go at said document with a set of diamondite garden shears. Take the uncoordinated hodgepodge blah and sculpt that down into a character worth playing. Discard ideas outright if you have to, modify others, talk with the DM or other players to get feedback on cool hooks you want to include.
The Heroic Chronicle system from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is a fantastic tool for this, actually. Even if you never roll on a single table from it or use a single one of its ideas - even if you aren't playing in Exandria - you can use the Heroic Chronicle to tell you all the questions you should have answers to in your backstory, and more importantly it can tell you all the questions you shouldn't have answers to. The Heroic Chronicle says you should know the following, in addition to all the regular stuff like class/race/background/QIBF:
-Your character's homeland and home town -Your character's family/family history (DO NOT just say "oh, they're all dead". Don't be that guy +_+) -Your character's signature allies and rivals (between one to three of each), and WHY each of those characters is willing to intervene in your life for either good or ill. -ONE 'Fateful Moment' (if even that) -ONE 'Mysterious Secret' (if even that) -One to three fun character details - favorite food, a favorite book or story, a fun anecdote from their childhood days, etcetera.
If you limit yourself to that general template, then all the hodgepodge in the world doesn't matter. The art of character creation becomes the art of getting all the hundred and seventeen wild ideas that pour out of your head to audition against each other for a spot to be included on the final sheet. If it isn't on the final sheet? Then it didn't happen/isn't real. Stick to that, especially if you have a lot of trouble with the editing process and getting things cut down. If you have to, go so far as to delete/trash all the stuff that doesn't make the final cut so it has less chance of coming back to haunt you.
If you're anything like me, and I get the distinct feeling you might be, then all of this shit is going to clog up your brainways until you get it down in a word doc somewhere anyways. The trick is to do just that, get it out, and then move on. half the time you'll find out that writing down your Super Cool Idea takes at least half the Super Cool off of it - articulating and exploring the idea reveals holes and weaknesses in it you just won't see until you have to sit down and justify the idea to your proper, rational brain. Most of the rest of the time, writing it down in a '[Charname] Brainstorming' document lets you move on and figure out other things. Don't be afraid to jump from idea to idea in a scatter, either. Go wherever your brain takes you and just be confident that in the end, if you're ruthless enough in the cutting room, you'll get there.
Unless you're on a deadline and need this character to be done tomorrow, or within the hour. In which case I strongly hope you've already gone through this whole process a few times and stored up some relatively generic characters you can modify to fit the campaign, because one thing you will never be with this process is fast X_X.
Whatever you do, don't forget to include in your write-up/background/whatever, the most important thing about your character: Why he/she/it becomes an adventurer. Do not make up a character who does not feel the call to adventure for some reason. There could be lots of good reasons for this. In my campaign, one guy's family was wiped out and clan holding destroyed, and he's the last member of his line and wants to rebuild it. He needs money to do that, and has no marketable skills since he is a trained soldier (and soldiers don't make much money), so he's going on adventures to earn cash. Another character is a cleric of Apollo and had a prophetic vision to "go into the north and follow the signs" and so he thinks the adventures they're going on are his calling by his god. And so on.
Try not to make up the character who is always going to want to stay home and safe and not go out on adventures. Don't make it the DM's job, or the other players' job, to have PCs and NPCs pull your character kicking and screaming into the adventure. This is D&D. The whole point of D&D is for characters to have adventures. So make up a character who wants to have adventures.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
First off, the story isn't my story. It's our story. To that end, my goal is to involve the DM if the DM is receptive.
If I alone make an intricate story, I leave no wiggle room for anyone else to be in it. It becomes difficult for me to let go of the character and have the character be part of a work that is a group effort. So, I start with a simple question of why the character is adventuring. From then, I believe it helps to get the DM involved.
In DM'ing for an NPC, there's the luxury of creating backstory going forward. One can have a framework of the history, focus on the "now", and fill in all the gaps as the story progresses. This keeps it loose to accommodate the unpredictability of players and fits in with the whole "our story, not my story" intent.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I start with a race/class combination as the key concept. Then I decide on a role - Tank, Healer, DPR, Social, etc. Then I get the stats.
Once that is done, I look at this character and try to think what made them decide to adventure, because that is frankly fairly strange thing for anyone to do. His stats play a key part of this- was an intelligent decision, a wise decision, or did he simply get pushed into it? Was he an outcast? After vengeance? Greedy as hell? Looking for someone/thing?
That usually lets me create a solid background.
So, working with another player, to make our characters friends/allies, this is what I have so far for my character.
He is an intelligent, agile and suave Yuan-ti rogue; born from a fallen noble family on his father's side, and a rising criminal mafia-style family on his mother's side. Whose curiosity and insistence on delving into his true family history got him sent away to take up the position of a minor official in a trade guild of another city. There he spent ten years, rising through the ranks within the trade guild. He makes friends and earns some measure of respect from his co-workers and other guild members before receiving a letter from his mother, instructing him to go a specific tavern at a particular time and show a coloured tile to a young girl with a flower in her hair.
Following the instructions in the letter, leads him to the daughter of a girl upon whom he was once sweet. To his surprise, she looks exactly like her mother did when the two were playmates, romping around the house and getting into mischief at school and at first he mistakes the girl for her. The girl promises him the truth about his family and why they sent him away. Before she tells him the truth though, he must first help her recover an artefact from a recently opened tomb that is part of a highly publicised archaeological dig. The company who is financing the dig is another mafia-style family who has been rivals of the character's family for as long as he can remember. The girl tells him that the artefact can not be allowed to fall into their hands or terrible things with happen.
The girl is the character of another player, and she works for his family, as her mother once did.
The character is suspicious, but he wants the truth and so agrees to the girl's terms. The girl then takes her place as a party member and introduces him to the rest of the team.
As they make progress in recovering the artefact, the character develops a friendship with the girl, who reminds him very much of her mother and the friend he once had. Something that his family knew would happen when they chose her as his recruiter - indeed, that was the reason they wanted her in the first place.
The other player, whose character this girl is, and me, have already agreed that we are going to become friends like this, so its not just something that I am pulling out the hat.
Recovering the artefact is only the beginning though and when they do so a whole new part of the campaign would open up that none of us has planned for.
The problem is that I feel like this does not make a good character. He doesn't feel like a fleshed-out individual who would be living in the world. He feels like a series of cobbled-together tropes, and the more I try to make him better, the more I get distracted and go off writing the stories that I talked about above.
--- EDIT ----
Because it is important to my character development our DM has actually shared with me (only me) some basic info about the artifact and the tomb. The tomb is actually a lost monument to the glory of the Sarrukh creator race. Although it became a tomb, it's initial purpose was to house the artifact. The artifact itself is sort of like a semi-sentinet magic capacitor that will sense the presence of a child of an ancient noble bloodline (my character) and "bind" itself to him, transforming him into an Arcane Trickster.
Based on your posts, you seem to be the player and not the DM, correct? If so then I am confused. How can you, as a player, determine what will "open up a whole new part of the campaign?" Has the DM told you this will happen? Or is the artifact and its finding in the past and you are just writing it up?
I think your instinct is correct. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what the problem is, maybe because there is so much going on. And perhaps that is the key -- there is so much going on. One issue I see right away is the two families. One is a fallen noble house; one is a rising mafia gang. Why does one character need both in his background? Just one of those is more than enough to be a background element. I would pick one, and have his family just be one of those (either a fallen noble house or a rising mafia gang).
Also -- I am not clear on why wanting to learn about his own family's history would get him banished. Normally, noble houses or maifa dons want you to respect and know about "the family" and participate in its operations. Trouble often comes when the character wants to throw off these shackles. The son of the mafia don who refuses to kill when he is ordered to, and now has to be on the run because he betrayed his family, makes some sense. But Al Capone telling Junior "stop asking the questions that will enable you to walk in my footsteps" doesn't make a lot of sense, at least as you have described it.
Regarding the girl and the artifact. Again I feel like this is too complicated. Why is this girl, who is not a member of his family, more informed about his family than he is? It sounds like she is in the mafia with the rest of his family. And now they are trying to use her to recruit him back into his own family. This makes no sense to me. If they banished him for trying to find out the truth about them, why would they then send a girl who knows that truth to entice him back into the family?
It seems very convoluted and complicated. To me a simpler story would be: his family is gangsters like the Capones, and when the time came to do the "hit" that would "make him a man" he got cold feet/moral objections/etc. This dishonored him in the eyes of his family and the father, unwilling to have his own son killed, but unable to keep him in the family, disowned him and sent him away.
I dunno how you want the girl to fit in -- depends on the other player. Maybe now the father is dead, and whoever inherited the family is trying to 'bring you back in.' They send the girl to entice you.
I have no idea what she would need an artifact though. IMO, an even better idea is, the girl's mother was an enforcer for the family and sent her to flush you out (knowing you had a crush on her), but when she meets you the girl loses her taste for harming you (maybe you save her life, help her, etc) and the two of you are now on the run from the family together.
I actually think the backstory is solid enough, it sounds like the parts you're not satisfied with is just the characterization, who is he?
Start basic. Come up with likes and dislikes. They don't have to all be pertinent to the mafia/noble family story, but just like, does your character like music or not? Have a sense of humor? If so, a big one or a small one? Is he sheltered due to his family's wealth, or is he comfortable in a crowd? Introverted or extroverted? Romantic or grounded? Opinions on adventure?
I don't think your character needs more narrative to "make sense", you've just got to populate his personality with traits. You don't to plan the whole personality out in advance, mind you, just enough to go off so you can (as I said above) develope the rest as you play
*Edit*
After you settle on some of the more trivial personality aspects, think about what some of their core philosophies are. What are their religious views? Political leanings? What do they believe to be Important? Another consideration that I find more useful in the character creation stage than in actual play: what is their alignment? Do they fit neatly into a category? Why or why not? Do they fit into an alignment grid but in an unconventional way? I find it makes for a great jumping off point, even if you're just identifying alignments that are "close but not quite," then you can highlight why that is.
Based on your posts, you seem to be the player and not the DM, correct? If so then I am confused. How can you, as a player, determine what will "open up a whole new part of the campaign?" Has the DM told you this will happen? Or is the artifact and its finding in the past and you are just writing it up?
I think your instinct is correct. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what the problem is, maybe because there is so much going on. And perhaps that is the key -- there is so much going on. One issue I see right away is the two families. One is a fallen noble house; one is a rising mafia gang. Why does one character need both in his background? Just one of those is more than enough to be a background element. I would pick one, and have his family just be one of those (either a fallen noble house or a rising mafia gang).
Also -- I am not clear on why wanting to learn about his own family's history would get him banished. Normally, noble houses or maifa dons want you to respect and know about "the family" and participate in its operations. Trouble often comes when the character wants to throw off these shackles. The son of the mafia don who refuses to kill when he is ordered to, and now has to be on the run because he betrayed his family, makes some sense. But Al Capone telling Junior "stop asking the questions that will enable you to walk in my footsteps" doesn't make a lot of sense, at least as you have described it.
Regarding the girl and the artifact. Again I feel like this is too complicated. Why is this girl, who is not a member of his family, more informed about his family than he is? It sounds like she is in the mafia with the rest of his family. And now they are trying to use her to recruit him back into his own family. This makes no sense to me. If they banished him for trying to find out the truth about them, why would they then send a girl who knows that truth to entice him back into the family?
It seems very convoluted and complicated. To me a simpler story would be: his family is gangsters like the Capones, and when the time came to do the "hit" that would "make him a man" he got cold feet/moral objections/etc. This dishonored him in the eyes of his family and the father, unwilling to have his own son killed, but unable to keep him in the family, disowned him and sent him away.
I dunno how you want the girl to fit in -- depends on the other player. Maybe now the father is dead, and whoever inherited the family is trying to 'bring you back in.' They send the girl to entice you.
I have no idea what she would need an artifact though. IMO, an even better idea is, the girl's mother was an enforcer for the family and sent her to flush you out (knowing you had a crush on her), but when she meets you the girl loses her taste for harming you (maybe you save her life, help her, etc) and the two of you are now on the run from the family together.
I do know more about the world and the story than the average player would. I know a lot of meta because I personally know the DM.
I wouldn't share that meta with the other players though and it will ruin their exprrience, but having that knowledge, I am trying to make a character that fits into the story and world. Only I keep twisting myself around in loops, trying to fit in this part of the lore, or this part of the story.
Like I wanted the character to find an artifact that gave him magic powers and made him an Arcane Trickster and when I told the DM that and asked if it was possible, she literally said "yeah sure, I was going to have you guys recover a Sarrukh artifact from a snake cult, but I'll put it in a tomb instead and you can all recover it tomb raider style."
Also, the unfocussed and weirdness is what I am coming up with because I can't seem to focus on one thing.
I don't know. Maybe I need to just scrap everything and start from the begining again.
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Hi, everyone.
I am really struggling with the creation of the Yuan-ti character that I have been trying to make. I can't seem to focus on the overall character design and keep getting caught up in the minutia of the lore surrounding Yuan-ti and how all those little details fit into his pre-adventuring backstory.
In short, I keep getting stuck on some little detail that I then go off and write pages of a story about, which has nothing to do with the character. It is like all these different story characters end up on the page and I keep writing and rewriting, trying to find the character that I originally wanted to make. No matter how hard I try though I just can't seem to focus on one thing, because everything that I read and see is distracting me into going, "and this happens", and some other character comes out of that, which is not the one I want to make.
How do you guys do it? How do you focus on character creation when your brain is going a million miles an hour in all directions, resulting in an uncoordinated hodgepodge of blah instead of the awesome character idea you originally had?
Cheers
Foxes.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I mostly start gameplay-first. Like... let's say I want to create a Ranger with a focus on melee combat. So from there I decide what race the character should be, and then what background fits those details. Let's say for this melee ranger I decide I want to go for Gloomstalker, since that additional movement at the start of combat pairs well for covering ground, and even gives an additional attack right off the bat. With that I'd probably go for Two-weapon fighting to add in another solid attack. With all those attacks in the first round of combat I would probably go with Half-Orc for the chance to land extra damage with Savage Attacks.
So from there I have a rough idea for a character. As a Gloomstalker he most likely comes from a dark environment... so let's say he's from the Underdark. Maybe he's an escaped Drow slave. That gives me an idea for his Favored enemies as well... so he would favor elves, and probably aberrations, since they're a common threat in the Underdark. So that gives me a character concept... someone who hates slavery and spends time in the dark hunting for slavers.
As for backgrounds... it might make the most sense to homebrew something, but going off of the official backgrounds I'd probably go for smuggler. Granted, he's smuggling people to freedom, but he'd still have the same skillsets and bonuses related to that.
Beyond that any more would depend on conversing with my DM... figuring out how this character would fit into the game world and what the composition of the rest of the party is.
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I pretty much ignore my character backstory (except for overviews like "my father was killed by the evil Duke and I want revenge" or "I was an orphan adopted by dwarves who always wanted to prove herself to them"). The details get filled in at the end or during gameplay, if at all. Instead, I focus on developing my character's voice, tics, habits, phrases, likes, dislikes, etc. Some of my favorite characters have almost no backstory, but a ton of personality.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
First I usually start with a PC concept. That’s not a character, just an archetype. I pick a Class and a Subclass I plan to use. Then I pick a race that makes an interesting pair, then a background to flesh things out. I usually then start with the suggestions from the background, pick the ones that fit, and come up with an idea for the actual character. Then I shoot for 500-1,000 backstory. Even if I do go over, I know I won’t go off for page after page that way. I try not to do more than that if I can avoid it. I start the early life, pop in a few details to develop the character and them move closer chronologically towards “1st level.” The closer I get to “now” the vaguer things get. I like to leave plenty unwritten for the DM to fill in as needed for story hooks.
I make sure that the details I give are full of characterization. How it makes the character feel. Like say, this:
When I was still a baby, my parents moved us to a foreign city far away from the lands of our people. As a small child I had no idea that we were different than our neighbors. Gradually, as I got older, I began to notice the differences between myself and most of the other children. I was faster and more nimble than the other children. Rarely could they lay a hand on me in games of Catch Me. My eyes were keener than theirs as well. Rarely could they escape my notice in games of Seekers and Hiders. I regularly outpaced them all in games of climbing and sneaking as well. I could always tell which hand the kola nut was in, but my hands moved too fast for their notice. One day, while we were exploring some tunnels that we had found hidden between two abandoned buildings, the other children began to get frightened. It was dark, and while we had a candle, none of us had a tinderbox. Eager to explore, I used my other gift to light the candle. At first, the other children were frightened of me and ran away. Soon, they accused me of using my magic to cheat them at our games. Eventually most of the other children stopped asking me to play at all.
By the beginning of my second decade, a strange and terrible illness began to sweep through the city. Most people were unaffected, only the elven population seemed to be susceptible. For years, every winter many around the city would catch a variety of illnesses, and they would always speak enviously of how my family’s Elven blood protected us. That year, no one was envious of their Elven neighbors. Before my parents fell as the rest of our kind who had populated the city had, my parents made arrangements for me with their solicitor. After the funeral, the solicitor took me straight to the children’s home he had placed me in. I remember, I was still wearing my black lace.... The women who ran the home were nice enough. They were always sure that all of our needs were provided for as best the could. We never lacked for clothing, or food, or education. But the children.... Children can be very cruel. Eventually, they were cruel enough that I ran away, and somehow never went back.
The first year or so on the streets of the city was rough, but also interesting. The skills that had left me so alienated my whole life were to my advantage here. Where other urchins slowly starved, or got caught and beaten for stealing, I was able to procure for myself, and slip away unnoticed. I was soon discovering parts of the city that I doubt many others know about to this day. Interesting corners and eaves and out of the way places where two buildings almost meet. The tunnels underneath the city, a labyrinth of intentional structures built on top of and through the remains of older cities. Those highest rooftops where one could truly sleep just beneath the stars themselves.... There are nights I still go to those rooftops. Eventually, some of the less fortunate children began to notice my success. They eventually realized that it was easier to take from me what they could not from the shopkeepers and vapid nobles’ sons. Like I said, children can be cruel. The next few years were easier. I was better able to see to myself and look out for the other children. They were also less interesting, as I was beginning to run out of places to explore safely enough all alone.
But that fourth winter was bad. The cold was so extreme that to be out for more than a few minutes could mean the loss of toes or worse. And the wind never stopped howling for weeks, the sound of a predator joyous in the hunt. At first I was fairly secure with a supply of food and ale that I had laid up in a warm and secure nook within the tunnels where the heat from who knows where bled through the wall into a space that the world had forgotten. Things were okay for a week, then two weeks.... Eventually I was forced to go out for more food and water. Water was the hard part. Dispute the cold there had been no snow, and the cold had been so strong for so long that liquid water was hard to come by, and dangerous to collect. If your fingers got wet, the frost could have bitten into them before you could stopper the skin again. You can live a long time without food, but water.... I ventured out from the warmth and safety of my hidden spot into the greater tunnels beyond. The cold was there waiting for me. As I ventured further into the darkness of the underground, even the biting wind from above seemed to scythe it’s way down into the world beneath the city. Soon, I had exhausted me search of the nearby network, and had resigned myself to attempt a brief trip above. I must have only made it about a dozen steps.
When I awoke, I was warm and clean and dry for the first time in years. The air around me smelled of fresh food, a delicious bitter aroma I had never known before, and the somehow familiar scent of chemicals and burnt metal that reminded me of my father. When I sat up, I was greeted by a face I vaguely recognized. He was very obviously Gnomish. His stature was small, but his proportions were a little off. His head was bald on top, but tufts of white stuck out several inches and in all directions in a sort of demi-halo around the sides and back of his head. His nose was almost bulbose on his tiny face, his head almost too large for someone barely three feet tall. His frame was tiny by comparison, save for the enormous potbelly in front of him. He was bedecked in an exquisitely expensive suit of grey wool with black pinstripes, and a wine colored brocade vest over a white collared shirt with a bootstring-tie clasped with a silver band. “Good heavens boy, I thought you had died with your parents. Would you like some coffee?” It was my father’s old colleague, Doomagee Hermannsburge.
As we spoke, I began to explore the room we were in. It was full of books and gadgets of all sorts. Bookshelves lined most of the walls from floor to ceiling. There was a set of glass vials and beakers bubbling away on a table in the corner. In another alcove there were half-finished pieces of weapons and armor set in racks. Finally I came upon a workstation where I found piles of gears and springs and other mechanical pieces. It was there that I found a simple music box that played a familiar melody. It was a song my mother used to sing to me when I was little. Doomagee said that he had learned to make it by studying the one my father had made for my mother. Doomagee was kind enough to let me keep it. He took me in and raised me as his ward. He took note of my nimbleness and encouraged it. He took notice of my cleverness and honed it. He taught me the ways of the Artificer, as apparently my father had taught to him a century ago. And when I was ready, he enrolled me into The Society of Monitors, with whom I am enguilded to this day.
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I think the hardest part about coming up with a character backstory sometimes is giving them something interesting... but also something where they would still logically be only level 1 at the start of the game.
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I usually start by picking one of the personality types using the Myers-Briggs system. I preferentially use Keirsey's method of organizing/describing them from his book Please Understand Me II (I don't use the book -- I use the website). You can find an overview here: https://keirsey.com/temperament-overview/.
For example, making a Bard, I would probably go for the "performer" personality type (under Artisan temperament). As a Performer, she is, according to Kiersey, engaging, charming, optimistic, likes to make a big splash, and lives in the here and now. I would use these traits to not only figure out how to RP her in the present, but to determine what her past was like. For example, maybe she got into trouble for being a showoff when she was younger. That kind of thing.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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One of the things I do from time to time is look through subclasses and see if anything sparks an idea, and depending on the idea I'll either look for further inspiration by reading through race options or start working on something immediately. For instance, when looking at the Inquisitive subclass for Rogues, I had a vague idea that served as the basis for two characters: Lydia, a methodical ghostwise halfling who took careful stock of her surroundings and used her innate telepathy to coordinate with her allies or interrogate her foes, and Clyde, a glasya tiefling with a more hardboiled outlook on life who is prone to sarcasm. More recently, I looked at the UA Phantom and instantly thought "church assassin", and from there I started making Sister Moira, a human who as a young girl had a run-in with the undead and was saved by a cleric; after being taken in by the cleric's church she began receiving minor clerical training before catching the notice of the local archbishop, who secretly recruited her and began honing her talents in a much different direction than her initial savior had intended.
There's other ways I've used to come up with character concepts, but the most memorable ones tend to come up through this method.
Also, IamSposta, I couldn't help but notice you've used the 'throwing-darts-at-a-map-of-Australia' naming convention for gnomes in your example; Adelaide Brisbane Rockhampton approves of this method greatly.
I tend to go for the following:
1) Concept: a word, sentence, or a song title etc, something to sum up the type of character I want to play/portray and give a hint toward motivations and a couple of notes or paragraph for story and about what I want feat wise or skill wise.
2) Race: What was the character born as.
3) Background: How was the character brought up or what job did they hold prior to taking up adventuring.
4) Character class: what role fits the concept and story.
**
A few more indepth examples:
Concept: Cry Wolf (Requires Str 14/Folk Hero, Athlete Feat)
You were a hero to your village, you would patrol the village walls, help the farmers and retrieve any errant animals that wandered off. They hung on your every word when you regaled them with tales of the wolves that hunted the woods that you had to fight off to bring sheep or goats back alive, all armed with nothing more than your trusty stick and butter knife. You would routinely go out of town and run through the woods, climb trees, hike up hills and dive into and swim streams and each time you came back you would have more stories of defeating the animals of the woods to add to your repertoire, from the day you defeated the huge red furred dire wolf, to the time villagers starting hearing a strange noise coming from the woods which you told them lured you into a misty glade, the shrill but haunting noise was created by a Hag which you fought and drove off. Eventually though someone called your bluff, a bear walked into the village and started to rifle through the food stores, the call went out for you to drive the bear off, but you had already fled. When the bear was driven off by the rest of the village you were found hiding and brought before the village elders to explain yourself and so your sorry tale of lies was found out. Now, nothing more than a laughing stock, you feel forced to leave and find a new life.
Concept: The Aristocratic Brawler (Requires Str 15, Dex 15, Noble Background, Tavern Brawler and Grappler Feats),
In your late teens you were called a wild child by some, a drunken wastrel by others and foppish dandy by your detractors. You snuck out of the châteaux at night and went into town to frequent the local taverns, bars and bordello's and more often than not started, or got involved in, fights; from bar room brawls to underground bare knuckle fight clubs you earned a name and soon had people seek you out to test themselves out against your fighting prowess, commoners buying you drinks to get you drunk before starting a brawl with you and other nobles challenge you to duels over some imagined matter of honour. You became adept at using weapons from the humble tavern tankard to the finest rapier as well as knowing just when to low blow an opponent as well as how to fight multiple people at one with whatever weapon comes to hand. Eventually your family grew tired of covering up your various escapades sent you out into the world with a modest amount of money and told you to come back once you had made a name for yourself.
Concept: The Drumhead (Requires Str 13, Soldier Background)
The army recruiter sat in the village hall, an upturned bass drum serving as a makeshift table, a pile of Gold Shillings (coins) on it. "Sign up, take the Kings Shilling and serve your country" He said. The had been a drought which led to a famine which led to fewer opportunities for work in area and so you signed up. Training was hard and rigorous but you mastered the basics and then you were sent to the front line where you learned to adapt or you died, you saw numerous battles and dangerous engagements, saw the bravery of your fellow soldiers, the cowardness of some of your officers and the lack of tactical acumen of some Generals. But then the orders came through, due to the war, pay would now be issued once you finished your tour of duty and after you were discharged. Rumours circulated soon after that this was a ruse and word had come back about someone; a friend of a friend of the company cook, who went to pick up their pay and were turned away empty handed. Desertions started not long after this. The hangings starts almost the same time, anyone caught trying to desert was hung, their bodies left on display as a warning. You know you could try and sneak off but could you leave your friend on the front line?
Once I have a few bullet points of what I want my character's background/ personality to be, I generally intentionally don't try and plan too much more out.
Creating characters in D&D is not like creating characters for a novel or a screenplay. For those, you as the author need to have all those little details planned out in advance in order to immerse your readers in the character, but in a ttrpg, some of the most characterizing moments for your character will generally come in the moment during good roleplay. When writing, detail comes first, followed by immersion. In roleplay, immersion comes first, and details fill themselves in as you get a feel for the character.
Resist the temptation to start a game with a character that is "complete." Then you have nothing to discover, and little room to develope. Also remember that you're just starting in a campaign, so your backstory should not have the complexities of someone halfway through one. It's nice to maybe have some headcanon (for want of a better word) of how your character typically spent their lives and who with before becoming an adventurer, but you really don't want your character's backstory to have the appearance of an epic quest with a rich tapestry of supporting characters. That's what the campaign is for. If you want your DM to include NPC's from your backstory that's fine, just try not to overdo it-- 3 or 4 NPC's they might know from their travels/studies that might pop up in the world with some accompanying drama is perfectly sufficient.
Basically, if the reason you're struggling is that you feel like your character is half-finished, then I would say that means you're done. Or at least as done as you can be until you actually start playing them.
Medication?
How about you allocate one hour to character creation and then grow the character while you play it.
The only way to name Gnomes. 😉
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I start with a race/class combination as the key concept. Then I decide on a role - Tank, Healer, DPR, Social, etc. Then I get the stats.
Once that is done, I look at this character and try to think what made them decide to adventure, because that is frankly fairly strange thing for anyone to do. His stats play a key part of this- was an intelligent decision, a wise decision, or did he simply get pushed into it? Was he an outcast? After vengeance? Greedy as hell? Looking for someone/thing?
That usually lets me create a solid background.
On a different tangent than most: don't focus.
I take forever to make characters compared to someone who can bang out a completed sheet in seven minutes, but I'm also consistently told I have some of the coolest/strongest character concepts at the table. A lot of that is because I let my brain have its head and follow these wild-ass tangents. I write them down, let my brain follow along and get it all out. Once I have a huge-ass document of all the shit my brain wanted to say about the idea, it's time to go at said document with a set of diamondite garden shears. Take the uncoordinated hodgepodge blah and sculpt that down into a character worth playing. Discard ideas outright if you have to, modify others, talk with the DM or other players to get feedback on cool hooks you want to include.
The Heroic Chronicle system from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is a fantastic tool for this, actually. Even if you never roll on a single table from it or use a single one of its ideas - even if you aren't playing in Exandria - you can use the Heroic Chronicle to tell you all the questions you should have answers to in your backstory, and more importantly it can tell you all the questions you shouldn't have answers to. The Heroic Chronicle says you should know the following, in addition to all the regular stuff like class/race/background/QIBF:
-Your character's homeland and home town
-Your character's family/family history (DO NOT just say "oh, they're all dead". Don't be that guy +_+)
-Your character's signature allies and rivals (between one to three of each), and WHY each of those characters is willing to intervene in your life for either good or ill.
-ONE 'Fateful Moment' (if even that)
-ONE 'Mysterious Secret' (if even that)
-One to three fun character details - favorite food, a favorite book or story, a fun anecdote from their childhood days, etcetera.
If you limit yourself to that general template, then all the hodgepodge in the world doesn't matter. The art of character creation becomes the art of getting all the hundred and seventeen wild ideas that pour out of your head to audition against each other for a spot to be included on the final sheet. If it isn't on the final sheet? Then it didn't happen/isn't real. Stick to that, especially if you have a lot of trouble with the editing process and getting things cut down. If you have to, go so far as to delete/trash all the stuff that doesn't make the final cut so it has less chance of coming back to haunt you.
If you're anything like me, and I get the distinct feeling you might be, then all of this shit is going to clog up your brainways until you get it down in a word doc somewhere anyways. The trick is to do just that, get it out, and then move on. half the time you'll find out that writing down your Super Cool Idea takes at least half the Super Cool off of it - articulating and exploring the idea reveals holes and weaknesses in it you just won't see until you have to sit down and justify the idea to your proper, rational brain. Most of the rest of the time, writing it down in a '[Charname] Brainstorming' document lets you move on and figure out other things. Don't be afraid to jump from idea to idea in a scatter, either. Go wherever your brain takes you and just be confident that in the end, if you're ruthless enough in the cutting room, you'll get there.
Unless you're on a deadline and need this character to be done tomorrow, or within the hour. In which case I strongly hope you've already gone through this whole process a few times and stored up some relatively generic characters you can modify to fit the campaign, because one thing you will never be with this process is fast X_X.
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Whatever you do, don't forget to include in your write-up/background/whatever, the most important thing about your character: Why he/she/it becomes an adventurer. Do not make up a character who does not feel the call to adventure for some reason. There could be lots of good reasons for this. In my campaign, one guy's family was wiped out and clan holding destroyed, and he's the last member of his line and wants to rebuild it. He needs money to do that, and has no marketable skills since he is a trained soldier (and soldiers don't make much money), so he's going on adventures to earn cash. Another character is a cleric of Apollo and had a prophetic vision to "go into the north and follow the signs" and so he thinks the adventures they're going on are his calling by his god. And so on.
Try not to make up the character who is always going to want to stay home and safe and not go out on adventures. Don't make it the DM's job, or the other players' job, to have PCs and NPCs pull your character kicking and screaming into the adventure. This is D&D. The whole point of D&D is for characters to have adventures. So make up a character who wants to have adventures.
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First off, the story isn't my story. It's our story. To that end, my goal is to involve the DM if the DM is receptive.
If I alone make an intricate story, I leave no wiggle room for anyone else to be in it. It becomes difficult for me to let go of the character and have the character be part of a work that is a group effort. So, I start with a simple question of why the character is adventuring. From then, I believe it helps to get the DM involved.
In DM'ing for an NPC, there's the luxury of creating backstory going forward. One can have a framework of the history, focus on the "now", and fill in all the gaps as the story progresses. This keeps it loose to accommodate the unpredictability of players and fits in with the whole "our story, not my story" intent.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
So, working with another player, to make our characters friends/allies, this is what I have so far for my character.
He is an intelligent, agile and suave Yuan-ti rogue; born from a fallen noble family on his father's side, and a rising criminal mafia-style family on his mother's side. Whose curiosity and insistence on delving into his true family history got him sent away to take up the position of a minor official in a trade guild of another city. There he spent ten years, rising through the ranks within the trade guild. He makes friends and earns some measure of respect from his co-workers and other guild members before receiving a letter from his mother, instructing him to go a specific tavern at a particular time and show a coloured tile to a young girl with a flower in her hair.
Following the instructions in the letter, leads him to the daughter of a girl upon whom he was once sweet. To his surprise, she looks exactly like her mother did when the two were playmates, romping around the house and getting into mischief at school and at first he mistakes the girl for her. The girl promises him the truth about his family and why they sent him away. Before she tells him the truth though, he must first help her recover an artefact from a recently opened tomb that is part of a highly publicised archaeological dig. The company who is financing the dig is another mafia-style family who has been rivals of the character's family for as long as he can remember. The girl tells him that the artefact can not be allowed to fall into their hands or terrible things with happen.
The girl is the character of another player, and she works for his family, as her mother once did.
The character is suspicious, but he wants the truth and so agrees to the girl's terms. The girl then takes her place as a party member and introduces him to the rest of the team.
As they make progress in recovering the artefact, the character develops a friendship with the girl, who reminds him very much of her mother and the friend he once had. Something that his family knew would happen when they chose her as his recruiter - indeed, that was the reason they wanted her in the first place.
The other player, whose character this girl is, and me, have already agreed that we are going to become friends like this, so its not just something that I am pulling out the hat.
Recovering the artefact is only the beginning though and when they do so a whole new part of the campaign would open up that none of us has planned for.
The problem is that I feel like this does not make a good character. He doesn't feel like a fleshed-out individual who would be living in the world. He feels like a series of cobbled-together tropes, and the more I try to make him better, the more I get distracted and go off writing the stories that I talked about above.
--- EDIT ----
Because it is important to my character development our DM has actually shared with me (only me) some basic info about the artifact and the tomb. The tomb is actually a lost monument to the glory of the Sarrukh creator race. Although it became a tomb, it's initial purpose was to house the artifact. The artifact itself is sort of like a semi-sentinet magic capacitor that will sense the presence of a child of an ancient noble bloodline (my character) and "bind" itself to him, transforming him into an Arcane Trickster.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Based on your posts, you seem to be the player and not the DM, correct? If so then I am confused. How can you, as a player, determine what will "open up a whole new part of the campaign?" Has the DM told you this will happen? Or is the artifact and its finding in the past and you are just writing it up?
I think your instinct is correct. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what the problem is, maybe because there is so much going on. And perhaps that is the key -- there is so much going on. One issue I see right away is the two families. One is a fallen noble house; one is a rising mafia gang. Why does one character need both in his background? Just one of those is more than enough to be a background element. I would pick one, and have his family just be one of those (either a fallen noble house or a rising mafia gang).
Also -- I am not clear on why wanting to learn about his own family's history would get him banished. Normally, noble houses or maifa dons want you to respect and know about "the family" and participate in its operations. Trouble often comes when the character wants to throw off these shackles. The son of the mafia don who refuses to kill when he is ordered to, and now has to be on the run because he betrayed his family, makes some sense. But Al Capone telling Junior "stop asking the questions that will enable you to walk in my footsteps" doesn't make a lot of sense, at least as you have described it.
Regarding the girl and the artifact. Again I feel like this is too complicated. Why is this girl, who is not a member of his family, more informed about his family than he is? It sounds like she is in the mafia with the rest of his family. And now they are trying to use her to recruit him back into his own family. This makes no sense to me. If they banished him for trying to find out the truth about them, why would they then send a girl who knows that truth to entice him back into the family?
It seems very convoluted and complicated. To me a simpler story would be: his family is gangsters like the Capones, and when the time came to do the "hit" that would "make him a man" he got cold feet/moral objections/etc. This dishonored him in the eyes of his family and the father, unwilling to have his own son killed, but unable to keep him in the family, disowned him and sent him away.
I dunno how you want the girl to fit in -- depends on the other player. Maybe now the father is dead, and whoever inherited the family is trying to 'bring you back in.' They send the girl to entice you.
I have no idea what she would need an artifact though. IMO, an even better idea is, the girl's mother was an enforcer for the family and sent her to flush you out (knowing you had a crush on her), but when she meets you the girl loses her taste for harming you (maybe you save her life, help her, etc) and the two of you are now on the run from the family together.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I actually think the backstory is solid enough, it sounds like the parts you're not satisfied with is just the characterization, who is he?
Start basic. Come up with likes and dislikes. They don't have to all be pertinent to the mafia/noble family story, but just like, does your character like music or not? Have a sense of humor? If so, a big one or a small one? Is he sheltered due to his family's wealth, or is he comfortable in a crowd? Introverted or extroverted? Romantic or grounded? Opinions on adventure?
I don't think your character needs more narrative to "make sense", you've just got to populate his personality with traits. You don't to plan the whole personality out in advance, mind you, just enough to go off so you can (as I said above) develope the rest as you play
*Edit*
After you settle on some of the more trivial personality aspects, think about what some of their core philosophies are. What are their religious views? Political leanings? What do they believe to be Important? Another consideration that I find more useful in the character creation stage than in actual play: what is their alignment? Do they fit neatly into a category? Why or why not? Do they fit into an alignment grid but in an unconventional way? I find it makes for a great jumping off point, even if you're just identifying alignments that are "close but not quite," then you can highlight why that is.
I do know more about the world and the story than the average player would. I know a lot of meta because I personally know the DM.
I wouldn't share that meta with the other players though and it will ruin their exprrience, but having that knowledge, I am trying to make a character that fits into the story and world. Only I keep twisting myself around in loops, trying to fit in this part of the lore, or this part of the story.
Like I wanted the character to find an artifact that gave him magic powers and made him an Arcane Trickster and when I told the DM that and asked if it was possible, she literally said "yeah sure, I was going to have you guys recover a Sarrukh artifact from a snake cult, but I'll put it in a tomb instead and you can all recover it tomb raider style."
Also, the unfocussed and weirdness is what I am coming up with because I can't seem to focus on one thing.
I don't know. Maybe I need to just scrap everything and start from the begining again.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Just remember, you don’t need to write “THE STORY,” just the liner notes in the dust jacket.
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