Hi all, so I'm noticing that I'm having a hard time deciding what to play as in D&D and wanted to know if anyone has any tips for that? Usually I'm better at this, but since the fall started it's been a lot harder for me to decide what to play as.

Well, the simplest answer is to see what everyone else is playing as in your party and pick a role that isn't covered by the other party members. So if everyone else is already playing martial characters you could take a healer. Or if everyone is going for squishy spellasters you could take barbarian or fighter to take on a tanking role. If no one else is playing one, a Rogue is always helpful for picking locks and taking care of utility skills beyond just combat.

Other than that... I tend to think of a character personality and design first, then figure out what kind of class they would be. 

Quote from Kyozanbrawnhammer >>

Hi all, so I'm noticing that I'm having a hard time deciding what to play as in D&D and wanted to know if anyone has any tips for that? Usually I'm better at this, but since the fall started it's been a lot harder for me to decide what to play as.

 One of my favorite ways to create a character is to start with the background. I'll look through the list until I see one that speaks to me, I'll make whatever selections are available on that screen and add in the personality traits (2), ideals (2, just to help define alignment), bond (1), and flaw (1). Then I decide whether that type of character sounds like it would be particularly adept in any abilities and apply the abilities if so. If not, I make the same determination with race and class. If nothing is standing out, then I'll run down one of the lists until I see something that stands out and use that to fill in the rest. If there is still nothing that stands out, I'll go back to the abilities, roll for stats until I have a set that can be clearly mapped to the standard array and trying to keep each value with ability that it falls under. For instance, if I roll 12, 17, 10, 6, 13, and 4, I'll make my strength a 13, my dexterity a 15, my constitution a 12, my intelligence a 10, my wisdom a 14, and my charisma an 8. I'll reserve the right to swap my constitution score with one of strength, intelligence or charisma in order to get it at least to 12, and possibly then changing it with the 13 since I'm more likely to increase constitution as a tertiary score than I am anything else and might as well get it to that odd score to facilitate options. 

This would then give me a list of barbarian, cleric, druid, monk, ranger and rogue to select from with that stat line and I'd make a selection on class and then choose the race to compliment it. This process has given me some very interesting characters that I wouldn't have thought of making had I started the process with class or race and moved forward. Even if I get all the way to "rolling for stats" to help determine what I'm doing, the character itself is helping to inform what they are more than pure mechanics, which can sometimes be the trap that I fall into building the character the other direction. That makes the characters more memorable for me and more fun to play. 

That said, my recommendation would be to start at the a different point in the process than you normally do and work your way in some order that ends with whatever you normally start with.

Or you could just find one of those questionnaires to fill out that helps you determine what class you should play.

Play a class (or at least subclass) you’ve never played and combine it with a race you’ve never played.  Then think about what might motivate that person to choose that path in life.  That can lead to background, personality, etc.

There is always the world's greatest character generator (warning: language).

What the heck is that link you've posted???

Also I recommend going for something no one else has picked yet. Or if they have all picked something almost the same, maybe just continue the trend and it might also turn out OP, you never know what a group of up to six barbarians could do to enemies.