A lot of the time people try to make "original" characters. That's a good thing. But they go about it in the wrong way. Typically they make a long winded backstory to explain why their human ranger is so angsty. It still just comes across as a stereotypical angsty brooding character. Or it could just be a boring long backstory that realistically never affects gameplay. Write a long complicated backstory about how your celestial sorcerer ran away from home and was blessed by an angel. Still this changes nothing. If anything your character is now a bland muddle of a zillion different concepts that don't work together, canceling themselves out.
Now take, for example, Sutekh the barbarian. He's a khopesh wielding barbarian from a fantasy Egyptian(ish) tribe that worships snakes.
notice something yet? Sutekh has a clear theming, that he sticks with, without trying to be the five zillionth special flower who had a troubled childhood (no offense to those who really did). Try building a character concept around this. If it works, stick with it
My Dwarven Tempest Cleric (haven't played him yet...) is, i hope, somewhat similar.
Jónsi Eldingar (Eldingar is Icelandic for "lightning") comes from an icy island off the coast, which was visited by the Vikings. He spent time in the temple of Thor, got the "calling" and became a cleric. His mom, dad, and brother are all alive, no major conflict. He got the wanderlust, taking after the Vikings who came before him. So, he decided to see the world, and look for a lost amulet that might have actually been Thor's. And, following his idol and deity, he likes to use a warhammer. But, he's happier just sitting around with a nice mug of ale, preferably with a pretty lass at his side.
Everyone wants to be the hero in the story. (var. "Everyone thinks they're the hero of their own story.")
The problem I see is that (nearly) everyone wants to be the hero before the story even starts - overcoming great obstacles and having great deeds in their individual prologues before Chapter 1.
I mentioned elsewhere that I prefer creating backstories that are more mundane than exceptional. My favorite stories are nobodies who become heroes. The catch is having a hook to go adventuring.
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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.
My latest character doesn't have a backstory. Not in the "oh noes I'm suffering amnesia!" way. That's not no backstory, that's a backstory you don't know that you're expecting your DM to do for you.
Nah. Cynai Adeyre, water genasi tempest cleric of Kord, showed up in the campaign we're running on a boat with the party's wizard (who has a much more in-depth backstory). There are exactly two events in Cynai's history that have remotely mattered so far - the fact that the boat she and Herbert were on was attacked by pirates, which was an event that the wizard player and I agreed on to give those two a connection, and the story Cynai told a fellow water genasi worshipper of Kord about the storm she found her god in.
Beyond that? Cynai has no backstory whatsoever beyond "was a sailor, likes her god maybe more than is proper for a devout worshipper". No deep, twisted history, no legacy of grand deeds, no nothing.
She's the most dynamic character in our current campaign, because she's part of that campaign instead of part of the one I wrote to myself for her before starting. Admittedly, part of that is simply me being comfortable hamming it up as a loudmouthed INT-of-6 leads-with-her-warhammer dimwit, but nevertheless.
I love writing extensive character stories and coming up with complex and intriguing plotlines and character ideas. It's awesome, and I highly encourage it. But save those characters for your own stories and your own games. Try coming to the table with nothing more than what your background says you are and the one event that led you to being where the campaign starts in a mood to Adventure. You might be surprised by how much fun you'll have being part of the game you're in instead of the game you wrote for yourself away from table.
Right now, my party is pretty great, just a bunch of jerks with some skill, ambition, and opportunity that happened to get involved with a smuggling plot under a haunted mansion. One of them rides a giant frog now. This makes me very happy.
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I did NOT eat those hikers.
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A lot of the time people try to make "original" characters. That's a good thing. But they go about it in the wrong way. Typically they make a long winded backstory to explain why their human ranger is so angsty. It still just comes across as a stereotypical angsty brooding character. Or it could just be a boring long backstory that realistically never affects gameplay. Write a long complicated backstory about how your celestial sorcerer ran away from home and was blessed by an angel. Still this changes nothing. If anything your character is now a bland muddle of a zillion different concepts that don't work together, canceling themselves out.
Now take, for example, Sutekh the barbarian. He's a khopesh wielding barbarian from a fantasy Egyptian(ish) tribe that worships snakes.
notice something yet? Sutekh has a clear theming, that he sticks with, without trying to be the five zillionth special flower who had a troubled childhood (no offense to those who really did). Try building a character concept around this. If it works, stick with it
I did NOT eat those hikers.
My Dwarven Tempest Cleric (haven't played him yet...) is, i hope, somewhat similar.
Jónsi Eldingar (Eldingar is Icelandic for "lightning") comes from an icy island off the coast, which was visited by the Vikings. He spent time in the temple of Thor, got the "calling" and became a cleric. His mom, dad, and brother are all alive, no major conflict.
He got the wanderlust, taking after the Vikings who came before him. So, he decided to see the world, and look for a lost amulet that might have actually been Thor's. And, following his idol and deity, he likes to use a warhammer. But, he's happier just sitting around with a nice mug of ale, preferably with a pretty lass at his side.
Everyone wants to be the hero in the story. (var. "Everyone thinks they're the hero of their own story.")
The problem I see is that (nearly) everyone wants to be the hero before the story even starts - overcoming great obstacles and having great deeds in their individual prologues before Chapter 1.
I mentioned elsewhere that I prefer creating backstories that are more mundane than exceptional. My favorite stories are nobodies who become heroes. The catch is having a hook to go adventuring.
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.
My latest character doesn't have a backstory. Not in the "oh noes I'm suffering amnesia!" way. That's not no backstory, that's a backstory you don't know that you're expecting your DM to do for you.
Nah. Cynai Adeyre, water genasi tempest cleric of Kord, showed up in the campaign we're running on a boat with the party's wizard (who has a much more in-depth backstory). There are exactly two events in Cynai's history that have remotely mattered so far - the fact that the boat she and Herbert were on was attacked by pirates, which was an event that the wizard player and I agreed on to give those two a connection, and the story Cynai told a fellow water genasi worshipper of Kord about the storm she found her god in.
Beyond that? Cynai has no backstory whatsoever beyond "was a sailor, likes her god maybe more than is proper for a devout worshipper". No deep, twisted history, no legacy of grand deeds, no nothing.
She's the most dynamic character in our current campaign, because she's part of that campaign instead of part of the one I wrote to myself for her before starting. Admittedly, part of that is simply me being comfortable hamming it up as a loudmouthed INT-of-6 leads-with-her-warhammer dimwit, but nevertheless.
I love writing extensive character stories and coming up with complex and intriguing plotlines and character ideas. It's awesome, and I highly encourage it. But save those characters for your own stories and your own games. Try coming to the table with nothing more than what your background says you are and the one event that led you to being where the campaign starts in a mood to Adventure. You might be surprised by how much fun you'll have being part of the game you're in instead of the game you wrote for yourself away from table.
Please do not contact or message me.
Right now, my party is pretty great, just a bunch of jerks with some skill, ambition, and opportunity that happened to get involved with a smuggling plot under a haunted mansion. One of them rides a giant frog now. This makes me very happy.
I did NOT eat those hikers.