How to make an RPG character you won't get bored of

Carrying on with a new format of video, Wheels and Liv use their years of character creation and roleplay experience to dive into how you can make an RPG character that you won't get bored of.
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[@edwardgurney1694]

The GM-facing side of this advice is to give the players enough information about what the game is going to be that they can make characters who are going to want to engage with the premise. Don't just say "Make characters", say "This game is going to be about saving the world from an evil lich, make characters who are going to want to work together to save the world from an evil lich." or "You're going to play paid up members of a professional monster hunting guild, make characters who are professional monster fighters who will at least begrudgingly operate within a guild."

[@valerynorth]

The campaign I'm running at the moment, I gave my players the brief, "You're all on your way by sea to [CityName] so come up with a reason why you'd be going there," so they had a ready-made reason to know each other a bit before gameplay proper starts. Of course, session 1 involves losing their berths on the ship so they have to go the long way round, meaning they run into Adventures! But it gave a great set-up to explain what they had in common and why they would make common cause in the first instance, giving plenty of time to bond and find their place.

[@RichMerry]

Thanks for the more long form discussion on this. The whole video feels pretty chill and a better format than the 10 minute highly edited style

[@robseymour1844]

I had a Tortle Wizard who was a fun character to play yet slightly one dimensional and couldn't really develop him, however we had a TPK (there were big rats and explosions, it got messy). This actually gave me a chance to 'resurrect' the character as a Warforged Tortle Barbarian (the War Tortle) who couldn't remember his past, the only link to his past life being his smoking shell that was used as a frame for his body. This brought along some fantastic character development as he learned about who he was, why he was brought back and I really enjoyed playing the character after this. In our next campaign he will have become a Paladin named Terror-Pin. We have fun with our DND campaigns!

[@johannvongenerico9487]

My issue often is that I'm constantly thinking about new characters and builds and distracting myself from my current character 🤣

[@comradestannis]

Same!

[@richardkirke]

That’s what one-shots are for!

[@johannvongenerico9487]

@@richardkirke by my calculations, I'd need a rate of about 39 one shots per week to keep up with myself xD

[@steveholmes11]

Some people are addicted to character building. Nothing really bad about that. I suggest treating it as two different hobbies. Game day with the gank, do roleplay. Other days, back to experimenting in the Franken-character lab.

[@Faranya]

If I can throw in my own example of a long running character that I didn't get bored of: I was in a group where we did Descent into Avernus start to finish, and I was playing a neutral good cleric of a war god. When I created the character, the basic premise of him was that he thought fighting (and making tools of war) was the highest form of devotion, that his beliefs were heretical to the established church, and that he disrespected pacifism. This really worked well for the campaign for a few reasons: the other player characters had the opportunity to really gain his respect, the campaign itself was very combat heavy so he felt like he was satisfying his desires, and the thematic elements of the Blood War between demons and devils fit incredibly well into the framework of his faith, while still presenting moral conflicts because he still tries to be good. They were open-ended traits that invited the game to build on them, rather than being static things that had to constrain what I felt I could do with him. One of the aspects that didn't really work out was that I wanted him to be crafting guy, but of course D&D crafting is not really feasible, so that fairly quickly fell into the background and I just had to let it live there. It wouldn't have made sense to try and bog down the campaign to make time for it, so it had to just be flavour, and not something in the foreground given the circumstances. I didn't entirely get rid of it, because it was core to my ideal of the character, but it just moved off the side to make room for the game.

[@steveholmes11]

Something else that works well for me is what I call the "sparse backstory". Fill in three events with places, and two close people, but don't overdo the detail. Congratulations. You have a 5 line backstory that your GM will actually read. Those gaps also mean you can be the "Ahh, I remember Ploegdorp, we'd best steer clear of the Flying Cow inn" character. A good GM can work with you to use those gaps to drive a story.I Just don't use that trick at every new location.

[@miss-petrolea]

I only ever played one short DnD campaign, because of one of the problems that were discussed here. I'd made a Tiefling with backstory, reason for being here now, and an overarching personal goal. It being my first TTRPG I had a bit of trouble getting into character but I got there pretty quickly. But I had a massive disconnect in playstyle with the rest of the players, especially the person who quickly asserted themselves as the unofficial "party leader" (which the others went along with, though I later found out not all of them agreed or enjoyed that). They were so focussed on the campaign quest goal that there was no room for sidesteps, even when the DM gave hints of things like, a caravan parked next to the road we were travelling at night, or a festival going on in the town we were in to gather information. None of that got used even when I pushed for it a little, and I just got incredibly bored and frustrated so that when the DM actually gave a hint to my characters personal goal I just wasn't excited about it at all anymore... At first I really thought DnD just wasn't for me but after a few discussions with the DM afterwards I realised I just really didn't match the playstyle of the other (more experienced and more "dominant") players. Unfortunately these are really my only friends that play DnD or other TTRPGs, and I don't really feel confident about joining a group of strangers for a campaign as I still have no idea what I'm doing 😅 But if I do end up trying again I will definitely try to advocate for the "prelude" meeting to try and figure out how to match the characters beforehand.

[@Amaritudine]

That's a surprisingly familiar story! I played a Tiefling druid in my first D&D campaign, and I'd put a lot of thought into his back-story and motivations. I was the only new player in the game, though, and the DM didn't like magic-users, so I often felt like I was out of my depth and didn't know how to contribute. The campaign went for six months, then just stopped during the final battle when the DM decided we were inevitably going to win. That's when I figured that playing TTRPGs probably isn't for me, and watching shows like the Oxventure is a better way to enjoy tabletop.

[@daviddalrymple2284]

@@Amaritudine @petrolea Thanks for sharing these stories. As a DM, I'm always looking for ways to avoid alienating new players, and these are mistakes I wouldn't want to repeat.

[@Amaritudine]

@@daviddalrymple2284 Thanks David - I really like your approach, it sounds like you've got a great attitude toward making a complex hobby accessible and welcoming to newcomers.

[@AndrewMcColl]

The pop culture reference was the main feature of my Shadowrun troll street samurai. He had 20th Century pop culture as a skill, which gave me an excuse to liberally use movie quotes, dress and act like the Terminator at times, and was also used by the GM to guide my actions. It was a whole lot of fun.

[@danny_jh1373]

I'd love to see a discussion on creating complex or mold-breaking characters from difficult races: Warforged are easy to make one-note, as are Changelings, Teiflings often stray to more devilish personalities, etc

[@arthurluay9002]

I’m playing a warforged totem barb that became one note. He talks in short broken sentences and emits no emotion. I talked with the DM about how there are memory cores that were separated from him so as he collects those, his vocabulary and ability to show emotion grows.

[@danny_jh1373]

See for me I played a changeling that could only shapechange into certain people, each with their own personalities and as the story progressed, their own memories as well. The changeling was created by a god (they were a sorcerer/paladin) from the souls of people killed by coincidence - being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I felt this was such an interesting take to changelings as often they can be typecast as chaotic or sometimes ungrounded characters whereas this one would only appear that way on the surface, however looking a little deeper would show you a slurry of personalities trying to make sense of their undeath oftentimes at odds with one another.

[@danny_jh1373]

@@sleepytime999998 it actually created really interesting story beats, so long as I could keep track of all the personalities' stories. The good thing about a sorcerer/paladin was that I could adapt my playstyle slightly for each person in their head. One was afraid of spells, so they only used weapons until our party's druid showed them that spells are only as evil as their caster

[@marcherwitch9811]

ok last one... the bit about tv shows... amazing how often the Black guy is the one who suddenly has nothing to do, becomes one note ie exposition only... drives me furious! especially true in paranormal/supernatural shows!

[@TJEverley]

I ended up abandoning a character (tiefling sorcerer) because I just wasn't enjoying playing them, and their dynamic with the rest of the group just didn't feel right. I later discovered that the real issue wasn't my character, but one of the other players - it was her first time playing a ttrpg, but she was used to playing single-player rpg video games. So she basically expected everyone to treat her as the main character and the rest of us as side character/npcs ALL THE TIME. To the point where the the GM tried to lay seeds for an arc based around another character's back-story, and she started meta-playing to make it all about her. I haven't played since.

[@amazing_cool]

I’m sorry to hear about this. This makes me glad my group is the way they are in our campaign.

[@steveholmes11]

This is sad to hear. Main character syndrome (yes it has a name) can really ruin the fun for N - 1 players. It's fairly common for new players who've played a lot of video games. There are some good videos of advice for identifying it, and reducing its impact.

[@GeneralFondue1]

One character I had who was a lot of fun was Rare String, my Tabaxi rogue. We were playing Ghosts of Saltmarsh, so I made them a Smuggler who was a) very competent at their job and b) very open (possibly too open) about what they did. As the game went on they became the ship captain and kind of leader/face who took strengths from the rest of the group (Eg becoming a soulknife subclass through an accident with the aberrant mind sorcerer, learning from the cleric to take Cleric initiative feat), eventually becoming protective of the rest of the party and taking personal risks to help them. The campaign ended early due to schedule issues unfortunately but I really miss them and want to bring them back some day

[@laser8389]

My favorite (and first) character was a half-orc bard (before I ever saw the Oxventurers, though he shared more than surface similarities to a certain other half-orc bard). I wanted to have a very friendly but dim character, so that’s how the stats stacked up, but then I just started monologuing in my room, gave him a voice, and a whole backstory just spilled out. Just have your characters introduce themselves to an anonymous person/group, and doing that on your own means you have no time limit and your audience will be exactly as invested as you are.

[@MarcusPrim3]

LOVE these discussion videos. Thank you so much, yall

[@comradestannis]

I gotta say (and this example may be a bad one): I feel like in the *Game of Thrones* TV show, you had Daenerys Targaryen, Stannis Baratheon, Loras Tyrell, Renly Baratheon, and so on who became "stereotypes" of what people thought they were.

[@dweebbush5489]

If youre planning on continuing to make this style of content you should definately consider posting them to the dice breaker podcast feed or a new mini podcast

[@RaviK-nd5qe]

Literally just as I was thinking about how bored I am of my PC, this video gets dropped

[@ben.o1156]

Ah, good. The brain chips are working

[@eixonm]

Any advice on how to bring people to Role play who want to role play, but never do. Had a group once that wanted to role-playing but they were all so scared to mess up, even when nothing detrimental happened

[@MrKillermatty]

I once made a warforged artificer called Rusty who at first i dreaded playing due to the fact it wasn't who I first had in mind, but he ended up being one of my favourites cause of how sweet and gentle he was and he was always helpful but too naïve so some of the corrupt people managed to make the most of it before he realised he was doing something that was wrong, the rest of the party were also great at trying to teach him how to pickup on peoples motives, so every session he grew a bit and learnt more about himself. By the end of the campaign he was basically a saint to other warforged and a sworn enemy of the the lord of blades cause of how good and helpful he was (the dm ended up calling him saint Rusty)

[@marcherwitch9811]

just having to retire my character because i made... well, i made giselle from enchanted without realising how grimdark my DM's homebrew was... so yeah, currently building a new one because she had a breakdown... so this is perfect timing!

[@marcherwitch9811]

yeah, other people's chaotic selfish characters are a huuuuge problem! like, i get that people who maybe hate their jobs, hate their day to day...they want to play edgy 'fuck society' characters! so when you come in with prince valiant... yeah...

[@marcherwitch9811]

sad that dungeonbreaker died, but do hope we see more of you guys playing! fizz was absolutely the kind of character who is great to watch but hard to play, when you know you're screwing your friend's play... that must have been tough... and i *whispers* i prefered you guys to crit role because y'all didn't trigger my depression on a weekly basis! you guys and shikar are my go tos! edit: i miss robert cop too btw

[@marcherwitch9811]

as a writer... "parents are dead" just means you don't need to write more characters, you don't have to have names, characteristics, conversations to show their influence in your name... it's a macro for storytelling... i'm commenting too much, aren't i... i'll shush...

[@stormy7745]

In a homebrew that bled into Curse of Strahd, I played true neutral dragonborn cleric of Oghma and I loved her so much: she was big, a little clumsy, but a massive nerd. Very knowledgeable and wise, and despite preferring books to people still had a soft spot for people. She unfortunately perished due to my own hubris in the Argenvostholt Manor, but I'm tempted to bring her back if any of my characters in my current campaigns die

[@amwoodco3049]

So, my longest running character is one where I made the personality, but left the background to my GM. Under his advice based on where I was jumping into the campaign, my Pathfinder 1e, Dwarf Inquisitor had amnesia. He was headstrong but not uncompromising, detested arcane magic but would begrudgingly work with practitioners of it, and remembered nothing. Yes, an amnesiac character was my favourite, who had the simple identifier of "I". He carried on from level 5, where he was found by the party on a mystical island that stole people's mental energy, to level 16, when he was killed by a manifestation of death itself while revivng an out of plane Camelot and carrying a boom of the damned which confused death and let the group carry on where the GM wanted us to cheat to win a contest. To this day, I's death is one of the more amusing stories we have.

[@gjigaqaquj]

Im still playing morrowind and never beat it for this very reason. I get to balmora, do all the quests, boom "hmm my character is missing something" or "i wanna try this other skill/class" 20 years later.

[@thepinkhobbit]

ReaReally enjoyed this video, I'm working on my first D&D character and it's helped me refine some ideas I had so I'm not overwhelming myself and making it so complex.

[@richardkirke]

Playing characters in a one-shot is an excellent idea. I once created a snobbish gentleman thief for a one-shot and HATED them. So glad I wasn’t having to rehabilitate then over a campaign.

[@carolinepowell8878]

Where can I get that shirt Wheels is wearing?

[@gravitycoroner4403]

Very excited at the timing of this video. A friend brought up running a new episode of a Magical Girl RPG he created last week. One other person and I would be new to playing it and need to make characters. It'll be my 2nd time playing as a character in a RPG, so kind of nervous about it. This helped me get an idea what I should take into consideration.

[@haravikk]

My main advice would be don't make a character too serious unless you're happy to play the "straight man" in comedic terms. My groups always seem to tend towards a bit silly and chaotic, and that can be pretty natural in a dice-based game where things randomly go wrong; so if you play a character who's deadly serious all the time, has a grim past and no sense of humour etc., then you need to be happy to play "the sensible one" or "the voice of reason".

[@bootooscary323]

Speaking of examples of misfits come together, what about the Guardians of the Galaxy? I think that would be an interesting bunch of characters to break down and see what makes them jive and mesh together.

[@LycIrisAurora]

One of the worst examples I had to play through of not working together on a session zero for char creation..... I made a half elven character while not one but TWO of the other players decided to play haughty racist noble elves. The DM saw this as an opportunity for some neat character growth or role play moments but the other players decided to stay unusually devoted to this one note trope. My character, alone, saved both their lives twice very obviously like no other interpretation despite them being jerks and still they refused to even acknowledge she had any kind of skill or power. It was pretty frustrating and really didnt make me wanna try anymore. The game didn't last too long after due to that greatest of gaming killers, scheduling issues. I've had very few characters that got to be in games that lasted long enough to even think about disliking or getting bored of. But most of the ones that did last I really loved and it really depends for me on the group. I tend to think of a general archetype when I start but it's easy to leave that open to growth and change as the campaign goes on. The last very long campaign character I played I totally intended to be more arcane archer style but by the end she was more melee focused and incredibly specialized in fighting other spellcasters because of the plot and the major enemies of the campaign.

[@comradestannis]

This is a great channel! 😁

[@exquisitecorpse4917]

"I don't have parents" is RPG speak for "I don't want to write a backstory"

[@steveholmes11]

The fix for this is to have a powerful NPC cleric resurrect the parents. Then have them helicopter about the former edgy orphan. "Don't go down that cold dungeon without your scarf". " I packed you favourite cookies for you and your adventuring friends". "A big ogre, that's nice dear, of course ogres were a real threat back in my day.. We didn't get to level up until we killed seven before breakfast"

[@exquisitecorpse4917]

@@steveholmes11 See, this is what comment sections were made for. You win the internet today

[@Musive99]

I really like this format and I will definitely send this video to my players before we start a new campaign!

[@boghag]

The background music makes it really difficult for me to concentrate on what you're talking about. I had to stop the video multiple times and go back a bit bcause my mind started to wander. Is it possible to get this video without music somehow?

[@aoiyuureisuru7656]

21:00 Crit role Chetney is a good example

[@boabplz4107]

Delta's previous incarnations are now canon previous lives.

[@Rosmarus_Odobenus]

That was really neat!

[@wilfchapman-gandy8120]

Yo that Unus Annus sweater

[@williamblack6912]

As a forever GM npcs that I don't like anymore/ got bored with have usually unfortunate 'accidents' to further the cause of the story....like being dragged away by the bagman...getting absorbed by a gelatinous cube....being trapped in a mirror.....etc.

[@arndnaj]

Something to consider, there are a lotta people who have been horrifically abused at some point. Trauma touches so many people.

[@TheRawrnstuff]

Probably my biggest disappointment about a character I thought was - or rather, would've been - great fun to play, was a ranger-esque character in a Savage Worlds system/setting. I made a cliff-note backstory involving a down-on-their-luck group of urchins operating from an orphanage, identifying something like 4 or so NPCs relating to my character. I was hoping my character's goal would've been to "save" my friends from that lifestyle. I never even met _any_ of them, during the 10 months or so IRL we played. Instead, the game focused more on guarding this box of magic all the bad guys wanted, and hauling it across the world to keep it moving, essentially "pro bono" because the fate of the world was at stake. But she also wouldn't've left, because the world ending wouldn't be good for her friends, either. There was nothing wrong with the campaign itself, but my character definitely didn't belong there. Instead of accomplishing something, I mostly felt like I was just constantly stalling on both goals - both personal and plot-related - while trying to win allies over with a character who was not built for social stuff.

[@arndnaj]

Chances are that Dob somehow killed all the orphans anyway.

[@cameronhector9074]

I had exactly this issue with my half-elf Hexblade, who has a background as nobility in an empire I'd also drafted, and had built a family tree for and put in hours to make NPCs my guy cared about and deep family lore that I could reference or have referenced to me. Then the campaign was just Hoard of the Dragon Queen straight out of the book and all of those connections and lore were made redundant which really killed my enthusiasm over time as it became irrelevant to the plot we were following. I'm typically DM in that group and I always make sure to work with the player to provide references to their backstories (where relevant) and to bring NPCs in that they have previous ties to. Unfortunately, as a group they aren't big on the whole "create a character not a statblock" ethos.

[@HalBreden]

"Become a worse person." - Dicebreaker, 2022

[@Qu4resma]

All great advices! But in the end, Liv is right tho ( 39:04 ). Elfs blow, but not in a good way =P

[@aoiyuureisuru7656]

When you choose your own house against the hat's choice and you don't vibe with the Slytherin.

[@Ubik_Bubik]

Well, if the GM likes his games challenging you won't have the time to get sick of your character before you'll have to make a new one

[@commanderraccoon8860]

#don't be a B

[@darthsimian2196]

I mean Britta is the worst.

[@keepyoureyespeeled]

This take is streets ahead

[@darthsimian2196]

@@keepyoureyespeeled well you wouldn’t want to be streets behind.