What Makes a Good Player Character?

[@mcolville]

See you folks Saturday morning! 11am Pacific!

[@123furgie]

For more story time

[@XanothAvaeth]

That's when my weekly D&D game starts, so I'll catch the VOD. o/

[@imissnewspapers]

No GenCon for MCM this year ?

[@mcolville]

@@imissnewspapers We're running tables of Draw Steel at GenCon even as we speak!

[@youtubeaccount3829]

Thanks for more uploads Matt, I really missed these kinds of videos, makes me want to run DnD again!

[@TractGildart]

Two videos in a week? Truly, a river to his people.

[@digitaljanus]

Multiple tributaries even!

[@Grayhem1136]

After a 3-4 month drought, my thirst is quenched.

[@primafacie5029]

Flaco lives 😂

[@brettloo7588]

Truth!

[@clawlesslawless]

😂

[@nathanlh116]

“Will other players like my character?” Seems to be the great un-asked question at tables I’ve played with.

[@Bancheis]

A handful of people I know and have played with would never even ask themselves that question regardless. Very frustrating.

[@AntlionUncletruthin]

I have the most fun when all the players at the table like my character, but not all the other characters do 😂

[@patientzero94]

Dang, “here’s this box, the game will run smoother if you’re somewhere in it or on its boundaries” is exactly what I said to my first group 7 years ago.

[@PalhacoCapitalista]

What happened 7 years later (now)

[@fredslipknot9]

It’s an excellent phrase

[@michaelramon2411]

There are an infinite number of numbers between any two integers.

[@lordbiscuitthetossable5352]

Solid advice. I as a player also let my gm know my broad plans a few days in advance; particularly if we are a bit more ambiguous in direction. It's just great manners to interact with what the host has invested a lot of time into.

[@patientzero94]

@@PalhacoCapitalista I find myself way more willing to roll with the ideas of my current groups. Either because we’ve all changed and expect more or because they’re more genre savvy. Less main character syndrome on their end and my box has gotten bigger with system experience

[@ZerkMonsterHunter]

One thing I'll add: make the character you're excited to play NOW. not the character you're excited to play in 4 levels. it's very easy to see a broken "build" whatever online. but if that build doesn't come online until level 7, and the party is level 3, make a character who does a thing you can have fun playing at level 3, there's no guarantee you'll last until level 7 or whatever. have fun now.

[@andrewl9191]

Yes this. Sometimes I think players can get too caught up in wanting to make a build to to get to some kind of multiclass for one reason or another.

[@evanhoffman7995]

100%. The phrase "come online" makes my skin crawl. It implies your character is "offline" and non-functional until then.

[@Xplora213]

I absolutely hate hate hate this aspect of the game since 3e. Crazy multi class combinations that do not evolve over time. The game is building a character rather than playing the game. Playing with Lego isn’t the same as building Lego. It’s ok to do either but it’s not the same thing and it’s pretending that it IS the same is folly.

[@briansmith8898]

@@Xplora213 My issue with "Builds" is the language used. The phrase often used for this idea is "Character Optimization." This implies that these builds are the optimal, or "best" characters. The further implication is that, if you don't have one of these builds, then you are playing "sub optimally". The implication is that you are literally playing worse D&D if you don't use one of these builds. To me, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of how D&D works.

[@Xplora213]

@@briansmith8898 if there is a particular reason for someone to change careers, ok, but the simple reality is that characters are not classes with a label maker on them. OSR suggests the classes are not very relevant. At all.

[@MarkCherkowski]

I have watched them. ALL of them. You were a big part in taking me from someone 1 year ago that had never played or DM'd before, to today where I DM 2 different weekly games, 73 sessions, and still going strong. Thank you.

[@cordingdesert9566]

Same. Had to watch them all.

[@gornser]

Thank you! We need people like you, Mark

[@stevebusiness965]

Yeah, basically each session I've ever run was in some way inspired by the most recent MC video

[@alexb.612]

On a similar note: I think it is also really important for the director to always allow a player to change their character. Kill them off or just do a "Boots has always been a bard". In other words: don't force your players to play a character they don't enjoy anymore.

[@deaconlasagna8570]

this is such an important point. esp we games like 5e or pathfinder where you can totally build an unfun character and have no idea before its too late. I usually explicitly tell players (esp new ones) 3 sessions in we'll do a vibe check to see if everyone is enjoying their character. its not always easy to come up with plausible reasons why a PC can completely change class, ancestry, background, etc. (tho it often is) but It usually leads to really creative story telling. Brennan Lee Mulligan is a master of this for people who need examples.

[@jft4820]

Yes! Funny enough I had a player be a Half Orc bard who kept playing like a barbarian and saying "why did I pick bard, I just keep trying to smash people". I repeatedly gave him the option to change, even offering immersive solutions to explain the shift but he never took me up on it, haha.

[@Jay_Hendrix]

There's literally nothing written in stone anywhere that says the build a player goes with should be a permanent decision, yet we act like it is

[@Lurklen]

Something I encourage a player to do, is not kill of a character they don't vibe with anymore. I can always find another out. I've had players take a character on a suicide run into danger cause they wanted a change of pace or whatever, and then regret it later. It's better to give a player an easy out, change the cast, and then keep that character waiting in the wings for when they, if ever, feel like are back in sync with that character again.

[@danrimo826]

Yep. Totally fine to retcon your own game

[@hazelmayn2465]

Collaboration! Once, I had a player that wanted to play a Lizardfolk that did not understand the language of the other players. I sensed that being a bit problematic, ha. So, not wanting to be dismissive, I invited that we all talk about it and eventually we had the idea that one of the players could be a sort of Han Solo for the Lizardfolk that could translate for them, and they went way back, etc. We all approved and It was great!

[@anarchclown]

We did this one with an actual wookie in a Star Wars campaign at one point. It worked just fine as well. And actually in that story whenever they were interacting with others. The player playing the wookie would just make a noise and then the character that could understand him just made up whatever he said leading to some pretty funny scenes.

[@m_d1905]

Sounds like great fun.

[@OKsweetcheeks]

Did we play together? I feel like I met this pair on Roll20 years ago. The partner was maybe some kind of halfling druid/cleric mix?

[@JosephHeller-el8zo]

I would make the player play two characters, one of which would be the translator.

[@JohnnyTightIips]

Make a character for the game you're playing is such evergreen advice. People trying to insert their OC or idea into the dm's campaign

[@derrmeister]

And for my next trick I will make Wolverine in LotR

[@agosto310]

And more often than not their "OC" ain't as original as they think. I've had players who came to the table with their OC and they were clones of other characters they played, and they all were characters that I can assure had been made before by some edgy teenager.

[@merrickmiller1224]

Ive seen a plethora of games recently where everyone is their own homebrew races and classes.

[@derekskelton4187]

@@merrickmiller1224 Their table. Hopefully they are having fun

[@derrmeister]

@@derekskelton4187 yeah, as long as the races make sense in the world, why not incorporate them in some way. the problem is not having anything that isn't in the books but rather having people that make absolutely no sense fpr the world

[@crimsonhawk52]

I've seen all three cases in games before: a player likes their character and the party likes the character but the DM doesn't, a player likes and the DM likes but the party doesnt, and the party likes and the DM likes but the player doesn't. Always results in either the untimely death of that character or the player ultimately dropping out (or everyone dropping out). This video rings so true

[@lordbiscuitthetossable5352]

It depends. It's unnecessary for the party to like the character, as long as they don't hate them. There was one character I was tired of rescuing from their own carelessness, so I just stopped doing so beyond what was strictly necessary. He was a Doctor and a Jedi after all, all I had to do was not follow them when they would go off alone. Within the space of six months they were blinded, lost both of their arms (got better with cybernetics), and actually lost their life (which I then resurrected out of sheer spite using the dark side and the lives of several stormtroopers. Because they didn't deserve to die yet and was a fantastic perversion of my moral high ground up to this point) and to this day I couldn't tell you what that character actually did. Even then, they survived despite the party being indifferent to their continued existence, just simply because everyone else was indifferent. As long as they aren't hated the PC's can tolerate a lot. These days I am far less tolerant of annoying characters; I've started voicing and removing particularly problematic characters because, at the end of the day, we are not a marriage, I can choose not to work with someone who makes my life more difficult.

[@rmcunningham3874]

Let’s forget the fourth option: nobody likes the character!

[@toddgrx]

I’ve got two of four players: one doesn’t like playing his monk (but then changes his character without consulting the DM); the other player is trying to make a cleric that doesn’t fit what’s available in the core rules- I’m guessing he’ll soon also not like playing his character

[@dawildbear]

"At the table with your friends, or even random weirdos" Ah but you repeat yourself

[@ColinsScienceProject]

One thing I wish I told my friends when I was younger is that as the DM, I am a player too, and I also need to have fun. I have fun when all of our cool ideas flow together, not when Goku shows up in the middle of a Game of Thrones scene (that can be cool, but different sort of game).

[@Jay_Hendrix]

Thank you for putting it this way I love running heroic fantasies where the players are generally good, and it seems like every player and their mother wants to just play a murder hobo. But it's like "Hey guess what man, that's unbelievably annoying for me to run a game for and I'd rather we just cooperate on something I actually WANT us to do!"

[@arkdeniz]

“Red Elf needs food badly. Red Elf. You are about to die” I loved Gauntlet.

[@ImperialValues]

Red elf shot a food!

[@Victor.Alteria]

More distilled wisdom from Uncle Matt, not just with gaming advice, but including an interesting history and psychology lesson if you know where to look. (DRAW STEEL! Did we just get a name spill?)

[@Matthew.thirtyseven]

Sweet christmas gravy, you may be right!! If that is the name I like it!

[@ThomB0ne]

@@Matthew.thirtysevenThat is the name! Patrons got a playtest packet a few days ago that came with the name reveal.

[@davidmartin5145]

@@Matthew.thirtysevenThat is indeed the name! Many of the patrons are talking about their experiences with the playtest packet both in the Discord and the MCDM subreddit

[@crimsonhawk52]

It's not a spill, the patreon packet is out and announced the name! Backerkit packet to follow!

[@duncanmacneil4759]

I loved how Darksun Campaign setting - massively changed the races to make them unique, and it let people start to think Races could be different than the books description.

[@dragonfire7354]

Yes! Cannibal Halflings, Renegade Elves. That setting is amazing.

[@tonysladky8925]

​@@dragonfire7354it's been a while since I read anything about Dark Sun, but are the Halflings really technically cannibals, or do they just eat *other* humanoids? I feel like the received wisdom is "cannibal halflings", but I always got the impression they were primarily eating elves and humans and Muls, not their fellow halflings.

[@dragonfire7354]

@@tonysladky8925 I think you're right, I don't recall it mentioned they eat other halflings, but its been a minute.

[@briansmith8898]

@@dragonfire7354 Don't forget dwarves that have a life goal; if they fail to fulfill that goal, they become undead Banshees.

[@kadmii]

as much as you lamented "Uncle Matt" digressions, I think they're immensely valuable because you have a storytelling skill and you use it to introduce lore from the early decades of TTRPGs that benefit a lot of people who are young or older but only recently getting into it or seasoned but disconnected from the wider experience. The prospective DM yearns for the lore For one, that part about dungeon designers as artists made me think about the matter in a different perspective, and that book on the elusive shift sounds really interesting!

[@MrZeyami]

I remember my first DM telling me about a hand drawn world map he had hanging in his living room that was the size of his couch. Hope it's still around.

[@JoeAuerbach]

I had one of those. I still do. It's on the wall in my basement !

[@PCCyborg]

Draw Steel! sounds pretty dope. It's also a way cooler way to announce the start of combat. "Three goblins drop out of the trees into the path in front of you, as more leap out of the bushes. An ambush! Draw Steel!".

[@godofzombi]

Or "grab staff!" for the wizard. Then again maybe not the best choise of words.

[@pkWreck]

Your point on 'doing the voice' really resonated with me. I'm quite a naturally shy person, and it has always felt a little unfair to me that physically weak people get to roll a dice to bench press a bull, clumsy people get to roll to do backflips off a rooftop, but shy people have to flirt with the DM to pass a Charisma check, all in the name of 'Roleplay'.

[@Javalar]

Yeah, I don't understand DM who force players to do that. You have a charisma score for a reason. I don't care you just gave me an eloquent speech in real life, roll that dice. And the opposite is also true.

[@CodyJakubowski]

super validating to read this. i have a weird experience where I feel more charismatic in real life than I ever could in game, like being "on the spot" at the table strips me of any confidence lol. after 5 years of 2x weekly roleplaying it has not improved. chatgpt has helped some. i play with a lot of really strong roleplayers which can be a bit intimidating. i go back and forth on this idea all the time. and unfortunately it keeps me away from charisma-based classes

[@numapompiliusful]

wow you did not lie when you said the next video would come soon!

[@scottyoung6564]

That tangent about the Letter Zines is wild to me, because I though "debates in the comments" were a post 1990 concept but old school TTRPG fans were doing it by SNAIL MAIL in the 70s.

[@patonnight]

In my experience I have found that coming to the table with a complete blank canvas and an open mind, designing a character with a backstory/motivation heavily involved with the setting and/or the plot, gives me and the table a level of fun no amount of rules, builds and dices are able to provide. Everything just flows naturally.

[@voland6846]

I don't get to play at a new table that often (DMing two of my own D&D games, a player in a VtM game), but whenever I do I read/listen to the GM's pitch and latch onto the thing in it that most excites me, and then proceed to build a character around that thing. It's a technique that's never failed me thus far.

[@cassi6528]

I like to give my characters somewhat vague connections via their backstory so that the DM has plenty of room to cook and make meaningful ties to their world. Recent example: My druid in a recent campaign grew up in a mountainous druid circle with her parents. The DM made an evil druid that was sucking the life force out of the forest. That Druid was her mom and I had to fight and kill my character's mom. I also like to give little hints for dynamics I'd like to explore with my character and let the DM get an idea to springboard off of. My Paladin became a Paladin for the sole reason that she admired the idea of her brother being an honorable knight, so she wanted to follow in his footsteps even if he never came back to see her after he became a popular hero/adventurer. The DM made him an Oath breaker too ashamed to come back home. Trust in the DM's creativity and you'll be rewarded for it 🙏

[@MrUncredible02]

14:17 is such a good point. Building characters to fit what's missing from the team is such a good way to help everyone at the table have a good time.

[@carlfishy]

I'm reminded of the time I decided to make a Lawful Good character because I had a cool idea for how I could make it interesting. By session two it was obvious everyone else at the table wanted to murder-hobo their way through the game, so I had him walk off into the forest to wrestle with his moral conflict, and showed up the next week with someone who fit in better.

[@2-question-marks]

Did the first character ever show up again in the campaign

[@carlfishy]

@@2-question-marks I kept him in reserve for a while, leveling him up whenever the party leveled, because I thought it might be fun for him to reappear some time, but there was never an opportunity. Which made sense as the whole problem was he didn’t fit into the campaign thematically.

[@cip314]

One of your best videos. On point, empathic, useful and insightful. The core message is pretty simple, but I hadn't thought about it that way.

[@XanothAvaeth]

One thing to loop back around: Remember if you ask what a party needs and that's not something you'd enjoy playing, don't make your self miserable, find a compromise. Most games don't have group requirements or a holy trinity. D&D isn't WoW, and I can't think of any major TTRPG that works that way. If the party has 4 casters and you think they need a front line fighter even though you wouldn't enjoy it. There's a good chance if you make that character, you'll just cause issues with all their AOEs and everyone will be frustrated, just easy an example of assumed need that's anti-synergistic. The same can be true for non-mechanical needs. A group of misfits doesn't always need someone straight lace to be the face of the party in more serious situations if you feel you'd hate feeling forced to always take that path and the moral conflict that could cause between the group.

[@BalooSJ]

Yeah, that's an area where D&D and its derivatives stand out. It's not as hard-coded in D&D as it is in WOW and other MMOs, but you really notice when there's no tank, and to some extent healer, in the group. I like to say that if no-one is going toe-to-toe with the enemy, *everyone* is going toe-to-toe with the enemy, and some characters really really don't being toe-to-toe. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to build your character for top defense the way a WOW tank does, but there should be someone who can keep the spikey stuff from getting to the squishy stuff. Most games aren't as combat-oriented as D&D, which means those kinds of tactical considerations don't matter as much. That leaves more room for doing the things *you* find interesting. Some games have enough non-combat stuff that combat itself can be siloed off into a particular character role ("the Hitter" in Leverage, for example), rather than having each character specialize in their own type of combat.

[@micahhonig1575]

I don’t care if it made your point clearer I like your rambling. Your random rambles tend to inform me of things I never knew about or encourage me to adjust my thinking/expextations in ways I didn’t know I could.

[@hermes667]

Hi there from Germany. I started playing D&D back in the late 80s, first with english copies we got from the US because it was not avaible in German. Since 2 years I run a 5th Edition homebrew campaign as a DM and even after all these years I still learn a lot from your videos. Fun fact: In my homebrew campaign I named a saint Matthew.

[@zenith110]

This video released in a timely manner - it was shared immediately after I stumbled upon it PERFECTLY timed for a discussion on creating characters and interpreting them! A great time as always!

[@davidwatches]

Collaboration is such an important part of tabletop roleplaying games. I'll be holding a character creation class at our local library next week and this is the main focus: collaborating with the Director and other players as early as character creation.

[@Deliriumend]

Solid advice all around. One of my groups went from 6 players to 4 really quickly after a game wrapped up. There wasn't any discussion. We took a break after campaign wrap, and when we started up again the people who were causing problems/anxiety weren't invited back. We can still hang out outside of the game, but they're not in that game anymore.

[@brettloo7588]

The rambling on random details that clarify why you love tiny details of the hobby are what we are here to learn about and see that we are all in love with the same thing!

[@flametitan100]

I recently got into a game of the new edition of Pendragon. Whenever I brainstorm ideas for my character, I make sure to have an open discussion with the other players and the GM, so that nothing comes as a complete blindside to anyone else, and so that I can make sure it's not going to lead to any hard feelings. This is especially important when you and another player have this dramatic tension between your characters (My character hating hers, her character thinking of mine as her closest friend) as it would be super easy to leave people feeling burned otherwise.

[@IVIaskerade]

One of the things I think it's important to add is that restrictions can be fun. If a player is struggling because they keep trying to make characters that don't fit within the game because they're coming to the game with pre-set ideas about what they want their characters to be, I find it's easiest to completely reframe their thinking as "starting from the basis of this game, what character do you want to make?" which helps them let go of their ideas that are standing in their own way. That, and you ask them how they'd feel if they'd eaten breakfast this morning.

[@togerumisu]

Agree. Hard agree. With everything. The most fun I’ve ever had playing a character was as the goofball with 1 Wisdom. Not because I played them well or had smart moments though that probably came into effect. But because I enjoyed playing them, and when I had to miss a session the moment I came back all of the players and the DM agreed the game felt worse because of that lacking character. That was my proudest moment at any table, and it didn’t even happen during a session itself just beforehand. And regarding each bit of advice you gave. I’ll go over how they worked or were hard to work with too, call ‘em examples: 1-Making a Character for the Game. This is something I do religiously, both before and after this point. Until I’ve sat down at the table for Session 0, skimmed the rulebook, and heard over what the Director says the game will be about, only then do I truly start making a character. And I always keep this ‘premise’ in mind. Because even in DnD not all games are dungeon crawls and not all games are going to be political soap operas. Communication is key. 2-The Director must like the Character. Can’t comment on this because I don’t have them available to ask directly. But as it was a Point Based system I double checked my builds with them every so often. Just to be safe. 3-Collaboration. That also happened. Mainly in the moment. As a lot of what determined how they ended up was how they interacted with all the other PCs and the Director. I also had a very ‘light’ pair of background characters - just a name, role and a bullet point or two - that they played in a way I could never expect! And it was great! My Character interacted with them in ways I couldn’t have anticipated because I left them open to interpretation. Left the chance to collaborate. 4-Avoiding Annoying Others. This was a thing I constantly kept in mind and stressed about at times between sessions. Because of how I made the Character I had to balance how competent and incompetent they can be in social settings. Because they suck at that, but I managed to carefully do so. The others were also really welcoming and I managed to figure when I could do a bit versus when I shouldn’t. Because there were several serious and emotionally charged moments that really would’ve been terrible to break the mood of. Overall: collaboration is key. That’s what I’m taking away from all this retrospective thinking I’ve been doing. Figure out the games premise, atmosphere and hash out what you’re all doing with it. And have fun.

[@Calebgoblin]

You invoked the previous video and rolled pretty well 👌 I love how the term "director" is inevitably entering the greater ttrpg parlance. Long live the Unnamed MCDM RPG!

[@eleintblood]

It’s called Draw Steel :D

[@Calebgoblin]

Oh heck yeah ​@@eleintblood

[@SophisticatedBanjo]

I wish this had included more long, rambling anecdotes that didn't support the core message of the video.

[@crimsonhawk52]

This video is going to set the Good Society community on fire

[@snoobertwilliamson]

i’ll never forget the cowboy in my party during a campaign set in conan’s hyperborea… this video does a good job putting to words what i’ve been feeling for a while

[@godofzombi]

So the player sure made a memorable character? Yee-haa, taste lead, you Nemedian varmints!

[@snoobertwilliamson]

@@godofzombi i was a fellow player and the cowboy of it all felt very out of place. took me out of it a little. no biggy tho, still had fun

[@kynan1232]

I fucking FEEL how important it is for everyone to be on the same page on what character you're playing. I had a player who made a new character after he got tired if his old one and wanted to kill him off. The new character seemed like he was perfectly crafted to fit into my world and plot. The way he played the character, however, was to be rediculous and obnoxious to the point that others had to play WAY out of character just to keep from murdering the other PC. I soon found a way to "end" the game so we could continue without him.

[@Somber_Knight]

I needed this advice 6-7 years ago, which leads me to believe how helpful this video will be for newer players.

[@danmanmtn2331]

I want that dungeon map coffee table book! I will definitely be using the 1 page campaign description when I start my next campaign and will be sharing this video with my players. Thank you!

[@Ryoku1]

I actually had this lesson dawn on me years after a game. GM was using Mutants and Masterminds to play some dark modern fantasy-esque adventure in a setting he had made. Using a super hero ruleset, we made super heroes for essentially Elden Ring. The DM made it work and we all had tons of fun. But years later it dawned on me that my character didn't really fit the setting nor the game. My modern group literally had a session 0 last night where we discussed the game we were about to start and get rough outlines of what characters we were going to play to ensure we all fit the game.

[@veraxiana9993]

Oh gee as someone who isn't a trained artist but makes all the layouts of my world in color pencil on paper I feel so seen & encouraged by this video, thank you 😊

[@user-ve3bs2ye7w]

Very happy to be this early. Your work inspired me to be a DM so long ago, and four years later you still have so much wisdom for me to take in.

[@gandhigun2304]

I made a "Collaborative Campaign Creator" to make my games out of the inputs from the players. The Campaign takes place around their home towns, with land features they chose. The plot centers in their friends and foes out of the player backstory. The themes built around their fears and fantasies.

[@venni4881]

Ive finally built up the confidence to ask my friends to join my game and finding the characters that they want to play has been my biggest worry - Thanks for this one Matt!

[@kellimon3517]

This one video encapsulates in a neat little package everything I think a new player should learn in their first 2 years.

[@neurongames8911]

This video immediately reminded me of Lyndibeige's video on the Drama System. There are sort of mechanical ways of increasing player cohesion between themselves and the story with some simple principles. That video was released years ago, and it's impressive that this exact discussion is almost 50 years old. Truly a unique hobby.

[@RingXross]

When it comes to cooperating with even long time friends, you can make no assumptions. I've sat down to play D&D for the first time with people who I have known for years only to realize they are VERY different people when roleplaying. You can see a side that you never knew was there.

[@All4Tanuki]

If that were true, then it wouldn't be roleplaying, would it? I don't know why zoomers are trying to make D&D the new acid trip.

[@keatonhughes7269]

The lighting & framing on this video makes me happy

[@sylvansmithy5262]

I'm running Draw Steel tomorrow with an adventure I whipped up, can't wait to try it!

[@JoshuaBeaty]

I really appreciate you putting this video out. As a DM, I've had some games fizzle out due to this exact problem and I was struggling to understand what I was doing wrong. Now I can start collaborating character design with players to help them get connected to the world

[@theuncommonviewer]

I found DnD about 2 months ago and a month after. I've gained so much delight from it! I truly love your thoughts and anecdotes and knowledge sharing and can honestly say I relish a longer video! Those tangents and asides are where the gold lies for me. Thank you!

[@isaacstephanus8579]

I couldn’t agree more! The first character I made was done in heavy collaboration with my DM. He helped me work through the ideas I had to fit the game he was running, and to this day that character remains my all-time favorite I have ever played. The group disbanded too soon, unfortunately, but I will pursue that same level of collaboration in the future.

[@craigrussell7542]

Great video! As a director I love it when players choose to connect their character to other PCs and NPCs. Even a superficial connection can blossom!

[@Octa9on]

as a GM I am SO guilty of saying yes when for everyone's sake I should have said no. as just one example, my most recent attempt to start an online game: I was already struggling because I had accepted too many players (first mistake), and then a player joined who wanted to play a character that had nothing at all to do with the game I was running, including being a species that didn't even exist in the setting (I had provided the players with plenty of setting and background info). I let the player have that character (Nth mistake), and that was what tipped a near-unmanageable game over into being completely beyond my ability, and even interest, to run. GMs: be ready and willing to say no. as kindly and gently as possible, of course, but for the sake of your own sanity and everyone's fun, stand up for the game you've decided to play

[@horophim]

I have 3 rules for making characters: 1)They want to join the adventure (for whatever reason, they can be reluctant heroes but they follow the adventure the master made without having to be chased down) 2)They want to go with the other PCs 3)The other PCs want them to join the group (if you are useless or a liability I don't want you "looking for my back" in a life and death situation) That seems similar to what Matt described :D

[@srhall79]

Yeah, your 1st point was the main thing I was thinking of. Refusing the call may work in literature, but at the table it's "I came to play by not playing!"

[@horophim]

@@srhall79 It could work as in "I don't want to be here but I have to" (like Rincewind or Raistlin)

[@themejin93]

The Elusive shift was an amazing read. It has shifted the way I view running the game

[@RottenRogerDM]

And the humble bundle has it in a bundle this week.

[@whatbreaksthesilence8508]

The first time I played, I ran into the “wanting to shoehorn a character idea into the campaign” situation. Since it was my first time playing, I didn’t know that the DM has to like my character and that it should have some measure of synergy with the campaign. Fast forward several years the same thing happened with me as a DM and one of my players wanting to shoehorn a character idea into my campaign. Only then did I realize what I should have done when I was just starting out. Thankfully, I didn’t encounter any problems with all of the games that I DMed. And it’s quite interesting that recently, the latest group of players would rather just give me a character concept and they leave me to come up with a character as close to that. I’m lucky that they have a better feel for the game than me when I was new.

[@窝帅那部乐特胡伯特斯]

Loved how you put it, a gauge of creativity/self-expression is the extent of exploration within that boundary of the lore of worldbuilding. May you players and DMs out there have fun while collaborating!👍

[@ThorBlevins]

Matt I just finished a campaign I ran for 5 years and your advice was incredibly helpful, and this video comes right at the time I'm handing the DM Mantle off to one of the players so it isnquite serendipitous. Thanks for all the support you've shown the hobby

[@Akasen1226]

I honestly think this right here is probably the most important video you have released Matt. By coincidence, I had written a document earlier this year that I might need to rewrite and link this video. The core idea of the document was to put my foot down from the get go to a prospective player and current players that I as the GM have strong ideas of the kind of game I want to run, that saying yes to ideas I am not comfortable with will certainly spell an early death to the game being ran, and then detail to my players the tools to be deployed to make sure we are on the same page. Those being a one page handout about the game, the idea of a three character pitch, and finally a one page backstory (no minimum word count, so a player is justified in just saying "I swing axe good"). A concern I had in recent years running D&D/PF was that I had slowly been developing a homebrew fantasy setting, with its own gods, countries, history, and more. However, I realized pretty quickly that there are those who assume that what is in the book is gospel or they had not considered the possibility there was more to D&D than the Forgotten Realms. That me saying that "half-orcs live as long as humans" (or something similar) is some change to inherent lore. It of course isn't, I just had a player who I believe just had not fully considered the nature of such statistics. As an aside, when it comes to the homebrew setting details of someones fantasy world, there is a huge vulnerability that the GM is putting out there for others to step upon. To have even the smallest detail of these worlds rejected can be a small stab wound to the heart. Furthermore, having a player clearly enthused about some fantasy race they'd seen in official material and say "No" to them about this choice can feel like I am being a burden to someones fun. I will end this off with a story from this year: I was talking about the campaign we were doing and giving some reflections on it to my players in a post-session chat. It is six or so months into this game and a player of mine heard me say that I didn't think Craft checks would be all that useful in this game due to the internal logic of the system at the time and how I was running the game currently (Pathfinder 2e craft checks at the time assumed you'd be crafting items over the course of days). Upon hearing this, the player chose to make a new character and work with me on how to introduce them in the ongoing plot. It went about smoothly, and his new character by all means was a more fitting character. However in hindsight, I think had I worked with the player more with making this character that could have been avoided. Especially since it was SIX MONTHS IN this player realized "Oh, this isn't going to work". Do not ask why it took them six months and me pointing this one bit out for them to conclude this was a problem warranting making a new character. A takeaway I have had from my experience, that I have avoided for the longest time, is that a proper Session 0 probably does need to be had if only for the sake of just going over and verbally discussing the points in the one pager (and unspoken parts), fielding and answering questions, and so forth. I play online with people who, while I think they are fantastic players, make me question how effective even an expertly crafted document with large font and a word count less than 500 is for conveying the most important points of a game

[@Corsicade]

Style is knowing what kind of play you’re in.” - Sir John Gielgud. I think this video is a really good breakdown and illustration of this quote ... with 'play' being replaced by 'game' or 'table', of course

[@Calebgoblin]

This is such an important topic for players and DMs! I've been having difficulties with a couple particular players and trying to reign in their character ideas to be both more setting-appropriate and system-appropriate. But I do appreciate the amount of responsibility I as the DM have in facilitating this, with onboarding and using effective communication. Remember, creativity within constraints is paradoxically even better than creativity with no boundaries! I think this was a paraphrase from Sid Mead, the mentor of my design professor in university.

[@tonysladky8925]

"You don't have to do the voice if you don't want to" is such important advice. Back in the 4E days, my friend insisted you had to sing if you wanted to play a Bard at his table, and since I hadn't yet fallen in love with karaoke and destroying my vocal cords with gravelly-voiced punk rock, guess what class I never played with that friend...

[@godofzombi]

Did he also insist you hit him with a wiffle bat if your fighter wanted to attack with a mace?

[@MZero8099]

If your RPG book has an advice section, this should definitely be in it. It's an excellent consolidation of the what truly matters. Even as I was watching I was thinking back on games that went poorly or went well that line up with characters both fitting into the game rules and fitting into the vibe of the table. I think some of us in the TTRPG community are definitely hesitant to draw hard boundaries for what player characters look like. Nobody wants to be the bad game master who forces everyone to live out the GM's fantasy rather than the player's, stealing away all agency. But not helping to "edit" a character created by the player, or failing to communicate the boundaries of what will make for a fun choice, is also a form of negligence. I started TTRPGs after the Running the Game series, but a lot of this advice rings even more true after expanding out to several other games in the past few years. Looking forward to adding Draw Steel to that list.

[@Martick05545]

As someone that runs games, I am a part of character creation for all of my players. I want their character to fit the world and campaign I am running! Makes it fun for them and fun for me.

[@Zapdos7471]

Thank you for succinctly explaining what I’ve been trying to find the best words for. For me, it was “roleplaying only happens between people at the table, so your prewritten background, your ambition to play a certain character, it isn’t real until someone else responds to it.” And what I call the “three hour rule of thumb”, if you wouldn’t spend three hours trapped in a room with your character IRL, don’t play that character. For player/dm relations, I refer to “the power of the camera” as a counter balance to the authority and responsibility of the DM. A DM can introduce an unpleasant NPC knowing they will die, leave the scene, or receive a comeuppance. However, the camera is always trained on the players, so if they are unpleasant characters that nobody likes it becomes inescapable. Players have the responsibility of playing characters that are broadly entertaining, regardless of if they are good or bad people.

[@paragon7554]

That coffee table book would be great, you should definitely do that.

[@kenanbrown3147]

Absolutely love this. Will definitely be using it for my start of school year D&D boot camp.

[@liammackey961]

Haven’t been in the TTRPG scene for a while and coming back to watch a Colville video reminds me how much I love the way you do stuff here! Best info up front, take what works best attitude and great storytelling. Gets me excited to run a game again!

[@zelbarnap]

Thanks, Matt. I really enjoy seeing you back and walking through these things. Keep it up.

[@aidanmoore4214]

I found Matt after DMing for a few months with no idea what I was doing. I learned a lot through roughing it or seminars with my friends about the game. But as soon as I found this channel I knew I had struck gold. I spent a whole summer catching up on years of content and I’ve never looked back. Thank you wise Mr. Colville. You should make videos about your general wisdom too, a good storyteller needs to tell his stories!

[@RobertBilodeauVA]

Three comments, for three things that need to be true! 1) God, I absolutely agree on Tip 1: build AROUND the events/details/adventure, and the game system itself. Inspiration can strike all the same! I think I've got to do a bit more of it myself; get less neurotic about spell lists, keywords and such for my characters. 2) Thank you for letting people know it's okay, and preferrably for me at least, to have a short 'pitch page' for their setting. I'll check out the 50 page google drive doc later...eventually...if I have to make knowledge checks. 3) Appealing to other players has thankfully been my strongest suit. I weigh my success by how much my friends laugh at my antics. That said I'm absolutely the only "does the voice" guy! Bonus) I'll take a look for the Elusive shift! (I like reading TTRPG related books for my vocal warm ups)

[@pawsen9]

The best DM-teacher is back with another banger. Love it

[@lynnkain]

Yes, I remember reading those magazines. You kept copies to refer back to the arguments!

[@hawkthetraveler6344]

Another GREAT video I will share to players for years to come. I always love your genuine enthusiasm for the game Matt even while writing a new take on it :)

[@arthurbarelli3315]

This is the best Roleplaying Advice video I've seen. I think I've watched every single Matthew Colville video, (and from many other channels) and there are a few I keep on hand to send to players whenever we're starting for inspiration/mindset. I don't believe in mandatory reading/watching, but if I did, this would be it.

[@craigsisco1894]

Well said Uncle Matt! Thank you for emphasizing the value of collaboration at the table.

[@steffangordon6444]

I’d love a book of old maps! I find it fascinating and inspiring seeing how other groups have experienced and engaged with this hobby!

[@WeFightForever]

"i have no idea wgen the next video will be. It depends on when i have a good idea." That statement is the difference between video quality staying high and videos going to shit because of some forced adherence to an upload schedule

[@paulbigbee]

This is an excellent, approachable expression of the fundamental “Social Contract”. I wish more RPGs had more explicit guidance about what is owed to the table in their player-facing content. Some do, but many do not or are incomplete.

[@snickerking2733]

Absolutely phenomenal video. Completely explain a lot of issues I've been feeling with many games I've played for years.

[@johnreiland9180]

Perhaps the most insightful videos in quite awhile. This really lights a fire in me, I want to play DND again now. Maybe try DM-ing.

[@belmontofastora3665]

There is really so much depth to the psychology of tabletop gaming that a ton of people don't realize is there. You always do a great job of breaking that down, which I personally find difficult to do. Thanks again for sharing your wisdom

[@ouroboros_1355]

People outside of my table often find weird that I restrict races in my games, but when I told my players that Humans were extinct in my setting, and they had to choose as a team 1 of 4 kingdoms which all had different race restrictions (whose only overlap was Half-elf) they all jumped and made appropriate characters

[@michaelramon2411]

As a GM, I find that one of the most important pre-campaign prep things to do is to go ahead and give the players the starting adventure hook before character creation starts. That lets them design someone who is ready and motivated to do the first quest, and you can extrapolate from there.

[@TheNerdySimulation]

I could write many a thesis on TTRPGs and one of them would just be the title "Meeting the Game Where It's At." So it is nice to see this core piece of advice spread further than those within shouting range of myself.

[@marsniper27]

100% agree. I usually make up a short blurp of my principle idea for a character send it to the director and see if it fits in the world they have planned. Usually this includes a reply with a city or town in his world the character would not in well and sometimes even info on the family background if it fit well with something else they had already planned having in the world.

[@raybrandt]

You're not the only one fascinated by that shift. To me is one of the most mindblowing things I can think of.

[@Dizrak]

While I didn't learn anything exactly new from this video (thanks to my current DM being rather good at her role), it helped me to put a finger on why I have a lot less problems with my characters than some other players. Talking with fellow players about what kind of character is welcome goes a long way.

[@busterampleforth9806]

Thank you Matt, you have once again inspired me deeply on my journey of creativity. This issue led to the dissolution of my past two groups, players having preconceived ideas of characters and refusing to work with me, and it leading to my burnout and dissatisfaction with the game. To all those in a similar boat, it gets better! Hold out hope.

[@shield_rat221]

One thing about making the "opposite" to the party is that if you do it right you can have your character be a foil others can interact with. I'm currently playing a campaign with a greek like setting where the party are heroes, so i made an insecure person whose lineage was tarnish by the titans (*in the eeeend*) of the setting to live in misery. not only does this change the way we interact with NPCs (especially cultists) but it also generates some tension and roleplay scenes where i can get other players involved, so we're having a blast). I think it's all about how you interact with the other players and being able to work with the DM to make something interesting that fits the scenario, but still feels like a character you want to play. Another thing i would add is to consider how the character's mechanics reflect their background. In this example i made her a hyper agressive fighter with intentions of going hexblade. They would 100% accept any offering of power , use any equipment at their disposal and try to finish things off as fast as possible out of despair, and be very reckless in the process, giving the party opportunities to aid them in and out of combat for being vulnerable, and seeing the party do so is part of the process of them bonding together more. Planning out weaknesses in the character can also make them more fun to play, since as Colville said, limitations can force creativity.

[@Matt_Volk]

This is such an on-point message. I'm getting ready to hand off the GM torch and this is going to be something I share with the players of my group to say "Be nice to the newbie!"

[@Will_Forge]

Man, Letter zines are news to me, and that's so cool. They were like analogue social media forums. Sounds dope!

[@Deep_Freeze_DF]

Amazing video subject! I've definitely found the most enjoyment as a DM by focusing on collaborative story telling. Helping the characters grow and deepen within the world throughout the campaign by focusing on them outwards whenever possible and feeding off their ideas and decisions. I also enjoy campaigns as a PC most when this is reciprocated.

[@nutherefurlong]

Character creation like this (where it wasn't just tables, rolling, and figuring out who they are as you go) was always a session zero or a pre-discussion. We did the essay thing, where you wrote a short idea, the GM would tell you what worked and what didn't and it was up to you to bridge the gaps or let things slide so your character would fit. Worked out most of the time, I think where the real friction came in was when other players' concept of the world was worn down by the compromises the GM made to be accommodating. So they all technically fit, but the individual collaborations maybe weakened when the group met each others' characters, maybe breaking what players thought was possible. A strong rules presence sort of helps keep things aligned, and the GM should be rounding off the edges, telling the person with leadership ambitions to cool it, telling others to try to match the tone One of the BEST experiences I had was when I started with a sort of narrow focus on what the characters were, with a sort of dark satire questionnaire for the SF dystopia they were stuck in , and they wound up defining who they were within those limits pretty much right away. It wound up being more old-school than I was intending, but there was still flavor and a direction to go, something to push against

[@j3gum]

Thanks, it's good to hear from Uncle Matt.