There’s a lot that goes into playing a tabletop roleplaying game. The rules, the improv, the drama—and it all starts with a Player Character (or PC). It can be scary trying to make a new character for an RPG game, especially for folks who’s never done it before. Here are a few handy tips from a professional gamer to get things going and avoid common pitfalls.
We talked with James D’Amato, One Shot RPG podcast host and author of The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, about how to successfully create a roleplaying game character. He shared a few tips on how to get started, what mistakes to avoid, and perhaps most importantly: Why it’s vital to keep your character flexible. Below are a few of his suggestions.
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1. Start With One: Stats or Story
There are many ways to create an RPG character, but they often come down to two main components: stats and story. Stats are the nitty-gritty numbers that determine things like how physically strong a character is, how far they can travel in a single move, and whether they’re adept at lockpicking, lying, or magic. Story involves the more individual elements: a character’s name, where they come from, their religious or political beliefs, whether they prefer soup or salad.
“I think there are a lot of people who might come to the game from a background of storytelling. Someone who works a lot with character and story. You might feel super comfortable writing up a couple pages of backstory for an RPG character before you even roll dice,” D’Amato said. “But there are some people who might be coming over from video games and have a strong foundational background in understanding game systems—and where they fit into the context of an activity like role-playing—based on their mechanics.”
According to D’Amato, it’s best to start by focusing on one of these components and then using it to influence the other one. If you’re more experienced with storytelling, create a character’s personal story and then figure out what type of adventurer, monster hunter, or the like would fit in with that vision. If you’re like me and numbers are a better starting point, build some of your character’s stats out and then use them to shape the narrative. In both cases, you may need to make adjustments to come to a happy medium, but that can often turn out a few character surprises that will challenge you in the game.
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2. Don’t Make a Superhero
We all want to be the gallant warrior who gets the final blow against the monster but creating a character who’s already “The Greatest American Hero” risks putting your baby in the corner. D’Amato provided the example of a strong, high-ranking soldier from an army who walked away from the fight because she didn’t believe in the cause anymore: That character is already way too experienced to be starting out on their first quest, so there’s little room for growth or change. Plus, it can be boring to play a character who’s really good at something in theory, but in practice can’t do it because they’re not a high-enough level PC yet.
“In the first session, you’re playing a Level One character. So the abilities your character has don’t really reflect the actual experience that your backstory kind of wants them to have. You might experience the dissonance of, ‘Oh, I imagined this really cool, talented hero, but I’m kind of playing a fumbling beginner right now,’” he said.
D’Amato recommended making sure your character’s backstory reflects the level they’re starting out as. If they’re a Level One character, maybe have them be a squire instead of a knight, or they’re a wizard who was kicked out of their mage college for performing forbidden magic so they’ve struggled to teach themselves the magic arts. Not only does this leave room to shape the character throughout your sessions, but it provides opportunities for the environment game master (aka GM) to shape them too.
“You don’t have to always allow the system to shape your storytelling, but be aware of where you’re starting your story and what the level your character is at because it will help you match the actual experience of playing to your expectations of what you want for the character,” D’Amato added.
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3. How Much Backstory? Ask Your GM!
This is one of the trickiest questions in creating a character: How much backstory do you write out ahead of time? A paragraph, a page, a book? Anything at all? D’Amato suggested checking with your GM about their preference. Since the game starts and ends with them, it’s good to know how much information they’d like to have ahead of time for the sake of world-building and how much stuff they’d prefer to fill out on their own. This is especially true if you’re working with a newer GM, as they may still be figuring out these things themselves.
“There are some Game Masters who are going to be extremely happy to read pages and pages of backstory and really build it into their complex world and kind of collaborate with you on that. And there are some Game Masters who, you’ll prepare all this information for it and they’re like, ‘Oh, I’ll skim it maybe? Because I really want this to unfold at the table,’” he said.
The main thing is to make sure a profile covers the following: where they’re from; some folks they’ve known in their life before starting the adventure; and how past experiences inform what they believe about the world. It might seem daunting but it can be a fun creative exercise, and D’Amato emphasised the importance of taking time by yourself to explore the character. If you do prefer to make a long backstory, make sure the GM has access to it and keep other players abreast of details that would help them understand your character—even if it’s things their characters wouldn’t know. Speaking of which…
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4. Don’t Keep Secrets Secret
D’Amato said one of the most common mistakes players can make with creating characters is giving them a secret—not because secrets themselves are bad, but because they actually keep them secret from everybody else. The problem with this is that it separates you from the other players in a way they don’t even know about, stops the GM and players from engaging in that secret in interesting ways, and makes the “shocking” reveal less impactful.
“If you protect a secret really well, no one else at the table knows what’s going on so they weren’t bothering to look. So when you do reveal the secret, it’s like, ‘Oh, well I guess that was the fun thing for you to experience through the game but it’s not really affecting my character that much right now,’” he said.
He said it’s totally ok for characters to have secrets but that they should tell the other players and GM about them ahead of time. This means the players know but the characters don’t, which gives them ammunition to poke and prod the player about this thing they’ve got hidden underneath the surface. Plus, it makes the big reveal (if it happens) way more interesting.
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5. ‘Play to Change’
When asked what his biggest advice was to folks making a new character, he said this: “Play to change.” This means recognising that the character you make can and likely will surprise you in ways you don’t expect, so long as you remain flexible. He said it’s important for a person’s character to have room to grow and change because the story isn’t only about them—they’re not designed to change the world, the world is designed to change them. D’Amato explained for Gizmodo in more detail:
I think a lot of people like to start out idolizing iconic heroes; heroes that stay still while the world around them moves. For those heroes—I mean people like Superman, Wonder Woman or Batman—these are characters who are very defined in their traits and can be slotted into different stories. They will, through their actions, change the world around them…but they themselves don’t really feel challenged or changed because that’s not what their story is about. In a roleplaying game, it can very much be about how the world changes you.
In my Ultimate Gameplay Guide book, I advise people to ‘play to change.’ Look for the areas of your character’s story where you can allow them to develop and evolve, while still staying true to their core character traits. Allowing your character to evolve, and thinking about who that character is in the context of their story and the people around them, is a creative exercise because you are devoting a lot of care and attention to a single story that is your character’s story.
If this has inspired you to create a new character, or you’ve got a previous character you’re super proud of, leave a comment and tell us about them. Stay tuned for more gaming coverage in the coming weeks.
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