How do you Build your Character?

We start with a round table discussion on what the game will be about, the main themes, ideas, mood etc. I then decide on a concept, a bit of background and personality and only then do I start to look for mechanics to suit what I have in mind. We also tend to do character creation as a group so we can riff off each others ideas.

Personally I like to steal a lot of ideas for Burning Wheels BIT's, short punchy issues which catapult you into the game at the start.

Never had trouble with this. I just think a concept that would please me at that time (dwarf sorcerer with a raven familiar / a century old asian boy which is a slave to his sword / a rich knight, owner of a jewelry, sword collector) and start.

Some behavior is created during campaign, on the fly, some is premade.

I click on the "New Character" button and switch to the race tab, make a choice, and then
go to the class tab....



Okay, more seriously:

Often I start with a mechanical idea. "I haven't played a Cleric in a while". Sometimes it is partially story-based, like: "Hey, those spear + board wielding Spartans from 300 were cool, let's build a similar character."
Recently I had a character idea based losely on "Doctor Who" - of course I didn't intent to play a pacifist, but some type of Wizardy guy that seems to know something about everything, improvies a lot and goes into a scenario and just kinda takes over, rarely worried, likes to think out loud, all such aspects.
Possibly a Deva (for the regeneration angle), possibly not. (My favorite build was the Human build.). Didn't get to play him, yet.

If I know something about the background of the world I am playing in, I am more inclined to come up with character details outside the mechanics. If not, a lot of the personality is emergent from play - what kind of decisions does the party have to make, what kind of people do I work with? What would be interesting to do in this context?

Hussar said:

Ok, first off, I'm not talking about the mechanics side of things. There are people who do that WAYYY better than me.

I'm talking about where do you start when you want to make a new character? The reason I ask is I'm currently playing a Gnome Binder in a 3.5 game and it's taken me a heck of a long time for this guy to develop any personality. It took me a while to figure out why that was and here's the thing. This is one of the first characters I ever made from a mechanics first perspective.

Usually when I make a character, I try to envisage a personality. What's he like, what does he want, goals, enemies? That sort of thing. Once I have a fairly decent picture in my mind of what this guy is like, then I go and start picking class and whatnot. My last character, a priest of St. Cuthbert who wanted to burn all the sinners started exactly this way. I had his personality hooks first and then his class.

So how do you do it? How do you breathe life into your characters. My poor gnome didn't have much of a personality until he failed his first binder check. Now, almost all his personality comes from failing binder checks. Loads of fun. But, man, it took a long time. And, if he makes all his checks, he's back to being really boring again. :'(

What do you think is the best way to build a character?

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I write out a backstory, usually half a page, for the character. This frames his reason for adventuring, goals, interests, and dislikes.

kitsune9 said:

I write out a backstory, usually half a page, for the character. This frames his reason for adventuring, goals, interests, and dislikes.

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Ah, the very best way. And one that I've found a lot of people take surprisingly well to, once (when necessary) they get over some unfamiliarity, embarrassment or perfectionism.

But I've used many different methods, including starting totally 'cold' (i.e., "Here's some stats and stuff - go!") and they've, generally speaking, all worked out pretty much fine.

Out of curiosity, do any of you do background generation as a group? I mean, have the entire group sit down and start working out backgrounds that fit together and fit with the campaign?

I did this for my current campaign and it worked very, very well. I'm of the opinion that characters created in a vacuum, without any input from the other players, don't work as well.

Hussar said:

Out of curiosity, do any of you do background generation as a group? I mean, have the entire group sit down and start working out backgrounds that fit together and fit with the campaign?

I did this for my current campaign and it worked very, very well. I'm of the opinion that characters created in a vacuum, without any input from the other players, don't work as well.

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I normally suggest this but it tends to get shot down. My old group would shoot it down because we had a lot of players that would only ever play a certain type of character and would never budge, even if it meant suspending disbelief.

Trying to work it in my new group for my upcoming Eberron campaign, since I want all the characters to be a cohesive party not randomly thrown together due to circumstances.

I start by browsing paragon paths (or prestige classes), largely from a fluff perspective. I find classes too broad to inspire specific characters, but paragon paths give me just the right level of specific role-playing ideas that spark my imagination.

I wound up with my current LFR character just from browsing Chris Tulach's article on region-specific paragon paths in Dragon 370. The Thay Infiltrator, who serves the beleaguered nation of Aglarond by braving the undead menaces of Thay, shielded only by faith and stealth, inspired my elven cleric of Selüne multiclassed into ranger. I honestly wouldn't have had any interest in playing an elven cleric without seeing that article. The Forgotten Realms Player's Guide then gave me some ideas for character motivations from the section on Aglarond....

Now, after reading the Eberron Player's Guide, I need to join half a dozen new campaigns so I can create all the dragonmarked PCs I now want to play!

I like to think of what a beginning character of X class is like. I always start with what class or, at least, what style of class, and then ponder on what the character is like.

i.e. with my next character, Caeradwyn, I was thinking about playing an eladrin wizard who used a longsword. Since that's eccentric by human standards, I figure he's somewhat arrogant. But, since he's only level one, I figure he's also naive and believes his abilities to surpass what they actually are; you see, Caeradwyn may be an accomplished theoretical wizard, but outside sanctioned duels, he's never been in a real fight before.

That's basically it in a nutshell; he's arrogant due to his own personal successes, but has no real understanding of the harshness of magic. He sees only it's perfection (like Obi-wan spoke of lightsabers as elegant and romanticized the whole Jedi, yet they're only used for killing purposes).


Sometimes I'm just inspired by a line in a book, or a cool drawing, but most often, it's built like above. Just thinking of traits and emotions a character might display and build around that.

What's the best way to build a character? Getting to "know" the character before play starts (ideally, days before)... whether you start with a race and class combination, a set of attribute scores, a picture of a celebrity you envision playing the character, or whatever (indeed, many good suggestions appear above), I don't think it really matters: if you can suss out the character's personality before you get to rolling any dice (or at least, any more dice than character creation demands, depending on the game/edition you're playing), that's the best place to be, really.

How do I, personally, usually end up building a character? Get the sheet filled in first, start playing, worry about personality later.

That isn't to say I haven't had some fun "interpreting" (and watching other players "interpret") what's on the sheet. Quite the contrary: many memorable characters over the years have developed in just this way. Some because of failed rolls, like the OP's, others because of player interaction, still others because an idea "strikes" at the right moment.

Some of these are mine and some not, but the paranoid ninja, the French gnome sorcerer, the not-at-all-famous "famous" bard, the splendidly insane wild mage, the druid seeking divine ascension, the dwarf fighter/cleric trying to rebuild a clan, the bitter paladin, the never-serious elf archer who'd already lived too long, the firbolg runt, "Egg-Feet" or just "Egg" the wemic, the samurai with the (comedy-style) split personality, the kindly old healer with the sleep needles... all and more developed during play.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that some characters "click," some don't. But I find the more I can imagine the character (as opposed to just playing the character), the better the chance I'll like what I end up with.

YMMV. HTH. HAND.