D&D General Character Building

[Lanefan]

You missed "I painted a cool mini that I want to use so I build a character around it".

Another one I've both seen and done is "I saw this cool character in a show or movie and want to emulate it in the game".

And I'm currently playing one character whose personality, accent, etc. is directly based on a real-life family friend!

 

[Scars Unseen]

Another one I've both seen and done is "I saw this cool character in a show or movie and want to emulate it in the game".

Ah yes, the Saiyan saga that somehow got crammed into our 2E game.

 

[FarBeyondC]

Idea / inspiration is first, always.

Anything / everything else comes afterwards and depends solely on the first.

 

[bedir than]

My current favorite way to do 5e character creation is

• race
• point buy
• background
• class

I refer to this as narrative character creation, as it follows the character's growth

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I generally have a character in mind as if I were going to write them, and then I build to suit that concept.

Usually the mechanics starts with race or class, but neither stands out to me as dominant.