Matt Colville on what makes a good player character

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Matt Colville giving general RPG advice is the best Matt Colville. One of his best videos and one that -- cough -- addresses what I think is a root cause of a lot of the problems we hear about here.

 

[Reynard]

This is a great MC video. I kind of missed him just talking about gaming and stuff. Not that I begrudge him any success with Draw Steel but I always considered Matt a great broadly applicable RPG communicator.

 

[Arilyn]

Yep, really enjoyed this one. Really good advice.

 

[billd91]

Yes, it’s an excellent video. No notes.

 

[payn]

Think I got the gist, but wild tangents made it hard to follow and I didnt finish the video. Just want to plug how great campaign players guides are for accentuating the idea of looking at the players handbook when it comes to forging a new character.

 

[overgeeked]

Fantastic video with great advice. Why is it always the simple, basic stuff people forget first?

 

[Aldarc]

Matt Colville giving general RPG advice is the best Matt Colville. One of his best videos and one that -- cough -- addresses what I think is a root cause of a lot of the problems we hear about here.

People being wrong on the internet?

But yes, it's a good video. Though I would have added to the video that sometimes if you have a character concept that you want to play, but it doesn't fit the campaign, then you can just save the character concept for a more appropriate game later down the line. Players will have more fun when their character concept fits the campaign than when it doesn't so wait.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Like much good advice, this can be summarized by the philosophy of Bill and Ted:
First, you need to be excellent to one another; not just begrudgingly do no harm or be generally nice, but be excellent to your fellow players and GM. They must not just tolerate your character and play style but actively enjoy it. And you have to enjoy yourself also -- so make sure to party on!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

People being wrong on the internet?

You clearly haven't seen his book or movie reviews.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Lots of good advice & observations in that vid. Some things he mentioned, I’ve found echoes of in other creative endeavors- music, writing, art/design.

I’ll note one thing I’ve been doing since the early 1990s that dovetails off of his first point: I maintain a file of certain character ideas I’ve modeled in multiple RPG systems.* Most of them are statted out & built conservatively, using commonplace starting experience points (for that game) without relying on creative rules interpretations. This obviously allows me to join games in a variety of systems very quickly.

But it ALSO serves to train myself in how to adapt a concept to a setting. One- Slapstick, the Killer Clown- was essentially a mercenary who had a clown/jester visual aesthetic & a dark sense of humor. Kind of a more heroic version of The Joker or The Comedian. I made versions of him for 2Ed D&D, GURPS, HERO, TORG, RIFTS and a few others.

Because the RPGs themselves can vary so wildly, the characters can seem very different in their “final form”. Looking deeper, though, you can usually detect the commonalities between the versions.

If this sounds at all familiar, you may be familiar with some of Michael Moorcock’s fiction. IOW, I handle each of these PC ideas like a version of his Eternal Champion/Eternal Companion characters.





* most of them are initially modeled in some edition of HERO or in D&D 3.5Ed