Making the Character (official)

Proposed:

Making the Character

Most D&D versions provide a step-by-step method for generating player characters from scratch, which is helpful for the new DM. It helps enormously when we become exceedingly familiar with the routine of making characters, so we can be a helpmeet to players – especially new players – we introduce to the game. I recommend that you puzzle out as many nuances of your particular rule book by actually making two or three dozen characters, from start to finish. Try to view each part as the player would.

For some, making character after character is an exciting prospect; for others, it might become a bit tedious. Remember that you’re doing it to acquaint yourself with the character making process – tough it out as best you can, but get at least two dozen characters made. Three dozen is better.

When the time comes to direct the characters through the method, we can encourage them not to spend very much time providing incidental details regarding their character’s likes or dislikes – or even the character’s origins. These things can be left for later, if we need to include them at all. Primarily, we need to concentrate on getting the character’s structure ready for game play ... and for that reason we can concentrate on the bare bones of detail we need.

One reality of being the DM is having to know much more than the players. Players are free to choose the character class with which they’re most comfortable – but the DM must have a complete knowledge of all the character class abilities and nuances. This allows the DM to supervise what the players can do, to ensure they’re playing inside the game’s boundaries ... but more importantly, an thorough knowledge of characters also lets us make useful suggestions, helping guide players when they need it. Players often ask, “What should I do?” In such moments, the DM could offer advice as to what a fighter or a thief would probably do – or a mage, if that was the player’s character at the time.

Such advice must never be compromised by the game’s events at that moment. For example, if the players were in an underground setting, gathered outside a door hiding who knows what, it would be very bad form if a DM urged the players to rush through the door and into the gathering of monsters waiting on the other side. Equally, a DM shouldn’t give tactical advice on how to deal with the door either, as this would be “running” the player characters.

Good advice is general. We tell the players to check their equipment lists; to make a plan; to remember that fighters have more hit points than other classes; or to be careful. This non-specific but cautionary advice supports the players without “giving away the game.”

Thus, during the character building phase, a DM with good, solid knowledge on how each character will function once the game begins can offer the best advice about what the player’s choice of weapons, spells, needed equipment and so on. By spending time making our own characters, complete with choosing every detail down to buying equipment with varying amounts of starting coin, we educate ourselves better than the player as to HOW to make a character from scratch. The more experience we have with this process, the more good sense we can provide.

If the grinding out of imaginary characters that you’ll never run in a game begins to get you down, here are a few things to consider. First, in your game setting, the player characters will meet people along the way, ready to act as friends or enemies towards the players. Each “non” player character – commonly called “NPCs” – can be inserted into your setting to serve in that capacity. They may be guards, farmers, informants, tavern keepers, mercenary soldiers, members of the court or whatever you choose to make them.

Additionally, you may have a penchant for collecting “miniatures” – small three dimensional figures made of plastic or metal, which can be used to represent the players on some representation of setting, like a street or an underground corridor. To maintain your interest, you could invent a personalised NPC for each miniature, giving them a name, a class, even ambitions. Even if the miniature is someday used for someone else’s character ... for you, that miniature will also be Recard or Falyn, or whomever. Quite possibly for many years to come. Connections of this kind between your game and physical representations can be thoroughly satisfying ... and those feelings will strengthen the relationship between you as DM, your setting and your players.