Hello players who exclusively have tragic backstories.
And DMs who would literally kiss a player if it meant for some good roleplay.
Welcome back to Table Talk.
I'm Maddie Conway.
And I'm Robert Lopez.
What are we talking about today?
So this is part, I think, three, right, of character creation.
This one's going to focus on the not so important backgrounds.
There are originally 13 in the player's handbook.
But there are, if you just go to any wiki dot, you'll realize that there are close to 30 or 40 of them now.
But in my opinion, and I think Madison shares the same opinion, backgrounds in 5e are pretty pointless.
There are more for flavors.
So the secondary theme of this episode is more how to create a cool character, what flavor means for a character, that kind of a thing.
There's also something else that you can choose.
There's a section for bonds, flaws, quirks.
I don't really feel like talking about those.
It's basically just for people that don't know how to create a unique character.
Which, not to shit on people playing it the first time, I definitely did it the first time I did it too.
I would suggest looking at those.
I don't think you should actually write them down.
And you'll find all of those when you choose your backgrounds.
And if that's something, if you're getting new into playing a character and putting on roleplaying for the first time, basically,
then I think that that can be something that's helpful for you to have touchstones and things to look back to.
But if you're someone who kind of has a little bit of experience there, then I personally skip over them every time.
I think that they can be interesting and they can spark imagination, but I don't think they have to be your Bible.
That's primarily what they're there for, is just to guide you on creating a character backstory.
So really quick, the 13 that originally exist in the 5e handbook include Acolyte, Charlotten, Criminal, Entertainer, Folk Hero, Guild, Artisan, Noble, Hermit, Outlander, Sage, Sailor, Soldier, and Urchin.
We're only going to talk about four of those today, being Acolyte, Charlotten, Criminal, and Entertainer, which are, in my opinion, some of the most common ones to pick.
Who the fuck is going to pick an Urchin?
But that's besides the point. Listen, if Urchin's your thing, that's fine, I'm not shitting on it.
If you want to be an Urchin, be an Urchin.
It's just not for me.
So top of the list is Acolyte. So they are typically picked for your warlocks, for your paladins, for your clerics.
Their whole background is basically kind of religion, so they can do different ceremonies for their deities and then get things in response.
Sometimes a big, common thing DMs will do is like a side quest for somebody who is an Acolyte will be to perform a certain religious ceremony or search out a temple or pay tribute or shit like that.
The ceremony, so there is something kind of cool to the Acolyte background.
Your ceremonies actually give benefits depending on which one you pick.
So actually a really cool use of this happened in the final fight of the campaign idea where somebody was a fucking Acolyte and had no idea.
And then decided to marry a bunch of people in the party.
And when you marry somebody, you're married to people for 24 hours after that, they get advantage on a bunch of shit and pluses.
So in that way...
But then when they're close to each other.
Yeah, when they're within a certain amount of feet of each other, which is wild.
So yeah, there are eight different ceremony types, wedding coming of age, funeral feast day.
Settle a theological dispute, settle a local dispute, bestowing a blessing on someone or something in esoteric mystic slash ghostic.
Right, so every one of the ceremonies is going to give you access to a different benefit for usually around 24 hours.
Yeah, they can really only be done once.
Yeah, generally they can only be done once.
So that's kind of the other thing that limits them.
But I mean, if your character is religious, it's cool.
It gives you like a guiding direction, it gives you access to a little extra mechanic that I actually got to see played out, which was wild.
Oh, it came in handy a lot.
It did, actually. It worked surprisingly well.
That's also where you're going to get some skill proficiencies and equipment.
So for an acolyte, your starting equipment is going to be a holy symbol, a prayer book, some incense, vestments, common clothes and 15 gold.
You're going to get proficiency into languages of your choice and skill proficiencies and insight and religion, which are really the best part of...
Like that's the benefit in the way that I choose backgrounds is I just look at the skill proficiencies.
They give you equipment, some more flavor stuff.
And then they'll also give you a feature called Shelter of the Faithful, which all of their shelter...
All of the features are basically different ways that you can get lodging.
Yeah.
And they're all kind of the same, which is basically like you're a priest, so you'll be able to like stay at a temple or like so on and so forth.
You can always find shelter at like a temple or a place of holy significance.
Yeah.
And criminals the same thing, it's like you can always find shelter or access to a criminal underground, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah.
Falk Hero. You're a Falk Hero. Any citizen will take you into their house as long as it doesn't endanger them.
Like a lot of them just have that little flavor thing where it's like the people that match up with your background also will help you occasionally.
Yeah, which is toss up whether that's actually going to be a thing in your campaign or not, because that's all up to like the world that you're existing in.
Up next is charlatan, which are kind of like, they're not like full scam artists. They're kind of scam artists.
I want to read this opening thing.
Charlatans are con artists, scammers and thieves.
They're a knack for stretching the truth can get them into and out of trouble as often as not Madison says. They're not really scam artists.
Okay, well I'm reading the one from the player's handbook and it doesn't say the word con artist anywhere.
You've always had a way with people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, you're an MLM.
A little. It's an MLM.
100%.
Does your character sell pepperware or Lula Rowe?
But the skill proficiencies there are going to be deception and sleight of hand. You'll get proficiencies in the tool kits for disguise kits, forgery kits.
You're going to get like fancy clothes, disguise kits.
You're going to get like, what's your favorite scheme and it gives you kind of ideas.
Fun background for that too is like somebody that you ripped off forever ago notices you in a town or some bullshit like that.
Yeah.
And then if you scroll down, like whenever you're looking at those, that's where you'll find the ideals, bonds and flaws, which you can choose from once again.
So are the backgrounds what give you access to those things?
Yeah.
Okay, see, that's something I haven't had to do backgrounds, ideals and flaws for a while.
So your ideals, backgrounds and flaws are tied to whatever background you pick. They're usually related to it.
So like I've done, I remember Folk Hero more than I remember the other ones just because it's a pretty common pick.
So like an ideal for Folk Hero is like you like saving people because it's like it feels good.
Yeah.
Another one is like you, you like the spotlight because I don't know it brings you gold and money and fame.
Flaw might be that like you'll never leave a person behind because you're a Folk Hero.
Like that's what a lot of your ideals, bonds and flaws are. There's just too many of them to go through considering how many backgrounds there are.
So yeah, there's long and some subclass lists.
Yeah.
It's a bit exhausting.
Next up is criminal.
It's exactly what it sounds like.
They like crimes.
Their feature gives them access to a network of other criminals that they can then call on to do things.
But then like that also kind of works both ways.
So a fun way that it can be DMed is like you can call on them, but they can also call on you or like you had somebody bail you out of prison one time and now you owe them a favor.
That's kind of fun.
They're also, I think they have, yeah, so they can have something called you got to help me.
So lying low, hiding out from authorities, pulling off a tricky job, fencing an item, doing some honest work for a while.
So they have, again, same kind of set of skill proficiencies that are going to be a little different.
Their stuff is going to revolve around more sleight of hand and stealth checks.
Their equipment is going to be, you haven't pulled up.
What is their equipment list?
Their equipment is a crowbar, a set of common clothes, including a hood and a pouch containing 15 gold pieces, tool proficiencies in one type of gaming set and thieves tools, and skill proficiencies in deception and self.
I've yet to see a gaming set used.
Yeah, same.
Yeah, gaming sets are kind of pointless.
So if you're stressing out about like which gaming set to pick, you're like, oh, do I get a gaming set or do I get a loot?
Like pick the fucking instrument.
You're never going to roll dice with somebody.
You'll use a loot.
Yeah, eventually, even if that's not up your alley, if you just want to like distract somebody, enroll a crazy performance check as a barbarian.
Always comes in handy.
And then last is entertainers.
They are exactly what they sound like.
They are entertainers.
It's got a little thing where like it gives you like an option and it's like choose your entertainer routine and it's got some fun options.
Like one of them is like fire eater, which I thought was pretty fun.
Yeah, maybe like a tumbler.
The feature for that is kind of like by popular demand, which is like as long as you're performing, you can stay anywhere, but that's going to give you proficiencies and acrobatics and performance tool proficiencies and disguise kit and one type of musical instrument.
And for your equipment, it'll give you a musical instrument, the favor of an admirer, a costume and a pouch containing 15 gold pieces.
This is the one I almost always choose for all my characters just because I like the bonuses to acrobatics and performance.
And knowing how to play an instrument is always in handy, even if you're not playing a bard.
If you're playing a bard, why are you not picking entertainer as you're like, I mean, that's automatically going to give you some stuff.
Seems kind of straightforward.
But yeah, those are the four that we wanted to talk about because those are the four that we've played or we have interest in.
There are another nine of them.
There's a magic book done.
Yeah, and then that's just in the official player's handbook.
Again, if you just look up D&D 5e backgrounds and click the wiki.link at the top of the search results, you're going to walk into like 50 of them.
There's so many of them.
So that's the other reason why I'm kind of like backgrounds, like they're there.
There's so many to choose from and it gets kind of exhausting.
And this is what we'll start talking about next, right?
When you're creating your character, I think your background can give you a good idea of what direction maybe you want their profession to be or a part of their backstory.
Like a friend that double crossed them or a family member they don't like anymore or a scheme they used to pull.
But like, even when you start going down the rabbit hole of ideals, bonds and flaws, it's not going to give you a full character.
It's only going to give you a direction for the character.
And sometimes it kind of hurts to have them on the paper because when you're trying to figure out a role play them, you're like constantly checking the paper and being like, well, am I adhering to being like a good person for the sake of being good?
Am I remembering that there's this person I double crossed? How am I going to work that in?
Am I also keeping in mind that my flaw is that I can't help but steal things off of shelves?
And it can be fun, but I think what's a lot more fun is taking those things as suggestions and then turning them into your own unique character aspects that are more than just like, you like to pick shit up because you're a thief.
Yeah, and I think there's also a thing to be said of like not letting your character live.
Don't get me wrong, backstory and like the flavor of your character is extremely important.
Especially in the beginning of a campaign because you don't know who you are. You don't know like where you fit into this world.
But there's also a thing of not letting your backstory be the only thing that rules your character.
There was a, I don't know where it was. I saw in it like it was on TikTok at some point and I cannot remember for the life of me where it was from or who said it.
But basically saying that the campaign that your character is in or the quest or the adventure that they are on should be the climax of your character's life.
Like that should be the most important part of your life. You don't want to have in your backstory that like you killed a dragon when you were like six years old.
Yeah, because why are you a level three character then if you've killed a dragon?
Yeah, that makes sense.
So also keep in mind the level that you're playing at. If you're playing as a level one character, just keep that in mind when you're playing your backstory.
I refuse to start any anybody idea for at level one. I think level one is exhausting.
I mean some people start at like kind of do like a level zero or a level one thing and it's like really, really deep in the background.
But I mean, I don't know, it's not that fun to be experienced to be a level one character and get hit by one thing and die and to have ability scores that aren't going to let you roll anything above like a 12.
And I mean, I guess if you're level one, you don't really need to, but it's just not that fun of an experience in my opinion.
And the first couple of levels aren't that significant. And I think the reason that I like starting at three is that you hit your subclasses at three for most of the classes.
So all the fun stuff that gives your character flavor text about the specific kind of character or hero they are, you don't hit until you're three anyways.
But I mean, I guess it could be fun if like you're picking a paladin and you're doing a training arc and you hit level three and that's like the climactic moment for you and you have to choose your oath to pick.
That could be fun. But if it's like you've been a paladin for a couple of years and you meet up with a couple of ragtag adventurers in a bar, mother fucker, you're not one, you're three.
No. You're three. If you're one, you're getting crushed. Absolutely. You're getting stepped on by a goblin the second you head outside.
It's also hard to create like a fully formed character that's like an adult and then also have them as level one. I've seen where like people have been before of like this was just like a, they were just like a merchant and they've decided to get into adventuring for the first time at like 36 years old.
That's so funny. That is a narrative point where it would make sense for your care. Honestly, I still think then like level three, but like that would make sense for a lower level.
But also if you're like starting out level one, there's a lot less things for you to manage. So I also understand like starting there, but I wouldn't spend a lot of time at lower levels.
What I will say that backgrounds do help with sometimes though is that generally your, the concept of your character is going to come from a class.
It rarely starts from anything outside of a class. Even if it's even if it's a concept before the first thing you're thinking of is, okay, what class with this character be in the rest kind of falls in place from there.
I think what can be fun sometimes too is to try and like if you just, if you don't want to do a run of the miller, you want to mix it up and you still want to use backgrounds.
See like how unique of a combination you can pick between your class and your background.
So barbarians are often going to pick like folk hero or criminal, sometimes acolyte if they're more of like the holy route or noble if they're like a noble whatever the fuck or soldier.
But like, I don't know, try and pick something different than that. If you're looking to spice it up, like what is a barbarian entertainer look like, right?
Somebody that's going around from town to town, like flexing their muscles and doing like strongman competitions.
And that can be a lot of fun too. Or even like a hermit, right? Like this, I mean that kind of gets into stereotype stuff where it's like a big strong guy in the cave that doesn't interrupt anybody.
He's dead by himself and blah, blah, blah. His whole family died in the fire and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Bullshit like that. But like, I don't know, sometimes they can be fun in that way to like mix them up and that gives you a better idea of what kind of character you want to take or what kind of direction you want to take the character in.
I love mixing up those things. I think that I can automatically...
I'm going to let you continue talking and I have to go let my fiancee and the student media be right back.
Okay. I think that there's a lot of like really interesting things you can do and like flavors that you can create yourself by mixing and matching those things.
Like what does a barbarian, Arakokra look like? And maybe they have the like the sage background or the sailor background.
But at the same time, you also don't want to let your mechanics get completely like fucked or like set aside just for flavor, which is something that I've done before.
I played a Wild Magic Sorcerer with a negative two to Arkana for a long time.
And let me tell you, while that was a really fun concept of like a Sorcerer who has no idea how her magic works and no interest in learning how her magic works or how to use magic was a very fun concept.
But in roleplay, it kind of kicked me in the ass because I was constantly being asked for Arkana checks and it was I could not really do much because I was taking a penalty to every role.
But more than just backstories in the finding the flavor of your character is figuring out like who is your character? Where are they from?
What led them to this point in their life? And there's a couple other mechanics that D&D has to kind of help your character out and just kind of things that like we think are like...
Important building blocks that like should be one of those is alignment.
So alignment you've probably seen like online anywhere, even if you have no idea or like any information about D&D, you probably seen some stuff about like chaotic good and chaotic neutral,
which was a like kind of like chart or like system that was created by D&D to describe characters and their moral alignments.
So you have kind of like if you were imagining it as a chart, you can imagine going across the top. There are three categories lawful, neutral and chaotic.
Chaotic is like fully according to your impulse. It is what you individually want to do versus lawful, which is according to principle that is according to the laws that you follow,
whether or not this is like good common law or like your family's law or like your evil cult leaders law, that can change.
But it is according to a principle and a set of rules that has already been established versus chaotic, which is following your own set of rules that you've kind of created for yourself according to what you feel like is right or what you want to do.
Neutral is that area in between. It's pretty much what it sounds like. It's like, okay, well, I can recognize that like maybe following the law and a principle 100% to the T might be, you know, a little bad,
but also I can't just go around willy-nilly doing whatever I want to do.
So if you imagine the second side of that chart is going to be good and evil and then neutral in the middle there. That's pretty much what it sounds like.
This is where it gets like a little bit more subjective of like your character can think that they are good and still be an evil character because I mean an evil person doesn't always really know that they're evil.
But that's it. If you're playing that character, you would still kind of put them in the evil category.
And then neutral is going to be somewhere kind of in between that exactly what it sounds like.
So these are all going to create a bunch of different combinations. There's a total of nine of them, I believe, which is going to be like if you're starting at like the upper left corner, you're going to start with lawful good.
This is going to be someone truly like the best example of this is like Superman. This is someone who is like just true good to the core, follows the law, follows the rules, follows the principles of like what they think is right.
This is someone who is not only like stopping the bad guys, but like saving kittens out of trees along the way and like they are they are basically just as good as you can get to the point where a lot of people sometimes think that it's a boring character to play because they are so good.
I disagree with that personally. I think that lawful good lawful good can be a really, really fun character to play.
It's also very fun to play when you're playing with a bunch of people who are not lawful good because it creates a really fun dynamic in the party.
Then moving over one would be neutral good, which is someone who is also going to like go out of their way to help people because that's the good thing to do, but isn't maybe going to take those extra steps to do things like saving a kitten out of a tree.
I think that a lot of like general characters can fall into the neutral good category. I'm trying to think of like any examples that are like popping into my head, but I can't think of any right now.
So we'll come back to that. But neutral good is really solid. It's exactly what it sounds like. And then moving over is chaotic good, which is someone who's kind of going to try and save the day and stop the bad guy by any means, because that's what they like feel is right to them.
That is what they think is good. This is going to be like when I think of like a good natured vigilance, like Spider-Man, I think would be chaotic good because, you know, like, and he's still technically breaking laws, but he's still doing the good thing at the end of the day.
And it doesn't that would be like a revolutionary someone who's going against what the laws are because they think it's good, but that doesn't always mean that they have to be going against the laws.
It is just what they think and what they believe is good and best and they want to do that goodness out of the kindness of their heart because they think it's good and they like to do good.
Going to start way back over on kind of like the other or the next row down would be lawful neutral.
Lawful neutral is pretty standard. They believe in justice. They believe in the law and they kind of like do what they're told. They follow the law. They follow like everything that they're supposed to be doing.
They follow those principles, but they're also not like specifically one way or the other.
Hello. Do you want to say hi, Elle?
I have returned. My fiance is in the room with us now. She does not want to say hi. She's microphone shy.
Okay. I'm talking about alignment charts.
So sorry for leaving you all with her for that long.
I know. I'm just talking about $120 goof I made.
Anyway, not going to get into that because that shit sucks, but yeah, alignment charts. I love that shit. Morality is one of my favorite things to talk about period because I spent a lot of time taking philosophy classes.
And it's so interesting to look at how people roll that in and then completely fucking ignore it.
Oh yeah.
Like people always see, I don't know what, how much have you talked about it already? I have such strong opinions on fucking alignment charts.
Well, now I feel like we need to like scrap this bit and go from the beginning because I was like going through, I went through them like overall and then I also went through individually. So we've gotten all the way to lawful neutral.
Okay. Yeah, neutral is not a fucking thing. Neutral does not exist. You're lying if you think neutral is a real thing.
I think in the real world, neutral does not exist, but I think for the case of D&D.
I think it's even, I think it's the same case in D&D though. I'm not going to present a single character with a choice or an option or a scenario where there is a neutral way out of it.
I don't think it's that. I think it is more of like neutral on a combination of lawful and chaotic. I think that's what that means.
You're true neutral. You're like something, but see, to that to me is just chaotic.
No, I disagree because I think chaotic is, so chaotic is according to your principle, like your, not your principle, chaotic is your impulse and your feeling versus lawful, which is principle and code.
I think that most human beings are going to kind of fall in that neutral category where they do agree and want to follow their impulse, but also recognize maybe like if I have the impulse, my ex just broke or somebody just broke up with me and I'm really, really pissed and I want to just go fucking burn their house down.
Yeah, we know what that's like.
Yeah. I've never burned anyone's house down.
She got close.
No, I haven't.
Burned other objects.
Well, once.
But I think that a neutral character would recognize, okay, that's what I want to do, but I don't think that that's like that's against the law. I shouldn't do that.
So instead I'm going to burn a sweatshirt.
I think that that would be a neutral option because it's not going in one extreme or the other.
Yeah, I still think I still think I don't think neutral is an again, I don't think neutral exists. I think it is a mix of chaotic and lawful and I think you find a happy medium, but I don't think that medium is neutral because like even your point being there like their chaotic impulse is to burn their
house down, but their their lawful code is to say, well, that's against the law.
So they find a medium that's still somewhere in between lawful and chaotic.
That's not neutral.
Neutral would would be deciding to do nothing and sit there like a vegetable.
Okay, well, they're not as well.
I've acknowledged that this is bad and I've acknowledged that I have a bad impulse.
So I'm just going to sit here and do nothing.
I think that they are using neutral in like a term of in between the two extremes for the for the purpose of creating a chart.
No, I guess it's fair.
I mean, if you're looking at it from a tarp perspective, then like just trying to put something on the chart neutral makes sense.
I just don't believe that there is anything like the true neutral.
I do not believe exists.
I was going to true neutrals next and I was going to say true neutral can get fucked.
True neutral is is so much because the way that people like to play true neutral is I'm going to do anything all of the time ever.
And there's not going to be a rhyme or reason to it.
I thought that was no, that's more chaotic.
No, it's not because true neutral means that you have no feelings either way.
You're not bound by code.
You're not bound by impulse, which means you can do whatever you want.
And your reason for it can just be I wanted to do it.
When the law said that I shouldn't do it.
See, there's no, but you see what I'm saying?
There's no way to find a true neutral.
I always thought true neutral is someone who was just kind of like true neutral.
So not good, not evil, not lawful, not chaotic.
I think that that is someone who's just kind of like, I mean, I don't fucking care.
Like maybe you can pay me, maybe paying me will give me like one reason to go one way or another, but I don't have a vested interest in anything.
And that's why I don't like true neutral.
I think character motivation can start into neutral.
I don't think it will ever end with true neutral because let's, okay, let's go that scenario.
Let's say that I'm like, I'm a rich tavern guy and somebody like a group of bandits recently robbed my like food stores and they've stolen a whole bunch of shit.
And I hire the local merc group who for all intents and purposes is true neutral.
They, they operate on a system of if I give them money, they go and do the task.
They don't care about the task itself.
They're not interested in the morality of the task that just want the money.
And they're also not operating on a lawful perspective because it's certainly the fuck is not.
Right.
Like being hired to go and kill somebody.
Yeah.
But then let's say that these bandits or these mercenaries then arrive to the band at home and find it's like a group of children and they're all under the age of like six.
They're stealing food because they're starving.
If they then make that decision to kill those children, like they were hired to do, you would consider them evil.
And the idea that one of those mercenaries could then go, yeah, but I don't really care.
I would just pay to do it and then shoot the kid in the face.
Cool.
You're a sociopath.
Well, yeah.
Right.
But you're not like, no, but even then you would still label those actions as evil.
So there's no way to hit a true neutral once you're faced with the actual decision.
I would agree with that.
But I, for the purposes of them making the chart, it exists.
I know this is just a fun thing that I like to debate.
I don't think there's anything as gray or black and white does not exist.
It's all just a big fucking collage of gray.
Yeah.
And I think morality goes in the same way.
Can you guys tell I like philosophy?
Yeah.
But yeah, the alignment chart helps.
Sometimes it's, I think it helps a lot when you're looking at characters that are going
to go through an arc.
Like if you foresee your character playing like a lawful paladin and then turning into
more like maybe an evil warlock by the end or more like an evil paladin or oath breaker,
looking at the alignment chart might help to be like, I want him to start at lawful,
like lawful, lawful good.
And then maybe in somewhere closer to like chaotic evil.
Sometimes it kind of, again, it's a more of a framing thing.
I think it helps for you to figure out where your character is going to go.
Yeah.
But at the end of the day, people are a lot as this conversation proves, people are a
lot more dynamic than a fucking alignment chart.
Yeah.
And hopefully if you're playing a character, they're going to be more dynamic than the
chart.
Yeah.
But it's a good place and a good thing to kind of build off of when you're starting out.
Yeah.
It's a good jump.
Then up next is chaotic neutral, which is basically someone who follows their every
impulse and doesn't really give a shit about the law.
This is where everyone wants to be.
This is where everyone imagines themselves.
This is where most, I would say most adventuring parties at least starting out are.
Yeah.
Which can be fun.
However, I think a bunch of chaotic neutral can just get a little like, okay.
And I think my, maybe my, Jesus Christ, maybe my perspective on what true neutral is
skewed.
I feel like I've seen a lot of instances where somebody takes true neutral or chaotic neutral
and this just does anything, whatever they want all the time for no reason because they
felt like it, which I guess is fun to an extent.
But then at the other end of that, when you're like multiple sessions deep, it gets kind
of fucking boring.
Yeah.
Because it's like, okay.
So you should-
Like what drives you?
You stabbed that guy because you liked the shirt he was wearing and you wanted the shirt
more.
You don't necessarily care that you're killing him, but you wanted the shirt and that was
the easiest way to get it.
Yeah.
And I think that-
What does that do for you as a character?
I think that also starts pulling you into like good versus evil.
Chaotic neutral would be like, man, I really, really want like, I'm trying to think of like
a really mundane thing of like chaotic neutral is like you fucking love taking a shower with
your socks on.
I'm literally going to look up an example of what?
Example of chaotic-
I'll say Jack Sparrow comes up a lot when people are talking about a chaotic neutral
character.
Chaotic neutral.
Where I think that that's something that-
Okay.
So for example, one chaotic neutral character might be a part of a tribe that considers
itself independent and anarchist, whereas another may choose not to be as their lives
may still be dependent on it.
So it-
Yeah, it's so interesting.
That didn't help.
Yeah, it didn't tell me anything.
I think chaotic neutral is more of like something like following impulses that are not always
like truly good or evil.
Like if your impulse is to stab people, that's chaotic evil.
That is like-
Yeah.
That is bad.
But if your chaotic neutral is like, man, I'm just going to put on clown makeup and walk
through town and tell everyone on my clown today, I mean, you're not doing anything necessarily
good or evil there.
Right.
But why is that chaotic?
Why isn't that just true neutral?
Because maybe clowns are illegal in this town.
Oh, I see, I see.
Right, right, right, right, right.
Okay, okay.
I'm kind of hopping on board with the chaotic neutral thing.
Yeah.
See, I think neutral for me, kind of like what I was saying earlier, I think neutral is a
wonderful jumping point.
I think your character is always going to fall on either evil or good at some point in your
campaign.
Because maintaining neutral in a world where you have to make difficult choices is nearly
impossible.
Yeah, unless your character just kills himself at every choice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is a viable option in D&D.
Yeah, 100%.
Another description I've found is that the chaotic neutral character feels that there
is no plan at all for the universe, things just happen, they tend to believe in luck
and chance rather than fate or destiny.
They don't care what happens to others, yet will not necessarily go out of their way to
harm them either.
Yeah, I think that would be a pretty good way of thinking about it.
Yeah, so chaotic neutral is you're kind of like, laws are like, laws are suggestions,
but I'm also not out to hurt anybody or harm anybody, I'm just here living my life.
You're like a very low ball anarchist in the grand scheme of things.
Okay.
Do you want to say that into the mic?
So my fiance just said it's like when somebody asks you what you're eating, but you lie for
no reason.
Okay.
It's doing something without a true purpose.
Like when you go out to the bar and just lie to random men.
I think it's just a me thing.
I despise action without motivation or intention.
It drives me insane.
It sends me up a fucking wall doing something for no reason is just, which is somebody with
ADHD that has impulse.
I can't explain why I do some of the things I do, but that's besides the point.
You know the one chip challenge?
Yeah.
Try to quarter of a quarter of it and thought I was going to fucking die.
Yeah.
And that was a full impulse because it was like a thing where he was like, I want to eat
this and we were like, Hey, don't do it.
Maybe don't do it.
Don't do it.
But we're still finishing.
Three more.
Jesus Christ.
Somebody going to take a minute.
Speed run it.
Lawful evil.
Someone who is evil and then follows like their own principle of evil.
Like a code.
Like an Eldritch Knight.
Yeah.
Versus neutral evil, which is basically what they want.
Yeah.
Best example of lawful evil I can think of is like the crusade.
What the fuck?
Hear me out.
It's an inherently evil thing to just go around and murder people because your king
or your pope said so, but you're still following a code.
The actual self is evil, but like you're following a code.
It's like the Sith sometimes in Star Wars, how some of them are like, there's a way
to do this.
I mean, you're like fucking Palpatine is just whatever the fuck is Star Wars.
I'm not even going to go down that route because Madison likes it, but there are some
like Sith who are like, they're still in order to this shit and I'm going to follow it.
Am I evil?
Yes.
Is there a way to do it?
Also, yes.
Lawful evil.
Yeah.
I was talking about it.
I'm saying a character like Palpatine then is chaotic evil.
There's reason, but then also fuck you.
I'm a raisin.
Yeah.
No, it's, it's, it fuck you.
I'm back from the dead and suddenly nothing matters.
Nothing fucking matters.
I have chaotic evil is, is Joker.
Yeah.
You're going out and stabbing people because killing people is funny.
Yeah.
It's you were following your own evil impulse.
You don't give a fuck about other people you're just doing whatever the fuck you feel
like.
Bad creature.
Yeah.
You suck.
There's no rhyme or reason to why you suck, but you fucking suck.
A good way to characterize that in terms of creature types.
Demons aren't considered chaotic evil because they will cannibalize each other.
They will murder each other.
If you let them loose in an area, they will attack anything that moves.
Devils on the other hand are intelligent and you can make deals with them and you can
be companions with them and they have a hierarchy.
They're evil as fuck.
They still want your soul.
However, comma, they're not going to hate you.
Yeah.
You know?
They're going to have a good difference in character and creature types.
There you go.
And then it's also like sometimes they'll say like certain races or classes have a tendency
towards one of these things.
Like, paladins have a tendency to be good.
Elves have a tendency to like follow more chaotic and follow their own thing because
they're like, I'm fucking wrong.
I'm better than you.
But yeah.
Some classes tend to lend themselves as well towards more.
That's not, they don't tell you that, but truly in my opinion, I think some of them lend
themselves more towards one than the other.
Yeah.
It's a lot more difficult to play like.
It's going to be hard to find a lawful bard.
Well, I wasn't even saying a lawful bard.
A lawful good warlock in my mind is what are you doing?
No, that's true.
Who have you made a pact with?
What are you from?
God, the Christian God.
Yes.
You've made a pact with the Christian God.
So aren't you just a cleric?
I mean, yeah.
Right?
You see what I'm saying?
Like.
No, because being a warlock versus when you're making a deal with like a celestial being
is inherently selfish at that point.
See, then it would, to see in my mind, it's chaotic good because then it's like you're
smiting people because good.
Because God said so?
Uh-huh.
100 percent.
Because God told him to do it.
You're not following a rhyme or reason.
It's just you're the righteous hand of Jesus.
You're out there smiting motherfuckers because it's the right thing to do.
Not because you should.
Yeah.
So that kind of goes into motivation because your alignment will also like help with your
motivation, which is why are you doing the things that you're doing?
Yep.
Why do you want to kill the entire thing on here?
Why are you so willing to murder an entire village of homeless orcs for money?
Why are you?
There are so many times in the first campaign I played where we were just looking for shit
to do because we were kind of hitting some dead ends on story points and we were just
like, well, can we like roll the fine a group of bandits or like maybe a camp of orcs that
look particularly evil?
And then we just show up, kill all the orcs of the bandits, loot their shit and go on
about our day.
Yeah.
Why?
Why are you doing that?
Yeah, if you're a really lawful good paladin, there is no way that you're just so casual
and cool with rolling up on a group of bandits of which you've never met, talked to or know
anything about and just kill them and take their stuff.
Yeah.
It's why are you doing the actions that you're doing?
Are you going out and murdering people because you have like a fucked up relationship with
like your dad?
I mean, that's a little bit of a motivation.
It doesn't justify it.
And your motivation doesn't always have to justify your actions.
It just has to like...
And I think motivation is where people get caught up in the stereotypes most often and
it's always like the, well, I don't like goblins because goblins killed my whole family or
I like to do things alone and I'm a ranger because I'm an outcast and I've never had
contact with people.
Like your motivation needs to be a little more creative than just I am the way I am
because something sad happened.
Yeah.
Please, please, please, please, please move away from that.
Please, please.
I have family and friends here in a second.
But don't use dead family members or friends for a motivation unless it's really creative
and cool and thought out.
Yeah.
Because at that point you're just getting into like fridging territory, which I have
very strong opinions about fridging if you don't know is basically a story of some kind
most of the time.
It's either going to be like, I always think of it with comic books or like movies, mostly
comic books, but it's when they like, they kill the girlfriend or they kill the wife
or they kill the...
It's the dead wife trope.
It's the wife in the white like bed sheet that they always have clips of in the movies.
It is whatever like female fucking character is killed and it ends up furthering the male
protagonist's story.
Don't fridge people for no fucking reason.
Batman is the easiest example of this to like point to your character, like his whole character
motivation is he was just a fucking child who didn't like bats and then his mom and
dad got shot in front of him and he realized that the city he was living in is basically
Albuquerque, New Mexico, where people are actively cooking meth and shooting motherfuckers
in the back alleys.
Hey, this shit sucks.
Do you have something you want to send in to make it better?
Criticisms, topics you'd like to see discussed or an advertisement you'd like to run.
Maybe you even want to sponsor an episode.
If so, shoot us a message at mc460 at evansville.edu or DM us on Instagram at crescent magazine,
or we'll never get better like these fucking guys.
I only say that because one of our roommates, Dakota, is from Albuquerque and constantly
says that Albuquerque is the real world Gotham.
He just like drops the like most insane, he's like, yeah, we've got the highest knife crime
like in the country and we're like murder rate anywhere.
What the fuck?
And he's like, yeah, we're 50th in education and we're like, are you from Gotham?
There's a reason why Breaking Bad was set there.
Yeah.
Truly.
But like that's, that's a wonderful example of like a really dull character motivation
and Batman for what it's worth is a cool character.
It's just a lot of stories have now followed that line of there needs to be some sort of
tragedy to then spur on the character motivation.
Yeah, because it almost always motivation, especially in comics, is like always tied
to family and friends and in D&D it's such a thing of like, family and friends motivate
us as people.
But like also sometimes you do things because your friends are alive and your family members
are alive.
Motivations can be positive.
Ali Beards with character, fantasy high, great example.
They're shit people, but they're all alive.
Yeah.
And motivation can be positive.
Maybe you just really fucking love learning about new places.
And so you decided to join an adventuring party so you could travel to new places and
try new fucking things.
Your wizard that wants to catalog as many spells before they die and you have like a
nice little heartwarming farewell to your family before you set off on your adventure.
Yeah.
Like that is just as valid as a motivation as to a litch killed my entire family because
guess what motherfucker, you cannot throw a goddamn rock in like the world of D&D without
running into somebody whose backstory is my family was killed by so and such.
And that fucked me up.
And so now I'm an adventurer.
I think it's a lot more fun to try and find positive character motivations even for a
character that is made to be a more negative either in type or alignment.
Think of something happy or fucking normal, you know?
Yeah.
Something tragedy related.
Yeah.
I think also what's kind of fun too is making a character whose background is mostly neutral
and then letting the story or the beginning of the campaign shape your motivation.
Yeah.
That's fun too.
That's putting a lot of faith in DM's hands.
So I mean to each their own.
But I mean if you talk to DM before and you're like, hey, I don't really know what I want
to do with my story.
I'd like to just kind of pick up as a person who has this a class and this ability and
whatever, whatever, and then go from there.
That works too.
And motivation is also something that can change.
In our last campaign, we had a character whose original motivation was basically to set out
and create his own farm and his own land and his own life.
And then ends up coming into a truly ridiculous, like Elon Musk amount of money.
Yeah, like lucrative business skills.
And very quickly, his motivation changed from basically wanting to create this place
of his own too.
I now want to become the richest man in the multiverse and introduce capitalism to every
single corner of the universe.
Discover the benefits of coin.
And he did.
Yep, he sure did.
He just fully introduced capitalism to like the world.
What an American thing to happen at a table.
He was playing a Southern character, so that makes it infinitely funnier.
Southern vampire who at no point in the campaign revealed that he was a vampire but was very
obviously such since the beginning.
He was fucking inculcating.
He was also fucking hilarious to see him interact with anyone at the table.
Some of the funniest moments ever.
Anyways.
So we've already kind of talked about friends and family.
Again the quote we have here, no they can't have all been killed in a fire started by
an evil wizard turned lich or goblin or fucking, I don't know, Cthulhu dragon, you know.
It's always fucking dragon.
Yeah, dragons are, I mean most of them are characterized as being evil.
Some of them are characterized as being more on the good.
For reference, most dragons for those that don't know are sentient to a degree.
The difference is their color, which this is kind of racist, their color determines
how evil they are.
For reference, black dragons, evil, red dragons, evil, green dragons, evil, blue dragons,
usually good, or at least intelligent to an extent.
White dragons, good, gold dragons, all shrewistic.
Well, eh, white dragons are hit or miss.
White dragons sometimes people play sadistic, but I've seen them playing on the more intelligent,
good scheming things.
I don't like that.
I've seen white dragons played as like chaotic good, and gold dragons are usually lawful
good.
So, it's kind of shit too in that way, like even D&D doesn't manage to escape from that,
like the isms, right?
They've given all of the darker colors more inherently negative traits, and they've given
all the lighter colors inherently positive traits.
But when you're playing in a setting where heaven and hell exist and one naturally lends
itself to dark and the other one light, you kind of have to take what you get in a fantasy
universe.
Yeah.
But anyways, family friends, Ken all have died.
We've already kind of talked about how to use them in motivations, I think too, having
friends like in this particular campaign that we're in now, just about everybody has a friend,
at least one that like either they met towards the start like a little before the campaign
started or that they've been friends with for a very long time.
I have one who has like one best friend and then knows like a lot of co-workers because
he works in like a corporate scenario.
So there's some like potential for me to role play some of those NPCs as well, like his
own little team.
Try to avoid the like my only friends of the party thing because that's not always the
most fun.
You know, like when you're sitting around shooting shit at a tavern and trying to like
recoup before you like storm the castle tomorrow.
Sometimes it's fun to talk about like in a last like, oh, we're about to die tomorrow.
Let's share some like fun character things.
It's cool to actually have a story to tell about a friend that you actually wrote into
the backstory or about a family member that you actually wrote into the backstory.
And then I think about having those names on paper.
Like I highly encourage everybody to write down actual names of family members and friends
is that you can call on them and then make up their backstory in a heartbeat, but you
don't have to like free form the whole thing.
You can be like, my mom's a merchant.
My dad was a criminal and that's as much as you have written down about them.
Plus maybe some names.
But even that is more to go on than saying, oh, my whole family died in fire.
And that's really all you need because that's also good.
If you are going the route of my whole family got in a fire, knowing details about them
is going to make that more impactful because it's like, yeah, my mom and dad, I can't tell
you any other information about them other than they gave birth to me.
I was two years old when they died and I was taken in by the lonely hunter in the woods.
And now I'm a high health that likes to shoot things from afar and dress and leaves.
Yeah, it's okay.
Cool, bro.
Also, be careful who you share that information with because sometimes you write a family that
your character has no connection to and you send a tiered DM and then that's the campaign.
That is the campaign.
Yeah, be careful how much backstory you give your DM because it's somebody that likes to
take the backstory I'm handed and then rum with it full for them.
Listen, the more information you give me, the more packed into the campaign it's going to
be whether you like it or not.
Yeah.
And then kind of like, I think that's hit all the points.
Yeah.
I mean, the next thing we have on the list is flaws, quirk, strengths and weaknesses.
Like you, your PC should also have flaws and is not perfect.
We've kind of already talked about that, but not in too much detail.
So your background is going to give you a list of things to choose.
However, comma, you can also think of flaws in your regular day to day life.
Like maybe you're always late to turning something in or maybe you like have a really hard time
with trusting people too soon or not trusting them soon enough.
Maybe it's, I mean, who the fuck knows, right?
Maybe you have like a level of anxiety.
I was the character that I'm playing right now in like writing.
The role played up me in the attack.
Yeah.
It wasn't something that was like planned initially, but she was basically talking to
the cops and realized like in that moment I was like, oh, she's fucking terrified.
And that has now become a part of her character of like having this anxiety and everything.
If you want to look at like that kind of, and like bringing flaws into your game, the
NSE high does a wonderful job of that with, um, adding in the first season.
How committed they get to their characters though.
I mean, to preface, and we've already said this before, the people that you see on dimension
20, like the, the real plays and critical role, those are people that all have backgrounds
in either improv or acting in general, something somewhere, their careers are not just at the
table, some more than others, but don't, don't also go and watch like the first season of
fantasy high and think, wow, like I really have to commit to the character like that
hard, you know, because it's difficult, especially your first time playing to somebody that you're
not.
I mean, I've played, I'm currently at like a table full of like actors and other performers
and it's still very much an adjustment for people who are not used to playing in this
space to like get into this space.
And it's a hard thing to jump into.
It's weird.
Yeah.
It's all very different.
It's just discombobulating and that's okay.
So don't go into this expecting to just instantly be like the levels of an actual play that
you're watching.
But like to, to your point though, I think there are a lot of great moments on dimension
20 where you get to see like a person or like the player make a decision that they very
clearly don't want to make or that is so true to their character that that's the only option
they want to, or it's like, I mean, you've done this at the table plenty of times.
It's magnolia.
You were like, I as a person would love to help this, to help these people.
But as the character, there's no reason for me to stick around.
Yeah.
And so you leave.
Um, and that it's fun.
It's also difficult to do.
Like it's very hard to have that, that moment at the table being like, okay, my character
that I'm for all intents and purposes playing right now and have created and am embodying
is about to make a choice that I as a person would never make ever in a thousand years.
Yeah.
Um, but that commitment then is what makes it so much more fun because it's, it's giving
you a moment to step into like the shoes of somebody that's not exactly yourself.
And most people in a first campaign will always end up playing a version of themselves.
I think most characters, even on your seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th campaign or a version
of yourself, I, the way or so in your early ones.
Because what do you have to draw on the way I like to think about and looking at like
my own experiences, I approach character creation and making characters at the table very similar
as I do playing a character and acting and in acting a lot of the times, depending on
what method you're using.
But most of the time you're going to be drawing on your own experiences and the way that you
as an individual feel because every character you play, whether that be like on a fucking
stage or at the table is going to be you playing a character.
You are like, you are intrinsic intrinsically tied to this character in one way or another.
And a lot of the times you have to find where you connect to this character and where that
overlap is.
I like to think that a lot of the characters that like I create, they are really rooted
to like parts of my personality, but they are greatly exaggerated.
Magnolia was my bitch.
She was my every negative trait about myself.
She was whenever I like my distrust of people, paranoia and rudeness and just like generally
being a bitch versus the character I'm playing now is a very optimistic and very positive
person.
And so I feel like I'm leaning into more of my like positive traits there.
So it is okay to rely on that, but also like don't be afraid to stray from yourself.
Yeah.
And I think a really easy way to try and get out of your own head and into creating a
different character is to don't be, we've talked about this in previous episodes, don't
be afraid to rip a template of another character from a book or a movie or an anime or a piece
of media that you really like and then make it your own.
For this campaign that we're playing all about superheroes, almost all of the characters
in terms of NPCs that I've made, I have either come from the source book that I bought or
from this amazing book series.
It's on an app called Choice of Games.
They've been out for a really long time.
It's basically like a D&D light or like a novel light where you like the old Goosebumps
flip book, you make a decision, go to page 17.
Oh, I love those things.
It's the same thing, but it's a lot more in depth and the stories are a lot more engaging.
And Little Did I Know is playing D&D line for so many years, but there's a-
Like episode.
Yeah, pretty much.
Like there's series on there called Heroes Rise.
And it's basically all about superheroes and you play like a very young hero who is like
the son or daughter, I guess, child, right, of two superpowered parents that die super
tragically or they get arrested super tragically after killing a villain and then you play
like the rise, right, Heroes Rise, from your- essentially your origin all the way up to
like becoming the number one hero in like the entire nation, right, the entire United
States.
In almost every character, every NPC that I've ported has been a character directly from
that book series.
And I was talking to Madison about this the other day, in terms of DM playing an NPC,
there's this one character in the book series called Jury, or that's their superhero name
is The Jury, because their father is a judge turned mayor, so not super fucking unique,
but whatever.
And he's basically like a foil the whole time.
He's just like, he's the son of the guy that ordered whoever the fuck to get killed and
then sent your parents to prison.
And he's like always one step ahead of you because he has daddy's money, but he doesn't
have any real superpowers.
They're all like tech based and he's basically just like a fucking poser that's everywhere
he shouldn't be because he has money and he's pretty.
And I decided for whatever reason to roll Jury into basically session one, and he's
slowly becoming one of my favorite characters, even though he is the most unlikable person
in the entire book series.
And that's like a good idea or a good, I guess, kind of good example of a place to start.
He's very different the way that I'm role playing him at the table than in he is in
the book.
Like he's coming around a lot quicker to like being not a terrible person.
But that's because of his interactions with my PCs, with my with the playable characters
at the table.
And I think the same thing goes the other way around as well.
Like if you decide you want to play, I don't know, you want to be like a Goku character
from a Dragon Ball Z, or you want to be like the main character in this fantasy book you're
reading.
It's not going to take you any time at all to find the class, the background, the spells,
the equipment, the whatever to make that character.
And if that's what you need to get a start to come up with a set of flaws and strengths,
if you're like, hey, listen, I don't really want to play myself, but I don't know how
to make a character that's not me.
Let me pick this knight from this book series.
It's like super flawed, but in this really cool way and has this really unique fighting
style.
And then just role play that and it'll naturally become your own.
Yeah, it will always change from like anything that inspires it because you're going to be
making choices that you don't have source material to kind of pull from and be like,
oh, this is what this character would do.
And it's going to become your own.
And like, even if it's just a simple thing of like you retexture what they look like,
you don't even have to tell people that you're basically copying something from someone because
your personality and everything that you create kind of on the piece of paper is going to
shape who you are, but it is also going to change, right?
Everything down in pencil.
To write, was that it?
That was the end of my sentence.
Oh, okay.
It sounded like you were still going somewhere with it.
Um, yeah, I mean, truly just write it all down in pencil.
It's all going to change.
If you write your character notes in pen, you're a fucking freak.
And I stand by that statement.
I just kind of meant like in general of like, right?
No, no, this is a literal point.
I mean, if you write your character notes down in pen, you're a freak because you're
lying to yourself and everybody else.
If you think it's not going to change in two sessions, you're burning the planet, you're
shredding trees.
Am I calling Madison out in particular for this?
Oh my God.
Yes, I am.
Um, do I care?
No, because I'm going to defend myself right now.
The character sheets that we were using were ugly as fuck and they were very overwhelming
to look at.
So I designed new ones and they came up in nine pages long.
So I printed one for everyone in the group.
And I said, oh, I could just reprint them whenever it changes.
Don't be afraid to get specific.
In fact, get very specific.
Yeah, I would love to.
I hope you all listened to all of that and tried to pick apart both, um, both, both conversations.
You just said those things just to keep me from speaking.
Yeah.
Cool.
100%.
Um, non mechanical things, who are they?
Let the mechanics influence your character.
So yeah, it's, it's another thing.
There's so many different systems and off branches of systems that you can be playing
and when it comes to Dungeons and Dragons, the way that you think of it typically.
We've talked about kids on bikes.
Um, in my opinion, kids on bikes lens, lens you to be a lot more, I don't want to say
specific, but also like your character doesn't have to be as malleable as it does in 5e because
you're not constantly changing your equipment or your, um, your spells or your weapons or
improving your traits to get proficiency bonuses in sleight of hand.
You have a set of scores that you roll with.
Um, and in that way, the character that you pick from the outset can be fairly static.
Yeah.
And doesn't have to be super changing.
But you can also change too.
Yeah.
Like there's not really an expectation of change in development in kids on, kids on
bikes, kids on brooms, whatever the fuck, uh, as there is in a system like 5e.
But um, even to that extent, there are so many different subsystems with N5e that have
been homebrewed or created for different reasons, uh, that fit different settings.
Let your character also fall into the system that you're playing into.
Like for superheroes with mechanics where you're rolling to get your power slots back
or where you have things called heroic moments at the table, maybe part of your character
then is driven to get as many heroic moments as possible in the form of like, they're just
a vein or maybe they just really like to be on the spotlight.
Yeah.
And that naturally lends themselves then to getting those heroic moments more often than
someone else might.
It's also a thing of like letting the, the game mechanics that you select for your character
influence your character.
Like let some of your features that you have from your class like really, really kind of
roll in if I'm for an example here, if you're playing a Tempest cleric and you're doing
a fuck ton of stuff with lightning and storms and stuff like that, let that influence your
character.
Even if it's in like small cosmetic ways of like your character, maybe because they're
always like around the storm, lets their emotions kind of like boil over and lash out in different
ways be a lot like a storm or maybe they're static and their hair is always messy and
frazzled because of all the static electricity running through them.
Yeah.
And those things that you choose, seep into your character.
It's going to make everything feel so much more cohesive as well.
There are so many different ways to approach it when you're trying to come up with like
a solid character background.
There's starting from the mechanics and doing it that way and then there's starting from
the character background and then molding the mechanics around that.
Are you character concept first or are you?
Yeah.
Um.
Which is a debate to have.
Yeah.
And I don't know.
It's kind of, it's such an in between thing for me.
I pick and choose so frequently.
I think some characters when I'm helping other, because I've helped people make more characters
than I've made them myself, I think it really just depends on the direction or how much
background information that person is coming with.
So like creating one of the characters most recently, he knew he wanted to play a specific
role.
So in the campaign they're called roles instead of classes.
He wanted to play a specific role.
He wanted a specific background and he kind of had an idea for flavor text.
So from that we started plugging in the pieces then based on the mechanics.
We said, okay, so mechanically this is the role you want to fill.
These took some of the spells you're interested in.
This is the background you want.
How do we then start plugging in lower pieces, background pieces to then naturally make this
character?
But then there's also like another person who I worked with making their character.
We had talked before I even had a chance like before I really got into the character book
or sorry, I got into the source book because I had talked to him about joining before I
even bought the material.
So for him it was starting from a fully fleshed out character idea and then building the mechanics
around the concept.
So truly I think it can go both ways.
I think there's generally like a pretty happy medium to be found as well, letting both your
features influence the choices you make as a character and the choices you make as a character
influence your features.
Yeah.
And then another kind of note that I have because character creation and flavor is my
favorite thing, which is be specific.
Get as specific as possible.
I like to think about creating a character in a way of like if you describe to this person
to someone would they think that they're a real person or would they think that this
is like a stock character?
Yeah, I understand.
So try to make them more than their stop lock and name.
Yeah, instead of just being like, oh, well, they're a good person think about, oh, they're
the kind of person that would stop and like if a little kid had like dropped their ice
cream cone that they would go out of their way and like buy them a new ice cream cone,
even if that ice cream shop was a cross town.
Or are they like the kind that like will kick kittens, you know, like, yeah, is it a convenience
over everything else kind of deal like there are ruthless businessman that doesn't really
care much about like creature life or, you know, mortal life.
And so it's not even, oh, they're just evil to be evil.
It's evil because their motivation is money.
Like that's that's their assigned value for everything they see in the world.
So yeah, 100%.
I could not second that more get very specific, get as specific as you want within reason.
Talk to your DM depending on how specific you want to get.
But that's for more of like the grounding your your background somewhere within like physical
environment or history of the world, you know,
To help with that specificity.
These are questions that I ask myself personally.
Anytime I create a character, what are they scared of?
What is their greatest fear?
What's their favorite color?
What is their magic and or fighting style look like?
If it's like a physical magic, what color is it?
What does it smell like?
What does it feel like in their body when they cast it?
Does it feel like nothing or does it feel like they are like pushing every fuck like
like a intense workout and their body hurts?
Also with that, keep in mind too that when you're describing these things about your character,
it doesn't have to make sense.
How do I describe this?
It doesn't have to make sense in the context of the fantasy universe.
There are so many times where you as a player will talk to another player, not as your character,
but just ask them a mechanical question or you'll say, hey, like not as this, not as
the character, but like Maddie to Robert or like player to DM.
Can I do this thing?
When you're describing things like that, when you're describing what your fighting style
looks like or what your magic looks like, don't be afraid to use like a pop culture
reference or a media or a comic book.
No.
You're playing in fucking fantasy like castles, dwarves, elves, and you turn to your friends
in game and you go, so my magic kind of looks like that shit off of Naruto?
No.
That doesn't make any sense.
They're all going to look at you like you're stupid.
However, that's a really cool reference that you can then give your other players and your
DM on what it looks like when you're interacting.
Because it's all, there's no such thing as, I mean, if you want a really good example
of what like high tech D&D looks like, go play fucking Baldur's Gate.
If you're not playing Baldur's Gate, it's all imagination of the mind, even if you have
minis and a little moving background on a TV touchscreen.
It's all imagination of the mind, right?
So our theater of the mind, I guess the better way to phrase that.
The more examples you can give the players and the DM on what it looks like you're doing,
even if it doesn't make sense in that context, helps a lot and is so much more immersive.
And you don't have to, like from there on, every single combat encounter, you don't have
to be like, yeah, I flip over that guy like fucking John Wick.
You established four sessions ago, you look, play and act like John Wick, the character
from the popular movie series, cool.
We got that, that's what we're all picturing.
Now just role play.
I think it's also something that's impactful of like, if this is something that you think
is really cool or you're doing something that you like have never tried before or like
something like that, you can like take a break and describe, okay, so what is it, when I'm
casting this, so she's going to like run across the battlefield and she's going to duck under
this thing and slide across the ground and then she's going to plant her feet and she's
going to put her hands out in front of her and like her fingertips are like stretched
and you can see the tension and then this happens.
That's going to be so much more engaging.
Yeah.
You don't do that every turn that you're going to be at the table forever.
But like having those times to like pick and choose is super, super awesome.
That's where that's where like letting the dice, like the dice tell the story as much
as you do is 100% like the case, especially when you're looking at a 5e system or even
just kids on bike system.
Like the times to narrate or when you hit a natural one or when you pass a really, really
important role when you hit a natural 20, you don't need to narrate like you're in
a fucking.
Hitting the number four for the seventh time.
Yeah.
You don't have to narrate the full like sliding and vaulting and hitting and like the guttural
like sound of your knuckles cracking as you punch goon number six in the face.
You did it to five, four, three, two and one.
We know what it looks like.
But you roll a natural 20 to fit like to finish off the big boss.
Like a DM will say, how do you want to do this?
How do you want to do this?
And that becomes like a very favorite, a very cool phrase or like a wanted phrase here
at the table or you roll a natural 20 on like solving this really impossible thing.
And it's like, well, I cannot give it to you.
And then you like, then the DM gets to do this really special narration for you.
But like, yeah, pick and choose your moments.
But when you do pick a moment, go all out.
Yeah.
That's what makes a lot of those moments really cool at the table.
It's also helps when you're describing that in the beginning because it gives the DM and
the other players at the table an idea of who you are, what you look like, what you're
doing.
And even to that, something that's helped me, at least going into the next session,
is me and you talked not that long ago about some things that your character outside of
like this campaign, some things that set up who she is as a person or some like, like
core and critical moments or specific events or kinds of things that like really make her
her and your mind.
And like now going forward, I want to start to roll in more of those moments and roleplay
the environment around what the character most positively interacts with.
So also, like it goes both ways too, the more information you give me about the kinds of
things you want to see, about the kinds of information, about how the environment interacts
with you, about how goons interact with you when you hit a natural 20 or a natural one.
I'm not opposed to creating, I mean, it sounds kind of obvious, I'm not opposed to creating
a story around the players.
Right?
Like I'm not here.
I mean, to an extent, right, like I wouldn't agree to DM a campaign if I wasn't interested
in it to an extent, but I'm ultimately here to provide an experience for the players just
as much as I am myself.
And so if changing my wording on the way a combat encounter goes or the way a role fails
for a specific character is going to make that moment so much more fun for them as a
person or for a player or for the group, I'm going to do that.
Like 100%, I'm going to do that every time.
And it's also thing of like going back to that conversation we had the other day is
I was feeling kind of like unhappy with how I was playing my character or unhappy with
some parts of her that in the way that she was like presenting herself at the table and
what she was doing.
And I came to realize it was because I had this is a character I've had for a very, very
long time.
I made up her name.
This goes back to what we were saying about what's something like the negative side effects
of picking a template that you're near, dear and true to.
It can be really hard.
And that was something that I was dealing with because in my mind, she's this, she's
a full person, she's this full character that I know so much about, but I didn't share a
lot of that information.
And I was realizing that I wasn't like letting the DM know or letting anyone really other
than me know these things.
And I was like, well, why am I feeling so unfulfilled?
And it was because I never said anything and there was no way for anyone to know anything
about this character before I told them because we were talking about D&D is a very like it
is a show and tell it is not one of the things where you it's a like show, don't tell or
tell, don't show.
It is a like you have to put both into it.
Otherwise, like there's no people aren't mind readers, you know, there's no way to kind
of like figure that out those things on your own.
But like two other little questions or two other little questions that I've got on my
list are, I guess three, what is their morning and nighttime routine look like?
Do they have one?
Why do they have one?
Do they have one?
Do they not have one?
Do they sleep in?
Do they wake up early?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The fun thing you can do with that, like, cool.
They have a really strict routine.
Maybe that means that they had like military like parents or noble parents.
Yeah.
There you go.
Another background piece or like they had a jackass older brother that was like really
on time and punctual and now they have like this rival.
Cool.
There you go.
You got another background piece because you wake up early.
They snowball so quickly when you're like doing character creation.
That's amazing.
How much care do they put in their appearance?
Do they wear makeup?
Do they follow fashion trends?
Are they very anti-fashion trends?
Do they like roll out of bed and just put their hair up or for my hour?
For my guys that might not be skewed into that question where it's how much care do
they put into their appearance.
Something that I like to think about is what does their armor look like?
What is it inspired by?
Is there a piece of media or a book or a comic or an anime that you're like, holy shit, I
want it to look just like that?
Where do they get it from?
Who made it?
Is it made from the doors and the mountains?
What it made?
Was it made by this like really specific legendary Smith?
Like those are also things, if you're wanting to play a character that's not quite as focused
on appearance that you can still get into that way.
What do their regal robes look like?
What color purple are they?
What do they symbolize?
Is there a crest on it?
Is it family based?
Is it disgraced?
Another thing is like really like in things that sound silly, like what do they smell
like?
There was a moment where you were describing something and you said like you could smell
like cigarettes and like stale beer on a character.
That is so immersive for like players and character.
It is immersive for everyone of like it is your character.
It is one of the first times I really use smell too.
Yeah.
And it's super impactful.
When you cast your magic there's like a certain smell to it or maybe your character wears
a really strong perfume.
Yeah, really easy one for that.
Fire based powers.
Like are you, if you're a warlock and you're using a fire based power, is it related to
like a demonic or like a hell like deity?
Cool.
Like when you use your powers, smell of Remstone.
Same thing with, I don't know how you would do like the opposite being Angelic.
I don't know.
It smells like puppies and lavender.
Yeah, it smells like clean laundry and the sun.
Like clean laundry and like crisp autumn air.
Yeah, I think in that case you would lean into the more like natural clean smells.
I think talking about like the five senses at the table is one of the most like immersive
things.
I was going to say opposite.
Talking about the smell.
Sound too.
Sound.
How things feel.
Like if you are like talking about like oh and it feels like or like there's like hot
breath in your face as the monster is like right in front of you.
Like that type of stuff is really, really cool for everyone at the table.
And it makes your storytelling sound so much like more put together than it is.
Yeah, 100%.
I would definitely lean on any like DMs more on that than players when you're and this
kind of goes back to the world building episode.
Like the more the more of the five senses is like just staying on conversation.
The more of the five senses you can use the more immersed everyone's going to be.
And even as a DM it helps me to know what a character number one dresses like.
How do they carry themselves?
Do they have a limp?
Do they have broad shoulders?
Do they like command room when they stand in?
There was a character that I did in the first campaign.
She was like the queen of this whole like kingdom.
And it was like there was an immediate change of attitude that I tried to like convey to
everybody.
Once she walked in the room everybody stood up straighter.
Everyone's eyes were on her.
There was no talking back.
Like the tension is so thick you can cut a knife.
Like it sounds cheesy, it sounds corny, but like do it because it adds so much atmosphere.
And it gives you a better idea as a DM too moving forward what you want those spaces
to look like especially if they're a familiar location.
What is the bar that they always go to smell like?
What does it look like?
Is the wood rotted?
Is it new?
Does the bar keep like keep a rag on hand to make sure that any spell drains get kicked
at very like cleaned very quickly or is it like a UK bar where there's a layer of grime
and filth on every surface?
Everything is sticky.
Yeah, but like US too, but the UK was worse.
Oh yeah, that's visceral.
That's got to all that comes to mind.
The more real world experiences that you can draw on to then give them in this fake, you
know, fake fantasy made up shit.
Yeah.
The better time they'll have.
Last one I've got written down, what do they like to do for fun?
Who are they outside of adventuring?
That's a big one.
I didn't start asking that question until recently.
What do they do for fun?
Like what are they into even if you're playing in a high fantasy setting is your character
like a character that even if you're playing a tabern, you know, if you're playing a character
that's just generally unhappy with life, let's say you've chosen to go down that route for
whatever reason, no shame in it.
Someone's got to do it.
We've all done it.
Yeah.
There is something to be said about like the worth in tragic characters, however, comma,
even people that are upset or that are chronically depressed have something that they will do
to buy the time or entertain themselves.
It doesn't have to be like, oh my God, I have this like super crazy fun hobby that I like
to do.
Also, I'm an incredibly depressed character that hates everything in everybody.
Yeah.
I could just be like, I like taking strolls in the forest because I like the way the fresh
air smells and it gets me away from like the flashbacks of the brimstone in my house
when it was lit on fire by whoever, whoever, like that is a simple enough hobby and something
to do for fun and leisure activity that it tells people loads about who you are as a
character.
Yes.
And it is not something that you have to think about what this says about you as a character,
let other people do that work for you.
But if you don't have anything to give other people, it's going to be so much harder for
you to create a character and create a personality based upon these traits.
And to find a role play and a voice and an idea and a mindset.
Which I'm sure in an episode we do about role play, we'll talk about voices and we'll
talk about like things like that.
And your other players at the table, I like what you said, your other players at the table
will inform you about what your character is like just as much as you will inform yourself.
Like there will very quickly be trends or jokes or something that keeps happening or
a role that a character always fails or is expected to fail and then suddenly that becomes
like a big moment at the table where everyone's like laughing or pointing or rooting or cheering
or like piling on dice because like man they fucked up every other role but they got it,
they got to make this one.
Like this is the one that counts for their characters.
So now they're getting like six different dice to add to that role.
Yeah.
And it's also a thing of like nicknames.
Like people at your table will give you nicknames.
My character was like a character who she introduced herself like full name to everyone
that she spoke to.
And it became a thing where, and granted it was, it has now become a stuck joke for another
reason because one of the people at our table doesn't enunciate.
He mumbles shout out to our mumbler.
He said fleshlight or it sounded like he said fleshlight instead of.
Flashlight.
Instead of flashlight, which also wasn't correct.
No the joke was supposed to be that like he got the name wrong but then it's spied and
even like a stupid joke like that has spiraled into no one.
Calls her by her right name.
No one calls her by her correct name.
I started it as a very small joke is like a douchebag character not caring to get someone's
name right and now it's fully snowballed into like a thing with her character is that nobody
gets it right.
Which is.
But then as a DM too though, I take that as like a really cool way that I could then
roll into her character or for her as a person like feeling like her character has made it
is the first time somebody knows who she is and gets the name right.
Or a fan like, I don't know maybe she's talking to somebody on the street after this really
big like Bank Heist went on and her and her adventuring group or her and her superhero
party say everybody and everyone else is getting autographs because they knew who they are and
like a couple of people come up to her and start making jokes about like flashlight or
flashlight or calling her everything else and there's like that one true fan the back
that holds up like this very shittily written comic but like that means the world because
it's like actually no the name is night light and she's really cool.
That's going to mean so much more now because everyone else decided to dick on her for having
a name that's like kind of rhyming with a lot of other things.
So also don't get upset.
I mean there are times to be upset.
I mean if y'all start calling me flashlight at the table I am actively going to be upset.
I'm not going to let that stick it was funny in the moment but like even those moments
where it's like okay like it's a thing but it's not my favorite thing.
If you have a DM that thinks about the things that people are saying at the table which
if they're not they're stupid.
They will be rolled into and it will be all the more fun for it.
Yes.
I think that's about all we have.
Yeah I'll say I think we're getting up there in time.
Yeah I think we're at about an hour and ten around there which is infinitely shorter than
the one coming out before this which is close to two hours.
So you all don't have nearly as much content to listen to on this one.
But now that we we now have a camera that we can use so I think for our next episode
sometime eventually in the future we'll see it just depends on how much practice we can
get in with this fucking thousand dollar camera.
We're gonna finally sit down and do the character sheets and that'll probably be about an hour
long episode.
I can't imagine we're gonna walk through every single thing in my new detail which we kind
of did but also didn't do on this probably do it even less.
We'll just walk you through what we've been talking to you about for the last three episodes.
Yeah that fun stuff.
But yeah that's kind of what you guys can probably expect for the next one unless for
some reason we can't get it up and running in which we'll just sidestep and go to another
topic and then get you the character sheets sometime.
That'll still be fun and we'll still see you next Thursday.
Uh huh.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for tuning in to another ridiculously long episode.
Bye bye.