The Makings of a Character for RPGs

Hey everyone!

Today, I want to talk a bit about character creation, specifically for roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons. Character creation is, hands-down, one of my absolute favorite parts of the game, so I'd like to discuss what goes into a character, and what I think is important when it comes to making a good character idea great.

(As an aside, I primarily play Pathfinder, not D&D, but they're almost the same thing. And D&D is easier to type. So I will be referring to D&D throughout this post.

So, those who are familiar with D&D know that there are two main things that go into a character - class and race. Your race, of course, is very simply what species or race your character belongs to. Is your character a human, an elf, or a dwarf? Or even something more unusual, like a tiefling or an aasimar? Your class, on the other hand, is what your character does. If you run into combat with heavy armor and a sword and shield, chances are that your character is a fighter. A ranger, on the other hand, will often stay on the outskirts of a battle with a bow and arrow, while a bard will use her music and magic to support her allies.

Except don't play bards. Bards are useless.

So you might be thinking, "Well, I want to get into the thick of combat without a care in the world and swing a greataxe around, so I'll just play a half-orc barbarian." Which, to be fair, is a perfectly valid way to create a character, and that's all that's really necessary. But when you get into the game, and you find that your fellow players have these rich, flavorful characters, with hopes and dreams and personalities, and your character is just sitting on the sidelines waiting for the next poor, unsuspecting goblin to walk past, you might find yourself bored, frustrated, or disappointed. Now, do you have to write a book detailing your character's backstory and motivations? No, not really. (It'd be really cool if you did though. Kudos to anyone who does so.) But there are definitely real, simple ways to give your characters life and make them interesting. Not every character is going to follow these same steps, but here's a guideline that I think works pretty well for creating a new character.

Step 1: Pick a class.

Some people like to start with their character's race, but personally, I think it makes more sense to start with class. The first thing you should think is "What do I want my character to do?" (I also like to think "What weapon, if any, do I want my character to use?" Some weapons are really cool, and some lend themselves to certain classes and playstyles.) If you want to be an out-of combat expert, relying on skill checks like Diplomacy or Intimidate to get your way, you may want to consider playing a rogue. (Or a bard - I know I mentioned that they're useless, and I will mostly stand by that statement. But that's more for combat situations. And since a big chunk of D&D is combat, I would shy away from playing a character who doesn't do much in combat.) If you'd rather be a support to your other players, providing healing and other benefits to your allies while also smiting your enemies with divine might, a cleric is probably more up your alley. And of course, if you really want to just bash some skulls with a giant club, feel free to grab that barbarian class!

This is also where you can see what other people are playing and try to fill in some gaps. Frankly, to me, this isn't very important. If you've got a party of two rangers and a bard, and you really want to play a ranger, I see no real reason why that should be an issue. However, oftentimes it will be helpful to have some diversity in the party. So if you're playing with three other players, and they have all decided on playing a barbarian, a fighter, and a ranger, you may want to play as a sorcerer, wizard, or cleric to provide some magic to the crew. I find this is a good method if you don't really know what you want to play, but the rest of your players really want to play particular characters.

By the way, if you've never played D&D before, my personal recommendation would be to play a barbarian. They're simple, easy to play, and can be a hell of a lot of fun for everyone in the game.

Step 2: Pick a race.

Now, every race confers different bonuses (and penalties) to your character. An elf character, for instance, will get bonuses to its Dexterity and Intelligence, but a penalty to its Constitution. Meanwhile, a gnome will have increased Constitution and Charisma, but lowered Strength. 

Not this type of gnome. Although I guess there's nothing stopping

you, really.

However, despite these (and other) racial bonuses and penalties, when it comes down to it, I think that race is most important for roleplaying and for flavor. Because, while a vampire-hunting human ranger has a certain compelling feel to it, a vampire-hunting dhampir (which is a half-vampire) ranger has a completely different feeling - still compelling, but for very different reasons. So in my opinion, it is best to pick a race that fits not because "Oh, the ability score modifiers worked well for a barbarian!" but rather because it makes for an interesting story. The player who picked a half-elf because "I was playing a ranger and wanted to put +2 in Wisdom" will likely end up being more bored than the player who picked a half-elf because "My character is the bastard child of a human noble and an elf consort, who was then sent away and was forced to fend for himself in a world that never truly accepted him."

As a disclaimer, there's no problem with picking a race for the benefits it confers to your characters. I do it all the time, as do most players I know. However, I just don't think that should be the only determining factor in picking a race. 

Step 3: Craft a backstory.

This is where you start to go above and beyond in character creation! Some DMs will specifically ask you  for your character's backstory (I know I do). But even if you're not asked for it, it's still really nice to have. Like I said, I don't expect any of my players to write me a novel detailing their character's upbringing, family life, their pet dog Fluffy who was run over by a wayward carriage, and so on and so forth. But again, it's just a matter of injecting a bit of life into your character - they're an entity in the game world, and they didn't just materialize as a level 1 wizard! What caused them to go adventuring? Why are they the class that they are? What are their goals for the future? Just coming up with answers to these sorts of questions can help you play the character and make the game just a bit more vibrant! Plus, the more your DM knows about your character's backstory, the more he or she can incorporate some of those details into the storyline. For instance, if you say that your character is a half-orc who used to run with bandits but had a change of heart and decided to stick to the straight and narrow, when your DM has you run into an old bandit accomplice who tries to get you to join back up with him, that creates an interesting and compelling (and maybe even emotional!) encounter that likely wouldn't have happened if you hadn't created that backstory.

Step 4: Give them some personality!

I'll admit, this was the biggest flaw I had with my first D&D character. I picked out my class, and picked a race to match. Created this really cool, somewhat tragic backstory that provided some insight into why my character acted the way he did, and why he was out adventuring rather than sitting at home. But I gave no thought to my character's personality, so he ended up just being... me. And that's boring. It's a roleplaying game, after all, so why not take the opportunity to roleplay a bit? Are you a really quiet, shy person typically? Try making a very temperamental, often-violent barbarian who drinks a lot and gets into barroom brawls! You may be surprised as to how much fun it'll end up being.

And my advice for this step? Make your character's personality a caricature. A complete exaggeration. I like to pick one character strength and one major flaw. One of my later characters was a really kind-hearted cleric, who believed that everyone had good in them and would always attempt to avoid combat rather than fight needlessly. Character strength? Kindness and a knack for diplomacy. Character flaw? Naivete. She nearly got duped multiple times into giving people money needlessly, and was only stopped by the rest of the party holding her back and saying "Hang on just a hot second, that guy is clearly working with the bandits! How could you not see that?!"

And of course, once you create that personality, try your best to stick to it in gameplay! Even if you, as the player, would love to go exploring that dark crevasse, if you established that your halfling druid is claustrophobic, don't go in there! Make her force the other players' characters in first! Staying true to your character can be tough, but if you can do it, the roleplaying aspects of the game will often end up being much more fun than something like combat.

That's pretty much it! After all that, of course, you've got all the fun stuff like rolling for stats, buying starting equipment, and whatnot. But most of that goes without saying, and I don't think it's as relevant for character creation at its core. Anyway, next time you're starting up a D&D game (or any other RPG, really), try following these steps and see how it works out for you!


EDIT: Two things that I forgot to mention, that are typically fairly important for character creation! One is physical appearance and voice. Generally, I would lump physical appearance in with race, and it can be fairly important for your character as well! Essentially, you'll want your appearance to at least somewhat thematically fit with your character's abilities. If you're playing as a brutish fighter with 18 Strength, for instance, you may not want to be a rat-faced guy who's only 5'3" and 100 pounds. And as for your character's voice, well, that's not entirely necessary for roleplaying, but I personally really like trying to come up with a distinct voice for my characters. (One of my characters, for example, sounds like a deeper-voiced version of Zapp Brannigan.) I think the greatest benefit for giving your character a distinct voice is that it helps set apart the moments in which you're actively roleplaying the character, and the moments in which you're talking as yourself, out-of-character.

Tips from personal experience: if your character sounds like this,

don't expect him to be taken seriously. Ever.

The other thing I want to mention is alignment. Some DMs play very strictly with alignment - for those who are unfamiliar, the two aspects of alignment are Good vs. Evil and Law vs. Chaos. So a lawful good character generally tries to uphold laws and traditions, while also looking out for the greater good. For me, alignment is more of a guideline than anything, since I feel most characters will tend towards a true neutral alignment with leanings toward law, chaos, good, or evil. Plus, alignment is very fluid, in my opinion. I'll likely do a longer post in the future about alignment, but to me, it's just something to keep in mind during character creation, not to be seen as an unerring truth about your character.

The Magic Color Series - White is Not Always Right

Hey everyone, and welcome back!

I mentioned in my first post that I would likely do a series of posts on the color system in Magic: the Gathering, and I decided hey, no time like the present, right? The color system - or the color pie, as it is generally called - is one of my favorite aspects of Magic, and it's something I really enjoy talking about. So I figure what I'll do is I'll write one post for each color and talk about what the color represents, what it means in terms of gameplay, and my opinions on it.

But before I jump into that, a word about the color system in general. In Magic, cards are assigned one of five colors - white, blue, black, red, or green. (There are also multicolored cards, as well as colorless cards, but for now we're going to ignore those.) Each color represents mana, the magical power used in the game to cast spells, and corresponds to a certain type of land - so plains provide white mana, islands provide blue, swamps provide black, mountains provide red, and forests provide green. But what I really like about the color pie is that each color represents certain values and principles, which tend to be reflected in the cards themselves. (This also makes Magic colors a pretty decent personality test - my friends and I have often sat around assigning people colors for fun.) Plus, the system is really what makes Magic, Magic. By mixing and matching which colors you use, you can create a huge variety of deck styles and gameplay patterns.

So without any further ado, let's jump into our first color - white!

I'd make a Here Comes the Sun reference, but I'm not a huge fan

of white. They don't deserve the honor.

What does white represent?

In Magic, white is the broadest color in terms of meaning. But if a card is white, it generally represents something about order, purity, community, or life. White is the color of harmony, really. In D&D alignment terms, things that are white will almost always be lawful, and they will tend to be good. White isn't always good, though, which is a fairly common misconception about the color - you could easily have a lawful evil being that is white in nature, looking out for its community but at the expense of others. You could make the argument that if Hitler had a card, he would be at least partially white, and it would be a fairly compelling argument. I mean, let's look at the Nazis. Order? Check. Purity? Well, that was pretty much their whole goal, so check. Community? They were their own party, all working together, so I'd say a check for that too. Life? Well, maybe not so much, but three out of four ain't bad. 

But evil white entities tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Oftentimes, the creatures depicted on white cards are representative of moral goodness, or truly concerned about community for the sake of the health of all involved. Hitler may be white, but so is Captain America. They're two sides to the same coin. So let's get into...

What does this mean for gameplay?

What you'll see in white decks is generally a lot of little creatures working together. This is where you'll find your humans, your soldiers, your large armies of little dudes all working toward the same goal, really to embody that sense of community. If you get a big, stompy creature, it'll typically be something like an angel or a spirit, working to guide the smaller creatures to victory. 

As the color typically associated with life, you'll also find a lot of healing effects - giving life back to the player, preventing damage to your creatures, stuff like that. Clerics are a big creature type for white. 

And as the color associated with order, white has a lot of control, and a lot of "laws". What do I mean by that? Well, white is where you'll find cards that say "creatures your opponents control can't attack you unless _____," or similar effects. If you're going to remove a creature with white cards, it'll typically be an "exile" effect, or one that completely removes the creature from the game. Banisher Priest is a good example of the two above effects - it's a card that exiles a creature, but only for as long as Banisher Priest is alive. In other words, this priest comes onto the battlefield and uses her powers of law and order to hold an opposing creature in stasis. Which is pretty cool.

You gotta hand it to them - if there's one thing white does well, it's

making creatures that look like badasses.

My opinions on the color:

I have to say, in terms of gameplay, white is my least favorite color. At least to play against. White is the color that has an answer to everything - it can deal with big stompy creature decks just as easily as decks that build an army of tiny creatures, it can deal with control decks as easily as it can deal with decks that are heavy with enchantments or artifacts or what have you. And the biggest thing with white cards is that they're usually very cheap to play, which means you can get powerful effects onto the board very quickly - especially when you're paired up with another color, like green. In general, white has always struck me as packing just a bit too much of a punch in slightly too small a package, and it sometimes feels like the only way to beat a well-constructed white deck is to play white yourself. To reference my first post, white can often have very little interaction, especially when players build a pillow fort of defensive creatures and just sit there gaining life. Not every white deck is like this, of course, but enough of them are that it taints the way I view the color.

But on the flip side of things, I think white is really awesome from a thematic standpoint. There's something to be said for the army of otherwise-useless little humans standing against hydras, demons, krakens, dragons, and the like. White can be a lot of fun to play (even if boring to play against, sometimes), and like I said earlier, it's pretty much the color of the badasses. You get knights and soldiers and angels and such, and the flavor of a white deck just makes it really cool to play. 

I mean, just look at this guy. He's a Fiendslayer Paladin, and he looks

like an utter badass. You really can't top that.

So that about wraps things up on white! It's a really cool color, with a lot of interesting thematic aspects to it, but I just find it to be a bit stale when it comes to gameplay.

Stay tuned - in two weeks, I will be posting up the next article in this series! To read more about white's place in the color pie, a series of articles was written by Mark Rosewater, Magic's current head designer, on the subject of the color pie. Which is really where I got a lot of my information about the colors anyway. You can find his article about white by clicking here.

Introduction and Interaction

Hey everyone!

For my first ever blog post (this is an all-new experience for me), I would like to talk about something that I feel applies to lots and lots of different games, and probably to different areas of life too. But let's not get too esoteric here. The concept in question is something that I like to refer to as "interaction," and it's something I'll probably reference in the future a bunch of times as well.

So where did I first hear this referred to as interaction? I believe that I first heard about this in reference to League of Legends. (Bear with me for a moment - lots of LoL-speak incoming. Buckle up.) As I recall - this was a few years ago, at this point - some Riot employees talked about interaction as a measure of fun in the game. In other words, how were you interacting with the other players in the game? If your champion had lots of ways to interact with enemies and allies alike, based not only on actual game mechanics but also in terms of overall style of play, then chances are that he or she is a fun champion to play (and, more importantly, to play against). On the flip side, if your champion had very few ways to interact, then it was likely that your champion is not particularly fun to play against. Some people like to call these non-interactive champions "Garens," although not everyone subscribes to this philosophy.

But to give an idea of what I'm talking about here, imagine a champion who had a targeted skill that said "Target champion dies." Even if it's fun for the player behind the computer (because, let's be honest, who doesn't like to just press R and delete someone from the game?), it's not really enjoyable for any of the opponents. There's no interaction there. There's no way to dodge the skill, no way to mitigate the damage - really, there's nothing you can do besides just sit there and take it.

In contrast, though, let's look at a champion like Thresh, for instance. Even if you don't like him, you have to admit that there's a lot of interaction between players built into his kit.

You should all take a moment and listen to this parody song by Instalok. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebz0lVVbRho

Go ahead. I'll wait. 

 If you see him winding up for a hook, you can sidestep it or try to outrun it. If you see him toss his lantern backward, you can take a step back to avoid the inevitable J4 outta nowhere. If you see him toss his lantern forward to pick up a soul, you can capitalize on its cooldown to attack him. If you see him just stepping forward to grab a soul, you can capitalize on that opportunity as well. If he basic attacks a minion, you can jump on him knowing that the bonus Flay damage won't be there for his next attack. Lots of different ways to position yourself, take advantage of weaknesses, and try to avoid his power points, all in one four-skill kit. And interaction isn't a one-way street, either! As a Thresh player, if you see that the one Caitlyn likes to sidestep to the right each time you throw out a hook, you may want to try purposely missing in an attempt to have her sidestep into it. You also have to make lots of split-second decisions about how to use his skills. Again, tons of ways to interact with an opponent that means that no matter what you're doing, lots of quick decisions are being made, lots of sidestepping and positioning is occurring, and it's generally a fun and hopefully rewarding experience for  all players involved.

Now let's break away from League for a bit. (Those non-League-playing readers can take a breath of relief now.) And let's look at interaction through the lens of Magic: the Gathering! There's one breed of deck that somehow consistently shows up in all sorts of Standard and Modern and other formats, and that deck archetype is referred to as Esper Control. I know - words to strike fear into the hearts of even the most stalwart of men. These decks are white, blue, and black (if you're unfamiliar with the color system in Magic, I'll most probably do a series of posts about the colors sometime in the future), which means that the cards involve counterspells, kill spells, and removal galore, generally pillow-forting and waiting the game out while you slowly bleed your opponents dry. I dunno about you, but that sounds really boring to me. At least, to play against. You try to play a creature, and it gets exiled as soon as it hits the board. You try to cast an instant or sorcery, and it immediately gets countered and fizzles out. All the while, your opponent is sitting there with this stupid grin on his face and he ticks his life counter up, saying "And you lose 4 life. So, uh... what's your life total now?"

Yes, I'm talking about you, Oloro. Mr. "Most-Played Commander
of the Format." Look at him. Look at that pretentiousness. I don't even
know if that's a word. Ugghhh.

So, especially in one-on-one situations, an Esper control deck typically (from what I've seen) leaves only the Esper player actually playing the game, while the opponent sits there and literally everything he or she attempts is foiled instantaneously. Which is why I personally prefer creature-based decks. Saying "I attack with just my Hydra Broodmaster" has infinitely more interactions in it than saying "I cast Cancel and counter your spell." Because in one attack, the opponent has tons of things to do. Dozens of things can run through my head in a single attack phase. Do I have a creature to block with? If so, am I willing to sacrifice my own creature in order to block some damage? What if it's a creature with equal power and toughness? Am I willing to make that trade? He has some lands untapped - what if he's just going to Giant Growth and win the trade anyway? Hmm, maybe he's just bluffing and doesn't think I'll block. But wait - I also have untapped lands! What spells do I have in hand to help with this attack? It's only 7 damage though, and I'm still at 34 life - I can probably just take that, right? To me, that sort of thinking and interacting between players - even when it's unspoken like that - is what makes games of Magic fun.

Now, I'm not trying to say that any particular type of deck is wrong. I'm also not trying to say that you shouldn't do everything you can to win - winning is a ton of fun, and I know that I can get competitive when it comes to Commander games in Magic. Competition is just another part of enjoying the game, and you shouldn't have to abandon that for the sake of making sure the other person is enjoying themselves. But what I do think is that balance is important. And if you have that one card in your deck that makes your friends want to flip the table and punch you in the face, maybe consider switching it out for something else.

Or not. I'm not a cop. I, too, sometimes enjoy the look of frustration that I get. Like I said, it's about balance between the cathartic pleasure of watching the last hopes for victory fade from your opponent's eyes... and the interactions that make the game a little more fun for everyone involved.

Before I wrap up this first, rather lengthy post, I just want to touch on one last game, which is Dungeons & Dragons. The thing that I think makes RPGs like D&D a ton of fun is the fact that they are grounded in interaction. The point of the game is having the players interact with the world that the DM (or GM, or whatever you want to call yourself) creates, and the encounters that the DM provides for the players. The DM gets to interact with the players through the same events. And the best games of D&D have a ton of interactions between the players themselves. This, I think, is one of the reasons why people who play D&D don't like players who focus too much on the gameplay mechanics. Everyone who has played D&D has had the one player who just doesn't talk, doesn't interact with the people at the table, and just says something along the lines of "Oh, it's my turn? I attack the nearest orc with my longsword." And that's the most you'll get out of them. That sort of player doesn't really contribute much to the game, in my opinion, because of the lack of interaction with the story and the other people at the table.

So to make a long story short, interactions between players in a game are a big part of what makes games fun to play, in my opinion. That's why you'll always see people gravitating toward the couch multiplayer games like Smash Bros. and Mario Party, or playing games like D&D which are pretty much completely interaction-dependent. And while interaction isn't the only thing that makes a game fun, I think it's the most important thing when it comes to making a game fun for everyone, not just the winner.

Oh, and by the way, how many people still have that Instalok song stuck in your head? Because I know I do.