This is the first of three letters about making characters your fellow players (and GM) will love right away—starting, naturally, with the beginning.
Obviously I actually have to start with the disclaimer that there are many ways to build great characters, and your specific party is of course going to have different tastes when it comes to aesthetics, personality, and even some of the ideas I’m going to share.
However, the secret to making a character your party loves is to make the party care about them—and that works really differently in a game than in a film or novel. In movies, we’re captivated by characters who seem to be keeping secrets, or who take a long time to reveal their true selves. This can work in a game with practice, or with a lot of familiarity with the other players, but the fastest and best way to get your party along for the character’s ride is to remember that this is a game, and the other players want to get to play it with you. People of course can be captivated by compelling roleplay and great plotting that has nothing to do with their character… but we’re all a little selfish, and are here to play, not watch. It’s much more fun to get to play out that story with the other character. Parties will get excited about a PC when they feel like they (and their characters) are part of your character’s story.
That has nothing to do with the character’s personality, backstory, aesthetic, or even friendliness. The key is making a character who is ready. Ready for change (today’s letter), ready for teamwork (part two), and ready for the unexpected (part three).
So we start with a character who is ready for change. It can mean a billion different specifics, but the broad, basic strokes are that they’re ready to live a different life than the one they’re living, ready to make a difference in the world. So let’s get into how (and why).
Have a reason to come along
However unexpected the adventure is to the characters, you know that early on, your character is going to have to commit to going on some kind of adventure—so make sure they’re someone who will do that. Maybe it’s about saying that Strahd killed their parents, so of course they want revenge, but it can also be about a character who seeks something more abstract—adventure, change, companionship, a fresh start, heroism—that taking up this call can provide.
Maybe this sounds stupidly obvious. But a classic part of the hero’s journey is to refuse the call. And unless the whole party is on board for that (including the GM), it risks making your character seem unappealingly recalcitrant. This is one of the times that thinking about the conventions of narrative storytelling really doesn’t help in TTRPGs. Playing out a refusal of the call centers one character at the expense of all the others, and forces other players to spend a tone of time and energy wheedling a character they may not care about very much yet. Can’t we just get on with the actual adventure?
Obviously, there are times and circumstances when this, like everything else I warn against, can work. I also think a collective refusal could be a fun challenge for a GM… but I’m not going to offer disclaimers every time I say anything, so just take as a given from now on that I’m aware there are always exceptions. It’s not impossible to get your party invested in persuading your character to come along, but a much safer bet is to make a character who, for whatever reason you choose, wants to be there without prompting. They’re ready for adventure.
Need help and ask for it
The most fun part of an adventure can be following through your character’s personal storyline—but it’s always disappointing when you get the feeling nobody else really cares about it. Sometimes, this is just other players being inattentive or selfish… but in the majority even of those cases, you can get the other players on board with the story just by inviting them in.
What this means in character terms is to make a character that not only needs help (“I’m a teen superhero who needs to hide her secret identity…”), but also directly asks for it (“…and we’re both on the swim team, so can you cover for me?”). This gives other players a stake in your story, and gives you lots of fertile ground for scenes about your collaboration. It makes for a character who is ready for change—by asking for help for the first time, by addressing a long-ignored problem, by taking a new approach to their problem that incorporates these people they’ve just met.
Be a little lonely
…but not a loner. What I mean by this, is to make a character who is ready to change by letting people into their life. It’s fine to have a character who is just making use of the other PCs, who sees themself as bound to them by circumstance… but making a character who longs, on some level, for true connection with the people around them is how intimate friendships between characters form, and players love to get invested in their character’s friends.
Making a character who is open in this way also makes for a two-way street that is way more appealing than just constantly begging other characters to help you with your problems. It can sometimes be hard to figure out how to develop bonds with other characters, or how to strike up conversation. But I find it gets easier when I think about what a character would do if they sincerely wanted to connect with another character. It means being attentive, noticing and commenting on points of commonality or things that your character can find interesting or appealing—which is definitely a bit harder than the, “So what do you do?” small talk. It means making a character who wants to listen as well as being heard.
Hopefully this has gotten your character off to a strong start… so subscribe below to find out how to keep it up as your adventure picks up.