Hello, all TT Parents!

I’m sorry this week is late. It’s been a doozy… BUT, nothing a little RPGs can’t cure. So, I promised this week that I’d talk about how I make my characters.

The truth is… there is no real strategy to mine, haha. Orin, my husband, LOVES to power build when the opportunity arises. Or if not power build he at least sticks to “optimal multiclassing”. I’ve seen him build characters with a 605 chance of crit-ing on any role. If you haven’t noticed by now, the rules matter much less to me. I’ll make the worst multiclass in the system if it’s in character. Orin can handle most encounters.

For me, character building is a much more convoluted thing. I usually spot something lovely, like a beautiful belly dancer or a woodpecker outside my window and build an entire character in my head off of one imagine that found traction in my brain. Then I try to make the rules fit ME, rather than the other way around. AND THEN, I very deliberately have no idea what levels 2 – infinity look like. I go into the adventure as completely blind about my characters’ development as they are. For example, Bim, who you may remember from Session 0 on this blog, started out as my very baseline understanding of “chaotic good gnome.” She was a 13-14 year old girl away from home on a dare from her cousin with druidic powers because I liked the sample art in the Player’s Handbook. Plain and simple. Later, when we all realized we wanted more than just a one-shot of these characters, I was pressed by my DM for a backstory. I put it off, and off, and off… because a back story was a commitment. I still wasn’t sold on this whole “D&D” thing, yet. I had terrible stage fright, no fun voices, and at the time I was so committed to my GPA I was afraid (literally afraid) to promise that much time to a friend group. So, after weeks of procrastination (the ONLY time I remember procrastinating in college), I sat down on the toilet and told myself I couldn’t leave till my backstory was written. In other words, I had 2 minutes to think of one and type it up and hit send.

I remember sitting there and remembering that I had given Bim a familiar woodpecker named Birch, who was supposed to be her pride and joy. On a whim I elevated that woodpecker to be “her cursed, polymorphed little brother” and the dare from her cousin was an outright lie: her new motivation was to heal the curse on her brother. Every cuddle and kind word to Birch after that was a druid being kind to any common animal to my group and a private word between a disparaging, guilty older sibling and her only remaining family to me and the DM after that fateful trip tot he restroom. And that alone is what made me fall in love with the hobby.

And that is pretty representative of how I build my characters. Backstories are made based on my mood at the time of Session 0, and development is entirely dependent on the story of the campaign; not on damage delt, HP healed, or utility exhibited.

Admittedly, I have one other method for character building… that that is with the goal of self-serving emotional growth and/or stunting. Occasionally I will design characters with the intent of just exploring my own feelings on a particular topic, usually my career. I had one character in the Fate system named Malabar Spath. She was a half money tree, half peace lily humanoid who lost her job as an accountant in a fascist society because of her gambling addition. She spent most of the campaign brainwashed and actively sabotaging the group… which most of my friends interpreted as me, the player, working out her frustrations rather than realizing the DM brainwashed me. If that tells you anything. So that lead to a wonderful scene when Malabar was finally freed (several weeks in game) where I screamed at the table for 5 minutes and acted my little heart out, which was a start contrast to my timid acceptance of Bim only a few years prior. Leveling up in Fate didn’t give me much chance to multiclass as I recall, but it never would have felt in character for Malabar anyway.

I suppose your key take-away from this post is that… I’m no power builder, haha. I value the story more than the mechanics of the game. I suppose that feeds into how much I place on this hobby being able to teach my children. On the one hand, yes, the mechanics of the game can teach them basic strategy, mathematics, and problem-solving skills. But on the other hand, the game can teach you who you really are. Bim showed me, for the first time in my life, how much I enjoyed breaking the rules. How much I enjoyed speaking my mind in any situation and still being the heart of my team. Malabar made me realize just how much I hate having a life predefined for me. She came from a terribly controlling society, suffered a terribly dehumanizing fate, and to my surprise she was furious. I was furious. I am furious. I want to be free, I want to be strong and kind and quick. I found myself by pretending I wasn’t myself for a few hours. These are all things that might have taken me years to find on my own… but my characters cut that time into pieces for me.

I won’t wax anymore philosophical for you all, you know exactly what I am talking about. But just imagine what our children can learn from RPGs? Imagine what their little minds can comprehend when a child’s imagination merges with simple life lessons like emotional maturity, grief, anger, and courage? What can they achieve?

Food for thought.