Questions for your Character's background

Hello, fellow adventurer! I’ve just finished a research trip to a new vampire coven in preparation for their “Bloody Valentine” event this year, and was reminded of just how important it is for a character to have a rich background. Mary Sue was an absolute bore and it took all of my journalistic integrity to refrain from many an eye-roll.

Unfortunately, fellow campaigners are not held to the standard of journalistic integrity, and YOU might be the recipient of eye rolls, guffaws, jeers, and any other number of unpleasant responses if your character introduction sounds something like “...and he was actually an undercover king who was just trying to see how his people lived and actually he is also a god-tier mage, and has never ever made a mistake in his life.”

Please don’t do that.

But what you can do is read through this handy guide on how to flesh out your character! I’ll offer a couple of main options for the process and then deep dive into my own preferred method. As always, there is no one best way to do things; just have fun and see what works best for you.

Before you get too deep into building a character, take a minute to talk to your GM/DM so that you can better understand the basic premise and lore of the upcoming campaign.

Are there any restriction/limitations that you need to be aware of? For example, if you’re going to be doing a campaign with the majority of the time being spent working in and with vampire covens, you probably don’t want to build a character that is a vampire hunter cleric whose main life objective is to eliminate all vampires from the face of the planet. Your GM/DM should be able to give you all the information you need to help you build a character that will fit into the world of your adventure rather than feeling out of step for the whole campaign.

The two main methods for creating a character starting point are the mechanics method and the inspiration method.

1. Mechanics method – have a build in mind for the character (stats/attributes/special abilities/etc) and then with that information build out their looks and background.

   
   

2. Inspiration method – take inspiration from an image, artwork, or vibe to decide on a characters race/role/background and then with that information build out their stats and attributes.

   
   

My preference is to use the inspiration method! There are so many sources of inspiration we can tap into these days – artwork, movies, series, video games, books, and more. And don’t be afraid to look at genres different from the world you’ll be campaigning in when looking for inspiration.

Does your high fantasy adventure need a “Hal 2000” character in the party? Or maybe your apocalyptic future mecha mission could do with a bit of “Luna Lovegood” energy? Now that you’ve got a basic idea of what kind of character you want to flesh out, let’s dive a little deeper with these questions:

Who exactly are they?

What was each character’s profession before the campaign? (ex - farmer, merchant, blacksmith, soldier, etc.)

What lands do they call home and what is the region like? (ex - Are they from a rainforest and will suffer from constant dryness while campaigning in a desert?)

What are the particulars of their upbringing? (ex – lowborn commoner, middle-class merchant, 15 th son of royalty, a bastard, etc.)

What is the condition of their parents? (ex – dead, alive, or otherwise)

What were the professions of said parents? (ex – slaves, peasants, entertainers, soldiers, etc.)

Did any unique or significant events happen during their life or was it mundane?

Did they experience an unforgivable betrayal?

Was there an impactful death in the family?

Were they accustomed to hanging out with a “bad” crowd?

Did they have a good or bad mentor?

Do they have any rivals?

NOTE – there is nothing wrong with having a great upbringing! It can actually be quite refreshing to stay out of the “who has it worst” angst-fest that can easily happen when role-playing.

What are their character traits?

What strengths/flaws does the character possess? (ex – honesty, defender of the weak, prideful, greedy, lustful, etc.)

What is their code of conduct? (ex – never steal, always steal, never back down from a challenge, etc.)

What motivates them? (i.e. their dreams and goals)

What are their fears? (ex – snakes, death, astrological events, modes of transportation, etc.)

How do they handle downtime? Do they have hobbies? (ex – reading, whittling toys, fiddling with dice, journal writing, etc.)

Do they have any items of sentimental importance? (ex – locket that belonged to dead wife, a sword that was a family heirloom, tome signed by their favorite wizard, etc.)

These questions can really help to flesh out your character! If you take the time to go through these and answer them, you’ll be amazed at just how much more “realistic” your character will seem with all of their different dimensions. This can help you enjoy your campaign even more and will give your GM/DM a lot more material to work with as they lead your group through the adventure.

Now, do you need to do all of this?

NOPE!

And that’s okay! It’s completely fine to build a basic skeleton of a character and then fill in all the little details of their background and characteristics as the campaign progresses. Play around and see what style fits you and your campaign best. After all, here at Enchanted Lore, we want to help make role playing even more fun.

So don’t get bogged down in all the details if that’s not your thing, or dive in with relish if it is!

Thanks for checking out our blog, and if you’d like to check out the video version of this topic, you can catch it here (hyperlink https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww9ngd21WQI).

Until next time, fare thee well!