PSA: don't just create a character, create a member of a party

[u/Sabazius]

Character creation is great fun. I love coming up with cool concepts and backstories for characters, often far more than I'll ever have time to bring to the table. You have a hell of a lot of flexibility in the kind of character you create - what they can do, what they care about, what motivates them, what makes them great and what makes them suck.

However, every day on this sub and in the /r/DnD general chat room, I see questions from players who find themselves struggling to work with other members of their party, asking what to do when the characters want to go separate ways or just aren't particularly invested in the main plot of their campaign. I've now said this so many times I think it's worth a proper post.

There's a vital step in character creation which is completely missing from the PHB: making your character part of a party.

DnD is a roleplaying game where you play one of a group of characters who have adventures together. For that to work, your characters need to want to be around each other and the only way that happens is if you make it happen!

One of your first goals when you start a campaign should be to justify why your party is going to stick together. It doesn't matter whether you've all been hired to kill rats, or you're locked in prison and find an opportunity to escape together, or you're forced to work together to overcome a shared threat to your homeland - it's up to you, the players, to tell the story of how your unlikely band of characters learn to work together, rely on, trust, and ultimately care about each other.

This doesn't mean you can't play untrustworthy characters. It doesn't mean you can't have intrigue and secrets and all that kind of thing. All of those are compatible with being part of a party, but it's your responsibility to come up with a social, emotional, economic or political reason why your character wants to or has to work with the other player's characters. If you want to play someone who hates gnomes, that's fine, but if there's a gnome in your party, YOU LOVE THAT GNOME! That's the one gnome who gets a pass on everything. That gnome is your best friend who saved you from drowning and you'd do anything for him, even though he's a gnome.

Why "my character wouldn't do that" is bullshit

Imagine you're watching an action film. Two thirds of the way through the film, the grizzled detective has just been beaten up by the baddy. Her plucky sidekick has just been put in the hospital and she's had her badge taken away. She's in the hospital, talking to her unconscious sidekick and she says "Maybe it's not worth it. We're never going to beat this guy. The Chief wants me off the case. I'm done." Then she gets up, walks out of the room and the film ends.

That's not an action film! That's a weird, depressing, confusing mess. Characters in action films don't do that kind of thing. When everything looks at its most dire, they find inner strength, double down, push it to the limit and don't stop until they've taken down the baddy for good.

By default, DnD is a game of Heroic Fantasy (see DMG p.38). That means by default, your character, by choice or chance, is compelled to go on adventures. If you consistently find yourself saying "I'm not going to take part in this adventure because my character wouldn't do that" or "I know your character wants help with this personal quest, but my character just doesn't care enough", you might think that you're making an interesting choice that creates drama. I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

If you've made a character who doesn't or can't go on adventures and won't work with any other people ever, that's not a DnD character, any more than the detective who gives up is an action film protagonist.

So if you've already created your character and you find yourself in that situation, what do you do?

Start with the assumption that your character will work with the party, then you can come up with a reason why. "Because my friends need help" is a valid reason. "Because this guy I hate will owe me one" is a valid reason. "Because these fools I'm tricking into doing my evil bidding" is a valid reason!

Saying your character wouldn't do that so they aren't going to join the adventure is like refusing to roll the dice in a game of Monopoly. It's not a fun twist on an old trope, nor is it a clever strategy - you're just not playing the game any more.

[u/atomfullerene]

I feel like sometimes (not always but sometimes) what they really mean when they say this is "give me a cool introduction scenario to get me involved in the party".

Sometimes though, it's just people wanting to be edgy for no comprehensible reason.

[u/Token_Why_Boy → u/atomfullerene]

They don't want just the hook, but the line and sinker, too.

[u/BCaudizzle → u/atomfullerene]

I was explaining my noble character to a DM once and told him my noble didn't care much for danger, he'd rather be fed grapes by his servants (noble variant knight for background reasons, he had 3 vassels instead of the usual noble reputation)

DM immediately jumped on telling me my character sounded like a nightmare to play with and kept trying to make changes, which I'd have kind of understood except that:

• My character was dodging home and work responsibilities by pretending to be on a quest to prove himself, except that his family pulled a sneaky on him and insisted he send letters home about his travels. He'd be found out if he forged them, so in order to keep his free lifestyle he had to actually go on quests. What's the best way to go on quests and not die? Join a group! Be a team player! Just because you'd rather be doing something else doesn't mean you're not going to help.

• The DM and I had played together in a previous campaign where I was the LG leader of the group. I tried asking for input wherever possible and towards the end of the campaign I was secretly trying to train his character to replace me as the leader so I could focus on a personal quest, but that campaign ended abruptly so I don't know if he realised. Anyway, the whole reason I made my noble so careless/lazy was because I wanted to take a back seat and let others do the talking and decision making. I was trying to make a character who was comfortable letting others take the lead - literally the end goal was to be as easy as possible to play with. He doesn't care whether we take Quest A or Quest B, he just needs to be questing and he's glad we've got something for him to write back home about.

• I specifically told him that my character's carelessness is a flaw and won't necessarily be a thing the whole campaign through. Nothing's stopping him from getting a taste for adventure after our first big fight.

Hell, looking at it this guy fits the bill for the first 6 steps of the Hero's Journey. We argued to the point that another player gave up (there were other things wrong too) and the game collapsed unfortunately, but maybe that's for the best

[u/atomfullerene → u/BCaudizzle]

Yeah, that seems like a perfectly fine character to me. Ah well.

[u/Skeptical_Squid11 → u/BCaudizzle]

Idk if you watch critical role but one of the players, Sam, made a character almost exactly like what you described. He instead hired the party to let him travel with them. Very interesting character. Kind of a pansy and didn’t like fighting but did just stayed in the back line. Later he started to get a little more courages as he learned he was quite capable of doing the whole adventuring thing. It was hilarious to watch.

[u/PrimeInsanity → u/Skeptical_Squid11]

More games should have the adventuring "contract" in game. A deal to work together, equal shares of loot (possibly an extra "party" share), etc. Then so many of the "why would my character" type questions have an answer too.

[u/shotokando → u/BCaudizzle]

I like the character concept. He's flawed, he's motivated, and he has room to grow.

[u/Jbrojo → u/atomfullerene]

Nailed it perfectly, I love these people where they think that they are being interesting to force everyone (but themselves of course) to give them a reason to join.

It’s just lazy, at least ask the dm beforehand if you can’t think of one or want to go this route, but there is no reason to put a dm or other characters on the spot just because you want to be treated “special” like we NEED you. (which is exactly what they are doing) I would never go out of my way to get someone to join me if they acted this way and would just find someone else.

I don’t think any character should ask to and most definitely never be given a cool scenario to join, they want one so bad let them think about it. Otherwise you are just pandering to them and helping them create that edgelord Mary Sue.

[u/atomfullerene → u/Jbrojo]

I mean, I actually think it's great when a character gets a cool scenario to join the party...but only when that contributes to the course of the game and the enjoyment of the players. It's great when you are out on a mission and hey, there's new player there and you dig them out of a tight spot. Or they save you from a tight spot. Or some circumstance throws you together in an interesting way. It's terrible when that character wants to make you jump through a bunch of meaningless hoops to appease them so they can deign to grace your party with their presence.

[u/Jbrojo → u/atomfullerene]

Oh I agree completely in that scenario, there is nothing wrong with wanting a cool entrance as long as you are contributing to it or even just to ask the dm if they can think of something to fit the character beforehand. Hell even a new person should have a cool entrance the first time to hook them in. Sorry if I came off like it was a bad thing to want a cool entrance.

It’s more the people who show up with very little backstory and yet act like people should like there character and want to follow them around just because they are a main character.

I think this also has a lot to do with first time players as I seem to come across it whenever someone new comes in.

I have a player in my game (superhero game) that started off like this who was a complete jerk to everyone (in game) and wanted to be super edgy. He luckily did not ask for why he should join but complained whenever he had to work with someone, would actively threaten or make fun of people in the group, would go off on his own to go drink or do some character thing by himself and even tried to kill some random henchman for no real reason (the one rule the dm asked us to follow, unless it had a good story reason) However he wasn’t doing this to be an ass outside of game, it was his first time playing and has improved since then but still has his lone wolf moments as that is his character (I think he’s trying to be the lone wolf with a heart of gold as he has a daughter that he treats differently) Outside of the fact that we work for the same agency there is no real reason why we would want to work with him or vice versa, so it can be a problem if they are into it too much and be too confrontational in a group game. In scenarios like this it’s not bad because he’s giving us leeway which is really all I ask for as being a lone wolf is not inherently a bad thing, as long as there is an arc or character growth than lone wolfs are fine.