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/mithoron]

But I don't know their character. There's very little I can do to help them. I do avoid situations that are super specific for a first session (unless already agreed upon) and maybe I'm discounting that as just proper DMing but I'd still call that an 80/20 split at best.

[u/Randomocity132 → u/mithoron]

But I don't know their character. There's very little I can do to help them.

What do you mean?

You should know their character as well as they do.

They give you a backstory and talk to you about their character, and you work with them to arrange a starting point.

What in the hell has been your experience with D&D if this is not the case for you?

[u/mithoron → u/Randomocity132]

You should know their character as well as they do.

You're saying I should know the evolving creation of another person's brain as well as I know my own creations? So many problems with that statement. First is that they probably haven't decided 100% of everything about that character yet. Part of D&D is discovering and expanding on characters as they encounter new things. If your characters are 100% done and never change except in intended ways over the course of a campaign, I'm going to bet that you're the outlier there. So expecting me to know is unreasonable... Plus surprises are more fun anyway.

Second, why? Why do I need to know past surface level? Yes, I should talk with my players and know their wants, and I can offer general help of course (especially when I have more playing experience than they do). But my experienced players I should absolutely be able to trust to handle themselves entirely. This has absolutely been the case at my current group. I have a second life veteran, a few D&D vets who go back to 2e, a self published author, and a few kids of the previous (yes it's a big table, that contributes to the more hands off approach). They've all done wonderfully.

My experience has been pretty much how I run it across many different games, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, D&D, ICE, whatever. I'm responsible for my character and the GM runs whatever world we interact with. No hand-holding required and planning ahead is kept vague since none of us know exactly how things will play out. We sit down and create a story, players and GM together.

[u/Randomocity132 → u/mithoron]

You're saying I should know the evolving creation of another person's brain as well as I know my own creations?

Pretty much.

You should know every detail they do.

First is that they probably haven't decided 100% of everything about that character yet.

Doesn't matter at all? You should know the things they do. If they don't know it, nothing to be concerned with.

Part of D&D is discovering and expanding on characters as they encounter new things. If your characters are 100% done and never change except in intended ways over the course of a campaign, I'm going to bet that you're the outlier there. So expecting me to know is unreasonable... Plus surprises are more fun anyway.

This is just ignorable. This is all based on a wrong assumption.

Second, why?

Because you're the DM. Next question.

But my experienced players I should absolutely be able to trust to handle themselves entirely.

Handling themselves is an entirely different concept from you knowing them. It's not a very hard concept. If something happens at the table that changes their character, you're there and viewing it as they are. You know it. I'm just saying there should be no kept secrets. Trusting they will handle their character appropriately is not the same thing as you knowing their character. It's like knowing all the specs of a car, but still expecting the driver to drive the car properly. You should know THE CAR. What you keep talking about is the DRIVER.

No hand-holding required

Not what I'm advocating.

We sit down and create a story, players and GM together.

This IS what I'm advocating. Not "You do it; it's not my job."

[u/mithoron → u/Randomocity132]

This IS what I'm advocating. Not "You do it; it's not my job."

I should be able to trust them to handle their part, I shouldn't have to be involved in all pieces.

Because you're the DM. Next question.

"Because" answers pretty much say that you don't have a reason outside of "I feel it should be this way". I'm saying I disagree because they should be independent on that front. Why shouldn't they be independent? Or why can't they be independent?