Ever have trouble creating fun player characters for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, or any other RPG campaign? If so, be sure to check out the books, websites, articles, essays, and other resources described below – collections of tools and tips which players of any RPG can use to create multi-faceted characters who grow and contribute to the stories of other members of the party. Needless to say, these resources are also quite useful for Dungeon Masters, novelists, and other creative individuals involved in character-driven storytelling.
There's a common perception in Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs that "power-gaming" (making a character with a strong combination of abilities) and "roleplaying" (creating and portraying narratively interesting characters) are mutually exclusive activities. In practice, though, veteran role-players can easily create interesting characters by giving them a backstory which matches the abilities they select on their character sheet. By the same token, a fleshed-out character backstory in D&D can help novice role-players navigate the often complex array of character creation rules, letting them find and pick the classes and abilities they'll have the most fun with in-game.
Players looking for ways to make fun and mechanically sound characters should always read through the core rulebooks of D&D and other RPGs, which often have chapters devoted to explaining the art of character building and roleplaying. Some even give players notarized samples of fictional role-playing or tables for generating randomized backstories with the roll of the dice. If an official RPG publication fails to give gamers the answers they need, they can also check out the resources below, chock-full of useful advice, guidelines, and creative prompts.
The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide
The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, written by James D'Amato, is part of of a trilogy of RPG advice books which include The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide and The Ultimate RPG Game Master's World Building Guide. True to its title, The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide helps players create and roleplay nuanced characters designed to work with (but not at odds with) the other heroes of the campaign. Rather than simply exposit storytelling principles to the reader, each chapters of this guide contains activities and character-building exercises that blur the line between creative writing prompt and a choose-your-own-adventure book, asking player tough, character-defining questions like the ones listed in the photo above.
D&D Beyond
Anyone familiar with Dungeons & Dragons (or with the Critical Role tabletop livestream) has probably heard of D&D Beyond, a digital suppository of gameplay resources created by the Wizards Of The Coast company for players of D&D 5th Edition. Both the website and mobile apps let players build D&D characters using virtual character sheets, keep track of hit points and spell slots during play, roll virtual dice, reference rules from the base game, and purchase digital versions of new rulebooks. The greatest treasure of D&D Beyond, however, may well be the articles in the media section of its website, which offers advice on topics ranging from world-building and roleplaying to picking the class/ability combination which best fits a character's backstory.
World Anvil
World Anvil is a multi-faceted website with features calibrated for different kind of storytellers; for novelists, game masters, and aspiring world-builders, it offers tools to help them compose and organize chapters of fiction, lore entries, maps, artwork, and dramatis personae of supporting characters.
For Dungeons & Dragons role-players, World Anvil offers virtual character sheets compatible with a wide range of tabletop RPG systems, pages for taking notes and making journal entries, and "profile pages" that can describe the character's personality and appearance in the style of social media accounts.
Who the F*ck is my #DND character?
There's no shortage of character generators for D&D and other roleplaying games, many of which use algorithms to randomly combine different races, classes, and backstory details into new character concepts. The one-page website "whothef**kismydndcharacter.com" stands out from among the crowd of random character generators by virtue of two unique features: a clean, minimalist design, and copious use of coarse profanity. Players having trouble coming up with a new character idea in Dungeons & Dragons can simply click the page's refresh button to automatically generate interesting new race/class/narrative detail combos along these lines:
- LEVEL-HEADED HUMAN ROGUE FROM A FLOATING SHANTY TOWN WHO WAS RAISED BY GHOSTS.
- DRIVEN TIEFLING FIGHTER FROM THE RAT CATCHERS GUILD WHO ONLY SLEEPS WITH THE LIGHTS ON.
- LEVEL-HEADED HUMAN BARD FROM THE CITY SLUMS WHO IS A RECOVERING CANNIBAL.
- COMPASSIONATE HALF-ORC DRUID FROM A LAID BACK BEACH TOWN WHO LIKES TO SETTLE ARGUMENTS WITH AN ARM WRESTLE.