My Players Creating Their Characters

The funniest moment so far and one of the things that amazes me about D&D came from one of my new players. In a text message she wrote: "My person just took a turn in her personally I didn't see coming." This is from the person creating her!

Ok, on with the post:

As you may know, if you've read any of my other posts or seen a tweet or two, my campaign launch is getting close. As a relatively inexperienced player and new DM, I am not used to the character development side of the process except for the fact that I was just involved with it for the fist time as a PC this past Fall. I had no idea what I was doing then so I went back story concept first (I didn't even have a PHB yet!) and then looked at how I could possible pull that off with what was in the PHB. I found a couple options that with the help of my DM I could have pulled off. When I spoke to him, he was supportive and offered some hints but I ultimately went with a 3rd idea that I built from the PHB-out just because I thought it would be cool to be able to wildshape. So far I'm really enjoying that.

What does all that have to do with the title of this article? Now that I'm seeing it from the other side, it has been a very interesting process. There are 2 main factions that are approaching it in completely opposite ways.

The newer players... They are going on more of a whim. The Barbarian from the game I PC in who started the same time as me has decided to play a Bard. This would have really surprised me based on his general personality except for the fact that I see him wanting to do more than his Barbarian allows him to do sometimes (And he's pretty amused by Scanlan on Critical Role). His friend who is brand new went fighter to keep things free and easy. I have a feeling he will be the "loose cannon" of the group. The 3rd new player was bouncing between the Ranger she made to try the game out with her boyfriend or something new. We went back and forth a few times her asking a question or two, me asking her a few. Eventually, she settled on a Druid. I'm so happy :) Mostly because I'm a few levels ahead of her and can help her and it'll give me the chance to see one played differently. She's a bit sarcastic IRL and a lot of fun. Not a dippie hippie by any means so I doubt I'll see that stereotype played out. I'm definitely looking forward to what she'll do. (in case you're wondering I didn't go the full hippie route either even though I'm a bit of one IRL sometimes - I did have breakfast with a squirrel a few weeks ago)

The two experienced players... One, my current DM (and Druid's BF), started on a whim. He rolled up a Halfling Warlock that he was going to use in her trial adventure in case she needed an NPC for backup. As he saw what the other players were considering his non-optimal party make up sensors started firing. Although he's always wanted to play a Warlock, he started considering switching to Cleric. I assured him that I could make adjustments so, "play what you want". I'm not sure if he believed me or not. It may just the years of "there has to be a Cleric" mentality shining thru even though the Druid and Bard have access to healing. The other player went almost exactly the same way. He's was thinking either a Wood Elf Ranger or Gnome Wizard. When hearing the party so far he instantly volunteered to be a Cleric "because of party need". I offered him a hint or two about the campaign because a cleric could be really strong in it and an elf would offer interesting dynamics down the road. He was also worried about his wizard and the warlock being too redundant but I ultimately told him the same thing... "play what you want". he hasn't made up his mind yet but that's fine.

In the end I really hope they all "play what they want", something they can have fun and identify with rather than something that just filled a need. I feel that either way I can challenge them appropriately and if they decided to play a party of all wizards and I didn't adjust, it would be MY fault not theirs for making a "weird" party. It's my job to craft a good story for the party that shows up. But funny thing is, the experienced players can't seem to believe that. 

Through the whole process, it has been real interesting listening to their opinions about playing certain races or classes as boring/standard. No big surprise, they are all different.

One thing they all have in common? As far as I know not one of them has a name yet :)

-TND

Getting Close!

I've just about done it. Running my first campaign is getting close to being a reality! I have a group of 5 players that are ready to sit around and listen to my bs. A few even seem excited about it. 

I've been casually world building for a few months and that alone has already been fun and I'm really looking forward to filling in more details. (There is sooo much left to do!) A lot of what isn't done yet deals with stuff I still have to learn about the game but I'm confident that those details won't be needed from the start anyway. The ideas for this world and campaign came from a couple text adventures I improvised for other players in my game. That game where I'm a PC is real spotty so I figured there'd be room for another game and my current DM would get a chance to be a PC too.

I've had it in my mind that I wanted to start the campaign late summer/early fall and it looks like we'll hit that easily or even a little early. I'm just waiting on characters from 2 players and some names and backstories. Once I have those, I plan on running short one-offs for my players to role play out their back story a bit and introduce each to the starting circumstances of the main story. 

Here's the cliche laden :) campaign outline I sent to my new players.

Seem like a good start? 

Hopefully running a game will give me more to talk about here over the coming months
Happy Gaming
-TND