How To Use Traits, Ideals, Bonds, & Flaws In Dungeons & Dragons 5e

this week's episode of our show has been sponsored by stibbles codex of companions which is now available for pre-order at the ghostfire games online store designed by our amazing friend logan at runesmith this book is jam-packed full of crazy critters to add to your games your characters can befriend these companions and follow them on their adventures so for all of you that have a party that is notorious for building up a small menagerie of adorable followers this is the perfect way to get some rules for that so that you can control the chaos that such creatures bring so you can add all of these fun and adorable little monsters to your adventuring party by pre-ordering the book using the links below stills codex is coming off the rails of a fantastically successful kickstarter campaign and is now coming up for pre-order for its eventual delivery very soon so check out that pre-order in the description below and now onto this week's episode greetings my name is monty martin and i'm kelly mclaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes welcome to our channel where we cover everything dungeons and dragons including advice for players and guides for dungeon masters we upload new videos on tuesdays and thursdays so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode now kelly and i have discussed how to role play your character and invent your character's backstory well many times on this channel before but today we wanted to dive in a little bit and discuss a peculiar set of role-playing guidelines that were introduced in dungeons and dragons 5th edition these are the personality traits bonds ideals and flaws that are attached to the various character backstories presented in 5th edition and many other 5th edition supplements backgrounds help determine who your character was before the adventure began but often times players focus on the back story elements rather than the personality traits ideals bonds and flaws which are the actionable ideas that actually create role-playing circumstances at the table your backstory is more the history of your character that you can pull on and integrate into the story in meaningful ways whereas your traits are something that is always going to be active and is something that you can reliably role play on and help to fuel the personality of your character in the adventures you go on these traits are more than just fun quirks to make your character talk in a funny voice although that's part of it they also influence the way that your character makes decisions and choices in the game and we're not talking about necessarily the decisions that your character makes in combat or why they decided to take the fireball spell over the lightning bolt spell we're talking about those really meaty character decisions and sometimes even the moral quandaries that your character may face over my years of running games of dungeons and dragons i've had many players who have written elaborate backstories for their characters but when they sat down to play the game at their table the character had the personality of a wet paper bag so by looking at personality traits ideals bonds and flaws we can create a more fleshed out character using the backstory that you created and bring your character to life in meaningful ways rather than just presenting a two-dimensional character with an interesting backstory there's a lot to discuss today so let's get rolling the personality traits are kind of the hardest one to figure out out of all of these i find because it's the biggest grab bag for your character and oftentimes you're going to want to pick maybe even two or three of these things to give yourself some notes for role play now first and foremost we should discuss what is a personality trait because discussing that helps differentiate it from all the other options a personality trait to me is a mannerism or a quirk or something that you can reliably pull on that defines the way that your character interacts with the world around them you can think of personality traits like your character's general disposition you might have a ornery old wizard who is always cranky and telling kids to get off his lawn you might be an optimistic young gnomish rogue who is always looking on the bright side of the situation or you might be more of a mercenary who is always looking out for what's in it for them this is just the general framework by which your character approaches the world and how they interact with most other people and gives you this kind of easy thing to fall back on as a default you could even use something like a habit or a hobby to influence your personality trait perhaps they have a special coin that they're always rubbing in their hands as they're making decisions or they have a collection of small rocks that they find that are interesting to them and so they're always picking up rocks and examining them as they're going on their adventure perhaps your character is a devoted member of a religion and they are always quoting from their religion's scripture maybe your character had a previous profession or is something that they're very passionate about like food or money or books and they're always talking about things in metaphors that deal with food money or books perhaps your character just has a couple sayings or catchphrases that they always utter under a specific set of circumstances like when they're going into battle or when they're agreeing to take on a new quest so then the question becomes how do you make personality traits actionable at the table and my general rule of thumb for this is that you want to pick something simple you don't want something convoluted or confusing that you need to dig really deep to pull out at the table something like catchphrases or hobbies or quirks are something that you can reliably fall back onto time and time again in any social situation in the game by making a personality trait that is easy for you to latch on to easy for you to broadcast and easy for you to role play it means that without much effort you're able to bring your character to life in a meaningful way these personality traits might become a bit of a meme or a cliche but they're actually a great way to define the framework of your character and over the course of a campaign these things are going to evolve and change and you're going to find new ways to reinvent these things that's part of the reason why people love memes because they're always evolving and changing but they're built on a template that can be readily adapted to a variety of situations as we jump into ideals these are probably the strongest core of who your character is your ideal is what your character believes as their outlook on the world ideals are things that your character believes about the world that guide their decisions and actions oftentimes characters hold their ideals very very strongly they are your convictions and your principles but they don't always have to be positive or good in nature in fact one of the great ways to think about your character's ideals are to actually connect them a little bit to your character's alignment if you're using that make sure that when you're designing the ideal for your character that you are taking a stance on something there needs to be a concept that your character cares about enough to argue that point to everybody around them this could cause some conflict within the characters or with other npcs but that can also be an interesting story element as long as your character holds true to something and believes in something you have something to latch on to for role-playing uh social situations in dungeons and dragons a great way to look at ideals to make them come to life is to simply start them with the phrase i believe x because why and oftentimes that second part of the sentence is a great thing to connect to your character's backstory for example your character's ideal might be i will always stand up for the underdog because i was bullied as a child that's a great idea it means that your character sees themselves sees their empathy in other people and how they interact with things and oftentimes that's how our own ideals and what we believe about the world develop naturally over the course of our lives things happen to us and the people that we care about and we either learn lessons in life and don't want to see those repeated for example a character might also believe very strongly that hey you always got to keep some money hanging around because i grew up in poverty and we never had enough and so your character's ideal is always about being prepared for when the bad times might come around again your ideal should be bold it should be a bold statement that is more than just a value your character might value knowledge but knowledge is not enough to make up a compelling ideal however knowledge is power and we should share knowledge to make the world a better place isn't ideal or knowledge is power and should be safeguarded so that uh people don't misuse it is another great idea your ideals could get your character into trouble perhaps one of your character's ideals is i believe in truth and i will never hold it back no matter what alternatively your character might have a very very strong belief in confidence and bravery and so they'll never back down from a fight which could get them killed when they should have ran away or kept their mouth shut so in summary a great way to make a compelling ideal for your character is to finish the statement i believe x because y and linking that y statement to your backstory and deciding how that element is actually an actionable role play that you can bring to the table in any social situation take a stance with your ideals believe in something heroes have bold beliefs speaking of heroes heroes are often going to have responsibilities and these are defined by your bonds your bonds are your call to action for adventure they are the reason that your character is not giving up on the quest that they are on bonds to find the things that your character cares about in the world but unlike an ideal which can be somewhat intangible and philosophical a bond is often something that is concrete and material a great bond is often a proper noun such as a person a place or a thing that is readily identifiable and can be readily threatened your bond could also be an obligation or a responsibility that you have to uphold it could be a quest that you were given or forced into by your family or loved ones or a group that you work for and either way you are compelled to follow this bond because it is your duty now that doesn't mean that your bond has to put your character on a set of rails towards a single quest like a laser line you do want to still make your bonds somewhat open-ended and adaptable so that the dungeon master can integrate them into the campaign and to the storyline that you might be following along with so having your bonds be things like your character's deity or your warlock patron or the wizard school that you went to or perhaps even the nation that your character grew up in or the oath that they made as a paladin these can often connect directly to your character's class in a very meaningful way and give your your character something that they are beholden to or something that they want to achieve on the other hand your bonds could also be an obligation that is hanging over your character's head like a really bad debt or that ring that they're supposed to take to a volcano to throw it in and destroy it or the oath or pilgrimage that they must complete at some point in their life your bond could also be another player character if you don't have any other options a great way to create a bond is that you are here to protect one of the other characters this is a classic example of the samwise gamgee from lord of the rings whose bond was to protect frodo he was given that bond by gandalf and he saw to it that he sought through to the end to the best of his abilities and that could be a simple enough bond to carry you through an entire campaign i made a promise mr frodo you watch over him and and in that you have a great way to start a bond you made a promise what was it who was it too why did you make that promise that's a fantastic bond to start any character with be aware that when you're creating your bond you're possibly creating a situation that will cause adversity or problems for your character during the campaign if you are bound to a family or loved one or another character them being put into danger is a great way to call your character into action you need to be okay with this idea because that is how great stories are made your character needs to care about something and when the things they care about are threatened or put into danger that is when they become heroic many players make their characters be orphans with no family or no friends and this is often to their detriment it means their character has very little that they care about in the world beyond themselves or maybe money and those could be interesting bonds but if you want to turn your character's bonds inward like that you need to make sure that those bon bons are turned so inward that they go outward that your character is so selfish and so obsessed with money that they are compelled to act and they are compelled to go on adventures so even if you want to invite invent a selfish bond for your character it should be one that causes them to reach out into the world not retreat from it now we've talked about all the ways that your character's ideals and their bonds can create problems for them but the last one is actually purpose built around the idea of creating problems for your character and that's your character's flaw and i think both kelly and i really strongly believe in this flaws are something that scares a lot of players and oftentimes i've seen many players that treat their character flaw like that job interview question when the job interviewer asks you what is your greatest flaw and players always try to turn it into a positive i encourage you to not do this i think flaws are best when they create problems or i'm not even going to call them problems let's call them interesting role play scenarios at the table interesting complications should we say complicated role-play scenarios but more and more as i examine my own flaws and the flaws i see in other people something that i've learned is that flaws are often a mirror of some of your greatest attributes for example myself i think that i am highly creative this is one of my greatest attributes i have a very active imagination this also causes anxiety because my overactive imagination creates scenarios that probably will never happen and i worry about them this is both my greatest flaw and my greatest asset something to keep in mind when designing your flaws that they could be something that ties to your personality traits ideals and bonds that have created a flaw within you consequently i am a horrible procrastinator have been my entire life but i work really well under pressure and i'm someone that can get results pretty quickly it's just that often i know that i can usually finish something so quickly so i tend to leave it to the very last minute now when we're designing flaws using these be careful about using your own personal flaws because sometimes the personal flaws that we have are very human elements but in a game of dungeons and dragons we want heroic flaws so what i recommend is if you do have a personal flaw you want to bring to the forefront dial it up a bit for the two characters that monty and i just expressed you have an anxious nervous character and a procrastinator character a character who might not make plans or might say ah we don't need a plan i'll make one up in the last moments before we get there versus a character who's like why don't we have a plan i'm not going in there with all those monsters what's the plan there is no plan it creates a really fun dynamic at the table for you to play off of now yeah a character that is really anxious and nervous might need to be constantly reassured by the other characters in the party and that can create a really fun dynamic where it's like don't worry don't worry we'll be totally fine we'll figure it out when we get there you say that every time yet the monsters ripped joe apart last game yeah but we're not gonna know what's actually in the dragon's lair until we're in the dragon's lair so there's no point in us making a plan because it's gonna change oh that makes me scared i don't know about that man it'll be totally fine we'll definitely survive and there you have it role-playing your character's flaws could be foolish and self-destructive but you do also want to counterbalance this by making sure that your character's flaws don't pull them away from adventure or create too much conflict with the other players of the table if your character's flaw is that they are kleptomaniac and you're constantly stealing from your party members that's going to create conflict in the game and so it might not create a positive or interesting compulsion so oftentimes i do find that it is worth discussing character flaws at session zero and looking out for all the ways that flaws can negatively impact the game we have found in our experience that sometimes when a character succumbs to their flaws and it causes the party to lose a combat encounter have been some of the most memorable and interesting role-playing experiences in our games of dungeons and dragons but some people may find that frustrating so we recognize that's not for everybody necessarily when you're designing your flaws you don't have to lean on things like procrastination or anxiety or nervousness you can actually go many different routes here there are many fears and phobias or vices and addictions that you can tie your character to perhaps they're a great warrior who's seen many battles and now drinks all the time to try to forget those battles and now they need to stop at every tavern along the way to have a brew before they go into adventure this could cause problems they're on a time crunch and you need to stop in the tavern for your for your drink there are a lot of different avenues that you can take with this and again it's best to be simple something that you can role play on reliably every time it comes up you don't want to pick a flaw like i have horrible existential dread and the vastness of the universe terrifies me because that's kind of hard to role play on a dime during the game you might have fun with it and you might want to add that in as a secondary flaw that could be fun to role play but something like i'm afraid of undead or i need to drink in every tavern or fire scares me are great flaws so that when the wizard casts fireball you always run away and are like oh man fireball no uh it could be really interesting to play on more relevant elements that are going to come up often in the game greed lust avarice pride all of these classic seven deadly sins make for fantastic and easy to remember and actionable flaws that will get your character into trouble these things can be addictions they can be compulsions they can be obsessions they should be vices it might be that your character will always do anything for a pretty face your character might never say no if enough gold is put in front of them your character might need to eat at every single opportunity that they see food presented to them these are simple things they are flaws and they are actionable and they will lead to interesting scenarios at the game table that might be disruptive and give your character something to play against as well your character doesn't always have to work towards overcoming their flaws so much as managing their flaws in literature there's this classic example of the tragic flaw which is often which often refers to the classic story of the king oedipus who ignores the warnings of a blind seer and relentlessly pursues a horrible truth which destroys him in the end that he killed his father and married his mother a tragic flaw like this can be kind of hard to pull off because it's actually the interplay between a character's ideals bonds and flaws that's the result of the whole story of oedipus is that he believes in the truth he is loyal to his city and his kingdom and solving the problem and yet he ignores the warnings to not pursue this path so that is a very complex interplay which it's hard to conceptualize in a tragic flaw because it's really the compound effect of everything about a character together you could take that though and the flaw could be simply i ignore warnings and facts based on what i believe yeah and and so you can get into a lot of complexity here but that level of complexity might not be necessary depending on the exact interplay and role-playing experience that you want to have at your table in summary a flaw should be something that is actionable and could get you into trouble you want to be careful about things that are going to negatively affect the entire party but you want to look for things that will cause interesting dynamics within the party there's a fine line there and falling on the more humorous and fun side is always a reliable way to go if you can have interesting interactions between the player characters at the table because of differing flaws that is going to be fun for everybody and definitely the key thing when you are coming up with flaws is don't do that job interview strategy of coming up with a non-flaw that's counterproductive to what you're actually doing when you're when you create a non-flaw you're essentially creating a personality trait or perhaps an ideal for your character you're not actually creating a real flaw and so with all of these elements your personality traits your ideal your bond and your flaw some of the key elements we're focusing on here when designing these actionable items for your character to roleplay is to first of all make them actionable make them simple enough and something that you can latch onto and reliably pull upon every time you sit down at the table convoluted and heavy deep dives into character backstory and the tragic flaws that they have that have these weaving stories that go on for hours are not necessarily the greatest thing to put in here you want one sentence simple ideas that you can use time and time again to make a more three-dimensional character and have more interesting interactions at the table keep them actionable and keep them simple and you're good to go and at the same time be open to discovering new things about your character in play people change and your character is when you're making them is just at the start of their adventure their adventure is going to affect them is going to change them is going to alter what their ideals might be might give them new bonds or change their bonds they might realize that they have a flaw that they didn't see before be open to these evolutions and write down new bullet points as they emerge if it turns out oh yeah actually my character does believe in something or this might be a flaw for them add it to your character sheet just as you would the treasure experience points and new character abilities you pick up these things will be added to the tapestry of your character across the entirety of the campaign your character is not utterly and completely fixed in place at the start of the campaign they're gonna grow they're gonna change this is just a set of starting points so this has been a look at creating compelling character traits ideals bonds and flaws in dungeons and dragons 5th edition tell us about some of your favorites that you've used in your game in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters if you enjoy the work that we do here on youtube please consider joining our community by following the links in the description below also our live play dungeons of drakenheim is coming to kickstarter we've partnered with ghostfire games to bring this campaign to life as a fifth edition module you can follow the links below to join the mailing list to be up to date on all the information surrounding this kickstarter and don't forget to check out our live play in the worlds of drakenheim which airs tuesday nights at 6pm eastern on twitch you can find all the previous episodes right up over here and we have plenty more guides for players in dungeons and dragons 5th edition right up over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we will see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 135,824

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: uBsG90wfC4M

Length: 24min 44sec (1484 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021