What Makes a Good D&D Character?

[Music] hello i'm antonio domico this is pointy hat and welcome to d d with a twi nope we're switching it up welcome to tip of the hat that's right we're doing a new series here on the chanel to keep you on your gross little toes tip of the hat is the series where i just give d d advice i pick a common issue i think people generally need help with or just whatever i feel like and then i talk about it and at the end i give you some tips on how to solve this issue i know i know it's a very new concept for dnd youtube nobody has ever really tried this before but what can i say i'm just daring and spontaneous like that please do use the word revolutionary when describing me in the comments below thank you so yes i know there's a lot of content like this on youtube but that's not gonna twist it i really think that what i'm gonna say can be useful to both wide-eyed newbies to the hobby and grizzle veterans on their 148th character so wherever you might fall i think you can find something of value here also you know me by now and you know that there's a little free goodie awaiting you at the end of the video so you know look forward to that don't worry d d with a twist isn't going anywhere check out my other videos are so healthy god i just want to diversify the type of content i bring to the table you can't have salad every single day of your life sometimes you crave something different something new something unexpected so first things first exactly who do i think i am to be giving the illustrious youtube people advice well i don't mean to brag or anything but i do know how to count up to 12 and i can spell a little bit so i assure you i'm more than qualified and yes i might not be matthew mercer or matthew colville or matthew matthew hell i might not even be a real matthew but i do have thoughts sometimes and my hair is just as pretty as there so my opinions are valid after all all those years of playing and dming d d must have surely taught me plenty of valuable skills that i could use both at and out of the table right right so with that out of the way let's get into it this is tip of the hat and today we're looking at how to make a good d d character we'll be talking about some examples of what not to do and then we'll go over my own copyrighted patented do not steal method of coming up with characters let's go experts agree that making a dnd character is kind of important in getting to play d d before we get into the nitty gritty of the advice section i would like to talk about what i see as the most common errors that people make when making characters because this is youtube i've ordered this in an internet friendly numbered list see mom i'm a real youtuber now so let's go over some common mistakes the most common pit traps making you but cooler i truly believe this is something that every single person playing dnd does when starting out maybe not every single person but most people your weird friend that doesn't get out much and looks like they would combust in the sun if they ever did tells you that you're gonna be playing in this dragon game and that you can make any character you could think of and you make yourself you make yourself i know for me it wasn't conscious i just ended up realizing i did exactly this for my first time playing after making a bunch of other characters you take the qualities you see in yourself that you like crank them up to 11 throw in some pointy ears pass it through a bunch of anime filters make them look between 20 to 80 percent hotter and that is the baseline for your first d d character baby are you a shy introvert who has a hard time talking with people well elfina wins something the elf druid is a beautiful wallflower raced in a cottage court forest by the fae that doesn't understand the world outside of the tree line but she's actually super powerful if she gets mad and turns into a white wolf or whatever do you have an encyclopedic knowledge of fandom and were called gifted when you were younger at school but not anymore well a human man venoble name is a 500 iq wizard that understands rick and morty and excelled in wizard magic school even though his teachers didn't understand him and now he's looking into a way to become immortal to defeat his father the dark lord wizard you get it you've seen these you've probably made these i know i have when i was starting out this is a safe space you're safe here also sidenote here but something i've noticed is that these characters have like a 70 chance of being either half elves elves or t flings the iron grip that half elf has on this specific type of character is terrifying if you ever took a writing class or watch too many media analysis youtube you probably gave them a flaw notice the quotation marks there this flaw is probably something that is technically a flaw but allows you to roleplay them as still cool and badass like doesn't trust others or is too kind and trusting now is this bad no this is honestly a hundred percent fine self inserts are completely okay i firmly believe that this is something that most people want to do when starting out in d d d d is awkward and emotional and personal you want to start somewhere that feels safe and like home and these characters are just that but after playing this kind of guy for a while you might realize that this character wasn't particularly dynamic or you might want to actually role play and play someone that isn't a heightened version of yourself and if so this video is for you but continuing down we have two making an existing character this is a less prevalent but still common option for baby's first d d character you pick a character you like re-skin it a bit give them horns pointy ears a sword here and there and done you have a brand new original character do not steal if you love your kneecaps this one is fine it's fine nobody's getting hurt by you playing an existing character in your home game no matter what people online want to pretend but it's a shame not to create something of your own i think that this could make for a great starting point but it's just that a starting point think about what you like about that existing character and what you can twist and change to make it your own otherwise it's just cosplay without the effort or the cool pictures or the weird harassment you can do better three making a character that is not suited for d d we finally leave the it's fine section to get into the don't do this section i've seen many new not so new players fall right into this and this one can actually upset the table so listen up you make a character and you give them some character traits that would work perfectly in a tv show or a movie but are just awful at the table i see this most often when shy people make shy characters or anger issue weirdos make extremely angry and aggressive characters or when edge lords make i work alone batman types there is a literal meme about that last one the whole don't play batman thing and i'll leave it to other youtubers to make the playing badmad is okay actually video because i don't agree i hate when people play batman don't do it d d is a social game 99 of what your character does is talk and interact with others whether those are npcs or other pcs at the table when you make a character that is actively awful at talking to others you ensure that you either spend your time doing absolutely nothing outside of combat which is a great way to bore yourself to death and hate the game or worse you force the party to come up with excuses as to why on earth they would be working with a guy like your character in the first place seeing as all they do is either mope in a corner making rude comments not engaging with them whatsoever or actively going alone to do something the party doesn't want to do or some other flavor of awful can characters with these traits be played successfully absolutely but do i believe that it's pretty hard to do and it requires a good chunk of experience at the table and an understanding of how to play these traits without making it the dm or the other player's problem yes absolutely too that being said moving on to the final pitfall we have number four making a character not suited for the campaign this one is the trickiest and i've seen experienced players fall into this you have this amazing idea for a character that has been bouncing around in your head for ages you're so excited to finally get to play them your friend tells you that they want to run a campaign this is your chance right except that character concept is a big beefcake that likes to solve all issues by smashing and your dm wants to run a combat light political drama center around high stakes role play and the occasional heist these two things don't go together there are countless other examples your dm tells you that they are running a campaign that takes place exclusively in one city and your character's motivation is to find their mom who was kidnapped all the way on the other side of the map your dm and the party are running a high combat dungeon crawl where optimization is king and you made a roleplay-centered character that can't pull their own weight in combat these are all flavors of the same problem you made the wrong character for the game you're playing this is why you should always ask what the campaign is about before starting to make a character and you should check with the dm as you're building to see if the character you're making suits the campaign i've seen some advice about how it's on the dm to accommodate all possible characters in the same campaign no matter how different and i disagree i disagree so hard on this i just don't see how the dm can set up a world to play a cohesive story if all players are pulling in wildly different directions if a player wants high-stakes politics all the time and the other ones dungeon crawl all the time and the third one wants romance and drama all the time you just have four unhappy people sitting around a table and i already get enough of that at christmas when i start a campaign i tell the players the toad of the story what the general gist of the game is gonna be and i asked them to bring me several character ideas so we can workshop something that suits the campaign together i've seen this actually break and paint make people really unhappy and it's just not fun so beware but we'll get into how to make a campaign some other time okay i think those are four solid cases of what not to do but what kind of video would this be if it was just negative examples 2010's buzzfeed no we've looked at what not to do when making characters now let's talk about what to do so you want to make a good d d character sugar spice and everything nice these were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl now i feel the need to preface this by saying this is what has worked very well for me and my friends in the type of game that we play i tend to favor games with a lot of roleplay and story but we don't let combat fall by the wayside i would say we have at least one combat encounter almost every session more when in a dungeon or similar and my personal rule when i'm dming to satisfy the combat gremlins at my table is no two sessions in a row without combat unless it's absolutely necessary for the story or the players actively tell me they would rather do something else this is just advice you can take it or you can leave it yada yada yada i know some of the comments will find a way to be mad regardless or whatever you do not tell me what to do let's go i'm also assuming that before getting into all of this you're not making a character that is actively insufferable to play with at the table remember like we said before making a character that is bad at talking or just hates talking in general is a bad idea for people starting out or hell i would say for most people i'm also assuming you've talked with your dm and you're making a character that is well suited to the campaign you're about to play cool cool so to me there are three pillars in character creation that allow you to make a cool dynamic character that has a clear presence in the adventuring party to illustrate these pillars i'll be making a character with y'all as we go through each pillar to see what this method gives us at the end here they are blank baby there it is i haven't given them a name yet we'll see what we come up with on to the first pillar which is number one gimmick gimmick kind of has a negative connotation we think of gimmicky characters as flat characters that have well one gimmick and that's because they are if a character can be defined only with one very baseline character trait that is a gimmicky character but i happen to think that a gimmick is a fantastic starting point for a well-rounded character what a gimmick allows you to do is basically convey the most basic idea of your character instantly to the table it makes one part of your character easy to understand to the rest of the party and allows you to create someone instantly recognizable and that has a clear and defined presence in the campaign as soon as your party members meet you they'll realize that you're the funny class clown or the insecure nervous mess or the pretentious sheltered rich kid it gives your character a defining attribute as soon as they're introduced and makes them instantly memorable as a matter of fact when i play one shots i generally go for gimmicky on purpose since there's so little time to play it's more important to communicate quickly the basics of who your character is rather than go and make a character that will never have a chance to show their true colors since it would take a good four sessions to get to it the second bonus to gimmicks is that it's something you can always fall back on you have a basic thing that you can use in situations you hadn't planned for to react quickly and in character if your character's gimmick is that they are lazy you can always rely on that to know how they would react to the party deciding that they should go to the other side of the map or watch over a house all night to see who comes in and out it's a good baseline to default to when not much else is going on or you have little time to think about reaction as long as we use the gimmick as the starting point of our characters and not the end of character creation we can make a character that has a clear and defined personality that is easily conveyed to the rest of the party and that allows us to default to when role playing some cool gimmicks could be a prissy noble a lazy bum or an absolute idiot all of these are paper thin and would get very boring and very repetitive when playing them for a long time but they are fantastic starting points scallon in campaign one of critical role was horny that was his gimmick was canon a flat character was scandal on a gimmicky character no far from that but his gimmick allowed him to have a very established presence in the party and a default with which to react to many moments of role play then stanley grew beyond his gimmick to make an actual three-dimensional character so let's pick a gimmick for example character we're gonna call him ezekiel ezekiel's gimmick is that he's a compulsive liar his whole thing is that he lies to get something he wants or just for fun that's it that's our starting point but why is that his gimmick well let's get into the next pillar and find out pillar number two conflict the second pillar is conflict conflict is one of the driving forces of your character and of stories in general if your character is content with who they are and what they're doing you could have the most world-ending thread imaginable and have that character join in stopping that threat and that character will remain unchanged and not particularly compelling up to the end of the campaign if all the world's magic is being siphoned out by a god to create a new better world and steve over there is only concerned with his cows not giving as much milk as they used to steve can do all the world saving he wants he'll remain a pretty boring and static character that doesn't change much throughout the story steve needs a conflict the baby needs twinkies now my advice is that the sources of conflict should generally remain pretty personal to that character maybe your character's conflict is that they've been thrown out of their rich and noble house and have to fend for themselves now maybe someone important to them has disappeared leaving them alone in the world maybe their magical forest is slowly dying and you're playing a ranger and this is the only conflict you could think of the possibilities are endless except if you're a ranger you can even ask your dm for advice in tying your character's conflict into the main plot of the campaign to make it feel even more personal if the main plot is that a council of wizards is kidnapping people with great magical abilities to use as fuel for a war weapon your character's conflict could be that their brother was one of the people that they kidnapped and they need to save them or maybe your own character was kidnapped and escaped and now those wizards are after them conflict is also a great time to tie in your gimmick and explain why your character has that gimmick by using this method you can start to build a backstory as you do this and keep your backstory relevant instead of writing a novel length google doc to assault your dm with later that will never ever matter in the campaign ezekiel's gimmick is that he's a liar so what if his conflict is that one of his lies got him in deep trouble let's make him a con man that travels from town to town selling some sort of miracle elixir it rejuvenates your hair by penetrating the core of the follicle and repairing from within leaving your hair silky vibrant and strong or something for the first couple of years it went quite well for him but now people have started to wise up to his antics and word has spread about his lies and the authorities are after him with absolutely no money and no way to peddle more of his miracle elixir he's in deep trouble and needs to do something about it soon cool we have a conflict but what to do about it well number three want we give our character a want i'm calling this last pillar want and not goal because i believe that a character's goal stems from both their conflict and their want a character's want is well what they want i'd rather do what i want to do well what you want to do is not necessarily what you're gonna do a want is essential to create a dynamic character a dynamic character is a character that changes through the story by going through a character arc this sounds complicated but it isn't it literally means that the character starts out one way and ends the story differently in traditional storytelling the character has a want and as they go through the story they discover a need you can see this play out very clearly in most disney movies the character states their want at the beginning of the film someday abu things are gonna change we'll be rich live in a palace and never have any problems at all normally through song and then towards the end of the second act they discover their need i gotta stop pretending to be something i'm not what is actually important to them and this incites them to change want to need are related or they should be i want adventure in the great white somewhere this might seem unintuitive but when creating a dnd character do not come up with their need during character creation just their want why because one of the magic things about dnd is that the story unfolds in front of you and giving your character a need before the campaign starts means that you're robbing yourself of discovering the character's arc also you don't know what will happen during the campaign so you don't know what the character will encounter to make them change and grow as a person maybe your character is a noble and they start out wanting to become the perfect heir and win the validation of their stuffy abusive noble family but during the course of their adventure they bond with their party members and realize that there are people out there that will love them just as they are and that they don't need to change to become worthy of love they were worthy of love from the start they started with a want i want to become better so i'm worthy of being the heir to my parents and then through their adventure they found their need i need to learn how to love myself and thanks to that they had a realization that changed them i am worthy of respect and love just as i am that's a character arc baby and you get to play that and see that unfold in front of you yourself man i love d d so much so what does ezekiel's want well ezekiel is a compulsive liar con man that is dirt poor and actively fleeing the authorities looking for him for his many many scams the reason he does this is he wants the glitz the glamour the money he was born in misery and craves the security of being rich having all his needs met being surrounded by beautiful things he wants money and status that's his want he turns to adventuring to escape those looking for him and because he's heard that great adventures make beth now depending on the campaign that ezekiel plays in many things could happen maybe ezekiel gets his want and becomes rich and starts hanging out with like hem of high society and neglecting his party members that have since become his friends and he realizes that he needed companionship and love more than he needed money or maybe during his adventures he meets others like him people that were born poor he realizes that even though he is rich there are plenty out there like him that will never be rich and will suffer all their lives and that in the current system the only way to be rich is if there are others that are poor and he decides he needs to take down the system that enables this or maybe it's something else but now you've made a character that allows for things like this to happen in your game and you get to find out as you play and that's awesome okay i know i said three pillars but i'm gonna throw one final bonus one here and this one is motif the motif pillar is not a pillar at all i don't think this one is needed like the others are to make a dynamic character that changes and grows through the campaign motif is here for those that care about aesthetics as an artist something that has helped me a lot in giving a visual identity to my characters is to give them a motif a visual motif a visual motif for your character is an aesthetic through line that permeates all about your character from their appearance to their equipment to the way they use magic even a basic motif like fire will give your character a distinct visual identity and make them feel like even more of a presence in the campaign it helps you to give them an iconic look you can carry this motif into everything maybe your rapier wielding swordsmen is themed around flowers and their rapiers have a flower motif to them or maybe your magic user's motif is insects and when they cast fireball they summon a gigantic swarm of fireflies having a clear and distinct visual motif will make your character stand up so much more and it allows you to inject your character's flavor in combat also you can tie your motif to your character's personality or story for even more bonus points maybe ezekiel is a barn and his motive is gold glamour and opulence maybe his spells are all goldfein with his fireball taking the form of molten gold that splashes and burns his enemies and his magic missiles are golden coins that he infuses with magic to become projectiles he got the wizard spells at level 10 through magical secrets don't come for me i know my part if you're the type of person to drop entirely too much money on art commissions you can definitely benefit from this now your commissioned art is not some dude standing there with the most basic possible armor like he's late to picture day at school you can tell the artist what their motif is and have them use it when designing a character and there you go that is the way i make good d d characters this method has been extremely useful and has gotten me and my friends some pretty cool results so i hope it works for you if you decide to try it and you know i'm not in the business of letting you finish a video without giving you anything to send you on your way you get two free things you get a nifty google doc with a sheet where you can fill out the different pillars of your next character to help you along character creation and you get ezekiel stat block so you can use him in your games as an npc or even as an enemy or just a random bard if you need one for an encounter send the character creation dock to your players if you're a dm and you want them to follow this method or use it yourself if you're a player all of it is free you're welcome and that brings us to the end of the video starting anything new is scary so i hope you like tip of the hat i really wanted to offer some of the advice i've been cooking up after playing for so long so i thought it'd be great to do it like this also once again thank you for the insane reception to the channel every day is just insane how much and how quickly this thing is growing so thank you i don't know what to say other than that so that's it the channel is extremely new so if you could share it around to your friends or comment or like or all three if you're feeling spicy that would be amazing i would love you a lot for that oh and also subscribe i forget about that one all the time if you subscribe that'd be great too and thank you if you made it to the end of this one if you have tell me what gimmick you would have if you were a fictional character all right that's it i'll see y'all in two weeks eat a balanced diet put sunscreen on even if you don't think you need it and love you bye bye bye now [Music] you

Channel: Pointy Hat

Views: 530,292

Keywords: DnD, D&D, DnD with a twist, 5e, TTRPG, How to, Illustration, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D with a twist, d&d battle music, pointy hat, animation, rant, hat, Dragons, Dragon, D&D Tips, Tips, DM Tips, How to make a character, D&D character, D&D PC, PC, D&D advice, Advice, Character, Create Character, DM advice, DMing Advice, What makes a good D&D character

Id: LLVJrK22gVA

Length: 22min 56sec (1376 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 09 2022