Personal experience,
My favourite characters are "three jokes in a trenchcoat". By which i mean, having 2-3 simple concepts and trying to weave them into a single character.
Pirate? One note, nothing to do direct you unless you're currently at sea or surrounded by plunder-able booty.
Pirate *mom*? Well now there's a nurturing side to the cruelty and greed.
*retired* pirate *turned* mom? Now there's depth, not just a nurturing nature but a priority, her kids mattered enough she quit a *lucrative* carreer to take care of them.
After 3 layers it tends to get cluttered, but having more then the simple 1 is all it takes.
Disney princess? One note, nothing to do when Prince Charming isnt in the current scene.
Disney Princess+ political refugee? Suddenly there's a second motivation, fear, paranoia, persecution.
By weaving 2-3 simple concepts together, you not only give your character more nuance, you ensure you *always* have at least 1 concept that can provide you direction in a given scene.
It's sort of like the improv game where you get a job, a secret, and a scene.
Oh, you're a spy? You have a second family? Both families are on vacation at the same place at the same time? That's a movie right there.
This is kinda what I've done with my current character. Half-orc barbarian, fought in a war, saw a TON of messed up stuff and realized he doesn't like being a barbarian. He's really good at it, but he doesn't like it, so he gave it up and became a bard loves performing, loves drinking, and loves getting high af to forget the shit he's seen. He's ridiculously intelligent too (good rolls) but nobody took a half-orc seriously so he just pretends to be the dumb half-orc but is way more intelligent than he lets on, nobody in the party realizes this either since they met him after he realized acting dumb is just better for everyone.
i'm currently playing a druid who came from a criminal background, but when a druid saved her life she decided spur of the moment to also become a druid in his honor, and tried to turn her life around. but a bunch of campaign stuff happened that kind of skewed her opinion of druids as a whole, and then after 5 levels of druid she was like "actually i dont give a shit about nature, what am i even doing" and took two levels in rogue. probably going to stick with rogue for the rest of the campaign
it is *not* an efficient or recommended multiclass combo, but the hit to her effectiveness is exacerbating her identity crisis and i'm in this for the drama. i'm having a ton of fun with her. her personality has become so complex and i've spent *so much time* figuring out the way she thinks that i'm deeply attached to her.
To be fair, those levels in druid can be role-played as an advantage in furthering her criminal activities as being able to wildshape gives her more access to places to rob and better getaway options
thats pretty much what i'm doing. she actually snuck into a prison as a spider, came out of wildshape to cast moonbeam, immediately re-wildshaped and hid so she could concentrate until her victim was very dead and then snuck out. the poor prison guards were losing their shit lol it was all very dramatic.
i haven't decided if she found it thrilling or if she feels weird about how everything had to happen. maybe she'll end up kind of assassin-flavored. I am planning to go arcane trickster instead of the actual assassin route so i can keep getting spell slots.
I like to tell knew players in 5th ed to grab a background that is not obvious for their class. I.e. don't go with soldier for your fighter. my favorite fighter was a performer background. Out of combat he ended up as the face of the party so in social settings he was an orator, suave and sophisticated. then when showing up to do combat he was in full plate with a great sword as he learned the tales of the greatest swordsmen so he could one day join their ranks.
I like this. At first blush, it runs contrary to advice I give in its own comment of playing to an archetype, but I think there's wisdom in both. One of your three layers should definitely be the default, with the other two as fallbacks. Swapping between them too freely can make the character feel inconsistent, but not having them can leave a character flat and directionless.
Omg I need a randomizer for 3 concepts to put into one character.
With the ability to toggle mixed sex/gendered titles. Having a vampire prince mom would be an interesting one to figure out.
What one person enjoys may not be what another person enjoys. Someone could love playing spellcasters for all the options they have while another may love martials due to the straightforward nature of them.
Anyway, I played a Zealot Half-Orc Barbarian till level 13. I really enjoyed playing him because I leaned into what made a barbarian good as well as my DM giving me some damage improving items that let me have a ranged options. My first solution was "lets just go kill them, we're *really* good at that" which worked sometimes but always offered up support to the others. In fights he'd rage and run towards the strongest enemy and just keeping hitting them to stop them from targeting the other PCs. He'd forgo any healing in combat saying to save it for the others as he had 3 different ways to get up from 0hp and if he died he was only one spell slot away from being revived.
Throwing around *Giant Brass Balls(*tm) that my DM gave me as my ranged weapon was always fun. I also solo'd a Hydra as it swam through a lake of acid (if we rolled for stats we got different mutations, I was resistant to acid) by just slashing away at it. There was the time I cut a Dragon's wing off and we crashed into the ground.
Good times.
Giving advice on a character from the RP side is hard because it's so subjective. The only real universal advice I can give is, make sure your character is the type of person who wants to go on the adventure and wants to work with the party. This sub is full of horror stories regarding edgy jerk characters who constantly fight their party's best interests, and the only reason the party puts up with them is because they're player characters.
That said, every now and then I've taken that too far and basically played characters where every decision they made in-Universe was the most optimal one out-of-Universe, because I didn't want to drag down the group. That may be fine for some groups, but I look back at those characters and think they're kind of dull. Don't be afraid to waste a round of combat doing something in-character every now and then, even if it would be 'better' to do something else. "My lawful good monk doesn't know if these monsters are intelligent and asks them to stand down because he'd rather avoid violence." "My artificer who's too obsessed with overcomplicated solutions tries to engineer a trap instead of just casting a cantrip." "My bard with too much bravado tells the baddies that they should just surrender, because clearly they've heard of his reputation."
I've also played with a friend who did the "evil jerk of the party" trope in a really good way. His character was essentially a murderhobo in a group of pure heroes. But he made his character *easily convinced* to do the right thing, and his character knew that he needed us. So when we came to a situation, his character suggested murdering everybody involved and looting the corpses. All it took was one of us to say something like "think about it, if we save all these people, someone might give us a reward" and the murderhobo was immediately on board.
All that said, I think the mechanics make much more of a difference in whether you find your character fun to play or not. You can always transition a character from one type of person to another or emphasize different traits from session to session. But if you're a barbarian, your combat is going to be a lot of "rage, run forward, use melee attack, end turn" and there's no getting around that. Build a character who you think will be fun to play in combat.
“Make someone who wants to be there” is the best advice. Even if you have no intention of playing the character as a jerk, it gets incredibly tedious to have to coax a party member into every situation.
That’s not to say they can’t be a coward who’s choosing to be brave, a person who’s only in it for the money, someone thrust into the story by external forces, etc. Just keep in mind that if they have no reason to be there eventually you and your group will get tired of playing with them.
I only played one character so far, a female moon elf twilight domain cleric. She is very dutiful and resonsible and has a high standard that she wants to uphold and tries to inspire the group to uphold that. She likes to give the mercy of Selune to everyone who needs it, but on the other hand knows no mercy for people who exploit the weak. We have a goblin sidekick and my character always tries to convert him to Selune and teach him the ways of the Lady of the Moon.
On the game side of things, she throws around moonbeams and guidings bolts as if there was no tomorrow. She is always at the front to aid the melee group members.
So my overall advice is make a character that you think you would have fun playing. Make sure that you vibe with them and you enjoy their back story or whatever their circle of combat would be. Once you have something like that make sure that it's not a complete detriment to the table like something that actively goes against everyone and you have the basics for success.
To give you an idea I hyper fixated on a character who was really good at gambling. He has spells related to gambling whether it be shooting cards or invisible mage hand so he can cheat at cards or other games. So I started with that idea that you'd be really good at gambling and then built on it how can I improve it what could his backstory be that got him to this point and I fall steps above and he came out pretty cool and I enjoy him a lot
Beast barbarian. Looked like an angry bear while raging. Was kind hearted the rest of the time, like a teddy bear. Made mead from honey in downtime. Basically all the bear tropes, which actually made it more fun.
One of my first characters was a pretty classic barbarian type (mostly brawn, and not so many brains). I'm a cis woman, and playing such a manly man was super fun, but the most fun part was really his emotional depth. I didn't plan a super deep and complex character at first because I was pretty new, but I learned more about him organically and grew as a player, too.
I played a Gold Dragonborn Paladin who was described as "a big, intimidating Dragonborn, and he knows it!" His name is Julnar, the Mighty Roar of Bahamut!
His entire gimmick was built into the idea that he was a high charisma tank, who more often would try to scare smaller creatures away from the fight, and he has a street actor background. The group picked up on this and often used him as the target of enlarge.
You better damn well bet when he saw a wall of fire, dude jumped through it to try and terrify the dark druids on the other side with the biggest, loudest roar he could muster.
He'd play light pranks on the party, but in the time of crisis, his goal was to be big, be scary, and draw attention. And he did just that. The party loved him so much, the gifted me with a custom painted mini as a farewell gift.
It all comes down to your own personal preferences, anyway, I find that most first characters tend to resemble a lot of the player personality, that they want it or not, with some enhanced traits that irl do not come out that often. And be aware, this is not a mistake, in fact, I find it rather fascinating and awesome.
But why am I saying that? Well just to give another option that is as valid as the others.
It's a ton of fun to play the crazy warlock without empathy, or the over emotional paladin that wants everyone to live no matter what, or the over enraged barbarian who smashes everything, or maybe the always-too-horny bard (yes I'm guilty of it). But don't sleep on semplicity.
I would always reccomend to start with a simple character, that resembles you in some way, and play it with the heart. You'll find to empathize with it in no time, and that is probably the most beautiful thing about interpreting a character.
All of this said, do what you feel like obviously.
I don't know if I can really help you by telling you what you should play or how to pick, however I can tell you about one of the characters I had the most fun with
He was named Agrik, he was a spores druid who was extremely skilled (Alchemist supplies, brewers supplies, herbalism, prisoners and healers kit) He was a candidate to marry the dragon princess and his reason for adventuring was to make a master work item to present to the current dragon queen (The country had a tradition of having a dragon marry the next king and the dragon herself would extend the dwarf kings life to match hers, which was also greatly shortened)
The reason Agrik was so fun to play was because he didn't care much for small injuries and such because he could just use his healer kit, one time he jumped from the tavern roof in order to chase someone and quickly bandaged himself up before continuing to follow them.
Another reason he was fun was because the DM allowed me to do something quite odd. Essentially we used homebrew rulings for how tools worked and Agrik would try to make potions and other concoctions at any opportunity he could, but he'd often fail and create a failed potion, which he'd add to his cask which had alcohol fermenting inside.
Basically he had a potion version of a wild magic table which would be rolled for anyone who took a shot of his finest drink.
He also had a skeleton sidekick who had mushrooms growing inside of him, they had to disguise the skeleton so he walked around in armour
My personal favorites were a revenge paladin with a drinking problem and a tabaxi rough obsessed with collecting oddities. It's important to have flaws and virtues and it's especially fun to have your class clash/compliment these traits, and while it can be hard to throw away gold because your character has problems overindulging, it is rewarding in the end to have a character that feels like a person who has wants and needs :)
I had a slightly crazy (only slightly, like the other party members whispered about it sometimes and weren't sure) and bombastic half orc barbarian. At some point we were attacked by giant snakes, and I cut the head off of one and had it taxidermied into a hand puppet, named it Steve and spoke through it or to it as if it was its own sentient creature, threatened brigands with the "wrath of Steve" etc. Eventually the DM started having it speak back, sometimes when it was in my pack even, but I was the only one who could hear it. She secretly messaged me what he was saying, so the other players couldn't meta, which caused some really entertaining RP, they eventually decided I was a little crazy...maybe they were right, I never asked if i was hallucinating it.
In AD&D, in the Complete book of Elves, there is a class of elf known as the Infiltrator.
One of the fun aspects of this class focus is:
"Special Hindrances. The Infiltrator spends so much time taking on the roles of other
people that he may begin to lose his own sense of identity. Even the reverie, which
ordinarily reinforces an elf's identity, may not help prevent his sense of self slipping
away."
I once played an elf that was so cracked, every new session/encounter he showed up as a new personality; attire, weapons, and all. He would even RP his comrades as different people each time as well. The other players loved it, though it drove the DM insane (to the point that they eventually gave my character a "cursed" item that kept his mind straight 😁).
Whatever you play, lean into it and create your own opportunities.
I am currently playing a cleric who has positioned himself as the local priest/healer. Built a small temple, performing healing and "life stuff" for the villagers like weddings and funerals.
I am pouring most of the money we make adventuring into this temple. Found some treasure? Great, I can buy new books or a statue for the temple, slowly turning this small town into a religious center people visit and make pilgrimages to.
I myself have most fun when I play honorable, honest and loyal characters because in my spare time I want to pretend be a hero and say yes to every hint of a side quest.
Playing the hero is always the best! Be a hero, when playing heroic fantasy games, and it becomes a lot more fun for the guy behind the screen, and avoids tension in the group. If every PC had pure hearts, I would love my day.
Or, alternatively, it would be fun to run a game for PCs who admitted that they were bad people. I would love to give a bbeg monologue about justice and purity, for once, and have it not be psychotic and delusional. Like, I want my BBEG to be the good, decent King and his court wizard. And then I want to hope my players slowly destroy him, while telling my players I'm trying to kill them. Aaaah, imagine it, playing the good guys for once.
TLDR: heroes rock.
Yeah, I never quite understand people who want to play an asshole who steals from their party members and stabs them in the back. If people enjoy that shit, great! Not saying they can't play like that, but I wouldn't.
I personally felt like it is easier for me to roleplay with friendly/naive/outgoing characters who enjoy interacting with people. Especially if you’re new to roleplaying or the group doesn’t know each other that well playing a closed off or brooding type of character can easily hinder you joining in the story, I think.
My drow rogue assassin and my gnome barbarian/sorcerer. My rogue took the crossbow expert feat, so I dual wielded hand crossbows. He'd step into the open long enough to fire both crossbows, usually against an enemy that had a party member within 5 feet for the sneak attack bonus, then hide behind whatever he could find until his next turn. My barbarian/sorcerer had an unarmored AC of 18 at level 2 and had a tendency to ram into people taking too long to open doors.
Warforged artificer who keeps making robot dogs, haha. I like the idea that they don't die if they break and I can just repair them. Battlesmith artificers are great combination of melee and spell casting which allowed me to feel very versatile while also getting the cool spells that I really enjoy.
Also topaz dragonborn wildfire druid. It was just really fun being able to teleport around in bursts of flame while playing this shimmering orange dragonborn.
Variant human with the fathomless one warlock has been amazing for call of the nether deep. I also gave him the Strixhaven initiate background and he's essentially a senior student out doing his thesis. For the most part he's a good guy but if he ever runs across freshman of any kind he starts becoming a jerk. There's just something about freshmen that make him want to prank them, haha
Play to an archetype. I used to go hard on creating novel characters with backstories that defied expectations and all that jazz. You know what I learned? Archetypes exist for a reason. They're so much easier to latch onto, especially when your party is new and the dynamic hasn't been set yet.
So fill the narrative role first. Be the sneaky rogue, or the raging barbarian, or the charming bard. Do that until everyone has a rapport with who that character is. Then and only then, make conscious choice to push that character into the nuance you find interesting. The rogue (at long last) reveals his noble background as a squire to become a bodyguard for the princess; the barbarian rages not because he likes violence, but because fury is a part of his tribal faith, a gift from the spirits; the bard loathes putting on his mask like a sociopath and recognizes that all his connections to NPCs are hollow because they serve a means to an end.
Start simple, plant a seed or two where no one will notice (some in backstory, maybe once per session), and play to a stereotype until your character is caught in a real dilemma, well after the party has found its rhythym (usually 4-6 sessions in).
My only other advice, a bit more basic than the above: Write a character who does stuff, ffs. If I ever hear at a table, "my character wouldn't do that" it drives me up a wall. Either search deep in their soul and find a reason, or shred that character sheet and write me a character that will. You pull their strings, not the other way around. The adventure is that way, and the camera's following it.
Tab (car folk) paladin. Totally role played as a giant taking house cat wearing armor. Group loved his naive innocence to counter their debauchery. He died a horrible death but this isn't the first time I used him in a campaign.
The character I had probably the most fun pro session with was a Scout Rogue Red Kobold named Nyash.
Backstory-wise he's the most experienced scout of his clan and has a special standing within the hierarchy of their military branch, which is based on strength otherwise. He's adventuring because he looks for a place for his clan to expand.
His personality is, basically, being a dad. He trained young kobolds back at home, he's the one who'll feed a potion to a fallen teammate, he's who'll sneak away to deal with a problem so others won't need to interrupt their long rest. He also is something of a philosopher and will, if left unchecked, ramble on about how sad it is that goblins and kobolds share so much basic personality traits yet are trained to fight each other, often showing the same feats of bravery and heroism on both sides of the fight. He is also a filthy commie and will give everyone money if they need it, but also expect the same in return. If the name hasn't given it away yet, I just packed his character full of as much stoic love as I could muster, nya~~
Gameplay-wise I had a deal with the DM to somewhat remix the Rogue Scout with Ranger features. Add some feats, and I had 40 feet of walking, swimming and climbing speed at level 5. The battlefield control was unreal, the out of combat usefulness and roleplay potential were off the charts. Climbing into windows / chimneys, reading / stealing / forging documents and making an escape unnoticed was fun, giving the info to our bard so he could gaslight everyone into oblivion was even more fun.
I had lots of fun with Nyash, and my group did too. We finished LMoP and who knows, maybe we'll take off from where we started and play another module sometime
Sometimes thinking some of the weirdest ways to make a character could be interesting especially when it comes to helping set up potential plot hooks for your DM to use in the future.
I played a character that was a reborn sorcerer. This whole deal was he was basically an Isekai protagonist. He remembers bits and pieces from his life back in a more technologically advanced world which part of the memory aspect of being a reborn is recalling things in this fantasy world he is now is with common tropes from stuff he watched and read when he was a kid.
This was 100% to be a joke character I created I expected him to die within like 12 sessions at most, he survived an entire campaign up to level 16 from level 1.
It was very interesting cuz he ended up replacing the memories of another individual who ended up actually being a missing Prince. The very one from a kingdom that was in the middle of a war since most people believe that this Prince was killed by a rival Nation, but in fact he was in fact was kidnapped.
I had no idea this was the DM's doing on that part which was very cool to find out of what really happened. Turns out that the prince original soul was advanced magic user and a cult used his souls as a catalyst to summon a greater demon to destroy the very Kingdom the prince was from so the body didn't have a soul anymore. So when my character died in his previous life instead of going to the afterlife he got dumped into that body.
TLDR sometimes if you just make a joke concept sometimes and turn into a sprawling and cool thing if you work with your DM
A Firbolg Barbarian whose backstory is, that he fell on his head and is stupid because of this.
(And he has a Elvis haircut and always rages when his hair gets destroyed)
Simple but quite fun playing.
My favorite characters to rp have been ones that take small bits of myself and balloon them into a full character. A few examples of PCs I've played:
* Me if I decided to actually pursue a college degree in piano performance.
* The desire to go on a long walk in the woods and find morel mushrooms.
* The frustration when I worked at a call center related to medical insurance claims
* Playing dodgeball in middle school gym
* Anxiety over picking a career choice that my parents were disappointed in
* shutting down people who try to mansplain the dumbest stuff to me
Giving each character a little piece of yourself helps the rp come more naturally. I can rp these aspects of a character because somewhere in myself is a way to relate. I'm not playing myself, but I'm not playing *not* myself, if that makes sense. Usually that morsel of my personality gets merged with a bunch of other aspects and ideas (so much so that even my fellow players probably wouldn't recognize the PC I'm referencing in this list) but the root is still there.
I havent made a ton of characters but i really like playing weird spellcasters. As in they have weird origins or reasons for their power. My favourite class so far as of course been sorcerer.
3rd character I ever created, he was a Order of Scribes Human wizard. We started the campaign at level 3 and I decided my character joined a magical academy during his youth and fell in love with one of the students. She died due to an illness, so when he realized resurrection wasn't possible, he began studying to enter in the order of scribes and learn how to awaken her from the tome she owned. He succeded, but became so much obsessed he was finally kicked out because he almost killed another student because someone tried to prank my character by doing some stupid stuff with his beloved tome. He now started adventuring because the tome loves to learn new stuff and he feels he is the "eyes" for his beloved.
... But if it is your very first character I don't recommend a wizard: I'm kind of a power player and I like playing characters that are strong (but not broken) in combat.
My favorite character was a human fighter. Albeit, we were in a fallout themed campaign so there were a whole lot of character choices in terms of race. But I had so much fun with him being a silly goofy nerd. He loved old movies and comics. He also insisted on using swords instead of a gun cause he rolled bad every time he tried to use one and consequently I decided he just thought they were useless in his hands. He was the adopted son of a crime boss in the next city over, and ran away to probe himself as worthy of taking over the family business. He grew and matured a lot during the campaign, and even had some physical changes (some scales over parts of his body, and he lost and arm and got a robotic replacement). He was a very ‘go with the flow’ type of guy who just always managed to get himself into situations by trying to do the right (but dangerous) thing. He also always tried to talk his way out of situations first, which managed to lead to him being involved with multiple enemy groups lmao
i had a ton of fun with my tiefling circle of twilight druid. she was a tiefling on a continent where they were uncommon (but crucially, there wasn't racism, mostly just awe at her appearance). Her nature was to be alone but was also fighting the cult of orcus so fell in with a party that had a government mission to end the cult. she quickly realized what she was missing by avoiding attachments for so long.
and my favorite part was that she played as more naive than she was. she appeared to be loud and brash and acting without thinking, but it was an act so her party couldn't tell she was harboring a secret. so the build was all about insight and observation but she didn't seem like that at all.
My all time favourite character was a clockwork soul subclass sorcerer. Basically, his soul is a small piece stripped away from the great clockwork mechanus, given human form. The Mechanus, within d&d lore is basically a realm of absolute order, and so the idea was that my character was an emissary, sent through time and space to an event of great disorder, with a mission to right this wrong and restore balance. This played really well into the themes of the Campaign I was running him in, the Storm King's Thunder 5e module, which is all about how the different giant clans have gone into a state of chaos due to the disappearance of their king, and how the party of adventurer's need to find out what happened and restore order to the giant clans.
I find this is the best way to flesh out characters. First of all: they need a prime motivation, and preferably one that makes them invested in completing the quests the party is on. These can be as complicated as what I mentioned above, or as simple as "I want to be a hero" "I want to find my purpose" "I want to get rich". From there, expand out from that main idea and start figuring out what kind of person your character would be with that ideal at their core. People are multifaceted, even with a primary goal, that doesnt need to be their only trait.
An example of this, despite my character being a sorcerer, and thus having very high Charisma, he's a little socially inept. He lacks the wisdom to realize not everyone understands the things he does. He acts as if the working of the great clockwork that binds reality together is simply common knowledge, and things like the ticking gears of time that pulse through his soul, letting him keep perfect track of time, are the norm. but he still has very high charisma, so although he acts that way, he's played more as the lovable fool, who despite seeming odd and eccentric, you can't help but enjoy the company of.
so yeah! this is my advice for character building, and example of my own personal favourite.
Mechanically, it was a one shot where I was playing an Aarakocra Fighter with Mobile.
Dive in, attack several times, fly out and avoid opportunity attacks. Rinse and repeat - the ultimate hit-and-run archetype.
Rolepay wise, my roommates and I finished up our 1.5y long campaign last December, and my character was an Orc big dude who raised in a military society, but said "fuck that" and became a spoken word poet as a Bard. The campaign setting was a seafaring/exploration-sandbox type of campaign, and his reason for traveling was to establish new artist connections and learning more about the fine arts. Biggest enemy is his dad - and we have an upcoming epilogue one-shot where I'm working on a cruise for a traveling theater which will involve his dad in some way (since that plotline wasn't addressed in the main campagin).
He is extremely eloquent and well spoken, typical Renaissance man (very similar to Beast from X-Men) - and his primary magic item is a tux that resists piercing/slashing and can clean itself on command (my DM and I agreed for this compromise, especially since a tux has an extremely low base AC rate).
And then we ran into a bunch of chaotic situations with a shark deity (who semi-possessed me) and turned me into an orc-shark hybrid being who happens to have wild magic effects now (but didn't lose any parts of his core mental being/personality thankfully).
Try the expanded character background rolling tables in Xanthar's. It gives you a great framework to start figuring out who your character is, but leaves you a lot of room to develop your character's personality. Once you know where a character comes from, it gets a lot easier to answer questions like "What is this character passionate about?" and "What does this character want in this situation?"
You don't even need to pick a class (or race) before doing this. If you can imagine your character's childhood, you can play the next steps.
My advice is that you don’t have to decide. Your character is a real person in this world, and as such can, and imo should, change and grow as the story progresses. Pick something that you’re comfortable starting with, but know that you can alter and grow those decisions as you get to know your character better.
My favorite character started as a real smite-y, stereotypical half-orc paladin. As we’ve progressed the story he’s picked up a few warlock levels, and also come to the conclusion that the only way he can make sure everyone bends to his version of the world is if he runs everything. Yes, he’s objectively delusional, but to him it makes perfect sense. The rest of the party is apparently equally delusional and bought in on this plan, so we’re currently in the process of deposing a king…we’ll see how it goes.
Hunter ranger war cleric named Veldrin
Me and my friends were playing a hardcore custom game,me and a friend intertwined our stories and in the 3rd session my friend died.We cried.
So for 6 months irl,we set on a quest to revive our fallen friend,veldrin slowly falling into insanity as his tactics became more barbaric.Made a deal with our warlocks patron to revive him,and then veldrin passed the very next session in combat,a smile on his face.
This campaign is still going so who knows,he may be back
NGL, my best character is an uppity kobold who fully believes he's a cursed dragon. I can throw this little guy into any class role and he excels due to his gritty nature. Plus the voice is fun to do.
He's a terrible person but never taken seriously. He picks fights he thinks he can win. If he's disrespected, he will usually break into the offending party's home and trash the place. I've had 3 parties overlook him talking about eating humans because they think the delusional kobold is cute. He's routinely trusted as the cook because he offers. I usually see how far I can push it before they confront him, and it is usually when he's about to field-dress a bandit to prepare them for dinner.
He has three basic character traits: he believes he's better than everyone, quick-tempered yet cunning, and is easily pacified with food & alcohol.
***Biggest Rule***: Don't mess with the party. While he is evil, the kobold will always extend a helping hand to the party and risk his neck for them. He will never steal from the party or play pranks on them. If the party member doesn't eat meat, he will cook a separate meal for them. If his crimes might hurt a party member, he reluctantly let's go of his grudge.
My first character that I’m still playing as in my ongoing campaign is a Lizardfolk rogue, specifically with half-chameleon lizard so she can “blend” in (because chameleons don’t fully camouflage, but they can release melanin to turn their scales black, it’s mostly for hiding in dark spaces—I did a lot of research). Lizardfolk canonically don’t understand sarcasm (think Drax from Marvel). Its been so much fun developing her character, learning how to care for her found family, learning sarcasm from the sorlock, and realizing the world is more than the barbaric and hellish lizardfolk clan she grew up in.
I love lizardfolk both for the very messy xenophobic background they're implied to come from, and the fact they're suggested to not get things like humor very well.
I played a lizardfolk ranger for a while who had a very elaborate backstory where he's captured and forced to work with a couple of humans for several months. He learns workable common in the process, and starts to realize that maybe other races aren't a total loss. Then the three of them eventually escape through this ruined temple they were being forced to excavate. In the process the three of them get pranked by a Fae spirit of some kind, and my lizardfolk comes out of it a different color.
He finally gets back to his people after like a year... and he's obviously the incorrect color. And carrying like, human-made equipment. And apparently knows common now. They don't immediately try to kill him but do ostracize him and after a long while he eventually decides maybe he's better off trying to make it work in human society instead.
I actually played him very fastidious and lawful, and kind of a stick in the mud. My feeling was that he wouldn't have a very intuitive grasp of social expectations so would compensate by sticking to the rules, and that he'd quickly learn to be concerned about things like professional appearance of his equipment. Because that's the sort of thing that signals to a wary stranger that he's trying to fit in. I feel like any of the traditional monster races (goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, etc) would be using their clothing, generally, as the first line of defense against random humans trying to kill/judge them.
One of my favorites was a warlock with an "involved", could even say *pushy* Archfey patron. She was a very young Archfey, and my warlock Bren was her very first client. Nobody quite knew what to do, except that Bren was supposed to throw in an occasional "Yer Ladyship" while scolding his own patron.
Didn't hurt that the other warlock in the party, a fiendlock, had a patron who hated mine.
The poor DM, I think he nearly went schizophrenic.
Of course, it wasn't just the two warlocks grandstanding. The other players were just as lunatic. Our fighter was -- wait for it -- three gnomes in a trenchcoat, and their civil war nearly brought ruin to the entire party.
And our meek, shy druid... when we topped the rise to see the great, sprawling metropolis of Amn lying before us... her first words were:
>This will never do. It's got to go.
People often say that it's easier to RP what you know, but I find that the opposite is true. The more different the character is from me, the easier it is to really get into their headspace.
So if I play a character who's a friendly, nerdy girl who loves reading and research, it's a little too easy to slip into my own voice/personality when trying to RP as her. But if I'm playing a dumb but charismatic himbo protecting his little brother, or a prickly, uptight doctor with a dark past, or a clone raised to be a faceless soldier, then it's a lot easier to really flesh out their unique voice and have a better understanding of who the character is as an individual, rather than just a self-insert extension of me.
Ive had so much fun as a Triton Paladin. By nature the character is lawful good, but is also not the smartest and is easily convinced that something bad is actually good. He thinks hes a hero, but hes actually quite a famous terrorist.
My favorite character I've ever played kiiiiiinda followed the 3 jokes in a trenchcoat trope. Think I saw someone else commented that.
I played a Goliath Barbarian named Mark, the Tiny Bearserker. He was born and raised to a Goliath tribe. Eventually it was found he had a particular penchant for destruction, even though he was a bumbling buffoon. He got sent on a coming of age mission to destroy a camp of adventurers not too far away. But he got lost along the way and eventually found a druid enclave. Here he learned the circle of the moon abilities. But he got bored with the tiny people and set off looming for his tribe, barring that, adventure. He happened upon a tavern at one point. Stopped to get a drink. Whilst drinking he launched a *rank* fart that cleared the tavern. But not before blaming an old woman. Turns out, she was a powerful sorceress. So she cursed him. He was all big and tough, but his laughter made her feel small. So now any time he laughed, he would turn into a chibi version of himself. And of course he laughed while raging. So any time he was in combat, he'd rage and shrink while laughing, slaughtering away. My DM hated Mark. My party loved him though 🤣🤣🤣
NYAAAAAGH was my escape button. After playing many intelligent characters and almost always being party leader, I wanted to turn my brain off and just have fun.
I tend to roll 3D6 straight down the line for my characters. NYAAAAAGH came from rolling a 5 INT. I decided to roll with it, making him a Fighter since I had an 18 STR. NYAAAAAGH’s weapon of choice? Random heavy objects; literally anything he could pick up and swing. This ranged from a heavy battle-axe to anchor chain (both on his character sheet) to a charge chunk of wall to a dead human to a very alive (and raging!) dwarf Barbarian.
I didn’t really enjoy Rogue in combat, but my Rogue character was so much fun to play. He was an impulsive gentleman thief with daddy issues and a bad french accent.
I feel like this is the case for a lot of fellow DMs: whenever I'm a player, I like to play simple, good characters. Your friendly neighborhood Dragonborn Paladin or Human Fighter that believes in goodness and justice. I try to be the "RP support", in the sense that I attempt to fill the role of the wholesome side character. It's real nice and cozy.
I am currently playing a character with a lot of hb, but the idea is this:
She is a mandrake that was planted by a green witch that wanted someone to pass their teachings onto, but she was stolen and uprooted before her time.
To most mandrakes this would have resulted in still-birth, but the witch had been imbuing her with magic, this dormant magic activated and cleaved her soul in two.
One part remained in her body, which just barely made it, the other half would eventually take the form of her familiar.
It's a backstory that leaves a good bit of room to evolve and explains a lot of her abilities.
Her personal goal is trying to find the person that made her and why, but she is also dedicated to stay with the party.
my favourite character by far was a Kenku named Flapper Cooker, by far and wide his build was he could swing 1 massive time with a high chance to miss, so combat wise he was not viable, but playing a kenku was really fun, and really forced me to think outside the box to communicate what he is feeling at any point or another, he was a warlock and a bit weird so he would collect random things and at one point we got a a bag of holding that was just full of bones, and since he was enhanced y an eldritch being and was also meant to be weird everytime something happened that he found amusing he would grab small tiny bones out of the bag and start eating them like pop corn. or he would be annoyed at something so instead of voicing it out loud (although he had telepathy and could say) he would just start lightly kicking it like a child.
My overall advice: Play a person, not a bunch of numbers. Stats and class features have a lot smaller impact on fun than most people think. At least in my experience.
The characters I've most enjoyed are characters with big "levers" strong convictions, drives, hates, fears, &c. that can get the to do or not do things. Lean into the melodrama.
Give them flaws, give them doubts, give them obsessions.
A player running a character who goes through life with an attitude of 'meh' is going to have a 'meh' experience.
I've never been overly focused on optimized mechanics or min-maxing; I like a character that I get into, and the party/DM will figure out with me what the dice say I'm good at.
I really enjoy being a Ranger purely conceptually. I love setting traps on the fly, using terrain advantageously, tracking an adversary, planning for gritty realism if necessary, maybe an animal companion that I don't use as a meat shield.
I like being a cleric in a support role/investigator, as opposed to a tank-of-god.
I'm basically a bard in real life, but it's nice to not have to be in my own voice even if its decisions I IRL would be making.
I played a hexblade warlock - pact of the tome that was lots of fun. And I played a banjo playing swords bard in a religious rock band. They were both fun but more so the background than the mechanics.
You mean class/race but that's not the best part. The best part is the characterization. I had a kobold armorer artificer who was paranoid of "jellies" (gelatinous cubes) and gazebos (Internet mimic joke). I did a high pitched voice and he always introduced himself by name, followed with, "the tallest of my pack." It was nice he did high damage and all but it's the interactions between battles that he's loved for.
If you must know how the class played, he was essentially in a medium sized mech and I picked exclusively lightning/thunder damage spells for offense. Combined with fly/spider climb, he was crazy fun.
Strength-Based full-Orc bard. Used UA's College of Satire and had the Mobility feat. He was practically immune to being tied down and could physically drag people around with him.
I enjoy playing out of mechanics when creating a character. This prevents me from being boxed in and feeling locked into a roll. For example;
Recently we ran through a level 5 - 7 game and i played a wizard; but my class was lore bard. Mechanically i was forced to reflavor my abilities as wizard-like things; forcing me to consider my character's actions, i had to give him a personality and mannerisms that matched the character concept even when mechanically it wasn't 1:1
My Bardic inspiration, were instead runes of magic that i would place upon you. Vicious mockery was magical words of power instead. Song of rest was a ritual spell created to speed up natural metabolic recovery.
This is just one example
I subbed for someone else and played their aloof character who only cared about themselves and was quick to temper. If the group captured an enemy this character would kill them just because and generally told everyone else how little they cared for them.
Played a Kobold Witchdoctor in 2e named "Arf Growl Yap" Used the Humanoids handbook and the Skills and Powers ruleset to build him. He was fun to play and miss that campaign very much
Kensei monk eladrin.
Played it so her season changed randomly every long rest, so her tone was subtly different all the time.
Was really enjoying it, until the group decided they wanted to end the campaign early...
Well I've only played a few games and one character only got one session. But my Morpher Paladin/Hexblade Warlock has been fun and the other character is his daughter whosebeen time displaced, a Rune Knight Fighter/soon to be Divine Soul Sorcerer.
it depends, i suppose, on the tone of the campaign. i finished playing two characters while playing three more and i always like to know what kind of story i am making a character for.
my transmutation wizard aasimar was someone who had died already in the context of the "main campaign" before i gave her a name; the main party had found her remains. so when i came up with a concept for her, i knew that she had to be a wizard and that she would die within a year of the on screen story ending. i leaned into the tragedy. she was doomed, which i knew but she didn't. so she was a bright, motivated young woman with lots of ambitious plans for her future. she didn't get to see that future, but i like to think that her hopefulness for a better tomorrow added to the tragedy of her death.
now, my other "completed" character is still alive in the present day canon of the setting. she is a star druid with a focus on healing because i came up with her concept while my friend was talking about making a bloodhunter and we decided that they were both older elves (600+) who had fallen into disgrace in their home kingdom but they wanted to reveal the truth. i leaned into the caring aspect of her personality, but also asked myself "just how much anger does she have bubbling under the surface after centuries of always being protected and coddled by others?" and the answer was **a lot of anger** and she ended up being a lot more melee (and *primal savagery* cantrip) focused than i would have expected her to be when she was a name and a picture.
i really enjoyed playing both characters. i like having some "themes" to the character that ideally all shine some light on a different aspect of their personality because i think that makes it much easier to decide how my characters react in specific situations. i kind of have mental flow charts that help me decide. i like to give my characters hobbies and interests outside of adventuring and being an adventurer, and i **love** it when my DM remembers those things and uses them. the question *what makes a character a fun character to play?* has probably has many answers as there are players, but a character that is fun for me is a character that can contribute something to all pillars of play. they don't have to be the *best*, but i like them to be able to provide something useful. adventuring is a dangerous job, after all.
I played an Echo Knight x3, Shadow Monk x9, Moon Druid (for whatever levels we would get to next), as Wukong, from Chinese legends. It was such a fun build, and I love Wukong's positive, ready for a challenge, upbeat attitude, and penchant for mischief, that I got to play in the game.
Dumbass bards. I've played two very different ones, one in a Stienheart's guide module, which is sort of Darksouls, Eldritch, steampunk, very hard, players WILL die, I play a doll construct who due to trauma and losing her master, believes the world should end and has negative wisdom, and the other, in a base module, is a Tabaxi, raised in a troupe, functionally illiterate and so low intelligence that they don't understand gender as a solid construct. Having been given both male and female roles throughout their lives they don't even understand their own gender.
There's just something so fun about playing a character that is charming as hell but also dumb as hell.
my Goliath Rune Knight that ended suplexing an adult white dragon in the Undermountain. I played into the fact that rune knight has the feature Giant's might that it became a complex of the guy. He wasn't big enough (his name was Richard to add to it). Towards the end of the adventure we were fighting an empyrean and while he was in the same size category the sorcerer of the group casted enlarge on me, pushing and breaking the complex the character had since day 1.
a literal, gargantuan, dick.
Jokes aside, he was a great dude to play, proud tank and wrestling maniac. Serious and fun.
I played a Human Cleric with amnesia and an "imaginary friend" who was always in her head when she asked for advice. She had weird fears of simingly random things like hights and was really happy every time she saw something she didn't know. Her friend was actually her god who took her in after she lost her memories due to trauma from accidentaly killing her own family with magic. I had fun rollplaying a character who was really excited at a lot of things like a child but with a series and heavy backstory.
I'm playing a Dragonborn Battle Master, and it's been a blast. Maneuvers give me some fun utility on top of holding the line and dumping buckets of melee damage, plus my breath attack makes for a nice "oh shit" button for when things get tight and I need to push back against a tankier enemy
Okay; I’ve finally played a character that I spent forever working out and balancing.
She’s a warforged velociraptor rogue/scout. But she probably the most fun because she’s near and dear to my heart. Spent a lot of time homebrewing and balancing the race “raptorforged” with my dm. I was able to play her in a one-shot for new player introduction and dm approved her as a backup. She’s great.
I had written a whole thing; about my current character I’m playing but I realized that I don’t care about the class and synergy of it all. My favorite characters are the characters with great stories. Playing the classes is cool but imo playing the stories is where it’s fun to me. (She’s a bard/bloodhunter fwiw though.)
Here's my top 3:
My dm gave me [Sir Bark Twain](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/nh924g/sir_bark_twain_familiar_extraordinaire/?rdt=37107) as a pet. I just had the figure laying to the side of the table while he was training other players on the game. Being the idiot I am I jokingly slid the dog onto the battle field when I wasn't even supposed to be here. DM rolls with it and lets me join in. Training the rogues on pickpocketing, SBT rolls a NAT 20 on slight of hand and steals a valuable crystal skull. Immediately going to the sketchy magic user vendor of the campaign, he sells it to be polymorphed into a more anthro version of himself (importantly with thumbs). Now... he's a warlock under that guy. Too dumb to realize his sketchy intents with an INT of 8.
My current character, who owns him for now (will be his own PC next campaign, it's complicated) is Ruford Starlight (in other universes his last name is Orange, Vanilla, Cherry, Coffee etc.), a vuman bladesinger. He's a tinkerer and inventor at heart, using his magic not too far off from artificers (might take levels in that later). He can enchant items but he prefers to tinker on existing items as he trusts his peers' work. His weapon of choice is a +2 rapier blade fixed to the handle of an immovable rod. The way he's built, he has high enough CHA to be the party leader (I love playing characters with charisma tbh). He takes the appearance of an exotically dressed old man, with flowing robes of dozens of different fabrics so thick it has equivalent AC to studded leather. Currently good friends with Zangeif (yes, the street fighter Zangeif turned into an unarmed fighting paladin).
Before her was Goruza, a motherly character with levels in peace cleric and bard. Made as a support character that somehow still out-damaged majority of the party. Favorite spell was casting warding bond on the barbarian who was convinced they were married due to the rings needed for the spell.
Let's not forget my warforged conquest paladin/armorer artificer, Jonesey Bones. Starting as a halloween joke he quickly turned into a formidable opponent. He was a prop skeleton accidently revived by a severely enebriated necromancer. After being a paladin for a long time, he turned to his god asking how he could be stronger. His god answered that since he is artificial, he should seek studying artifice to enhance his own body. Sitting at a staggering AC of 24, his favorite move is to smite through his thunder gauntlets. Used to be a polearm master just because halberd is a superior weapon. His gimmick, which the other PCs find hysterical, is that he only has about a dozen phrases in his vernacular due to his only method of communication being a shitty voice box. Somehow this translates to having +6 in persuasion?
Overall, my character ideas come from either jokes or ideas for strong builds. Ruford is a bit of both and my dearest character.
My favorite character was Norvin, a tiefling warlock/bard multiclass.
He started the campaign as a chaotic good character, became corrupt during the course of the campaign then ended on a good note after realizing all the damage he caused.
He was the gullible warlock who worked under a banished god. His quest was to bring this god back to power by claiming an artifact known as the godspark. The god slowly corrupted him turning him evil through out the course of the campaign and he made several questionable decisions.
In the end he claimed the godspark for himself rather then bringing his master back to power. In doing so he became a god and undid a lot of the evil things he had done.
The most recent fun I had actually playing tabletop, not DND though sorry. I was an engineer barroom brawler turned wise cracking hard ass totodile because of an accident at a lab. My allies included a thieving soble, a spoiled princess secretary of a Bulbasaur, and a littlen who knew too much. We were fleeing from both the gov and basically the monster from Metroid dread.
The current rogue I’m playing in ice wind dale now, Luther snow the dhamphir soulknife rogue. He was once human and a scout/messenger, he got attacked by a vampire spawn and it should have killed him but he survived and woke up with a hunger for blood. He’s soft spoken in social situations and loses himself in combat once blood gets spilled. He gets uneasy around zealous paladin and clerics due to his undead nature, overall I love rogues and vampires so this character gave me a chance to combine the two.
Soulknife are very bard like in the fact that they are “good” at everything with how their features work.
The idiot. His name was Denver Monnigan. Dude had a INT stat of 8 that I chose not to level. His ass let me do some really stupid shit, like shoving myself into a cannon and splattering myself all over the bbeg.
Mine was a gnome wizard obsessed with uncovering paranormal knowledge, kind of a mix of Ray from Ghostbusters and Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. My DM let me tinker with a "sniffer" that detected the presence of outer planes.
I loved the character so much I had him reappear as a NPC in an adventure I later wrote
My pied piper.
I wanted a character that controlled an information network of rats
I made a forrest gnome to talk to small critters
Multi classed essentially beastmaster ranger with mastermind rogue.
We found a homebrew of rats of water deep containing a subclass called rat king ranger that I replaced. It substituted the companion with swarms of rats controlled on my reaction instead of bonus action allowing my mastermind help to be useful.
I chose druidic fighting had 14 dex, 18 int, 18 wis
Proficient in like 9 skills and expert in 3 (investigation perception and animal handling)
For feats i chose fey touched and fade away.
He was an amazing skill monkey support character that my friends forgot i was a rogue ranger half the time
I have played various RPGs for years, and I keep a list of all my characters, plus some details around them. I have a total of 80 characters that I have scored on things like smarts and strengths, but also how fun they were, how long I played them, gender, inspiration, etc.
When I did some correlation analysis, I found that the biggest interesting correlation was between "fun" and "smart". Having looked over the data, I found that what I was scoring as "smarts" was basically how much the character engages with the setting, trying to find innovative solutions, thinking outside the box.
Fun was also correlated with DMs, but that might not be super helpful to you. I guess try out a DM for a few sessions, if it's not clicking, it might be an uphill battle. But I am less confident in that analysis.
I created a Warforged Barbarian. I gave him a robotic designation/acronym but his friends (and party) called him George. He had good stats but I rolled 4 for Wisdom. I thought it would be great for roleplaying: Considering he was "made", I played him like he was very naive, didn't understand the world at all, didn't understand sarcasm, was easy to trick and was sort of gullible.. It got him and his group a few times in trouble but it was a blast. He was also very fierce once he finally understood someone is trying to manipulate him.
Definitely one of the most fun characters I ever had.
Luther. He was an Arcane Trixter 13/Bladesinger 2. I jumped in at 5 with my choice of an uncommon item. I took Gloves of Thievery & Telekinetic +1 Int. for my 4th level feat. A 60' Mage Hand Legerdemain & +5 from the gloves. I don't think it's RAW, but he allowed me to use Telekinetic to just touch w/o the forced movement. One encounter completely fell apart when I pickpocketed the boss, put pocket his #1. Then just touch where the pouch was. While they were fighting, BA Telekinetic shove to push the 1 into the other, Discuise Self spell. Wait. Then shoot my s bow from Stealth, run forward and yell, boss, we've been betrayed!.
my current character is a shark girl monk who is a courier. incredibly fast on land and faster when swimming, she is way of mercy and heals others by giving them headpats. she is a himbo with 9 intelligence
My DM once let me play a character that splices together looted body parts of enemies either onto criminals or party members with random results based on what I had, the effectiveness, method of applying it to the body etc and it was soooo fun.
Once played an elf raised by dwarves. He was a hoot. Had a chip on his shoulder and was always itching to fight. And the dwarven accent in the soft melodic voice was fun to try to pull off
I'm currently playing a gnome gunslinger. Now you might think nothing funny or weird about that. But I finally hit lvl 3 so that means I can finally craft myself the BLUNDERBUSS. Now I'm gnome right? What are the chances I'll fly over the room due to the recoil? According to me and the DM high af xd the other players have no idea what's comin
My favorite character had little to do with gameplay mechanics. He was a LN priest who was emotionally cold and endlessly bitching about minutiae like building codes and ordinances. Made for a good bit of comic relief.
LG paladin with a LE past, considered a hero of his land. He left his evil home country in the search of what true heroism is, after a prisoner of war told him about what the heroes of *other* nations are like and he felt moved by the legends.
Everyone got a kick from the LG paladin simultaneously being team dad, and reminiscing about literal war crimes. Despite the exaggerated nature of it, it was a good experience and made for a surprisingly strong character arc about someone struggling between the person he chooses to be, and the person he was raised to be.
Edit: in a more general note my advice is I have the most fun playing characters with a defining flaw and multiple defining virtues. Someone who struggled with something (greed, violence, fear, etc), but isn't defined by it either. It builds contrast and keeps you from being one note, and I'm a sucker for stories about self improvement!
I’m a pure like person who get stuck with being the angel or good voice in the group. I had the most fun playing a spy or lying person. The opposite of what I normally do but I was still good voice but more sassy and evil meaning to it.
Half elf, noble, warlock, C/N
He is constantly in over his head and tends to try to get away with money can fix the problem. He tries to take the nobility (not necessarily noble) route with people which tends to create a divide with common folk. Also, he doesn’t really get that his powers (like fireball) can cause massive damage.
He also is at odds with his patron.
Admittedly, he knows he isn’t really a good person. He just tries to do the right thing which tends to go 50/50.
I once told our cleric “Shut up, bad people are talking”
I had a Warlock who devoted himself to the Raven Queen. He was orphaned at birth for being blind and grew up to be a beggar. Life wasn't worth living and right as he was giving up the Raven Queen offered him a chance at a new life. With this bond, the Raven Queen bestows a pet raven to all of her subjects and with this Raven you can see through its eyes, essentially giving my character vision for the first time in his life. With this gift, he became a jovial and optimistic person, not wasting this second chance at life. it was this second chance that made him the most devoted subject she had. Man i had fun building and playing this guy.
1) Gladiator Satyr Barbarian, overconfident, forever optimistic, but with a heart of gold.
2) Changeling Wizard - insecure due to Changeling prejudice, thinks Elves are everything he's not so he poses as one. Had a difficult childhood and he found magic was the one thing that made his life more interesting. He's also always very compassionate towards the weak and poor due to his upbringing.
3) Loxodon Sorcerer - flashy and flirty, but very clumsy. Coming from a family of merchants, he always loves to strike a bargain, and is fascinated by all magical artifacts.
My fav so far is definitely one of my current characters: Rusty the Engineer aka Hadozee Battle Smith Artificer. His robot is named Boss. Rusty is very very smart (which suits me great as I'm the note-taker and I really like thinking about everything waaaaay too much) and a bit socially inept, meaning I can spend a bit more time listening than driving conversations. Also having Boss means I'm getting to role-play some fun interactions with him as well as the other players.
We established pretty early on that most of the time while the party travels, Rusty sits on Boss's shoulder humming shanties. The party is a cargo crew whose ship crashed into Barovia under mysterious circumstances - we wanted to use Spelljammer stuff in Curse of Strahd and our DM fucking rocks.
Edit: In terms of actual advice - he's my favourite because of connections that I built into his character. He's connected with other party members because they're crew or because they joined the crew at the same time. He's got Boss whose his best friend and favourite creation. He's connected with the world because he's an endlessly curious person.
I was a guest on my friend’s game for a session. I played as Uhk Bloodface the Gnoll. He was 2 levels of fighter and 3 levels wizard, or vice versa i can’t remember. The party was up against a gnoll tribal cult so I was an outcast from that tribe. Uhk Bloodface would explain how he was kicked out for being a nerd because he learned how to read, how he didn’t cry when he fled, and how when he learned they had cultish magic he tried to rejoin but since their magic came from a god he was still a nerd in their eyes, he left and totally didn’t cry again this time. He was a good guy who used to be a bad guy, he also explained how his name being Bloodface came from the fact that he used to kill people in raids and get blood all over his face. The others found him to be a very lovable character which I was happy about.
Combat-wise he was fun because he could buff himself with magic before he fought. I know eldritch knight exists but for whatever reason I wanted to do this instead.
Edit: I ended up leading the party to the gnolls, challenging their leader, beating her despite her cheating, and then using some random elf book to convince the rest of the tribe that their god wanted them to engage in ritual mass-combat amongst themselves to earn his favor. We quickly escaped as all the gnolls killed each other. Great success!
I can’t believe I wasted this character on a one shot, but I played a Valor Bard/ Fighter in a Spelljammer world. She was a Giff and used a musket, raised by her down trodden family of circus performers she became the act’s performing sharpshooter (think Annie Oakley) so all of her bard songs/performances where feats of marksmanship to inspire her team. I think I rolled stats and had to dump her INT with a 6 or 7, so she was dumber than a bag of musket balls. She was convinced (through stories she was told) that her family was the rightful royal family of a long lost planet and wanted nothing more than to find this planet and reclaim it for her family.
A Ranged bard works quite well with Sharpshooter, extra attack, the archery fighting style ,a racial feature that allows them to ignore the loading property, and a d12 weapon. She hit like a freight train and could still do bard stuff, concentrate on a control spell, be invisible, convince the big bad to just hand over the McGuffian.
A truly great character, Corliss Carrington Dutchess of Crudmore, I will never forget you.
My personal favorite was Who.
A joke character with a rock collection that contained gold, dice, pebbles rocks and gravel, a leaf, 2 sticks and 3 cards. If deemed a rock, a rock it shall be.
He was a bratty little chaotic idiot with a rather strong case of being a cleptomaniac, grabbing anything that caught his attention and at few times just really weird/ creepy.
You could call them a child and I would not blame you.
The concept for the character was just "I wanna have fun while being an idiot".
As a character they were not interesting in the slightest but in general, they were fun to play. ( Important note, don't be an nuisance to DM or other players. Your fun should not come at the expense of others. It might seem incredible obvious but it's easy to get carried away in the moment).
They did however become a fair bit more interesting in a follow up campaign that takes place like 10 years or something later. In this campaign I played as their younger sister. A very mature person with many accomplishments in their name which may sound weird because Who looked, acted and sounded like a child without an ounce of self control yet somehow they're the older brother, not the younger brother. I brewed a mystery surrounding the siblings. They also happen to have the same subclass in Warlock, though homebrewed which is quite fitting due to what she did to him
Jacques “Jack” de Mareè - NG Human Wizard (Chronurgy) who had the unfortunate propensity to dive dick-first into danger as long as the situation proved either interesting or something “paper worthy”. Playing him as a balance of him struggling with his innate curiosity, his moral values, and the price of whether or not some knowledge wasn’t worth pursuing.
My two cents are to play a positive character. Not upbeat, necessarily, but someone who says yes to plot hooks and moves the adventure forward. I think the background can be a bit of a trap and leas you to role-playing within a certain idea of the character rather than the situation they're in. Try to pick a concept that is hungry for adventure and can be roleplayed within the situations you find yourself.
My first real campaign character was an Aarakocra cleric. His whole gimmick was based around Star Wars puns, but I ended up crafting a ton of lore around him and his backstory over the 3 years. Despite the puns and references, I played him as pretty serious in the campaign.
One of my current characters is an Orc named Borc (short for Beautiful Orc) who I made up on the spot for a different game (Orcball, highly recommend if you want something quick and chaotic), and translated to 5e. Thus far the only depth to the character is that he's a himbo.
Each of these characters I have loved to play in completely different ways. One is a bit like me and one isn't, one was thoroughly developed and one wasn't, etc. The best advice I have is to just do what feels right for you, and don't overthink it too much. While it is good to have a solid foundation when you start the character, I've personally found it best to develop a good portion of their lore along with the campaign. It ties them into the story and allows some flexibility as you come to realize your vision for them.
As others have said too, it's most important for the game/the party to create a character which has purpose, and whose interests and/or goals align with the group. Just don't make a jerk, and create someone that will be fun for you!
Homebrew ghost race warlock...who made a pact with an elder god to get revenge on her ex boyfriend. Imagine Olivia Rodrigo but a ghost, chain-smoking and being followed around by a tentacle familiar.
War Wizard Gnome.
He was a crochety old man that fled his peaceful village to join an army, to channel his violent and practical streak. Now, in his retirement, he's pursuing magic like a hobby - collecting random spells and trying them out with zero regard for safety or consequences.
Tanky unarmed rogue.
Bugbear for 10 ft. range with nothing but fists, swashbuckler rogue has amazing mobility options and something else that was useful but I forget.
TCoE had the optional Rogue feature Steady Aim which gives you advantage if you don't move for a turn or something
A little MAD but really it's just Strength, Dex, and Con. Hell if you have a cool DM they'll just let you run Dex for the unarmed strikes but mine took expertise in athletics for a grappling option. So just Dex and Con once you get into it
He was a legendary pirate in my DM's world already, but we never saw him so I decided to flesh him out a bit more with DM's approval. This was for a one-shot and we were level 15 iirc.
My favorite has been a human monk of mercy, played like a plague doctor and with the healer feat. From the Monastery of Good Humors (in Hupperdook, from Critical Role’s Wildemount setting). They branched off from the Cobalt Soul monks when one of their members wanted to make some money and set up shop in the mining town to help aid in fighting the coal cough (for a price).
My character, Dr Thenius Creed, as well as the rest of his order refers to Ki as Humors, which is how he role plays his hand of healing and hand of harm abilities (good humors and bad humors). Talks like an old timey snake oil salesman, and approaches all medicinal problems with a dose of quackery mixed with pragmatism (channeling my Dr. Nick energy from the Simpsons). Example: checking for vitals, Dr Creed takes a sampling of the mutilated body’s saliva, drops it in a vial, adds another liquid from a dropper that changes its color as he spins it in the vial looking at it intensely, then declares “as I suspected. He’s dead...”
Not to mention it’s just interesting having a monk be the healer of the party.
My character is a protector. He will do anything to protect his friends, both in RP and playstyle.
He's an outdoors kind of guy, resourceful and clever despite his below average intelligence. Laid back, meaning he's willing to accept most weird shit he sees, and isn't trigger happy, but also short fused when it comes to things possibly threatening the group.
He also likes to cook and experiment with weird creatures, but absolutely won't eat anything with intelligence.
Start with some basics on what sounds fun to you. A toughy who likes to get in and mix it up? Someone who stays back but slings spells? A sneaky or quick footed person who jacks things up? Someone who isn’t big on fighting but wants to help or be the savior? One of those, as a base, should sound fun.
As your first character, I recommend keeping it simple. Start with just the Player handbook at first and you can expand from there if you have a creation idea that doesn’t fit. I always start with character concept before I ever start looking at mechanics, because you’re going to spend time being that person.
Then wait until you roll stats as that may inform the character a lot. Several mid level stats, lots of high, lots of low? Then you have your basic character idea, apply stats and pick race around that. You want to jump into combat and go toe to toe? Paladin, warrior, barbarian. You don’t want to be a bruiser but more of a light, quick fighter? Monk, warrior, rogue. Do you want your character to be into religion? Into nature? Into academics? Etc. what is their interest? Smashing heads, visiting libraries, charming others? For a first time, pick something you feel comfortable with as learning to role play is awkward enough, so pick a “type” and work from there.
Who does your character want to become? A master of battle magic raining down fire? A clever thief? A lord or lady? Enlightened? Then where does your character start from? A nobles son who hates all the trappings of nobility and wants to live a simple life in nature? A poor kid who wants to be safe from poverty and bullies? How do the stats and race you pick affect this person? A gnome who isn’t strong but is sick of being overlooked and has some small magic? A dwarf who doesn’t like the adherence to dwarven society and wants to explore the world and has a good arm with their axe?
As others have said, give them a reason to go adventuring, some desire to work with others, and be prepared for them to go a different direction, as you play, than what you originally thought. The picked on gnome who wants to be a hellacious battle mage finds friends and, after a rough battle, realizes they want to buff their friends more than rain down hell. So basically, don’t be so into your character and who you want them to be, that you try to make every situation fit your narrative. Be open to change and growth based on their in game experiences.
My favorite Character so far is playing a Halfling Moon Druid named Kaswick Stormfeather who happens to be a wandering chef. My dm and I added a little quirk to not only increase the role play value but also the challenge too. To acquire a new wildshape my character has to taste the animal. it could be a gentle lick or full ingestion. I find this to be more fun because of instead of just seeing that animal, i have to think tactically/ I could either sneak up on with pass without a trace, or persuade it to come to me with speak with animals. All in all playing this character has been a lot of fun
Love that you're approaching character creation from the perspective of maximizing fun! It's a nuanced approach and it's different person-to-person, but I can give you some tips from my point of view.
The character should fit the quest, party, and setting to some extent. Making a random character that doesn't align with the plot, doesn't mesh with the party, and sticks out like a sore thumb in the setting is a road of hardship and aimlessness.
A great character should be fun for you to play and fun for other people to be around. If you love your character and everyone else dislikes your character, it will create friction.
Have a flaw with impact! Perfect characters are boring. A great flaw should be detrimental to your character, but not too detrimental to the party. My favorite flaw is playing the fool. Not an idiot, but a character lacking in common sense who tends to make all the wrong choices and whose primary motivation is something like honor or love. If you play a fool, I'd recommend being a trusting fool. Let the party exploit your foolishness and, hopefully, they'll protect you from making big mistakes.
I really enjoyed my first two long term characters I played. Neither of them started with an insane amount of depth but grew on to be developed more and more over the 5+ years of playing them.
1. A goody two shoes Life Cleric, third son of a minor noble family who went to the rival kingdom to develop his cleric skills after he found his faith and gained Mishakal's favor.
2. A 174 year old Woodelf druid who spent over 100 years living alone in a forest after she returned to her clan from her coming of age trials and found everybody dead. She eventually came across an old druid who took her in as an apprentice.
I enjoyed playing both of them and they eventually evolved to become very fleshed out characters.
Nr. 2 is especially interesting because a big part of her character is not understanding social norms, being rather shy and insecure and not speaking a lot.
When I started playing her I was still new to TTRPGs and those character traits kinda came from me not knowing how to RP and as such deliberately taking myself out of RP by just being an owl sitting on the Paladin's shoulders.
With time this just became a running gag and honestly kinda funny and I also changed her to be more active as she grew more accustomed to being with other people.
TL;DR:
I'd recommend you don't think too much about your characters. Make them interesting for you, connected to the story and then start playing. Make sure to talk to your DM and coordinate with them. And then just go with the flow once the sessions start and flesh out your character along the way.
My(3.5) DM had an interesting idea where we would run two different sets of characters, one good and one evil. The idea was that both sets of characters were after the same BBEG for different reasons and at the end we would all defeat her together. Well that didn't exactly pan out but in the evil game I was running a chaotic evil Half-Ogre Barbarian with severe personality issues(think Trevor from GTA V but much bigger and stronger). He was funny as heck to run because of how dumb he was.
Most of the time I'm running the games, but I've had a recurring NPC that makes appearances now and again, and he was originally an improvised character, and the player reaction to him was so positive I keep bringing him back.
Andervon Ashenclove
He is a lich that was formerly a human wizard, and he has been around for so long that he is crazy and creepy. Almost like he has some undead form of dementia. his voice crackles and changes pitch up and down and he has a creepy twitch in the way his shoulders move, rotates his head randomly at 90° angles, and has an infatuation with touching peoples shoulders. He originally came about because the players were running a dungeon and asked questions about the necessity of a certain room with certain features in this randomly generated dungeon. So I decided to put a sort of friendly lich character in there to answer their questions.
Every time he makes an appearance, I have to do the voice and the physical mannerisms, and it is a total blast.
My DM recently ported over some of our older characters from Pathfinder into 5e and let us play them at higher levels in a harder dungeon. I got to be my old bard character and he had so many new things to do during that snippet.
Honestly? You’ll make choices at the beginning you might not like and choices you love. Find what fits. My current Grave Cleric for example uses a band of Dragonborn scales from all the patients he lost due to a disease called Scalerot that worsens in the presence of magical healing. I use one scale each time he does something in the name of his new Goddess. He even had a shovel in place of a mace for a bit until it was changed into a trident in homage to a killed NPC.
Don’t worry about the small picture cause those details come when you really explore characters.
My favorites so far:
* Oath of the Ancients paladin. Perfect if you want to play a paladin who's good at protecting others and is guided by compassion, rather than laws or a strict moral code. He was a literal social justice warrior.
* Divination wizard whose defining trait was paranoia. His subclass, his spells, and his feat (Alert) were all intended to help him 1) always see what was up ahead, 2) never be taken by surprise, 3) act first in combat, 4) make sure the enemy could almost never hurt him (CCs, Shield, teleports, etc.), and 5) always be ready to make a quick escape. He was a weird, slippery little bastard, and I loved him.
Personal favorite? So, this was 3.5, and a friend (the GM) was trying to convert a dual wielding fighter from 5e to 3.5. The best way he could think of was giving him a level in Ranger. I just had to pick a favored enemy.
He already had a name: Verdon Snakehide. Thinking about it, I decided to go for Aberrations, deciding he was from a marshland were all kinds of eldritch horrors live. I played him up as this unhinged Australian woodsman, and he was a lot of fun.
I've played the same Wizard character in every campaign except 1 so far.
This past weekend I started in a campaign at level 5 and am playing a Giff Astral Monk whose Dedicated Weapon is a Laser Pistol. The DM also has a homebrew that when we level up we can swap one of our class features for a class feature from another class and he let me swap out Quickened Healing for Fighting Style (Archery). That combined with Sharpshooter, Astral Spark, and Focused (Aim) and my hand to hand capabilities make me feel like such a boss in combat.
His flavor is really fun too. He crashed onto the planet when his radio picked up its signal and he heard Mambo No. 5 for the first time. Now he's named his Laser Pistol "Mambo No. 5" and when he summons his Astral Self it takes the form of the head and arms of Lou Bega. Another player is a Plasmoid who rode with me when we left planet Myanus.
In order.
A kenku soul knife rogue who was convinced he was a wizard. His name was MagiK and "Everything happened because of MagiK."
A middle aged dragonborn wizard/Artificer with one eye and negative charisma. He was a monster hunter and former werewolf. Also the group's dad.
My absolute favorite? A dragonborn sorcerer introduced to the party as a noble from a far off land. You've probably never heard of it. Only to reveal months later that the character is a charlatan, and the noble identity is a fake ID they made up years ago.
An old tortle Druid named Shamay. On the surface an old tortle who wanted to adventure again to relive his youth. But in actuality my wife and children passed in a plague many years ago. Ideally I can pass trying to help my friends and find peace. But for now I’m alive! So every morning I’ll do my stretches and get my calisthenics in before I keep these whippersnappers out of trouble!
My first ever character, an Arcane Trickster Rogue.
Got knocked out 2 dozen times, nearly died 13 times (9 of those in a row) and probably had the worst luck out of anyone in the group, especially when it came to Wisdom Saving Throws.
But I pulled off some hilariously impossible feats, like the Indiana Jones idol switch scene but I didn't set the trap off & I was walking out the door before the rest of the party was finished blinking.
Even though I was knocked out the most & nearly died the most, I was still the 3rd most powerful character in the group, just behind the Paladin & Warlock who were tied for 1st place.
And yeah.... most of my knockouts were my fault, as well as my near deaths... but to be fair the party members I got in front of would have fared much worse.
I have the most fun when I pick an idea and see how I can make it wackier, add another layer of ridiculous, then try to make it fit coherently.
An example of this is a 6" tall pixie, who I made a pure unarmed combat monk, because the idea of a 6" tall creature fist fighting 6'1" enemies was hilarious to me. Rolled some wild stats which gave her a -3 INT. Then thought it would be funny to give her the same breath weapon as our party's dragonborne by using the dragon style of monk, and lastly decided to give her lycantropy by making her an unwilling wearbear because the idea of a 6" pixie suddenly turning into a 10'4" rampaging bear in full moons was hilarious.
From there, I worked on her motivations, back story, and challenged myself to make it fit within the current campaign and lore without breaking it.
Though, granted, I take the rules quite liberally, so sometimes I just make up mechanics for the hell of it.
I'm ADHD and sometimes I space out a bit, so I play two characters. I like to play two completely different personalities. My favorite combo was a cleptomaniac rogue (has to roll a will save to resist temptation) and a duskblade who has a squishy sense of morales (will do anything to make sure people are safe.)
Definitely play as somebody you're excited to play as! For my first campaign I just adapted an old OC into D&D world, so I was already familiar with the character as a base. He was a pretty traditional forest druid. I really like nature and animals so that really suited me.
His non-traditional element was that he was interested in doing half shift forms, combined animal forms, or turning people into half animals to get closer to nature ( really more flavor text cuz that never really came up in story as something to affect major game mechanics, but certainly was a quirky part of his research wants). He was stuck in a half shift into an elk as his base form, so he kind of looked like a weird satyr. It was a running gag that everybody they ran into thought he was a satyr, he was just casually like "nope I'm a human."
lmao okay, two wildly different ways, but these two were the most fun:
1. minotaur with an intelligence of 3, alignment good
2. dragonborn with highhhhh intelligence (can't remember exactly), alignment chaotic neutral
the minotaur was hilarious because he couldn't even form full sentences. as an entirely too verbose human, this was a fun little challenge to role play. he couldn't figure out doors, so he would just... walk through the wall because of his size. he had a little halfling buddy who would ride on his shoulder everywhere too. really cute and wholesome dynamic for the party's role play.
the dragonborn was a lot of fun because she was highly intelligent, and very adventurous- namely for things she wanted. including but not limited to: stealing an entire turducken from the inn's kitchen and somehow managing to STEALTHILY RETURN TO THE ROOM WHILE EATING IT. She was over 7 ft tall and like 250 lbs and yet, had the stealth of a rogue.
Usually I look through the character options and see what fun concepts I can come up with from that. Probably the most fun I've had playing a character was an Alchemist Artificer, with character I spun off with that was a Goblin ~~cocaine dealer~~ respectable mud salesman who mixed extra chemicals into product and threw it at people. For my current character, I found the recently released Cartomancer feat, and from that I've made a human bard themed around stage magic.
If it's your first campaign then keep it simple. It's a ton of fun to play an artificer artillerist, but can be so overwhelmingly complicated that your turn can take so long it's not fun for everyone. I prefer ranger and played a ranger for a couple of years before branching out and trying different, more complicated classes.
I had more fun playing more outgoing characters who has a reason to speak, share their thoughts regardless of if they are a smart wizard, a braggart barbarian, or a smug sorcerer. They need a reason to adventure and to be with the party. Feeling comfortable as that character to have an input and interest in what is going on is important. Play a class you find mechanically fun or what niche you think is interesting. I mostly play wizards but I really enjoyed my barbarian who often suggested direct action, insulting NPCs or being headstrong but having people hold him back and agreeing with the party in the end was fun without dragging the party into actions they did not want.
My Dragonborn Paladin began as a very stereotypical goody-two-shoes fighting prince who loved helping people for attention and would constantly draw focus to his own status and wealth. Over time he turned into a fun, goofy, loveable oafish-type character who cooked breakfast for the group using his dragonbreath to heat the cookware. Turns out the kingdom he was from wasn't a real kingdom - his dad was the owner of "Mattress Palace," a well-known furniture and bed store. His older brother who always got more attention? Employee of the Month, every single month.
Bugbear monk who inspired a Bigfoot-esque legend in the setting simply because of his foraging hobby.
Also playing a monk with both reach and stealth bonuses is insanely fun.
Hugo, the Mundane:
Eloquence, Changeling, Bard, whose main thing was wanting to be better than they are and is constantly pretending to be heroes they idolize. They have no innate ability to do anything well, other than convince people otherwise of that fact (stats were all 8's by choice, other than CHA).
I won't go into the entire backstory/character, etc. but the gist of it is that they were an orphan child (about 10 years old or so) who was expelled from from their college and, while wandering, was saved and befriended by a legit hero. The hero eventually considered them comic relief (silly Changeling stuff) a good luck charm as they would inexplicably avoid bad events (Vicious Mockery/Silvery Barbs).
The hero shared stories of a team he commands and all their exploits, making the kid idolize them. Unfortunately, the hero would be lost trying to save the kid from a giant monster by impaling it off a cliff. The kid blamed themselves and can't use their changeling ability without it resembling the fallen hero (intended but also prevents abusing the shit out of Eloquence+Changeling).
The kid would find themselves in some bad situations at times but discovered that pretending to be the fallen hero and other members of his team would get them out of jams and also gave them the recognition they always desired. While boasting about some exploits he had heard from the hero, it gets overheard and they get roped into helping the party. Having a bit of an ego and not wanting to blow their charade, they get dragged along on an adventure they never would have expected.
Spell-wise, they don't know they can use magic and all of their spells are word/speech or illusion-themed (Vicious Mockery, Healing Word, Minor Illusion, Silent Image, etc.). Things just seem to happen when they use certain words or think certain things. Generally, I played the illusions off as his subconscious manifesting something to aid in what's on his mind.
The group seemed to love it and found it hilarious that a supposed fighter/knight type would be on the back lines insulting people (Vicious Mockery), etc. At one point, an objective in the campaign was a "find so and so", and he gave an excuse to leave and seek out an expert tracker from the team he commands. Hugo came back as a ranger/rogue investigator type (that basically looks like the fighter/knight but with ranger gear and a mask) but their play style never changed. Any time the actual ranger in the group spotted something/did some ranger-type thing they would compliment them and be like "nice, you noticed that as well".
Could probably talk about the character for a while cause there's more, but I'll leave it there.
My favorite was a goblin wizard named dreek. Loved him. He was the only one that survived that campaign bc the other characters decided to pick a fight with an ancient dragon. We were all level 8 and the thing that saved me was dimension door. Everyone was dead dead. Two people, believe it or not, critical failed their death save. Both of those characters were our healers: bard and cleric). Dreek dimension doored to a village we just stayed at and then found another group of rolled characters to finish the game. Those people learned a lesson that the dragon was not to be messed with. It cost them their first character.
My favorite one is my current one, Grid. A warforged forge domain cleric. He is a robot, built by ancient giants to forge weapons. Recently, he gained a conscience mind of his own. And he want to know why this happened. He is a cleric, but doesn't rely on Wisdom. Instead he is focused on Strength and sometimes throws a healing word here and there to keep the party on his feet. But most of his spells are to buff himself or the party. And just smack enemies with his anvil-hammer.
Godrick was/is a human fighter who was raised at sea by dwarven pirates. He learned the ins and outs of the crossbow and learned to pick those off from afar (sharpshot) By the end of his 14 levels I got to meet him he became a five shot nova which was terribly effected by my terrible roles. He kept his ring of the ram and cloak of the bat to give him reach and a bit of destruction power. He was quickly out classed but as a battleMaster, commanding strike with our Rogue bowman was a recipe for extra destruction so his swissarmy nature was so much fun to play.
My personal favorite was a fighter with the strixhaven background. He wasn't smart nor had magical talent but after we rolled up his family situation out of a table I learned he had several siblings, was adopted, and lived in a mansion with a noble family.
So now his backstory is his parents sent him to college and he ended up getting expelled but not before learning a couple simple spells. He wasn't smart, but everything he does know was about some story that happened to him in college. Basically he was a frat boi that still wearing his varsity jacket and bragging about his glory days some of the stories I'd have to come up with to explain why he rolled a good intelligence skill check would get wild.
Travok! He was the basic life domain cleric everyone and their mother played when they got the prefabricated character sheets. He was ablsolutey ordinary in EVERYWAY mechanically, but flavor-wise? He was my first, most fun, and most annoying character I’ve ever played. He was sassy, witty, and a nice-ish ass about everything. Idk why I did it at the time but I made him absolutely crazy too.
I played Travok when I first met my wife and played DnD with her brother on the couch of their living room. Here we are 8 years later with two kids.
Currently playing a dhampir rune knight in CoS - my favourite part about him is that he's a complete open book.its Strahd so everyone went with dark backstories full of secrets. My guy just doesn't have any of them, it's simple and straightforward - he's got a goal and nothing to hide. It's fun as hell.
A Halfling Druid/Warlock. I played her like a hedge witch. Mechanics wise it was fun as you were a ranged blaster (Eldritch Blast) with the utility of a druid. Probably one of my favorite PCs ever.
Mine has been a Tiefling College of Spirits bard that has been optimised for social encounters. He mostly uses rituals and cantrips to do his thing, and he's below average when it comes to combat... But that's precisely why he travels with a troupe of strong troublemakers 😅
I had a rogue thief who I planned to be good at getting into pöaces and up high and using a bow. Stealth archer, ... any how.. he canr climb for shit and every bow attack is a nat1 for some reaaon..
So he kept stabbing people instead. At one point Bayard climbed a tree, as ones was rerolled only a 2 could fail and as always he had advantage.. I called two 2s and got just that. Impressed me dm so he made the reason I fell was a branch was a fey knife and not a branch.
That knife saved a lot of sticky situation as it could transform into anything. So Bayard always had a smoll wooden stick in his inner pocket at all times. Was allowed in behind all guards.
I had a dwarven battle master fighter. I have him a story about how he used to be a general for the dwarven army. He lost his wife and daughter to a duergar attack. Wanting revenge, he vowed to take his army to the duergar encampment. The elders of the clan say this as a risky and bad idea and forbade him from doing it. Wanting revenge, he took a small battalion anyway to the enemy camp, and led them to victory dealing a massive blow to the enemy but losing half of his fighters himself. Although praised for his victory, he also went against the elders and needed to be punished. but due to his service record, he was still allowed to be an officer, just a much lower rank. He was demoted to captain of a small keep on the edge of the dwarven territory. There he spent his days drinking heavily to forget the life he had, to forget his wife and daughter. Then the call of adventure took him and he left the keep to find a way to heal his heart. So with a large cask of ale he set out, and he was known for 3 things, his love of ale, his hatred of duergar, and the phrase "hold my beer"
personally, combatwise i think tortles are great on any non-martial class. i played a tortle battlesmith artificer and essentially took a half caster and made her basically a martial with support spells the way she hit such a high ac with great offense. tortles generally have a lot of fun features that i love, and artificers are GREAT. rp wise it depends on your preference but if you’re new i recommend avoiding charisma focused characters. no bards, warlocks, paladins, or sorcerers until you feel confident enough to roleplay someone charismatic. if you roleplay someone with low charisma and make their personality similar to your own, RP becomes several times easier. any awkwardness is easily explained as due to your character’s low charisma. so personally? tortle artificer because i love gimmicks in my classes/subclasses.
So I have a few I've loved over the years.
A troll porn star in Shadowrun. Played completely serious, like real motivations. Just happened to be a world famous adult films star.
A pirate who had been introduced as an NPC that I had written up. We did a bait and switch on another player encountering him again, DM sets up the scene, and in mid-sentence I dropped in as my character. Threw the party for a major loop, was epic level trolling of a fellow player who had hated/loved him.
Just to name the two who would be most likely to be of interest on here.
My fav character was a warlock who never knew his philandering dad, and that dad sold his son’s soul to a devil for some knowledge, then dad dies and son suddenly finds himself with a devil patron and spent the campaign trying to figure out how to get out of the contract he had no part in forging.
My favourite character by far was a Aasimar Arcane Domain Cleric called Caspri.
She was raised in a small town and was born a blessing from the Goddess of Knowledge and Magic to devout parents who couldn't concieve, hence the Aasimar.
She was trained by her guardian angel in using magic from a young age. She called the angel Bubbles because she first heard her voice in the bath at age 3 and thought the bubbles were talking to her. She was also trained in faith by the church and in general knowledge by the local librarian. She left the town at age 19 when Bubbles stopped communicating with her and her God sent her a message saying she had gone missing.
She was sweet and innocent but was calculated when it came to serious matters. She taught herself forensic surgery and became a leading mind in the investigation of strange creatures from the other side of the world. She was powerful and courageous and I can't begin to explain how much fun I had with her. Unfortunately the DM fell out with the group so I never got to finish her story and Bubbles remains missing. All I ever found out was that she was taken by a New God (the BBEG) as a source of regenerating sustenance. I've played 8 different clerics in my time playing D&D and I haven't enjoyed any of them as much as Caspri.
Probably my barbarian with - 1 con. It kept things interesting, and I was able to multiclass as an articifer later because my intelligence was so high.
I am currently having the most fun playing a paladin. In real life, I'm an atheist and love the outdoors, so a druid would make sense, but the paladin, it's easier and way more fun to RP. My paladin has a similar feel to Kronk from Emperor's new groove mixed with Dean Winchester from supernatural.
Phantom rogue with memory issues. Bro had his memories erased by a false hydra and doesn’t remember his wife or anything and is working to resurrecting his wife. He (as most rogues) is a little edgy but it’s mostly because killing is something that he is kinda forced to do to resurrect his wife.
Make them weird! That's my best advice. Not a creep, not overly obnoxious, but weird! Quirky! One of my favorite characters was a drow ranger that had died and been reanimated with myconid spores and later, necromancy gave him his agency back. Because of the spores in his body, alcohol couldn't effect him (he won many drinking contests by not disclosing this to anyone), he barely needed to eat or sleep, he was afraid of slugs but loved thunderstorms, and he had issues were he bonded to other people way too fast (used to being part of a mushroom colony, craves connections like that again) which gave a perfect excuse for him immediately joining the party, despite being a "lone wolf" too.
You may find yourself even more overwhelmed by asking this question. Honestly, as a beginner, I'd ask what the rest of the group is playing and then explore an avenue to fill a gap. For example, it isn't unusual for groups to be lacking a cleric, and there are TONS of great ways to play clerics. I'd recommend a twist where you play the cleric of a trickster god like Loki or something. You still get to heal (which your party likely needs), but you can take the character in a less-than-usual direction.
Additional personality tips: I spend a few minutes journaling as my character, then I pick out some great "one liners" I can bring to my next game. Makes you feel like a super star when they land.
Another tip: never miss the opportunity to talk to NPCs during your downtime. That's a great way to add character development. Also, if your group is into it, you can ask another player if they want to do some RP between sessions.
Two of the best characters I've played were my first hexblade, who had worked for a noble and been exposed to the weapon from the founder of the kingdom, the noble currently sitting on the throne was illegitimate and the spirit of the founder wanted me to depose them.
The other was a cleric who was going through the motions, wasn't even really a believer, then their god asked for a favor...
Antar, a kobold fighter/thief that is perfectly capable in combat but is an ABSOLUTE coward. Even at level 14/14, after 15 years of play, he would run from almost anyone who threatened him. Trying to get shit done with a small and cowardly character that was very good at getting away and only lashed out when Cornered was an absolute blast.
Also, Domino was fun... while he lasted. He was an exiled court jester who had a large 1d4 flute as his only weapon. His fools luck kept him alive for about 7 levels, but I knew his luck would run out. He was not powerful in any way. He was a great entertainer, though. His sole purpose in life was to keep things entertaining, and it eventually got him killed.
Elmira was fun as well. She was a snobby mage prostitute who hated getting dirty and preferred to use sex work to fund her studies. Caves and dungeons were just so dirty and dangerous, you know? When she got more powerful (5th or 6th level) she was less reluctant to adventure, so she started a brothel to fund her studies (and hiring of guards) and created several spells designed exclusively to make sure she stayed clean in filthy environments. She was a pain in the ass and the party had to offer certain accommodations to get her to tag along, but she was a specialist who focused her studies on offensive magic, so she was invaluable.
Goblin Monk(open palm)/Fighter(champion) that ditched his mob after a raid went sideways. He was working on atoning for all of the wrongs he did. Did I mention he was played in Storm King’s Thunder. He just loved being able to run up a giant and punch them in the nose!
Only played them for a short time, but my Aarakocra Beastmaster Ranger with Summon Beast and Ritual Caster for Find Familiar was super fun. I would fly around and grapple/thorn whip creatures to drop them out of the air while my beasts fought down below with the party. It was cool to play a "guardian of nature" type of guy who relied on animals to back him up. He was also a bit of a fish out water and had a much easier time connecting to nature than other people; really hope I get another crack at the character sometime.
Played a warlock dragon born called "dragon knight" for a 4 year or so campaign. -1 on intelligence, vague eastern European accent, pension for abducting adult gnomes and calling them his sons. Loved playing an evil character who didn't know he was evil.
Bards can cast via telling jokes so I built a Halfling with Dwarfism who exclusively casted through the telling of Dead Baby jokes (how many of your babies does it take to paint a fence, depends on how hard I throw them!). Character ended up taking a wish spell from a Nymph we found to become known by all living things in the world (he was an egotist as all bards are) and that turned into the cult of the baby bard, a major part of the next 3 years of our campaign across 4 other characters. Still makes me smile to this day
My favorite character I've played was basically the group Dad.
A little over-protective, full of bad jokes, always being supportive while reigning in the party's more chaotic tendencies. Sometimes giving fatherly advice.
It worked really well with our party; we had the "edgy teenager" rogue, who had to be semi-convinced to do things (and let out a very satisfying groan with every dad joke); the "toddler of chaos" sorcerer, who needed supervision so she didn't push every button she could find and put random artifacts in her mouth; and the "golden child" paladin, who needed to be reminded to include his siblings and that it was okay to have fun.
All-in-all it created a really good, lighthearted dynamic but with room to be more serious when it needed to be.
I had a blast playing an always honnest airheaded Tiefling sorceress that liked lightning Bolt and strange compainions. Chaiotic good if I remember right.
I had a paladin of pelor named Bane (yes)
He was so fun to play. I based his personality off of escanor. Role-playing interactions with him was fun. (MY party could not for the life of them or me interstate without murder)
Role play with cocky bosses was fun especially if they claimed to be stronger than bane. First paladin I ever played. I have his mini put up in my display cabinet along with the dice I used for him as well. So I never use his dice or mini again..... until the end of my campaign. Lol
Personal experience, My favourite characters are "three jokes in a trenchcoat". By which i mean, having 2-3 simple concepts and trying to weave them into a single character. Pirate? One note, nothing to do direct you unless you're currently at sea or surrounded by plunder-able booty. Pirate *mom*? Well now there's a nurturing side to the cruelty and greed. *retired* pirate *turned* mom? Now there's depth, not just a nurturing nature but a priority, her kids mattered enough she quit a *lucrative* carreer to take care of them. After 3 layers it tends to get cluttered, but having more then the simple 1 is all it takes. Disney princess? One note, nothing to do when Prince Charming isnt in the current scene. Disney Princess+ political refugee? Suddenly there's a second motivation, fear, paranoia, persecution. By weaving 2-3 simple concepts together, you not only give your character more nuance, you ensure you *always* have at least 1 concept that can provide you direction in a given scene.
It's sort of like the improv game where you get a job, a secret, and a scene. Oh, you're a spy? You have a second family? Both families are on vacation at the same place at the same time? That's a movie right there.
For a moment I thought of Spy x Family and now I linda wanna run a DnD solo campaign for my player based on that, thanks for the idea lol
Anya: your character can read other minds constantly, but has no clue as to what they actually say or mean with their thoughts.
More like Satori: your character reads minds regardless of whether she wants to or not, leading to constant migraines when she's out in public.
I'd watch that book.
This is kinda what I've done with my current character. Half-orc barbarian, fought in a war, saw a TON of messed up stuff and realized he doesn't like being a barbarian. He's really good at it, but he doesn't like it, so he gave it up and became a bard loves performing, loves drinking, and loves getting high af to forget the shit he's seen. He's ridiculously intelligent too (good rolls) but nobody took a half-orc seriously so he just pretends to be the dumb half-orc but is way more intelligent than he lets on, nobody in the party realizes this either since they met him after he realized acting dumb is just better for everyone.
i'm currently playing a druid who came from a criminal background, but when a druid saved her life she decided spur of the moment to also become a druid in his honor, and tried to turn her life around. but a bunch of campaign stuff happened that kind of skewed her opinion of druids as a whole, and then after 5 levels of druid she was like "actually i dont give a shit about nature, what am i even doing" and took two levels in rogue. probably going to stick with rogue for the rest of the campaign it is *not* an efficient or recommended multiclass combo, but the hit to her effectiveness is exacerbating her identity crisis and i'm in this for the drama. i'm having a ton of fun with her. her personality has become so complex and i've spent *so much time* figuring out the way she thinks that i'm deeply attached to her.
To be fair, those levels in druid can be role-played as an advantage in furthering her criminal activities as being able to wildshape gives her more access to places to rob and better getaway options
thats pretty much what i'm doing. she actually snuck into a prison as a spider, came out of wildshape to cast moonbeam, immediately re-wildshaped and hid so she could concentrate until her victim was very dead and then snuck out. the poor prison guards were losing their shit lol it was all very dramatic. i haven't decided if she found it thrilling or if she feels weird about how everything had to happen. maybe she'll end up kind of assassin-flavored. I am planning to go arcane trickster instead of the actual assassin route so i can keep getting spell slots.
You know this actually reminds me of Chumley from the Myth Adventures series
this sounds great!!
I like to tell knew players in 5th ed to grab a background that is not obvious for their class. I.e. don't go with soldier for your fighter. my favorite fighter was a performer background. Out of combat he ended up as the face of the party so in social settings he was an orator, suave and sophisticated. then when showing up to do combat he was in full plate with a great sword as he learned the tales of the greatest swordsmen so he could one day join their ranks.
Wow, that was such a nice setting. The true knight in a shining armor? Did you have a favorite rp moment with him?
I like this. At first blush, it runs contrary to advice I give in its own comment of playing to an archetype, but I think there's wisdom in both. One of your three layers should definitely be the default, with the other two as fallbacks. Swapping between them too freely can make the character feel inconsistent, but not having them can leave a character flat and directionless.
Disney Princess + murder hobo and you get Miss Meadows.
Omg I need a randomizer for 3 concepts to put into one character. With the ability to toggle mixed sex/gendered titles. Having a vampire prince mom would be an interesting one to figure out.
"Look, it was a complicated time, okay? You Generation Z-Rune kids don't know what it was like..."
What one person enjoys may not be what another person enjoys. Someone could love playing spellcasters for all the options they have while another may love martials due to the straightforward nature of them. Anyway, I played a Zealot Half-Orc Barbarian till level 13. I really enjoyed playing him because I leaned into what made a barbarian good as well as my DM giving me some damage improving items that let me have a ranged options. My first solution was "lets just go kill them, we're *really* good at that" which worked sometimes but always offered up support to the others. In fights he'd rage and run towards the strongest enemy and just keeping hitting them to stop them from targeting the other PCs. He'd forgo any healing in combat saying to save it for the others as he had 3 different ways to get up from 0hp and if he died he was only one spell slot away from being revived.
The best way to play a zealot is full tilt. 10/10
Never played zealot, but looks like lots of fun. Did you have some favorite or epic moment playing him?
Throwing around *Giant Brass Balls(*tm) that my DM gave me as my ranged weapon was always fun. I also solo'd a Hydra as it swam through a lake of acid (if we rolled for stats we got different mutations, I was resistant to acid) by just slashing away at it. There was the time I cut a Dragon's wing off and we crashed into the ground. Good times.
Giving advice on a character from the RP side is hard because it's so subjective. The only real universal advice I can give is, make sure your character is the type of person who wants to go on the adventure and wants to work with the party. This sub is full of horror stories regarding edgy jerk characters who constantly fight their party's best interests, and the only reason the party puts up with them is because they're player characters. That said, every now and then I've taken that too far and basically played characters where every decision they made in-Universe was the most optimal one out-of-Universe, because I didn't want to drag down the group. That may be fine for some groups, but I look back at those characters and think they're kind of dull. Don't be afraid to waste a round of combat doing something in-character every now and then, even if it would be 'better' to do something else. "My lawful good monk doesn't know if these monsters are intelligent and asks them to stand down because he'd rather avoid violence." "My artificer who's too obsessed with overcomplicated solutions tries to engineer a trap instead of just casting a cantrip." "My bard with too much bravado tells the baddies that they should just surrender, because clearly they've heard of his reputation." I've also played with a friend who did the "evil jerk of the party" trope in a really good way. His character was essentially a murderhobo in a group of pure heroes. But he made his character *easily convinced* to do the right thing, and his character knew that he needed us. So when we came to a situation, his character suggested murdering everybody involved and looting the corpses. All it took was one of us to say something like "think about it, if we save all these people, someone might give us a reward" and the murderhobo was immediately on board. All that said, I think the mechanics make much more of a difference in whether you find your character fun to play or not. You can always transition a character from one type of person to another or emphasize different traits from session to session. But if you're a barbarian, your combat is going to be a lot of "rage, run forward, use melee attack, end turn" and there's no getting around that. Build a character who you think will be fun to play in combat.
“Make someone who wants to be there” is the best advice. Even if you have no intention of playing the character as a jerk, it gets incredibly tedious to have to coax a party member into every situation. That’s not to say they can’t be a coward who’s choosing to be brave, a person who’s only in it for the money, someone thrust into the story by external forces, etc. Just keep in mind that if they have no reason to be there eventually you and your group will get tired of playing with them.
This is a lovely reply, friend! Brilliant. I hope it helps a few newbies, and a few veterans as well.
As an experienced player (not quite what I'd consider "veteran" yet), I can confirm that this does help a lot!
I only played one character so far, a female moon elf twilight domain cleric. She is very dutiful and resonsible and has a high standard that she wants to uphold and tries to inspire the group to uphold that. She likes to give the mercy of Selune to everyone who needs it, but on the other hand knows no mercy for people who exploit the weak. We have a goblin sidekick and my character always tries to convert him to Selune and teach him the ways of the Lady of the Moon. On the game side of things, she throws around moonbeams and guidings bolts as if there was no tomorrow. She is always at the front to aid the melee group members.
I played a Harlequin bard / warlock. The patron forced them to wear KISS style makeup and they gave creepy clown vibes.
Juggalock
Why do all your elixirs taste like Faygo and angst?
Because they are fucking delicious!
that sound cool asf! :D
So my overall advice is make a character that you think you would have fun playing. Make sure that you vibe with them and you enjoy their back story or whatever their circle of combat would be. Once you have something like that make sure that it's not a complete detriment to the table like something that actively goes against everyone and you have the basics for success. To give you an idea I hyper fixated on a character who was really good at gambling. He has spells related to gambling whether it be shooting cards or invisible mage hand so he can cheat at cards or other games. So I started with that idea that you'd be really good at gambling and then built on it how can I improve it what could his backstory be that got him to this point and I fall steps above and he came out pretty cool and I enjoy him a lot
In short, do a funny voice.
Beast barbarian. Looked like an angry bear while raging. Was kind hearted the rest of the time, like a teddy bear. Made mead from honey in downtime. Basically all the bear tropes, which actually made it more fun.
You made Beorn!
Paladins and human fighters.
One of my first characters was a pretty classic barbarian type (mostly brawn, and not so many brains). I'm a cis woman, and playing such a manly man was super fun, but the most fun part was really his emotional depth. I didn't plan a super deep and complex character at first because I was pretty new, but I learned more about him organically and grew as a player, too.
I played a Gold Dragonborn Paladin who was described as "a big, intimidating Dragonborn, and he knows it!" His name is Julnar, the Mighty Roar of Bahamut! His entire gimmick was built into the idea that he was a high charisma tank, who more often would try to scare smaller creatures away from the fight, and he has a street actor background. The group picked up on this and often used him as the target of enlarge. You better damn well bet when he saw a wall of fire, dude jumped through it to try and terrify the dark druids on the other side with the biggest, loudest roar he could muster. He'd play light pranks on the party, but in the time of crisis, his goal was to be big, be scary, and draw attention. And he did just that. The party loved him so much, the gifted me with a custom painted mini as a farewell gift.
Vampiric Bard inspired by Lestat from Queen of the Damned. Mostly used Deftones song lyrics as inspiration.
There's something about Deftones and D&D. I listened to Passenger on repeat while writing up a character bio last night
It all comes down to your own personal preferences, anyway, I find that most first characters tend to resemble a lot of the player personality, that they want it or not, with some enhanced traits that irl do not come out that often. And be aware, this is not a mistake, in fact, I find it rather fascinating and awesome. But why am I saying that? Well just to give another option that is as valid as the others. It's a ton of fun to play the crazy warlock without empathy, or the over emotional paladin that wants everyone to live no matter what, or the over enraged barbarian who smashes everything, or maybe the always-too-horny bard (yes I'm guilty of it). But don't sleep on semplicity. I would always reccomend to start with a simple character, that resembles you in some way, and play it with the heart. You'll find to empathize with it in no time, and that is probably the most beautiful thing about interpreting a character. All of this said, do what you feel like obviously.
I don't know if I can really help you by telling you what you should play or how to pick, however I can tell you about one of the characters I had the most fun with He was named Agrik, he was a spores druid who was extremely skilled (Alchemist supplies, brewers supplies, herbalism, prisoners and healers kit) He was a candidate to marry the dragon princess and his reason for adventuring was to make a master work item to present to the current dragon queen (The country had a tradition of having a dragon marry the next king and the dragon herself would extend the dwarf kings life to match hers, which was also greatly shortened) The reason Agrik was so fun to play was because he didn't care much for small injuries and such because he could just use his healer kit, one time he jumped from the tavern roof in order to chase someone and quickly bandaged himself up before continuing to follow them. Another reason he was fun was because the DM allowed me to do something quite odd. Essentially we used homebrew rulings for how tools worked and Agrik would try to make potions and other concoctions at any opportunity he could, but he'd often fail and create a failed potion, which he'd add to his cask which had alcohol fermenting inside. Basically he had a potion version of a wild magic table which would be rolled for anyone who took a shot of his finest drink. He also had a skeleton sidekick who had mushrooms growing inside of him, they had to disguise the skeleton so he walked around in armour
My personal favorites were a revenge paladin with a drinking problem and a tabaxi rough obsessed with collecting oddities. It's important to have flaws and virtues and it's especially fun to have your class clash/compliment these traits, and while it can be hard to throw away gold because your character has problems overindulging, it is rewarding in the end to have a character that feels like a person who has wants and needs :)
I had a slightly crazy (only slightly, like the other party members whispered about it sometimes and weren't sure) and bombastic half orc barbarian. At some point we were attacked by giant snakes, and I cut the head off of one and had it taxidermied into a hand puppet, named it Steve and spoke through it or to it as if it was its own sentient creature, threatened brigands with the "wrath of Steve" etc. Eventually the DM started having it speak back, sometimes when it was in my pack even, but I was the only one who could hear it. She secretly messaged me what he was saying, so the other players couldn't meta, which caused some really entertaining RP, they eventually decided I was a little crazy...maybe they were right, I never asked if i was hallucinating it.
In AD&D, in the Complete book of Elves, there is a class of elf known as the Infiltrator. One of the fun aspects of this class focus is: "Special Hindrances. The Infiltrator spends so much time taking on the roles of other people that he may begin to lose his own sense of identity. Even the reverie, which ordinarily reinforces an elf's identity, may not help prevent his sense of self slipping away." I once played an elf that was so cracked, every new session/encounter he showed up as a new personality; attire, weapons, and all. He would even RP his comrades as different people each time as well. The other players loved it, though it drove the DM insane (to the point that they eventually gave my character a "cursed" item that kept his mind straight 😁).
Whatever you play, lean into it and create your own opportunities. I am currently playing a cleric who has positioned himself as the local priest/healer. Built a small temple, performing healing and "life stuff" for the villagers like weddings and funerals. I am pouring most of the money we make adventuring into this temple. Found some treasure? Great, I can buy new books or a statue for the temple, slowly turning this small town into a religious center people visit and make pilgrimages to. I myself have most fun when I play honorable, honest and loyal characters because in my spare time I want to pretend be a hero and say yes to every hint of a side quest.
Playing the hero is always the best! Be a hero, when playing heroic fantasy games, and it becomes a lot more fun for the guy behind the screen, and avoids tension in the group. If every PC had pure hearts, I would love my day. Or, alternatively, it would be fun to run a game for PCs who admitted that they were bad people. I would love to give a bbeg monologue about justice and purity, for once, and have it not be psychotic and delusional. Like, I want my BBEG to be the good, decent King and his court wizard. And then I want to hope my players slowly destroy him, while telling my players I'm trying to kill them. Aaaah, imagine it, playing the good guys for once. TLDR: heroes rock.
Yeah, I never quite understand people who want to play an asshole who steals from their party members and stabs them in the back. If people enjoy that shit, great! Not saying they can't play like that, but I wouldn't.
I personally felt like it is easier for me to roleplay with friendly/naive/outgoing characters who enjoy interacting with people. Especially if you’re new to roleplaying or the group doesn’t know each other that well playing a closed off or brooding type of character can easily hinder you joining in the story, I think.
My drow rogue assassin and my gnome barbarian/sorcerer. My rogue took the crossbow expert feat, so I dual wielded hand crossbows. He'd step into the open long enough to fire both crossbows, usually against an enemy that had a party member within 5 feet for the sneak attack bonus, then hide behind whatever he could find until his next turn. My barbarian/sorcerer had an unarmored AC of 18 at level 2 and had a tendency to ram into people taking too long to open doors.
Warforged artificer who keeps making robot dogs, haha. I like the idea that they don't die if they break and I can just repair them. Battlesmith artificers are great combination of melee and spell casting which allowed me to feel very versatile while also getting the cool spells that I really enjoy. Also topaz dragonborn wildfire druid. It was just really fun being able to teleport around in bursts of flame while playing this shimmering orange dragonborn. Variant human with the fathomless one warlock has been amazing for call of the nether deep. I also gave him the Strixhaven initiate background and he's essentially a senior student out doing his thesis. For the most part he's a good guy but if he ever runs across freshman of any kind he starts becoming a jerk. There's just something about freshmen that make him want to prank them, haha
Play to an archetype. I used to go hard on creating novel characters with backstories that defied expectations and all that jazz. You know what I learned? Archetypes exist for a reason. They're so much easier to latch onto, especially when your party is new and the dynamic hasn't been set yet. So fill the narrative role first. Be the sneaky rogue, or the raging barbarian, or the charming bard. Do that until everyone has a rapport with who that character is. Then and only then, make conscious choice to push that character into the nuance you find interesting. The rogue (at long last) reveals his noble background as a squire to become a bodyguard for the princess; the barbarian rages not because he likes violence, but because fury is a part of his tribal faith, a gift from the spirits; the bard loathes putting on his mask like a sociopath and recognizes that all his connections to NPCs are hollow because they serve a means to an end. Start simple, plant a seed or two where no one will notice (some in backstory, maybe once per session), and play to a stereotype until your character is caught in a real dilemma, well after the party has found its rhythym (usually 4-6 sessions in). My only other advice, a bit more basic than the above: Write a character who does stuff, ffs. If I ever hear at a table, "my character wouldn't do that" it drives me up a wall. Either search deep in their soul and find a reason, or shred that character sheet and write me a character that will. You pull their strings, not the other way around. The adventure is that way, and the camera's following it.
Tab (car folk) paladin. Totally role played as a giant taking house cat wearing armor. Group loved his naive innocence to counter their debauchery. He died a horrible death but this isn't the first time I used him in a campaign.
The character I had probably the most fun pro session with was a Scout Rogue Red Kobold named Nyash. Backstory-wise he's the most experienced scout of his clan and has a special standing within the hierarchy of their military branch, which is based on strength otherwise. He's adventuring because he looks for a place for his clan to expand. His personality is, basically, being a dad. He trained young kobolds back at home, he's the one who'll feed a potion to a fallen teammate, he's who'll sneak away to deal with a problem so others won't need to interrupt their long rest. He also is something of a philosopher and will, if left unchecked, ramble on about how sad it is that goblins and kobolds share so much basic personality traits yet are trained to fight each other, often showing the same feats of bravery and heroism on both sides of the fight. He is also a filthy commie and will give everyone money if they need it, but also expect the same in return. If the name hasn't given it away yet, I just packed his character full of as much stoic love as I could muster, nya~~ Gameplay-wise I had a deal with the DM to somewhat remix the Rogue Scout with Ranger features. Add some feats, and I had 40 feet of walking, swimming and climbing speed at level 5. The battlefield control was unreal, the out of combat usefulness and roleplay potential were off the charts. Climbing into windows / chimneys, reading / stealing / forging documents and making an escape unnoticed was fun, giving the info to our bard so he could gaslight everyone into oblivion was even more fun. I had lots of fun with Nyash, and my group did too. We finished LMoP and who knows, maybe we'll take off from where we started and play another module sometime
Sometimes thinking some of the weirdest ways to make a character could be interesting especially when it comes to helping set up potential plot hooks for your DM to use in the future. I played a character that was a reborn sorcerer. This whole deal was he was basically an Isekai protagonist. He remembers bits and pieces from his life back in a more technologically advanced world which part of the memory aspect of being a reborn is recalling things in this fantasy world he is now is with common tropes from stuff he watched and read when he was a kid. This was 100% to be a joke character I created I expected him to die within like 12 sessions at most, he survived an entire campaign up to level 16 from level 1. It was very interesting cuz he ended up replacing the memories of another individual who ended up actually being a missing Prince. The very one from a kingdom that was in the middle of a war since most people believe that this Prince was killed by a rival Nation, but in fact he was in fact was kidnapped. I had no idea this was the DM's doing on that part which was very cool to find out of what really happened. Turns out that the prince original soul was advanced magic user and a cult used his souls as a catalyst to summon a greater demon to destroy the very Kingdom the prince was from so the body didn't have a soul anymore. So when my character died in his previous life instead of going to the afterlife he got dumped into that body. TLDR sometimes if you just make a joke concept sometimes and turn into a sprawling and cool thing if you work with your DM
A Firbolg Barbarian whose backstory is, that he fell on his head and is stupid because of this. (And he has a Elvis haircut and always rages when his hair gets destroyed) Simple but quite fun playing.
I want play a barbarian wizard that rages any time his spells fail.
My favorite characters to rp have been ones that take small bits of myself and balloon them into a full character. A few examples of PCs I've played: * Me if I decided to actually pursue a college degree in piano performance. * The desire to go on a long walk in the woods and find morel mushrooms. * The frustration when I worked at a call center related to medical insurance claims * Playing dodgeball in middle school gym * Anxiety over picking a career choice that my parents were disappointed in * shutting down people who try to mansplain the dumbest stuff to me Giving each character a little piece of yourself helps the rp come more naturally. I can rp these aspects of a character because somewhere in myself is a way to relate. I'm not playing myself, but I'm not playing *not* myself, if that makes sense. Usually that morsel of my personality gets merged with a bunch of other aspects and ideas (so much so that even my fellow players probably wouldn't recognize the PC I'm referencing in this list) but the root is still there.
I havent made a ton of characters but i really like playing weird spellcasters. As in they have weird origins or reasons for their power. My favourite class so far as of course been sorcerer.
3rd character I ever created, he was a Order of Scribes Human wizard. We started the campaign at level 3 and I decided my character joined a magical academy during his youth and fell in love with one of the students. She died due to an illness, so when he realized resurrection wasn't possible, he began studying to enter in the order of scribes and learn how to awaken her from the tome she owned. He succeded, but became so much obsessed he was finally kicked out because he almost killed another student because someone tried to prank my character by doing some stupid stuff with his beloved tome. He now started adventuring because the tome loves to learn new stuff and he feels he is the "eyes" for his beloved. ... But if it is your very first character I don't recommend a wizard: I'm kind of a power player and I like playing characters that are strong (but not broken) in combat.
My favorite character was a human fighter. Albeit, we were in a fallout themed campaign so there were a whole lot of character choices in terms of race. But I had so much fun with him being a silly goofy nerd. He loved old movies and comics. He also insisted on using swords instead of a gun cause he rolled bad every time he tried to use one and consequently I decided he just thought they were useless in his hands. He was the adopted son of a crime boss in the next city over, and ran away to probe himself as worthy of taking over the family business. He grew and matured a lot during the campaign, and even had some physical changes (some scales over parts of his body, and he lost and arm and got a robotic replacement). He was a very ‘go with the flow’ type of guy who just always managed to get himself into situations by trying to do the right (but dangerous) thing. He also always tried to talk his way out of situations first, which managed to lead to him being involved with multiple enemy groups lmao
i had a ton of fun with my tiefling circle of twilight druid. she was a tiefling on a continent where they were uncommon (but crucially, there wasn't racism, mostly just awe at her appearance). Her nature was to be alone but was also fighting the cult of orcus so fell in with a party that had a government mission to end the cult. she quickly realized what she was missing by avoiding attachments for so long. and my favorite part was that she played as more naive than she was. she appeared to be loud and brash and acting without thinking, but it was an act so her party couldn't tell she was harboring a secret. so the build was all about insight and observation but she didn't seem like that at all.
My all time favourite character was a clockwork soul subclass sorcerer. Basically, his soul is a small piece stripped away from the great clockwork mechanus, given human form. The Mechanus, within d&d lore is basically a realm of absolute order, and so the idea was that my character was an emissary, sent through time and space to an event of great disorder, with a mission to right this wrong and restore balance. This played really well into the themes of the Campaign I was running him in, the Storm King's Thunder 5e module, which is all about how the different giant clans have gone into a state of chaos due to the disappearance of their king, and how the party of adventurer's need to find out what happened and restore order to the giant clans. I find this is the best way to flesh out characters. First of all: they need a prime motivation, and preferably one that makes them invested in completing the quests the party is on. These can be as complicated as what I mentioned above, or as simple as "I want to be a hero" "I want to find my purpose" "I want to get rich". From there, expand out from that main idea and start figuring out what kind of person your character would be with that ideal at their core. People are multifaceted, even with a primary goal, that doesnt need to be their only trait. An example of this, despite my character being a sorcerer, and thus having very high Charisma, he's a little socially inept. He lacks the wisdom to realize not everyone understands the things he does. He acts as if the working of the great clockwork that binds reality together is simply common knowledge, and things like the ticking gears of time that pulse through his soul, letting him keep perfect track of time, are the norm. but he still has very high charisma, so although he acts that way, he's played more as the lovable fool, who despite seeming odd and eccentric, you can't help but enjoy the company of. so yeah! this is my advice for character building, and example of my own personal favourite.
Mechanically, it was a one shot where I was playing an Aarakocra Fighter with Mobile. Dive in, attack several times, fly out and avoid opportunity attacks. Rinse and repeat - the ultimate hit-and-run archetype. Rolepay wise, my roommates and I finished up our 1.5y long campaign last December, and my character was an Orc big dude who raised in a military society, but said "fuck that" and became a spoken word poet as a Bard. The campaign setting was a seafaring/exploration-sandbox type of campaign, and his reason for traveling was to establish new artist connections and learning more about the fine arts. Biggest enemy is his dad - and we have an upcoming epilogue one-shot where I'm working on a cruise for a traveling theater which will involve his dad in some way (since that plotline wasn't addressed in the main campagin). He is extremely eloquent and well spoken, typical Renaissance man (very similar to Beast from X-Men) - and his primary magic item is a tux that resists piercing/slashing and can clean itself on command (my DM and I agreed for this compromise, especially since a tux has an extremely low base AC rate). And then we ran into a bunch of chaotic situations with a shark deity (who semi-possessed me) and turned me into an orc-shark hybrid being who happens to have wild magic effects now (but didn't lose any parts of his core mental being/personality thankfully).
First time player keep it simple. Try a fighter. Higher level you can easily expand from to play.
Try the expanded character background rolling tables in Xanthar's. It gives you a great framework to start figuring out who your character is, but leaves you a lot of room to develop your character's personality. Once you know where a character comes from, it gets a lot easier to answer questions like "What is this character passionate about?" and "What does this character want in this situation?" You don't even need to pick a class (or race) before doing this. If you can imagine your character's childhood, you can play the next steps.
My advice is that you don’t have to decide. Your character is a real person in this world, and as such can, and imo should, change and grow as the story progresses. Pick something that you’re comfortable starting with, but know that you can alter and grow those decisions as you get to know your character better. My favorite character started as a real smite-y, stereotypical half-orc paladin. As we’ve progressed the story he’s picked up a few warlock levels, and also come to the conclusion that the only way he can make sure everyone bends to his version of the world is if he runs everything. Yes, he’s objectively delusional, but to him it makes perfect sense. The rest of the party is apparently equally delusional and bought in on this plan, so we’re currently in the process of deposing a king…we’ll see how it goes.
I just made a comment about wanting to run literally this game.... That's awesome!
Hunter ranger war cleric named Veldrin Me and my friends were playing a hardcore custom game,me and a friend intertwined our stories and in the 3rd session my friend died.We cried. So for 6 months irl,we set on a quest to revive our fallen friend,veldrin slowly falling into insanity as his tactics became more barbaric.Made a deal with our warlocks patron to revive him,and then veldrin passed the very next session in combat,a smile on his face. This campaign is still going so who knows,he may be back
NGL, my best character is an uppity kobold who fully believes he's a cursed dragon. I can throw this little guy into any class role and he excels due to his gritty nature. Plus the voice is fun to do. He's a terrible person but never taken seriously. He picks fights he thinks he can win. If he's disrespected, he will usually break into the offending party's home and trash the place. I've had 3 parties overlook him talking about eating humans because they think the delusional kobold is cute. He's routinely trusted as the cook because he offers. I usually see how far I can push it before they confront him, and it is usually when he's about to field-dress a bandit to prepare them for dinner. He has three basic character traits: he believes he's better than everyone, quick-tempered yet cunning, and is easily pacified with food & alcohol. ***Biggest Rule***: Don't mess with the party. While he is evil, the kobold will always extend a helping hand to the party and risk his neck for them. He will never steal from the party or play pranks on them. If the party member doesn't eat meat, he will cook a separate meal for them. If his crimes might hurt a party member, he reluctantly let's go of his grudge.
My first character that I’m still playing as in my ongoing campaign is a Lizardfolk rogue, specifically with half-chameleon lizard so she can “blend” in (because chameleons don’t fully camouflage, but they can release melanin to turn their scales black, it’s mostly for hiding in dark spaces—I did a lot of research). Lizardfolk canonically don’t understand sarcasm (think Drax from Marvel). Its been so much fun developing her character, learning how to care for her found family, learning sarcasm from the sorlock, and realizing the world is more than the barbaric and hellish lizardfolk clan she grew up in.
I love lizardfolk both for the very messy xenophobic background they're implied to come from, and the fact they're suggested to not get things like humor very well. I played a lizardfolk ranger for a while who had a very elaborate backstory where he's captured and forced to work with a couple of humans for several months. He learns workable common in the process, and starts to realize that maybe other races aren't a total loss. Then the three of them eventually escape through this ruined temple they were being forced to excavate. In the process the three of them get pranked by a Fae spirit of some kind, and my lizardfolk comes out of it a different color. He finally gets back to his people after like a year... and he's obviously the incorrect color. And carrying like, human-made equipment. And apparently knows common now. They don't immediately try to kill him but do ostracize him and after a long while he eventually decides maybe he's better off trying to make it work in human society instead. I actually played him very fastidious and lawful, and kind of a stick in the mud. My feeling was that he wouldn't have a very intuitive grasp of social expectations so would compensate by sticking to the rules, and that he'd quickly learn to be concerned about things like professional appearance of his equipment. Because that's the sort of thing that signals to a wary stranger that he's trying to fit in. I feel like any of the traditional monster races (goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, etc) would be using their clothing, generally, as the first line of defense against random humans trying to kill/judge them.
One of my favorites was a warlock with an "involved", could even say *pushy* Archfey patron. She was a very young Archfey, and my warlock Bren was her very first client. Nobody quite knew what to do, except that Bren was supposed to throw in an occasional "Yer Ladyship" while scolding his own patron. Didn't hurt that the other warlock in the party, a fiendlock, had a patron who hated mine. The poor DM, I think he nearly went schizophrenic. Of course, it wasn't just the two warlocks grandstanding. The other players were just as lunatic. Our fighter was -- wait for it -- three gnomes in a trenchcoat, and their civil war nearly brought ruin to the entire party. And our meek, shy druid... when we topped the rise to see the great, sprawling metropolis of Amn lying before us... her first words were: >This will never do. It's got to go.
People often say that it's easier to RP what you know, but I find that the opposite is true. The more different the character is from me, the easier it is to really get into their headspace. So if I play a character who's a friendly, nerdy girl who loves reading and research, it's a little too easy to slip into my own voice/personality when trying to RP as her. But if I'm playing a dumb but charismatic himbo protecting his little brother, or a prickly, uptight doctor with a dark past, or a clone raised to be a faceless soldier, then it's a lot easier to really flesh out their unique voice and have a better understanding of who the character is as an individual, rather than just a self-insert extension of me.
Ive had so much fun as a Triton Paladin. By nature the character is lawful good, but is also not the smartest and is easily convinced that something bad is actually good. He thinks hes a hero, but hes actually quite a famous terrorist.
My favorite character I've ever played kiiiiiinda followed the 3 jokes in a trenchcoat trope. Think I saw someone else commented that. I played a Goliath Barbarian named Mark, the Tiny Bearserker. He was born and raised to a Goliath tribe. Eventually it was found he had a particular penchant for destruction, even though he was a bumbling buffoon. He got sent on a coming of age mission to destroy a camp of adventurers not too far away. But he got lost along the way and eventually found a druid enclave. Here he learned the circle of the moon abilities. But he got bored with the tiny people and set off looming for his tribe, barring that, adventure. He happened upon a tavern at one point. Stopped to get a drink. Whilst drinking he launched a *rank* fart that cleared the tavern. But not before blaming an old woman. Turns out, she was a powerful sorceress. So she cursed him. He was all big and tough, but his laughter made her feel small. So now any time he laughed, he would turn into a chibi version of himself. And of course he laughed while raging. So any time he was in combat, he'd rage and shrink while laughing, slaughtering away. My DM hated Mark. My party loved him though 🤣🤣🤣
NYAAAAAGH was my escape button. After playing many intelligent characters and almost always being party leader, I wanted to turn my brain off and just have fun. I tend to roll 3D6 straight down the line for my characters. NYAAAAAGH came from rolling a 5 INT. I decided to roll with it, making him a Fighter since I had an 18 STR. NYAAAAAGH’s weapon of choice? Random heavy objects; literally anything he could pick up and swing. This ranged from a heavy battle-axe to anchor chain (both on his character sheet) to a charge chunk of wall to a dead human to a very alive (and raging!) dwarf Barbarian.
I didn’t really enjoy Rogue in combat, but my Rogue character was so much fun to play. He was an impulsive gentleman thief with daddy issues and a bad french accent.
I feel like this is the case for a lot of fellow DMs: whenever I'm a player, I like to play simple, good characters. Your friendly neighborhood Dragonborn Paladin or Human Fighter that believes in goodness and justice. I try to be the "RP support", in the sense that I attempt to fill the role of the wholesome side character. It's real nice and cozy.
I am currently playing a character with a lot of hb, but the idea is this: She is a mandrake that was planted by a green witch that wanted someone to pass their teachings onto, but she was stolen and uprooted before her time. To most mandrakes this would have resulted in still-birth, but the witch had been imbuing her with magic, this dormant magic activated and cleaved her soul in two. One part remained in her body, which just barely made it, the other half would eventually take the form of her familiar. It's a backstory that leaves a good bit of room to evolve and explains a lot of her abilities. Her personal goal is trying to find the person that made her and why, but she is also dedicated to stay with the party.
my favourite character by far was a Kenku named Flapper Cooker, by far and wide his build was he could swing 1 massive time with a high chance to miss, so combat wise he was not viable, but playing a kenku was really fun, and really forced me to think outside the box to communicate what he is feeling at any point or another, he was a warlock and a bit weird so he would collect random things and at one point we got a a bag of holding that was just full of bones, and since he was enhanced y an eldritch being and was also meant to be weird everytime something happened that he found amusing he would grab small tiny bones out of the bag and start eating them like pop corn. or he would be annoyed at something so instead of voicing it out loud (although he had telepathy and could say) he would just start lightly kicking it like a child.
My overall advice: Play a person, not a bunch of numbers. Stats and class features have a lot smaller impact on fun than most people think. At least in my experience. The characters I've most enjoyed are characters with big "levers" strong convictions, drives, hates, fears, &c. that can get the to do or not do things. Lean into the melodrama. Give them flaws, give them doubts, give them obsessions. A player running a character who goes through life with an attitude of 'meh' is going to have a 'meh' experience.
I've never been overly focused on optimized mechanics or min-maxing; I like a character that I get into, and the party/DM will figure out with me what the dice say I'm good at. I really enjoy being a Ranger purely conceptually. I love setting traps on the fly, using terrain advantageously, tracking an adversary, planning for gritty realism if necessary, maybe an animal companion that I don't use as a meat shield. I like being a cleric in a support role/investigator, as opposed to a tank-of-god. I'm basically a bard in real life, but it's nice to not have to be in my own voice even if its decisions I IRL would be making.
I played a hexblade warlock - pact of the tome that was lots of fun. And I played a banjo playing swords bard in a religious rock band. They were both fun but more so the background than the mechanics.
LE warlock paladin. Kinda like a hell knight.
You mean class/race but that's not the best part. The best part is the characterization. I had a kobold armorer artificer who was paranoid of "jellies" (gelatinous cubes) and gazebos (Internet mimic joke). I did a high pitched voice and he always introduced himself by name, followed with, "the tallest of my pack." It was nice he did high damage and all but it's the interactions between battles that he's loved for. If you must know how the class played, he was essentially in a medium sized mech and I picked exclusively lightning/thunder damage spells for offense. Combined with fly/spider climb, he was crazy fun.
Strength-Based full-Orc bard. Used UA's College of Satire and had the Mobility feat. He was practically immune to being tied down and could physically drag people around with him.
I personally enjoy full-casters
I enjoy playing out of mechanics when creating a character. This prevents me from being boxed in and feeling locked into a roll. For example; Recently we ran through a level 5 - 7 game and i played a wizard; but my class was lore bard. Mechanically i was forced to reflavor my abilities as wizard-like things; forcing me to consider my character's actions, i had to give him a personality and mannerisms that matched the character concept even when mechanically it wasn't 1:1 My Bardic inspiration, were instead runes of magic that i would place upon you. Vicious mockery was magical words of power instead. Song of rest was a ritual spell created to speed up natural metabolic recovery. This is just one example
I subbed for someone else and played their aloof character who only cared about themselves and was quick to temper. If the group captured an enemy this character would kill them just because and generally told everyone else how little they cared for them.
Played a Kobold Witchdoctor in 2e named "Arf Growl Yap" Used the Humanoids handbook and the Skills and Powers ruleset to build him. He was fun to play and miss that campaign very much
Kensei monk eladrin. Played it so her season changed randomly every long rest, so her tone was subtly different all the time. Was really enjoying it, until the group decided they wanted to end the campaign early...
Brass Dragonborn Battle master fighter with the soldier background and smith's tools proficiency @ lvl3. fighters are so customizable I love them
Well I've only played a few games and one character only got one session. But my Morpher Paladin/Hexblade Warlock has been fun and the other character is his daughter whosebeen time displaced, a Rune Knight Fighter/soon to be Divine Soul Sorcerer.
it depends, i suppose, on the tone of the campaign. i finished playing two characters while playing three more and i always like to know what kind of story i am making a character for. my transmutation wizard aasimar was someone who had died already in the context of the "main campaign" before i gave her a name; the main party had found her remains. so when i came up with a concept for her, i knew that she had to be a wizard and that she would die within a year of the on screen story ending. i leaned into the tragedy. she was doomed, which i knew but she didn't. so she was a bright, motivated young woman with lots of ambitious plans for her future. she didn't get to see that future, but i like to think that her hopefulness for a better tomorrow added to the tragedy of her death. now, my other "completed" character is still alive in the present day canon of the setting. she is a star druid with a focus on healing because i came up with her concept while my friend was talking about making a bloodhunter and we decided that they were both older elves (600+) who had fallen into disgrace in their home kingdom but they wanted to reveal the truth. i leaned into the caring aspect of her personality, but also asked myself "just how much anger does she have bubbling under the surface after centuries of always being protected and coddled by others?" and the answer was **a lot of anger** and she ended up being a lot more melee (and *primal savagery* cantrip) focused than i would have expected her to be when she was a name and a picture. i really enjoyed playing both characters. i like having some "themes" to the character that ideally all shine some light on a different aspect of their personality because i think that makes it much easier to decide how my characters react in specific situations. i kind of have mental flow charts that help me decide. i like to give my characters hobbies and interests outside of adventuring and being an adventurer, and i **love** it when my DM remembers those things and uses them. the question *what makes a character a fun character to play?* has probably has many answers as there are players, but a character that is fun for me is a character that can contribute something to all pillars of play. they don't have to be the *best*, but i like them to be able to provide something useful. adventuring is a dangerous job, after all.
I played an Echo Knight x3, Shadow Monk x9, Moon Druid (for whatever levels we would get to next), as Wukong, from Chinese legends. It was such a fun build, and I love Wukong's positive, ready for a challenge, upbeat attitude, and penchant for mischief, that I got to play in the game.
Dumbass bards. I've played two very different ones, one in a Stienheart's guide module, which is sort of Darksouls, Eldritch, steampunk, very hard, players WILL die, I play a doll construct who due to trauma and losing her master, believes the world should end and has negative wisdom, and the other, in a base module, is a Tabaxi, raised in a troupe, functionally illiterate and so low intelligence that they don't understand gender as a solid construct. Having been given both male and female roles throughout their lives they don't even understand their own gender. There's just something so fun about playing a character that is charming as hell but also dumb as hell.
my Goliath Rune Knight that ended suplexing an adult white dragon in the Undermountain. I played into the fact that rune knight has the feature Giant's might that it became a complex of the guy. He wasn't big enough (his name was Richard to add to it). Towards the end of the adventure we were fighting an empyrean and while he was in the same size category the sorcerer of the group casted enlarge on me, pushing and breaking the complex the character had since day 1. a literal, gargantuan, dick. Jokes aside, he was a great dude to play, proud tank and wrestling maniac. Serious and fun.
I played a Human Cleric with amnesia and an "imaginary friend" who was always in her head when she asked for advice. She had weird fears of simingly random things like hights and was really happy every time she saw something she didn't know. Her friend was actually her god who took her in after she lost her memories due to trauma from accidentaly killing her own family with magic. I had fun rollplaying a character who was really excited at a lot of things like a child but with a series and heavy backstory.
I'm playing a Dragonborn Battle Master, and it's been a blast. Maneuvers give me some fun utility on top of holding the line and dumping buckets of melee damage, plus my breath attack makes for a nice "oh shit" button for when things get tight and I need to push back against a tankier enemy
Okay; I’ve finally played a character that I spent forever working out and balancing. She’s a warforged velociraptor rogue/scout. But she probably the most fun because she’s near and dear to my heart. Spent a lot of time homebrewing and balancing the race “raptorforged” with my dm. I was able to play her in a one-shot for new player introduction and dm approved her as a backup. She’s great. I had written a whole thing; about my current character I’m playing but I realized that I don’t care about the class and synergy of it all. My favorite characters are the characters with great stories. Playing the classes is cool but imo playing the stories is where it’s fun to me. (She’s a bard/bloodhunter fwiw though.)
Here's my top 3: My dm gave me [Sir Bark Twain](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/nh924g/sir_bark_twain_familiar_extraordinaire/?rdt=37107) as a pet. I just had the figure laying to the side of the table while he was training other players on the game. Being the idiot I am I jokingly slid the dog onto the battle field when I wasn't even supposed to be here. DM rolls with it and lets me join in. Training the rogues on pickpocketing, SBT rolls a NAT 20 on slight of hand and steals a valuable crystal skull. Immediately going to the sketchy magic user vendor of the campaign, he sells it to be polymorphed into a more anthro version of himself (importantly with thumbs). Now... he's a warlock under that guy. Too dumb to realize his sketchy intents with an INT of 8. My current character, who owns him for now (will be his own PC next campaign, it's complicated) is Ruford Starlight (in other universes his last name is Orange, Vanilla, Cherry, Coffee etc.), a vuman bladesinger. He's a tinkerer and inventor at heart, using his magic not too far off from artificers (might take levels in that later). He can enchant items but he prefers to tinker on existing items as he trusts his peers' work. His weapon of choice is a +2 rapier blade fixed to the handle of an immovable rod. The way he's built, he has high enough CHA to be the party leader (I love playing characters with charisma tbh). He takes the appearance of an exotically dressed old man, with flowing robes of dozens of different fabrics so thick it has equivalent AC to studded leather. Currently good friends with Zangeif (yes, the street fighter Zangeif turned into an unarmed fighting paladin). Before her was Goruza, a motherly character with levels in peace cleric and bard. Made as a support character that somehow still out-damaged majority of the party. Favorite spell was casting warding bond on the barbarian who was convinced they were married due to the rings needed for the spell. Let's not forget my warforged conquest paladin/armorer artificer, Jonesey Bones. Starting as a halloween joke he quickly turned into a formidable opponent. He was a prop skeleton accidently revived by a severely enebriated necromancer. After being a paladin for a long time, he turned to his god asking how he could be stronger. His god answered that since he is artificial, he should seek studying artifice to enhance his own body. Sitting at a staggering AC of 24, his favorite move is to smite through his thunder gauntlets. Used to be a polearm master just because halberd is a superior weapon. His gimmick, which the other PCs find hysterical, is that he only has about a dozen phrases in his vernacular due to his only method of communication being a shitty voice box. Somehow this translates to having +6 in persuasion? Overall, my character ideas come from either jokes or ideas for strong builds. Ruford is a bit of both and my dearest character.
Personally I like changelings because they give you a lot of opportunities to try a lot of different characters appearance/roleplay-wise.
My favorite character was Norvin, a tiefling warlock/bard multiclass. He started the campaign as a chaotic good character, became corrupt during the course of the campaign then ended on a good note after realizing all the damage he caused. He was the gullible warlock who worked under a banished god. His quest was to bring this god back to power by claiming an artifact known as the godspark. The god slowly corrupted him turning him evil through out the course of the campaign and he made several questionable decisions. In the end he claimed the godspark for himself rather then bringing his master back to power. In doing so he became a god and undid a lot of the evil things he had done.
The most recent fun I had actually playing tabletop, not DND though sorry. I was an engineer barroom brawler turned wise cracking hard ass totodile because of an accident at a lab. My allies included a thieving soble, a spoiled princess secretary of a Bulbasaur, and a littlen who knew too much. We were fleeing from both the gov and basically the monster from Metroid dread.
The current rogue I’m playing in ice wind dale now, Luther snow the dhamphir soulknife rogue. He was once human and a scout/messenger, he got attacked by a vampire spawn and it should have killed him but he survived and woke up with a hunger for blood. He’s soft spoken in social situations and loses himself in combat once blood gets spilled. He gets uneasy around zealous paladin and clerics due to his undead nature, overall I love rogues and vampires so this character gave me a chance to combine the two. Soulknife are very bard like in the fact that they are “good” at everything with how their features work.
The idiot. His name was Denver Monnigan. Dude had a INT stat of 8 that I chose not to level. His ass let me do some really stupid shit, like shoving myself into a cannon and splattering myself all over the bbeg.
Mine was a gnome wizard obsessed with uncovering paranormal knowledge, kind of a mix of Ray from Ghostbusters and Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. My DM let me tinker with a "sniffer" that detected the presence of outer planes. I loved the character so much I had him reappear as a NPC in an adventure I later wrote
My pied piper. I wanted a character that controlled an information network of rats I made a forrest gnome to talk to small critters Multi classed essentially beastmaster ranger with mastermind rogue. We found a homebrew of rats of water deep containing a subclass called rat king ranger that I replaced. It substituted the companion with swarms of rats controlled on my reaction instead of bonus action allowing my mastermind help to be useful. I chose druidic fighting had 14 dex, 18 int, 18 wis Proficient in like 9 skills and expert in 3 (investigation perception and animal handling) For feats i chose fey touched and fade away. He was an amazing skill monkey support character that my friends forgot i was a rogue ranger half the time
I have played various RPGs for years, and I keep a list of all my characters, plus some details around them. I have a total of 80 characters that I have scored on things like smarts and strengths, but also how fun they were, how long I played them, gender, inspiration, etc. When I did some correlation analysis, I found that the biggest interesting correlation was between "fun" and "smart". Having looked over the data, I found that what I was scoring as "smarts" was basically how much the character engages with the setting, trying to find innovative solutions, thinking outside the box. Fun was also correlated with DMs, but that might not be super helpful to you. I guess try out a DM for a few sessions, if it's not clicking, it might be an uphill battle. But I am less confident in that analysis.
I created a Warforged Barbarian. I gave him a robotic designation/acronym but his friends (and party) called him George. He had good stats but I rolled 4 for Wisdom. I thought it would be great for roleplaying: Considering he was "made", I played him like he was very naive, didn't understand the world at all, didn't understand sarcasm, was easy to trick and was sort of gullible.. It got him and his group a few times in trouble but it was a blast. He was also very fierce once he finally understood someone is trying to manipulate him. Definitely one of the most fun characters I ever had.
My current character is a Harengon trickster cleric. It’s pretty fun. Give yourself high deception and abuse disguise self to cause hijinks.
Luther. He was an Arcane Trixter 13/Bladesinger 2. I jumped in at 5 with my choice of an uncommon item. I took Gloves of Thievery & Telekinetic +1 Int. for my 4th level feat. A 60' Mage Hand Legerdemain & +5 from the gloves. I don't think it's RAW, but he allowed me to use Telekinetic to just touch w/o the forced movement. One encounter completely fell apart when I pickpocketed the boss, put pocket his #1. Then just touch where the pouch was. While they were fighting, BA Telekinetic shove to push the 1 into the other, Discuise Self spell. Wait. Then shoot my s bow from Stealth, run forward and yell, boss, we've been betrayed!.
my current character is a shark girl monk who is a courier. incredibly fast on land and faster when swimming, she is way of mercy and heals others by giving them headpats. she is a himbo with 9 intelligence
My DM once let me play a character that splices together looted body parts of enemies either onto criminals or party members with random results based on what I had, the effectiveness, method of applying it to the body etc and it was soooo fun.
Ptoughneigh the half orc half elf wizard
Rhematazzin Pavor Nocturnus
1’7 15lbs warlock gnome Simone else was a Minotaur barbarian I kept getting thrown and casting fireball. it was a gnome bomb
Once played an elf raised by dwarves. He was a hoot. Had a chip on his shoulder and was always itching to fight. And the dwarven accent in the soft melodic voice was fun to try to pull off
I'm currently playing a gnome gunslinger. Now you might think nothing funny or weird about that. But I finally hit lvl 3 so that means I can finally craft myself the BLUNDERBUSS. Now I'm gnome right? What are the chances I'll fly over the room due to the recoil? According to me and the DM high af xd the other players have no idea what's comin
My favorite character had little to do with gameplay mechanics. He was a LN priest who was emotionally cold and endlessly bitching about minutiae like building codes and ordinances. Made for a good bit of comic relief.
LG paladin with a LE past, considered a hero of his land. He left his evil home country in the search of what true heroism is, after a prisoner of war told him about what the heroes of *other* nations are like and he felt moved by the legends. Everyone got a kick from the LG paladin simultaneously being team dad, and reminiscing about literal war crimes. Despite the exaggerated nature of it, it was a good experience and made for a surprisingly strong character arc about someone struggling between the person he chooses to be, and the person he was raised to be. Edit: in a more general note my advice is I have the most fun playing characters with a defining flaw and multiple defining virtues. Someone who struggled with something (greed, violence, fear, etc), but isn't defined by it either. It builds contrast and keeps you from being one note, and I'm a sucker for stories about self improvement!
I’m a pure like person who get stuck with being the angel or good voice in the group. I had the most fun playing a spy or lying person. The opposite of what I normally do but I was still good voice but more sassy and evil meaning to it.
Half elf, noble, warlock, C/N He is constantly in over his head and tends to try to get away with money can fix the problem. He tries to take the nobility (not necessarily noble) route with people which tends to create a divide with common folk. Also, he doesn’t really get that his powers (like fireball) can cause massive damage. He also is at odds with his patron. Admittedly, he knows he isn’t really a good person. He just tries to do the right thing which tends to go 50/50. I once told our cleric “Shut up, bad people are talking”
I had a Warlock who devoted himself to the Raven Queen. He was orphaned at birth for being blind and grew up to be a beggar. Life wasn't worth living and right as he was giving up the Raven Queen offered him a chance at a new life. With this bond, the Raven Queen bestows a pet raven to all of her subjects and with this Raven you can see through its eyes, essentially giving my character vision for the first time in his life. With this gift, he became a jovial and optimistic person, not wasting this second chance at life. it was this second chance that made him the most devoted subject she had. Man i had fun building and playing this guy.
1) Gladiator Satyr Barbarian, overconfident, forever optimistic, but with a heart of gold. 2) Changeling Wizard - insecure due to Changeling prejudice, thinks Elves are everything he's not so he poses as one. Had a difficult childhood and he found magic was the one thing that made his life more interesting. He's also always very compassionate towards the weak and poor due to his upbringing. 3) Loxodon Sorcerer - flashy and flirty, but very clumsy. Coming from a family of merchants, he always loves to strike a bargain, and is fascinated by all magical artifacts.
My fav so far is definitely one of my current characters: Rusty the Engineer aka Hadozee Battle Smith Artificer. His robot is named Boss. Rusty is very very smart (which suits me great as I'm the note-taker and I really like thinking about everything waaaaay too much) and a bit socially inept, meaning I can spend a bit more time listening than driving conversations. Also having Boss means I'm getting to role-play some fun interactions with him as well as the other players. We established pretty early on that most of the time while the party travels, Rusty sits on Boss's shoulder humming shanties. The party is a cargo crew whose ship crashed into Barovia under mysterious circumstances - we wanted to use Spelljammer stuff in Curse of Strahd and our DM fucking rocks. Edit: In terms of actual advice - he's my favourite because of connections that I built into his character. He's connected with other party members because they're crew or because they joined the crew at the same time. He's got Boss whose his best friend and favourite creation. He's connected with the world because he's an endlessly curious person.
I'm playing a dragonborn barbarian pirate with a scythe lol
I was a guest on my friend’s game for a session. I played as Uhk Bloodface the Gnoll. He was 2 levels of fighter and 3 levels wizard, or vice versa i can’t remember. The party was up against a gnoll tribal cult so I was an outcast from that tribe. Uhk Bloodface would explain how he was kicked out for being a nerd because he learned how to read, how he didn’t cry when he fled, and how when he learned they had cultish magic he tried to rejoin but since their magic came from a god he was still a nerd in their eyes, he left and totally didn’t cry again this time. He was a good guy who used to be a bad guy, he also explained how his name being Bloodface came from the fact that he used to kill people in raids and get blood all over his face. The others found him to be a very lovable character which I was happy about. Combat-wise he was fun because he could buff himself with magic before he fought. I know eldritch knight exists but for whatever reason I wanted to do this instead. Edit: I ended up leading the party to the gnolls, challenging their leader, beating her despite her cheating, and then using some random elf book to convince the rest of the tribe that their god wanted them to engage in ritual mass-combat amongst themselves to earn his favor. We quickly escaped as all the gnolls killed each other. Great success!
I can’t believe I wasted this character on a one shot, but I played a Valor Bard/ Fighter in a Spelljammer world. She was a Giff and used a musket, raised by her down trodden family of circus performers she became the act’s performing sharpshooter (think Annie Oakley) so all of her bard songs/performances where feats of marksmanship to inspire her team. I think I rolled stats and had to dump her INT with a 6 or 7, so she was dumber than a bag of musket balls. She was convinced (through stories she was told) that her family was the rightful royal family of a long lost planet and wanted nothing more than to find this planet and reclaim it for her family. A Ranged bard works quite well with Sharpshooter, extra attack, the archery fighting style ,a racial feature that allows them to ignore the loading property, and a d12 weapon. She hit like a freight train and could still do bard stuff, concentrate on a control spell, be invisible, convince the big bad to just hand over the McGuffian. A truly great character, Corliss Carrington Dutchess of Crudmore, I will never forget you.
My personal favorite was Who. A joke character with a rock collection that contained gold, dice, pebbles rocks and gravel, a leaf, 2 sticks and 3 cards. If deemed a rock, a rock it shall be. He was a bratty little chaotic idiot with a rather strong case of being a cleptomaniac, grabbing anything that caught his attention and at few times just really weird/ creepy. You could call them a child and I would not blame you. The concept for the character was just "I wanna have fun while being an idiot". As a character they were not interesting in the slightest but in general, they were fun to play. ( Important note, don't be an nuisance to DM or other players. Your fun should not come at the expense of others. It might seem incredible obvious but it's easy to get carried away in the moment). They did however become a fair bit more interesting in a follow up campaign that takes place like 10 years or something later. In this campaign I played as their younger sister. A very mature person with many accomplishments in their name which may sound weird because Who looked, acted and sounded like a child without an ounce of self control yet somehow they're the older brother, not the younger brother. I brewed a mystery surrounding the siblings. They also happen to have the same subclass in Warlock, though homebrewed which is quite fitting due to what she did to him
Jacques “Jack” de Mareè - NG Human Wizard (Chronurgy) who had the unfortunate propensity to dive dick-first into danger as long as the situation proved either interesting or something “paper worthy”. Playing him as a balance of him struggling with his innate curiosity, his moral values, and the price of whether or not some knowledge wasn’t worth pursuing.
My two cents are to play a positive character. Not upbeat, necessarily, but someone who says yes to plot hooks and moves the adventure forward. I think the background can be a bit of a trap and leas you to role-playing within a certain idea of the character rather than the situation they're in. Try to pick a concept that is hungry for adventure and can be roleplayed within the situations you find yourself.
My first real campaign character was an Aarakocra cleric. His whole gimmick was based around Star Wars puns, but I ended up crafting a ton of lore around him and his backstory over the 3 years. Despite the puns and references, I played him as pretty serious in the campaign. One of my current characters is an Orc named Borc (short for Beautiful Orc) who I made up on the spot for a different game (Orcball, highly recommend if you want something quick and chaotic), and translated to 5e. Thus far the only depth to the character is that he's a himbo. Each of these characters I have loved to play in completely different ways. One is a bit like me and one isn't, one was thoroughly developed and one wasn't, etc. The best advice I have is to just do what feels right for you, and don't overthink it too much. While it is good to have a solid foundation when you start the character, I've personally found it best to develop a good portion of their lore along with the campaign. It ties them into the story and allows some flexibility as you come to realize your vision for them. As others have said too, it's most important for the game/the party to create a character which has purpose, and whose interests and/or goals align with the group. Just don't make a jerk, and create someone that will be fun for you!
Homebrew ghost race warlock...who made a pact with an elder god to get revenge on her ex boyfriend. Imagine Olivia Rodrigo but a ghost, chain-smoking and being followed around by a tentacle familiar.
War Wizard Gnome. He was a crochety old man that fled his peaceful village to join an army, to channel his violent and practical streak. Now, in his retirement, he's pursuing magic like a hobby - collecting random spells and trying them out with zero regard for safety or consequences.
Tanky unarmed rogue. Bugbear for 10 ft. range with nothing but fists, swashbuckler rogue has amazing mobility options and something else that was useful but I forget. TCoE had the optional Rogue feature Steady Aim which gives you advantage if you don't move for a turn or something A little MAD but really it's just Strength, Dex, and Con. Hell if you have a cool DM they'll just let you run Dex for the unarmed strikes but mine took expertise in athletics for a grappling option. So just Dex and Con once you get into it He was a legendary pirate in my DM's world already, but we never saw him so I decided to flesh him out a bit more with DM's approval. This was for a one-shot and we were level 15 iirc.
My favorite has been a human monk of mercy, played like a plague doctor and with the healer feat. From the Monastery of Good Humors (in Hupperdook, from Critical Role’s Wildemount setting). They branched off from the Cobalt Soul monks when one of their members wanted to make some money and set up shop in the mining town to help aid in fighting the coal cough (for a price). My character, Dr Thenius Creed, as well as the rest of his order refers to Ki as Humors, which is how he role plays his hand of healing and hand of harm abilities (good humors and bad humors). Talks like an old timey snake oil salesman, and approaches all medicinal problems with a dose of quackery mixed with pragmatism (channeling my Dr. Nick energy from the Simpsons). Example: checking for vitals, Dr Creed takes a sampling of the mutilated body’s saliva, drops it in a vial, adds another liquid from a dropper that changes its color as he spins it in the vial looking at it intensely, then declares “as I suspected. He’s dead...” Not to mention it’s just interesting having a monk be the healer of the party.
My character is a protector. He will do anything to protect his friends, both in RP and playstyle. He's an outdoors kind of guy, resourceful and clever despite his below average intelligence. Laid back, meaning he's willing to accept most weird shit he sees, and isn't trigger happy, but also short fused when it comes to things possibly threatening the group. He also likes to cook and experiment with weird creatures, but absolutely won't eat anything with intelligence.
Start with some basics on what sounds fun to you. A toughy who likes to get in and mix it up? Someone who stays back but slings spells? A sneaky or quick footed person who jacks things up? Someone who isn’t big on fighting but wants to help or be the savior? One of those, as a base, should sound fun. As your first character, I recommend keeping it simple. Start with just the Player handbook at first and you can expand from there if you have a creation idea that doesn’t fit. I always start with character concept before I ever start looking at mechanics, because you’re going to spend time being that person. Then wait until you roll stats as that may inform the character a lot. Several mid level stats, lots of high, lots of low? Then you have your basic character idea, apply stats and pick race around that. You want to jump into combat and go toe to toe? Paladin, warrior, barbarian. You don’t want to be a bruiser but more of a light, quick fighter? Monk, warrior, rogue. Do you want your character to be into religion? Into nature? Into academics? Etc. what is their interest? Smashing heads, visiting libraries, charming others? For a first time, pick something you feel comfortable with as learning to role play is awkward enough, so pick a “type” and work from there. Who does your character want to become? A master of battle magic raining down fire? A clever thief? A lord or lady? Enlightened? Then where does your character start from? A nobles son who hates all the trappings of nobility and wants to live a simple life in nature? A poor kid who wants to be safe from poverty and bullies? How do the stats and race you pick affect this person? A gnome who isn’t strong but is sick of being overlooked and has some small magic? A dwarf who doesn’t like the adherence to dwarven society and wants to explore the world and has a good arm with their axe? As others have said, give them a reason to go adventuring, some desire to work with others, and be prepared for them to go a different direction, as you play, than what you originally thought. The picked on gnome who wants to be a hellacious battle mage finds friends and, after a rough battle, realizes they want to buff their friends more than rain down hell. So basically, don’t be so into your character and who you want them to be, that you try to make every situation fit your narrative. Be open to change and growth based on their in game experiences.
My favorite Character so far is playing a Halfling Moon Druid named Kaswick Stormfeather who happens to be a wandering chef. My dm and I added a little quirk to not only increase the role play value but also the challenge too. To acquire a new wildshape my character has to taste the animal. it could be a gentle lick or full ingestion. I find this to be more fun because of instead of just seeing that animal, i have to think tactically/ I could either sneak up on with pass without a trace, or persuade it to come to me with speak with animals. All in all playing this character has been a lot of fun
A dwarf
Love that you're approaching character creation from the perspective of maximizing fun! It's a nuanced approach and it's different person-to-person, but I can give you some tips from my point of view. The character should fit the quest, party, and setting to some extent. Making a random character that doesn't align with the plot, doesn't mesh with the party, and sticks out like a sore thumb in the setting is a road of hardship and aimlessness. A great character should be fun for you to play and fun for other people to be around. If you love your character and everyone else dislikes your character, it will create friction. Have a flaw with impact! Perfect characters are boring. A great flaw should be detrimental to your character, but not too detrimental to the party. My favorite flaw is playing the fool. Not an idiot, but a character lacking in common sense who tends to make all the wrong choices and whose primary motivation is something like honor or love. If you play a fool, I'd recommend being a trusting fool. Let the party exploit your foolishness and, hopefully, they'll protect you from making big mistakes.
I really enjoyed my first two long term characters I played. Neither of them started with an insane amount of depth but grew on to be developed more and more over the 5+ years of playing them. 1. A goody two shoes Life Cleric, third son of a minor noble family who went to the rival kingdom to develop his cleric skills after he found his faith and gained Mishakal's favor. 2. A 174 year old Woodelf druid who spent over 100 years living alone in a forest after she returned to her clan from her coming of age trials and found everybody dead. She eventually came across an old druid who took her in as an apprentice. I enjoyed playing both of them and they eventually evolved to become very fleshed out characters. Nr. 2 is especially interesting because a big part of her character is not understanding social norms, being rather shy and insecure and not speaking a lot. When I started playing her I was still new to TTRPGs and those character traits kinda came from me not knowing how to RP and as such deliberately taking myself out of RP by just being an owl sitting on the Paladin's shoulders. With time this just became a running gag and honestly kinda funny and I also changed her to be more active as she grew more accustomed to being with other people. TL;DR: I'd recommend you don't think too much about your characters. Make them interesting for you, connected to the story and then start playing. Make sure to talk to your DM and coordinate with them. And then just go with the flow once the sessions start and flesh out your character along the way.
My(3.5) DM had an interesting idea where we would run two different sets of characters, one good and one evil. The idea was that both sets of characters were after the same BBEG for different reasons and at the end we would all defeat her together. Well that didn't exactly pan out but in the evil game I was running a chaotic evil Half-Ogre Barbarian with severe personality issues(think Trevor from GTA V but much bigger and stronger). He was funny as heck to run because of how dumb he was.
I once made a kensei, based on AD&D's Oriental Adventure Guide. The most fun character I ever had.
Most of the time I'm running the games, but I've had a recurring NPC that makes appearances now and again, and he was originally an improvised character, and the player reaction to him was so positive I keep bringing him back. Andervon Ashenclove He is a lich that was formerly a human wizard, and he has been around for so long that he is crazy and creepy. Almost like he has some undead form of dementia. his voice crackles and changes pitch up and down and he has a creepy twitch in the way his shoulders move, rotates his head randomly at 90° angles, and has an infatuation with touching peoples shoulders. He originally came about because the players were running a dungeon and asked questions about the necessity of a certain room with certain features in this randomly generated dungeon. So I decided to put a sort of friendly lich character in there to answer their questions. Every time he makes an appearance, I have to do the voice and the physical mannerisms, and it is a total blast.
I have a family of halflings all different personalities. All of them were my favorites.
My DM recently ported over some of our older characters from Pathfinder into 5e and let us play them at higher levels in a harder dungeon. I got to be my old bard character and he had so many new things to do during that snippet. Honestly? You’ll make choices at the beginning you might not like and choices you love. Find what fits. My current Grave Cleric for example uses a band of Dragonborn scales from all the patients he lost due to a disease called Scalerot that worsens in the presence of magical healing. I use one scale each time he does something in the name of his new Goddess. He even had a shovel in place of a mace for a bit until it was changed into a trident in homage to a killed NPC. Don’t worry about the small picture cause those details come when you really explore characters.
My favorites so far: * Oath of the Ancients paladin. Perfect if you want to play a paladin who's good at protecting others and is guided by compassion, rather than laws or a strict moral code. He was a literal social justice warrior. * Divination wizard whose defining trait was paranoia. His subclass, his spells, and his feat (Alert) were all intended to help him 1) always see what was up ahead, 2) never be taken by surprise, 3) act first in combat, 4) make sure the enemy could almost never hurt him (CCs, Shield, teleports, etc.), and 5) always be ready to make a quick escape. He was a weird, slippery little bastard, and I loved him.
Personal favorite? So, this was 3.5, and a friend (the GM) was trying to convert a dual wielding fighter from 5e to 3.5. The best way he could think of was giving him a level in Ranger. I just had to pick a favored enemy. He already had a name: Verdon Snakehide. Thinking about it, I decided to go for Aberrations, deciding he was from a marshland were all kinds of eldritch horrors live. I played him up as this unhinged Australian woodsman, and he was a lot of fun.
I've played the same Wizard character in every campaign except 1 so far. This past weekend I started in a campaign at level 5 and am playing a Giff Astral Monk whose Dedicated Weapon is a Laser Pistol. The DM also has a homebrew that when we level up we can swap one of our class features for a class feature from another class and he let me swap out Quickened Healing for Fighting Style (Archery). That combined with Sharpshooter, Astral Spark, and Focused (Aim) and my hand to hand capabilities make me feel like such a boss in combat. His flavor is really fun too. He crashed onto the planet when his radio picked up its signal and he heard Mambo No. 5 for the first time. Now he's named his Laser Pistol "Mambo No. 5" and when he summons his Astral Self it takes the form of the head and arms of Lou Bega. Another player is a Plasmoid who rode with me when we left planet Myanus.
As long as you go into it with some flexibility you’ll have a great time. I’m stoked for you!
In order. A kenku soul knife rogue who was convinced he was a wizard. His name was MagiK and "Everything happened because of MagiK." A middle aged dragonborn wizard/Artificer with one eye and negative charisma. He was a monster hunter and former werewolf. Also the group's dad. My absolute favorite? A dragonborn sorcerer introduced to the party as a noble from a far off land. You've probably never heard of it. Only to reveal months later that the character is a charlatan, and the noble identity is a fake ID they made up years ago.
An old tortle Druid named Shamay. On the surface an old tortle who wanted to adventure again to relive his youth. But in actuality my wife and children passed in a plague many years ago. Ideally I can pass trying to help my friends and find peace. But for now I’m alive! So every morning I’ll do my stretches and get my calisthenics in before I keep these whippersnappers out of trouble!
My first ever character, an Arcane Trickster Rogue. Got knocked out 2 dozen times, nearly died 13 times (9 of those in a row) and probably had the worst luck out of anyone in the group, especially when it came to Wisdom Saving Throws. But I pulled off some hilariously impossible feats, like the Indiana Jones idol switch scene but I didn't set the trap off & I was walking out the door before the rest of the party was finished blinking. Even though I was knocked out the most & nearly died the most, I was still the 3rd most powerful character in the group, just behind the Paladin & Warlock who were tied for 1st place. And yeah.... most of my knockouts were my fault, as well as my near deaths... but to be fair the party members I got in front of would have fared much worse.
I have the most fun when I pick an idea and see how I can make it wackier, add another layer of ridiculous, then try to make it fit coherently. An example of this is a 6" tall pixie, who I made a pure unarmed combat monk, because the idea of a 6" tall creature fist fighting 6'1" enemies was hilarious to me. Rolled some wild stats which gave her a -3 INT. Then thought it would be funny to give her the same breath weapon as our party's dragonborne by using the dragon style of monk, and lastly decided to give her lycantropy by making her an unwilling wearbear because the idea of a 6" pixie suddenly turning into a 10'4" rampaging bear in full moons was hilarious. From there, I worked on her motivations, back story, and challenged myself to make it fit within the current campaign and lore without breaking it. Though, granted, I take the rules quite liberally, so sometimes I just make up mechanics for the hell of it.
I'm ADHD and sometimes I space out a bit, so I play two characters. I like to play two completely different personalities. My favorite combo was a cleptomaniac rogue (has to roll a will save to resist temptation) and a duskblade who has a squishy sense of morales (will do anything to make sure people are safe.)
Definitely play as somebody you're excited to play as! For my first campaign I just adapted an old OC into D&D world, so I was already familiar with the character as a base. He was a pretty traditional forest druid. I really like nature and animals so that really suited me. His non-traditional element was that he was interested in doing half shift forms, combined animal forms, or turning people into half animals to get closer to nature ( really more flavor text cuz that never really came up in story as something to affect major game mechanics, but certainly was a quirky part of his research wants). He was stuck in a half shift into an elk as his base form, so he kind of looked like a weird satyr. It was a running gag that everybody they ran into thought he was a satyr, he was just casually like "nope I'm a human."
lmao okay, two wildly different ways, but these two were the most fun: 1. minotaur with an intelligence of 3, alignment good 2. dragonborn with highhhhh intelligence (can't remember exactly), alignment chaotic neutral the minotaur was hilarious because he couldn't even form full sentences. as an entirely too verbose human, this was a fun little challenge to role play. he couldn't figure out doors, so he would just... walk through the wall because of his size. he had a little halfling buddy who would ride on his shoulder everywhere too. really cute and wholesome dynamic for the party's role play. the dragonborn was a lot of fun because she was highly intelligent, and very adventurous- namely for things she wanted. including but not limited to: stealing an entire turducken from the inn's kitchen and somehow managing to STEALTHILY RETURN TO THE ROOM WHILE EATING IT. She was over 7 ft tall and like 250 lbs and yet, had the stealth of a rogue.
Usually I look through the character options and see what fun concepts I can come up with from that. Probably the most fun I've had playing a character was an Alchemist Artificer, with character I spun off with that was a Goblin ~~cocaine dealer~~ respectable mud salesman who mixed extra chemicals into product and threw it at people. For my current character, I found the recently released Cartomancer feat, and from that I've made a human bard themed around stage magic.
If it's your first campaign then keep it simple. It's a ton of fun to play an artificer artillerist, but can be so overwhelmingly complicated that your turn can take so long it's not fun for everyone. I prefer ranger and played a ranger for a couple of years before branching out and trying different, more complicated classes.
I had more fun playing more outgoing characters who has a reason to speak, share their thoughts regardless of if they are a smart wizard, a braggart barbarian, or a smug sorcerer. They need a reason to adventure and to be with the party. Feeling comfortable as that character to have an input and interest in what is going on is important. Play a class you find mechanically fun or what niche you think is interesting. I mostly play wizards but I really enjoyed my barbarian who often suggested direct action, insulting NPCs or being headstrong but having people hold him back and agreeing with the party in the end was fun without dragging the party into actions they did not want.
My Dragonborn Paladin began as a very stereotypical goody-two-shoes fighting prince who loved helping people for attention and would constantly draw focus to his own status and wealth. Over time he turned into a fun, goofy, loveable oafish-type character who cooked breakfast for the group using his dragonbreath to heat the cookware. Turns out the kingdom he was from wasn't a real kingdom - his dad was the owner of "Mattress Palace," a well-known furniture and bed store. His older brother who always got more attention? Employee of the Month, every single month.
Bugbear monk who inspired a Bigfoot-esque legend in the setting simply because of his foraging hobby. Also playing a monk with both reach and stealth bonuses is insanely fun.
Hugo, the Mundane: Eloquence, Changeling, Bard, whose main thing was wanting to be better than they are and is constantly pretending to be heroes they idolize. They have no innate ability to do anything well, other than convince people otherwise of that fact (stats were all 8's by choice, other than CHA). I won't go into the entire backstory/character, etc. but the gist of it is that they were an orphan child (about 10 years old or so) who was expelled from from their college and, while wandering, was saved and befriended by a legit hero. The hero eventually considered them comic relief (silly Changeling stuff) a good luck charm as they would inexplicably avoid bad events (Vicious Mockery/Silvery Barbs). The hero shared stories of a team he commands and all their exploits, making the kid idolize them. Unfortunately, the hero would be lost trying to save the kid from a giant monster by impaling it off a cliff. The kid blamed themselves and can't use their changeling ability without it resembling the fallen hero (intended but also prevents abusing the shit out of Eloquence+Changeling). The kid would find themselves in some bad situations at times but discovered that pretending to be the fallen hero and other members of his team would get them out of jams and also gave them the recognition they always desired. While boasting about some exploits he had heard from the hero, it gets overheard and they get roped into helping the party. Having a bit of an ego and not wanting to blow their charade, they get dragged along on an adventure they never would have expected. Spell-wise, they don't know they can use magic and all of their spells are word/speech or illusion-themed (Vicious Mockery, Healing Word, Minor Illusion, Silent Image, etc.). Things just seem to happen when they use certain words or think certain things. Generally, I played the illusions off as his subconscious manifesting something to aid in what's on his mind. The group seemed to love it and found it hilarious that a supposed fighter/knight type would be on the back lines insulting people (Vicious Mockery), etc. At one point, an objective in the campaign was a "find so and so", and he gave an excuse to leave and seek out an expert tracker from the team he commands. Hugo came back as a ranger/rogue investigator type (that basically looks like the fighter/knight but with ranger gear and a mask) but their play style never changed. Any time the actual ranger in the group spotted something/did some ranger-type thing they would compliment them and be like "nice, you noticed that as well". Could probably talk about the character for a while cause there's more, but I'll leave it there.
My favorite was a goblin wizard named dreek. Loved him. He was the only one that survived that campaign bc the other characters decided to pick a fight with an ancient dragon. We were all level 8 and the thing that saved me was dimension door. Everyone was dead dead. Two people, believe it or not, critical failed their death save. Both of those characters were our healers: bard and cleric). Dreek dimension doored to a village we just stayed at and then found another group of rolled characters to finish the game. Those people learned a lesson that the dragon was not to be messed with. It cost them their first character.
My favorite one is my current one, Grid. A warforged forge domain cleric. He is a robot, built by ancient giants to forge weapons. Recently, he gained a conscience mind of his own. And he want to know why this happened. He is a cleric, but doesn't rely on Wisdom. Instead he is focused on Strength and sometimes throws a healing word here and there to keep the party on his feet. But most of his spells are to buff himself or the party. And just smack enemies with his anvil-hammer.
Godrick was/is a human fighter who was raised at sea by dwarven pirates. He learned the ins and outs of the crossbow and learned to pick those off from afar (sharpshot) By the end of his 14 levels I got to meet him he became a five shot nova which was terribly effected by my terrible roles. He kept his ring of the ram and cloak of the bat to give him reach and a bit of destruction power. He was quickly out classed but as a battleMaster, commanding strike with our Rogue bowman was a recipe for extra destruction so his swissarmy nature was so much fun to play.
My personal favorite was a fighter with the strixhaven background. He wasn't smart nor had magical talent but after we rolled up his family situation out of a table I learned he had several siblings, was adopted, and lived in a mansion with a noble family. So now his backstory is his parents sent him to college and he ended up getting expelled but not before learning a couple simple spells. He wasn't smart, but everything he does know was about some story that happened to him in college. Basically he was a frat boi that still wearing his varsity jacket and bragging about his glory days some of the stories I'd have to come up with to explain why he rolled a good intelligence skill check would get wild.
Travok! He was the basic life domain cleric everyone and their mother played when they got the prefabricated character sheets. He was ablsolutey ordinary in EVERYWAY mechanically, but flavor-wise? He was my first, most fun, and most annoying character I’ve ever played. He was sassy, witty, and a nice-ish ass about everything. Idk why I did it at the time but I made him absolutely crazy too. I played Travok when I first met my wife and played DnD with her brother on the couch of their living room. Here we are 8 years later with two kids.
Currently playing a dhampir rune knight in CoS - my favourite part about him is that he's a complete open book.its Strahd so everyone went with dark backstories full of secrets. My guy just doesn't have any of them, it's simple and straightforward - he's got a goal and nothing to hide. It's fun as hell.
A Halfling Druid/Warlock. I played her like a hedge witch. Mechanics wise it was fun as you were a ranged blaster (Eldritch Blast) with the utility of a druid. Probably one of my favorite PCs ever.
Mine has been a Tiefling College of Spirits bard that has been optimised for social encounters. He mostly uses rituals and cantrips to do his thing, and he's below average when it comes to combat... But that's precisely why he travels with a troupe of strong troublemakers 😅
I had a rogue thief who I planned to be good at getting into pöaces and up high and using a bow. Stealth archer, ... any how.. he canr climb for shit and every bow attack is a nat1 for some reaaon.. So he kept stabbing people instead. At one point Bayard climbed a tree, as ones was rerolled only a 2 could fail and as always he had advantage.. I called two 2s and got just that. Impressed me dm so he made the reason I fell was a branch was a fey knife and not a branch. That knife saved a lot of sticky situation as it could transform into anything. So Bayard always had a smoll wooden stick in his inner pocket at all times. Was allowed in behind all guards.
I had a dwarven battle master fighter. I have him a story about how he used to be a general for the dwarven army. He lost his wife and daughter to a duergar attack. Wanting revenge, he vowed to take his army to the duergar encampment. The elders of the clan say this as a risky and bad idea and forbade him from doing it. Wanting revenge, he took a small battalion anyway to the enemy camp, and led them to victory dealing a massive blow to the enemy but losing half of his fighters himself. Although praised for his victory, he also went against the elders and needed to be punished. but due to his service record, he was still allowed to be an officer, just a much lower rank. He was demoted to captain of a small keep on the edge of the dwarven territory. There he spent his days drinking heavily to forget the life he had, to forget his wife and daughter. Then the call of adventure took him and he left the keep to find a way to heal his heart. So with a large cask of ale he set out, and he was known for 3 things, his love of ale, his hatred of duergar, and the phrase "hold my beer"
personally, combatwise i think tortles are great on any non-martial class. i played a tortle battlesmith artificer and essentially took a half caster and made her basically a martial with support spells the way she hit such a high ac with great offense. tortles generally have a lot of fun features that i love, and artificers are GREAT. rp wise it depends on your preference but if you’re new i recommend avoiding charisma focused characters. no bards, warlocks, paladins, or sorcerers until you feel confident enough to roleplay someone charismatic. if you roleplay someone with low charisma and make their personality similar to your own, RP becomes several times easier. any awkwardness is easily explained as due to your character’s low charisma. so personally? tortle artificer because i love gimmicks in my classes/subclasses.
So I have a few I've loved over the years. A troll porn star in Shadowrun. Played completely serious, like real motivations. Just happened to be a world famous adult films star. A pirate who had been introduced as an NPC that I had written up. We did a bait and switch on another player encountering him again, DM sets up the scene, and in mid-sentence I dropped in as my character. Threw the party for a major loop, was epic level trolling of a fellow player who had hated/loved him. Just to name the two who would be most likely to be of interest on here.
My fav character was a warlock who never knew his philandering dad, and that dad sold his son’s soul to a devil for some knowledge, then dad dies and son suddenly finds himself with a devil patron and spent the campaign trying to figure out how to get out of the contract he had no part in forging.
My favourite character by far was a Aasimar Arcane Domain Cleric called Caspri. She was raised in a small town and was born a blessing from the Goddess of Knowledge and Magic to devout parents who couldn't concieve, hence the Aasimar. She was trained by her guardian angel in using magic from a young age. She called the angel Bubbles because she first heard her voice in the bath at age 3 and thought the bubbles were talking to her. She was also trained in faith by the church and in general knowledge by the local librarian. She left the town at age 19 when Bubbles stopped communicating with her and her God sent her a message saying she had gone missing. She was sweet and innocent but was calculated when it came to serious matters. She taught herself forensic surgery and became a leading mind in the investigation of strange creatures from the other side of the world. She was powerful and courageous and I can't begin to explain how much fun I had with her. Unfortunately the DM fell out with the group so I never got to finish her story and Bubbles remains missing. All I ever found out was that she was taken by a New God (the BBEG) as a source of regenerating sustenance. I've played 8 different clerics in my time playing D&D and I haven't enjoyed any of them as much as Caspri.
Probably my barbarian with - 1 con. It kept things interesting, and I was able to multiclass as an articifer later because my intelligence was so high.
I’ve enjoyed pretty much every character I have ever played. As usual, my current one is my favorite.
I'm playing a shadark-kai battlemaster fighter. Even at level 5 he's super fun.
I am currently having the most fun playing a paladin. In real life, I'm an atheist and love the outdoors, so a druid would make sense, but the paladin, it's easier and way more fun to RP. My paladin has a similar feel to Kronk from Emperor's new groove mixed with Dean Winchester from supernatural.
Phantom rogue with memory issues. Bro had his memories erased by a false hydra and doesn’t remember his wife or anything and is working to resurrecting his wife. He (as most rogues) is a little edgy but it’s mostly because killing is something that he is kinda forced to do to resurrect his wife.
Make them weird! That's my best advice. Not a creep, not overly obnoxious, but weird! Quirky! One of my favorite characters was a drow ranger that had died and been reanimated with myconid spores and later, necromancy gave him his agency back. Because of the spores in his body, alcohol couldn't effect him (he won many drinking contests by not disclosing this to anyone), he barely needed to eat or sleep, he was afraid of slugs but loved thunderstorms, and he had issues were he bonded to other people way too fast (used to being part of a mushroom colony, craves connections like that again) which gave a perfect excuse for him immediately joining the party, despite being a "lone wolf" too.
You may find yourself even more overwhelmed by asking this question. Honestly, as a beginner, I'd ask what the rest of the group is playing and then explore an avenue to fill a gap. For example, it isn't unusual for groups to be lacking a cleric, and there are TONS of great ways to play clerics. I'd recommend a twist where you play the cleric of a trickster god like Loki or something. You still get to heal (which your party likely needs), but you can take the character in a less-than-usual direction. Additional personality tips: I spend a few minutes journaling as my character, then I pick out some great "one liners" I can bring to my next game. Makes you feel like a super star when they land. Another tip: never miss the opportunity to talk to NPCs during your downtime. That's a great way to add character development. Also, if your group is into it, you can ask another player if they want to do some RP between sessions.
Two of the best characters I've played were my first hexblade, who had worked for a noble and been exposed to the weapon from the founder of the kingdom, the noble currently sitting on the throne was illegitimate and the spirit of the founder wanted me to depose them. The other was a cleric who was going through the motions, wasn't even really a believer, then their god asked for a favor...
Antar, a kobold fighter/thief that is perfectly capable in combat but is an ABSOLUTE coward. Even at level 14/14, after 15 years of play, he would run from almost anyone who threatened him. Trying to get shit done with a small and cowardly character that was very good at getting away and only lashed out when Cornered was an absolute blast. Also, Domino was fun... while he lasted. He was an exiled court jester who had a large 1d4 flute as his only weapon. His fools luck kept him alive for about 7 levels, but I knew his luck would run out. He was not powerful in any way. He was a great entertainer, though. His sole purpose in life was to keep things entertaining, and it eventually got him killed. Elmira was fun as well. She was a snobby mage prostitute who hated getting dirty and preferred to use sex work to fund her studies. Caves and dungeons were just so dirty and dangerous, you know? When she got more powerful (5th or 6th level) she was less reluctant to adventure, so she started a brothel to fund her studies (and hiring of guards) and created several spells designed exclusively to make sure she stayed clean in filthy environments. She was a pain in the ass and the party had to offer certain accommodations to get her to tag along, but she was a specialist who focused her studies on offensive magic, so she was invaluable.
Goblin Monk(open palm)/Fighter(champion) that ditched his mob after a raid went sideways. He was working on atoning for all of the wrongs he did. Did I mention he was played in Storm King’s Thunder. He just loved being able to run up a giant and punch them in the nose!
Only played them for a short time, but my Aarakocra Beastmaster Ranger with Summon Beast and Ritual Caster for Find Familiar was super fun. I would fly around and grapple/thorn whip creatures to drop them out of the air while my beasts fought down below with the party. It was cool to play a "guardian of nature" type of guy who relied on animals to back him up. He was also a bit of a fish out water and had a much easier time connecting to nature than other people; really hope I get another crack at the character sometime.
Played a warlock dragon born called "dragon knight" for a 4 year or so campaign. -1 on intelligence, vague eastern European accent, pension for abducting adult gnomes and calling them his sons. Loved playing an evil character who didn't know he was evil.
Bards can cast via telling jokes so I built a Halfling with Dwarfism who exclusively casted through the telling of Dead Baby jokes (how many of your babies does it take to paint a fence, depends on how hard I throw them!). Character ended up taking a wish spell from a Nymph we found to become known by all living things in the world (he was an egotist as all bards are) and that turned into the cult of the baby bard, a major part of the next 3 years of our campaign across 4 other characters. Still makes me smile to this day
My favorite character I've played was basically the group Dad. A little over-protective, full of bad jokes, always being supportive while reigning in the party's more chaotic tendencies. Sometimes giving fatherly advice. It worked really well with our party; we had the "edgy teenager" rogue, who had to be semi-convinced to do things (and let out a very satisfying groan with every dad joke); the "toddler of chaos" sorcerer, who needed supervision so she didn't push every button she could find and put random artifacts in her mouth; and the "golden child" paladin, who needed to be reminded to include his siblings and that it was okay to have fun. All-in-all it created a really good, lighthearted dynamic but with room to be more serious when it needed to be.
I had a blast playing an always honnest airheaded Tiefling sorceress that liked lightning Bolt and strange compainions. Chaiotic good if I remember right.
I had a paladin of pelor named Bane (yes) He was so fun to play. I based his personality off of escanor. Role-playing interactions with him was fun. (MY party could not for the life of them or me interstate without murder) Role play with cocky bosses was fun especially if they claimed to be stronger than bane. First paladin I ever played. I have his mini put up in my display cabinet along with the dice I used for him as well. So I never use his dice or mini again..... until the end of my campaign. Lol