Objective of a Character
As a player your objective is to create a true-to-life character and portray his or her actions and words accurately.
The character you create and the way that you play the character are entirely in your hands.
This section provides a few helpful techniques to achieve these objectives.
Character Concept
This game gives players wide latitude in creating and playing their character.
Because there are no character classes or levels, players are permitted to create and play highly nuanced characters that fall outside of the boundaries of traditional roleplaying games.
This can be both liberating and daunting.
The easiest place to start in creating a character is to form a single Character Concept. You can then base the rest of your decisions—game abilities and how you’ll approach playing the character—on that concept.
Defining the Concept
The easiest way to define a Character Concept is to choose one adjective and one noun that describe your character.
These words describe his or her archetype, shtick, gimmick, or role in the adventure.
A space is provided on the character sheet to write down your Character Concept.
Take time to carefully choose how to define this quality. Your character’s concept will help you shape everything that he or she is and does throughout the campaign.
Example Concepts
To easily create a Character Concept, you can mix and match an adjective and noun from the following tables:
| Adjectives | ||
| Ascetic | Loyal | |
| Brave | Merry | |
| Cautious | Murderous | |
| Curious | Playful | |
| Determined | Proud | |
| Elusive | Secretive | |
| Faithful | Stern | |
| Faithless | Unjust | |
| Fierce | Vengeful | |
| Greedy | Young | |
| Grim | Wandering | |
| Hardened | Wise | |
| Just | ||
| Nouns | ||
| Champion | Priest | |
| Criminal | Profiteer | |
| Knight | Rebel | |
| Hermit | Rogue | |
| Hero/Heroine | Sage | |
| Magician | Scoundrel | |
| Mystic | Spy | |
| Noble | Thief | |
| Nomad | Trickster | |
| Pilgrim | Warrior | |
Example Character Concepts:
- Ascetic Warrior
- Greedy Priest
- Just Profiteer
- Vengeful Rebel
- Wise Knight
Aspects of the Character
Beliefs
Your characters beliefs are shaped by his or her upbringing and circumstances. These beliefs go on to influence what your character does and says.
Given your character’s concept, put some thought into his or her beliefs.
Pondering some of the following questions will be helpful in shaping your character’s worldview:
- What does your character believe about the gods (if anything)?
- Does your character follow a religious tradition?
- Does your character have any political allegiances?
- What does your character think about the trades, commerce, and money?
- Does your character believe that magic exists? Is it a force for good, evil, or is it mixed?
Actions your character takes and things he or she says should align with these beliefs.
Beliefs, with time and experience, will also change.
Don’t stress too much about planning out your character’s worldview. Opportunities to develop these ideas will come as the campaign unfolds. Just make sure that these correspond to your chosen Character Concept.
Personal Mission
When setting off on an adventure, you and the gamemaster should come up with a personal mission for your character.
This personal mission serves as the reason your character chooses—or is forced—to take up the risky business of leaving his or her home and taking to the adventure.
Personal missions may include:
- Recovery of a religious or community relic that was lost or stolen.
- Your character, one of his or her loved ones, or a group that he she belongs to have been wronged and he or she will stop at nothing to bring the wrongdoers to justice.
- Seek out a famous master (artisan, magician, warrior) to teach the character his or her ways.
- Find the cure to a curse that afflicts the character, a loved one, or his or her community.
- Stop a neighboring kingdom, an invading army, or a monster from conquering or controlling the character’s homeland.
- Overthrow a warlord or monarch that unjustly rules the land.
- Take possession of some great treasure lost to time.
- Escape a calamity in the character’s homeland (war, earthquake, plague, curse) and find a way to restore the realm.
- Your character owes a huge sum of money to one or more creditors and adventures in a far land offer the only hope of repayment of these debts (or perhaps, slipping away unnoticed).
- A monarch or priest has set the character on a mission to accomplish a great deed or your character has answered the call for help.
- Your character seeks answers about his or her past and origins or lost knowledge about the world.
- Your character seeks control over his or her own lands or covets magic power.
- Your character dreams of striking rich and sees adventuring as means to obtain it.
- Your character is from a low social rank—or at least, wishes to rise in the ranks—and knows that famous exploits in faraway lands will bring this fame.
- Your character is wanted or exiled and is on the run from those seeking to capture or kill him or her.
- There’s no other choice. A terrible calamity (war, disease, a magic curse) has forced your character to leave home and either find safety or a solution to his or her homeland’s troubles.
A motivation such as one listed above might get your character started on the adventure path, but he or she is sure to stumble into more motivating factors along the way that keep him or her invested in further adventuring.
Background
What has your character done in his or her life up to this point?
Think about the answers to the following questions:
- Where did your character grow up?
- What trades has your character studied?
- What professions did your character’s parents belong to?
- What major life events has your character experienced (marriage, children, death of a loved one, exile from a kingdom, etc.)?
Appearance
What does your character look like?
Consider the following:
- How tall is your character?
- How much does your character weigh?
- What is your character’s physical build like (thin, average, athletic, muscular, husky, etc.)?
- What color are your characters eyes, hair, and skin?
- Does your character have any distinguishing marks or features?
Personality
What personality traits define your character?
Is he or she shy or outgoing? Quick to anger or tranquil? Constantly worried or carefree?
If you’re playing for the first time, it might be easiest to base your character’s personality on your own.
As your roleplaying skills develop, you may introduce more variation in personality.
Profession
All people belong to one profession or another.
What trade does your character practice? Is he or she a member of a guild, syndicate, or other professional association?
Some common professions include:
| Profession | What that Person Does |
| Apothecary | Makes medicines and potions and gives advice on their use. |
| Artisan | Makes things. Choose a specialty: armorer, blacksmith, brewer, carpenter, chandler, cobbler, cook, leatherworker, locksmith, tailor, weaponsmith, weaver, etc. |
| Artist | Makes works of art. Choose a specialty: drawer, painter, poet, sculptor, writer, etc. |
| Barber | Treats the sick, inured, or wounded; provides personal care services. |
| Beggar | Begs for money and food in the streets of a town or city. |
| Bureaucrat | Works for a government body as a clerk, auditor, investigator, or some other official. |
| Cartographer | Makes maps based on his or her own illustrations or those provided by others. |
| Entertainer | Entertains others. Choose up to three specialties: actor, comedian, dancer, drummer, guitarist, lute player, pipes player, singer, storyteller, etc. |
| Farmer | Farms the land for crops. |
| Financier | Provides financial services in towns and cities such as loans, money exchange, and bills of credit. |
| Fisherman | Fishes in fresh or saltwater with nets. |
| Herdsman | Raises herd animals. |
| Hostler | Cares for and trains horses. |
| Huntsman | Hunts and traps wild game for food and furs. |
| Laborer | Common labor sold for the day; the most common profession of all. |
| Lawyer | Legal expert that represents clients in court and drafts documents. |
| Mason | Cuts and lays stone for construction. |
| Mercenary | Provides military service or advice to the highest bidder. |
| Merchant | Buys goods in one place to transport to another to sell at a profit. |
| Miner | Mines the earth for metals and gems. |
| Navigator | Uses maps and other tools to plot courses for ships. |
| Pilot | Steers a waterborne vessel. |
| Priest/Priestess | Dedicates his or her life to religion; performs rituals and leads the followers. |
| Sailor | Works aboard a ship in a variety of capacities (does not navigate or pilot; those are separate roles). |
| Scholar | Studies books and treatises and sells advice and knowledge to high profile people; writes books on scholarly topics and/or teaches at a university. |
| Scribe | Copies books, letters, or treatises; can often translate these works. |
| Timberman | Fells timber and moves and processes that timber for use or sale. |
Friends and Enemies
Who does your character count on as allies? Who has your character offended in the past that might try and get even with him or her?
Friends and enemies can be individuals, groups, nations, or even an entire species who your character has helped or wronged in the past.
Choosing Game Statistics
Your choice of game statistics (as outlined in Section Two: Character Creation) should be based on the decisions you’ve made about our character’s upbringing, background, and personality.
The object of a good role-player is not to abuse the rules to make the “best” character, but rather, to use the rules of the game to make the most representative character.
A character that accurately portrays his or her backstory through the game’s mechanics is a successful character.
How to Play a Character
While playing your character in a campaign, you will be confronted with a huge number of situations and choices.
Your goal as the player is to respond to these situations and choices in a way that accurately portrays the character you’ve made.
The following sections address some techniques for achieving this.
Get into Your Character’s Head
When faced with a situation, the best way to decide on how your character should act is to get into your character’s head.
What does your character think about the situation given his or her background, beliefs, fears, and motivations?
If one of the following applies for your character in a situation, choose to base his or her actions on that factor:
- To save a friend or loved one from danger.
- Believes it is his or her moral or religious duty to intervene.
- Has a financial interest in the event.
- Has a story-driven or aspirational interest in the event.
- Has a past shaded by participants in the event: your character either fears involvement or wants revenge because of others involved.
If these factors are not present for your character, your character may choose instead to stay out of the event or offer minimal support.
Remember that during the campaign, your character’s life and wellbeing are in danger. While one of the goals of a roleplaying game is to create a great story, another is staying alive long enough to tell it.
Your character should have a very real sense of danger. If the motivation doesn’t exist to intervene in events, perhaps your character either shouldn’t get involved or find a way to get involved that better suits his or her abilities and disposition.
Does it Fit Your Character’s Concept?
When deciding what your character does and says, think about and act upon your Character Concept.
If your character is a middle-aged leatherworker, he or she probably isn’t going to beat down the door and rush into a soldier’s barracks on the attack.
It’s best to keep in mind what your character is and what he or she does as a profession and what Skills and Talents he or she has when making decisions.
A character with 1 level in Persuasion isn’t likely to take the lead on a hostage negotiation. That character doesn’t have the charisma to pull it off and likely knows it.
Accept your character’s limitations, as well as his or her strengths, and act on them.
Speaking as Your Character
When you speak as your character use the words that your character says to others in the game.
Some role-players in a fantasy setting will work in archaic sounding words and phrases into their characters’ speech to make it sound more “authentic.”
There’s nothing authentic about a fantasy roleplaying game. It’s make-believe. And as such, the participants can—and should, for ease’s sake if nothing else—alter how inhabitants of the fantasy world speak.
On the other side of the coin, it might be best to avoid using modern terms or phrases that make characters sound too much like the people playing them.
A few examples:
| Instead of… | Say… |
| “If thou defiest me, I shalt tear thee asunder!” | “If you lie to me, you’ll regret it.” |
| “Whither dost thou take these fells?” | “Where are you taking these pelts?” |
| “None in this demesne shall suffer this contagion.” | “Our kingdom will survive the plague.” |
| “The innkeeper sucks.” | “The innkeeper is useless.” |
| “Hey man, hook me up with that sword.” | “I like that sword: why don’t you lend it to me?” |
| “I’m going to fuck that guy up!” | “I’ll make him pay for this!” |
Out-of-Game Information
It can be a challenge to separate what you the player know and what your character knows.
For instance, you the player might know that the common cold is caused by the spread of germs. But does your character—even a seasoned physician—who lives in a medieval-like world of swords and horse-drawn wagons know that?
To accurately portray your character you must try and separate your personal wealth of knowledge from what your character knows.
It’s perfectly acceptable to allow your character to speculate—even speculate tantalizingly close—while falling short of a true answer.
For example, using our previous example of germ theory, your physician character may believe that illness is caused by a magic curse that is spread from person to person by way of touch. This comes close to the real explanation while still fitting in with his or her frame of reference.
Using out-of-game information can also take more mundane forms, though forms that are nonetheless bothersome for a good roleplaying experience.
If adventuring party is split up, and the gamemaster reveals something to one member of the party on his or her separate exploits, but not the rest of the party, the rest of the party shouldn’t know that information.
For instance, Ardric splits up from adventuring fellows—Elnowan and Cothar—to follow who he believes is an evil sorcerer.
Ardric tracks down the evil sorcerer at his hideout and witnesses him make an animal sacrifice to an evil deity. Ardric also finds that this evil sorcerer isn’t alone, he has a small cabal of followers, including fellow adventurer’s Elnowan’s younger brother.
Even though the players who play Ardric, Elnowan, and Cothar were present at the game table to hear what Ardric found, their characters were not all present.
Only Ardric knows what he saw. And what—if anything—he tells Elnowan or Cothar is up to him.
He could lie or tell a half-truth to spare Elnowan grief. Or he could tell the truth. Or remain silent.
While the player who plays Elnowan knows just as well as anyone what happened, that player cannot act on that information: for him or her, it’s out-of-game, and out of reference for that character.