@@sharkdentures3247 Torielas would gift a whole Rabbit with the Arrow still through its neck. but he died a hero to poison for the confirmed promise of love from the higher class woman who kept rejecting him. he was a Hero in the Evacuation efforts of Greeneporte. not a single enemy orc survived, but neither did he. he died not a lovesick hunter, but a lovesick hero. who had just enough strength to drop dead after telling his Anili, that he loved her, and that he will have to be her husband in the next life.
if she's anything like my old DM, she named Aisling after the fey girl from The Secret of the Kells, who can take the form of animals. this includes the Panger Ban, the cat.
"If Eldritch Blast was so quintessential you wouldn't choose it, you'd get it automatically." Funnily enough, the first rework of the OneDnD Playtest Warlock did exactly that.
@@GinnyDi You don't have to anyway. Maybe that's how it's "meant" to be played, but if there are viable alternatives and table's ok,why not go without and just use EB on occasion.
@@GinnyDi Based on the last playtest, it's unlikely! While I still think EB is gonna be the "optimal" way to play, (more trigger effects) it's nice that they're opening up a lot of the EB Invocations to other cantrips. Assuming that change stays, anyhow. Though bladelock is also looking better than ever and calls to me. I wanna make my psionic githyanki with her big ol' honkin' psychic damaging sword. Why cast spells when I can smash stuff as a caster? Spell slots are for smites!
I already gave warlocks EB and Hex automatically. Seemed like it was HEAVILY implied that a warlock should have them, so I felt like you shouldn't have to choose them.
Reworking old characters is my favorite thing to do. You get to see how much your understanding of character building has gotten and you can keep coming with fresh ideas! I know one of my oldest dnd characters, Eva, has at least 5 variations. I don't think I can ever let her go-
Not even DnD, but I've done the same thing with gaming characters over the years, all the way back to Ultima III. Somehow they keep coming back with modifications in fantasy as well as scifi roles.
@@rhaedas9085 I’ve done it with a Valkyrie in Bane of the Cosmic Forge, some PBM I can’t remember, a Vesten in 7th Sea, a Warrior in World of Warcraft, and most recently as a Barbarian when our group ran Rime of The Frostmaiden.
Yea i have a character like that. If the setting or group wouldn’t match her energy, i add her as an NPC to the backstory for the character i am playing 😅
Most importantly, your love for Aisling was palpable and contagious in that old video, the mistakes be damn. It made her a good character no matter the cliche backstory. But it's cool to see her and her player grow so much! It's inspiring, thank you!
She was honestly a perfectly good character for the table she was at!! Just because I wouldn't write her the same way now doesn't mean she didn't serve her purpose 🥰
@@GinnyDi and that video of yours is what I constantly recommend people who think they have to make a good character whom others at the table will enjoy (like the warforged you played first) instead of the self-indulgent character they'll enjoy playing. So that video constantly serves its purpose, too!
I'm glad to know other people rework their old beloved but flawed characters. I also love the systematic way you analyzed, dismantled, and rebuilt Aisling.
I think you can do unfriendly and high Charisma. Instead of friendly, maybe they're fiercely compelling, people responding to the strength of the personality.
I created a high charisma I gave them a personality like Hyacinth Bucket from keeping Up appearances. an unlikable character but whos peronality just push her throu
Definitely! I talk about this in my video about roleplaying your stats. Aisling version 1 wasn't intimidating either, though - she was just awkward, and unfriendly. I certainly don't mean to imply that unfriendly characters can't be high charisma, but Aisling didn't demonstrate charisma in ANY way because I didn't work it into the way I formulated her personality.
Sociopaths. Compelling like the spider to its prey. You certainly don't have to be friendly to be charismatic. Some of the most vile people in history were incredibly charming. It is the reason that they were so successful with the scale of their atrocities.
I'm loving the Irish names on all of Aisling's NPCs! And your pronunciation is on point! You didn't exactly make it easy on yourself either: Roisín; Cian; Niamh!
I just made my first character and I’m super worried after watching these videos that I’ve boxed my character and DM in. But I’m really passionate about a couple aspects of the backstory, maybe I should try to cut some of the aspects that are sadder? And I want DMs opinion, but aside from me the group is all seasoned players, I don’t want to be treated like a baby for the entirety of this campaign
I remember my first character. She was a 3.5e bard who was planned to go down the Dragon Disciple prestige class, and who had these profound visions of loud, raucous music that made her incredibly unpopular but very skilled with her lute. This is because I thought the name Dragon Disciple sounded like a cheesy 80s power metal band, and so she was seeing visions of actual power metal bands and trying to play that kind of music on medieval instruments. Her arc ended up with her trapping a lightning elemental in a lute that was a flying V. I... honestly kind of love her, and I'd play her again in a heartbeat.
My first 5E character was an inquisitive rogue with Batman’s backstory 😂 (in my defense, it was my DM’s suggestion and I was like, orphan who wants to kill the dragon that wiped out their village?! Sign me up!)
@@GinnyDi Great video on freshening up an old character. I really find that simpler backstories are often the best. It allows the game to shape the character more than what happened out of game. To use a literary example, in Dune, Frank Herbert doesn't give us a lot of backstory on Paul before he is thrust into the action of the story. And his time on Caladan is very short. Similarly, the life Frodo and Sam lived before the Ring came to Frodo wasn't terribly important--with the one exception that Frodo was a relation of Bilbo, and that earned him some good will from both elves and dwarves. Beyond that, his backstory was pretty unremarkable. We only got to know him through the events of the story. D&D characters are similar.
Had a mental image of a Dragon pulling a gun on your rogue’s parents in Crime Alley, with a Zorro movie poster in the background, until I read the rest of your comment…
This is an excellent frame for teaching people how to avoid popular but problematic character creation choices by roasting your own. Just feels less like the speaker is lecturing people than simply saying, "This is what I learned through trial and error. Makes things better for me, it'll make it better for you." Even though that is what you are always saying, but...we can't help how people take stuff. Plus, the specificity and editing in real time I think makes it all crystal clear. Really great stuff.
I love this walkthrough of how to rehabilitate a character, especially the part of how to make sure you have those npc connections and ability to interact with the players, such as the pseudodragon part. The "make your DM quit" was real chef's kiss.
First, and most importantly - this video is AMAZING. I remember some of my early characters and the vast majority of them came directly from Cringeville. It's really fun to get some perspective and revisit them to dig into what I was actually going for and clean off all the edgelord garbage that cluttered them up. Second, your hair and makeup look INCREDIBLE.
Hey, if characters from Cringeville appealed and got you playing and enjoying the game, more power to you. If it worked for you and it worked for the group you were in, there's nothing wrong with younger you enjoying a more tropey approach.
It was SO cathartic to me to actually redo an entire PC from one of my favorite games. It's crazy how looking at a character after so many years can bring up so many questions and mistakes.
Wow incredible memory! 🤯 Yes, Aisling was /technically/ not my first character, but I only played Petra (the warforged monk) for a short time, and Aisling was the first character I really committed to. I consider Petra more of a practice character 😜
@GinnyDi We've all had that character. My very first was a Barbarian with an 18 strength, 6 intelligence, and 4 wisdom... He got pretty boring as the table was more of an explorer/role-playing kind...
@DonsArtnGames my first was a Dragonborn who's name was charizard spelled backwards, he didn't do much because the party self destructed and I was just sitting back and watching then kill each other
I support the "warlocks don't need eldritch blast" claim. My warlock is high char & str, uses a glaive, pact of the Blade. Her signature move is booming blade, if it needs more oomph I'll use eldritch smite. Can't reach a target? Quickened cast fly as a bonus action thanks to metamagic adept, or swap places with another willing creature thanks to the noble genie patron feature. It's fun playing outside the standard expectations of a class :)
Gods, she's me. That's why I liked her so much. "Oh, now that I trust you, I went from 10% to 100% really quick and now it's weird. Here, have this rock I found." Glad to see Aisling back, Ginny!
10:47 This. Thank you SO much for saying this. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's *impossible* to create this kind of character, or that it *has* to be unpleasant to play at the table. One of my characters most dear to my heart is an edgelord loner, and it's been such an amazing story to explore how he's coming to slowly trust his party members. He provides them with some perspective on life, and they provide him with a place where he can really feel trusted and valued as a person. It's godsdamn beautiful.
"I wanted to be cute and have elf ears." Same. My first character I had to be an elf and I desperately wanted magic, so enchanter sounded fun (in 2nd edition, elves could only be enchanter mages). But, I was in my reading the Prydain Chronicle phase and so she also had to look like Princess Eilonwy - just with elf ears. I gave her a true love, an older twin brother, a family who only saw girls for how and hearth and gave her just a little bit of a rebellious nature (which I almost immediately ignored upon starting the campaign as she morphed more and more into myself at 17, very introvertedand u certain of herself) and I had her run away from home to become an apprentice enchanter. Oh, and she was also a horse girl, lol. I've thought about redoing her as a 5e character. It might be really interesting to see how far I've come as a player. And I feel the same about bringing her to a new table. Maybe solo playing her could be fun! Excited to see how your campaign goes with Aisling 2.0!
The older I get the more charming I find it when people still feel affection for their early characters. There's a writer/video game developer named Anthony Huso who played of D&D a lot in the 80s as a teenager and came back to it in the 2010s as a middle aged man. Since then he has published a number of modules on Lulu, his first being an "adulted up" update of a plane-spanning inn he used in high school. Included are a couple characters a professional writer would never dare come up with, especially the hot, friendly moon elf bard Rain whose hair changes color depending on her mood. A lot of critics gave him flak for that, but I thought his affection for that character was so palpable and had so much history behind it, that I find it charming.
You taught me a thing here as a DM too: That new players at my table won't necessarily use their own back stories at all, and I need to be alright with that.
Ah, the age old lesson of "Everything you learn starts with a mistake". Those first characters are absolute crash courses of not just D&D, but TTRPGs in general. Another wonderful video Ginny! I cannot wait to hear about the exploits and adventures of Aisling v2.0.
As someone who is making a character for the first time, I worry about how I’ll look back at her down the line. It’s so nice to see Aisling again, and that more is to come, I loved learning about her before, and she’s still so much fun.
Me too. LOL. My first has been a struggle to flesh out the back story. Kinda understand now that there are distinct disadvantages to the "lone wolf" and will need to do some thinking about changing that up a bit.
To me the answer to the lone wolf is to answer what it takes to no longer be lone and attribute that to someone else in the party. Maybe you want revenge? Someone else might also want revenge or protection from the object of your vengeance. Maybe you want money? Someone else can be a noble willing to bankroll you if you help with the task at hand. The long and short of it is to have at least one connection to the party and have the DM know that he can send a character moment both your ways at once and you both have each other to bounce ideas and rp off of. It's also a really organic bond to have. Your character might be uninterested in large groups of friends or allies, but having an accomplice or even a patsy... just makes sense.
8:36-8:48 Idea for a warlock-patron relationship. "Oh, this thing everyone you've ever known has always told you is impossible? You were actually right all along. It's totally possible. But honestly it's so difficult it might as well be impossible. I understand why it's important to you but there are any number of things you could be doing that are much more practical. For example, I've been having trouble with this other archfey recently..."
I will also say - I feel like something that a lot of people fundamentally misunderstand about trauma is that it can do one of two things - it can either make you bitter, or it can make you better. You can be a person with a nightmarish backstory and nobody knows it because you're just so nice. As a person with horrible childhood trauma and CPTSD as a result of that, people are always genuinely shocked to find out some of the things that I have gone through. I never want to treat people the way I was treated, but as a result, I tend to over-correct. I also tend to hide my true feelings behind a mask of peppy positivity. I don't always get mad, but if I do, I absolutely hulk out because it usually means I was pushed way too far, or I saw someone hurting another person or animal. I definitely have more flaws, but these are some ways you could have a super traumatic backstory and still play someone who can interact well with the party and others.
My DM and close friend made it a requirement that before we joined his game we had to answer a list of questions he gave us. These questions are so we can develop a characters backstory along side the DM. He does this with every new character, so backup characters get the same treatment. Honestly, it's genius and really helpful.
@@alexholloway6113 10. Do you have a name for the town Opus was created in? If so, what? 11. Any specifications for who Opus sold the shop to? Given this amendment, did Opus still leave his community the same day he became self-aware? 12. Did Opus' community at large see him once he became self-aware? If so, what would've been their reaction? 13. Is there anything else (NPCs, flavoring, experiences, etc.) that you wish to specify about the character?
I did something like that with my current character! She was so fun to play, but the campaign fizzled out when she was level 10. When another friend of mine started up a game, I decided to play a variant, starting at level 1, and made different choices. I still love playing her.
My first character was a medusa that grew up alone in the woods raised by the incorporeal woodland spirits which was a choice made exclusively so she would hate human interaction (so I wouldn't have to rp too much), didn't know anything about the world (so my friends could explain the lore/rules to me without breaking character every 5 minutes) and had exclusively ranged attacks (because i was scared of doing something stupid in a fight and dying and embarrassing myself) 100% recommend starting with a loner because it makes sense for your character to be quiet, giving you time to build up your confidence to roleplay and eventually mold your character into a new and improved version of themself as you evolve as a player!
Reworking old characters is always fun, and sometimes easier than coming up with an entirely new character. I've been a part of several campaigns that fell apart due to scheduling conflicts, so I have a decent roster of character concepts that I could re-work when I join a new campaign.
Now I’m inspired to do a little more with some of my first concepts. My first concept-which I never got the chance to actually play-fell into a lot of the same traps as Aisling did, so I should dig her back up and fix her. One of these days, I’ll actually play Raiann the dragonborn ranger, and she’ll do great things, far greater than 15-year-old me could ever dream of!
I definitely prefer the new motivations for her, but the concept of going on a grand adventure out of spite for the people who told you no is really funny
just because a campaign dies doesn't mean your character has to, I felt this in my core, my drunken dwarf monk and celestial warlock who masquerades as a disney princess are forever in my heart ^^
Funny that you brought up your solo video again, I *just* got done using those books (that I bought because of you) to deal with an unexpected dungeon crawl and I just got the itch to do a solo run too (though using pathfinder 2e instead as a system) and doing it with, essentially, a frankenstein-like monster build. Also, the Lady of the Soil is a perfectly fine being of the Fae. My first dnd 5e Warlock was a servant of the Queen of the First Morning. (which basically meant her powered waxed and wane depending on how rare the morning was). So a fae lady who listen to the soil is more than fine imo. Also, just because it hits my brain during the videos, previous editions of the Warlock (3rd/3.5) *had* Eldritch Blast has an automatic mechanic with very similar invocation to modify it. You could do some *weird* mechanics thing with other stuff too.
The biggest mistake I'd realized I'd been making in a number of my character builds was that they often lacked a personal goal they wanted to achieve. And while I usually bake a number of things into their backstories that could be used to incite interesting story - I realized during my last campaign that not having a goal that I was specifically trying to work towards took away from my ability to engage with whatever overarching plot hook was in front of me, because nothing felt like an obstacle to my character, everything was just "something to do" in the moment. It made his reactions to setbacks very lukewarm and also never gave him a reason to want to slow down at any point, he was just always ready to trigger the next major event flag, and I realized that that affected my ability to be invested in my own character's growth.
I absolutely love taking my old characters and working them into NPCs in campaigns I'm running. I still get to see those characters interact with the world and it's one less NPC I have to make up
That is such a great and thrifty idea! ❤ (And definitely much more creative than the commoner route of ripping off characters from movies and books... 😆)
And now I'll hear Antonio when my cats are expressing their desire for food too... great video as well. The first character is usually the hardest and could always use a revision.
I love this concept for a video series! You could not only "fix" your own old character, but you could do it with other peoples characters that they send you as well!
Okay I just got back from a big test and this was the BEST THING EVER!!!! Not only was the video great itself, but MORE SOLO DND CONTENT OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG TYSM!!!!!!!!!!
I recently remade one of my early D&D characters who committed the sin of having 100 years of experience (due to being an eladrin) despite being, like, level 3 in the campaign she was briefly in before it fizzled out. A friend inviting me to a level 20 one-shot was the perfect opportunity to fix her while keeping all the things I originally loved about her, it was so rewarding!
Watching this both excited and paranoid because of how many mistakes im probably making with my first dnd chr 😅😅😅 but the whimsy in my heart is there so....YIPPEE
I did basically the same thing with my first dnd character and this video really helped me realize how I could shape her into someone more fun for me to play! Now we're doing an arc about her backstory and I love the narrative she has.
We just ended a campaign and one of my friends bought a reskinned version of a warlock he played in a previous fizzled game to our table. I think the difference in campaigns allowed his concept to mature into something entirely different that we were all narratively satisfied with at the end of the campaign.
Cian and Niamh sound like potential love interests for Aisling just based on tropes alone. Love triangle waiting to happen. The drama! My first characters definitely have similar issues. Neither my paladin nor my sorcerer know any NPCs within their respective games because I was a latecomer to both campaigns. I'm surprised you're not making her a Baldur's Gate 3 character, but I guess it wouldn't really work with the goal that you have in mind. I look forward to seeing how Aisling's story goes.
My first and current character is also a Warlock Druid! Worst is, I first made her a Warlock sorceress but as soon as I could level up, I asked the DM to switch to Druid, thinking I could sacrifice physical stats thanks to wildshape... Not realizing 14 AC is not that much better than 10 😂 The good thing is her medium stats have brought a lot of really funny failures to the table, like making unconvincing illusions or having just a bunch of contextual cantrips, like giving a blooming flower as a gift to a giant, only to realize it's so tiny in their giant hands 😅 She also had a really tragic and convoluted backstory that I simplified and lightened up once I understood how to make it useful for the DM. He immediately started incorporating the new story into the game which felt great!
I’m currently trying to go against a trope, and have a rogue *with* parents. This idea spawned when I saw the groundbreaking amount of people who had parentless rogues; so I opted for one who had parents, but they were poor, so she had to work as a mercenary to send them money for food. I know Aisling is a Warlock/Druid, and not a rogue but this just made me think of my own character (who is a backup, mind you. Her name is Niche and she’s a yuan-ti pure blood).
I love that idea for a rogue. My favorite thing when creating a character is going against the usual class tropes. It just leads to way more creativity in making a compelling character than doing what so many people have already done. My current character Brione is a Leonin Barbarian but has hardly a mean bone in his body and has your average intelligence. His "rage" instead manifests as a protective urge born from a feeling of helplessness and fear that he can't protect the ones he loves. I also twisted it to where the trope itself is basically his big conflict as a curse is slowly draining his humanity and intelligence until he's just a primal savage.
That point about eldritch blast being given automatically if it was so essential is a good point. In fact, for one of the barbarian subclasses I homebrewed, it not only gets access to eldritch blast as part of a spell list under a custom category called Ragecast, but is even given that cantrip for free. Ragecast spells being spells that meet certain criteria, and the Ragecaster barbarian is able to cast them while raging. Criteria includes stuff like not being a concentration spell, having a cast time short enough to finish casting on the same turn it starts getting cast on (1 action, 1 bonus action, or 1 reaction), having a duration no longer than 1 round, and either lacking material components, having a melee weapon as its material component, or being able to use a focus in place of its material components.
my first dnd character was a 7 foot orc named Ron (short for Ronald) he worked in a mine as a child and left mostly because people we're to scared of him outside of that he loved bread and MURDER!
That last point about not wanting to play your character under a new DM really struck a chord. My very first character (built in a friend's homebrew system) was made way back in the early '90s, and I do absolutely cringe at the things that teenaged Klasodeth thought were cool. But what I regretted most was my shameless power-gaming.The DM really had to put up with a lot of headaches from that original group, particularly from me. So when an unusual combination of events presented the opportunity to play the character again under the same DM after nearly three decades (except this time in D&D 5e), I found that I was rebuilding my character to act as an apology of sorts. No more bloodthirst for combat, no endless ambitions for power, no shameless exploitation of loopholes, and no insistence on pushing rules past the breaking point. Just a character that became victim of their own hubris, powerless and trapped on a distant world, wanting only to return home. I wanted to prove that things had changed, but I was so afraid of having the DM think I was going to try to break the game again due to those past transgressions that I didn't give the DM the whole backstory and had the character operate under an alias. (It made sense within the narrative of the campaign.) There was also an element of risk. Since the character was trying to accomplish their goals purely within the framework of the system, without the benefit of the DM nudging events in any particular direction, there was a real possibility that the character would not achieve a happy ending. The central conflict of the campaign had the potential for events that would make it impossible for the character to return home, and the rules surrounding resurrection were unforgiving enough that if my character died, they would probably stay dead, which I was prepared to accept as the canonical end of my character's story. For me, that was pretty significant, as this character was part of a campaign that resulted in lasting friendships that persist to this day, so my character, flawed though it was, held a great deal of significance for me. From my perspective, I was giving the DM back much of the power over the game world and my character that I had taken away in that first campaign. Throughout that campaign, I left subtle clues about the true nature of my character, and during the epilogue at the end of the campaign, when my character finally accomplished everything needed to return home, I finally revealed the truth. I had been worried that the DM might not react well to the revelation, but everything turned out so well that in our current campaign, I'm now openly playing another character from that campaign. This time, the goal is to add some actual personality to a character that was previously a blank slate, and the results have been quite rewarding, especially since I get to draw on a rich backstory that was developed by years of prior gameplay. I've greatly enjoyed being able to redeem two characters by making them into much more than what I could have done for them when I originally created them, made all the better by continuing from their original stories instead of overwriting them. And I got to show my original DM that I've been learning from my mistakes.
i'm such a sucker for exile stories tbh. I never did the "everyone hated him", but usually there is some reason why my character feels he must leave his hometown and exile himself lol I realized after like three backstories that I hit certain tropes pretty consistently and that they might or might not be uh well yk. processing my own issues.
Ginny, you just made me rewrite my first character's (and now novel protagonist's) entire backstory using your process. Good job. This video is very helpful.
This has been made public for 8 minutes and I am just NOW getting the notification?! What's wrong with you TH-cam?! Thanks, Ginny, I can't wait to level up my gaming skills with your tips and tricks.
@@GinnyDi 🤩 GINNY! 🤩 😑 Unfortunately, I'm working so I can't keep refreshing continuously for your video... 🥲Adulting STINKS sometimes. 😭 Anyways, thanks for another great video packed with tips and examples. I have a feeling many of my previous characters are getting a 2.0 update. Thanks for the response!
as someone who is still hanging onto a character i made when i was like 7 who was originally a shape shifting alien in the harry potter universe, i feel this video so hard. this very same character is now living out their own story in their own universe, with only a liiittle shape shifting as a treat lol
I really enjoyed the cinematic scenes you roll played & filmed between your narration! They really added life too your characters background/story! 🧝♀️
Ok, so you have a talking cat - big deal. Who doesn’t? But, aren’t we overlooking something here? I never saw the cat’s lips move once! That’s not a talking cat - that’s a talking VENTRILOQUIST cat with some serious mad skills!
I have to admit I really liked that you didn't take eldritch blast. I'm all about playing sub optimal builds. One it makes your character truly unique and two it forces you to be more creative rather than relying on tried-and-true builds. It is unfortunate that eldritch blast gets all the love when it comes to warlocks. But to be honest I would let you use the invocations for other cantrips like chill touch or Magic Stone. But that is the kind of DM I am. ;)
In the end, my first D&D character was exactly the character I wanted to play. She's a human variant life cleric with War Caster and Skilled who fled a Sharran Cult and became a cleric of Selune. We are finishing up her campaign tomorrow and I am at once happy and heartbroken 💔 love you, Fawn. Hope you don't die tomorrow.
I have a character that has travelled with me since 1989, who has changed forms as I have changed (age 11-34 respectively). Reinterpreting him into a new system many years ago (White Wolf's Exalted ttrpg, highly recommended) opened up my understanding of what he was capable of being through a different set of character creation tips and abilities. All of these iterations are clearly connected to a central identity, but playing him feels more like a reincarnation of the initial design than I would have thought. This is a fun exercise, thank you for sharing.
I did this with my own first character! A half elf bard who started as a farmer and ended up with the classic “my parents are dead” story along with a dash of “cursed of being stoned” (I’m dead serious). So he would go on a quest to find the guy who killed his parents. Now I reworked him to still be a bard farmer, but now he’s on a simple quest to find a date. Think Johnny Bravo but a shaggy farmer who is actually a nice guy.
The thing I dislike most about D&D is the way it makes you feel the Lady of the Soil was somehow "wrong" for an Archfey because you didn't know what they "should" be like. She seems great! D&D's obsession with over-categorizing and quantifying EVERYTHING makes me cringe. Faeries play nasty tricks on people who try to catalogue them. ;)
It's not a problem with DnD. It's a problem with uncreative people that think the main or most common description of something is the only way to play something. Outliers exist but people forget that 😂
This video made me realise how long i've been following you for. Honestly I was so inspired by Aisling I made my own character inspired by her, Aurelia. She really fit the sexy and sad vibe and sadly really didn't fit the world... Or my type of playing, lol
This is so timely for me because I'm trying to retool an old character from a campaign that fizzled out into a new one. Good reminder of some things other than mechanics that need to be thought about a bit more. Thank you for being so honest
This brought back memories of a deep gnome from third edition, 22 years in the past. I promise you your first character was dramatically better than mine.
Gonna use this advice to avoid these mistakes, for my own traumatized pretends to be tough ranger. Also my birdfolk paladin would like you to know that cool rocks are one of the best gifts, only second to pretty rocks.
Couple options: 1) you could make the magic come from the grandma with a minor patron. The warlock features can be explained by her being unable to control the grandmas vast amount of magic causing it to be all or nothing. 2) the patron could be certain that it is inevitable, but the character could hold the opinion that if she doesnt stop it, shes going to die anyway. 3) if you choos to have her have a grim past, you could make her standoffish and secluded, or you could make her super energetic and fun going as a mask (especially if the other players dont automatically know it can be dropped like a bomb shell). If you do the energetic one, set aside a handful of things that will knock her out of this persona, at least for a little while.
Could you expand on this concept by doing a video about how you would approach Aisling's story from the DM side? Where would you go with her patron and the world ending rot storyline? How would you challenge her character to grow/adapt/change as the story progresses?
As always, I love your thoughts on writing and creating characters. Sometimes it is interesting to go back and look at an older character. The Main Character in my first book, which I started coming up with in High School, was very much a nerdy teen boy fantasy, outcast of his people turns out to be the scion of a much more powerful group, and sets off on an adventure to save the world. Much of my editing as I got into my twenties and before I published it at 30 were making that a more mature vision, while still staying true to what I wanted the character and story to be. It is a hard balance sometimes. It sounds like your Aisling character is basically a cat, lol. Loved the Promo, you always bring some much humor and creativity to them, which I really like!
This got me thinking of characters I made in high school who were largely based on anime I would watch on TV and JRPGs. Then you mentioned that you made Aisling when you were 28 and I realized that I was still getting a grasp on making good characters then too.
This has to be one of the best concepts for a video ever. This is amazing. Well played, Ginny. Well played! I've liked you ever since you gave me the reward for "Technical Achievement" in the WorldAnvil Costume Challenge. Your words of motivation and justification for the award was really well put, and I decided to subscribe. Never regretted it.
My second d&d character (and my favorite character ever) not only transfered tables, but transfered worlds. He intially started in Forgotten Realms, but when that game fizzled out he was eventually brought cannonically into my d&d world (which sort of mixes actual d&d with real world and harry potter elements). However, the game he's in right now is at my friend's table, in my friend's homebrew world. So he literally hopped universes! Basically he messes with magic and a teleportation spell went horribly wrong, so now he's in a different universe's hell. I'm so happy I get to play him again and finish his story. I adore my edgy barbarian rogue so much
Ginny, this video was super-helpful. Recently, I started updating my 2nd major character from 2e to 5e for fun. Your video on backstory was very helpful. Previously, I had some notes that included a dream sequence and a lot of "chosen one" stuff going on. It didn't sit well with me. So, I completely re-wrote his backstory. Now, he has a father who is a hunter and a mother who is a druid, making him a spiffy ranger. He even rides a sabertooth white tiger. There was a lot to him, so I'm taking my time, but the conversion is going well. One thing I would add to your video is to not be afraid to reimagine a character if new rules options work better. Finally, I've played D&D since 1991. Just a weeeeeee bit longer than you. Despite that, you're teaching me some things. ;) Thanks for everything and keep up the good work.
Hiya Ginny! I actually recently made my first D&D character but... by god I'm without a DM because my forever DM has uni, woe be me. He's a Tabaxi Artificer who was raised on the road by his parents who are part of a traveling group of tabaxi who make a living as merchants on the road, he grew up to be quite the handyman and often was captivated by the intricacies of technological advancements made by artificers who tread the line between tech & magic and so he eventually took up an apprenticeship~ There's much more to it but this is basically a TL:DR, I was very hesitant about D&D originally and to a degree still am but content creators like yourself and Critical Role have inspired me to give it a shot, even now a second character is brewing in the back of my mind even though I've not even begun a campaign on my first! So many thanks for being such a stellar pillar of the D&D community, I'm excited to see where this'll take me
I respect you so much as a content creator. Your creativity, passion, and integrity really shine in everything you do. I respect the ability to say you did something wrong or less than ideally. And to top it all off your ads are even amazing. You're literally the only content creator whose ads I don't skip (sad wallet 😂)
I find your videos helpful for both as a newbie to DND and someone working on a fantasy story, but I think this really cemented the ideas you talk about in your other videos. Like a case study I think this helped a lot to see how these mistakes are made and fixing them. Awesome video!😊 Also you look so amazing-the eyeshadow and hair look great together! ❤
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
Nyah :3
I KNEW I RECOGNISED PABLO! Love your vids man, you two are the pillars of me learning about DnD
When I heard Pablo speak, I was like : Hmmmm... That sounds familiar🤔.Didn't know that pointyhat had a feline familiar lol.
Did you just cast counterspell in elvish?
Nyah X3
TH-cam translate says you mean "Undo :3" is this true?
"A cool rock she found or a bird she killed."
Aisling is a cat, got it.
edgy characters are very often described as "cats" XD
That was the EXACT thought that went through my mind when she said that! LOL
@@sharkdentures3247 Torielas would gift a whole Rabbit with the Arrow still through its neck. but he died a hero to poison for the confirmed promise of love from the higher class woman who kept rejecting him. he was a Hero in the Evacuation efforts of Greeneporte. not a single enemy orc survived, but neither did he. he died not a lovesick hunter, but a lovesick hero. who had just enough strength to drop dead after telling his Anili, that he loved her, and that he will have to be her husband in the next life.
if she's anything like my old DM, she named Aisling after the fey girl from The Secret of the Kells, who can take the form of animals. this includes the Panger Ban, the cat.
You caught me, this entire video is cat themed. This is why Pablo shouldn't have a voice 😹
Roasting a first DnD character who's a treehugging elf with the personality of a plastic cup? Oh, this was made for me.
Welcome!! ✨️
"If Eldritch Blast was so quintessential you wouldn't choose it, you'd get it automatically."
Funnily enough, the first rework of the OneDnD Playtest Warlock did exactly that.
And if that makes it into the new Warlock, then I will play Warlocks with Eldritch Blast. Until then, YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME 😤
3.5 made it a core aspect of the class, it was a class ability
@@GinnyDi You don't have to anyway. Maybe that's how it's "meant" to be played, but if there are viable alternatives and table's ok,why not go without and just use EB on occasion.
@@GinnyDi Based on the last playtest, it's unlikely! While I still think EB is gonna be the "optimal" way to play, (more trigger effects) it's nice that they're opening up a lot of the EB Invocations to other cantrips. Assuming that change stays, anyhow.
Though bladelock is also looking better than ever and calls to me. I wanna make my psionic githyanki with her big ol' honkin' psychic damaging sword. Why cast spells when I can smash stuff as a caster? Spell slots are for smites!
I already gave warlocks EB and Hex automatically. Seemed like it was HEAVILY implied that a warlock should have them, so I felt like you shouldn't have to choose them.
Reworking old characters is my favorite thing to do. You get to see how much your understanding of character building has gotten and you can keep coming with fresh ideas! I know one of my oldest dnd characters, Eva, has at least 5 variations. I don't think I can ever let her go-
That's awesome!! 🥰 Where did she start and what's she like now??
Not even DnD, but I've done the same thing with gaming characters over the years, all the way back to Ultima III. Somehow they keep coming back with modifications in fantasy as well as scifi roles.
@@rhaedas9085 I’ve done it with a Valkyrie in Bane of the Cosmic Forge, some PBM I can’t remember, a Vesten in 7th Sea, a Warrior in World of Warcraft, and most recently as a Barbarian when our group ran Rime of The Frostmaiden.
Great name for a D&D character 😊✨️
Yea i have a character like that. If the setting or group wouldn’t match her energy, i add her as an NPC to the backstory for the character i am playing 😅
Most importantly, your love for Aisling was palpable and contagious in that old video, the mistakes be damn. It made her a good character no matter the cliche backstory. But it's cool to see her and her player grow so much! It's inspiring, thank you!
She was honestly a perfectly good character for the table she was at!! Just because I wouldn't write her the same way now doesn't mean she didn't serve her purpose 🥰
@@GinnyDi and that video of yours is what I constantly recommend people who think they have to make a good character whom others at the table will enjoy (like the warforged you played first) instead of the self-indulgent character they'll enjoy playing. So that video constantly serves its purpose, too!
I'm glad to know other people rework their old beloved but flawed characters. I also love the systematic way you analyzed, dismantled, and rebuilt Aisling.
I think you can do unfriendly and high Charisma. Instead of friendly, maybe they're fiercely compelling, people responding to the strength of the personality.
I created a high charisma I gave them a personality like Hyacinth Bucket from keeping Up appearances. an unlikable character but whos peronality just push her throu
Definitely! I talk about this in my video about roleplaying your stats. Aisling version 1 wasn't intimidating either, though - she was just awkward, and unfriendly. I certainly don't mean to imply that unfriendly characters can't be high charisma, but Aisling didn't demonstrate charisma in ANY way because I didn't work it into the way I formulated her personality.
@@GinnyDi Sorry, my misunderstanding.
Sociopaths. Compelling like the spider to its prey. You certainly don't have to be friendly to be charismatic. Some of the most vile people in history were incredibly charming. It is the reason that they were so successful with the scale of their atrocities.
I know a few standup comedians who are not friendly at all but have high charisma
I'm loving the Irish names on all of Aisling's NPCs! And your pronunciation is on point! You didn't exactly make it easy on yourself either: Roisín; Cian; Niamh!
I had a cleric of a dream goddess who has that name because I think the name translate to dream or dreamer.
ah yes, the character we gotta backpedal on. it happens to the best of us, but it’s better for us in the end
We have to do it to make the mistakes and create a more fun character in the future! 🥰
I just made my first character and I’m super worried after watching these videos that I’ve boxed my character and DM in. But I’m really passionate about a couple aspects of the backstory, maybe I should try to cut some of the aspects that are sadder? And I want DMs opinion, but aside from me the group is all seasoned players, I don’t want to be treated like a baby for the entirety of this campaign
I remember my first character. She was a 3.5e bard who was planned to go down the Dragon Disciple prestige class, and who had these profound visions of loud, raucous music that made her incredibly unpopular but very skilled with her lute. This is because I thought the name Dragon Disciple sounded like a cheesy 80s power metal band, and so she was seeing visions of actual power metal bands and trying to play that kind of music on medieval instruments. Her arc ended up with her trapping a lightning elemental in a lute that was a flying V. I... honestly kind of love her, and I'd play her again in a heartbeat.
Some of us are just born talented huh...
I love all of this!
My first 5E character was an inquisitive rogue with Batman’s backstory 😂 (in my defense, it was my DM’s suggestion and I was like, orphan who wants to kill the dragon that wiped out their village?! Sign me up!)
Incredible first character energy! 🤌
@@GinnyDi Great video on freshening up an old character. I really find that simpler backstories are often the best. It allows the game to shape the character more than what happened out of game. To use a literary example, in Dune, Frank Herbert doesn't give us a lot of backstory on Paul before he is thrust into the action of the story. And his time on Caladan is very short. Similarly, the life Frodo and Sam lived before the Ring came to Frodo wasn't terribly important--with the one exception that Frodo was a relation of Bilbo, and that earned him some good will from both elves and dwarves. Beyond that, his backstory was pretty unremarkable. We only got to know him through the events of the story. D&D characters are similar.
Had a mental image of a Dragon pulling a gun on your rogue’s parents in Crime Alley, with a Zorro movie poster in the background, until I read the rest of your comment…
@@AlexanderOsias I would watch that movie 😂
This is an excellent frame for teaching people how to avoid popular but problematic character creation choices by roasting your own. Just feels less like the speaker is lecturing people than simply saying, "This is what I learned through trial and error. Makes things better for me, it'll make it better for you." Even though that is what you are always saying, but...we can't help how people take stuff. Plus, the specificity and editing in real time I think makes it all crystal clear. Really great stuff.
I love this walkthrough of how to rehabilitate a character, especially the part of how to make sure you have those npc connections and ability to interact with the players, such as the pseudodragon part. The "make your DM quit" was real chef's kiss.
I loved editing that - I'm glad people are seeing it! It's JUST past my normal viewer retention time 😂
I love Pablo!!! That's funny how he reminds me of Pointy Hat ;-)
The resemblance is uncanny!! 👀
First, and most importantly - this video is AMAZING. I remember some of my early characters and the vast majority of them came directly from Cringeville. It's really fun to get some perspective and revisit them to dig into what I was actually going for and clean off all the edgelord garbage that cluttered them up. Second, your hair and makeup look INCREDIBLE.
SECONDED 🎉
Thank you!!
I love the term Cringeville 😂 I hope my early characters are super happy there
Hey, if characters from Cringeville appealed and got you playing and enjoying the game, more power to you. If it worked for you and it worked for the group you were in, there's nothing wrong with younger you enjoying a more tropey approach.
It was SO cathartic to me to actually redo an entire PC from one of my favorite games. It's crazy how looking at a character after so many years can bring up so many questions and mistakes.
Aisling is back!!
Also i thought in the og video you said there was a warforged before her, so iirc not technically the first character
Wow incredible memory! 🤯 Yes, Aisling was /technically/ not my first character, but I only played Petra (the warforged monk) for a short time, and Aisling was the first character I really committed to. I consider Petra more of a practice character 😜
@GinnyDi We've all had that character. My very first was a Barbarian with an 18 strength, 6 intelligence, and 4 wisdom...
He got pretty boring as the table was more of an explorer/role-playing kind...
@DonsArtnGames my first was a Dragonborn who's name was charizard spelled backwards, he didn't do much because the party self destructed and I was just sitting back and watching then kill each other
I support the "warlocks don't need eldritch blast" claim. My warlock is high char & str, uses a glaive, pact of the Blade. Her signature move is booming blade, if it needs more oomph I'll use eldritch smite. Can't reach a target? Quickened cast fly as a bonus action thanks to metamagic adept, or swap places with another willing creature thanks to the noble genie patron feature. It's fun playing outside the standard expectations of a class :)
Gods, she's me. That's why I liked her so much. "Oh, now that I trust you, I went from 10% to 100% really quick and now it's weird. Here, have this rock I found." Glad to see Aisling back, Ginny!
10:47 This. Thank you SO much for saying this. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's *impossible* to create this kind of character, or that it *has* to be unpleasant to play at the table. One of my characters most dear to my heart is an edgelord loner, and it's been such an amazing story to explore how he's coming to slowly trust his party members. He provides them with some perspective on life, and they provide him with a place where he can really feel trusted and valued as a person. It's godsdamn beautiful.
I love characters like that.
"I wanted to be cute and have elf ears."
Same. My first character I had to be an elf and I desperately wanted magic, so enchanter sounded fun (in 2nd edition, elves could only be enchanter mages). But, I was in my reading the Prydain Chronicle phase and so she also had to look like Princess Eilonwy - just with elf ears. I gave her a true love, an older twin brother, a family who only saw girls for how and hearth and gave her just a little bit of a rebellious nature (which I almost immediately ignored upon starting the campaign as she morphed more and more into myself at 17, very introvertedand u certain of herself) and I had her run away from home to become an apprentice enchanter. Oh, and she was also a horse girl, lol.
I've thought about redoing her as a 5e character. It might be really interesting to see how far I've come as a player. And I feel the same about bringing her to a new table. Maybe solo playing her could be fun! Excited to see how your campaign goes with Aisling 2.0!
You're the first creator to make ads I actually enjoy. And I don't know how I feel about this.
She's the second for me, Let's Game It Out ads were a wild ride before his sponsors started requiring him to not mock random stuff so much
The older I get the more charming I find it when people still feel affection for their early characters. There's a writer/video game developer named Anthony Huso who played of D&D a lot in the 80s as a teenager and came back to it in the 2010s as a middle aged man. Since then he has published a number of modules on Lulu, his first being an "adulted up" update of a plane-spanning inn he used in high school. Included are a couple characters a professional writer would never dare come up with, especially the hot, friendly moon elf bard Rain whose hair changes color depending on her mood. A lot of critics gave him flak for that, but I thought his affection for that character was so palpable and had so much history behind it, that I find it charming.
You taught me a thing here as a DM too: That new players at my table won't necessarily use their own back stories at all, and I need to be alright with that.
Also: we see you Antonio Demico 😂❤
"Thanks to Antonio from PointyHat for voicing my cat" is indeed such a sentence and I love it so much! 😂💖
Pablo Picatso wears a Pointy Hat!
Sooooo do we need to go check out Pointy Hat for a reciprocal ad read?
A familiar voicing a familiar... uncanny...
@@DonsArtnGames uncatty? A tip of the hat.
Ah, the age old lesson of "Everything you learn starts with a mistake". Those first characters are absolute crash courses of not just D&D, but TTRPGs in general. Another wonderful video Ginny! I cannot wait to hear about the exploits and adventures of Aisling v2.0.
As someone who is making a character for the first time, I worry about how I’ll look back at her down the line.
It’s so nice to see Aisling again, and that more is to come, I loved learning about her before, and she’s still so much fun.
I hope that even if you look back on them with a critical lens, you still loved playing them! That's certainly how I feel about Aisling 🥰
@@GinnyDi I think I will, I hope so anyway. She’ll definitely be dear to me no matter what, and I think that’s what’s gonna be important.
Me too. LOL. My first has been a struggle to flesh out the back story. Kinda understand now that there are distinct disadvantages to the "lone wolf" and will need to do some thinking about changing that up a bit.
To me the answer to the lone wolf is to answer what it takes to no longer be lone and attribute that to someone else in the party.
Maybe you want revenge? Someone else might also want revenge or protection from the object of your vengeance.
Maybe you want money? Someone else can be a noble willing to bankroll you if you help with the task at hand.
The long and short of it is to have at least one connection to the party and have the DM know that he can send a character moment both your ways at once and you both have each other to bounce ideas and rp off of.
It's also a really organic bond to have. Your character might be uninterested in large groups of friends or allies, but having an accomplice or even a patsy... just makes sense.
8:36-8:48
Idea for a warlock-patron relationship. "Oh, this thing everyone you've ever known has always told you is impossible? You were actually right all along. It's totally possible. But honestly it's so difficult it might as well be impossible. I understand why it's important to you but there are any number of things you could be doing that are much more practical. For example, I've been having trouble with this other archfey recently..."
I LOVED THE POINTY HAT CAMEO ❤.
also, this video is one of my favorites now!!
I will also say - I feel like something that a lot of people fundamentally misunderstand about trauma is that it can do one of two things - it can either make you bitter, or it can make you better. You can be a person with a nightmarish backstory and nobody knows it because you're just so nice. As a person with horrible childhood trauma and CPTSD as a result of that, people are always genuinely shocked to find out some of the things that I have gone through. I never want to treat people the way I was treated, but as a result, I tend to over-correct. I also tend to hide my true feelings behind a mask of peppy positivity. I don't always get mad, but if I do, I absolutely hulk out because it usually means I was pushed way too far, or I saw someone hurting another person or animal. I definitely have more flaws, but these are some ways you could have a super traumatic backstory and still play someone who can interact well with the party and others.
My DM and close friend made it a requirement that before we joined his game we had to answer a list of questions he gave us. These questions are so we can develop a characters backstory along side the DM. He does this with every new character, so backup characters get the same treatment. Honestly, it's genius and really helpful.
That sounds cool and helpful. May I ask for some examples of those questions? I may want to steal, i mean re word them for my own nefarious purposes
@@alexholloway6113
10. Do you have a name for the town Opus was created in? If so, what?
11. Any specifications for who Opus sold the shop to? Given this amendment, did Opus still leave his community the same day he became self-aware?
12. Did Opus' community at large see him once he became self-aware? If so, what would've been their reaction?
13. Is there anything else (NPCs, flavoring, experiences, etc.) that you wish to specify about the character?
@@devonhappe I thanketh thee, shall consider using similar questions. Happy dnding
@@alexholloway6113 you're welcome.
@@devonhappe I swear half your comment is missing 😭 just asking cause I’m also curious
I did something like that with my current character! She was so fun to play, but the campaign fizzled out when she was level 10. When another friend of mine started up a game, I decided to play a variant, starting at level 1, and made different choices. I still love playing her.
My first character was a medusa that grew up alone in the woods raised by the incorporeal woodland spirits which was a choice made exclusively so she would hate human interaction (so I wouldn't have to rp too much), didn't know anything about the world (so my friends could explain the lore/rules to me without breaking character every 5 minutes) and had exclusively ranged attacks (because i was scared of doing something stupid in a fight and dying and embarrassing myself)
100% recommend starting with a loner because it makes sense for your character to be quiet, giving you time to build up your confidence to roleplay and eventually mold your character into a new and improved version of themself as you evolve as a player!
I had to pause cause I was laughing so hard at Antonio as your cat. Best ad break ever!
Reworking old characters is always fun, and sometimes easier than coming up with an entirely new character.
I've been a part of several campaigns that fell apart due to scheduling conflicts, so I have a decent roster of character concepts that I could re-work when I join a new campaign.
Now I’m inspired to do a little more with some of my first concepts. My first concept-which I never got the chance to actually play-fell into a lot of the same traps as Aisling did, so I should dig her back up and fix her. One of these days, I’ll actually play Raiann the dragonborn ranger, and she’ll do great things, far greater than 15-year-old me could ever dream of!
I definitely prefer the new motivations for her, but the concept of going on a grand adventure out of spite for the people who told you no is really funny
just because a campaign dies doesn't mean your character has to, I felt this in my core, my drunken dwarf monk and celestial warlock who masquerades as a disney princess are forever in my heart ^^
Funny that you brought up your solo video again, I *just* got done using those books (that I bought because of you) to deal with an unexpected dungeon crawl and I just got the itch to do a solo run too (though using pathfinder 2e instead as a system) and doing it with, essentially, a frankenstein-like monster build.
Also, the Lady of the Soil is a perfectly fine being of the Fae. My first dnd 5e Warlock was a servant of the Queen of the First Morning. (which basically meant her powered waxed and wane depending on how rare the morning was). So a fae lady who listen to the soil is more than fine imo.
Also, just because it hits my brain during the videos, previous editions of the Warlock (3rd/3.5) *had* Eldritch Blast has an automatic mechanic with very similar invocation to modify it. You could do some *weird* mechanics thing with other stuff too.
This breakdown is amazing. LOVE the eldritch blast comments! Can't wait for the solo adventure video with Aisling. Awesome video!
The biggest mistake I'd realized I'd been making in a number of my character builds was that they often lacked a personal goal they wanted to achieve. And while I usually bake a number of things into their backstories that could be used to incite interesting story - I realized during my last campaign that not having a goal that I was specifically trying to work towards took away from my ability to engage with whatever overarching plot hook was in front of me, because nothing felt like an obstacle to my character, everything was just "something to do" in the moment. It made his reactions to setbacks very lukewarm and also never gave him a reason to want to slow down at any point, he was just always ready to trigger the next major event flag, and I realized that that affected my ability to be invested in my own character's growth.
I absolutely love taking my old characters and working them into NPCs in campaigns I'm running. I still get to see those characters interact with the world and it's one less NPC I have to make up
That is such a great and thrifty idea! ❤ (And definitely much more creative than the commoner route of ripping off characters from movies and books... 😆)
And now I'll hear Antonio when my cats are expressing their desire for food too... great video as well. The first character is usually the hardest and could always use a revision.
I love this concept for a video series! You could not only "fix" your own old character, but you could do it with other peoples characters that they send you as well!
Today on: The Bob Ross of DnD and the Relatable content...
Also the ad read is giving Futurama!!!!!!! With the “you been living here for 3 years and you choose to talk now?!?!”
Okay I just got back from a big test and this was the BEST THING EVER!!!! Not only was the video great itself, but MORE SOLO DND CONTENT OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG
TYSM!!!!!!!!!!
I recently remade one of my early D&D characters who committed the sin of having 100 years of experience (due to being an eladrin) despite being, like, level 3 in the campaign she was briefly in before it fizzled out. A friend inviting me to a level 20 one-shot was the perfect opportunity to fix her while keeping all the things I originally loved about her, it was so rewarding!
Watching this both excited and paranoid because of how many mistakes im probably making with my first dnd chr 😅😅😅 but the whimsy in my heart is there so....YIPPEE
THE BACKSTORY IS ALREADY CALLING ME OUT OOPS
We all have problems with our first characters. It's a rite of passage and something to be proud of 😂💪
I did basically the same thing with my first dnd character and this video really helped me realize how I could shape her into someone more fun for me to play! Now we're doing an arc about her backstory and I love the narrative she has.
Clicked sad that Aisling was being effectively killed off. Now i know she is being reborn!! The bew Aisling is perfect!! Good job Ginny!
We just ended a campaign and one of my friends bought a reskinned version of a warlock he played in a previous fizzled game to our table. I think the difference in campaigns allowed his concept to mature into something entirely different that we were all narratively satisfied with at the end of the campaign.
Cian and Niamh sound like potential love interests for Aisling just based on tropes alone. Love triangle waiting to happen. The drama!
My first characters definitely have similar issues. Neither my paladin nor my sorcerer know any NPCs within their respective games because I was a latecomer to both campaigns.
I'm surprised you're not making her a Baldur's Gate 3 character, but I guess it wouldn't really work with the goal that you have in mind. I look forward to seeing how Aisling's story goes.
My first and current character is also a Warlock Druid!
Worst is, I first made her a Warlock sorceress but as soon as I could level up, I asked the DM to switch to Druid, thinking I could sacrifice physical stats thanks to wildshape... Not realizing 14 AC is not that much better than 10 😂
The good thing is her medium stats have brought a lot of really funny failures to the table, like making unconvincing illusions or having just a bunch of contextual cantrips, like giving a blooming flower as a gift to a giant, only to realize it's so tiny in their giant hands 😅
She also had a really tragic and convoluted backstory that I simplified and lightened up once I understood how to make it useful for the DM. He immediately started incorporating the new story into the game which felt great!
I’m currently trying to go against a trope, and have a rogue *with* parents. This idea spawned when I saw the groundbreaking amount of people who had parentless rogues; so I opted for one who had parents, but they were poor, so she had to work as a mercenary to send them money for food. I know Aisling is a Warlock/Druid, and not a rogue but this just made me think of my own character (who is a backup, mind you. Her name is Niche and she’s a yuan-ti pure blood).
I love that idea for a rogue. My favorite thing when creating a character is going against the usual class tropes. It just leads to way more creativity in making a compelling character than doing what so many people have already done. My current character Brione is a Leonin Barbarian but has hardly a mean bone in his body and has your average intelligence. His "rage" instead manifests as a protective urge born from a feeling of helplessness and fear that he can't protect the ones he loves. I also twisted it to where the trope itself is basically his big conflict as a curse is slowly draining his humanity and intelligence until he's just a primal savage.
@@clur136 yo that’s an awesome idea!!
That point about eldritch blast being given automatically if it was so essential is a good point. In fact, for one of the barbarian subclasses I homebrewed, it not only gets access to eldritch blast as part of a spell list under a custom category called Ragecast, but is even given that cantrip for free. Ragecast spells being spells that meet certain criteria, and the Ragecaster barbarian is able to cast them while raging. Criteria includes stuff like not being a concentration spell, having a cast time short enough to finish casting on the same turn it starts getting cast on (1 action, 1 bonus action, or 1 reaction), having a duration no longer than 1 round, and either lacking material components, having a melee weapon as its material component, or being able to use a focus in place of its material components.
Multiclassing for the sake of having new toys to play with because you only have one character at one table is extremely relatable.
As someone who just created a warlock who didn’t take eldritch blast, I agree with Ginny. It’s all about the character you want to play.
my first dnd character was a 7 foot orc named Ron (short for Ronald) he worked in a mine as a child and left mostly because people we're to scared of him outside of that he loved bread and MURDER!
That sounds like a GREAT first character 🤩
@@GinnyDi it really was for now my main character (a work in progress) is just Rasputin but in dnd
That last point about not wanting to play your character under a new DM really struck a chord. My very first character (built in a friend's homebrew system) was made way back in the early '90s, and I do absolutely cringe at the things that teenaged Klasodeth thought were cool. But what I regretted most was my shameless power-gaming.The DM really had to put up with a lot of headaches from that original group, particularly from me. So when an unusual combination of events presented the opportunity to play the character again under the same DM after nearly three decades (except this time in D&D 5e), I found that I was rebuilding my character to act as an apology of sorts. No more bloodthirst for combat, no endless ambitions for power, no shameless exploitation of loopholes, and no insistence on pushing rules past the breaking point. Just a character that became victim of their own hubris, powerless and trapped on a distant world, wanting only to return home.
I wanted to prove that things had changed, but I was so afraid of having the DM think I was going to try to break the game again due to those past transgressions that I didn't give the DM the whole backstory and had the character operate under an alias. (It made sense within the narrative of the campaign.) There was also an element of risk. Since the character was trying to accomplish their goals purely within the framework of the system, without the benefit of the DM nudging events in any particular direction, there was a real possibility that the character would not achieve a happy ending. The central conflict of the campaign had the potential for events that would make it impossible for the character to return home, and the rules surrounding resurrection were unforgiving enough that if my character died, they would probably stay dead, which I was prepared to accept as the canonical end of my character's story. For me, that was pretty significant, as this character was part of a campaign that resulted in lasting friendships that persist to this day, so my character, flawed though it was, held a great deal of significance for me. From my perspective, I was giving the DM back much of the power over the game world and my character that I had taken away in that first campaign.
Throughout that campaign, I left subtle clues about the true nature of my character, and during the epilogue at the end of the campaign, when my character finally accomplished everything needed to return home, I finally revealed the truth. I had been worried that the DM might not react well to the revelation, but everything turned out so well that in our current campaign, I'm now openly playing another character from that campaign.
This time, the goal is to add some actual personality to a character that was previously a blank slate, and the results have been quite rewarding, especially since I get to draw on a rich backstory that was developed by years of prior gameplay. I've greatly enjoyed being able to redeem two characters by making them into much more than what I could have done for them when I originally created them, made all the better by continuing from their original stories instead of overwriting them. And I got to show my original DM that I've been learning from my mistakes.
Everyone with a tragic outcast backstory needs to realise that they’re just Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer
i'm such a sucker for exile stories tbh. I never did the "everyone hated him", but usually there is some reason why my character feels he must leave his hometown and exile himself lol I realized after like three backstories that I hit certain tropes pretty consistently and that they might or might not be uh well yk. processing my own issues.
Great video! Really good exercise on how to build a compelling character!
Ginny, you just made me rewrite my first character's (and now novel protagonist's) entire backstory using your process.
Good job. This video is very helpful.
This has been made public for 8 minutes and I am just NOW getting the notification?! What's wrong with you TH-cam?!
Thanks, Ginny, I can't wait to level up my gaming skills with your tips and tricks.
Wait, so you're not sitting around on the channel waiting every Wednesday?! 😂💔
@@GinnyDi 🤩 GINNY! 🤩 😑 Unfortunately, I'm working so I can't keep refreshing continuously for your video... 🥲Adulting STINKS sometimes. 😭
Anyways, thanks for another great video packed with tips and examples. I have a feeling many of my previous characters are getting a 2.0 update.
Thanks for the response!
as someone who is still hanging onto a character i made when i was like 7 who was originally a shape shifting alien in the harry potter universe, i feel this video so hard. this very same character is now living out their own story in their own universe, with only a liiittle shape shifting as a treat lol
Love this breakdown! Very interesting to see this character critiqued after having time to really work with them.
I really enjoyed the cinematic scenes you roll played & filmed between your narration! They really added life too your characters background/story! 🧝♀️
Ok, so you have a talking cat - big deal. Who doesn’t? But, aren’t we overlooking something here? I never saw the cat’s lips move once! That’s not a talking cat - that’s a talking VENTRILOQUIST cat with some serious mad skills!
I also started D&D with a warlock character. And I made a lot of mistakes building her. And I refused to give her Eldritch Blast and I stand by it!!
I have to admit I really liked that you didn't take eldritch blast. I'm all about playing sub optimal builds. One it makes your character truly unique and two it forces you to be more creative rather than relying on tried-and-true builds. It is unfortunate that eldritch blast gets all the love when it comes to warlocks. But to be honest I would let you use the invocations for other cantrips like chill touch or Magic Stone. But that is the kind of DM I am. ;)
In the end, my first D&D character was exactly the character I wanted to play. She's a human variant life cleric with War Caster and Skilled who fled a Sharran Cult and became a cleric of Selune. We are finishing up her campaign tomorrow and I am at once happy and heartbroken 💔 love you, Fawn. Hope you don't die tomorrow.
Pablo: "¿Como pudiste hacerme esto Virginia?"(How could you do this to me Virginia?) 😸
I have a character that has travelled with me since 1989, who has changed forms as I have changed (age 11-34 respectively). Reinterpreting him into a new system many years ago (White Wolf's Exalted ttrpg, highly recommended) opened up my understanding of what he was capable of being through a different set of character creation tips and abilities. All of these iterations are clearly connected to a central identity, but playing him feels more like a reincarnation of the initial design than I would have thought. This is a fun exercise, thank you for sharing.
Great video!
I did this with my own first character!
A half elf bard who started as a farmer and ended up with the classic “my parents are dead” story along with a dash of “cursed of being stoned” (I’m dead serious). So he would go on a quest to find the guy who killed his parents.
Now I reworked him to still be a bard farmer, but now he’s on a simple quest to find a date. Think Johnny Bravo but a shaggy farmer who is actually a nice guy.
The thing I dislike most about D&D is the way it makes you feel the Lady of the Soil was somehow "wrong" for an Archfey because you didn't know what they "should" be like. She seems great! D&D's obsession with over-categorizing and quantifying EVERYTHING makes me cringe. Faeries play nasty tricks on people who try to catalogue them. ;)
It's not a problem with DnD. It's a problem with uncreative people that think the main or most common description of something is the only way to play something. Outliers exist but people forget that 😂
Your solo D&D video is one of my all-time favs of yours! I am looking forward to seeing where Aisling goes from here! ❤
1:17 I'm sorry when? You look 22. Tell me your secret
This video made me realise how long i've been following you for. Honestly I was so inspired by Aisling I made my own character inspired by her, Aurelia. She really fit the sexy and sad vibe and sadly really didn't fit the world... Or my type of playing, lol
Another great video😎🎉
Thank you! 🥰
This is so timely for me because I'm trying to retool an old character from a campaign that fizzled out into a new one. Good reminder of some things other than mechanics that need to be thought about a bit more. Thank you for being so honest
ANOTHER BANGER!😂
Thanks, friend!
I feel like this video doubles as a therapy episode for your character and I love it
me side eyeing my first character that is an elven druid... just because i wanted those sweet sweet pointy ears
That's because you have TASTE.
But seriously, elven druids are amazing... just don't kill off everyone they know 😅
@@GinnyDi i died when you said that - you had one mission and it was to look hot and be mysterious
This brought back memories of a deep gnome from third edition, 22 years in the past.
I promise you your first character was dramatically better than mine.
Gonna use this advice to avoid these mistakes, for my own traumatized pretends to be tough ranger.
Also my birdfolk paladin would like you to know that cool rocks are one of the best gifts, only second to pretty rocks.
I'm just getting into DND and this video really helped me make a better character! Thank you so much 😊
Couple options:
1) you could make the magic come from the grandma with a minor patron. The warlock features can be explained by her being unable to control the grandmas vast amount of magic causing it to be all or nothing.
2) the patron could be certain that it is inevitable, but the character could hold the opinion that if she doesnt stop it, shes going to die anyway.
3) if you choos to have her have a grim past, you could make her standoffish and secluded, or you could make her super energetic and fun going as a mask (especially if the other players dont automatically know it can be dropped like a bomb shell). If you do the energetic one, set aside a handful of things that will knock her out of this persona, at least for a little while.
Could you expand on this concept by doing a video about how you would approach Aisling's story from the DM side? Where would you go with her patron and the world ending rot storyline? How would you challenge her character to grow/adapt/change as the story progresses?
The voice at 14:41 made me spit out coffee. Thank you for making this clip, and dealing with bad builds with care and insight!
As always, I love your thoughts on writing and creating characters. Sometimes it is interesting to go back and look at an older character. The Main Character in my first book, which I started coming up with in High School, was very much a nerdy teen boy fantasy, outcast of his people turns out to be the scion of a much more powerful group, and sets off on an adventure to save the world. Much of my editing as I got into my twenties and before I published it at 30 were making that a more mature vision, while still staying true to what I wanted the character and story to be. It is a hard balance sometimes.
It sounds like your Aisling character is basically a cat, lol.
Loved the Promo, you always bring some much humor and creativity to them, which I really like!
This got me thinking of characters I made in high school who were largely based on anime I would watch on TV and JRPGs. Then you mentioned that you made Aisling when you were 28 and I realized that I was still getting a grasp on making good characters then too.
This has to be one of the best concepts for a video ever. This is amazing. Well played, Ginny. Well played!
I've liked you ever since you gave me the reward for "Technical Achievement" in the WorldAnvil Costume Challenge. Your words of motivation and justification for the award was really well put, and I decided to subscribe. Never regretted it.
My second d&d character (and my favorite character ever) not only transfered tables, but transfered worlds. He intially started in Forgotten Realms, but when that game fizzled out he was eventually brought cannonically into my d&d world (which sort of mixes actual d&d with real world and harry potter elements). However, the game he's in right now is at my friend's table, in my friend's homebrew world. So he literally hopped universes! Basically he messes with magic and a teleportation spell went horribly wrong, so now he's in a different universe's hell. I'm so happy I get to play him again and finish his story. I adore my edgy barbarian rogue so much
Ginny, this video was super-helpful.
Recently, I started updating my 2nd major character from 2e to 5e for fun. Your video on backstory was very helpful. Previously, I had some notes that included a dream sequence and a lot of "chosen one" stuff going on. It didn't sit well with me.
So, I completely re-wrote his backstory. Now, he has a father who is a hunter and a mother who is a druid, making him a spiffy ranger. He even rides a sabertooth white tiger.
There was a lot to him, so I'm taking my time, but the conversion is going well.
One thing I would add to your video is to not be afraid to reimagine a character if new rules options work better.
Finally, I've played D&D since 1991. Just a weeeeeee bit longer than you. Despite that, you're teaching me some things. ;)
Thanks for everything and keep up the good work.
Hiya Ginny!
I actually recently made my first D&D character but... by god I'm without a DM because my forever DM has uni, woe be me.
He's a Tabaxi Artificer who was raised on the road by his parents who are part of a traveling group of tabaxi who make a living as merchants on the road, he grew up to be quite the handyman and often was captivated by the intricacies of technological advancements made by artificers who tread the line between tech & magic and so he eventually took up an apprenticeship~
There's much more to it but this is basically a TL:DR, I was very hesitant about D&D originally and to a degree still am but content creators like yourself and Critical Role have inspired me to give it a shot, even now a second character is brewing in the back of my mind even though I've not even begun a campaign on my first!
So many thanks for being such a stellar pillar of the D&D community, I'm excited to see where this'll take me
I respect you so much as a content creator. Your creativity, passion, and integrity really shine in everything you do. I respect the ability to say you did something wrong or less than ideally. And to top it all off your ads are even amazing. You're literally the only content creator whose ads I don't skip (sad wallet 😂)
i'm gonna do this to my tiefling rogue. her build is absolute chaos (i was new to d&d) and her backstory is trope after trope.
I find your videos helpful for both as a newbie to DND and someone working on a fantasy story, but I think this really cemented the ideas you talk about in your other videos. Like a case study I think this helped a lot to see how these mistakes are made and fixing them. Awesome video!😊
Also you look so amazing-the eyeshadow and hair look great together! ❤