What would you have done differently when creating either of these characters? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 40% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike
Since you asked . . . Troy's pretty much perfect as he is, but I'd adjust the background feature to be one where the character is recognized as a heroic figure, but only when encountering someone from their hometown. It wouldn't come up all the time, but it would have a significant benefit when it did. I think I'd name it "Big in Westgate,"but only because I haven't found a precise Faerun equivalent to Japan. For the Astral Elf, I'd lean in a little more to the strangeness by having the character lean into magical power. A fighter works, but perhaps an Eldritch Knight instead. Or, maybe try a rogue. I don't really care for the psionics-focused subclasses from Tasha's Cauldron, but if I rolled up a Wildspacer background like that I would finally have a reason to think about playing a Soulknife rogue. The best way to fight those eel things is from many, many yards away. Or maybe that elf would make a deal for more power to fight the nasties, and go Warlock.
I honestly really like the Acolyte background. gives some potentially useful skills and connects you to one of the religions in one way or another. Plus, the personality traits I absolutely love.
Troy Chestgaze. The man, the legend. I helped with one of my players to homebrew a little a couple of the backgrounds in the player's handbook to make something he felt would be his character and that was really fun.
Hi Mike! I just wanted to let you know that I've been wanting to play D&D for almost a decade now - since I first found out about it - and your open-mindedness, kindness, and more educational videos have helped me get the courage to get out of my shell and find a group. I have my first game this weekend!!! P.S. we also seem to have the same taste in characters! Every time you talk about your previous characters I'm amazed at how similar they are to my characters or ideas for characters haha
The background as an inspiration is a great way to go about building a character. I ended up using it when I came up with a Bugbear Wizard. Knowing my lore about some, if not all, character races and their possible monster equivalent, I was looking through all the backgrounds I could find when creating a character for a Westmarches campaign, and came upon the Dragon Cassualty background. Reading through it, and the way the book (Strahd) describes it, I was inspired knowing about the Scribe Subclass, and I went from there. Abbreviated summary of what it ended up as: Bruudsh Aergia is a Bugbear who, one day, decided to enter a cave he found while out looking for the best place for food and/or a nap. Inside turned out to be torched to cinders and warm. He could smell ash, remnants of burning and the very feint smell of a large creature. Thankfully, the creature was nowhere to be found, but on the ground he found an old, burnt, well-tailored robe and a almost completely burnt book. Quickly looking through it, contained inside was strange scribbles and symbols. But also, once opened, Bruudsh could hear a voice inside his head, of a female. "I see you've found my old book. I believe we could help each other. I'll teach you things that will get you food and notice, you help me find closure." From then on, the lathargic and earlier brutish Bugbear learnt to be more well-spoken and mannered, though not always remember it, but also learnt how to use spells. The book contains the spirit of an Archmage, killed by a Red Dragon inside the afformentioned cave.
For your athlete, you could do an oath of glory paladin or perhaps a pact of the blade warlock, especially if your athlete got hurt real bad and needed some magical aid to get back in the game. As for your wild spacer, I really thought you were going to go Ellen Ripley, but Quint is a good choice too.
As someone who's never played a TTRPG before, I really love this series and demystifying how character creation works. It's fun to see the process of going through the options and finding the thing that gets you excited.
They didnt even change much of the backgrounds in the new D&D playtest, they just re-arranged the information, and ahve presented custom backgrounds as the default. The Custom Backgrounds have always been a part of 5e, and its ridiculously easy to overlook for some reason. Adding a feat instead of the original background features was brilliant, because hte original background features were either broken, or bad.
One of the things I've done when I start with backgrounds is choose one background as the 'base', in so far as it'll be the one I get the background feature from, as well as be the more prominent in determining the character's personality. Then, I choose another background and choose an extra Ideal, Bond, Personality Trait, and Flaw from it. Gives me more diverse characters that feel like they've 'lived' a life.
I agree, I like the personality traits, bonds and flaws suggested in backgrounds. I feel like I'm personally less inclined to base characters off of media, possibly because I've seen a lot of "what if X was a D&D character?" content online and I typically end up wildly disagreeing with their choices. (Everyone perceives fictional characters differently) But also because I prefer to come up with something from broad tropes rather than a specific example. My next character idea is a Knowledge Domain Cleric who acts like a detective, but it's not directly based on Sherlock Holmes, it's going to crib elements from a lot of different detectives. What you said about sports movie characters having to LEARN teamwork and the "trust me, my character will get better later" approach running into issues for D&D... that's kind of "the Keyleth problem." I think it's good to write a character with flaws they grow out of, but unlike a pre-planned story you'll never know how your character's "arc" will end up. They might never get a chance to develop, or the flaw getting WORSE may be the natural flow of the story (CR Campaign 3 looks like it's heading in that direction for some...)
My favourite character was (kinda) built from the background up. I'd had the idea of wanting to be a private investigator, and given investigator was a background option in expanded material I was sold. Then picked Divination Wizard because it made the most sense for a PI (literally being able to divine the answers without doing the work? Yes please), and then making him an orphaned tiefling because edgelords gotta edge. Carrion has been so much fun to play because I didn't start wanting to play a class, so every decision is in service of a cool concept rather than an optimal wizard build.
I think this is a very cool way to start build out your character concept because it can give you ideas of your character if you were struggling to figure it ouit.
This is so fun! Low-key in love with Roy Kent, I'm excited that you also enjoy Ted Lasso! I usually do backstory first, then class and background, since I love the storytelling and character aspects of D&D most, but background first is now on my radar for next character I make
The second character, with Neogi as the creature and making them a Battlemaster because they figured out zero gravity, made me think of Ender from Ender's Game
I love starting with background because it focuses on the character personality before picking a power set. Also, I can take the same personality in different direction based on which power set I choose. My sage wizard wants to learn all of the spells, but my sage bard wants to learn about the legendary heroes of the setting. A sage fighter might study fighting styles or war craft. They would approach combat tactically.
For the wild spacer, I would have figured a Ranger would be the obvious choice. Dedicated to hunting a specific creature type is literally what the original Ranger is focused around
Just throwing it out there, when you were talking about the sports background, I thought of a side character in the DragonLance novels that was a wizard (Red I think?) that had muscles for days. I forget his name and as far as I am aware he was only ever in one scene in the books, but if I were to make him, I could see him as a spellcaster with that background. :) Any background could work for any class, you just might need to put a little more thought into why, but that's part of the fun isn't it? 😀
I like this one! I really like the background mechanic, being able to flesh out my character's past and have that reflect my stats is really valuable to me
Interesting how you sometimes don't recognize something consciously until someone else says it out loud. "Background is not the same as backstory." I come up with backstory first, but then I struggle to find a way to express that character idea using a background. I need to remember to think about background as part of building the backstory, because it's not the same thing as most other game systems I play where that step is just selecting skills.
I never start with the standard definition of backgrounds that everyone uses. I often start with the more useful definition of backgrounds that I use. Your background is what the game world sees when they look at your character. The Ravnica and Strixhaven backgrounds are much better for this but any background will do. Is the character a member of one of the power player factions or guilds in the setting? Are they a professor or scholar from a specific academic institution? Are they a soldier, spy, pirate, or just some rando in the prison that the king hand picked to send out into the world on the big damn quest? The class you choose is just mechanics and training your character has. The background is who they are. Especially in the case of warlocks where you may be actively hiding the fact that you are the minion or cultists of some insane otherworldly being.
This was an interesting exercise, but, I don't see me using it, as I tend to start with a character concept, which tends to inform the class and background. I like the traits, bonds, etc, from the backgrounds and am bummed WotC is moving away from those. Interesting and enlightening video topic for sure, though.
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What would you have done differently when creating either of these characters?
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Since you asked . . . Troy's pretty much perfect as he is, but I'd adjust the background feature to be one where the character is recognized as a heroic figure, but only when encountering someone from their hometown. It wouldn't come up all the time, but it would have a significant benefit when it did. I think I'd name it "Big in Westgate,"but only because I haven't found a precise Faerun equivalent to Japan.
For the Astral Elf, I'd lean in a little more to the strangeness by having the character lean into magical power. A fighter works, but perhaps an Eldritch Knight instead. Or, maybe try a rogue. I don't really care for the psionics-focused subclasses from Tasha's Cauldron, but if I rolled up a Wildspacer background like that I would finally have a reason to think about playing a Soulknife rogue. The best way to fight those eel things is from many, many yards away. Or maybe that elf would make a deal for more power to fight the nasties, and go Warlock.
I honestly really like the Acolyte background. gives some potentially useful skills and connects you to one of the religions in one way or another. Plus, the personality traits I absolutely love.
Troy Chestgaze. The man, the legend. I helped with one of my players to homebrew a little a couple of the backgrounds in the player's handbook to make something he felt would be his character and that was really fun.
Hi Mike! I just wanted to let you know that I've been wanting to play D&D for almost a decade now - since I first found out about it - and your open-mindedness, kindness, and more educational videos have helped me get the courage to get out of my shell and find a group. I have my first game this weekend!!!
P.S. we also seem to have the same taste in characters! Every time you talk about your previous characters I'm amazed at how similar they are to my characters or ideas for characters haha
Wish everyone in all nerd spaces was as welcoming and friendly as you, and lots of the folks I have found through D&D content!
The background as an inspiration is a great way to go about building a character.
I ended up using it when I came up with a Bugbear Wizard.
Knowing my lore about some, if not all, character races and their possible monster equivalent, I was looking through all the backgrounds I could find when creating a character for a Westmarches campaign, and came upon the Dragon Cassualty background.
Reading through it, and the way the book (Strahd) describes it, I was inspired knowing about the Scribe Subclass, and I went from there.
Abbreviated summary of what it ended up as:
Bruudsh Aergia is a Bugbear who, one day, decided to enter a cave he found while out looking for the best place for food and/or a nap.
Inside turned out to be torched to cinders and warm. He could smell ash, remnants of burning and the very feint smell of a large creature.
Thankfully, the creature was nowhere to be found, but on the ground he found an old, burnt, well-tailored robe and a almost completely burnt book. Quickly looking through it, contained inside was strange scribbles and symbols. But also, once opened, Bruudsh could hear a voice inside his head, of a female. "I see you've found my old book. I believe we could help each other. I'll teach you things that will get you food and notice, you help me find closure."
From then on, the lathargic and earlier brutish Bugbear learnt to be more well-spoken and mannered, though not always remember it, but also learnt how to use spells.
The book contains the spirit of an Archmage, killed by a Red Dragon inside the afformentioned cave.
For your athlete, you could do an oath of glory paladin or perhaps a pact of the blade warlock, especially if your athlete got hurt real bad and needed some magical aid to get back in the game. As for your wild spacer, I really thought you were going to go Ellen Ripley, but Quint is a good choice too.
As someone who's never played a TTRPG before, I really love this series and demystifying how character creation works. It's fun to see the process of going through the options and finding the thing that gets you excited.
Battle master? Comfortable in weightless combat? Fighting giant space bugs?
My man, that’s Ender.
They didnt even change much of the backgrounds in the new D&D playtest, they just re-arranged the information, and ahve presented custom backgrounds as the default. The Custom Backgrounds have always been a part of 5e, and its ridiculously easy to overlook for some reason. Adding a feat instead of the original background features was brilliant, because hte original background features were either broken, or bad.
One of the things I've done when I start with backgrounds is choose one background as the 'base', in so far as it'll be the one I get the background feature from, as well as be the more prominent in determining the character's personality. Then, I choose another background and choose an extra Ideal, Bond, Personality Trait, and Flaw from it. Gives me more diverse characters that feel like they've 'lived' a life.
I like the hermit background. Use it a lot.
I agree, I like the personality traits, bonds and flaws suggested in backgrounds. I feel like I'm personally less inclined to base characters off of media, possibly because I've seen a lot of "what if X was a D&D character?" content online and I typically end up wildly disagreeing with their choices. (Everyone perceives fictional characters differently) But also because I prefer to come up with something from broad tropes rather than a specific example. My next character idea is a Knowledge Domain Cleric who acts like a detective, but it's not directly based on Sherlock Holmes, it's going to crib elements from a lot of different detectives.
What you said about sports movie characters having to LEARN teamwork and the "trust me, my character will get better later" approach running into issues for D&D... that's kind of "the Keyleth problem." I think it's good to write a character with flaws they grow out of, but unlike a pre-planned story you'll never know how your character's "arc" will end up. They might never get a chance to develop, or the flaw getting WORSE may be the natural flow of the story (CR Campaign 3 looks like it's heading in that direction for some...)
My favourite character was (kinda) built from the background up. I'd had the idea of wanting to be a private investigator, and given investigator was a background option in expanded material I was sold. Then picked Divination Wizard because it made the most sense for a PI (literally being able to divine the answers without doing the work? Yes please), and then making him an orphaned tiefling because edgelords gotta edge. Carrion has been so much fun to play because I didn't start wanting to play a class, so every decision is in service of a cool concept rather than an optimal wizard build.
I think this is a very cool way to start build out your character concept because it can give you ideas of your character if you were struggling to figure it ouit.
This is so fun! Low-key in love with Roy Kent, I'm excited that you also enjoy Ted Lasso!
I usually do backstory first, then class and background, since I love the storytelling and character aspects of D&D most, but background first is now on my radar for next character I make
The second character, with Neogi as the creature and making them a Battlemaster because they figured out zero gravity, made me think of Ender from Ender's Game
I was thinking Ripley from Alien
I love starting with background because it focuses on the character personality before picking a power set. Also, I can take the same personality in different direction based on which power set I choose. My sage wizard wants to learn all of the spells, but my sage bard wants to learn about the legendary heroes of the setting. A sage fighter might study fighting styles or war craft. They would approach combat tactically.
For the wild spacer, I would have figured a Ranger would be the obvious choice. Dedicated to hunting a specific creature type is literally what the original Ranger is focused around
Encounter with Neogi, terrorized, fights in 0g… battle master… how did you pass up Ripley from Aliens?!?!
Just throwing it out there, when you were talking about the sports background, I thought of a side character in the DragonLance novels that was a wizard (Red I think?) that had muscles for days. I forget his name and as far as I am aware he was only ever in one scene in the books, but if I were to make him, I could see him as a spellcaster with that background. :) Any background could work for any class, you just might need to put a little more thought into why, but that's part of the fun isn't it? 😀
What speech-to-text programme do you use for your streams? I'm impressed with its lack of mistakes.
I've been using Web Captioner, but they're sunsetting it at the end of October so I'll have to find another one at that point.
I just wished backgrounds would have had more of an effect in the Adventure Paths and modules.
I like this one! I really like the background mechanic, being able to flesh out my character's past and have that reflect my stats is really valuable to me
Interesting how you sometimes don't recognize something consciously until someone else says it out loud. "Background is not the same as backstory." I come up with backstory first, but then I struggle to find a way to express that character idea using a background. I need to remember to think about background as part of building the backstory, because it's not the same thing as most other game systems I play where that step is just selecting skills.
Anyone else think "The enemy's gate is down" when Mike mentioned Battlemaster in relation to weightless combat?
I never start with the standard definition of backgrounds that everyone uses. I often start with the more useful definition of backgrounds that I use.
Your background is what the game world sees when they look at your character.
The Ravnica and Strixhaven backgrounds are much better for this but any background will do.
Is the character a member of one of the power player factions or guilds in the setting? Are they a professor or scholar from a specific academic institution? Are they a soldier, spy, pirate, or just some rando in the prison that the king hand picked to send out into the world on the big damn quest?
The class you choose is just mechanics and training your character has. The background is who they are. Especially in the case of warlocks where you may be actively hiding the fact that you are the minion or cultists of some insane otherworldly being.
I did something similar, where I came up with a character’s backstory. A tavernkeep who supported adventurers and became an adventurer himself
He's here, he's there, he's every f*ckin where, Roy Kent
As a Troy. I approve this name lmao 🎉
As with anything regarding character creation, pick up what is most fun to you!!
Before you said Quint I would have put dollars to donuts that we were going Ripley in Aliens
This was an interesting exercise, but, I don't see me using it, as I tend to start with a character concept, which tends to inform the class and background.
I like the traits, bonds, etc, from the backgrounds and am bummed WotC is moving away from those.
Interesting and enlightening video topic for sure, though.
Would "Roger Clark" be way too old/obscure of a joke reference name for an alternate for Roy Kent?😅