How to Use Character-Building Exercises for Development and Fun

Everyone at the table benefits from richly characterized characters. The player who describes their character in detail is the player who has the greatest potential to develop story moments into powerful narrative. This also inspires other players to develop their characters as well. And at the same time, posing character development questions to your players not only pushes them to get specific with their characterization, but also creates an atmosphere of fun as the players try to one-up each other with facts about their characters. All it takes is starting each session with a fact about each character. 

This idea comes from the fantastic D&D podcast Dungeons & Daddies. Each episode of their podcast begins with each player (and the DM) offering what they call "Dad Facts." Each of the party's characters--all dads--get the game started by sharing a specific piece of information about them. Oftentimes, these facts are funny; sometimes, they are meaningful; other times still, they are both. The folks who make the show have discussed on multiple occasions how helpful these "Dad Facts" are. They say that beginning the game by thinking in detail about their characters helps them get into the game. It also gets their creative juices flowing--they have to get in touch with the part of their brain that creates narrative details before the game has even begun. And for listeners, "Dad Facts" can be one of the most entertaining parts of the show. So why not adapt this idea to your game? 

Implementing this idea is simple. When your group sits down to play, explain that before you start the game proper, you'll be asking for each player to share a detail about their player. (Details on good things to share below.) It's a good idea to start this exercise for the first time with your strongest roleplayer so that the other players can get a sense of what a good answer looks like. If a player shares something that is vague, ask them a more specific question to have them clarify in a more precise fashion. Your goal is to unveil something that is either surprising (people would not have guessed this fact about the character) or so fitting that it's entertaining (people could have guessed it, but it's more extreme than imagined). Oftentimes, players will piggy-back on each others' facts, and you'll end up with everyone in the party's position on some minor issue. This works great. The more the facts bring the party together, the better. 

Let's talk about what makes a good fact to share. Specificity is key. We don't want a player to say something like, "I like killing monsters" or "I fight using spells." This is pretty obvious and doesn't make the character seem more unique. More specific versions of these would be "I enjoy killing gnolls" or "My favorite spell is Magic Missile." But these are still not very specific or unique. A better version of these would be "I was once mugged by a group of gnolls and now I don't trust them" or "I once used Magic Missile to knock a priest's hat off his head." These would work as good beginner facts--they tell us something about the character and are specific enough to be interesting. 

But these facts don't need to relate to the game in such direct ways. A strong fact to share is simply choosing what a favorite is for the character. Favorite food and drinks, favorite books and plays, favorite memories with friends and family, favorite physical objects (clothing, items, trinkets), and what things in our modern world (films, shows, video games, trends) would be the character's favorite if they lived here and not in a fantasy world--these are all good options. But just picking a favorite is not enough. Your player should describe why that thing is their favorite. A short anecdote about the character's connection to these favorites is the best way to handle these types of character facts. 

On that note, the best kind of character fact is normally a micro-story. Pick an idea/topic and think about how your character would feel about it. Then reverse-engineer a short story about that character and how they interacted with that idea/topic. For example, you have a cleric with guilt problems and a twisted sense of justice; choosing an idea/topic, I come up with "how does this character respond to miscarriages of justice?" So in the end, I tell a short story about how my cleric once saw someone get away with assaulting an old woman in the neighborhood; in response, he tracked the guilty party down in the middle of the night and administered a worse beating than the old woman got. This works well enough, but I can shine it up a little more. I can add that my cleric was found out for his attack on the guilty party, and the church the cleric worked for transferred him to a smaller town where he could cause less trouble. Now, everyone at the table has a clearer sense of who my cleric is--and I probably do too, even as the character's creator. 

It's important to note that even though some of these character facts are more colorful, specific, and interesting than others. And that's okay! It's not a competition. The players should feel when making these facts that they are collaborating on a joint portrait of the party as individual people, not that they have to outdo each other's efforts to characterize their characters. Once you've all shared a character fact, you can roll right into the game, secure in the knowledge that everyone is thinking in-character and creatively. 

For the GM of the game, you have a few options. In Dungeons & Daddies, the DM shares a fact about his real-life self, all of which are humorous. When in comparison to the players' facts, these funny anecdotes seem larger-than-life and suit the tone of the show. But I would suggest an alternative for most games: the GM should pick an NPC who has been particularly at the center of the campaign or session for a while, or someone who is about to become more notable in the story, and share a fact about them. This way, the GM can characterize NPCs (like most GMs want to but hesitate to do for sake of the progress of the campaign) at their discretion and without spending in-game time delivering information about that NPC. You might also as GM have your facts be about the gameworld, as though it is a character itself. Again, this provides an opportunity to fill in worldbuilding details in a way that doesn't slow the game. 

So, to review: by asking your players to deliver one fact about their character per session, you can get your players thinking in-game, set them into creativity mode, consistently develop characters over time, start sessions with a bit of in-game fun, and inspire some laughter or pondering in the rest of the group. For such a simple commitment (just one fact), the results are remarkable. I highly recommend adding this small idea to your campaign, as it will not only improve the game, but also bring the players closer together. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: a one-shot based on the movie The Warriors, a profile on literature in my homebrew setting, and rules for commanding and sustaining armies. Until next time, happy gaming!

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The Most Important Thing in Gaming: How to Create Fun

Every GM and every player has a different purpose for playing TRPGs. Some look for opportunities to roleplay personal growth, others look for the feeling of capability that comes with success, and still others look to simply spend time with their friends. Crucially, though, all of these types of players have something in common: they are pursuing their own definitions of fun. This is the most important thing in gaming: that your players have fun. 

Fun is a difficult thing to define. It's different for everybody, and it is more an art than a science. If it were possible to make everyone happy with one effort, then we would only need one strong one-shot or campaign to satisfy all players. But there are different factors in determining what is fun, and they grow more complicated than just one single issue allows us to understand. I aim to define these factors so that you can institute them in your game more easily. These factors are agency, novelty, and creativity--let's see how they each function in bringing your players fun. 

But first, the importance of fun. Let's think about what TRPGs would be without fun. Games involve a great deal of statistical understanding to grasp the rules of the game. They require a large commitment of time. They require you to work closely with other people to accomplish joint goals. They sound a lot like work, really--it takes real effort to achieve success in a TRPG. Without fun, the game is simply work, which is very few players' opinion of an enjoyable game. Further, games generally exist to create opportunities for fun; the work the player does to become proficient in the game is rewarded when they are able to have fun. So your game simply must provide opportunities for fun--it's why your players gathered in the first place. 

So how do you respect the formula for fun? The first step is in learning how to monitor whether your players are having fun. Laughter is a great indication; players who are obviously having a good time in this way are in the clear. But engagement looks different from different players. Generally, if your players are taking something seriously--the story, roleplaying, combat--they're engaged. You can notice players taking things seriously when they take care to describe their reaction to something. And players are sure to be having fun when they communicate out-of-game about in-game goals. I recently had a player contact me to ask whether they were taking too much of the game's focus; they didn't want to be stealing the show. This is an engaged player; they're invested in having fun and in respecting the fun of other players. 

If your players aren't engaged, it's time to use the tools for bringing fun. The first factor is agency. Your players should feel that they have the ability to make meaningful choices. This is hard to overstate. We as humans want and even need the ability to make choices when we're having fun. You can ensure that your players sense their agency by creating situations where their choices have consequences. Your overall story should accomplish this, but you can begin to portray this effect with smaller narrative moments. I like to start my games by providing a simple scenario with consequential choices. I might have a poor person ask for help with something trivial; the players then get to portray themselves either helping or not helping this person, and I bring that NPC back in a later session to reveal how the player character choices changed that person's situation. (If they helped, the person comes back to repay the party; if the party did not help, they have come back with a hired goon to antagonize the party.) In order to give the players real agency, you'll need to be willing to improvise--you cannot anticipate all player actions, so be ready to turn their actions into farther-reaching moments for your players.

Agency is especially important for a roleplaying campaign. The ability to make choices is central to defining a character for who they are, and if you don't let player characters act as themselves, you will be curtailing the fun of those players. In general, your philosophy as a GM should be this: if the player character could reasonably do what their player directs them to do, they are capable of accomplishing it. Use the outcomes of dice rolls to determine degrees of success, but err on the side of the player. If they can imagine doing something and it's not strictly impossible, what can it hurt to grant them agency? Players will remember inspired actions by other players far more than the details of your story, so lean into it. Grant your players the right to act according to their values, and your game will prosper. 

The next factor of fun is novelty. Your players should have something new to discover with each adventure. That doesn't mean that every detail must be unique to your campaign, but it has been illustrated by neuroscientists that novelty is a vital aspect of brain health. We are drawn toward what is new to us naturally, and that applies to your game as well. Novelty means that your game includes new ideas and information for your players to interact with. Mostly, this is an indication that your party might benefit from mixing things up from time to time, but within the area that your players will have fun (it's no use using a roleplaying campaign to shake up things for committed combat experts if it won't appeal to them). Instead, focusing your efforts for novelty on the way you express your story. 

To have a novel story, the best bet is to combine several ideas you like into a new format. Let's say you're into science fiction, and you want to tell a story about sci-fi that will be new to your players. But there's a lot of sci-fi out there--how are you going to have a unique idea? You don't have to! All you need is some ingredients from things you like. I'm a big fan of Samuel R. Delany's novel Nova, which depicts a ragtag crew trying to harvest energy from an exploding sun. I also really enjoy time travel movies, like Primer and Triangle. And although I'm not much of a Star Wars fan, I do like the game Knights of the Old Republic, with its sprawling quests and myriad settings. I can combine all of these ingredients into a new story by borrowing some ideas from each thing. So now my story is about a ragtag crew (the party) off to harness the magical energy of a heavenly body, in a race against someone who has access to time travel; in order to outrace the time traveler, the party must gather resources from the sites already visited by the time traveler, and each stop on the way creates problems for the party to deal with. This story doesn't really look anything like any of its component parts, and it's unique enough that your players will get their novelty fix. You can also always design your campaign from player suggestions, but either way, your attempt at novelty will be appreciated by the players. 

The last factor to consider when addressing fun is creativity. Creativity is the most elusive thing to address because it is not something you can do for your players; you must allow them to do it for themselves. Allowing your players to be creative means that you provide them the opportunities to be engaged in a thoughtful way. Creativity is open to all TRPG players. Combat experts devise unique ways to exploit the game's rules to come out ahead. Story-invested players find interesting ways to guide the narrative. Roleplayers use their creativity to express their characters and inhabit the world. Strictly speaking, all you need to do to allow creativity is leave room for players to engage. But more to the point, you should inspire creativity amongst your players. This is like the difference between loading the dishwasher and running the dishwasher; it's one thing to do your part, but another to set someone else up to succeed. 

When you want to inspire creativity, it's important that your players understand that they can be creative. My preferred method is to reward creativity. When my players come up with an outside-the-box plan for solving a problem (like starting a business in order to solve a murder), I definitely do not set limits on how they can solve the problem. I recognize their creativity and allow them a fair shot at success. In the case of the linked example, I allowed my players to relatively quickly and efficiently build a business and become involved in the social circle they were eyeing because their idea took creativity. It's important to note a certain distinction here: there are bad player ideas and good player ideas. A bad player idea ignores facts about the setting or plays on the fact that it's a game. Anything else is a good idea. Roll the dice if you must, but I generally recommend honoring the creativity of players. 

A quick example to make this point. I recently played in a session where the party's goal was to obtain a magical artifact from an ogre in a heavily fortified compound. We as the party looked over maps, considered options, and made plans. Our method was a little bonkers: we would arrive and declare ourselves traveling sheep masseurs (the ogres had a flock of sheep) and jewelry polishers. We used the spell "Grease" to free the sheep, distracting most of the ogres. We poisoned the ale keg the ogres drank out of. We started a massive distraction fire. In the end, we made it out unscathed, and our DM was flummoxed. Though he is relatively new to DMing, he understood that player fun relies on the agency to make choices (wild as they were), the novelty of a one-shot none of us were familiar with, and the room for creativity to develop our wild plans. It was a bizarre strategy, but our DM knew we were engaged and rewarded us for our efforts. This is how you create fun for your players: you use the tools and encourage them to play as they want to. 

So that's it. It's really so simple. The end goal of every TRPG is fun, and creating that fun is easily doable with the right attitude. Just keep your players' in mind first and foremost, and you'll never fail to provide your players with fun. Coming soon: how to design a campaign setting, rules for my custom magic system, and my expanded list of familiars for every class. Until next time, happy gaming!

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How to Help Players Find Their Fun

Regardless of what your philosophy of gaming is, it's vital that your players have fun. TRPGs have the potential to accomplish far more than fun, but we can't ignore that TRPGs are games, and games exist to create fun situations for their players. But sometimes players need a little help finding their fun. If you have a player who's struggling to get into the game, there are a number of things you can do to help them. Let's start by dealing with some of the issues that might be getting in your way. 

It could be that your players are beginners and haven't figured out the game yet. That's a common problem, but you can follow the steps in this guide to teach players how to develop their skills as TRPG players. Maybe it's more basic than that, and they need help using the dice. Or maybe you're playing a roleplaying campaign, and your players need some help creating characters that lend themselves to roleplaying. Or perhaps they have strong characters but need some tips on how to roleplay. If any of these issues are present for your players, you can solve them with the linked guides. But there's always the chance that your players are ready to play well and still need some help finding their fun. Read on to discover how to diagnose and solve these kinds of problems. 

You can recognize players not having fun when they're not engaged. That can express in a variety of ways. Sometimes it means players are zoning out and not paying attention to the game. Sometimes it looks more like a character whose actions are inconsistent. You might introduce a story moment and find that some players don't recognize how that impacts the rest of the campaign. Whatever the case may be, you've discovered that at least some of your players just aren't plugged into the game. Then it's time to roll up your sleeves, mix up your GMing style, and meet your players halfway, just like we would if the players were ignoring your story. 

Dealing with a player not having fun is less about the symptom than the disease. What I mean by this is that it's not so much about how a player is disconnected from the game and much more about why the player is disconnected. Different people express their disconnection from the game in different ways, but the root cause is what matters. Generally, players experience this disconnection for one of three reasons: (1) the player doesn't understand how to express themselves in the game, (2) the player isn't in tune with the focus of your campaign, or (3) the player doesn't feel like they can impact the gameworld. Let's tackle each one:

If your player doesn't know how to express themselves in your game, you might want to spend some time with them describing how they can do that. The roleplaying resources linked above are a great place to start that process. The important thing to understand is that a player who doesn't know how to express themselves in the game is dealing with fundamentally the same problem as a player who doesn't know their dice apart. In both cases, you're dealing with someone who hasn't yet learned the appropriate skills for interacting with the world. So treat it as a skill. Take moments in your game to offer opportunities to express themselves. There must be things that this character would feel strongly about--create situations that play on that feeling to allow the player to experiment with playing it out. 

An example may help describe this. Let's say your player's character is an orphan because goblins killed the rest of their family. So you create an encounter--either combat or roleplaying--in which some goblins approach the party. Now the player in question is in a prime position to react to the goblins in a character-specific way. But if a player is truly disconnected from the fun of the game still, they may not recognize this as an opportunity. If they treat the goblins like any other person, offer them an out-of-game reminder. "Your whole family was killed by goblins. Might that affect the way that your character feels about goblins?" This kind of prompt should put your player in a position to respond in-character. As the player becomes more experienced with expressing themself, you can dial back the directness of your opportunities. Think of yourself as a teacher more than a GM; your goal is to train your players to engage with the game. (That's where the fun comes from.)

But then, perhaps your player knows how to express themself but isn't in tune with your campaign. Ideally, you can preempt this problem by building a party that all cares about the same kind of game. But if you are dealing with a divide in this area of the game, you're going to have to meet your player halfway. Short of kicking the player out of your game, your only remaining strong option is to create experiences in the game that appeal to that player. But don't only offer them what they want; also offer them opportunities to combine what they like with the kind of game you're trying to run. Don't worry about watering down your game by including some disparate elements--you may find your other players enjoy having a mix of elements. (There is always the chance that player interests will be opposed; if that's the case, do your best to offer the best of all the worlds involved. Directly address it with your party if there's an issue--an explicit conversation can resolve lots of problems in TRPGs.)

Once again, an example will make this easier to process. You're running a storytelling/roleplaying campaign, and you have a player who's interested in combat primarily; they want to feel like a heroic badass. You respond in two ways (both, not just one or the other): give them some of what they want and some of what you want mixed in. When you notice the combat-oriented player beginning to tune out, throw in a brief encounter. And while you're running the encounter, lean into the story of it. If the encounter you've chosen is the above example about the goblins, have the goblins be very vocal and directly address your combat-oriented player. Perhaps they recognize this player character as a combat threat and team up on them--now the player needs to roleplay asking for help and speaking with the goblins. This is only a minor exercise in roleplaying, but it gets the player more comfortable with the process. Then you can continue the mini-story about the goblins for your players, and the combat-oriented player is very much at the heart of that story. 

But if your player both knows how to express themself and is in tune with the game you're running, you're probably dealing with a player who doesn't recognize their own agency in the game. This is perhaps the most challenging problem, because it means you essentially need to convey the entire concept of TRPGs to the player in a practical way. This can actually be a common issue with beginning players. I cannot count the amount of times that I have taught people to play who struggle the first few sessions with the extent to which their actions have meaning. But there is a relatively simple way to fix this problem, and it involves testing that player's character in game. 

The first step is an out-of-game conversation. This can be simple or in-depth, depending on your needs. A player who generally understands TRPGs but who is a bit too hesitant to take meaningful actions (or recognize the capacity they have to make choices) can be addressed with a direct reminder that the gameworld is realistic and responsive; if they do something, it will have consequences. Push them to try being bolder with their character actions. Usually, people will respond by pushing the envelope, which teaches them the true limits of their agency. Or you might have to have a larger conversation if TRPGs are a concept that the player is struggling with. Give them your best description of how much power they have as characters in the world--stress that they can do anything at all--and invite them to push the envelope. And then follow it up with step two: testing them in-game. 

Just as we have met our players halfway in each of these examples, we are now meeting our players in a liminal, strange place. The basis of the in-game test is this: if the player character were placed in a dramatic situation, would they react in a way that shows they grasp the full scope of a TRPG's freedom? Since this is usually a problem that confronts beginning players, you want to be gentle with the test. Here's a simple example that would work for most players: the player character in question is approached by someone. This person identifies themselves as an inventor and an entrepreneur and wants a small investment to create a specific device. (For Listen Check, I ran this with an inventor who had developed furniture which could both change forms and shrink to the size of a book, and the players really got into it, each investing money.) But then, unlike how it played out in the podcast, the inventor begins asking personal questions of the player. Now the player has to decide between investing in an obviously good idea and dealing with the invasive questions. The inventor's motives are difficult to discern. It's unlikely your player will simply invest or simply walk away. If the player character seems about to abandon the conversation, have the inventor change tactics and try desperately to keep talking to the player character. (Have the inventor primarily interested in the struggling player and ignore the rest of the party, which places further suspicion on their connection with the player character.) There doesn't need to be a major ending note--it can just be a strange moment with an NPC--but it will jar your player a bit into acting in specific ways that are hopefully both in-character and illustrative of more than a binary choice. 

If your player "fails" this test, by which I mean they do not take much more ownership of the game than previously, don't give up. Create situations which are character-specific. Some scenario you can create will eventually teach your player that they can make differences in the game as they see fit. If you have a trusty and experienced player who the struggling player gets along with, privately ask the experienced player to help the struggling player. Have the experienced player talk to the struggling player in-game, pushing them to become richer and more motivated in their portrayal of their character. 

This has addressed players who have specific disconnections with the game, but there's always a chance that your players still haven't found their fun. For situations where people just aren't into the game, you have two main strategies. First, and perhaps most easily, you can have an out-of-game conversation with your players. It won't spoil the fun or break the reality of your game to talk about it from this perspective. Ask them if they feel driven by the story, which characters they like the most, what ideas they would like to see come up in-game, specifically what experiences they want. (You might do this at the beginning of the game to build a campaign out of player suggestions, but it's not a bad idea to revisit these questions mid-campaign.) Then get to work, since you'll have a better idea of how to reach your players. 

But if talking it out doesn't work, you can still mix things up as GM. Use what you know about your players to create stories that appeal to them. Recognize the combat strategies they like and create encounters that make them change strategies. Take the moments and NPCs that your players respond to most and reorient the story around them. Never be afraid to rewrite--a customized story that responds to the players will always be more interesting and enjoyable than a static adventure. And most importantly of all: never give up on your players. If you can't get them invested with your best efforts, try something else. It is my deeply-held belief that literally everyone would enjoy a TRPG given the right focus and party; you just need to get yourself in tune with them. Remember that from your perspective, the player might be struggling, but that from the player's perspective, the game itself is struggling. You are collaborating with your players, so hold up your end of the bargain. 

A final suggestion about finding your fun: if you're really in a dead end, mix up the type of game. There are hundreds of TRPGs, and one of them is bound to strike the right balance. Maybe you just need a break from your favorite system. If you don't want to learn a whole new system but you do want to mix things up a bit, try out my Cats one-shot or my Con Air one-shot. They're simple and easy to pick up, and trying them out may strike a chord with your struggling players. Just don't give up on your players or on TRPGs. There's always fun to find. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: what works when telling a grand story (and what doesn't), how to develop player character businesses, and my variant rules for gods in D&D. Until next time, happy gaming!

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