How to Deal with Player Character Deaths

It's a possibility that looms over every game: what if the players die? No matter what kind of game you're playing, there's a chance that the players will die. But how do you get there? And then what happens? Those questions can decide how a player feels about their entire experience as that character, so we need good answers for them. 

In short, I say don't let characters die unless it's deserved. That can mean different things, and I'll get into them in a moment. But for now, I want to repeat this: if someone has carefully made a character and made reasonable decisions, they shouldn't die. If you're playing a brutal variant of the game where character deaths are common, that's one thing; but for a full campaign, player characters should survive until they shouldn't. 

Let's dig into the details. The conditions under which we let a character die are all related to the idea of being deserved. One element of that is in making reasonable choices. If a character does something truly stupid, and it puts their life in danger, that is an acceptable death. Let's consider an example. A character is warned repeatedly to not enter the cage with the displacer beast in it. They enter the cage unarmed and with low health "to pet it." The displacer beast is of course going to attack the character. If that character is brought to death conditions—negative 10 hit points in D&D—then I wouldn't do much in the way of intervening. That player was deliberately reckless with their character, and so we let the conditions kill them. Note here that I'm not talking about "punishing" the character for being stupid by creating dangerous conditions. I'm not fudging all of the displacer beast's damage rolls for the higher. I'm only allowing existing dangerous conditions to do what they do. 

But that's a rare instance when players actually care about their characters. More often, you encounter a scenario where something unfortunate happened to the characters. Perhaps they were taken off-guard, or they just got bad dice rolls; what matters now is that the character is dying. Now we have to ask a difficult question: does the campaign improve (including the experience of the player with the dying character) if the character dies? This might mean, "Is this death dramatic and narratively satisfying?" or something more like "Does this wrap up loose ends and allow the player a new route?" It's context-specific, and you'll need to use your best judgment to decide whether a character death actually works. Remember that we are trying to avoid having players feel like they're not in control of their characters. We're trying to avoid taking a character away from a player before they're ready for it. There's always a way to save them (more on that below). But if the conditions are right, a player character death can be very meaningful. 

By way of example, the Eastweald campaign ended with Carric turning to join the evil Vecna against his former party members; when Gerald and Ell defeated Carric, it was a satisfying dramatic moment. The conditions for this character death were perfect. Firstly, it was good timing. This was our last session in the campaign, and the players knew it. This moment had big finale energy, and it made Carric's player willing to make a move like switching teams. There was to be no missing out in future sessions. Keep this in mind—deaths in finale sessions are more open game than earlier in campaigns. 

Secondly, Carric's death was earned. He had chosen to turn against his allies in a fight to the death. Speaking logically, either he would die, or they would. Since he pitted himself against the rest of the party, there was no avoiding dying. So when Ell and Gerald began to win the battle, I felt no need to intervene with DM assistance. I would like to say more broadly that it's a bad idea to mess with the outcomes of player versus player conflicts, though. For fairness sake, and for the sake of making everyone feel empowered, allow those fights to unfold by the numbers. 

And thirdly, this was a dramatic death. I had no idea going into that last session that Carric would turn to Vecna. Carric's player had given me indication that Carric was being corrupted, but I had no idea how that would unfold. I have to tell you, reader: the look on the other players' faces were incredible. I'm sure mine was too. Carric was part Paladin, after all! We reacted in a big way because it was a big action. And with a turn like that, there were only two things that could happen: Vecna and Carric win, leaving them to negotiate in the wreckage, or Ell and Gerald win like they did. The dice favored Ell and Gerald, and seeing Carric perish as a resolution to his turn was very satisfying—it may even have been the only satisfying way to end the campaign at that point. 

So now let's address the tools of hastening or preventing deaths, now that you know what you want to do. The first route, and the easiest to use, is fudging rolls. I've handled this topic in detail before; here’s the quick and easy guide. First off, in battles where you suspect that there’s a real chance of a player character getting close to dying, start rolling privately. Unless you have a policy of showing every roll for fairness’ sake, hide your rolls in combat. I would argue that hiding your rolls constantly is best. This is especially a good idea if your players will notice when you are and aren’t hiding your rolls.

Write down the Armor Class or similar information for all of the player characters. Saying, “What’s your Armor Class? Oh, it’s that minus one. They miss,” is not satisfying. Conversely, don’t let them get a bead on enemy armor classes if you can. I give identical enemies slightly different armor classes to keep them on their toes. And give them more information than they need when it comes to rolls. It distracts from whether or not the number is real. I’m talking about information about the attacks by way of description—specifically where attacks hit or how they miss. There’s a big difference between the above example of an unsatisfying description in combat and the following: “Wow, they rolled a sixteen; just missed you, Horace. Their axe head swipes through the air, but you lean out of the way, and you can feel it touch the whiskers on your chin.” A player who hears this is probably not thinking about what the DM actually rolled.

My favorite tool for fudging is a simple question to ask players with low health. If a character with low health gets hit, you should already have decided that they either are fair game for a death or you’re deliberately getting them close to death for a dramatic fight (but without killing them). If you want that player to stay on the verge of death, roll the damage against that player (hidden, of course) and then look at the dice. Then, ask them, “How many hitpoints do you have left?” Leave them with between one and three hitpoints. It’s very dramatic, and it works pretty much every time. You can of course strengthen this gambit by knowing how many hitpoint they had and skipping the question, but it’s difficult to always know that information. You can occasionally gather that information (and keep it recorded along with the Armor Classes) by asking for hitpoint checks every few rounds—this is a pretty innocuous question that won’t seem like a fudging tool to most players.

But then, maybe you’ve gone the other direction: you’ve decided to kill a character. As mentioned above, this isn’t a problem necessarily if it’s the end of the campaign. But if your campaign is ongoing, you've got a characterless player on your hands. There are two main solutions to the problem, and solving it means inspecting your gaming situation closely. You might want to seek a way to resurrect the dead character, or you may decide to go the route of creating a new character. 

Let's talk about resurrection. When I was first learning to play D&D as a teenager, I played an elven monk named Algar. Algar suffered a bit in combat; his 3.5 build meant his elven frame was less hardy (low constitution score), and being a monk means being in the thick of battles. He survived for a long time due to careful battle tactics, but then he went up against a vampire in a room by himself. Algar rolled very poorly, missing every strike in two consecutive Flurries of Blows. The vampire slashed him up viciously. At that point, a party member entered the room, summoned a massive fire ball, and walked out. The vampire was badly wounded; Algar was dead. 

I was pretty crushed. Algar was my first character. My DM could see that I didn't want anything except to have him back. When the party finished the dungeon, he set them on a path to a high cleric who could resurrect Algar. And though the party complained about the time and money wasted, they resurrected Algar, and he went on to live out a peaceful life tending to a monastery garden deep in the forest. It was more satisfying than Algar dying—he had been a bit reckless in fighting the vampire alone, but that had come from being abandoned by his allies. My DM saw that Algar didn't really deserve death, so he push the party (which included his daughter) to resurrect him. 

You can go the same route my DM did: have them seek out a powerful spellcaster who can bring back the character. Maybe they're at a beautiful temple; maybe they live alone in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by animals; maybe they run a healing and resurrection shop in a major city. The choice is up to you, and you should pick whatever best suits your world and your story. There's also the matter of payment. You might decide on a large sum of cash; you might have them pursue a magical item; you might make them complete a quest in payment. Again, it's about what suits your world and your story. 

Once you've decided on who's doing the resurrection and for what, it's time to decide the conditions of the resurrection. The official spells in various versions of D&D specify different types of resurrection. Let's look at the 5e versions up close. 

• Revivify: This spell only works on creatures that have died in the last minute, but it's lower level than other resurrection spells. Storywise, we can use this as the idea that resurrection costs more the longer it's been since death. 
• Raise Dead: This spell only works on creatures dead for less than ten days, but it takes a full hour to cast. Storywise, we can use the idea that a more powerful spell extends its usefulness, but also expands how long the process takes. This might not be an issue sometimes, but it couldn't be used in the middle of a battle. There is also an extended sickness which lowers skills, which we can interpret as the body struggling to return to its former self. 
• Reincarnate: This spell also allows for creatures dead up to ten days, and it also takes an hour. One significant side effect is that the character is randomly reassigned a race, which changes the game no matter your approach to it. 
• Resurrection: This spell extends the time limit to one hundred years, and it also takes an hour. As with Raise Dead, there is a significant penalty over time to rolls following the reincarnation. This spell also specifies that body parts can be regrown and diseases and poisons can be cured, adding the story detail that higher level magic actually makes the body healthier too. 
• True Resurrection: This spell again extends the time limit, this time to two hundred years, and it still takes one hour. The spell can do everything that Resurrection does, but without the penalties after being resurrected. It also lifts curses and doesn't require a physical body. Storywise, this shows us that the most powerful healing transcends physical nature. 
• Wish: Because Wish can duplicate any other spell, you could use it to cast any of these spells. 

But beyond these rules, let's talk about resurrecting a character. The moment the character returns, you're going to have to answer some things. What did the dying character feel? Did they experience an afterlife? Do you grant them an audience with their god? (I have any character who dies roll a d100 and have them speak with a random god before reaching any kind of afterlife; a roll with a "meaningful" number means an audience with their god--meaning however likely you think their god would want to speak to the character.) And as DM, you're going to want to stand back narratively. Let the players talk about their reactions to the character's death. There's going to be a lot going on, so let the players work it out. 

And then there's the final option: rolling a new character. If a player is truly finished with a character and they need to begin again, work with them privately to make the new one. Try to grant them privacy from the rest of the party to develop their new character. And let them guide their introduction to the group as much as possible. 

There are things to consider when rolling this new character—how will they relate to the party? What reason does the party have to take on this new character? How will the new party balance affect the story/combat/social dynamics? When you answer these questions, you're going to be affecting the path of the campaign, so be especially mindful. But also don't dismay—sometimes the changes that follow a new character can be for the better. 

By way of example, back when I was playing Algar, I created a second character, Morana, a frightening orc with a scythe who had carved the symbol of the god of death into her body. She slayed monsters and intimidated foes for one glorious session, and then the rest of the party abandoned her in an ambush. My DM—the same DM I mentioned above—couldn't get me out of it. Morana was tragically slain before she even began. 

But the campaign, my first evil campaign, carried on. I needed a new character. I devised a mischievous gnome spellcaster named Loki, and he entered the evil campaign with some fanfare. And Loki became the mastermind of the campaign. We captured castles, we slayed heroes, we even avoided death at the hands of an inevitable. The party had not wanted a big clunky slasher; they wanted a devious murderer with designs on owning the world. I didn't realize that when I first got invited into the evil campaign. But after seeing Morana fail like she did, I knew I needed something else. Loki was that something else. 

My DM had the wisdom to see that I had created the wrong character for the group. He also had the faith to let me try again. And I think it's fair to say that everyone at the table benefitted from having Loki around rather than Morana. I'm glad, in a way, that my DM let Morana die, because Loki is still a figure lurking in my homebrew setting—little gnomish kids in my world tell boogeyman stories about Loki the mage, who comes to steal your breath in your sleep or trick you into a terrible bargain. My DM is as much responsible for that legacy as I am, in some ways. So don't be afraid of rebuilding a party. If you're in doubt, follow this guide to getting a good party together so you can address any changes you might need to make. 

So there you have it. Now you can control and write around character deaths. Just don't forget that these decisions are more weighty than others, so when death starts to loom its head, just slow down and take your time. Your players want your best judgment, not your fastest judgment. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: stereotypes in my gameworld, how to balance plot and exploration, and how to use dreams and hallucinations for storytelling. Until next time, happy gaming!

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How to Write for and from Tabletop Games

As I've grown more experienced in tabletop games, I've started to see that the process of playing a story-rich campaign (one where the players and GM work together to create a story) is very similar to the process of writing fiction. I think we might use a working definition for fiction writing as "deciding what the characters do and what the world is like," and those are the respective duties of the players and the GM. As someone who has spent considerable time as a GM, a player, and a writer, I can vouch: being a fiction writer is like GMing for yourself, as you are in a way presenting scenarios to your characters. So what's the real relationship between writing and tabletop games? 

In my experience, the two reinforce and enrich one another. And the relationship works both ways: writing can improve your tabletop game experience, and tabletop games can improve your writing experience. I want to explore how things move in both directions with some ideas as well as ways that I have personally used writing and tabletops together. 

Sometimes in the game, it makes sense to create in-game documents. I think it can help immersion and the dramatic impact of things, but it also of course allows you to connect the game and writing. Over a decade ago, when I was running Listen Check, an early D&D podcast, I offered a reward for a contest near the end of our run. The reward was that the winner would get to pick any NPC from the entire campaign, and I would write a personal journal for that character and present it to the winner. As it happened, our number one fan from early in the podcast won, and she picked a character who had largely played comic relief and had a few heartfelt moments. I set to work, and what I ended up with was a 99-page booklet that spanned most of the character's life (CW: parental neglect, parental abuse).  

In the course of sitting down to write for this character--Caspian, a small young man with tattoos of every god on his forearms ("just in case")--I wanted to find something that I had struggled to find during the show. Caspian was, as I said, a very comic relief type of character. I modeled his personality on a loose combination of the characters Master Shake and Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, both of whom are over-the-top big-mouthed goofballs, and as a result, I didn't feel like they were moored to any kind of serious foundation. I didn't want to hand our number one fan a series of goofs that wouldn't even be funny and leave it at that. I needed to find the dramatic heart of the character. 

If you read that booklet, you'll probably agree that I did. Mild spoilers: because I established in the show that Caspian was illiterate, we had to pretend that this was the journal he would write if he were literate, and I also needed to account for how he had never been taught to read. I did so by making his parents negligent and abusive so that he never really had the chance to learn. I chose to make it so that Caspian was never discouraged by anything that happened to him; this allowed me to retroactively make his silliness a defiance of the pain that he had come from. I personally like how it came out, and I wouldn't have had the ability or context to write that if I hadn't worked with Caspian as an NPC for years before that. 

But the writing doesn't have to find its purpose in being a part of the D&D world like Caspian's journal did. Sometimes, you want to write to just figure a character out. How often in a tabletop game do you approach the table with an "idea" of a character, only to find out that it's a little undeveloped when you actually play? I'd say that that's happened with every character I have ever made. And yes, that is coming from the person who once wrote 80 pages of material on a character, his family, and his friends. Because all that writing happened after I had already started playing. I created that material in response to my need to characterize, not in anticipation of it. 

And so of course I found myself in the same scenario when I recently started playing a character in a roleplay-centric campaign. I had toyed for years with the idea of a con artist character, and I felt that because I had dreamed of this character for so long, I would be able to just drop into a session and be a fully realized version of the character. I learned from my intro session and the first session or two with the party that I mostly had a concept and an attitude. I needed more if I wanted to develop a meaningfully complex character, and that is more or less the aim in our roleplay-centric group. 

So I started to write. I figured that I could write a short story or two and figure out more where my character, Asp, came from. I wrote that story, and I had, in a small way, accomplished my goal: I had a better idea who Asp was. But for two reasons, I kept going. Reason one: because Asp has been in my mind for so long, I am truly invested in making her a special character. Reason two: I enjoyed the process of writing about her. She's fun to write about, I have found, and I changed the story or two into a series of five connected stories. As of the writing of this article, I have written ten of a planned twenty-five chapters of a novel. 

Yes, I am saying that in order to develop my character, I decided to write a novel about her. Do I think that this is an advisable first step for most people? Absolutely not. I've been writing consistently for years, and I get something out of the process even when I don't like the result. I know that not everyone has that experience with writing. I'm not giving advice here; I'm telling you one of the possibilities that tabletop games present with writing. It is entirely possible to create writing that helps you in the game and that stands on its own as entertainment. 

The above examples handle how you can write for tabletop games--but what about the other way? It's quite possible to writing from tabletop games. One of my first longer writing projects was a novel (yet unfinished) that used tabletop games as the core mechanic of storytelling. This came at a time when I was really beginning to get interested in the relationship between tabletop games and other forms of narrative. 

The novel's format relief on what I had experienced as a D&D player. The first chapter (out of nine total) would be the story of one character going up against a powerful evil foe and failing. The second chapter would be the story of an entirely different character going up against the same evil foe, but this time, the second hero wouldn't make the same mistakes as the first. They'd try something new and get a bit further, but still perish before the evil foe. This process would continue, each character getting closer and closer, until the ninth character would vanquish the evil foe. The end of the novel would suggest that each of the nine characters had been tabletop game characters played by the same player, hence their learning from their mistakes. Each new character would be a new character rolled when the previous one died. And for a philosophical angle, each of the nine characters would have a different moral alignment, which would guide the ways that their personalities were different. 

As you can probably see, the only meaningful connections to tabletop games come from the mechanics of how the story is told. The concept behind the story is something that relies on some knowledge of tabletop games, but this novel could easily stand on its own as a compelling fantasy story. I bring this novel-in-progress up because it illustrates the relationship between writing and tabletops in a new direction. This novel, which has the working title of How the Stars Align (a reference to the astronomy fascination of the evil foe), aims to tell a story that couldn't have been conceived of without tabletop games, and to do so without relying narratively on them. 

And although I haven't experienced this myself, I would posit it as a distinct possibility: people who need to understand a character, from writers to actors to students, can use tabletop games as a tool to understand them. It stands to reason that if writing about a character can help roleplaying (because it generates information and perspective about the character), then roleplaying should also help writing (because it generates information and perspective about the character). Ask any serious roleplayer to describe a character of theirs, and prepare for a torrent of information--information which most any writer would love to have about the characters they're working with. 

So now, the actual how of it: let's give you some ideas to start writing if you're not sure where to begin.  One fact you'll need to face is that you're flipping some of the role you'll be playing. If you're playing a tabletop to learn about a character, you'll be controlling only your character and responding to the world around you; if you're writing about a character so you can play a tabletop more fully, you'll be doing the GM's work as well as your own. The thing that matters most is how you view the challenge, so consider these ideas:

Playing a Tabletop To Learn About a Character

You are basically putting on training wheels. That should be your thinking--rather than complicating the scenario with having to control the entire fictional universe, you're putting all your effort on just the character. That means you're free to really consider things in depth. Allow your curiosity to run wild--Why does your character feel that way? Does it open up their backstory? What does your character want to do (versus what they feel they should do, versus what they're compelled to do by the game)? You're now free to investigate the small details that you'd otherwise have to ignore. 

To get started, I advise that you make sure your character sketch is as complete as you want it to be. Then, once you're in the game, do your best to balance what serves your character work and what serves the party (the other players want to have their own fun too, remember). And once you're in the groove with your character, you get to enter the real reward for this approach. As your fellow player characters and the GM create new situations that you could never conceive of, you're getting inspiration for writing. The heavy lifting of creating dramatic scenarios is off your back, and you can just sit back and watch your character become more and more detailed, and more importantly, more familiar to you. 

Writing About a Character to Enrich a Tabletop

You're taking control into your own hands. This should be your mindset. Yes, you have more responsibility than you do when you play a tabletop game, but now you have the ability to tell the story in your own way. Who hasn't had a character-defining moment in mind for months that never came up organically in a session? When you're writing, you can add that character-defining moment wherever and whenever you want it. You want to help your character shine, so go ahead and shine all the light on them like you can't when you're sharing the spotlight with other players. 

To get started, try to imagine scenarios that would be interesting for your character. Maybe you want to see them when they're stressed out; perhaps you want to show them strutting their stuff; you may want a quiet moment for reflection. Your goal in writing is to create as much of a distinct impression in your mind of what this person is like, so try to vary the situations you put them in. If it helps, you can use a writing prompt to jump-start your creativity. And don't become overwhelmed by the writing process. If it feels like too much, just clear your mind and begin imagining the situation you want. Note the details you think of and allow yourself to revise as you go. Don't be afraid to go to your favorite books, games, shows, and movies for inspiration, but have fun making it your own. 

A final word on writing and tabletop games: some of us in the worlds of writing and gaming forget at times that the goal is fun. We should work harder to embrace that fun, and don't forget about it when you're trying on more character development. Tabletops and writing like this shouldn't be homework--they should be part of the fun as well. So certainly give it an honest try, but don't make yourself do any work that isn't rewarding. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: a guide to food in my homebrew setting, tips on pacing your game, and how to deal with player character deaths. Until next time, happy gaming!

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A List of Ideas for Character Backstories

For me, one of the greatest joys in tabletop games is making a character. By that, I mean the whole process. From choosing a class and race or the equivalent information to developing that character's personality, there's so much to decide. But the backstory is probably where I've classically spent the most time. You may have read about how I created 80 pages of backstory documents for a cleric I played or read a chapter from the novel I've been writing as a backstory for a rogue I'm currently playing. I say this bashfully--I acknowledge that admitting this to a non-tabletop gamer would get me some weird looks. But to me, it's a huge part of the fun of the game. 

But for every player like me who wants to develop every detail of the character, there is another player who is so daunted by the idea of making a person up out of nothing that they don't know where to begin. That's why I thought I'd share some of my extra energy in this arena with you, the overwhelmed player. You came looking for backstory ideas, and I've got you covered. 

Below are 25 ideas for backstories to get you started. I don't want to take away the fun of getting into the details--that's for you. Remember that you can take parts you like from any of these and rework or combine them! Your goal is to end up with something you're passionate about, so get creative and have fun.

1. The Hero Out of Time - You are descended from a long line of nobles who have always done right by their people. But as time has worn on, your position of power has waned, and now you are being ignored like you have never known. The time has come to leave your defunct holdings behind and either set right what took your power or make your fortune anew. You might be begrudging, hopeful, or determined about your plight. 
2. Mistakenly Involved - You are certainly capable in your own right, but you had been pleasantly living a quiet life. Then suddenly, some new twist seems to have upended you. You are stuck with a group of unpredictable people (perhaps the party). Your involvement might be because people in power think you're part of the group or because of some coincidence. Part of your struggle will be in either returning to your quiet life or learning to live a little louder. 
3. At War with the Gods - You've explored a handful of religious beliefs in your life, but none has ever given you more than anxiety. But the more you come to resent them, the more life's troubles seem like punishments from the gods. Part of you isn't sure if it's all in your head. You may mask your anxiety well, or not at all. (Be sure to check this one with your DM, who may have their own agenda when it comes to handling gods-related things.)
4. The Troubled Parent - You're a good, attentive parent to a wonderful child. The problem is that your child is very sick. You've tried everything, but they only get worse. You're in search of a cure, and you'll work alongside anyone who can help you. You can portray varying levels of stress depending on what the context calls for. (Check in with your DM about the details of the illness--they'll probably want to consider how that storyline plays out.)
5. The Simple Farmer - You grew up on a farm without ever straying too far. You only know about the big city because Pa told you about his trip there as a boy. But that story never faded from your mind. All those days out in the fields, you dreamed of more. And now, it's time to find out what's out there. You may be a naïve wanderer, you may be searching for something, or you may just want something different. 
6. The Lone Survivor - You lived on an outpost on the edge of civilization. Something from beyond the edge came to visit, and it killed everyone--everyone but you. You're sharp from years of growing up on the edge, but you know you can't get revenge on your own. It's time to gather the forces you can and get ready. (Actually returning to your home is of course up to your DM, but as a driving force, it will keep you motivated.)
7. "I Just Want a Good Book" - You are a voracious reader. You've heard talk of a legendary text that no one has seen in centuries. You've taken to searching tombs, dungeons, and lairs for traces of it. Every new discovery of a scroll or spellbook means you are poring over its pages, insistent on learning just what it holds. You may be obsessive in your quest, or you may just know the text would be worth a pretty coin. 
8. The Young Ace - From a young age, you just got it. Even though you're still young, you're already out in the world being trusted with adult responsibilities. But getting responsibilities isn't the same as being treated like an adult. You're driven to prove to everyone that you're capable of being trusted. You may play this struggle as a serious clash between identity and society, or you may decide to take it in an altogether sillier direction. 
9. The Salty Dog - Something about life on the sea drew you in during your youth years ago, and you've spent those many years on ships, rarely docking and never straying from a port city. And though your life on the waves has been good to you, you've realized it's time to move on to something new. You've set foot on dry land and decided to find out what life here is really like. You may play this as a fish out of water comedy or a more serious coming to terms with the changes you didn't expect to find. 
10. The Disillusioned Veteran - You grew up mimicking soldiers and fantasizing about serving in battles. Then you got older and did those things. It was nothing like you imagined--there was no honor, but only carnage. It changed you, made you more empty. Now the war is over and you're back in society with everyone. But no one listens to what you say you've seen. You might play this more as someone trying to change peoples' minds or more as a victim of paralysis. 
11. The Delinquent Student - Your wealthy parents have always given you the best of the best. So too with your education--only you didn't go. When they sent you off to the fancy university in the mountains, you skipped out and have been carousing across the continent on their money. Part of you wants to see how far the coin will go, and part of you is ignoring the consequences. Your reluctance to get an education may be humorous or a genuine resistance to being ordered around. 
12. The Curious Writer - You've spent your life writing, learning about new things and skills via the writing of others. But in your most recent project, you realized that certain things must be felt firsthand to be able to satisfyingly describe. So you've set out to begin experiencing those things, aiming your work at the ultimate goal: to meaningfully change the world and learn what that would feel like. 
13. "I Just Want to Start Over" - You had a good life. But then tragedy struck--someone close to you, someone you were nursing when they were sick, died, and everyone thought it was your fault. At first you tried to explain, but nobody listened. Life got hard for you. You decided to move away and start over. You picked up what you could and dropped yourself into life in a new place. But will you really be able to leave it all behind for good?
14. The Protective Sibling - Your parents died years ago, and you've been watching out for your little sibling ever since. They're kind of an odd one. They have a made-up language that only they speak, and sometimes you catch them staring at people in weird ways. Perhaps that's to be expected; they're the one who killed your parents. How and why they did so is for you to decide, as is why you keep protecting the murderous sibling. 
15. "I Just Want to Fit In" - You were raised in a secluded culture in which you were marked as a special person at birth. All your life, everyone you know has treated you like you were more than mortal. You have come to hate this--you want to live like anyone else. You fled from your secluded society and entered the world. Now you must learn what is normal in your new home and learn to be just like anyone else. 
16. The Watcher - You've seen lots of people claim to have everyone's best interest in mind. You think it's obvious that they don't really. Before, when you were growing more powerful, you saw through their act, but now you can do something about it. You're starting to watch the people in charge, and you're going to make them actually do what they say. You might play this as a realistic take on a superhero or more of a paranoid type for humor. 
17. The Dearly Departed - You were married for years before it happened. You were holding their hand one minute, and then suddenly, they were gone. Disappeared. No one had heard of anything like this, and they assured you that they were just missing. No one just disappeared. But you know it--they were there and then gone. You've got to find them. But where do you start looking, and who will listen? (Work with your DM here--they'll want to have something in place for the disappearance.)
18. The Penny Pincher - Years of just barely scraping by have left their mark on you. You're painfully hesitant to part with any amount of money for any reason at all. The people in your life know now to ask you for financial help, more for your reaction than the lack of help. You've realized it's destroying your relationships, so you're experimenting with better sources of income. You may also decide to experiment with changing your ways. 
19. The Performer - You're not dishonest--you're just putting your best foot forward. You've noticed that people tend to be happier when you're happier. If only you could help people see the truth of the matter--but no one listens unless it sounds good. So you've just taken to giving a little shine to the truth, even if it makes it a little less true. You may learn the folly of your ways, or you may carry on sugarcoating things for people, but it affects the way you experience the world. 
20. The Lonely Immigrant - You left your homeland behind to make something of yourself here. But something about you marks you as different from the people here, and you are held at a distance. As you struggle to make a life for yourself, those around you make it harder for you to survive. Will you fight against what marks you as different? Will you prove yourself unworthy of their assumptions? Will you find others like you? (Work with your DM to determine how your character will be different from the people around them. Be willing to compromise here.)
21. The Imaginary Friend - Something happened to you that made you a little different in the head. Ever since, you've had a friend only you can see and hear. It sure puts people off when you talk to your friend, so you've learned to keep that kind of thing private. The thing is, though, that ever since you learned to blend in, your friend has been talking about scary things. Dangerous things. You may play this invisible friend for humor or horror.
22. The World Traveler - The world is a big place, and you want to see it all. You want to taste every cuisine, hear every local tune, feel the pulsing of every city known to humanity. But travelling is pricy, and it can be dangerous, so you've learned to finance your travels through creative means. You've done odd work wherever you can find it because you know adventure is just around the corner. (Work with your DM to get a good sense of the gameworld so you can determine where you've been and what you know.)
23. The Captive - You led a pretty normal life. Exceptionally normal, in fact, until you were kidnapped. Your captor or captors held you for over a year, feeding you only enough to survive and performing strange experiments on you which you only discovered via the marks left on your body. And then, just as suddenly, you were released into the woods. What will you do now that you've regained your agency? And will you ever be able to find out what happened to you?
24. The Fine Artist - You've always had an eye for beauty. You've had your adventures, and you've begun to paint, sculpt, and otherwise memorialize your achievements. The art catches peoples' eyes, but do you do it for their attention or for the satisfaction of the perfect expression of something? Part of you thinks that the adventures are just an excuse to create the art, and part of you thinks they're both good enough reasons to adventure. 
25. The Tale Teller - Everyone knows a few good stories, but you know them all. You collect them--folk tales, urban legends, secondhand retellings of supernatural happenings--and you tell them again. This has earned you a reputation as someone who knows about the strange happenings of the world, both earning the ire of common people and the love of other strange folk. You may use these stories for deep lore into the world (with your DM's help, of course) or something sillier (imagine a conspiracy theorist who sees connections between everything in the gameworld). 

There you have it: 25 unique backstory ideas to get you started. Any of these should give you a pretty interesting time at the table. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: a guide to nature in my homebrew setting, how to use divination in your games, and how writing and tabletop games enrich each other. Until next time, happy gaming!

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How to Create Likable NPCs

So often in tabletop games, it's important for the players to feel a particular way about an NPC. Perhaps you need them to unconditionally trust someone in order to progress a story or set up a double-cross; it could be that you need to introduce a new storyline but don't know how--if the players were to follow a new friend, there could be new stories; or maybe you just feel like your players need to have someone around who they actually like and isn't a questgiver. All of these are valid reasons for wanting to add someone that the players like. But how do you actually go about doing that?

There are so many ways to do this that I could never address them all. So instead, I'll describe the three tools I use and have had the most success with. But remember--if you conceive of a character idea and think your players would like them, trust your instincts. It's also worth noting that making a character virtuous and kind and patient will usually score points over time, but it's not a guaranteed quick route to beloved status. Below are the shortcuts. 

The First Approach: Comedy

The easiest way to get players to fall for a character--especially quickly--is to make them funny. In Listen Check, a D&D podcast I made back in 2010, I began the entire adventure with a character I'd named Caspian. I wanted Caspian to start as comic relief and become dear to the characters, and I'll admit that I planned on toying with his life to move my players. So I made Caspian as funny as I could. If someone had something to say, Caspian had a clever retort. I'm not the kind of person who makes a load of jokes, but I stepped into that mindset with Caspian. More than anything, I embraced being silly. So much of what makes the humor around tabletop games what it is is the silliness that people create when trying to solve abstract imaginary problems. So I would just say silly things as they occurred to me, and pretty soon, Caspian was beloved. So beloved, in fact, that I couldn't stand the thought of killing him off anymore. I had come to love him too, and so I used him to soften the blows of the more tragic turns in the late campaign. 

You might be thinking, "But I'm not funny." And there are a lot of ways to respond. Here are a few: 

• No one in the world has a good gauge of whether or not they're funny. It's something you can't know about yourself. Forget that nonsense.
• You're playing with your friends in most cases. Your friends are the people in the world who are likeliest to find your hilarious. Go with it. 
• You don't have to think of whole jokes by yourself. You're just going to be responding to your friends in the moment. Try something silly to surprise them--it won't be bad. 

The kind of silliness that I'm talking about it of course up to you. I have written different versions of this paragraph several times, trying to describe specific ways to come off as funny, and each version has been a spectacular failure. I would say that's in part a show of my lack of skill as a lone comedy writer, emphasis on the "lone" part. Nothing about a tabletop game is lone, though. Most folks have been silly with a close friend before. Think about that energy--that's what you want. Do the things you know as an expert on your friends that are going to surprise or amuse the most. 

One word of caution, though: don't push too hard on the comedy. Including an NPC as comic relief does not mean that the whole campaign becomes a comedy. I generally strove to get two or three laughs in a scene and then move on--spread the magic out so that it's not bingeing silly laughter and burning out on the character's bit. And remember that the NPC is a person, too. If something really horrible has happened to the party, even a comic relief character will not make a joke at the downcast party's expense. 

The Second Approach: Responding to Player Reactions

As you DM, you're constantly being given access to information about how your players feel about the gameworld and what and who is in it. When players are immediately repulsed by a villainous NPC or endeared to a sympathetic NPC, you are learning what they like and don't like. You can consider this with your DMing and learn a lot more with targeted actions. If you have noticed that your players have strong mixed feelings about an NPC and you want to figure out what traits cause that (without directly asking the players themselves, which is an option), you can run NPC trials. Next time they encounter a minor NPC, like during a shopping trip or when encountering a one-off questgiver, introduce that NPC with a heavy characterization as only one of the traits in question. Your players' responses to them will help you narrow down the traits they like so that you can construct an NPC around that. 

When I run tabletop games, I try to portray an array of NPCs who are thematically linked. The NPCs in Listen Check or in the mystery campaign were dramatically influenced not just by the setting, but also by what my players were going through. If you've read through the mystery campaign, you know that the people who Ais, Beor, and Montana ran into often described problems very similar to their own. This was very intentional. I was deliberately showing the players how others were responding to similar events, which in turn gave them actions and people to turn to or away from. I'm describing this player response approach as applied to another problem, but it still works the same way: by giving players the option to respond to something, telling us more about them. 

This is the approach to tabletop games that has yielded the greatest success for me over the years. It is not as quick a process as being funny, but if you know your players well (for more than a single campaign, for instance), this tool can be just as fast. My players for the mystery campaign were all returning players from the Eastweald campaign, which meant that I had a prior understanding of what my players liked and didn't like. During the Eastweald campaign, I learned how to give them what they wanted, and the mystery campaign allowed me to give it to them. The second campaign was a refinement in every way. My last word here is this: this approach will transform your whole style as a GM if you allow it to; it can certainly help with likable characters too. 

The Third Approach: Liking Them Yourself

As a content-generating GM, you're the ultimate judge of all you make. It's you who decided on your worldbuilding, your storylines, your characters--they exist the way they do because you said so. You probably had reasons for doing so. Why should this NPC be any different? You do want your players to like them, but it's got to start with you. So trust your gut. The things that you like about the NPC will be reasons for the players to feel strongly about them too. Just as I gave a pep talk about being funny above, you've got to trust that your players will share your passion. 

But perhaps your problem is not knowing exactly what you like. If you're like me, your approach as a GM is to serve my players--my work on worldbuilding is the product of a desire to present a meaningful and complete world to my players for their engagement. Since you've focused on your players, how acquainted are you with your own taste? It takes some reflection to find out, I recommend considering the characters from art--books, movies, games, television--who you enjoy. Ask yourself what they have in common. I personally find, for instance, that I gravitate towards confident female characters, depressed male characters, and characters who don't fit in well with society. And although I didn't consciously design them this way, every tabletop game character I have ever played has been one or more of these groups. So were I pressed, I would use a character in one of these overarching types as a likable character. However, I would of course tweak the character a bit for my players, making them less the complex dramatic portrait I'm striving for and more a malleable tool for the story. 

One other note about about liking your NPC--you should still treat them as another other character. Getting too attached to an NPC can cause problems. I've always thought that a good villain is one who you understand, or at least, one who you like trying to understand. But that's led me to some trouble before. I've had villains of entire campaigns become so dear to me that I actively disliked the idea of the finale--it would almost certainly mean their death. That's when I realized the dangerous ground I was treading: I was more or less placing my enjoyment of the game in opposition to my players, and that should never be the case. So be careful with this approach. 

A Presentation on How to Easily Create a 5E Character (Great for Groups of New Players)

I recently wrote about the experience of simultaneously DMing 3 campaigns for an event at the school where I teach. It was a wild time, and I look forward to doing it again next year. But I faced a challenge in preparing for that event that I didn't mention in my guide to creating a murder mystery--I had 30 players who needed to develop characters as quickly as possible. I wanted my players to have as much time as possible to actually play, so creating characters quickly was vital. 

Another related issue was in making characters which I wouldn't need to constantly be double-checking their character sheets. Since many of these players were first time players, the guide for creating characters would need to cover most of the details without my having to help players individually very often. To this end, I wanted to create something which could essentially walk the players through the process with most things explained. 

So I ended up with this PowerPoint presentation. I'll walk us through each page below, but you can download the file at that link in order to use the presentation yourself. Read on for the full guide to this presentation, and good luck getting your players to create satisfying characters. 

How to Use Individual Intro Sessions to Start a Campaign

It's the first session of your big campaign. Your players are settling into their new characters, and most of the first session ends up being you establishing the setting and the plot while your players figure out how they fit in the world. This doesn't make it a bad session, but it also means that your players are spending more time getting started than really playing. But you can work around this difficulty with one simple action: using individualized intro sessions. By providing each player with a customized session to get them into the world and hooked into the story, you can ensure that your first session is all about the players truly getting started on the story. Read on for a full guide to creating individualized intro sessions. 

Years ago, I deployed individualized intro sessions for the Eastweald campaign, and I addressed some of the benefits of these sessions, but now I would like to expand that and provide instruction as well. But let's start with an expanded look at the benefits of individual intro sessions. I'm going to focus on five ideas, specifically how these sessions allow: the player to roleplay their backstory, the player to test their abilities, the player to express themselves without pressure from the group, both players and GM to introduce story events, and the GM to work directly with players (a rarity in TRPGs). 

So let's start with one of the more obvious ideas: these sessions let your players roleplay their backstory. This in and of itself affords us a collection of benefits. First, there's the direst consequence of the intro session, which is that the player gets to begin the game by simply exploring the gameworld a bit. This means that they can enter the group session with more knowledge and confidence, which is vital. For players interested in roleplaying, these sessions will also grant the inherent benefit of the player enjoying their introduction to your world on their terms. The player also gets the opportunity to figure out some details of who their character is in practice before having to interact with the rest of the party. These ideas are all related to the benefits the player reaps, but there is a massive benefit to the GM as well: you get to learn more about the player's character in a controlled environment, which sets you up to present that character with more individualized attention as the game progresses. When I did intro sessions for the Eastweald campaign, I learned a lot about my players' characters and their motivations, which better prepared me for the challenge of dealing with four players characters at once. So you see that by allowing players to roleplay their backstories, we get a wealth of benefits. 

Then there's the fact that an individualized intro session lets players test their abilities. Remember that in the vast majority of campaigns, all the characters in the game will be new creations, which is to say that the players will be the least prepared to play their character effectively that they can be. I've seen first sessions where players are playing spellcasters for the first time and don't know how to cast them usefully yet, and I've seen players end up quite surprised by how their actual actions play out. You can't get rid of the test period, but you can relegate it to an individual intro session. This leads right into the idea that players also get the benefit of getting to privately test their character away from the eyes of the rest of the party. This also means that you can coach the player in a safe space, away from the potential judgment of other players. And let's not forget that the player character existed in the gameworld before the player developed them, in a sense: when a player makes a 36-year-old character, that character has 36 years of life to account for, and in that time, they would certainly have become familiar with their own abilities. An individualized intro session means that when these characters meet, they will already have a sense of what they are capable of and how to achieve results. This is more gratifying and surprising for the other players as well, who get to see this player character being capable as a first impression. Testing abilities is another feature of individualized intro sessions that provide a variety of benefits to the game. 

Next, let's consider the ways that playing away from the pressure of the group can be a helpful force. I've already touched on a few of the ways this can benefit your game: players enter the true first session more confident and capable, allowing you as GM to both help and challenge them. But it's more than that. Let's think about the mindset of a player figuring out their character for the first time. They're thinking about their character concept and the details they've created, the collection of story ideas, how to fit together with the party, and plenty of other ideas. That's a lot to consider and act on. And the pressure to do well and impress the other players is a real factor. No one wants to show up and seem like the least capable person in the party. But we can take a lot of these things off the player's shoulders. An individualized intro session means that they can think about their character and the gameworld, and that is essentially it. They can integrate themselves into the world in a way that makes sense to them, and without worrying about monopolizing the session. Then, when the first group session begins, the player has already gotten practice roleplaying their character and can worry about the group details. It may sound like a small benefit, but taken with all of these other benefits, it's hard to dismiss. 

Then we have the way that story events can be distributed in an early campaign. This is a delicate time for you as a GM; you're trying to unite the party, unveil your story, and keep the game going towards the endgame. Introducing the main quest at all can be a daunting task; how do you get these player characters, with their varying backgrounds, skills, and interests, to work together in the first place? But the individualized intro session lets you break that work up into smaller parts. Instead of getting an entire group of different people to agree to the same idea, all you have to do is rope one player character in at a time. You can use the intro session to set up the main quest so that when your first group session starts, your characters are already basically united. You can also use these sessions to develop the late game by revealing details that will become important later on. But it's not just you who can introduce story in these sessions. Your player will also add story ideas to the game, whether they mean to or not. When a player in an intro session identifies something as being a considerable part of their character's life, you have a new story idea; just take that idea, develop it a bit, and deploy it in the game. More on that below, but for now, just think about it this way: you get more story developments out of two sessions than one, so these intro sessions will always grant a boost to your game's story. 

Finally, let's address the way that these intro sessions allow the GM to work directly with the players. You know the scenario: you're GMing, and even though you don't mean to, a certain player or character ends up being relatively left out of the game for a while. Early in a campaign, this can be a real issue; if the players and their characters aren't hooked, early struggles could unmake a campaign. You can resolve that with these intro sessions--the very first encounter the player has with the game, they're the star. Their everyday life is the plot of the session (again, more below), so it's not about the story; it's about the player character. The first time the player actually plays their character in the group session, they'll be able to join the party already knowing--and more importantly, feeling--that their character is a central part of the campaign. This strategy works especially well if you suspect that some of your players will be more dominant in the game than others; with individualized intro sessions, those more dominant players will come in already partially satisfied by the direct attention they got in the intro session. And if there's something you need to customize for a specific player (granting them a special ability, personalizing a plot hook, addressing complicated backstory, etc.), an intro session lets you give that personalized attention without seeming like you're favoring a specific player. 

This is a pretty dizzying array of benefits. The relatively simple action of providing individualized intro sessions unlocks a variety of advantages, from helping players to helping yourself. And this concept need not be applied exclusively for introductions. Many GMs have encountered a time that a player character necessarily had to go about something alone. If this occasion lasts more than a few minutes, you can opt for an individualized session, which will both relieve other players of watching someone else play and allow you to really go all-out on the individualized time instead of truncating it for the other players' benefit. So it's a useful idea, but how do we implement it? 

Just as individualized intro sessions are a simple idea, implementing them in the game is very simple. My instructions will pertain to specifically introduction sessions, but the same general rules apply if there's a mid-story individual session you need to run. The basic formula exists as three acts: a day in the life for Act I, a complication for Act II, and a link to the campaign for Act III. 

Act I: Day in the Life. You want to depict the player character in an average day. This is partially to characterize them, partially to gather an idea of what the character is really like, and partially to make the complication in Act II more dramatic. Running this is very simple. Tell your character that it is dawn (or early afternoon if your Act III requires nighttime), and ask them to describe how they go about their day. Some players, especially those who are not roleplay-minded, may struggle with this. Encourage them and promise that it doesn't have to be interesting. By granting the player more control over the beginning of the session, we are both letting the player be as creative as they want and setting up an emotional response when the complication arises. Common activities in this act include getting a meal, tending to business needs, meeting with acquaintances, practicing skills, and other fairly inconsequential things. If your player wants the intro session to be more action-packed (perhaps they're pulling off a dangerous job that day), don't bar it entirely, but encourage them to pick something a little simpler; there will be time for that dangerous job later. Let's look at an example of Act I:

Let's say we're planning a campaign about taking down a lich who is slowly taking over small towns across the countryside. We have three players, one of whom is a fairly new TRPG player; we'll call her Greta. Greta has created a ranger-type character, which will be a challenge since she's never played a magic user before. So for Act I of her intro session, we want her to show us what her ranger (Maeve) actually lives like. Greta is a bit tentative at first, but ends up describing doing a bit of hunting for breakfast, tidying up her cottage, and heading into town for supplies, where she runs into a friend, a cleric of Obad-Hai; they share a reverence for nature and a distaste for city life, and so they have bonded. Essentially all of this information should come from Greta. If she's having a hard time imagining the details, ask open-ended questions about Maeve's interests. You want this part of the session to last about one-third of your total time, but you can cut it a bit short if your player is really struggling. (If they are, ask them to develop some more details for roleplaying their character.) Once you have a good idea of Maeve's day-to-day life, it's time to move onto Act II. 

Act II: Complication. Now something interesting happens. It should be directly tied to the campaign's main quest, but remember that you're not even in the first group session, so you don't want to give everything away. The complication shouldn't necessarily be a quest; we're more looking for something that adds some intrigue and which requires some poking around. You can introduce this idea however you want; interrupting one of the mundane tasks in Act I works well, as does having an event unfold in public where the player character can see it, and disrupting the player's actions can make things even more dramatic (imagine that the player character goes to visit an old friend and finds their house boarded up with a menacing note on the door--that will shake things up). The nature of the complication isn't as important as the effect: you want your player to be a bit jarred by the transition from Act I to Act II. You also want to include some information for the player character to investigate, otherwise, this step is just one moment of drama. This act should also take about one-third of your time. 

Let's say we're running our intro session for Greta, who has been having Maeve walk around town doing everyday things. She goes to a common goods shop to buy some rope, but--complication!--the store has no rope. And the shopkeeper says that no other shops in town have rope either, or many other common goods. The problem, they say, is that all the city's rope is imported from two small towns to the East, and both towns were recently sacked. The report is that some powerful villain is capturing small towns, and no one knows why. I would also have the shopkeeper disclose that there is a leader here in town who wants to fight back against the villain, give Maeve a name and location for this leader, and let the shopkeeper encounter end. But Act II isn't over; now it's time for Maeve to investigate the claims the shopkeeper made. Then we can have Maeve search for the leader (stymied initially, but succeeding with persistence) and ask them about the villain. This is how Act II closes. 

Act III: A Link to the Campaign. Now for the finale. You've got your player character interested in the hook, but now we need to reel them in. Generally speaking, the easiest way to do Act III is for the whole act to be a big conversation, followed by an event which changes the stakes. In game terms, what you're looking for is a connection between the complication in Act II and your campaign, which shouldn't be too much of a challenge given that we designed Act II to lead into Act III. The gist is this: the person with information about the campaign's quest should communicate some setup ideas. By this, I mean that the NPC in question should explain a bit about what has led to the bad situation that's happening; then they propose a plan to deal with; finally, they reveal that they are constructing a team of people to deal with the bad situation, which the player character will be a part of. The NPC should answer as many player character questions as they can without you giving away anything that needs to wait for the whole group. Think of the first half of Act III as your commercial for your campaign--really try to sell the player character on the idea. Then, in the next half, we see that the stakes are different than we imagined. Something dramatic that makes the bad situation worse should occur. This will impress upon your players that the need for help is strong and hopefully personalize the appeal of the campaign (they might fight to defend a nearby town, but they will certainly fight to defend their own town). Then, to wrap things up, have the NPC who explained the situation indicate that they will be assembling the team soon to deal with these issues. 

Let's say we're still working with Greta and Maeve. They've just heard that nearby towns have been ransacked and sought out the leader they were told about. The leader explains that the situation is looking bad: the villain has captured at least three villages, and while no one has yet to safely report back with intelligence on what's happening in those villages, the fear is that people are being killed or enslaved to further the villain's goals. To personalize this for Maeve, I would have this leader explain that certain sections of the forest have been targeted as well, sections of the forest that are frighteningly close to Maeve's camp. (Now it's personal, hopefully.) Then, after Maeve's questions have been answered and you feel you've sold the threat of this villain, it's time to have the something dramatic happen. We could have the lich attack the town if the whole party were here, but one player against the BBEG before the campaign even starts could fail to go anywhere. Instead, we have someone burst into the room with the leader and Maeve. They are short of breath and struggling to speak. "Another town to the east has fallen. Red Hawk has been captured. The lich is only two days' ride away," they finally manage. This messenger might be bruised and scraped; they may speak of the horrors they witnessed with their own eyes. Once you feel that your player has grasped that this indeed is the main plot of your adventure, it's time to wrap up. The leader will indicate to Maeve that they appreciate her volunteering, and that she will be assigned to a special group of agents to fight the lich. And so ends the individualized intro session with Maeve already hooked into the game pretty completely; now meeting the rest of the party is the biggest concern. I would call that a pretty successful single session. 

Considering all of the benefits I have outlined above, it's easy to see why an individualized intro session can be helpful. If you have a bigger party (6+ people), it may seem daunting to do that many sessions before even starting the campaign. If that's your situation, lump people together in pairs of characters who know each other already and provide fewer intro sessions with many of the same benefits. Personally, though, I recommend an individualized intro session for any campaign that takes storytelling and roleplaying seriously--it will surprise you how much these sessions can improve the beginnings of a campaign. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: how to spice up generic enemies, things to include in marketplaces, and an argument for why roleplaying is the pinnacle of TRPGs. Until next time, happy gaming!

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Naming Conventions by Culture in My Homebrew Setting

In this, my hundredth post, I want to talk about something that I consider very important in homebrew creation that I think can also be one of the most fun details about your world: naming conventions. Whose names sound which way? What do those names mean? What do titles mean? This information about character names should create a sense of consistency in your world and communicate cultural ideas to your players. Below, I have explained all of the naming details in my homebrew world, and you can use the same method to create a system of names for your world. Read on for the full description of naming conventions. 

Note: In my homebrew world, I use the standard D&D 3.5 races, and I have added to that framework the idea that there are two distinct lines of humans with very different cultural traditions. I also have determined that in my world, what the manuals refer to as half-orcs are simply orcs in my world; the orcs in the handbook are too violent to take part in society, so how could an entire race of half-orcs appear aside from as a product of violence? I don't like that idea, so I simply use orcs. Finally, the names I am using as samples for these details come from my list of NPCs complete with ages, personalities, and alignments. 

Daltoners

First Name Conventions: Daltoners are meant to represent forces of imperialism and cultural repression in a way that reminds me of British history in the 18th and 19th centuries, so I decided to give them names that sound like they belong in that era of British history. Classic English language names like George, Madeline, Thomas, and Elizabeth are all good Daltoner names. Generally speaking, the more dignified-sounding the name is, the more prominent that person is in society. 

Last Name Conventions: Last names again are meant to evoke imperial British names. This means that most Daltoner names are simply common English names like Smith, Johnson, Cooper, and Williams. But these hyper-common names are not the limit; any name that makes you think of an average white person will work just fine. There are certain last names in Daltoner society that are more respected because of prominent holders of that name, but the individualist streak in Daltoners means that everyone believes their name will be famous one day as well. 

Nickname Conventions: Daltoners abhor nicknames in general, and the vast majority of them go by their full name at all times. Daltoners who are outsiders to society or who spend more time with other races (a rarity) might go by a shortened version of their name, but this is not a common practice. Even parents use proper names for their children rather than develop nicknames. 
Sample Names: Peter Overstreet, Claire Matthews, Rhonda Skinner, James Sheffield, Earl Sumner

Cultural Titles: There is truly only one cultural position held dear by Daltoners: the religious official. The Dalton Church of Pelor, a dark reinterpretation of the sun god, now requiring sacrifice, has two positions: Chancellors, who are responsible for choosing a Bishop and tending to the financial needs of the Church, and a Bishop, who acts as the supreme leader of the Church. Most Daltoners know the names of the Chancellors, and all know the name of the Bishop. 

Civic Titles:  The chief leader of the Daltoners (located in New Dalton, the capital of the Daltoners) is the position of Tsar. Non-Daltoners contend that the Tsar is nothing but a puppet to be controlled by the Bishop; Daltoners reject this claim publicly but privately acknowledge that the Bishop is the true leader of the people. Because Daltoner society is so stratified with the extremely privileged at the top, there is little chance for the average person to attain a rank or title. 

Faninites

First Name Conventions: Faninites were inspired by Viking culture: I wanted them to be a peaceful version of them, a family-oriented, nature-revering line of humans who stand in direct opposition to the Daltoners culturally speaking. But part of the story of the two lines of humans is that non-humans (and even humans to an extent) cannot tell the difference between Daltoners and Faninites. To that end, I wanted the two human lines to share naming conventions to a certain extent so that names couldn't be used to distinguish between them. So Faninites also have similar names to Daltoners. Sample Faninite first names might include less formal names like Riley, Della, Norma, Aaron, and Sid. But you could just as easily use Nordic naming conventions for Faninites if you wanted them to be distinct. 

Last Name Conventions: Again, Faninite names sound similar to Daltoner names. We might add that Faninite names are a touch more abstract and modern in sound, names like Zorn, Laird, Clanton, Lecky, or Vance. Faninites sometimes grant a different last name to their children than they have; this is because honoring a great person from the past is more important in Faninite culture than passing down a family name. 

Nickname Conventions: Faninites prize nicknames; family members and friends often call a person by a nickname. Faninites might have as many as three or so nicknames, but most will have only one. This nickname is most often a shortened version of the full name, like "Del" for "Della" or "A" for "Aaron." Using a nickname in this fashion is a sign of familiarity, and only people who know the person well use their nicknames. 
Sample Names: Posie Quarterlane, Quint Randolph, Eva Wyatt, Zed Clanton, Della Eckman

Cultural Titles: Titles are considered socially unwieldy in Faninite culture, so positions of prominence are not given special titles. Rather, the individual is given a specific nickname that elongates the name ("Dellarin" for "Della" or "Aaronic" for "Aaron") to indicate their position. 

Civic Titles:  There is no formal Faninite government in Evanoch; the only Faninite governing body lies on the island of Fanin far to the north. But back in Fanin, the leader of individual communities gains a small prefix title: the addition of "Ur-" to the name, such as "Ur-Della." Using this prefix is reserved for only very formal occasions--most of the time, the leader is simply addressed by their first name like any other person. 

Dwarves

First Name Conventions: Dwarves in my world live in a feudal society with a strict aristocracy. To that end, I wanted them to have a sense of early British society, and their first names are in line with this: regal-sounding English names. So like Faninites and Daltoners, dwarves have typical English first names, though with an ear for names that inspire a sense of a time past. Dwarven first names include Damon, Frances, Gordon, Norris, and Viola. 

Last Name Conventions: Of all the names in my world, last names for dwarves are the most challenging to keep varied. My formula for dwarven last names is [a natural thing or common dwarven item] + [a verb ending with -er]; sample names include Hammerpounder, Rockhewer, Copperminer, Oakcutter, and Hidesplitter. Dwarven names are passed down with a focus on familial legacy; these names can be traced back thousands of years, and ancestral research and reverence is a great outlet in dwarven society. 

Nickname Conventions: Dwarves do not take well to affectionate nicknames; decorum is prized in dwarven culture, so diminishing that decorum with informality is frowned upon. Rather, dwarves are often called by friends by their last names as a way to honor their family. 
Sample Names: Tane Stonehauler, Heidi Throatstomper, Lana Golddigger, Edgar Grassgrower, Heathcliff Mudcarver

Cultural Titles: Dwarves who become notable artists are granted the title ortaken, or "Creator"--this title is respected by some, but art is not the highest attainment in dwarven society. Dwarves who become notable spiritual guides are granted the title wedarir, or "Beacon"--this title is highly prized, and neglecting to refer to it is a major faux pas. Dwarves who become notable business owners are granted the title vintish, or "Steward of Community"--this title is the most highly prized among civilians in dwarven society. 

Civic Titles:  Local leaders in dwarven settlements are called prentik, or "Standard Bearer"--this title identifies the dwarf with the title as the face of the community in all regards, and in some communities, neglecting to use this title is a minor crime. The supreme leader of dwarven society lies in the dwarven capital of Underhar, and is the Dronith, or "Regent"--it is absolutely required to address this figure as Dronith, or risk offending the most respected dwarf in the known world. 

Elves 

First Name Conventions: The elves in my world are gentle, thoughtful creatures with a strong sense of duty and hierarchy in society. When I was first developing my world, I aligned the elves with Japanese culture (power in silence, respect for superiors, technological and artistic wonders). But I didn't want to use Japanese-sounding names for a variety of reasons. Instead, I opted for a sound that seemed to me in line with the elven language, which I wanted to be soft and whispery. Elven words use lots of Ls, as well as lots of vowels. Their names function the same way. Sample elven names include Achiel, Illthar, Sorildyn, Higella, and Corbell, each of which has a soft sound. You'll also notice these names are a few syllables longer than the names above--I like to think that elves have very intricate names in this sense. Also, the names for elves are not easily distinguishable by gender; any of these names can serve for whatever gender your character in question is. 

Last Name Conventions: Last names among elves follow the same general rules as the first names. In fact, a good first name for an elf probably works just as well as a last name. We want lots of Ls and other soft sounds and a variety of vowel sounds. Sample last names for elves include Quintar, Pillas, Ternala, Visyl, and Folwyn. Elves pass their names down by family line, but the parents discuss which of their last names the child will take. Generally, elves choose to bestow the most well-respected name. (Elves do not take one another's names in marriage.) 

Nickname Conventions: Nicknames in elven culture are considered flippant to the careful name selection of the parents, but that does not prevent nicknames from occurring at all. Especially younger elves give each other playfully honorific nicknames. For instance, an elf with a fixation on the local library may be nicknamed illin fieln, or "Great Eater of Pages." 
Sample Names: Davil Prenille, Toniel Gla'asa, Gemila Sappol, Lorasta Xarkas, Pethana Bresyra

Cultural Titles: Titles are a major consideration for elves. Some titles persist across communities, while others are created specifically for one person. The trend with elven titles is that they are lengthy and try to communicate ideas in a poetic fashion. So an elf who tends to the poor and sick in their community is called ryster nillian blox welinst, or "They Who Care for the Wilting Flowers." It is considered both bad manners and bad luck to neglect using a cultural title. 

Civic Titles: Since the dissolution of kingdoms nearly five hundred years ago, a variety of elven government style has risen. Many of the leaders who ruled the elven kingdom then are still alive now, and many of them resent the fact that their powers were so sharply curtailed. Thus, they are especially defensive of their titles, and elves who disrespect those titles have faced serious punishment. Though the terms vary by the government style, most elven community leaders are called by the title gollinta, or "One Who Tends." The supreme leader of the elven society is the leader of the elven capital of Mishara, and they are called Cestalion, or "Emperor." 

Half-Elves

First Name Conventions: Half-elves are the product of a union between humans and elves--in my world, half-elves are specifically the offspring of the Faninites and elves, as essentially no elf would be willing to partner with a Daltoner, and Faninites lived in Evanoch for over 800 years before the arrival of Daltoners. All this is to say that half-elven names, like most of the rest of their culture, is based on both Faninite and elven traditions. In general, I like to represent my half-elves with names that suggest their identity: a first name that is Faninite and a last name that is elven, or vice versa. Or course, some half-elves have purely elven or purely Faninite names; details like that should be decided depending on the character who's being named. Sample half-elven first names include both styles: Algar, Dewey, Fintik, Janet, and Osharia. 

Last Name Conventions: Again, this is a mix of Faninite and elven traditions. When it comes to bestowing a name on a half-elven child, the parents choose a name that combines their two traditions, but then on the half-elf's 5th birthday, they are asked to revisit their name--would they like to change it? By means of this tradition, half-elves are allowed to choose how they represent themselves, either by conforming to local standards or representing oneself as an individual. Sample half-elven last names include Yarborough, Topperill, Tanner, Biquinial, and Holcomb. 

Nickname Conventions: Half-elves borrow more from Faninites in terms of nickname customs; most half-elves have a small collection of nicknames by the time they become adults. The modern elven tradition is included as well, and the standard formula for a half-elven nickname is [shortened version of the first name] + [an honorific title]. A sample in this style for a talented young baker named Priscilla might be "Pris, Grand Architect of Cakes." 
Sample Names: Webster Xan, Edmund Biriel, Ivell Cardham, Haleira Yamhill, Valerie Orson

Cultural Titles: The taste for honorific nicknames affects cultural titles; any half-elf who attains a role of even moderate importance in their community is usually given a nickname by the half-elves around them. Half-elves are more broad and less selective about what roles serve society than elves, so these titles can honor even the smallest roles. A sample title for a dedicated schoolteacher might be nerill tydam scintis, or "Farmer of the Mind of the Future."

Civic Titles:  There is no official half-elven government in existence in Evanoch, but due to their skills at diplomacy, many half-elves are in important positions. So while there is no term for a specific leader in half-elven culture, the general term tiellen, or "Conductor," functions to acknowledge the position, but without placing undue seriousness on the term, as half-elves are far less friendly to hierarchy than their elven parents. 

Halflings

First Name Conventions: In the lore of Dungeons & Dragons, halflings are a reinterpretations of Tolkein's hobbits. In my world, though, halflings are more enterprising than hobbits, and halflings are also a matriarchal society in my world. So I wanted my halflings to feel distinct from hobbits. And so instead of the hobbit's naming conventions, my halflings have a formula that recalls the dwarves: [traditional English first name] + [an everyday item]. So the halflings' first names are similar to human and dwarven names, but with the addition that the first names be slightly less common names. Some sample halfling first names would be Kirk, Josephine, Augustana, Abner, and Felix. 

Last Name Conventions: The last name of a halfling is an everyday item, something common. But it's not just a random item; halflings are raised solely by their mothers and are given a unique last name on their first birthday that reflects an everyday object that inspired wonder in the halfling as an infant. So some sample halfling last names would be Glass, Loom, Cuff, Bluebottle, or Tealeaf. 

Nickname Conventions: Halflings are pretty easygoing about nicknames; if they are given one, they will answer to it, but it is unlikely that they tell others about this nickname. Some halflings who have lost the wonder at the item they were named for will elect to go by a new item; Josephine Glass, no longer enticed by the shine of a perfectly smooth surface, goes by "Lock" when they become transfixed by the lock's intricate mechanisms. Halflings themselves never bestow nicknames on others, mostly because they understand the fickleness of nicknames and wouldn't place others in that position. 
Sample Names: Lisa Keyhole, Tabitha Tealeaf, Clover Loom, Felix Manykeys, Ralph Warmpipe

Cultural Titles: Halfling society is incredibly individualistic; the halfling capital of Curagon is a massive anarchistic collection of people who live as though no one else shared their space. As a result, honoring specific people with special titles simply does not happen. Cultural leaders are referred to by their first names. One small exception is in the field of music; halfling music is the most inventive and wild of all the cultures' music, and halflings who prize a specific musician may refer to them as ringert, or "Little God"--a reference to the otherworldly control over sound that these musicians display. 

Civic Titles:  Because halflings have no government and actively resist hierarchy, there are no civic titles in the halfling culture. However, halflings who try to establish governmental or otherwise controlling entities are known derisively by other halflings as gorin, or "Misguided Fool." 

Gnomes

First Name Conventions: When I was first getting into D&D about 15 years ago, I read that gnomes collect a variety of names over their lifetimes, and that many of these names were silly-sounding. I was inspired. Gnomes quickly became one of my favorite groups to play as both player and DM, and when I established the naming conventions in my world, I simply had to keep this fun detail. So, according to gnomish custom, gnomes are given names regularly and by a variety of people. The gnomish sense of humor dictates that silly-sounding names are among the most prized. So gnomish first (and last, and middle) names are either strange sounds or nonsense words. (These are the most fun to come up with.) Sample first names for gnomes include Melodrome, Tinktink, Quilp, Mimble, and Arcwitz. 

Last Name Conventions: Gnomish last names are basically the same as gnomish first names, but I do try to make it so that the first and last name work together to be sillier than the sum of the parts. Above, I used the example name "Melodrome," which I thought needed a similarly bouncy and nonsensical counterpart; the last name I chose for "Melodrome" is "Boddynock," which I think has a nice ring to it. Similarly, the name "Arcwitz" needs something especially silly to balance out the cool-sounding first name; this character's full name is "Arcwitz Jellyroll." Other gnomish last names include (Tinktink) Clicksteel, (Quilp) Wobblebonk, and (Mimble) Ladlesworth. 

Nickname Conventions: Gnomes collect nicknames like a magpie collects shiny things. Not only are gnomes given a name each by their mother, father, siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents, friends, coworkers, and partners, gnomes will adopt any strange name they think up, hear, or are called by relative strangers. It is not uncommon for a gnome to have upwards of 20 names, all of which they regularly use; gnomes employ certain nicknames depending on the situation and their mood. Close gnomish friends might have as many as five nicknames for each other or more; it all depends on the particular disposition of the gnome in question. Among gnomes, introducing oneself with up to 10 names is expected, and gnomes sometimes get into informal competitions to see who has the most names or the strangest names. Most gnomes provide only two names to fit in with the other races' naming conventions, but some stubborn gnomes will list more than a dozen names just to mess with non-gnomes. 
Sample Names: Haftra Fiskinspark, Gorbulus Boffins, Dimly Sadpockets, Trifffft Penderflerflur, Darcy Fortypigs

Cultural Titles: There are far too many titles in gnomish culture to count. Any individual rank might be referred to be a score of different names, often causing confusion to those who are not well-versed in gnomish naming conventions. The one title that is common enough to mention is a special honorific for inventors who have changed the world in some way through their inventions: wielinack, or "Manipulator of Matter," is a term of extreme status and is not used lightly. 

Civic Titles:  There is a specialized title for every rank within the densely hierarchical structure of gnomish government. The gnomes in my world have a sense of order and structure that is represented in government; they live in a democratic socialist society, and there is a system of power that includes a variety of ranks. The gnomish capital of Vestry is organized into sixteen sectors (in a large square shape), which creates four quadrants and one whole. Thus, the leaders of the sixteen sectors are referred to as xintash, or "Mayor." The leaders of the four quadrants are called perinsh, or "Governor." The leader of the whole of the gnomish capital is called snirj, or "Lord." 

Orcs 

First Name Conventions: Orcs, with their focus on actions over words, are often quiet in conversation, speaking only when action is called for. I interpreted this to mean that the orcish language is rough, guttural, and sharp. To that extent, the names of orcs are short words, mostly intimidating sounds. Linguistically, the orcish language is rich in Rs and Ts, which create a sense of sharply-spoken language. So the orcs in my world end up having first names like Trall, Ruk, Grat, Rilka, and Lazgar. 

Last Name Conventions: Orcish last names follow the same pattern as first names: short, sharp words. But while the first names of orcs are normally only a syllable (maybe two) long, their last names are a bit longer, which I used because I figured family names would be more distinct than first names. Orcish parents traditionally engage in a sparring match just after the child is born; the victor decides which of their last names passes on to the orcish child. Oftentimes, this sparring match is only a formality, as most modern orcs pass down the name of the more well-known of the parents. A few example last names for orcs would be Frenk, Dugorim, Ragash, Lagahk, and Bagdurash. 

Nickname Conventions: It is tradition in orcish society to gain a manner of nickname--an honorific of combat prowess--at the age of 16, when they enter adolescence. This honorific title is called grountin, or "Battle Face." Typically, a young orc spars against either a parent or other caretaker/mentor, and their actions become the source of a new grountin. Even if the young orc does poorly in the fight, they are rewarded with a name that honors what they did well. A formidable orc might have a grountinlike ruktin, or "Fearless"; an orc who performed less well in the fight might have a grountin like turrak, or "Cautious." These nicknames are worn as a badge of pride and are considered to foretell the future of the orc who has been bestowed the name. These nicknames are generally not shared outside of orcish society, as orcs recognize that the other races do not understand the cultural implications of it. 
Sample Names: Globat Borbal, Ghorza Rulfim, Shadbak Uloth, Grat Sharn, Lazgar Mazoga

Cultural Titles: Standard cultural roles like educator, religious representative, and artist are not particularly prized in orcish society, so those roles don't receive titles. But leaders of military forces and the role of village wise woman are honored. Orcish military groups don't follow a regimented structure; rather, there is one leader for each distinct group of troops, each of whom answer to the political leader of the group (who also serves as a kind of General of the army). The unit leaders are called kurak, or "arm," and the overall group leader is called ragtin, or "head," assuming that leader is not also the leader of orcish society known as Ragnar, or "supreme." The wise woman, who assists a clan's ragtin in a fairly equal role, is known as curtran, or "heart." In ascending order of respect paid, an orc might refer to one of these cultural leaders by their first name, their full name, their title, or their title and their last name. 

Civic Titles:  As described above, most of the leadership responsibilities in orcish society are the domain of the military leaders and the wise woman. For orcs who live in the orcish capital of Kruush on the island of Grob, ultimate fealty is paid to the Ragnar, whose clan tends to the other lesser clans on the island. The Ragnar is treated with great respect, but not necessarily deference; it is a cultural staple for orcs that anyone can challenge the Ragnar to a fair fight at any time to take the throne from them. In modern times, these challenges are less common, as orcs have tried to collectively mobilize against the other more imperialistic.