Saturday 29 June 2013

A new adventure, a new character

Welcome back!

It has been a while since I have done any serious roleplaying lately and lately we (Mrs. K, Mr. K and Mrs. C) have been discussing a new adventure with new characters. Our main characters are now level 18 and we have been playing them for 7 years, so we thought a new adventure, from level 1, in the same world and time as our other characters would be real fun. So the last 3 days we have been toiling and planning and making characters together. Right now Mr. K and Mrs. C are on Skype discussing some information about a city that my character knows nothing about. So I have been banned to my office with a headset with music. I am therefore using these few moments to tell you about the character creation process involved in making a really, really, detailed and thought through character for a roleplay-heavy D&D 3.5 campaign.


The first thing we decided was what type of characters we wanted to be. We were both a bit bored with our magic-using, do-gooder alter egos and wanted a change, so we both decided we wanted a non-magic-user and that we both wanted to be out and about in the world for "our own" gain. Mrs. C chose after some debate to be a rogue, while I teetered for a while between a fighter and a barbarian. I wanted something in between, but settled on barbarian since I have already played a fighter in a different campaign.

We had some ideas about how we wanted our characters to be. My first ideas were these:

  • A strong woman from a nomadic tribe that breeds horses.
  • Has a "survival of the strongest" mentality.
  • Is out there for her own goals and does not particularly care if she steps on someone to get there.
  • Has multiple personalities or multiple sides to her personality (after Mr. K heard my ideas we decided that she could have 2 personalities or sides to her personality. I solved it by making her distinct other "side" come out when she is high on adrenaline or other substances such as alcohol or drugs).
  • Is not the typical barbaric barbarian that is loud, foul and messy. I wanted her to be controlled and skilful.
The next thing I did was to decide the race I wanted. It just happened to end up with a human with both me and Mrs. C, so then I just had to start filling in the character sheet. 
After filling in the class and race info into the character sheet, I sat down and thought about how I wanted my girl to fight. What weapons would fit with the way I envisioned her, and so on...
After picking equipment, armour and weapons that I was happy with and I calculated how much funds were left (since Mr. K let's us roll for how much money we have to spend and then we spend it buying our gear), I set out to place skill points and feats and to fill in all the needed info. All the while I scribbled down notes on all the ideas I had for her personality, history, origins, religion, looks et c. Whatever the idea, I wrote it down. That way, when I was sitting down to write her description and background, I had a lot of ideas and info sketched out already. And I must say that she is by far my most thought through character yet. Then I started filling in all the needed physical descriptions like age, height, weight, eye colour and hair colour (also any defining marks) and other stuff like religion, alignment et c.

The last thing I did was sit down and look through my notes and started writing everything into a physical description detailing everything from her nose to her clothing and hairstyle, a personality description detailing quirks and behaviour, and a background information sheet detailing the tribe where she was born, the area they live in, the traditions and customs of the tribe. Also detailing her close family, the members, the role they have in the tribe, the size of their wealth et c. On her personality sheet I also write down her reasons for leaving her tribe to go adventuring.

Then after all that I sat down with a dictionary of the Norse language and decided on her name.

If you want to take a look at the finished information I will post in the Character section.

Mrs. K

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