How to Make a D&D Character You Can Actually Play

How to make a D&D character you can actually play - and it starts with one dot on a piece of paper, before you pick a class, before you touch a number, and before you commit to an accent you can’t keep up. The Player’s Handbook builds your character in the wrong order. Class first, then where you’re from, then the numbers, then alignment, and only at the very end the question of who this person actually is - which is how you end up with a gravelly dwarf whose accent has wandered off somewhere near Wales by the third session. This video turns it round. The Backwards Build is three steps in the opposite order to the book: one dot on a chart that psychologists drew up in the 1950s to map how people treat each other (game designers have quietly used it for years), one notch on your voice, and the class chosen last, from a shortlist that already fits. Along the way: Gandalf, Saruman, Samwise and Gollum plotted on the chart, and Shrek, who lives next door to Saruman; one innkeeper with no rooms left, met by four different characters who share not a single line of backstory between them; why alignment and the dot are not the same thing; and the job the dot does for you every session after this one. Then the question I can’t settle on my own: where does Aragorn go? THE SENTENCE YOUR TABLE NEEDS to hear before they ever meet this character, four seconds long -    • The Session Zero Mistake Every Player Makes   WHEN THEY LOOK AT YOU ANYWAY and your mind empties, this is the skill for that moment -    • How to Roleplay in D&D When Everyone Is St...   THE BACKSTORY RULE that gives your dot a past, the one year wonder -    • The D&D Backstory Rule Nobody Is Using   If you don’t know me - I’m Master Mishap; a Real-Life Game Psychologist and Fictional Seasoned Adventurer. I’m here to help YOU become the MOST creative person at the table, and to harness the skill of playing badly. Mishap Managed. #DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #CharacterCreation