Creating Premade Characters for Players

Table Top Games Systems & Games
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Greetings everyone, I’ve had a nagging thought for a while now that I’ve got to get off my mind, so I thought I would ask the community for an option. After playing BG3, I couldn’t help but really appreciate how well the companions worked as premade player characters as well. I know that most dnd/other systems give out example characters for new players to reference or use, so I was wondering if there would be interest in creating some of said “example characters” on the site. Not sure how well it would go down, considering the various and varied expansion systems people use on the site and how that could limit characters in either specificity or accessibility. So I thought to gauge interest in this idea before I actually put any effort in.

  • Interested in using example characters
  • Interested in making example characters
  • Both
  • Neither

0 voters

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It’s certainly a good idea on a system-to-system basis. It sounds like that’s not really your idea, though, and I’m not sure how that would work to create “system agnostic” characters. Without a game system, a character is just a description and personality, and there’s already enough AI chatbots on here as it is, to be frank.

But it’d never hurt for a designer to basically just “hand off” some of their play-test characters to the audience for quick-play. Theoretically, you’ve already used a character while designing the game to test build viability and balance; why not “add value” without extra labor, so to speak, by showing them to the player? This way, you’ve done three things without much added work besides formatting:

  • Give the player something to grab and play with immediately
  • Show them a template/example with which they can better understand how to build a character
  • Give the player a possible NPC to interact with.
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Hey, thanks for the feed back. I don’t really intend to make “system agnostic” characters, though. I’m of two minds at the moment; either create a separate set of characters for each of the most prevalent systems or create a set of characters with multiple sheets for several systems. I can’t decide which would be easier from a design perspective, but it would definitely be one of those two options since, as you said, truly agnostic characters don’t really serve a mechanical purpose.

4

First off, what system are you talking about for these characters?
This a DnD homebrew thing, or is this for one of the attempts at making a WG/expansion oriented TTRPG system?

5

I was mainly thinking about DnD/Pathfinder as the main things, and potentially using some of the homebrew systems on the site here, like expand DnD or applied levels of expansion. I think creating an entire homebrew system is a bit too ambitious for just me right now.

6

Understandable, Now, would the characters be level 1, or would you have them at a certain starting level to help get players into the system.

Also, I’m assuming that aside from just the actual build, you’d want something like a bio, backstory, driving ambitions, and possibly an image to go off of to help the undecided players with a starting point?

I might have to look at expand DnD for classes and the like, but I might be able to help crank a few out.
How about an athletic tomboy warlock who makes a pact with a demon, not knowing it’s one of Beelzebub’s underlings, or maybe it’s one of Asmodeus’s, and it just awakens a desire that she unknowingly kept buried, or fought against with her interests in being athletic.

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  1. I think having the start at level one would be the best, since they would be primarily intended for new players and having higher level starters would be too much for some newer players. Start them out at level one, followed by recommendations for the build up to level four or five.

  2. Ya, there would indeed be “flavor” involved for these, that way new players can play a role before creating an entire character from scratch. Bio, description, backstory, ect (maybe not image I’m not a talented drawer, would have to commission if anything). These would be optional, so that more creative players can have custom characters while relying on the prebuild for the actual mechanics.

  3. I haven’t completely grasped all of the rules for the supplements yet either, so we’re about on equal in that department. I’ve personally been thinking about a warlock/paladin who’s physically to weak to handle their blessings, which causes them to blow up the more they use them. I’m really open to collaboration here, maybe I should make a shared google doc or something so that people can contribute.

8

Wouldn’t be a bad idea, also, if this is going off of DnD, I’m guessing this is 5e

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9

Yeah, DND stuff will be 5e. I know others like older editions better for mechanical reasons, but since accessibility is the aim, 5e would be the most beginner friendly.

10

I haven’t done any character building, but I did a little bit of text on the tacked-on pact for that warlock idea I had.

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Warlock pact
Once ever week, on Thursday around the witching hour, the pact-receiver will eat the entirety of the meal that the pact-provider sets out for her.
If the receiving party fails to finish the meal, her punishment is that next month they will eat the offered meal again in it’s entirety, plus an amount of food equal to the amount that the receiving party failed to finish the previous ritual meal.
Succeeding in finishing the meal, the pact-receiver gains good-boy/girl points, exchangeable for some paltry goods, magical or mundane, and with enough of them, you can summon the pact-provider in a combat, but that number is very high.
Failing the ritual enough times(up to the pact-provider’s whims, could be three failures, or thirty), the pact-provider may make minor changes to the pact receiver, be it a simple change in hair color, some new clothes they must wear during the ritual feasts, or maybe they will make their little pet pact-receiver wear a collar, denoting who they belong to.

DM mechanics

Use will saves(something that the player is hesitant to eat, or out right hates) to make them push through the pain and eat the meal. The offered meal is up to the DM, but remember that fiends enjoy watching the ever dwindling hope of success being just out of reach of the mortals.
Use constitution checks, if the meal seems to be more than what the pact-receiver can stomach, with an appropriate difficulty level for how the scene is proceeding, after failing three times in a ritual, they are stuffed to the gills, or will burst from one more bite.
While it’d be fun to go full tilt at the start, lull the player into a false sense of security that they can easily handle the challenges. Then turn that smugness around on them, dangle the win just out of their reach once they start to grow complacent.
As for the point store, that is up to you, personally I think secretly giving a bit of a cursed magical item that does what they want, but gives them odd quirks or compulsions(such as more frequent burping, fuck up their stealth checks with comedic timing; or have them compelled to drink anything in a bottle before them, this is a fun way to get at the well prepared travelers and their stash of potions, antidotes, and alchemist’s fire)
Be lenient with how many failures the player must make before their fiend master starts to toy with them, while it is ultimately your prerogative, you should get consent from your player for anything that might embarrass them, don’t be a dick-dm a force them into your personal magical realm.