Roleplaying is more than a stat block. It’s that stat block, plus the personality of a character you assume for however that game lasts. Early in D&D and the hobby’s history that personality would be as simple as the class, race and maybe alignment. That resulted in a pattern where many characters had the same personality.
As alignment faded, and especially during the surge in actual plays, personalities became vibrant. Original 5e even tried to reward personality using the traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws system plus alignment. It was too much to handle for a few hours a week of fun.
How can we simplify the personality?
By using archetypes from fiction — these pull at our souls because they are common. BUT. A character with a singular archetype is also boring, just like the idea that every single lawful good Paladin has the same personality is boring.
The most recent episode of Scriptnotes went over ways to incorporate archetypes in screenwriting.
It’s the intersection of two or three archetypes that makes a character interesting. They need positive and flawed attributes, and tension.
Their archetypes are a version of short-form personality. Ejecting trope-y D&D concepts by force and giving your character simple ways to remember who they are in their soul is easy — especially if you use their card system — which I’m backing.
Two positive attributes, one flaw; both in a single word — you can remember that. You probably are already playing that way!
Xabal, my goblin artificer, is quick-witted, kind, and overthinking.
That’s more interesting than chaotic good.
I started to listen to Scriptnotes because it helped me be a better DM and rare short fiction writer, not because I think I’ll be in a writer’s room someday. And now they’re both working on D&D TV projects. Craig Mazin is working with HBO on the Baldur’s Gate series while John August is working on the Ravenloft project. Almost every episode mentions D&D.
Other things to help inspire your game, help you play, or help you design
Any Human Ever creates short bios based on the history of our world. It can be a start to seeding interesting NPCs.
Dyson Logos Small Shop Series — now with 14 small shops in a market road of a city, these help me more than dungeons.
Scipio’s Resources for RPG creators — bookmark this if you ever think you are going to publish for pay. The assembly of resources is excellent.
British Columbia has a floating island that keeps disappearing. Welcome to spooky season. Floating islands are fascinating enough, but what if it pops in and out of the fey realms regularly? What if it isn’t haunted, but everyone that lives on it thinks that the village on the edge of the lake are the haunters? This could be a fun one-shot.
You know I have strong thoughts on using cultures rather than languages. Two other bloggers riffed on those concepts over the summer.
- Melestrua ran with that idea and refined it while keeping History intact.
- Stephen Collins gets gritty, mechanical and even adds a Feat.
All of us agree that you should use Culture rather than Language at your D&D table. Pick the system that works best at yours — I may run Melestrua’s version in my next campaign.
Dice are six thousand years older than previously thought, and American. Remember, your D&D tech doesn’t have to mirror Western and Central Europe. It can, but even then, it doesn’t have to mirror a single era.
I love Adempz idea of using Success Thresholds rather than single-roll DCs. Having ways to expand the mechanical heft of a social or exploration encounter is good! This is a variant on stealing Blades in the Dark clocks, basically.
M.T. Black fleshed out traveling in a way I need to use at the table. D&D travelling used to be a significant element of the game, but now is frequently ignored. Swift, simple mechanics that amplify story and setting like Black does here are perfect.
Traipse offers a new way to think about commonality via 1, 10, 100000. Within the World of the Everflow dragons in the Age of Myths were closer to 10, but in the modern era of Uprising and Rebellion they are 100,000 — extremely common, almost like humans. Those are two different levels of danger.
What links should I include in the next edition of Lore Collage?
