A lot goes into making Dungeons & Dragons character. You start off choosing the species, Ability Scores, and Class. But crafting a character that breathes life into the dice and maps is an art form. It's not just about choosing a species, an ability score, or a class; it's about weaving a tapestry of memories, beliefs, and bonds that make your character uniquely yours. Whether you're an orphaned rogue with a penchant for mischief or a noble paladin on a quest for redemption, the depth of your character shapes the journey ahead.

But how does one go about crafting a background in D&D 5E? In this RAW Review, I will go over the tools and tables provided in D&D for character creation, starting with the Basic Rules and following up with the additions provided in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. Along the way, I'll share my personal insights and the innovative approach we're introducing in the upcoming 'What's My Motivation' book.

Let's dive into the elements that form the essence of a D&D character.

Who Am I: Beyond Species and Class

While we may use species and class to define our characters, they are much more than just that. Each character created has their own values, motivations, quirks, and flaws that make them into three-dimensional beings. In D&D 5E, these elements come from the character’s Background.

*“Step 1: Dark and Edgy. Step 2: Loves Kittens”*

My Backstory: Crafting Your Origin

Backgrounds represent where a character comes from before they adventure. A fighter might have honed their combat skills on the battlefield as a soldier, or perhaps they learned them on the streets as a criminal. This choice affects not just their skill set, but also their worldview. A soldier-turned-adventurer might view orders and hierarchy with more reverence than someone who has never had to live under military discipline. Backgrounds provide this in 5E through a few unique characteristics.

Traits: Defining Your Character's Personality

Traits, referred to as Personality Traits in the D&D rules, are specific characteristics that identify your character and set them apart from other adventurers. These are short but specific to the character in question. When choosing a trait, you want to ask yourself “What makes my character stand out?”

Consider a cleric whose unwavering optimism keeps the party’s spirits high, even in the darkest dungeon. These traits do more than describe, they give you guidance on how your character interacts with the world and the rest of their party.

The Player’s Handbook indicates players should give their character two personality traits.

Ideals: The Beliefs That Drive Your Character

Ideals answer the question “What does my character believe in most strongly?”. Representing a moral or ethical principle that compels them to act as they do, Ideals are supposed to represent a character’s core belief. Ideals in 5E are tied to Alignment, with most of the options provided tied to morality (good, evil, or neutral) and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral).

A noble knight may value Responsibility, seeing it their duty to obey those stationed above them as it is the duty of those below them to listen, while a rogue may value freedom, instead wanting to avoid the chains that come with rulers.

The Player’s Handbook instructs players to choose one ideal (though I normally like to choose at least two).

Bonds: Connections to the World

If Ideals represent a character’s ethical and moral ties to the world around them, Bonds represent the more tangible connections. These Bonds, as the rules suggest, can serve as the motivation that drives a character to adventure, or something that can manipulate their actions.

Bonds tether your character to the world. A wizard might feel tied to an ancient tome that holds secrets of the past, pushing them to uncover its secrets at any cost.

The Player’s Handbook indicates players should give their character one Bond.

Flaws: The Complexity of Imperfection

Flaws exist opposite of Traits, providing negative elements that set the character apart. Meant to represent a compulsion, vice, fear, or plain weakness, Flaws are supposed to be something that could be exploited to manipulate a character to make poor choices. The Player’s handbook shows that each character gets one flaw.

Flaws add complexity to a character. A bard known for their eloquence in negotiations might suffer from a fear of rejection, which adds layers to their character interaction. Their most powerful feature might be born out of a fear that eats at them.

The Player’s Handbook indicates players should give their character one Flaw

Personal Insights and Tweaks

I have played Dungeons & Dragons for years and have played 5th edition in particular for quite a while. Though I primarily play as a Dungeon Master, I have about 30 characters saved that I have used for one reason or another. In making all those characters, I have used the official system for most of it, although I have made some tweaks over the years based on how I like to make characters. So I have my likes and dislikes of the system.

I think the system provided in the 5E rules is a simple and robust way to make characters. The key elements of a character’s personality are tied to the Background they choose, so the choices available to players are a degree more tied to them because they depend on another element of the character’s backstory. Take, for example, the Acolyte background from the Basic Rules. In the ‘Suggested Characteristics’ section, it states:

“Acolytes are shaped by their experience in temples or other religious communities. Their study of the history and tenets of their faith and their relationships to temples, shrines, or hierarchies affect their mannerisms and ideals. Their flaws might be some hidden hypocrisy or heretical idea, or an ideal or bond taken to an extreme.”

The Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws presented for the Acolyte are unique to that background, and can tie in a bit more closely. This helps provide the specificity needed to make a unique character, but built robustly enough that a player has a lot of predefined options. In many situations, this is a satisfactory system to use. But it has its limitations.

Expanding Character Dimensions

First, I found choosing only one option would create a one-dimensional character. While I don’t want to create a novel out of my character, only taking one option on most of the provided sections created a somewhat lacking character. I advocate for selecting multiple Ideals and Bonds, enriching the character's narrative potential. When using the official rules, I make the following changes:

Ideals: I now take at least two ideals, usually matching up with the chosen Alignment. So if I create a Lawful Evil character, for example, I take both the Lawful and Evil Ideal options.
Bonds: Instead of taking one Bond, I take at least two. I will normally assign one Bond as the Major Bond and one as the Minor Bond, depending on importance to the character.
Flaws: Similar to Bonds, I pick two Flaws (but no more than two), and assign one as the Major Flaw and one as the Minor Flaw.

I found this to present my character with much more material to work with when fleshing out their story and personality. This improved a lot of my characters, giving me multiple items to build on.

Interconnecting Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws

*Navigating the intricate web of character backstory in D&D can feel like unraveling a grand mystery.*

The other challenge that I found when creating characters had to do with the structure behind the Personal Characteristics, specifically how everything was built from one location. How D&D 5E builds out the suggested characteristics is that each table of Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws are based off of the Background. This gives a level of specificity for each table. The Criminal Background will have a distinct set of characteristics than the Sage, for example. But ultimately each characteristic feels like it exists independent of one another, which I found slightly jarring when building out character. Using this system I would find that the Flaws I chose would feel in line, but independent of the Traits or Ideals.

I wanted to have these to all be a bit more dependent on one another. Perhaps a character’s Ideals could influence their Bonds. Or a particular Trait could create specific Flaws. This was a bit more difficult to do. When using this system, I would try to collect all my chosen characteristics and develop connections between them all to make a more cohesive feeling character.

For example, I created a Soldier character with the Ideal of “Our lot is to lay down our lives in defense of others.” and a Flaw of “I made a terrible mistake in battle that cost many lives, and I would do anything to keep that mistake secret.” Looking at both, I made the connection that my character’s self-sacrificing attitude would sometimes lead to excessive martyrdom, and that one time it caused some of her companions to die. She survived, but now carries that shame close to her. Creating a soldier with a self-sacrificing ideal and a haunting flaw demonstrates the depth achieved through interconnected characteristics.

While I could make due through my own methods, I eventually turned to an entirely unique method for creating my characters. This method had what I wanted and helped provide the complexity and cohesion I was looking for. And you can have a copy of this book too, soon.

Beyond the Basic Rules: What's My Motivation

My current favorite alternative at the moment is the upcoming book that I and the rest of Runic Press are working on called What’s My Motivation. WMM is a system and setting agnostic tool that walks you through the process of crafting complex characters.

Key Elements of Character Depth in WMM

Each section in the book is a mixture of prose, prompts, and rollable tables that walks you through the importance of each characteristic, suggested entries for each that can apply to your character, and questions to help you take each option and make them your own. The elements used in What’s My Motivation include:

Backgrounds: Simplified character origins, encompassing the life of your character before their adventure begins.
Inciting Incidents: The event or events that pushed your character to adventure.
Personality Traits: A series of options that help to determine the behavioral patterns a character has regularly.
Values: Priorities that your character finds important, and affect what actions they do and don’t take.
Flaws: The negative traits that come about as a by-product of a character’s priorities.
Quirks: Idiosyncrasies that make a character stand out in a crowd.
Motivations: The driving force behind a character’s actions.

And many more. WMM takes a more in-depth approach to creating a character, aiming to drill-down general concepts and ideas into characteristics that fit your character.

Since this book focuses on building characters solely, it means that there is more information for creating them. Where the 5th Edition rules used four options, this provides way more for creating them. Each section also contains prompts that help to make tailoring each option to your character a breeze.

Crafting Stories, Not Just Characters

Character creation is important in D&D as well as other tabletop roleplaying games. It creates a character with a unique personality and outlook on life, and helps sculpt how they will interact with the world around them. 5th edition has a solid set of rules that can help create a character, but I personally have my own adjustments and preferences. Ultimately moving forwards I intend to make all my characters with What’s My Motivation so I can create complex and realistic character to bring to the table.

What stories will you create? Share your character creation experiences or how you plan to use 'What's My Motivation' in your next campaign. Let's inspire each other with tales of heroism, intrigue, and adventure.

Crafting Characters in Dungeons & Dragons: An Art Beyond the Dice