The character creation party

I made two decisions when I first conceived of this campaign. I wanted to make sure the players were more invested in the campaign than the last one (which was all in fun) and I wanted to make sure I didn't screw over the characters.

One of the big weaknesses in RPGs in general and my campaigns in particular is that family ties and/or friendships only seem to exist to be fodder for the DM. It's just so easy and convenient to use them for various plot twists that I might as well be writing for television.

Well, I want to be better than that. I want the players to feel like they can actually build some long-term plans and relationships in my games, and I want to learn to be a better writer and DM. So I'm swearing off one of my tropes for this campaign. Maybe next season I can avoid end-of-the-world scenarios, too.

To tackle this, I ran a character creation party, incorporating ideas from some of the forum postings and blogs I've read recently. It went really well, and I thought I'd provide some details here before I forget them all.

Since I have a couple of artists in the party, we set them to creating a big chart of the characters and their relationships. We had several rounds of character creation using index cards; these went to the artists at the end of the round for incorporation into their chart.

The first round was getting the names and backgrounds of the PCs. The background traits from the player's guide were also determined at this point.

For the second and third rounds, each player created an NPC their character already knew in the city and the relationship between the NPC and the character. People who got stuck were allowed to form a relationship to an existing NPC. For six players we ended up with 10 NPCs and twelve relationships.

For the final round, I asked each player to come up with an exit strategy for their character - a way in which the character could be removed from the campaign. In hindsight, I probably should have had them come up with a strategy for someone else's character.

I was really happy with the outcome. Besides feeling that the players are a bit more invested in the campaign, I also got some really good, creative NPCs that I can use to further strengthen the party and the campaign. Some of them can easily substitute for the pre-written NPCs in providing hooks for the various adventures, which I think will be a real benefit in the long term.

In addition, we got a beautiful chart that we can hang on the wall during game sessions, and which I have a sneaky suspicion will be embellished as the campaign proceeds.