I have a DM who's a rockstar in his own mind, talented musician who is always in bands. I based my character (half elf warlock. Entertainment background) on him without telling him. He loves the character and making life tough for them. Hes still not sure why.
My youngest daughters most successful character was a Gnome Barbarian/Clan Crafter, and in a steampunk setting no less. “She gets along better with machines than people, and has a temper. She breaks as much as she builds.” Done. I knew WHO she was there and then.
This reminded me of the line in one Terry Pratchett's books: "Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four"
I'd recommend pitching your character to the other players as well. In our last campaign we had a bit of a pre-campaign mini-game where each player could adjust and contribute to the other player's characters and backgrounds, this ensured that everyone had a bit of investment into each others characters. Fair warning: I did notice that my original concept for PC was derailed a bit from my initial expectations, but having the other players actually care about my character because they had a bit of creative influence on them was worth it, and also entertaining
@@lemon360 Everyone started with 3 tokens, as you were describing a feature or background element of your character, anyone, including the dm, could spend a token to add or change something. This would give them an extra token to spend on someone else's character. At any time someone could spend another token to add to whatever someone just altered. Go around the table a few times, the more you do, the weirder things get :)
In my table we don't have anything like that, but since we do get along really well we do discuss what we would like to play and try to come up with stuff for the player characters to all be connected already in some way, like for example one player is playing a Prince (Paladin), I'm playing his councelor & protector (Warlock), the Bard is my associate, the Cleric is his childhood friend, the Fighter is the cleric's best friend but also son of a very important general and him and the Prince go way back and so on. Sometimes not all players want to participate but most of the time we are all willing to discuss it and sometimes not all concepts mesh together but we divide into groups, in one campaign I was playing a Knight's Squire which didn't fit with how mercenary most of the group was, but the Sorcerer was my best friend and the Fighter was a noble from my city and I knew him quite well, plus my character was a country bumpkin and the Fighter served to teach him how to handle the court after the knight I was serving died tragically, the other characters were already their own mercenary party and it was more like 2 groups that came together and slowly formed a bond. But yes, I like the way you do things, might be a really good way to do it if the party members are shy about sharing ideas or just don't talk much about the game to each other outside of when their gaming.
You also need a DM that is willing to suspend their own vision of their world long enough to entertain someone else's interpretation. A conversation helps, particularly if there's give and take. With the gnomes, instead of being drunk of unhinged, they could have just been an eccentric among gnomes, or from a more isolated culture. Or even raised outside of Gnomehome and acting like they thought a gnome was supposed to act. If you're making a world, there should be room for a world's worth of variety in the characters that inhabit it.
Though one ought to keep in mind that the DM reserves the right to say NO. If the DM has a very particular game they want to run, there may be things that don't work. Ex: a world without Gnomes, and one player wants to play a Gnome xD granted, if the DM is flexible, they can work something out.
"Suspend their own vision of the world" is a bad way to think of it. Better is to change the way the initial visions of the world and the character are until they can overlap. Ignoring the problem of the discrepancy just kicks it down the road until you walk into it again. (Not saying that's what you meant though)
@@dynamicworlds1 Suspension in the sense I was referring to would simply mean, holding off on pushing your idea, long enough to hear out your player's, to see if the too even can blend. Sometimes people become so fixated on their vision, they can't even imagine how someone else's ideas might improve it. Ignoring things is usually a mistake, unless by ignoring it you realize it was never a problem to begin with. As an example, if the players proposed character sounds wrong for your setting when you start, but you ignore it, and find that really the things you thought were problematic about it don't really come up, or aren't disruptive, it wasn't really a problem. Furthermore, if you'd never let them try it, you wouldn't know for sure, and would be working from incorrect assumptions. I had a player want to be a construct, I thought there would be some issues, but let them make it to see how things went. It was an interesting character, but they retired it because they said it felt too disconnected from the world, and it didn't have any real drives that the player could hook into. We both learned from the experience, and next time a player proposed a construct character, I warned them of some of the pitfalls, and the ways it could interfere with the game.
@@Arthas30000 Sure, but even more important as a DM than your ability to say NO, is knowing why you are saying it. If your world has no Gnomes, and you have no reason for that, then perhaps let the player do what they want. This can even be a way to build player investment in your world. Let them come up with stuff about gnomes, work together and make something interesting. (plus you offset world building labor costs) If your reason is that you just don't care about Gnomes, than maybe be open to the fact that other people like them, and it doesn't do you harm to have them in the game. If you really cannot budge (maybe you just hate gnomes, or your world has no little folk for some reason, or gnomes are all evil mutants) find out what it is about gnomes your player likes so much, and see if you can give them that. I'm more of a "yes, and" or "No, but" DM, than straight yes or no. But that's just what works at my table. (As an example someone wanted to play an Avariel. I find them annoying, because they're just wings with elves attached. The secondary reasoning is the proposed race stats for them suck, and I didn't want my player to be handicapped. I said no... but I proposed they make their own stats and features which the table would have to approve and we could make it work. They ended up playing an Aarakockra instead, though the offer still stands.)
So 2 minutes into this video you have already healed a sore spot in my marriage. I hope you read this and I want you to know- I started watching your videos a year ago when I wanted to learn how to be a DM (without having any experience playing) And about a month ago my wife started learning to DM. Watching your series "running the game" is like a rite of passage for our circle when it comes to DMing. Anyway, my wife wasn't happy with how I was treating her characters in 2 of my campaigns and linked me to this video. My reply was "Matt Colville? he my jesus" and we resolved the issues. Matt, you sharing your gift has enriched my life in so many ways. *I spent some time searching for you email last week because I did an overhaul of downtime crafting mechanics that I thought you might be interested in. I wanted to account for player rolls in item crafting cost. I don't mind if you use my formulas, please feel free to reach out. Anyway keep being awesome, we all love you.
I think I'm going to wait on the 1:1 video until *after* the next time I run a 1:1 game, which I estimate will be shortly after the heroes arrive in Capital. I just want to have an actual 1:1 'adventure' that I've prepped, and you've watched, before I do a video on it.
Hey Matt. Great video (one in definitely going to share) Now that you're venturing into DnD supplements, have you considered possibly collating all the information from the "running the game" series into a readable guide? It might be totally useless, I'll admit, but it might also be a great way to ensure this timeless advice is not bound to the platform it is hosted on. Many thanks for your continual help with DMing! Good luck with the stream!
some players look at Gnomes as being gothic others look at them as garden Gnomes it's like the player who wants to play human bard, but he is Spanish as fuck with a big sombrero and maracas GM may argue that the game has no such culture for humans same with Gnomes
Me: "Wow Matt is so cool and smart and awesome, that gnome thing would never happen to him. He's the best." Matt: "I could have done this at my table, I'm not above this." Me: "Wow Matt is so humble and honest and awesome, he can even acknowledge his faults. He's the best." Matt: "We gonna start playing streaming next week." Me: "UGH FINALLY. I payed money to watch strangers pretend to fight orcs, like, at least a week ago."
One of the awesome things about Apocalypse World is the introduction of explicit Game Master Principles, one of which is "Be a fan of the players’ characters. "
Love the idea of multiple character concepts being available to play. Also a great way to help the person who "always plays the ninja" or "loves the bonus human feat so they never play nonhumans" to be able to consider things outside of their comfort zone. And having those backups are handy in the case of character death - or if you're a joyfully tyrannistic DM, (or enjoy playing one at the table) you can snatch them away, say "these are MINE now" and turn them into interesting sub-villains.
@@theKurtAnderson yeah, I just played my first west marches game as a pacifist sickly old priest. It was either that or basically a demigod (I filed for stats and my lowest one was a 15(except intelligence , that was an 8)
Great Video! one additional piece of advice i would give: you need to leave "blanks" in your backstory so the GM and Player can talk about it so they both think it's cool. I think of "blanks" as bullet points that don't answer questions but create more questions. Consider the following: The Doc is an engineer whose research was stolen by a colleague, who now earns all the fame for the Docs hard work. After that The Doc left his academic career behind and fixed Ships for a Mercenary company. Now he is an Adventurer doing what he can to earn enough money to get by. The "blanks" in this are great to work out together! What was the Research? Who was the Colleague? How did he steal the Research? Are there People that sided with the Doc? There is a mercenary company that has ships, what conflicts where they involved in? Why did The Doc leave the Mercenaries? This is all Stuff you can figure out, it doesn't have to be right in the beginning at character creation, but GM and Player should work together to create something they both like and thus are both invested in.
I think not getting too invested in your character before play starts is good advice in general. My group are about to start playing through Curse of Strahd (no spoilers!) and the DM asked us a couple of weeks ago to think about character backgrounds. Naturally I now have a very developed and angsty backstory for my runaway wizard apprentice and am very invested in him...and he could easily die in the first session, since this is apparently a very harsh and unforgiving module and the DM intends to play into that. So of course I also have a very in depth and over-developed backstory for a cleric, just in case, because I never learn xD
I was a part of a 24 hour charity livestream for DnD last year, and we played through CoS. Three of our 6 total players through the night made it through on one character, while one of them died twice, nearly three times. It all depends, but the potential for character death is certainly there.
With CoS I'd do a bare minimum of backstory. Just enough to help you roleplay. Death counts can be high depending on your DM and since you're in a different world, it's unlikely you'll run into any people/elements from your backstory, again depending on the DM.
Interesting content as always from Matt. About the second thing I explain to new players D&D is a group activity on two levels: at the table and in the game. At the table, it's a group of friends who are trying to get as much fun as they can out of the hobby. In the game, it's a _group_ of adventurers who are trying to accomplish goals. Given this, players are required to create PCs who want to adventure with the party and who the other PCs would want to adventure with. "Good player character" is a _subset_ of "good character": not every good character will make a good PC. Beyond that, there are the restrictions imposed by the setting. The DM is not just within their rights to say, "In my world, that race of creatures is like this." it's actually their _job_ to make these calls. Now, of course it's usually the case that adventurers are - by their nature - atypical, so players should be able to break from the mold, but it's still the player's responsibility to make a case as to why their Elf is so different from other Elves. So I like this idea of "pitching" a character. Players should be able to explain to their DM what they want to do with their character and how they see the character fitting into both the world and the party, which in turn gives the DM the opportunity to explain a way for the player to have the kind of fun they want within the DMs game. DMs should also be able to articulate what they are trying to achieve in the campaign and why they have misgivings about a particular idea for a PC, which in turn gives the player the opportunity to explain why _their_ character isn't going to be a problem. You know, have a discussion about it.
I always make a proposal for a character and then work with the DM to make them fit into the world. That makes the DM always happy because now my character is part of their world.
Your videos are so detailed and bring such life to the game we all love to play. I started being a DM for my private session with my friends. I always use your videos as a way of helping me and others understand on how to play better and make the experience more enjoyable. Keep the content going!
Loving Strongholds and Followers man. Lots of beautiful art in there, and appears to be a ton of useful material for mid to high level play. Just started playing DnD with a group of friends last year, your videos have really helped me get a grip on this crazy, complex game. Thanks a million!
This is so important! My groups have always done this. It hadn't really occurred to me that a group intending to play D&D would not do this. Great video!
I've experienced problems on my table and was racking my brain what it was - and here's this video with the story about GM rendering a character "drunk or mad - because it's the only explanation why they would act like that". It's truly rearranged my puzzle pieces into a whole picture and now I see that the struggle was in diverging expectations. I've tried to engage with my idea of the character - and the player struggled to express their idea. "Talk with the players" is solid advice - but when you cannot point the problem there's a lot of "wandering blindly in the fog". It took us three talks on the span of several months to find our sweet spot. I've started each with "what do you want to see?" - but it took me a lot of game-time to express what I'm interested in, for them to pick up on that and for us then, intuitively grasping all that, have a productive discussion. It seems so surreal now: the proper questions were asked, honest answers were given - but we had no idea what to do with them. Great video, thank you!
This is *very* good advice. In the campaign I recently joined, I was planning to play an evil Tortle Warlord, seeking powerful allies to bolster the ranks of his Shellback Legion, creating a new dynasty of Tortles to conquer surrounding lands for centuries to come. I wrote up a second character to be safe; a gentlemanly Tortle anthropologist, willing to delve through dungeons of any kind to retrieve artifacts for the Royal Museum of History. When I pitched these ideas to the DM, he told me that my Warlord was exactly the sort of people the party and its allies were actively fighting, and they wouldn't change their views on Imperialism for a particularly cruel and ambitious PC. I am now happily playing Braunham Langley, the appraiser and treasurer of our merry pirate crew!
Yes! Campaign diaries! I'm so happy you'll be doing those. I don't think I could find the time to spend 4 hours every week watching other people play, but I certainly can find half an hour to listen to a dramatic recap. And if I can keep up with the story I may be able to watch a full session every now and then too.
Our games have always required you to get permission for a character before playing. Typically, this happens during the "Session 0" wherein the players get together and make their characters with the GM present. This not only allows the GM to hear your ideas and give feedback, but it allows the other players to give input and create their characters to compliment one another in some way. I usually like to have each PC know one of the others in some way, for the ease of getting into the adventures (it also allows the players to create relationships predating the game, which can add twists and rp opportunities) and this is a good time to establish those histories. If you have the opportunity, I fully encourage the Session 0 approach.
Thanks for this video! This is something I need to do more as a player and DM. Every time I have has resulted in characters that I and everyone else at the table enjoyed, and every time I haven't has resulted in cycling through characters until I have a good fit (or being pissed off at my own character until the campaign crashes and burns).
I am with you on this. I have found that most of my favorite experiences with character design, are when the player and DM collaborate on character building.
I've had a situation where I turned up with a character who didn't suit the philosophy of the rest of the party. Thankfully we were able to talk about it and sort it out. I decided to change character, and the DM took control of my previous one who has now become a party antagonist.
Starting my first D&D game in a group of seasoned vets. Yes, I'm a bit of a late bloomer. After watching your videos, i feel less like such a newb. Speaking as someone who creates on line education, let me say "you're a great teacher". Thank you Matt!!
This definitely helps articulate something I've been pretty neurotic about in the past: being peeved when players independently decide on one character to play, no talking with DM or other players. I've often felt pretty guilty as a DM, because it's like I'm "telling them to not play what they want," but framing it in a more equitable pitch format goes a long way. Maybe there's just been an understanding at my tables that what the player wants to play isn't something you're supposed to audit? It's also a good method to help people who may be stuck; "give me three basic ideas" vs. "okay what's your character, go"
Wooo, a video for my players! Thank you Matt for all the useful content! Also the book is great, I´ve been digging it a lot and we already played the Siege of Rend in my group!
Had a disconnect-moment like this just a couple of days ago! The DM threw a velociraptor at the group for a random encounter expecting us to just kill it and feel cool, but my character had other ideas, first insisting that nobody hurt it and then trying to feed it! As soon as I suggested rolling my animal handling skill, the DM had visions of me riding around her world on a dinosaur and she was having none of it. She made sure to tell me all about how I'd have to roll animal handling every half hour just to not get eaten. It was implied that there would not be a fight if I failed a roll. In the end, I had to promise to leave the dinosaur alone just to get her to stop threatening to kill my character.
@@SonofSethoitae *shrug. Sometimes, new DMs are prone to tyrannical moments. I suppose fear of unbalancing all her carefully laid out future encounters clouded her perception of how fucking cool it would have been. It's by no means the worst new-DM railroad story I can tell you, and it would be completely wrong to challenge the DM's ultimate authority over something so trivial. We all still had fun, and I don't hold it against her. It's been so long since I watched this video, I cannot remember why I thought this story was relevant at the time.
This is one of myriad examples of why playing D&D builds real world skills: pitching to the boss, pitching early and getting their buy in, never going to the boss with a blank page but going with options for them to react to... I could go on. [Note: I know the DM isn't supposed to be "the boss" in the corporate sense. I'm referring to the skill development, not creating allegory.]
Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that Matt has actively and fully implemented "ancestry" in their vocabulary? Bless your beautiful soul, Matt ❤
I've only done two character pitches. the first went really well because he was the second one I was bringing into a campaign, so I had an idea of how to fit him into the story. My DM liked it enough to let me start playing him before my first character died (which ended up not happening until right at the end of the campaign). My second one ended as soon as I said the character's name. Piece of Advice: give your characters easy names. This is coming from someone who gets stuck with a character having a complicated to pronounce name, but with the perfect meaning for that character. Just like how GMs will get annoyed when players give different names to important NPCs, the reverse can happen as well. If you're going to make a pitch and you're character has a complicated name, make sure you've already got a nickname lined up or the GM will choose one for you.
This reminds me of something that's explicitly stated in many Powered by the Apocalypse games as a core tenet of being a DM: Be a fan of your players' characters, and play to find out what happens to them.
That's funny, I had a campaign in an Indonesia analogue setting, lost of south-east Asian names and all that, while the fighter wanted to be named Skot Totters. I didn't particularly care to enforce setting consistency upon him or anything, but in my head I knew his parents were crazy and if it ever came up and the player didn't have an answer, that would be it.
I honestly don't plan to do this except for characters which I think are really out there, but one thing which I do recommend is trying to build your character's backstory with GM ease of harvesting in mind. Almost every time I build a character with a reasonably fleshed-out backstory I deliberately put in one or two things which a GM looking for inspiration could steal from in order to build an adventure. Either they've had a run-in with some kind of antagonist, or they've done something which might precipitate an encounter with an antagonist, or they have some personal goal which the GM could drop me a lead on and my character would push the party towards following it.
Boy oh oh boy this lesson would’ve been nice a year ago at campaign’s beginning. Before the wang-rod characters or the assassins (yes, plural) who don’t kill anymore but keep taking levels in assassin. Before the extreme grim-dark anime protagonist who is so melodramatic in such teenage angsty ways. Or the PC who is just the player but if being angry at everyone all the time was socially acceptable. Oh boy was this video needed. Thank you, Matt, this will make things going forward easier.
I'm not sure this will work for every table. Personally I had the issue that my DM was "too" interested in my character. He wanted to give her a bunch of special abilities when I just wanted to engage with his story, I already had a game where my character was integral to the main plot and sometimes I just want my character to be invested in the plot without having the story invested into them. Also I don't always have a race/class as my starting point. I've had all sorts of things spark characters, The blessing of Correllon (?), Kender, Fey changelings/lovers, how can I play a cat?, blind oracle and so on. I don't think the rough sketch you provide is ever gonna be what I give when I'm excited about a character, if I'm interested in a character I've had to have thought more deeply about them then a scratchy overview. On the other hand I do like your suggestion of having multiple ideas to present, not possible for everyone but I think it could be valuable.
This is freaky. I was just reading the Angry GM's new article about character generation. Such a similar wavelength. He did go further, though, and recommend creating a character generation document that outlines how each of the options fits in the campaign - particularly how it differs from the flavour of the core rulebooks.
Matt! I'd love to hear a podcast from you at some point. Interviews, anecdotes, what have you. You've got a good brain and I like hearing what comes out of it!
Here's a character idea i wanted to pitch into the ether sense it's on topic, feel free to steal. It's basically two characters, a Barbarian and Bard duo.The barbarian , through whatever means cannot speak, or can speak very little. He relies on his bard companion to do his talking for him. The method of the bards performance is he is a writer, writing the stories of the barbarian as they go. He affects people with his bardic performance by having the writing he is adding to his book focus on them and their behavior. He might only be level 1, just climbing onto a building and staying out of the fighting except to inspire courage to his companion.
I basically had an entire playtest/one-shot to pitch my character. Before hand, I had asked the DM if I could play a Drow who was not utterly evil and slightly leaned towards good. He said yes but to come up with a creative backstory, which I delivered on.
I've never had players pitch their characyers to me. I've always felt it was incumbent on me the DM to accept their character into the world and make sure they have fun playing their characters.
One bit I would add to this, is that to a degree this is a two way street. The GM needs to be willing to listen and be willing to try to fall in love with a character the same way the players is. If it doesn't work out it just doesn't. But it is only fair that you try. I have a player dead set on a Race Class combination that is going to be insanely difficult to implement and is going to lean into the Overtly Evil and not in a clever way. But I know this player, He is a good player, it's just that he likes playing weird characters and that's the only reason he want's to play this character, he seems to be in love with it so I am trying to work with him to get us both on the same page, it's been difficult, but we are getting closer and closer tot he goal post, I just hope for his sake we can work things out.
Matt Colville: Makes videos about Dungeons & Dragons, inadvertently gives life advice about how to resolve conflict in your career, friendships, and everyday life. Great video, not just for roleplaying, but for being better listeners as well.
I’m a big believer in being able to explain your character in a sentence or two at most. If you can’t do that, you don’t have clearly enough defined concept.
I totally agree with what you said about GMs needing to like the PCs! I feel lucky in that all of the characters I've worked with are super creative and very fun (Highlights: Half-orc druid who's honestly the kindest, human paladin who used to be an evil character, and a half-elf Slayer named Bobeobeobe...still trying to pronounce that one), but in the future I'll definitely be using the 'pitch' method, both for myself and my players.
When I design my character I usually try to keep all of the details in that character's backstory and origin very vague. That way the DM can easily embed pieces of his world into the story. I also try to do this with character traits and abilities for how far this is possible. My experience is that no matter how much time you put into fleshing out your character, once you start to play you will always start off "Getting to know your character" in the first place.
Maybe it's just me, but Colville looks positively jittery! Buzzing with excitement for the new campaign, I'd guess. I mean, he's always pretty intense in the videos and conveys a lot of passion and interest, but there was something new here. Pure nervous energy? 'Curtains in five minutes, mr. Colville!' That's the vibe I get - and it's catchy!
A short campaign I DMed recently featured tortles, one as a PC and a couple as NPCs connected to them. So I fleshed out those NPCs and introduced them in the first session, describing among other things their rough age and how long the PC knew them. Except it turned out the player of the tortle PC really HATED the fact that they are pretty short lived (as d&d races go) and had written their character in a way that assumes they live at least twice as long o.o The player had simply forgotten to mention that. We sorted it out pretty quickly (and now tortles are longer lived in that world) but it definitely took me by surprise :'D
I can't wait for you to start streaming. Personally I vastly prefer it when DMs make stories that revolve around the world and not player backstories,so I can't wait for more new DMs to learn that the Matt Mercer way of DMing isn't the only option out there.
some free character ideas for you guys: 1.) tielfing wizard (lore master) 2.) bugbear barbarian (totem warrior) 3.) sea kin paladin (oath of the ancients) 4.) John/ Jane Doe (changling rouge mastermind) 5.) aarakocra monk (sun soul) 6.) warforged druid (circle of the shepard) 7.) sharakim wizard (lore master) ^makes sence if you know what sharakim are (this deals with 3.5 races so you might have trouble finding it and transfering rulesets to 5th edition) i fleshed out a couple with possible plot hooks, here they are: 1.)aarakocra monk: lore states that they are at constant war with the gargoyles, and they believe the rod of seven parts are the key to destroying them, the monk is searching for those parts 2.) sea kin paladin: (sea kin are humans that have slightly evolved to adapt to the seas) his "divine" source is a storm giant "quintessant" (living storm) that sends him on the path to save his island 3.) warforged druid: i'll be honest, this was just to get a transformer into D&D, i imagine the warforged does not speak common but uses recordings of animal noises to convey his ideas i hope you either find a combo in here you want to play. or at the very least, get the creative juices flowing
Also my first experience playing DnD (how I got into DnD) was with a friend who played a gnome barbarian and was my character's best friend; and it was amazing. I mean that campaign fell apart after a couple of sessions (just couldn't get together.) But playing with her, and learning what DnD could be and what I could do was amazing. So that's my vote for gnome barbarians!
Honestly - that is why I prefer (as both player and GM) to buil the character together. It is time intesive, sure. But this way the player has a direct feedback to your world, an influence and both can work out something wonderful together. In my very first campaign I combined it also with the players having direct influence on the world (cities/places) etc and afterwards we would have a mini-session together, to play the character starting up towards the first session. It allowed them to be become immersed in their characters from the get-go. As time past I abandoned parts of these things for various reasons and I am now coming back to them.
I welcome all kinds of idiosyncratic interpretations of races, as long as the player is willing to work with me on fitting it in through background. I leave blank places on my map, and avoid filling in the edges, so that there is always room for a PC to come from somewhere that could have produced someone like them. They may never visit their homeland in my game (unless it's really cool) but I'll put it in the world, to make a character work.
So I didn't ever think about this but it's what I already do, sort of. I don't go the the GM with multiple ideas but I do with the skeleton of one I'm thinking about and then through discussion with that GM I end up fleshing out a PC who not only fits the skeleton of my desired character but fits into the GMs world in a way they find cool/interesting/usable/etc. It does SERIOUSLY make a huge difference. My first couple attempts at DnD a few years back had me showing up with a created character and a short backstory, and the reactions stretched between the GM/players not really caring about my PC's backstory/quirks/or anything outside of their combat ability and balance, to them just not liking my idea and forcing me into a "bystander" kind of role when it came to RP. The first time I changed that was when I joined my first Roll20 group. I had posted about the PC I wanted to play and in what kind of campaign, and eventually got contacted by a GM looking for another player in a serious and RP heavy campaign, and he basically told me he liked the concept but if I was up for tweaking it so it better fit into his campaign then he'd invite me in. I agreed whole-heartedly and didn't even have to change that much and it ended up being one of the longest and most indepth campaigns I've ever been a part of of and that was largely due to how well my PC fit into the GMs narrative. From that point on I always talk with the GM during the creation process, it is so ridiculously worth it!
Always play to entertain, no matter if you're a player or a game master, always play to entertain the group. if you can't or won't then don't and instead part ways to find the people with whom you can and will. We always talk our character and campaign concepts with each other and there's if not the outspoken then the expectation that everyone is there to entertain each other and actually cares about each others entertainment or else one shouldn't be part of it, there's no rom for people abusing the group for their own personal power fantasies, because that's not roleplaying, roleplaying is a collaboration.
I once played with someone who played a sentient puddle of blood in a bucket that could take over dead enemy bodies. Just a one shot but... things got weird.
I would advocate being a little more detailed than just the race and class - I'd add any features (personality-wise or physically) of the character that stand out, as well as their backstory. Also, when you're pitching your character ideas, involve the other players as well. If the DM and the one player is on board, that still leaves on average 4 people who have no idea who they're about to be at the table with. They also need to enjoy being at a table with that character. Heck, let the other players pitch in ideas. Who knows, they might have really good ideas on how to intertwine the backstories of two characters. That might solve a few of the problems the DM has with placing a character into the world.
Ok, I'm a noob at D&D, but I enjoy watching games and find the concept really interesting. In my position as a noob, I'll ask the following question: In your example game where the disagreement occurred, why did the DM started making assumptions or statements about why the PC was behaving the way they did? What I mean is, if the player never explicitly (either in public or in private with the DM), if he never explicitly said that his character was drunk and that's why he was acting the way he did, why does the DM have the authority to make those statements, as if he were the one who created the character and knew all about it? In my opinion, that was really the thing that caused all the trouble. How would the player feel if the DM started making assumptions that do not correspond to the actual nature of the PC. Whether the DM agrees with it or not, or whether they are "good" or "bad" assumptions, I think it is not the point. Edit: formatting
I have a DM who's a rockstar in his own mind, talented musician who is always in bands. I based my character (half elf warlock. Entertainment background) on him without telling him. He loves the character and making life tough for them. Hes still not sure why.
That's just brilliant!
It'll be golden when the truth dawns on him. 😁
Thanks for the idea, I'm totally doing that for the next campaign
"dat me"
It has been a while since the initial post, did anything come of this? This sounds interesting!
My youngest daughters most successful character was a Gnome Barbarian/Clan Crafter, and in a steampunk setting no less. “She gets along better with machines than people, and has a temper. She breaks as much as she builds.”
Done. I knew WHO she was there and then.
Your daughter has a knack for pitching characters!
That's awesome!
Thats a great concept, I already like the character
Definitely need to see her PC’s stats!!! LOL
Ok, I'm going to pitch my character... it's a sentient Gelatinous Cube. It can't speak Common but it knows how to wiggle in 3 different languages.
This reminded me of the line in one Terry Pratchett's books:
"Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four"
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
@@josuelservin2409 Ah. I see you're a man of culture as well.
Best quality: his wiggles
Remember to have a dwarf skeleton in chainmail inside of you so you can wave or gesture.
I'd recommend pitching your character to the other players as well. In our last campaign we had a bit of a pre-campaign mini-game where each player could adjust and contribute to the other player's characters and backgrounds, this ensured that everyone had a bit of investment into each others characters. Fair warning: I did notice that my original concept for PC was derailed a bit from my initial expectations, but having the other players actually care about my character because they had a bit of creative influence on them was worth it, and also entertaining
How did the players react when the end of the campaign was a TPK after getting invested of all the characters
>:^]
@@lemon360 Everyone started with 3 tokens, as you were describing a feature or background element of your character, anyone, including the dm, could spend a token to add or change something. This would give them an extra token to spend on someone else's character. At any time someone could spend another token to add to whatever someone just altered. Go around the table a few times, the more you do, the weirder things get :)
@@jezreelmartinez9800 Still going strong, no TPK's yet ;p
That is indeed really a cool idea. I think I might burrow that idea xp
In my table we don't have anything like that, but since we do get along really well we do discuss what we would like to play and try to come up with stuff for the player characters to all be connected already in some way, like for example one player is playing a Prince (Paladin), I'm playing his councelor & protector (Warlock), the Bard is my associate, the Cleric is his childhood friend, the Fighter is the cleric's best friend but also son of a very important general and him and the Prince go way back and so on.
Sometimes not all players want to participate but most of the time we are all willing to discuss it and sometimes not all concepts mesh together but we divide into groups, in one campaign I was playing a Knight's Squire which didn't fit with how mercenary most of the group was, but the Sorcerer was my best friend and the Fighter was a noble from my city and I knew him quite well, plus my character was a country bumpkin and the Fighter served to teach him how to handle the court after the knight I was serving died tragically, the other characters were already their own mercenary party and it was more like 2 groups that came together and slowly formed a bond.
But yes, I like the way you do things, might be a really good way to do it if the party members are shy about sharing ideas or just don't talk much about the game to each other outside of when their gaming.
You also need a DM that is willing to suspend their own vision of their world long enough to entertain someone else's interpretation. A conversation helps, particularly if there's give and take. With the gnomes, instead of being drunk of unhinged, they could have just been an eccentric among gnomes, or from a more isolated culture. Or even raised outside of Gnomehome and acting like they thought a gnome was supposed to act. If you're making a world, there should be room for a world's worth of variety in the characters that inhabit it.
Agreed. Having a DM with an open and flexible mind is key. Otherwise no amount of conversation and pitching is likely to help.
Though one ought to keep in mind that the DM reserves the right to say NO. If the DM has a very particular game they want to run, there may be things that don't work. Ex: a world without Gnomes, and one player wants to play a Gnome xD granted, if the DM is flexible, they can work something out.
"Suspend their own vision of the world" is a bad way to think of it. Better is to change the way the initial visions of the world and the character are until they can overlap.
Ignoring the problem of the discrepancy just kicks it down the road until you walk into it again. (Not saying that's what you meant though)
@@dynamicworlds1 Suspension in the sense I was referring to would simply mean, holding off on pushing your idea, long enough to hear out your player's, to see if the too even can blend. Sometimes people become so fixated on their vision, they can't even imagine how someone else's ideas might improve it.
Ignoring things is usually a mistake, unless by ignoring it you realize it was never a problem to begin with. As an example, if the players proposed character sounds wrong for your setting when you start, but you ignore it, and find that really the things you thought were problematic about it don't really come up, or aren't disruptive, it wasn't really a problem. Furthermore, if you'd never let them try it, you wouldn't know for sure, and would be working from incorrect assumptions.
I had a player want to be a construct, I thought there would be some issues, but let them make it to see how things went. It was an interesting character, but they retired it because they said it felt too disconnected from the world, and it didn't have any real drives that the player could hook into. We both learned from the experience, and next time a player proposed a construct character, I warned them of some of the pitfalls, and the ways it could interfere with the game.
@@Arthas30000 Sure, but even more important as a DM than your ability to say NO, is knowing why you are saying it. If your world has no Gnomes, and you have no reason for that, then perhaps let the player do what they want. This can even be a way to build player investment in your world. Let them come up with stuff about gnomes, work together and make something interesting. (plus you offset world building labor costs)
If your reason is that you just don't care about Gnomes, than maybe be open to the fact that other people like them, and it doesn't do you harm to have them in the game.
If you really cannot budge (maybe you just hate gnomes, or your world has no little folk for some reason, or gnomes are all evil mutants) find out what it is about gnomes your player likes so much, and see if you can give them that.
I'm more of a "yes, and" or "No, but" DM, than straight yes or no. But that's just what works at my table. (As an example someone wanted to play an Avariel. I find them annoying, because they're just wings with elves attached. The secondary reasoning is the proposed race stats for them suck, and I didn't want my player to be handicapped. I said no... but I proposed they make their own stats and features which the table would have to approve and we could make it work. They ended up playing an Aarakockra instead, though the offer still stands.)
So 2 minutes into this video you have already healed a sore spot in my marriage.
I hope you read this and I want you to know-
I started watching your videos a year ago when I wanted to learn how to be a DM (without having any experience playing)
And about a month ago my wife started learning to DM. Watching your series "running the game" is like a rite of passage for our circle when it comes to DMing.
Anyway, my wife wasn't happy with how I was treating her characters in 2 of my campaigns and linked me to this video. My reply was "Matt Colville? he my jesus" and we resolved the issues.
Matt, you sharing your gift has enriched my life in so many ways.
*I spent some time searching for you email last week because I did an overhaul of downtime crafting mechanics that I thought you might be interested in. I wanted to account for player rolls in item crafting cost. I don't mind if you use my formulas, please feel free to reach out. Anyway keep being awesome, we all love you.
I think I'm going to wait on the 1:1 video until *after* the next time I run a 1:1 game, which I estimate will be shortly after the heroes arrive in Capital. I just want to have an actual 1:1 'adventure' that I've prepped, and you've watched, before I do a video on it.
Hey Matt! Just saying that I love your videos and you are the reason I love to DM, keep up the good content!
Hey Matt. Great video (one in definitely going to share)
Now that you're venturing into DnD supplements, have you considered possibly collating all the information from the "running the game" series into a readable guide? It might be totally useless, I'll admit, but it might also be a great way to ensure this timeless advice is not bound to the platform it is hosted on.
Many thanks for your continual help with DMing! Good luck with the stream!
@@adammclauchlin7605 I never thought I'd see the day that Napoleon was a Matt Colville fan!
@@unbreakablediamond2545 Saint Helena has a large demographic of pen and paper RPG fans
Really excited for the campaign diaries man, peace out
Next week...
*_gasp_*...
Bum Bum BUUUUUMMMMM!!!!!
Huuuuuuuuuh!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?
I love how he says this like is no big deal
can't wait, already subbed at twitch :P
Well now I want to know why this DM found this Gnome to be so ridiculous
Well, it could have been 3rd edition. I believe they take some stat penalties that might have made the DM think it was a waste
some players look at Gnomes as being gothic others look at them as garden Gnomes
it's like the player who wants to play human bard, but he is Spanish as fuck with a big sombrero and maracas
GM may argue that the game has no such culture for humans same with Gnomes
@@ryanflorian2047
Yoink!
Let me just steal that idea from you guy.
Mariachi bard.
@@jezreelmartinez9800
ua-cam.com/video/fT-QcrYYelY/v-deo.html
Could be the gnome was hyperactive or childlike. That’s a pretty common interpretation that bugs me but I can understand someone enjoying.
NEW CAMPAIGN NEXT WEEK?! Best news this year Matt!
See how he tried to just slip that in there?!? xD
Me: "Wow Matt is so cool and smart and awesome, that gnome thing would never happen to him. He's the best."
Matt: "I could have done this at my table, I'm not above this."
Me: "Wow Matt is so humble and honest and awesome, he can even acknowledge his faults. He's the best."
Matt: "We gonna start playing streaming next week."
Me: "UGH FINALLY. I payed money to watch strangers pretend to fight orcs, like, at least a week ago."
One of the awesome things about Apocalypse World is the introduction of explicit Game Master Principles, one of which is "Be a fan of the players’ characters.
"
Been playing TTRPGs long enough to know that is 100% impossible to do all of the time.
DM: be a fan of killing your players' characters, got it
Love the idea of multiple character concepts being available to play. Also a great way to help the person who "always plays the ninja" or "loves the bonus human feat so they never play nonhumans" to be able to consider things outside of their comfort zone. And having those backups are handy in the case of character death - or if you're a joyfully tyrannistic DM, (or enjoy playing one at the table) you can snatch them away, say "these are MINE now" and turn them into interesting sub-villains.
seraphonica We stayed playing a West Marches-style game at work last year, and it encourages this kind of mentality.
@@theKurtAnderson yeah, I just played my first west marches game as a pacifist sickly old priest. It was either that or basically a demigod (I filed for stats and my lowest one was a 15(except intelligence , that was an 8)
Critical Roll, then Dice Friends, and now Matt Covills stream....what an awesome time to be alive :)
Also check out Dimension 20. It's incredibly fun.
Great Video! one additional piece of advice i would give: you need to leave "blanks" in your backstory so the GM and Player can talk about it so they both think it's cool. I think of "blanks" as bullet points that don't answer questions but create more questions. Consider the following: The Doc is an engineer whose research was stolen by a colleague, who now earns all the fame for the Docs hard work. After that The Doc left his academic career behind and fixed Ships for a Mercenary company. Now he is an Adventurer doing what he can to earn enough money to get by. The "blanks" in this are great to work out together! What was the Research? Who was the Colleague? How did he steal the Research? Are there People that sided with the Doc? There is a mercenary company that has ships, what conflicts where they involved in? Why did The Doc leave the Mercenaries? This is all Stuff you can figure out, it doesn't have to be right in the beginning at character creation, but GM and Player should work together to create something they both like and thus are both invested in.
3:26 i'm not sure who did this, Matt or Jerry, but this is brilliant.
Jerry's getting frisky. :)
Thanks!
EnderF0x I agree it’s on trend rn and it was well done. Hard to do both sometimes haha
The zooms are great hope they keep em
Josiah Banks As long as they make sense for the content.
I think not getting too invested in your character before play starts is good advice in general. My group are about to start playing through Curse of Strahd (no spoilers!) and the DM asked us a couple of weeks ago to think about character backgrounds. Naturally I now have a very developed and angsty backstory for my runaway wizard apprentice and am very invested in him...and he could easily die in the first session, since this is apparently a very harsh and unforgiving module and the DM intends to play into that. So of course I also have a very in depth and over-developed backstory for a cleric, just in case, because I never learn xD
Edward Gurney What level are you starting at?
@@waywornwyrm8135 1st, we're going to do Death House before Curse proper. (No spoilers!)
@@edwardgurney1694 oh yeah, death house is brutal.
I was a part of a 24 hour charity livestream for DnD last year, and we played through CoS. Three of our 6 total players through the night made it through on one character, while one of them died twice, nearly three times. It all depends, but the potential for character death is certainly there.
With CoS I'd do a bare minimum of backstory. Just enough to help you roleplay. Death counts can be high depending on your DM and since you're in a different world, it's unlikely you'll run into any people/elements from your backstory, again depending on the DM.
Interesting content as always from Matt.
About the second thing I explain to new players D&D is a group activity on two levels: at the table and in the game. At the table, it's a group of friends who are trying to get as much fun as they can out of the hobby. In the game, it's a _group_ of adventurers who are trying to accomplish goals.
Given this, players are required to create PCs who want to adventure with the party and who the other PCs would want to adventure with. "Good player character" is a _subset_ of "good character": not every good character will make a good PC.
Beyond that, there are the restrictions imposed by the setting. The DM is not just within their rights to say, "In my world, that race of creatures is like this." it's actually their _job_ to make these calls. Now, of course it's usually the case that adventurers are - by their nature - atypical, so players should be able to break from the mold, but it's still the player's responsibility to make a case as to why their Elf is so different from other Elves.
So I like this idea of "pitching" a character. Players should be able to explain to their DM what they want to do with their character and how they see the character fitting into both the world and the party, which in turn gives the DM the opportunity to explain a way for the player to have the kind of fun they want within the DMs game. DMs should also be able to articulate what they are trying to achieve in the campaign and why they have misgivings about a particular idea for a PC, which in turn gives the player the opportunity to explain why _their_ character isn't going to be a problem.
You know, have a discussion about it.
I always make a proposal for a character and then work with the DM to make them fit into the world. That makes the DM always happy because now my character is part of their world.
Your videos are so detailed and bring such life to the game we all love to play. I started being a DM for my private session with my friends. I always use your videos as a way of helping me and others understand on how to play better and make the experience more enjoyable. Keep the content going!
this new campaign that's going to launch---
*BREATHES IN*
It’s nice to watch such a charismatic, good guy as one of his dreams comes true. Thanks for all of your hard work
Loving Strongholds and Followers man. Lots of beautiful art in there, and appears to be a ton of useful material for mid to high level play. Just started playing DnD with a group of friends last year, your videos have really helped me get a grip on this crazy, complex game. Thanks a million!
This is so important! My groups have always done this. It hadn't really occurred to me that a group intending to play D&D would not do this. Great video!
All the videos in this series are incredibly informative. Thank you for sharing your experiences.
I've experienced problems on my table and was racking my brain what it was - and here's this video with the story about GM rendering a character "drunk or mad - because it's the only explanation why they would act like that". It's truly rearranged my puzzle pieces into a whole picture and now I see that the struggle was in diverging expectations. I've tried to engage with my idea of the character - and the player struggled to express their idea.
"Talk with the players" is solid advice - but when you cannot point the problem there's a lot of "wandering blindly in the fog". It took us three talks on the span of several months to find our sweet spot. I've started each with "what do you want to see?" - but it took me a lot of game-time to express what I'm interested in, for them to pick up on that and for us then, intuitively grasping all that, have a productive discussion. It seems so surreal now: the proper questions were asked, honest answers were given - but we had no idea what to do with them.
Great video, thank you!
This is *very* good advice. In the campaign I recently joined, I was planning to play an evil Tortle Warlord, seeking powerful allies to bolster the ranks of his Shellback Legion, creating a new dynasty of Tortles to conquer surrounding lands for centuries to come. I wrote up a second character to be safe; a gentlemanly Tortle anthropologist, willing to delve through dungeons of any kind to retrieve artifacts for the Royal Museum of History. When I pitched these ideas to the DM, he told me that my Warlord was exactly the sort of people the party and its allies were actively fighting, and they wouldn't change their views on Imperialism for a particularly cruel and ambitious PC. I am now happily playing Braunham Langley, the appraiser and treasurer of our merry pirate crew!
Walk into work. See update about new Colville video. Excited to watch this the second I'm off the clock.
Let me one up you sir, and watch it while getting paid to work! ;)
Man. As a DM, I didn't even realize how important this is to me until you pointed this out.
Yes! Campaign diaries! I'm so happy you'll be doing those. I don't think I could find the time to spend 4 hours every week watching other people play, but I certainly can find half an hour to listen to a dramatic recap. And if I can keep up with the story I may be able to watch a full session every now and then too.
Our games have always required you to get permission for a character before playing. Typically, this happens during the "Session 0" wherein the players get together and make their characters with the GM present. This not only allows the GM to hear your ideas and give feedback, but it allows the other players to give input and create their characters to compliment one another in some way. I usually like to have each PC know one of the others in some way, for the ease of getting into the adventures (it also allows the players to create relationships predating the game, which can add twists and rp opportunities) and this is a good time to establish those histories. If you have the opportunity, I fully encourage the Session 0 approach.
3:27 *clip of the control room in NASA with everyone clapping*
Thanks for this video! This is something I need to do more as a player and DM. Every time I have has resulted in characters that I and everyone else at the table enjoyed, and every time I haven't has resulted in cycling through characters until I have a good fit (or being pissed off at my own character until the campaign crashes and burns).
I am with you on this. I have found that most of my favorite experiences with character design, are when the player and DM collaborate on character building.
I've had a situation where I turned up with a character who didn't suit the philosophy of the rest of the party. Thankfully we were able to talk about it and sort it out. I decided to change character, and the DM took control of my previous one who has now become a party antagonist.
As a matter of fact I do love watching people play D&D for 4 hours and I would enjoy seeing you guys play
YOU THE MAN, MATT! I love your enthusiasm, about every topic you cover. Your a large part of the reason why I started my own channel.
My personal favorite topic so far was "On Being An Evil Character." You looked like you were really into the moment.
God you’re like the wise, nerdy uncle I never had... Sweet.
Starting my first D&D game in a group of seasoned vets. Yes, I'm a bit of a late bloomer. After watching your videos, i feel less like such a newb. Speaking as someone who creates on line education, let me say "you're a great teacher". Thank you Matt!!
This definitely helps articulate something I've been pretty neurotic about in the past: being peeved when players independently decide on one character to play, no talking with DM or other players.
I've often felt pretty guilty as a DM, because it's like I'm "telling them to not play what they want," but framing it in a more equitable pitch format goes a long way. Maybe there's just been an understanding at my tables that what the player wants to play isn't something you're supposed to audit?
It's also a good method to help people who may be stuck; "give me three basic ideas" vs. "okay what's your character, go"
Wooo, a video for my players! Thank you Matt for all the useful content! Also the book is great, I´ve been digging it a lot and we already played the Siege of Rend in my group!
I'm very interested in the DM prep side of things as it's the part which is most daunting to me. Thanks for covering that too, Matt!
I wish this advice was in my head a decade ago.
I love that you're back to making more videos like this, but I miss having them numbered. It helped me keep track of whether I'd missed any.
Had a disconnect-moment like this just a couple of days ago! The DM threw a velociraptor at the group for a random encounter expecting us to just kill it and feel cool, but my character had other ideas, first insisting that nobody hurt it and then trying to feed it! As soon as I suggested rolling my animal handling skill, the DM had visions of me riding around her world on a dinosaur and she was having none of it. She made sure to tell me all about how I'd have to roll animal handling every half hour just to not get eaten. It was implied that there would not be a fight if I failed a roll. In the end, I had to promise to leave the dinosaur alone just to get her to stop threatening to kill my character.
I don't get it, why would your DM _not_ want you to have an awesome dinosaur pet?
@@SonofSethoitae *shrug. Sometimes, new DMs are prone to tyrannical moments. I suppose fear of unbalancing all her carefully laid out future encounters clouded her perception of how fucking cool it would have been. It's by no means the worst new-DM railroad story I can tell you, and it would be completely wrong to challenge the DM's ultimate authority over something so trivial. We all still had fun, and I don't hold it against her.
It's been so long since I watched this video, I cannot remember why I thought this story was relevant at the time.
WHOEVER EDITED THIS - GOOD JOB
That feeling when you're binge watching Colville videos and papa himself swings by to drop off new toys.
This is one of myriad examples of why playing D&D builds real world skills: pitching to the boss, pitching early and getting their buy in, never going to the boss with a blank page but going with options for them to react to... I could go on.
[Note: I know the DM isn't supposed to be "the boss" in the corporate sense. I'm referring to the skill development, not creating allegory.]
Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that Matt has actively and fully implemented "ancestry" in their vocabulary? Bless your beautiful soul, Matt ❤
Yes, love it.
Yup, started using it at my school club game. Haven’t noticed a difference.
As opposed to what, heritage?
@@jakev2482 As opposed to "race," the term that's been used for exactly the same thing in all previous editions of D&D.
@@jakev2482 As opposed to "race" - something that's been making rounds, especially since Pathfinder brought it to their 2e playtest manual
I've only done two character pitches. the first went really well because he was the second one I was bringing into a campaign, so I had an idea of how to fit him into the story. My DM liked it enough to let me start playing him before my first character died (which ended up not happening until right at the end of the campaign). My second one ended as soon as I said the character's name.
Piece of Advice: give your characters easy names. This is coming from someone who gets stuck with a character having a complicated to pronounce name, but with the perfect meaning for that character. Just like how GMs will get annoyed when players give different names to important NPCs, the reverse can happen as well. If you're going to make a pitch and you're character has a complicated name, make sure you've already got a nickname lined up or the GM will choose one for you.
Thanks for making these videos! I'm the staff advisor for a tabletop club, and I'm definitely showing this to my students.
This reminds me of something that's explicitly stated in many Powered by the Apocalypse games as a core tenet of being a DM: Be a fan of your players' characters, and play to find out what happens to them.
I love how nervous Matt is... I am so looking forward to seeing this game!
That's funny, I had a campaign in an Indonesia analogue setting, lost of south-east Asian names and all that, while the fighter wanted to be named Skot Totters. I didn't particularly care to enforce setting consistency upon him or anything, but in my head I knew his parents were crazy and if it ever came up and the player didn't have an answer, that would be it.
It never seizes to amaze me how cool his voice and narration style are. He is made for telling stories. Gob bless him.
I honestly don't plan to do this except for characters which I think are really out there, but one thing which I do recommend is trying to build your character's backstory with GM ease of harvesting in mind. Almost every time I build a character with a reasonably fleshed-out backstory I deliberately put in one or two things which a GM looking for inspiration could steal from in order to build an adventure. Either they've had a run-in with some kind of antagonist, or they've done something which might precipitate an encounter with an antagonist, or they have some personal goal which the GM could drop me a lead on and my character would push the party towards following it.
This is awesome! I really appreciate it whenever players do this; it makes my job much more fun.
I'm in so much anticipation for your youtube video of a campaign. :) Will make sure to watch 3 vids (live, campaign diary, & prep) more power to you!
Boy oh oh boy this lesson would’ve been nice a year ago at campaign’s beginning. Before the wang-rod characters or the assassins (yes, plural) who don’t kill anymore but keep taking levels in assassin. Before the extreme grim-dark anime protagonist who is so melodramatic in such teenage angsty ways. Or the PC who is just the player but if being angry at everyone all the time was socially acceptable. Oh boy was this video needed.
Thank you, Matt, this will make things going forward easier.
I'm not sure this will work for every table. Personally I had the issue that my DM was "too" interested in my character. He wanted to give her a bunch of special abilities when I just wanted to engage with his story, I already had a game where my character was integral to the main plot and sometimes I just want my character to be invested in the plot without having the story invested into them.
Also I don't always have a race/class as my starting point. I've had all sorts of things spark characters, The blessing of Correllon (?), Kender, Fey changelings/lovers, how can I play a cat?, blind oracle and so on. I don't think the rough sketch you provide is ever gonna be what I give when I'm excited about a character, if I'm interested in a character I've had to have thought more deeply about them then a scratchy overview.
On the other hand I do like your suggestion of having multiple ideas to present, not possible for everyone but I think it could be valuable.
This is freaky. I was just reading the Angry GM's new article about character generation. Such a similar wavelength. He did go further, though, and recommend creating a character generation document that outlines how each of the options fits in the campaign - particularly how it differs from the flavour of the core rulebooks.
Matt! I'd love to hear a podcast from you at some point. Interviews, anecdotes, what have you. You've got a good brain and I like hearing what comes out of it!
I like your channel and this video especially, Wolverine. It's actually super helpful insight and helped me design a new character with my DM.
Dungeon World seems to have so many good answers! One of them, originally from apocalypse world, is that the DM should “be a fan of the PCs.”
Here's a character idea i wanted to pitch into the ether sense it's on topic, feel free to steal. It's basically two characters, a Barbarian and Bard duo.The barbarian , through whatever means cannot speak, or can speak very little. He relies on his bard companion to do his talking for him. The method of the bards performance is he is a writer, writing the stories of the barbarian as they go. He affects people with his bardic performance by having the writing he is adding to his book focus on them and their behavior. He might only be level 1, just climbing onto a building and staying out of the fighting except to inspire courage to his companion.
So excited to see you run a game Matt. You have some very solid views on how to DM that I agree with.
I basically had an entire playtest/one-shot to pitch my character. Before hand, I had asked the DM if I could play a Drow who was not utterly evil and slightly leaned towards good. He said yes but to come up with a creative backstory, which I delivered on.
I've never had players pitch their characyers to me. I've always felt it was incumbent on me the DM to accept their character into the world and make sure they have fun playing their characters.
Ive never seen anyone other than my group play dnd, super excited!
that zoom at 3:27 is the single funniest thing I have bore witness to tonight. thank you matt
One bit I would add to this, is that to a degree this is a two way street. The GM needs to be willing to listen and be willing to try to fall in love with a character the same way the players is. If it doesn't work out it just doesn't. But it is only fair that you try.
I have a player dead set on a Race Class combination that is going to be insanely difficult to implement and is going to lean into the Overtly Evil and not in a clever way. But I know this player, He is a good player, it's just that he likes playing weird characters and that's the only reason he want's to play this character, he seems to be in love with it so I am trying to work with him to get us both on the same page, it's been difficult, but we are getting closer and closer tot he goal post, I just hope for his sake we can work things out.
This is an eye opener on so many levels..yessss. Thanks Matt
Matt Colville: Makes videos about Dungeons & Dragons, inadvertently gives life advice about how to resolve conflict in your career, friendships, and everyday life.
Great video, not just for roleplaying, but for being better listeners as well.
I’m a big believer in being able to explain your character in a sentence or two at most. If you can’t do that, you don’t have clearly enough defined concept.
I totally agree with what you said about GMs needing to like the PCs! I feel lucky in that all of the characters I've worked with are super creative and very fun (Highlights: Half-orc druid who's honestly the kindest, human paladin who used to be an evil character, and a half-elf Slayer named Bobeobeobe...still trying to pronounce that one), but in the future I'll definitely be using the 'pitch' method, both for myself and my players.
Great video super important lessons to be learned here, also 8:13 was so cute, you can really see how much you care about this; which is awesome!
When I design my character I usually try to keep all of the details in that character's backstory and origin very vague. That way the DM can easily embed pieces of his world into the story. I also try to do this with character traits and abilities for how far this is possible.
My experience is that no matter how much time you put into fleshing out your character, once you start to play you will always start off "Getting to know your character" in the first place.
I like the new edit style haha. that zoom in got me good.
Holy cow, i can't unsee the handle bar/ soul patch combo
Much love, Matt. Hope it all runs smooth and Gerry isn’t losing his mind with tech :P
More zooms plez. They’re great 👍
Maybe it's just me, but Colville looks positively jittery! Buzzing with excitement for the new campaign, I'd guess. I mean, he's always pretty intense in the videos and conveys a lot of passion and interest, but there was something new here. Pure nervous energy? 'Curtains in five minutes, mr. Colville!' That's the vibe I get - and it's catchy!
A short campaign I DMed recently featured tortles, one as a PC and a couple as NPCs connected to them. So I fleshed out those NPCs and introduced them in the first session, describing among other things their rough age and how long the PC knew them. Except it turned out the player of the tortle PC really HATED the fact that they are pretty short lived (as d&d races go) and had written their character in a way that assumes they live at least twice as long o.o The player had simply forgotten to mention that.
We sorted it out pretty quickly (and now tortles are longer lived in that world) but it definitely took me by surprise :'D
I can't wait for you to start streaming. Personally I vastly prefer it when DMs make stories that revolve around the world and not player backstories,so I can't wait for more new DMs to learn that the Matt Mercer way of DMing isn't the only option out there.
love hearing that the wait is almost over for the stream to start
3:26 -- Falls out of chair, love the zooms for extra umph.
Also, very interested to watch the prep-stream/videos for the sessions.
some free character ideas for you guys:
1.) tielfing wizard (lore master)
2.) bugbear barbarian (totem warrior)
3.) sea kin paladin (oath of the ancients)
4.) John/ Jane Doe (changling rouge mastermind)
5.) aarakocra monk (sun soul)
6.) warforged druid (circle of the shepard)
7.) sharakim wizard (lore master) ^makes sence if you know what sharakim are (this deals with 3.5 races so you might have trouble finding it and transfering rulesets to 5th edition)
i fleshed out a couple with possible plot hooks, here they are:
1.)aarakocra monk: lore states that they are at constant war with the gargoyles, and they believe the rod of seven parts are the key to destroying them, the monk is searching for those parts
2.) sea kin paladin: (sea kin are humans that have slightly evolved to adapt to the seas) his "divine" source is a storm giant "quintessant" (living storm) that sends him on the path to save his island
3.) warforged druid: i'll be honest, this was just to get a transformer into D&D, i imagine the warforged does not speak common but uses recordings of animal noises to convey his ideas
i hope you either find a combo in here you want to play. or at the very least, get the creative juices flowing
Looking forward to seeing you guys play in Capital! Best of luck!
Also my first experience playing DnD (how I got into DnD) was with a friend who played a gnome barbarian and was my character's best friend; and it was amazing. I mean that campaign fell apart after a couple of sessions (just couldn't get together.) But playing with her, and learning what DnD could be and what I could do was amazing. So that's my vote for gnome barbarians!
My DM likes my character so much she added a ton of extra angst to his backstory. AndI I am thankful for her every day for that.
Great video. I haven't done this yet but I think my group will try to do this at the start of our next game now! Thanks :)
Apparently I've now watched this entire playlist, huh, nice going Matthew, some really great ideas worth stealing, thanks for the catharsis.
"...great ideas worth stealing" Me too fam, me too :)
Honestly - that is why I prefer (as both player and GM) to buil the character together.
It is time intesive, sure. But this way the player has a direct feedback to your world, an influence and both can work out something wonderful together.
In my very first campaign I combined it also with the players having direct influence on the world (cities/places) etc and afterwards we would have a mini-session together, to play the character starting up towards the first session. It allowed them to be become immersed in their characters from the get-go.
As time past I abandoned parts of these things for various reasons and I am now coming back to them.
I welcome all kinds of idiosyncratic interpretations of races, as long as the player is willing to work with me on fitting it in through background.
I leave blank places on my map, and avoid filling in the edges, so that there is always room for a PC to come from somewhere that could have produced someone like them. They may never visit their homeland in my game (unless it's really cool) but I'll put it in the world, to make a character work.
So I didn't ever think about this but it's what I already do, sort of.
I don't go the the GM with multiple ideas but I do with the skeleton of one I'm thinking about and then through discussion with that GM I end up fleshing out a PC who not only fits the skeleton of my desired character but fits into the GMs world in a way they find cool/interesting/usable/etc.
It does SERIOUSLY make a huge difference. My first couple attempts at DnD a few years back had me showing up with a created character and a short backstory, and the reactions stretched between the GM/players not really caring about my PC's backstory/quirks/or anything outside of their combat ability and balance, to them just not liking my idea and forcing me into a "bystander" kind of role when it came to RP.
The first time I changed that was when I joined my first Roll20 group. I had posted about the PC I wanted to play and in what kind of campaign, and eventually got contacted by a GM looking for another player in a serious and RP heavy campaign, and he basically told me he liked the concept but if I was up for tweaking it so it better fit into his campaign then he'd invite me in. I agreed whole-heartedly and didn't even have to change that much and it ended up being one of the longest and most indepth campaigns I've ever been a part of of and that was largely due to how well my PC fit into the GMs narrative.
From that point on I always talk with the GM during the creation process, it is so ridiculously worth it!
Always play to entertain, no matter if you're a player or a game master, always play to entertain the group.
if you can't or won't then don't and instead part ways to find the people with whom you can and will.
We always talk our character and campaign concepts with each other and there's if not the outspoken then the expectation that everyone is there to entertain each other and actually cares about each others entertainment or else one shouldn't be part of it, there's no rom for people abusing the group for their own personal power fantasies, because that's not roleplaying, roleplaying is a collaboration.
I once played with someone who played a sentient puddle of blood in a bucket that could take over dead enemy bodies. Just a one shot but... things got weird.
I just bought your books! Looking forward to being wrapped up in your fiction
Do. Do I see? Do I see using hard cut as a form of comedy joke? What sorcery is this? Mr Colville is stepping up his youtube game!
I would advocate being a little more detailed than just the race and class - I'd add any features (personality-wise or physically) of the character that stand out, as well as their backstory.
Also, when you're pitching your character ideas, involve the other players as well. If the DM and the one player is on board, that still leaves on average 4 people who have no idea who they're about to be at the table with. They also need to enjoy being at a table with that character.
Heck, let the other players pitch in ideas. Who knows, they might have really good ideas on how to intertwine the backstories of two characters. That might solve a few of the problems the DM has with placing a character into the world.
Ok, I'm a noob at D&D, but I enjoy watching games and find the concept really interesting. In my position as a noob, I'll ask the following question:
In your example game where the disagreement occurred, why did the DM started making assumptions or statements about why the PC was behaving the way they did? What I mean is, if the player never explicitly (either in public or in private with the DM), if he never explicitly said that his character was drunk and that's why he was acting the way he did, why does the DM have the authority to make those statements, as if he were the one who created the character and knew all about it?
In my opinion, that was really the thing that caused all the trouble. How would the player feel if the DM started making assumptions that do not correspond to the actual nature of the PC. Whether the DM agrees with it or not, or whether they are "good" or "bad" assumptions, I think it is not the point.
Edit: formatting
I'm assuming the DM had a reason like "this isn't how gnomes behave in my world". Maybe taking the handbooks too literally as well