Welcome back to the weekly Tabletop Games thread! This thread is where we can talk about all kinds of RPGs, card games, board games, etc. Whether you gather around a physical table in the real world, or use a virtual space to play with friends who may live far away from you, this is where you can discuss your favorites, ask for and/or receive recommendations, recap your recent adventures, or even find some people to play games with!
Discussion Prompt: A while back, I was experimenting with D&D 5.5e character creation, and decided to build a random character for every class. In other words, I chose a character class, then let the dice make pretty much every other choice for me. I rolled for stats (4d6, drop the lowest), species, background, subclass, and even for things like skill proficiencies, weapon masteries, or fighting styles. Apart from the base class, the only choices I made myself were assigning the numbers I rolled to specific stats, starting equipment, and spell preparations for the full casters. I ended up with 13 characters who may not be the most powerful, but all seem like they’d be just as fun to play (if not more so) as any character I’ve meticulously built for myself. Links to the character sheets are below, if anyone’s interested.
- Green Dragonborn/Artisan/Barbarian (Path of the Zealot)
- Dwarf/Farmer/Bard (College of Dance)
- Wood Elf/Guard/Cleric (Light Domain)
- Wood Elf/Farmer/Druid (Circle of the Land)
- Rock Gnome/Artisan/Fighter (Psi Warrior)
- Forest Gnome/Farmer/Monk (Warrior of Mercy)
- Cthonic Tiefling/Sailor/Paladin (Oath of Vengeance)
- Forest Gnome/Scribe/Ranger (Gloom Stalker)
- Human/Acolyte/Rogue (Thief)
- Rock Gnome/Sage/Sorcerer (Draconic Sorcery)
- Halfling/Acolyte/Warlock (Fiend Patron)
- Halfling/Criminal/Wizard (Diviner)
- Orc/Scribe/Artificer (Artillerist)
Fast forwarding a bit, my group started up a game of Candela Obscura, and our first session was mostly spent building our characters. As part of that process, we had to determine how all of our different characters were connected to each other, and the rules provided a table to roll on. We each rolled different relationships we could have to all of the other characters. Discovering those connections together made the character creation process a lot of fun, and, I think, has led to our game sessions feeling more dynamic.
How have you embraced randomization in character creation (or any other aspects) for your favorite TTRPGs?
If you would like to suggest a prompt or contribute a write-up or discussion topic of your own, let me know in the comments!