Get Your Friends to Push Your Buttons
Your first time at the D&D table: maybe it happened recently, or maybe it’s something you’re looking to try! The first time I sat at a gaming table, I remember a hurricane of excitement, ideas, rules and expectations. Would it be like that dead alewives sketch? (Yes, sometimes.) Would I be scared? (Yes.) Would I want to do this again? (I think we know the answer).
Newbies, I’m here for you! I remember being new to the game table. While it’s always exciting, there’s still the pressure to come to the table with an original character concept. An RPG table is a place where fun, originality and conflict come together. If you’re playing for the first time, you’ve likely never spent 3 hours pretending to be someone else before. Who do you pretend to be?
With all of this excitement can be the pressure to have a character just like all the really funny and exciting ones your friends have told you about or you’ve seen in movies! Could you be as quirky and heroic as Bilbo? After all, most people don’t come to an RPG table to play Personality Free Peasants: the RPG.
Season 1 Dexter had a big red button. Later in the show, Dexter is a much more nuanced dude.
Here’s what I want for you, newbies. Don’t let that pressure delay your first game. Nobody has a totally hilarious, smart and amazing character all the time! I mean it! You’re going to explore your fantasy avatar’s psychy. That stuff will come, but what you need now is a big red button that other people at the table can press, making it easier to interact with the other characters.
Eliot's got a big red button. It's a very distinctive button.
If you’re stuck on making a character, one of the simplest things to do is give them a schtick, and there’s no reason to feel embarrassed or somehow un-creative about it! Maybe they’re vegetarian. Maybe they have anime hair. One big quirk is easy for other players to interact with, and it can take away the fear of not being the most interesting person at the table. As you become more comfortable with the game, you’ll outgrow the schtick and your character will develop depth, and their decisions will seem natural to you. But it’s something that takes awhile to learn. Unless you really liked school plays, taking on another persona is a strange situation, and it can even make you feel really vulnerable! Go with a schtick, and remember: you’re there to have fun, you don’t have to win an oscar.
In Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, the big red button is part of the rules! In D&D, you can make this happen with a notable weakness or a character affectation.
Commenters, what’s your favourite cahracter schtick? Do you remember your first time going through character creation?
This is a great idea. I’ll have to keep it in my mind for my next game, which is starting up next week. I would also suggest that your character has a relationship with at least some the other player characters. It also doesn’t need to be too complex or in depth. I think the Bonds from Dungeon World work perfectly for this.
I think this is a great post and a great idea.
Deadlands (Classic) is another game where you are rewarded for your schtick, particularly the flaws.
This is really useful when creating pre-gens for convention games, too. Make sure every pre-gen has a readily identifiable schtick that the player (and other players) can build on.
Not all shticks are equal, though. Victoria is the pirate girl with awesome acrobatics but terrible perception, so everyone who plays Victoria has a blast because they have this solid reason for having her do ridiculous things. Shugo, though, is described as a pessimistic ninja and while kind of funny, that never works as well because sitting around skulking and NOT wanting to participate totally blows.
Great shticks are ones that encourage, not discourage, action. Short tempers, fascination with particular classes of things, passions, those sorts of things will more reliably drive fun than phobias, hatreds, or prohibitions.
Schticks for pre-gen con games? That’s a really great idea that I’ll be stealing from Cory. Thank you for that!
My first character was a wizard. I was eight or nine years old and so my concept was me but bigger and with blue wizard robes (I remember the tall wizard’s hat too). I’ve grown a lot since that time in both RP ability and in physical size.
Thank you for the article, this is a great thing to show any new players I gain.
I played a Troll once in a Shadowrun game who had a couple of issues. First, he hated his name (Bernard) and would go into a rage whenever someone used that as opposed to his street name (Rocky). Secondly, he had an “issue” with wooden chairs. He always felt like they were traps, tempting him to sit and then they would break. So anytime he entered a room with a wooden chair, Rocky would smash the chair prior to engaging any enemies in the room. To this day our group still cringes when talking about the “bar room incident”.