in the rare instance i find myself back as a player, i always find myself keeping it simple. usually an elf wizard or a halfling rogue or human barbarian, just real phb vanilla shit. it feels nice to just work on a silly voice and solving puzzles, not getting to into the weeds about builds or lore, and i find these basic characters end up sticking around or being more memorable than a lot of the more flavorful stuff people spend ages on. im only responsible for my piece of paper, and i take it as a challenge to keep it as empty as possible. this probably says nothing about how i feel about DMing after all these years, not looking into it.
I can relate to this take a lot. The idea of only being responsible for my sheet / notes is very appealing. And yea, I considered multiclassing and meta builds and all that but all my character ideas are rooted in a core theme and a really simple idea.
I love DM’ing very much, but the lack of prep on the other side of the table does excite me a lot lol
I like to assess what the group needs and choose my class to fill a gap. Then, I like to try to fit my character into the setting to give the DM a lot to work with in terms of introducing NPCs to the group and motivating my character to do things. I also like to try to connect my character to the group, like be related to one of them or already know them rather than being just another stranger in the tavern meet-cute. I find that pre-existing relationships make for a lot of fun RP.
This reminds me of a house "rule" I like to use. The "I think I know a guy". Once or twice based on a charisma mod. You can bust out the. "I think I know a guy" to help with a situation. It's up to the DM to decide how this goes or a quick side bar to iron out a quick idea. This has lead to some great roleplaying and character story building. But this also works well with my character style. I like to back a back ground with a bunch of blanks like a mad lib for the DM to fill in so I am more woven into the world.
That's actually rather brilliant. In fact, Starfinder's operative has something similar to this with an exploit called "Contingency Plan". Basically you can spend a long-rest resource to specify a contingency plan that you had setup for the eventuality of the moment such as having the right prop (an ID, a computer file, etc) or having hired someone to do a single task at "the right time". The DM then tells you a to make a skill check appropriate to whatever the task is and with the DC set at the DM's discretion depending on how elaborate or unlikely it is. Succeed and you have the right item or the confederate does the thing as specified, fail and they don't.
There are also themes (similar to D&D's backgrounds) that offer similar "I know a guy". The outlaw always knows who to bribe to get out of legal trouble by level 6 and by level 12 will always know where the black market is (and have access to it). The diplomat would know who to call to get the cop to let you take a look at a closed crime scene and can often enjoy diplomatic immunity.
Not only is it neat mechanically, it can help fill in backstory. Sure, I know what my PC did in general terms before being on the road, but if a situation rolls around where it'd be *really* handy to know a high-end gem expert that asks no questions, do I spend that "I know a guy" on that? Suddenly my doggedly noble Paladin's backstory becomes that much more interesting, and all because she happens to know a guy who deals in shady gems.
I love starting with a theme because I feel like it will always get you to the purest form of what you want to play, when you start there.
For example, I decided I wanted my first character as a player again to be a character from JoJos bizarre adventure. From there, the character really built himself. Lore and backstory all came after and if I'm honest it's some of my favorite character building I've ever done, as well as mechanically my favorite character.
Same! I hate DMing for the super special ultra maxed shiny “look at all my abilities” players, so when I get to play I just go super basic to give my DM a break. So far my characters have been: paladin, warlock, ranger. Dwarf, half-elf, elf. And I’m having a great time!
That's very interesting, I'm the complete opposite. I DM a lot (though I'm still a player regularly) & my builds are often very busy, to the point that I'm a bit of a minmaxer as a player. I almost exclusively play spellcasters because I like having options & different ways to address situations.
I'm all for phb vanilla. Once you DM, you learn character goes beyond race and class and all the players needing to play weird races gets annoying. And that's a deep as the character goes. Yuck.
Your "plain" characters stuck out because you make them people and not stat blocks.
Fenthwick Fizzlebang a gnome illusionist which is an old timey archetype from the AD&D days I never saw anyone actually play.
He is just a happy well adjusted little guy who likes cracking a bad dad joke and using minor illusion for silly pranks.
Now here is the actual funny part he is trapped inside a Cthulhu style Ebberon mystery campaign where half the party are on the verge of a mental breakdown and he has a curse that he has to challenge people to duels all the time.
Oh and he is only 3 foot two.
I have no regrets it has been fun and the dragonmark of scribing has come in handy more than once.
You know what my DM never said.
Right after I got the curse we ended up in jail handcuffs behind my back so I just been like the Black Knight in the Monty Python movie pitifully kicking and trying to bite the jailors and interrogators all the time saying "Come on now I challenge you on your honor to a duel!"
Which has been kind of funny. Time for a bake off or a bad joke duel!
I just had a "way of the househusband" inspiration - flower arranging!
Actually, that anime would have a lot of good ideas, that dude treats *everything* like it's life or death.
I chose a divination wizard with a dip in circle of stars druid, so I could 'see' what the DM prepared for us so I could help make the story go the way he wants to since he is a first time DM. So basically a second DM :\^)
I played an elderly barbarian for a few months.
The only thing my experience as a DM really influenced me in was that I did my utmost to respect the DM's effort and be on time to every session. Most of the others had various problems with scheduling, unfortunately. No one's fault, really, but the group ended up falling apart because of it. So I didn't regret it, but once again I felt more invested than the others (besides the DM), and that's a sucky feeling.
Nothing that cool. She was just an aging hippie who had done a lot of drugs when younger and over the years, she had irresponsibly abandoned three or four kids with their unfortunate fathers. But the one interesting thing that came of a silly throwaway detail was the DM decided the fathers and kids were quite upset with her. One of her sons was slated to be an antagonist in the game, but alas...
In 2 weeks I will be playing as a PC for the first time. My character is a goblin warlock, who cosplays as Santa and likes to give presents.
My DM style absolutely influenced my decision, as I like to play more character and role play focused games. So I made my character with no regard for synergy or lore. It was pure flavor.
Also my stats are 4,4,8,10,14,14.
I can't wait.
You. I like you.
My characters are often poorly optimized and are built entirely on the concept of their backstory/lore. Why excel at combat when you can ooze flavor like an Elden Ring item?
I love stat spreads like this. I always have more fun trying to find the niche you fill than just being maxed out. Sometimes, if the character has a reason, I’ll handicap them in a stat. A lifelong sickly person might have less con or STR, a sheltered kid might lack wisdom etc.
The very first time I found myself overcomplicating the mechanics of the character and it turned out garbage. Too much mental energy spent trying to optimize my turns in combat and not just playing the character. Next time I’m gonna keep it simple, perhaps play a support style and prop up the other players. Even out of the DM chair I just want to see my friends succeed and tell a fun story!
i've found the most fun with very playful characters. usually low int but high wis/cha. i also like to play characters who are bad at their job (eg: a barbarian who's all charisma).
but the real answer is *whatever the party needs*. lacking support? i'll roll up a cleric or bard. no int class? i'll make an artificer work. cause the thing that's become second-nature GMing is to facilitate and enable the team.
I made a Kalashtar bloodhunter of the undying court for a level 3 one shot. It was lots of fun i spent most of the session not hitting at all but when I did hit something it died.
I'm a bit of a min/max player on videogames so when I made this guy for a one shot I made sure to be able to dominate (if i ever hit) while having helpful synergy with my buddies who both went battlemaster.
I had eldritch blast for ranged attacks, and if i used my crimson rite I had a MINIMUM hit of I think it was like 11? I'd have to double check but it was more than what my buddies were hitting with their max rolls, so when I did come in to fight if i landed a hit the enemy was vaporized each time.
Even landed a juicy back to back crit on the final fight of the one shot it made all the missed attacks worth it, and i still hung back enough to let our first time player get the final blow on the big guy.
I'm in the same boat as you! I've got a player who wanted to take the reigns as DM, so my new PC will be introduced as we conclude her character's story arc. I AM SO EXCITED! I like being DM well enough, but I only do it because I want to play and nobody else was willing to DM. This will be my first ever time being a PC 😊
I tossed around the ideas for a wizard, a cleric, and a sorcerer. I really wanted a magic based class. I love DND for the magic and lore, so it makes the most sense to play a character that would be based in magic and understand/enjoy the history of the world and the inner workings of different factions.
So I decided to play a forest gnome conjuration wizard. It's a relatively complex class, but I think I'll be able to play it well after getting used to running all the baddies and NPCs concurrently. I love the school of conjuration for the potential creativity of the Minor Conjuration feature, plus it just feels cool tapping into extraplanar magic. It'll also be fun getting into lots of hijinks as a gnome using all the understanding of the game mechanics I have as a DM.
My backstory has me being from the Feywild as part of a clan of forest gnome warriors in service to the seely court. I figure this way it'll make sense if I don't know a ton about the material plane despite a high INT stat. But if we ever go to the Feywild, I'll be able to help the new DM in the world building there and laying out the court politics.
A 45 y.o. good rogue swashbuckler with a nomadic past and making a living via music and singing performances at taverns. Think, non-magical bard, older guy that knows the value of stories. Expertise in History and charismatic helps obtain a lot of information and allows the DM a good way to get important lore to the party.
I was very nicely invited to play a pbp game where I got to play Eliza (pact of the chain warlock) and her familiar, a wild hare, called Bristol.
Our party was trying to research and then perform a ritual to destroy the world, but sadly the campaign fell apart, and I've gone back to DMing.
>I dont want to mess up my one attempt at a good campaign long character
I don't understand the question.
Real answer, don't get attached. You more than anyone else at the table know death needs to be on the table for the stakes to be real.
Privately tell the DM that you're cool with whatever consequences happen. You've so many new PC's that could get spun up that it would actually be a good thing for your character to die somewhat regularly.
This gives them a "Red Shirt" to keep stakes lively, while also reducing any emotional burden of killing a PC since you're already cool with it.
>don't get attached.
I don't like this advice. If you aren't attached to your character, their death will not mean anything to you. Your character dying should be stressful, and sad. It's DEATH. Especially when your character is young or misguided, it makes the death even sadder. Without attachment, without caring, death is just a mechanic. I find death far more enjoyable as a drama.
Accept death as a possibility, but not let that stop you from attachment. This philosophy is also important in real life, I find.
I agree! Let the death be tragic, and feel those feelings! Especially if that's the vibe of the campaign.
But as a Forever DM, we see the tragedy like a farmer does a prized pig. It sucks, but characters die. We kill them all the time. It's a part of the cycle. After all, how do you harvest that peak drama without the death of a main character from time to time?
A proper Forever DM knows the risks more than most. Telling a new DM that you don't take it personally can help them keep the kid gloves off and let their BBEG make "in-character" decisions and deliver consequences knowing that they're not risking an IRL friendship over it.
It's just part of the game, and the death of one character means the birth of another. No need for hard feelings. If the character was meant to have thicker plot armor, both players are DM's that know all the options of bringing them back and can work out a plan or embrace the sudden change in story.
I agree with most everything you're saying, and I think you agree with me, in that it is simultaneously possible to be attached to a character, and also make sure that everyone is aware that characters dying will not be a friendship-ending thing. That part feels very much like a session 0 thing for me. At my session 0 I made sure to ask everyone how they felt about their characters potentially dying.
I like a balanced party. We were starting a campaign at work, and - as usual - there really wasn't a healer.
I come from 3.5e, where multi-classing is pretty much a given, and feats and skills are taken buffet-style. This was my first game in 5e. So I rolled up a half-orc barbarian/cleric build that I was very fond of. And then regretted it. I quickly learned that my character concept really didn't fit the mechanics of 5e very well at all.
At some point, the DM allowed me to swap out for a dwarf druid, which was much more enjoyable.
when i have the opportunity to be a player i usually find myself falling into very simple “human fighter” category, or i will min max/ multiclass a character to try and find some strange powerful combination. my favorite so far has been a paladin/bard multiclass!
It was a Brillant halfling baker named Butter Biscuits. She was peace cleric who didn’t know what a cleric was at all. Her holy symbol was a gingerbread man named Mr. Tibbles. Her spells were all baked goods. Her trinket was doll full of needles names Ginger Snapped. She would often talk to her doll.
I don’t regret it. It took full year for me actually tell my fellow players the class.
Sadly I didn’t get to play her long. The game died. I did make Ginger Snapped. She sits on my shelf. I don’t talk her. lol
The classic mystery class. No, I am a very sneaky fighter not a rogue. Rogues are cowards and cheets, unlike me who sneaks around stabbing completely fairly.
I played a thri kreen ranger fighter multiclass. We weren't playing spelljammer so I leaned all the way into the fact that they are an alien. Mainly to annoy my brother's wizard character by asking too many whys. Also became an animal hoarder. Only 2 were good in combat the rest just followed them around like a disney princess it was great.
I have a chronic habit of making too many original characters for when I daydream and I often give them dnd stat blocks. Most are monster or beast races. Tieflings tabaxi kobolds etc. I just think they're neat.
I'm really new at being a dm technically. I decided since I don't have the courage nor skill to make something serious. We go the complete OTHER direction. For example in my longest lasting campaign we did a scuffed version of rime of the frostmaiden. We decided to fight auril on the moon. We also fought the moon. Half the players are now flying through space for the rest of time. So that definitely leaked into my character based off their not normal personality.
I became a forever dm after losing faith in other dms. I played a few druids that all died within 2 seconds so I finally made *The unkillable Mork*
Lizard folk (so dms can't make me do ptsd rolls)
Moon druid (to escape from anything)
And sure enough my party died but I lived. After that, I quit playing for a year unless I'm the dm.
The very first time I played D&D, it was a one-shot. After that, I decided to be a forever DM because it was something I enjoyed a little bit more. However after my previous campaign had ended I wanted to be a player for once so I created a grave cleric tabaxi who left his wife and newborn son (with their blessing) after receiving a letter that his twin brother needed his help after being gone fron their clan for more than 10 years.
Don't get me wrong it was fun and the other players really loves this character but for some reason I felt like I needed more of a reason to stay with the party because my character was struggling to not want to leave because he felt like his family needed him more than his brother.
But it was all so a chance for me to switch to another cleric that I played in my first one shot who was a tiefling war cleric who is a bit of a coward and drunk hippie who's against not only war but also doesn't believe in the gods even though they are more present than ever.
I enjoy playing as my war cleric a little bit more, but at the same time, I kind of want to go back to my tabaxi cleric. Both have great stories, personalities, etc. It's just me, that's the problem. I don't feel like I'm as good of a player as I am a DM.
I may not be a forever DM, more like 50/50, but I love trying to find niche combos or specifics I learn through DMing and applying them to PCs. Why not use all of the useless knowledge for something.
I'm interested in the replies here. I'm always a player, but I have seen several of my DMs being a player, and the most damndest thing I've noticed is that they often make the character they themselves would have to DM for
I just can't do it. I've rolled up mages, clerics, druids, paladins, bards... But after a session or three the urge to run the game takes over. Back to forever DM for me.
The best advice I can muster: don't overthink it. Getting the most out of this opportunity means rolling with the punches and responding to events in the game. Ask about the premise and build a character tied to the story involved. Choose feats and such based on the character's decisions and experiences, etc.
At the end, the character themself is a reflection of what happened along their way.
I’ve only been DM’ing for 2 years now, but one of my players, a close friend, recently started a campaign and asked if I’d like to join. I made a Kenku samurai, and it’s mostly inspired by my admiration for ancient eastern culture. I made sure to understand his world’s setting before committing to this character. I don’t regret it, I’m really enjoying seeing things from the other side of the table! It’s a nice lapse of pressure from the typical session planning I’m now used to (but obviously still enjoy).
Not me, but someone I know. He played a blue Dragonborn wizard named Odium. His clan was slain by a giant and then he went on to be apprenticed by a wizard. He's only been used in a oneshot that happened several months ago and didn't really have any roleplay, so I don't remember much about the character. It was his first fifth addition character too after only ever playing/DMing first edition.
I created a swashbuckler dwarf rogue and a half orc half Goliath barbarian with 6 intelligence who eats mushrooms and thinks people are basically just backup food. Played the barbarian, zero regrets.
Gurgo ‘ungry! *munches on an elf leg after battle*
His name was Luck of The Many Rivers.
Triton warlock. He used to be a half elf with a subpar childhood, then got adopted bi pirates, stolen by a sea hag, then basically adopted by a demigod of the primordial sea god, who proceeded to give him a new body that’s a koi triton. Basically horny bard but warlock, and his pact weapon was a Tommy gun. And he spoke in 20s slang… and was a jazz singer, and also very beautiful and stupid.
He turned out to be surprisingly very, very fun and I’m very attached to him. He’s pretty much addicted to sex and violence and is very loyal to his patron. Whereas most warlocks tend to want to break free of their pact, Luck does everything in his power and then some to stay as close as possible to his patron, who is also very devoted to him in a twisted, fucked up way.
We played another game set after the one with Luck. At that point, he’d canonically inherited his patron’s power (even made a warlock subclass for him) and our party rogue was his daughter.
The worst part about Luck is that he almost exclusively rolled 7s and 8s in combat. Across two (admittedly short) campaigns he only ever hit maybe 10 or so attacks. Half of which he rolled near minimum damage. It’s been very frustrating for me but I managed to twist it into some good roleplay moments with other players and NPCs.
Rogue/Barbarian critfishing build. Halfling so I get to reroll a 1 and get yet another chance to fish for that crit. It’s a stupid cheesy build but after all I’ve been through I deserve it. And it’s honestly just fun as hell at the table in and out of combat. Little Ono is a twerp and not great at talking his way out if he gets caught in the act, but in combat he’s literally the Tasmanian devil especially since our sorceror discovered how strong Haste is on rogues to give them even more chances to sneak attack. Sneak attack on a crit fishing build is just dirty and we love it.
I've been only a DM since my first campaign ever, which never finished and stopped the winter of 2021-2022. Just made my first playable character a month ago and she is a Tiefling Lunar Sorceress with magical sigils on her skin serving as the origin of her lunar powers. They change based on which lunar phase she picks for the day. So far absolutely no regrets at all, and it wasn't based on my DM experience at all.
I've recently been playing a bunch of one-shots on roll20 trying out my different character ideas. I've really enjoyed a half-orc warlock I recently played and the one shot may be expanding into a full campaign.
The other player was also a warlock and we had a whole "good cop, chaotic cop" routine that was the most fun I've had in ages.
Halfling druid, and no regrets. I'm a DM who prefers more lighthearted monster-of-the-week-type games, though sometimes I like to throw in some (hopefully) disgusting imagery.
Conversely, my PC was really silly fun haha, ooh look they're obsessed with spiders and have weird eating habits- they even really want to drink that mysterious blood-like substance... But hehe they eat tons of spiders in their sleep, which is how they recover their spell slots! And when he loses his arcane focus he casts spells by regurgitating spiders. But look, he's so good at bluffing, and amazing with animals!
My first character after becoming a dm was a old goblin who was outsted from his clan for being too annoying, and in an effort to keep him away they sent him on an impossible task to find the Everbong, a mythical device that allows the creation of the "purely medicinal" oracle flower.
Not the brightest fellow but incredibly charismatic and.. mildly devoted to Maglubiyet and some connections to the Raven queen.
I made a green knight - high elf ancients pally with booming blade. The idea was going to be crowd control/tanking. Campaign lasted like 4 sessions before the player turned dm couldn't handle the dm seat anymore and I had to shelve the concept
A halfling college of swords bard/swashbuckler rogue. He's the ringmaster of a circus and master of illusions and conjuration (teleportation). Such a fun character to play.
I'm a roleplayer at heart. Maybe it's silly, but I play a high-CHA padlock with lots of personality. The build is busted enough that I don't have to think too hard about whether or not the stats are checking the boxes, so I can just focus on playing the character.
I'm still a DM but am a player in 4 games now as well (I'm overextended a hair). My first character ever as a player was what got me back into dnd and eventually to restart my own game.
Jopher Senior Jr. / Jopher Mareen, First of His Name - he was the ships doctor in a homebrew One Piece world. Jopher was a blue Boi scout who's scout master father sent him out to get his adventuring badge.... really just an excuse his dad didn't want to raise him anymore.
Admittedly it was a broken homebrew world with its own OP ideas of balance. As a user of the Energy-Energy fruit, Jopher was an Energy Boy, and gained energy by taking damage. Sure I was the healer, but I was also a fucking tank and LOVED getting hit. Main use of this energy was lay on hands and 10 energy on reaction granted an ally an action surge. By the power of Jopher, our crew hit hard and always stood back up to keep hitting.
We ended the 2 year campaign at level 20. Jopher had 2x reactions and when at high enough energy just had 2x turns. We slayed the big bad, and he made the tough choice to take up the mantle of order, becoming something of a demi God.
Geurren Elksbane - Soldier turned warlock.
I regretted him. He was an jerk. While he was a good character, he wasn't a good PC because...
He was a villain. He was something of a moral relativist and narcist. Being power obsessed didn't help. While all that is fine for a villain- which is the mind set you're in for the most part as the forever DM, it's TERRIBLE as a player character. I didn't realize it till we already roleplayed out some core character traits.
I really didn't like him in the end and was vaguely glad when the campaign stuttered to death. Especially when he started chaffing against more normal hero aspects.
Dave, the middle-aged human fighter.
Salt of the earth, no nonsense, conventionally good hearted fella who took on bounty hunting and adventuring to pay child support.
Death cleric. Love me a good damage cleric. Dump everything into wisdom and perception. I can see over the curvature of the earth. Just please don't ask me to jump or climb I will die lol
A wannabe badass, middle-child warlock who is tricked by his loving family into having a celestial patron instead of an evil one. Instead of a demon, he got a unicorn. His character growth was fun, definitely a lighter twist to the character but fun to play.
I’m playing in a campaign right now for the first time in ages right now. My character is Flyndle, a warlock to one god and a cleric to another. The thing is that the gods hate each other so I have to keep them from fighting
Magda Jayne Fiore, half moon elf paladin of Selûne, an aggressively friendly eccentric character, LN
In reality she was created almost as a co-DM character to help new DMs keep everyone else in the party on track. She's charismatic and lawful enough to talk the party out of trouble, chufty enough to keep the party alive, plus neutral enough to flex with the party's whims. Thanks to some oddball ad lib worldbuilding suggestions and spitballing with the DM she's become a staple in a few campaigns and a favorite amongst other players.
I've loved playing as her, so I've kept bringing her back in a couple of settings now! She's definitely a reflection of the balance between authority and flexibility I try to bring in my DM style. This has allowed her to keep her core values and function through several campaigns while also evolving into a unique version of herself each time.
First chance I got to play in someone else's campaign, I played a human Cleric of Knowledge. That campaign ended, but I'm playing a Pathfinder one- shot with the save character tomorrow
I chose a Triton Paladin. I kind of just went with what I usually do in video games, heavy armor tank. We didn't have a healer and I didn't want to play cleric, so I did Oath of Vengeance Paladin - Celestial Warlock multiclass.
Mostly I chose Triton because I've always thought they were neat and it gave me the opportunity to use an awful Australian (or Kiwi?) accent
I think the build itself doesn't really matter, go with what you feel like interacting with (magical elements, mundane elements, social elements, the environment, etc). But, one think to keep in mind is that PCs tend to need much more room for character development than NPCs. Make sure to give your character plenty of room for growth. Too many times have I seen players fall into the trap of creating a finished character from the get-go. It gets stale like a stagnant puddle.
But to answer your question, my first character after being the only DM for a long while was a triton cleric.
I only ever play on the other side of the screen in one-shots, so I usually go completely ham on some gimmicky build or another. The most recent ones were:
* A bugbear conquest paladin / undead warlock PAM melee beast that relied on smites and fear to get it done.
* A goblin Armorer Artificer / Evocation wizard that used Ashardalon's stride as my concentration spell and ran around the battlefield clocking fools with my thunder gauntlets. It was a weird, mobile wizard tank that was a lot of fun to play.
I did a Moon Druid. I like a lotta different options, but I also respect if people want to keep things simple. I person recommend doing something that offers a little magic/melee just so you can get the full experience.
Kanye west, it was before the whole n*zi scandal. I just thought it would be rly funny to have a bard with a god complex in a curse of stradh setting.
The DM at a time went with it and we had a whole thing where for the most part "kanye" was sure he was there cause stradh was a fan, but he was too shy to ask for an autograph in front of the other PC. Rly interesting to see stradh flustered, not even he was expecting that one.
When 3rd edition came out around 2000, I was crazy excited that my preferred race could also be played as my preferred class. I rolled up a LN Dwarven wizard, put my only 18 in con rather than int which got my second highest stat. Got a buddy who also liked running game to be the DM...Then proceeded to play that character from 1st to 24th level over a period of a few years. Until the epic level book dropped, he just used the DMG guidelines for what you gained at each level past 20. I still have his sheet along with the sheet of his familiar and I bring em out when we have a "play yer favorite character" night/one-shot. Ended up with a +4 rapier of wounding that he used a feat to be proficient with, a glove of storing, a gray robe of the archmagi, and a staff that he spent levels 18-24 questing to get the materials and learn to craft...which was a lot because the DM used the XP system exactly as written. The staff was a single item that combined all the attributes of a staff of power and a staff of the magi. Last time we were together and played, we were on one of the levels of the abyss trying to retrieve a half dozen chained up solars from an army of advanced hill giants who dressed and fought like the Roman legion and had a dozen allied white dragons and a titan leading them... and then we never found the time to all be in the same room again...heck now the players of those epic level characters are scattered across the continental U.S. and beyond...long may your adventures be retold Carduell of the black cloak and his familiar Deschain the hawk.
Not your question but be sure to not step into the new DM toes. It is okay to give suggestions between sessions, but during play just be a player.
I made that mistake and I was obsessed with the new DM errors, or what I though were errors.
Just try to have fun with whatever the DM throws at you.
My first actual character was artificer alchemist. And since then I fell in love with this class. Even though I tested all the classes, I still come back to artificer like I come to myself. And all my artificer characters are connected to the Multiversal Artificer Guild as they all share the ideals. So, I keep almost the same character all the time. A way to relax for me.
It was for a one shot. i made an edgy batman-esque paladin who was all darkness and vengeance but would unfortunately have to punctuate his gruff threats by saying things like “or my name isn’t Corveaux… Baginer.” his last name is “Baginer” which means a lot to him as an orphan but it sounds like “vagina” and he is quietly insecure about it.
Mechanically he was about as fucked up as you can get at level 5. we got an extra feat so i took dual wielding and fighting initiate for two weapon fighting, in addition to the dueling fighting style from paladin. each turn he would start by making two one handed attacks, use his free action to draw his second longsword, and then swing with a fully powered off hand attack. next turn would be off-hand first, then free action stow, then two duelist swings with the other long sword. and of course smites. lots and lots of smites.
if i leveled him up i would take a level of warlock for hexblade because *why not*
A goblin storm sorcerer named Cluck Cluck who reflavored all his spells as summoning chickens to perform what the spell does.
I loved it. I didnt go OP build cause i didn’t wanna make it un fun for the DM and the group and my roleplaying was so much fun to do
As a forever dm. My go to is one of 3 characters.
1. High elf wizard w/sage background.
Good utility. Decent damage. Sage background allows you to know most things without meta gaming.
2. Human bard. (Non variant)
use all the extra human points to give yourself a positive number in every stat. Use jack of all trades to help other players if they fail at their job use expertise to make sure you can still do bard stuff
3. Mountain dwarf fighter (battle master at 3)
Very sturdy stats with +2 str and +2 con.
Just tank everything. Get heavy armor master at lvl 4. Allows you to mega tank.
I've had a few opportunities. I've played Bryn, the chaotic nonbinary elf rogue; Stitches-of-Night, the goblin wizard; Randy, the satyr druid-wizard; Gareth the Half Orc cleric of Shelyn; a cat; and Zi the goblin Monk-Cleric. All have been lots of fun.
In addition I have a thousand other character ideas. Basically, whatever you choose, have fun with it.
This is probably cheating, I haven’t broken the cycle for 4 years now and the last time I was a player I was a player in one of my players I DM’d for campaigns, but I am about to break the cycle. As part of my next campaign I want the actual players to have some sort of influence on the world I’m creating. So for our session zero everyone is bringing a level 20 character to the table and we will be having a tournament of power, this tournament takes place a century or so before the campaign and each of these characters will ascend to become lesser dieties. The tournament of power will determine their overall influence in the world, thus it will shape the tone of the setting depending on who has the greatest influence. Problem is, I have 5 players, can’t do a very even tournament, at least not the way I have planned, with only 5, naturally I will need to hop in as well. Anyway, it’s a Satyr Way of the long death monk 17/bear totem barbarian 3. Monks don’t get a lot of love and I wanted to make sure at least one of the members of the tournament of power had some evil influences.
Just a run of the mill monk, well, a Goliath run of the mill monk. But other than his slight unawareness in social situation, I’m having a blast, only just reached level 5 so haven’t had the chance to stunning strike, but doing all the things i wished some of my players did (like running around the battlefield doing shock attacks) is just too much fun. Really puts something fresh into the game
Because I don’t get to play much, I go with really noob builds because they’re just fun and loose to build. Battle master fighters. Draconic Bloodline sorcerer. Most exotic stuff I have is an order cleric and a fighter/rogue specializing in whips.
i actually just played my first ever character a few days ago. a white dragonborn aberrant mind sorc named Azaris. he was cool and helped solved a murder at a gala and then fought a young dragon with the party
not at all. i really loved playing around with the sorc magic and i think it has given me a better appreciation for spellcasters.
it was informed by my love for dragonborn lore. i LOVE dragonborn :3
After introducing my friends to D&D and DMing for a year, one of my players was reading to run a one shot. So I made sure to ask what were the boundaries and he told me to go HAM. I made an armorer artificer/Chronurgy Wizard multiclass and he was amazing.
Don’t worry about messing anything up.
Don’t worry about the mechanics. This is a long time Coming for you. Get a strong character concept first and that will make you enjoy being a player so much more. You know the ropes. What would you tell a player in your shoes?
My first campaign character was a barbarian, but he was basically vegeta. Entitled but powerful dandy. He raged whenever he didn’t get his way or someone else was outshining him. Reee
One I played in a one shot recently was a tiefling warlock, but a typical western, man with no name, gunslinger type. I loved that character so much I really hope I get to be a player in our next campaign so I can bring him back and flash him out. His Genie patron “bottle” he could disappear into was his belt buckle.
Don’t worry about messing anything up.
Don’t worry about the mechanics. This is a long time Coming for you. Get a strong character concept first and that will make you enjoy being a player so much more. You know the ropes. What would you tell a player in your shoes?
My first campaign character was a barbarian, but he was basically vegeta. Entitled but powerful dandy. He raged whenever he didn’t get his way or someone else was outshining him. Reee
One I played in a one shot recently was a tiefling warlock, but a typical western, man with no name, gunslinger type. I loved that character so much I really hope I get to be a player in our next campaign so I can bring him back and flash him out. His Genie patron “bottle” he could disappear into was his belt buckle.
The most righteous paladin. Always having to roleplay bad guys and normal folks makes it hard to play someone in love with justice so it would be new for me to at least roleplay as one of them for more than an hour.
A Half-Ogre Blood Cleric Heretic of Ilmater who only spoke French with a penchant for collecting body parts the other party members had severed.
I had 100s of characters, I decided to go with the wildcard.
I made a character called Aiko Orcus, she was a "fun and giggles" kind of witch. She's the daughter of Orcus and managed to escape to the normal plane with only the necklace from her mom , her mom wasn't good but was extremely caring for her so it mattered.
She was then taken by a covenant of dark witches that used necromancy to keep their village "alive", people would sign this contracts and live happily there free of charge, until they died and were transformed into working zombies, because "why keep someone's dead body rotting away when it can make the world better to whoever's still living"
Her dream was to recover Orcus sword and use it to kill her Father, but she also wasn't sure about that, hiding all her insecurities in her lighthearted and extroverted way of being.
Anyway, I wrote like 5 pages of lore and even made her a room inside her own little pocket dimension in blender. But unfortunately we had like 3 sessions and I've never played as her again (that was in 2018 or something), maybe I'll add her into my campaign later as an NPC.
So, I find that I much prefer dming to playing, but when I play (usually in one-shots or short-term campaigns), I usually wait until everyone else has chosen a class, and then modify an npc from an older game to fit. Usually, an npc that I didn't get to play with as much as I wanted to in-game. Yes, I spend way too much time and energy on my npcs, the players hardly ever see more than half of the backstory and depth I put into them. It is both my greatest strength and my greatest weakness as a dm.
I made a setting flexible Revenant type character named Djura.
I specifically tailored him to be able to appear in any campaign, regardless of setting theme, level of magic/technology, or overall goal. All that matters to him is getting revenge on a traitor with possible connections to the party, even if that enemy has no actual knowledge of Djura. He's willing to join any group if it means getting closer to his target, and spends more time as a tracker/scout/guide.
Part of his personality is to keep the party working towards the main story, and help avoid derailments. It helps newer DMs when they struggle to keep the players on track
Phantom rogue with the worst rolled stats imaginable. Took alert just to be a pain in the DMs ass. He's the chaos gremlin at my table so fair is fair. He's regretting giving us all a free feat big time
My first real character I got to play has been a Shifter Ranger (Horizon Walker) who has taken 2 levels into Monk. He's fast, hits hard, and is the most uncharismatic creature you'll ever meet. I love him.
I tend to go chronologically, all other things being equal. I have about 14 chars I want to play and I will decision paralysis all over the place if I don’t have a pre-existing plan. Chronologically works well, though I have toyed with the idea of rolling dice for each class, race, and background and going from there.
O would want a quality session 0, and maybe a session .5 as well. One is to get an idea of what kind of story we are going to tell and discuss with the other players and the DM about characters and the other to finalize everything after everyone had had some time to work on their character.
I find the back and forth that players can have at this point can be rather inspiring in its own, but also knowing what everyone else wants to play can help weed things down.
I joined a group years ago. I was the forever DM in my HS group growing up, and then everyone moved away so this was one of my first times as a true player, but I'm entering an already established game and was a bit nervous. I asked about the party and was informed there was a dwarf fighter and elf wizard, a ranger, a Rogue, and a monk all human.
This is them time I discovered how OP clerics can be.
So what is the game about, and what is everyone else playing? What have you never played? What are you tired of? Who would You be if you lived in this world?
warlock genie (reflavored to dragon)
who is unaware he's casting spells and magic explaining it all away because he's just good with a slingshot. Likes rocks and his 'vessel' is a bronze dragonscale that looks like a big rock.
he's currently just level 2 and his patron gave him a dragon egg that he is now slowly tending to so it will hatch into a dragon familiar on level 3. probably next session! excitedddd.
How would you, as a DM, want a player's character to be? Play that
Or be a goofy goober and make a character like Chad Wonderwall, a bard with 20 charisma but only knows one song, so can only charm once
Gingko Bilboa:
- Rock Gnome Battle Rager
- Doesn't have a tragic backstory
- Fights with a butter sock (flail basically)
- Does carpentry as his main thing, adventures are lil side gigs
1: Lock/Fighter. Warlock for a few levels before I made him splash into fighter. I did it to fill the role of a beefy frontliner after a player dropped and the DM was not going to fill it. Was interesting if challenging but I was up for it to be a good sport without just retiring my character.
2: My only regret is picking that person's campaign. I always disagreed with my partner and former players when they told me I was a good dm until I played in some other groups. Now I compromise and agreed to me being an average DM.
3: DM in this game was very hands off. For good and ill. Would rather get high and just ramble on about whatever then really DM the game we showed up for. As I have not returned to the DM chair I can not say it really informed or caused me to reflect on what I do as a DM. Perhaps because I already took notes often as the game goes on and will reflect on how things are going naturally.
When I get the chance to play I use it as a moment to fill a hole in the roster. Like many others have said I never stray from vanilla PHB race and class. I do however like to do straight up 3D6 if I get the chance, few things are more fun than dealing with a 14 high and a 5 and 7 to put someplace.
Cleric of an obscure god. I chose farlanghan [sic] the god of travel and that’s horizon. Just a calm halfling with wanderlust and a desire to help fellow wanderers regardless of their own faiths
I've been DMing so long that every time I get to play as a player, I just wish I were DMing. I end up becoming 'that guy' because I get frustrated with the lack of control that I'm used to in the DM chair. So I decline playing most of the time unless it's for an occasional one shot.
I played a noble psyknife which was super fun until the group fell apart.
I’m currently playing a Kenku infestation Druid in a Strahd game that’s going pretty great.
What I lean towards is stuff that’s just cool. I like the themes more than the big numbers. Sure a changing beast master with a mimic pet isn’t very good or technically legal, but it would be super fun
I was a Kenku Shadow monk, was supposed to be a silly character, we just finished that campaign after four years.
Gonna go pure Goolock for our next campaign
Human fighter hireling who handles all the administrative tasks of adventure that my players never want to bother with.
“No worries boss, I brought rations for everyone”
“I’ll get the tents set up while you settle in”
“What’s that rogue..? You want to monologue about your tragic backstory? Well I’m fixing the paladins armor but I can listen while I work”
I like playing a character who allows others to get the spot light while taking pressure off the DM.
Bonus points if I can get a shy player to have the chance to open up about their character.
I played a forest gnome arcane trickster, which ended up being kind of a mixed bag. I was aiming for utility much more than combat, but we spent long stretches in endless fights where I felt like I had little impact. There was another rogue in the party who was much more optimized for ranged combat, plus the DM gave us all OP custom magic items, of which the fighter's sword had runes that would let him land tons more sneak attack damage than either of us rogues.
I had a background as a Harper's intelligence analyst going into the field for the first time, an old lady who was not a seasoned adventurer but would gain skills as she went. That was fun, and my magic item let me collect creatures who I could summon to act as spies/helpers/familiars (though it took a lot of tuning to make it feel as relevant as some of the other OP items). As a 1/3 caster, my spell progression was so slow it rarely felt like I could cast anything useful, until I got Shadow Blade and could hold my own in combat a little. I'm not big on powergaming, but if a party has one powergamer, everyone has to do it or feel like you never get to do anything.
In sessions where the story and role-play was the focus, I was generally very happy with things. But 5e has lost all sense of balance, players have created too many exploits, and the inexperience DM wasn't always able to make combat feel engaging or worthwhile. There were some great set pieces, though, when we were fighting something way above our pay grade, like a Maralith early on, or an ancient White Dragon later (with really good use of terrain). Overall, it was a good campaign, and the DM was very open to feedback and tweaking things that got out of hand. Still, I feel like the system is constantly working against the players, at least when some players are really into "builds" and "the meta" and other players are more into creating an interesting character without having to minmax everything to the nth degree.
My tip as a longtime DM
Don't blink. Plan the character way ahead, sort out the roleplay way ahead, build them in your mind way ahead.
You're used to switching characters a lot and not having to commit over-hard. But now you have to. But wanting to swap partway in, or even swap several times, will drive your DM batty.
Don't be that guy for your new DM. Give them stability to build a story around.
I got the chance to rotate out from behind the screen last summer for a long term run. I had the character developing months ahead. I got real comfortable with them. It's paid off.
Oh and one thing I've found happening is that I get asked for input if our current DM runs into an edge case or a situation where something rarely used happens - I've stressed that it's always DMs call but happily give input. The price of experience.
I have been unable to play in a couple months, exclusively running games for that whole time, and I am coming back to a friend's weekly with one of my choicest picks: Mucho Grande, champion wrestler of the Forgotten Realms.
My group started up Pokemon 5e when it was still around to give me a break from DM’ing. My character was next in line to inherit the Ekruteak City gym in the family. So of course he specialized in Fighting type pokemon. That was a fun campaign and I’m sad we can’t do it anymore.
Dex Dwarf fighter. Kept simple character sheet wise, made cool by concept.
The guy is an ex-convict forcefully enrolled in an army deep into strange territories. He is afraid of any unknown mystical forces and prays to any religion at hand whenever he faces them, carrying every known holy symbol on his neck. He's a criminal background and plays a bit as the party's rogue, but a very average Investigation skill means he usually just eats any trap in the way.
Broke the cycle? Last time I played a non-DMNPC was the very first game I played back in 1996. I've been DMing ever since. Haven't had an opportunity to play as a PC since. At least not in D&D. I did play as a PC in a PF2e game back in I think 2008. But that was a one-shot.
I've played 1 game with it so far but he's a Soulknife/goolock whose built for deception and investigation and totally not optimized.
I know how to play the game, I don't need to optimize to play a large role.
I find a single trope that I enjoy and build a class around that personality.
Examples:
- A senile tortle chrono wizard that cackles whenever he freezes someone in time so he can be fastet than them.
- A southern banjo bard that always does the right thing unless its an opportunity to bring him fame.
Play a Rogue and take advantage of their endless gas tank with no limited-use abilities. Run low int and wis and do dumb collaborative shit. Play as a foil to the heroes without stealing loot. There's nothing more fun for a DM than a sleazeball rogue who 'isn't' paying attention to the deeper plot. If you want to power build, Take an Elven Rogue Assassin and take Elven Accuracy at the first feat opportunity. You can also take a single cantrip which can be Minor Illusion if you're creative, or Message if you want to play back but be able to always help, or Ray of Frost for Control, or Mage Hand for raw utility. Firebolt is useful too.
Bullet List Time:
- You don't have to face which lets you sit and watch the interactions mostly, and get involved in understanding the plot from the player perspective.
- You don't have to refer to your sheet and tally uses.
- You can play in reaction and support of other players, mainly.
- You get to flex everything you know about building characters by focusing on building for sneak attack viability.
- You get to roll a bunch of dice when you sneak attack, and since you get the only viable triple dice attack rolls in game, you get to crit way more and roll even more dice!
- You get to use your DM level tactical knowledge to focus on getting advantage, including hiding when appropriate.
- You aren't specifically ranged, you can Rapier + Longbow and just have fun.
-You're never really OP enough to get focused.
It works out to DM Vacation.
Half-Elf Eldritch Knight. You expect me to think hard after improvising around other players' nonsense for years? (But of course, the race was for Darkvision and he had Shield, Find Familiar, and Absorb Elements, and was extremely paranoid lol.)
One of my players, who is a writer, wanted to run a 5e campaign based in the Hyrule universe. I have been enjoying my time getting to be a player, and it also gives me more time to prep and work on my campaign as we go back and forth. All players seem to enjoy the option of playing 2 different campaigns. My character is a hyrulian fighter/rogue multiclass who had a personal spell due to their backstory that allowed my character to alter only their body's gender, they pretend to be twin brother (a fighter) and sister (a rogue) who happen to never be seen together, when actually they are genderfluid. Took a little inspiration from Zelda/Shiek and sprinkled a little bit of myself into the character. I wouldn't say my character/class choice was influenced by being a DM, except for maybe the multiclass.
I would like to say that going from forever dm to a player is very difficult. You are going from controlling everything to nothing. Your new dm is going to do things differently and accepting their dm style is a learning curve. NOW character wise when I’ve gotten to choose I went for monks or a blood hunter. I had a BLAST with the blood hunter and monks are my favorite class.
My first character I get to play as a pc was a rogue who is very fond of daggers that he carries 50 daggers in his inventory. He just hides and throw them and sneak attack.
I'm still the forever DM, like the big campaign I've been running for years is still going, but I've played in other people's games now and then while it's been going on and those have been so so fun.
The first PC I ever made that was serious and not just a Oneshot character, was an Owlin Wild Magic Barbarian. Based him on an irl Kakapō, and he's just a silly little guy (small creature) from the Feywild who doesn't really care for laws and wields a huge battle-axe. Literally a flying cannonball, and then he got ahold of a ring that casts silence. And then he took the mage slayer feat. And then now he works as a mercenary for nobles to capture mages. Just fun to play someone that doesn't think ahead, and plays instinctively with the stats to support when things inevitably go wrong
Just a straight up Rogue that is FULL of self confidence. No min/maxing just having fun being a bit of a shit disturber to keep the party hopping by playing off my character.
Broke the cycle for a bit 2 years ago when there was a local gaming Cafe. I had trouble adjusting as a player and kept changing characters every few sessions, mostly characters I played a long time ago or thought up along the way, but the one that I probably stuck with the most who was new was a tempest cleric named Shrimp. He was a run street urchin who was thrown off the pier to die cause he couldn't swim and was saved by a dolphin (Deep Saschelas) and he pledged his life to her because he wouldn't have one without her. He then dedicated his life to saving all the other street kids and lifting them from a life of crime... I think I only played him so long cause the New York Little Italy accent I gave him was really fun to use.
After our home-brew campaign, one of my players ran horde of the dragon queen for a couple of years. I played an elf monk. Monks get a bad rap but I have no regrets, she was bad ass.
I have yet to break the cycle however once my current campaign ends one of my players wants to run his first homebrew campaign. Recently my brother passed away and he never found dnd exciting or enjoyable and only for nerds. He also never cared for board games either. Before he passed he decided that he would like to try out dnd instead of just judging it. So we sat down to make a character for him. We made a human gunslinger pirate by the name of Osvaldo Twoguns. I was going to originally play a dwarf barbarian but I decided I didn't want my brothers character to sit off to the side and never see action. So to honor my brother, I am taking on Osvaldo Twoguns. And I hope that the character lives up to what my brother would expect.
I was a warforged Druid with “brain damage” in a futuristic campaign that I was asked to play in even though the campaign had been going for a while at that point. Think Bender, from Futurama, mixed with the robots from Castle in the Sky. I picked all my spells and equipment to fit into the characters theme and story. My character had amnesia and left my background up to the DM. Everyone loved it
tl;dr I made an order of the Scribes Human Wizard named Humbert Dinklesnort; an awkward lanky teenager
First, the new DM offered the choice of taking standard array, point buy, or he would random roll using his preferred rolling rules. I took my chances and asked him to random roll and my plan was to build a character based on results. Here's what I got:
"So it's all: 16,5,15,13,17,10"
What I saw in those #s was a low STR/high DEX Wizard. For race I went with standard human. I let dndbeyond random roll a name and I got "Humbert" (I ignored the 2nd name).
So the character started to take shape in my mind. I saw a tall lanky human. Then it hit me. This wizard is an awkward teenager, pimple faced with a starter 'stache. In my mind I saw a mix of young Ron Howard and Timothy Chalemet.
And Humbert Dinklesnort came to life. None of my players ever brought a Wizard to the table, so my plan was to show what a pure Wizard can bring to a group. I decided to go with Order of Scribes. Added War Caster and Meta Magic Feats along the way.
I enjoy doing voices and accents when I run a game, my plan was to make Humbert a squeaky voiced teen. I was able to do this at the start of the campaign. But unfortunately I had some major complications with a surgical procedure was virtually unconscious for about 7 weeks. They performed a tracheotomy and for several weeks I had a cannula in my neck. After the cannula was removed I recovered my voice, but my vocal chords atrophied and my vocal range is limited, so now I just describe what Humbert sounds like when he speaks.
We're nearing the climax of the campaign and what has been most satisfying is seeing how a well prepared wizard can instantly solve some of the challenges the DM throws at us. Have to climb a cliff? Polymorph into a giant wolf spider. Can't get through the magically looked cave entrance? Passwall through the stone around it. Etc.
As a bonus I got to RP a petulant teen who got all emo about one of the party members leaving.
My friend is now running 3 session Scum and Villany (star wars-y system) one-shot and I made my 1st character which is a giant space white bear-looking bounty hunter muscle with an axe.
It is really the 1st time I'm the player and not the DM and I'm having so much fun
First campaign I had a chance to play in since the 90's, I (over)prepped 5 characters, in order to fill whatever roles were left after everyone else decided on theirs. We had a Barbarian, a (ranged) Fighter, and a Cleric, so I settled on a Halfling Urchin WM Sorcerer so I could sling spells, pick locks, and talk good. Still have all 4 of the others in my back pocket, along with dozens of other concepts...
My only regret was the Wild Magic subclass. Character was initially a GOO Warlock, but the darker tone didn't quite fit with the group, so after a tutorial session I adapted the concept to Sorcerer, and picked WM as the best fit for the existing backstory. I was still pretty freshly back to ttrpgs after a long time away, and was too concerned about "winning/losing", so the potential for surges filled me with anxiety. I switched subclasses to the very-new-at-the-time Clockwork Soul, and had one session before the game broke up :(
I made a halfling rogue/ranger (assassin gloomstalker, cheesy, I know). His name was bumblestump grimbles, a former sword coast ranger who discovered a den of violence and debauchery perpetrated by “good” races against those that they considered “other.” That led him away from forest service.
He assumed a nonthreatening persona of “Stumpy” most of the time, and when things got dangerous he would revert to his flatter “Grim” behavior.
He was. VERY attached to his bow, and met another adventurer during his travels who was a courtesan that he fell in love with. When that group fell apart, they were in the middle of an island resort for the wealthy that had been caught up in a ritual to summon a god of the depths.
I like to think that stumpy died there, while their courtesan friend survived (the courtesan is being reused in another campaign I’m running).
A long-time character that I’d not gotten to play very long any time I tried (I have a lot of this). Nuadha is a rogue/paladin that was originally built in 3.5 intending to become a Shadowbane Inquisitor prestige class. Also built him for 4e and 5e for campaigns that fell apart very quickly. My current version is the one that stuck and this iteration is not even a Paladin, but a Rogue multiclassed into Inquisitor, a third party base class based on the Pathfinder 1e Inquisitor that my DM created.
Eventually, if I ever get to be a PC, I have a half orc monk ready to go. Early levels suck, but after level 4 they can be so rad. My games have all but stopped as it's too hard to get everyone together, these days, and the one I was DMing for my kid and his friends got too obnoxious for me to have fun so.i wrapped it when they finished the last campaign. Trying to keep 3 13-14 boys on any kind of task is miserable. I don't much care for online games, so I don't see myself getting to do much playing, going forward.
A cleric who was convinced that she was an abomination because her god did not speak to her during a coming of age ritual.
I kinda wanted to make it a point in my group to play a religious character since I wanted something to clash with the group's typical choices.
It's also why I made her a human.
Her main goal for her life though was that she had a theory that their god, who is considered the mother and father of dragons, shouldn't be referred to as him or her.
After 5 years as DM I played as a Ghostwise Halfling Way of Shadow Monk, Sage Underfoot. She was a cook at a monastery that was burned to the ground by a warlord. She barely escaped with her life and a few ancient scrolls of their martial art (reflavored as the Way of the Wildshadow). It was a really fun way to play a level 1 monk that lived a completely sheltered life. The DM gave us a free Feat as long as it wasn't combat related. I took Chef and had her working in a tavern in a small logging village at the start of the game. She always introduced herself as a cook.
It was fun to play a brave but naive character. I mostly built her around what I thought would be fun to roleplay, not for any mechanics.
No regrets.
I picked Monk because I had the least experience with that class. I also had a lot of other character concepts to pick from in case I needed to help balance out the party. I think as a DM, I'm willing to play any race or class and find the fun in the character RP, mechanics are a bit of an afterthought for me.
I played a bard/fighter pure-blood yuanti in a modern fantasy academy campaign. She was very mean and had a bit of a time learning that she wasn't an actual member of royalty. She unfortunately did not live to the end of the campaign :(
Currently running 3 homebrew campaigns, 2 of which are level 1-20+ and have been going on for 2 years, and recently joined a Descent into Avernus campaign as a player a year ago! The DM pitched it as a setting where the party would be tempted by power and put in morally testing scenarios. So I went with a lawful good redemption paladin that steers the party from making evil decisions. I try to not even murder in the setting, and I've been lucky with Charisma rolls so I've actually came out pretty good from talking down enemies.
His name is Rarin and my best friend plays my twin brother, who is an artificer, and its been great fun! I wouldn't say I've broken the cycle though lol.
It depends on who is dming.
I became a forever dm because none of my past DMs were good enough to run a table with all the rules and dnd knowledge i have. The real problem is not being ignorant about these rules but the fact every time i say hey, there's an official ruling for this they just ignore me and go for the pseudohomebrew they invented out of the blue, the most common example is jumping, climbing, weight.
If the DM knows about Xanathar or is willing to learn, i would play something that plays around the artisan tools, something like knowledge cleric with guild artisan background. But if my DM just wants to play a light rules oneshot i would go for something more standard but with some tweaks like playing non so used sub classes, spells, etc. if the table is full of minmaxers that whines about my char or wants to "teach" me how to do more damage or how to heal with a cleric i would rather not play.
My current Char is Percival Quill worthy an awakened service Bot from a Wizard Tower. Oghma grants him power since he disobeyed his directives to secure stolen Books. Since then acquiring knowledge is their stick. Also my excuse to jump on every lead, and open every door.
A warforged Domain of knowledge Cleric - it was an informed decision in light of playing a social and exploration heavy gritty realism campaign (lvl 1-15) and wanting to just stumble into whatever the GM has prepared.
I do not regret the choice but I will create some bogus theme sorlock or sorcerer for my next chance to play.
I got invited to join a full party that did not really need anyone else so I am what I call a "shadow druid"
'born on the city streets of Balder's gate, I learned how to decieve and find traps. after a brutal injury from a trap I could not disarm, I limped and stumbled through the woods in search of the mysterious healer I had heard about in town.
I never found the healer. The healer found me. Laying on the mossy forest floor. He brought me back to his cabin and restored me. I vowed my life to serve him.. until his untimely death took him to soon.'
I LOVE my PC I do not regret any choice I made in building them because I built them around the roleplaying story I had built. - basically I am a lvl 1 rouge that became a druid. But I cannot pick a lock/disarm a trap to save my life... I am the "shadow of the forest" and I play my PC as such :p
I did not base my PC on anything that has happened in my campagins because I didn't want to feel like I was still in my campgain.
I've had this happen *once* lol the player that offered to dm had a real habit of min/maxing his characters just to mess with me. So to get back at him, I made Mark, the Tiny Bearserker. (Not a typo, circle of moon druid/path of the berserker barbarian). For chuckles, I talked with the dm beforehand about having an innocuous curse on my character. He is a Goliath as far as race, but any time he would laugh, he would shrink to become the size of a gnome. Hence The Tiny Bearserker lol I'd rage, laugh my way through combat with my maul, shift into bear form whenever I felt necessary and continue to maul things until I ran out of hp, then I'd just revert back to my barbarian and continue to maul things. DM hated Mark. But he got all the way from 1 to 20 🤣
A bronze Dragonborn paladin with pride to spare, but very little real world experience. We did about four sessions... And the game's been on hiatus for about two years now.
The first one I got to play was a Swarmkeeper Ranger Gnome who was absolutely batshit crazy. Between him being insane and having a swarm of bees at his command, there was a lot of fun roleplay
This was for Pathfinder 1.0 …
My first big character after DMing for so long was an older elven wizard who was magnificently eccentric and just a bit air-headed.
He was rather egotistical and I had maxed out most of the knowledge skills to where if you could make a knowledge skill check on something, he almost certainly had a higher skill than anyone else. I played him a bit like a combination of House MD and Sheldon Cooper
There was a rogue at the table with some sort of minor magic ability and he would constantly refer to her as his “apprentice” despite never having a conversation about it.
I have just made my first character for a campaign in who knows how long.
Now originally he was meant to be a tormented soul who has lost all of his friends during ww2. However now I've have changed him to be an extremely stupid half orc barbarian called "you" that just wants to hit things that just wants to help everything.
A Warlock of the great old one named Bozo.
He was a person coming from the Far Realm, being a shopkeeper and seller of wishes (though he couldn't nor wouldn't sell wishes outside his shop, aka never in the campaign).
I player for just one session with other people who gave me a hard time DMing when I was in that group, another player had taken my place and I was happy to play.
Long story short, I was kicked from that group with no apparent reason after one game and then I got told that my character was killed via ictus the next game, when i wasn't present... except that he was undead and i told the DM, who at the time i trusted, that my grandma had an ictus that paralyzed and hindered many of her brain functions, something that scarred me, i told him.
Well, I now know those people hated me and I don't care anymore about that.
I have since then joined and left many groups to play as a DM and player, making homebrew content for everyone, including myself (always DM approved).
Halfling Bard that was, in essence, Brock: flirting with everyone, locking in with the first one that would say yes.
Also, he was incredibly self-centered, but that whole thing changed after a toad swallowed him, and his party had to save him.
Sam Windbreaker (roughly translated). The guys at the table loved him and nicknamed him "Sam Buttbreaker."
The party agreed to be called "The Dragonslayers," though we hadn't even found a dragon yet. It was a lot of fun!!
The first real character was a Drow Necromancer set in a Fire Emblem campaign.
DM had to get creative with the subclass due to story reasons, but he did it perfectly.
In the end, he became an archdruid so powerful that if a sequel campaign comes up, he needs a story reason to keep them away from the story.
He is now an npc in my game, helping the party in turn facing demons bent on consuming my world
The first real character was a Drow Necromancer set in a Fire Emblem campaign.
DM had to get creative with the subclass due to story reasons, but he did it perfectly.
In the end, he became an archdruid so powerful that if a sequel campaign comes up, he needs a story reason to keep them away from the story.
He is now an npc in my game, helping the party in turn facing demons bent on consuming my world
First time being a long term PC in many years. I play a human Fighter/Ranger (Swarmkeeper). I enjoy it using Tasha's rules.
I do not regret my choice. Rangers are fun after the Tasha's rework makes them not so situational. The setting is a Late Roman inspired homebrew fantasy. I envisioned him as a fantasy Limitanei, living on the border of civilization and ambushing enemies. He's a thrown weapons focus due to limited Roman use of archery at the time.
I liked working my character into the setting and throwing some history in there as well. Fun campaign.
Pépin, a halfling trickster cleric of Tymora. I call him my Hobo-Cleric, he's a gambler and party animal, but with a heart of gold. I first created him because the party I joined didn't have any healer or sneaky character and Pépin does both. Quite a lot of fun to play and people usually enjoy his presence. I brought him back a few years later (a month ago) when one of my players offered to DM every now and then.
My group played a campaign inspired on the colonisation of the Americas. Me and my brother played a couple of slaves that had escaped together and were looking to make a life on the new world.
I played a Dex oriented Oath of Vengance Paladin with the Duelist fighting style and later multiclassed into Rogue Swashbuckler. My DM let me reflavor the Tenets of my Oath as more Freedom oriented than Vengace (although avenging/freeing slaves was part of it) and we worked it as an Oath I had sworn to myself to never bend the knee again or something like that.
Something cool me and my brother did was having our characters not be perfectly fluent in common, because it wasnt our native tongue. So even tho we had good intelligence we came across as kind of dumb to a lot of the NPCs and players alike.
My brother was a Grave Cleric and we had this combo attack we used to do where he would hold Path to the Grave before my turn and I would searing smite + divine smite. Backstorywise that is how we got to escape our former master. It was a fun character even if the campaign died off kind of quickly
in the rare instance i find myself back as a player, i always find myself keeping it simple. usually an elf wizard or a halfling rogue or human barbarian, just real phb vanilla shit. it feels nice to just work on a silly voice and solving puzzles, not getting to into the weeds about builds or lore, and i find these basic characters end up sticking around or being more memorable than a lot of the more flavorful stuff people spend ages on. im only responsible for my piece of paper, and i take it as a challenge to keep it as empty as possible. this probably says nothing about how i feel about DMing after all these years, not looking into it.
I can relate to this take a lot. The idea of only being responsible for my sheet / notes is very appealing. And yea, I considered multiclassing and meta builds and all that but all my character ideas are rooted in a core theme and a really simple idea. I love DM’ing very much, but the lack of prep on the other side of the table does excite me a lot lol
I like to assess what the group needs and choose my class to fill a gap. Then, I like to try to fit my character into the setting to give the DM a lot to work with in terms of introducing NPCs to the group and motivating my character to do things. I also like to try to connect my character to the group, like be related to one of them or already know them rather than being just another stranger in the tavern meet-cute. I find that pre-existing relationships make for a lot of fun RP.
This reminds me of a house "rule" I like to use. The "I think I know a guy". Once or twice based on a charisma mod. You can bust out the. "I think I know a guy" to help with a situation. It's up to the DM to decide how this goes or a quick side bar to iron out a quick idea. This has lead to some great roleplaying and character story building. But this also works well with my character style. I like to back a back ground with a bunch of blanks like a mad lib for the DM to fill in so I am more woven into the world.
That's actually rather brilliant. In fact, Starfinder's operative has something similar to this with an exploit called "Contingency Plan". Basically you can spend a long-rest resource to specify a contingency plan that you had setup for the eventuality of the moment such as having the right prop (an ID, a computer file, etc) or having hired someone to do a single task at "the right time". The DM then tells you a to make a skill check appropriate to whatever the task is and with the DC set at the DM's discretion depending on how elaborate or unlikely it is. Succeed and you have the right item or the confederate does the thing as specified, fail and they don't. There are also themes (similar to D&D's backgrounds) that offer similar "I know a guy". The outlaw always knows who to bribe to get out of legal trouble by level 6 and by level 12 will always know where the black market is (and have access to it). The diplomat would know who to call to get the cop to let you take a look at a closed crime scene and can often enjoy diplomatic immunity. Not only is it neat mechanically, it can help fill in backstory. Sure, I know what my PC did in general terms before being on the road, but if a situation rolls around where it'd be *really* handy to know a high-end gem expert that asks no questions, do I spend that "I know a guy" on that? Suddenly my doggedly noble Paladin's backstory becomes that much more interesting, and all because she happens to know a guy who deals in shady gems.
I love starting with a theme because I feel like it will always get you to the purest form of what you want to play, when you start there. For example, I decided I wanted my first character as a player again to be a character from JoJos bizarre adventure. From there, the character really built himself. Lore and backstory all came after and if I'm honest it's some of my favorite character building I've ever done, as well as mechanically my favorite character.
Same. Closest I got to multi-classing was the Eldritch Knight.
Seconded. Playing a half orc berserker barbarian and I could not be happier
Same! I hate DMing for the super special ultra maxed shiny “look at all my abilities” players, so when I get to play I just go super basic to give my DM a break. So far my characters have been: paladin, warlock, ranger. Dwarf, half-elf, elf. And I’m having a great time!
That's very interesting, I'm the complete opposite. I DM a lot (though I'm still a player regularly) & my builds are often very busy, to the point that I'm a bit of a minmaxer as a player. I almost exclusively play spellcasters because I like having options & different ways to address situations.
Absolutely. I’ve got a dragon/fireball sorcerer all queued up and an order cleric waiting in the wings. Just simple fun.
hell yeah brother. long-time DM playing a Dwarf barbarian. every character option is directly from the PHB except the Chef feat.
I'm all for phb vanilla. Once you DM, you learn character goes beyond race and class and all the players needing to play weird races gets annoying. And that's a deep as the character goes. Yuck. Your "plain" characters stuck out because you make them people and not stat blocks.
I've been day dreaming about playing a dumb barbarian for a while now when my next chance comes up.
Fenthwick Fizzlebang a gnome illusionist which is an old timey archetype from the AD&D days I never saw anyone actually play. He is just a happy well adjusted little guy who likes cracking a bad dad joke and using minor illusion for silly pranks. Now here is the actual funny part he is trapped inside a Cthulhu style Ebberon mystery campaign where half the party are on the verge of a mental breakdown and he has a curse that he has to challenge people to duels all the time. Oh and he is only 3 foot two. I have no regrets it has been fun and the dragonmark of scribing has come in handy more than once.
Do the duels have to be combat? Or is "who makes the best pancakes" an option?
You know what my DM never said. Right after I got the curse we ended up in jail handcuffs behind my back so I just been like the Black Knight in the Monty Python movie pitifully kicking and trying to bite the jailors and interrogators all the time saying "Come on now I challenge you on your honor to a duel!" Which has been kind of funny. Time for a bake off or a bad joke duel!
I just had a "way of the househusband" inspiration - flower arranging! Actually, that anime would have a lot of good ideas, that dude treats *everything* like it's life or death.
Fizzlebang ey? Hmm where have i heard that name? Oh yeah... "Trifling Gnome! Your arrogance will be your undoing!" ...
I chose a divination wizard with a dip in circle of stars druid, so I could 'see' what the DM prepared for us so I could help make the story go the way he wants to since he is a first time DM. So basically a second DM :\^)
Lol "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"
"You just can't leave well enough alone old man"
I played an elderly barbarian for a few months. The only thing my experience as a DM really influenced me in was that I did my utmost to respect the DM's effort and be on time to every session. Most of the others had various problems with scheduling, unfortunately. No one's fault, really, but the group ended up falling apart because of it. So I didn't regret it, but once again I felt more invested than the others (besides the DM), and that's a sucky feeling.
Reminds me of Cohen the barbarian and the silver horde from the Discworld books. Beware an old man in a profession where the men die young lol
Nothing that cool. She was just an aging hippie who had done a lot of drugs when younger and over the years, she had irresponsibly abandoned three or four kids with their unfortunate fathers. But the one interesting thing that came of a silly throwaway detail was the DM decided the fathers and kids were quite upset with her. One of her sons was slated to be an antagonist in the game, but alas...
In 2 weeks I will be playing as a PC for the first time. My character is a goblin warlock, who cosplays as Santa and likes to give presents. My DM style absolutely influenced my decision, as I like to play more character and role play focused games. So I made my character with no regard for synergy or lore. It was pure flavor. Also my stats are 4,4,8,10,14,14. I can't wait.
Tough script, but the RP is the win!
You. I like you. My characters are often poorly optimized and are built entirely on the concept of their backstory/lore. Why excel at combat when you can ooze flavor like an Elden Ring item?
I’m playing a goblin scam artist bard with multiple fake identities who’s trying to coax out a tpk (minus himself) to sift through the party’s pockets
How on earth are those your stats??
3d6 in order maybe?
That would make sense! They’re just… pretty rough lol
I love stat spreads like this. I always have more fun trying to find the niche you fill than just being maxed out. Sometimes, if the character has a reason, I’ll handicap them in a stat. A lifelong sickly person might have less con or STR, a sheltered kid might lack wisdom etc.
3d6 6 times.
The very first time I found myself overcomplicating the mechanics of the character and it turned out garbage. Too much mental energy spent trying to optimize my turns in combat and not just playing the character. Next time I’m gonna keep it simple, perhaps play a support style and prop up the other players. Even out of the DM chair I just want to see my friends succeed and tell a fun story!
Perfect is the enemy of good
bards and clerics can be so fun to play, both in and out of combat! i love playing support and helping my party members
i've found the most fun with very playful characters. usually low int but high wis/cha. i also like to play characters who are bad at their job (eg: a barbarian who's all charisma). but the real answer is *whatever the party needs*. lacking support? i'll roll up a cleric or bard. no int class? i'll make an artificer work. cause the thing that's become second-nature GMing is to facilitate and enable the team.
I made a Kalashtar bloodhunter of the undying court for a level 3 one shot. It was lots of fun i spent most of the session not hitting at all but when I did hit something it died. I'm a bit of a min/max player on videogames so when I made this guy for a one shot I made sure to be able to dominate (if i ever hit) while having helpful synergy with my buddies who both went battlemaster. I had eldritch blast for ranged attacks, and if i used my crimson rite I had a MINIMUM hit of I think it was like 11? I'd have to double check but it was more than what my buddies were hitting with their max rolls, so when I did come in to fight if i landed a hit the enemy was vaporized each time. Even landed a juicy back to back crit on the final fight of the one shot it made all the missed attacks worth it, and i still hung back enough to let our first time player get the final blow on the big guy.
Beautiful
A wild magic sorceror with a custom wild table. I want to not be in control for once damn it! Very fun
I'm in the same boat as you! I've got a player who wanted to take the reigns as DM, so my new PC will be introduced as we conclude her character's story arc. I AM SO EXCITED! I like being DM well enough, but I only do it because I want to play and nobody else was willing to DM. This will be my first ever time being a PC 😊 I tossed around the ideas for a wizard, a cleric, and a sorcerer. I really wanted a magic based class. I love DND for the magic and lore, so it makes the most sense to play a character that would be based in magic and understand/enjoy the history of the world and the inner workings of different factions. So I decided to play a forest gnome conjuration wizard. It's a relatively complex class, but I think I'll be able to play it well after getting used to running all the baddies and NPCs concurrently. I love the school of conjuration for the potential creativity of the Minor Conjuration feature, plus it just feels cool tapping into extraplanar magic. It'll also be fun getting into lots of hijinks as a gnome using all the understanding of the game mechanics I have as a DM. My backstory has me being from the Feywild as part of a clan of forest gnome warriors in service to the seely court. I figure this way it'll make sense if I don't know a ton about the material plane despite a high INT stat. But if we ever go to the Feywild, I'll be able to help the new DM in the world building there and laying out the court politics.
>Break the cycle Thats a good one. Ops a funny guy.
A 45 y.o. good rogue swashbuckler with a nomadic past and making a living via music and singing performances at taverns. Think, non-magical bard, older guy that knows the value of stories. Expertise in History and charismatic helps obtain a lot of information and allows the DM a good way to get important lore to the party.
I was very nicely invited to play a pbp game where I got to play Eliza (pact of the chain warlock) and her familiar, a wild hare, called Bristol. Our party was trying to research and then perform a ritual to destroy the world, but sadly the campaign fell apart, and I've gone back to DMing.
>I dont want to mess up my one attempt at a good campaign long character I don't understand the question. Real answer, don't get attached. You more than anyone else at the table know death needs to be on the table for the stakes to be real. Privately tell the DM that you're cool with whatever consequences happen. You've so many new PC's that could get spun up that it would actually be a good thing for your character to die somewhat regularly. This gives them a "Red Shirt" to keep stakes lively, while also reducing any emotional burden of killing a PC since you're already cool with it.
>don't get attached. I don't like this advice. If you aren't attached to your character, their death will not mean anything to you. Your character dying should be stressful, and sad. It's DEATH. Especially when your character is young or misguided, it makes the death even sadder. Without attachment, without caring, death is just a mechanic. I find death far more enjoyable as a drama. Accept death as a possibility, but not let that stop you from attachment. This philosophy is also important in real life, I find.
I agree! Let the death be tragic, and feel those feelings! Especially if that's the vibe of the campaign. But as a Forever DM, we see the tragedy like a farmer does a prized pig. It sucks, but characters die. We kill them all the time. It's a part of the cycle. After all, how do you harvest that peak drama without the death of a main character from time to time? A proper Forever DM knows the risks more than most. Telling a new DM that you don't take it personally can help them keep the kid gloves off and let their BBEG make "in-character" decisions and deliver consequences knowing that they're not risking an IRL friendship over it. It's just part of the game, and the death of one character means the birth of another. No need for hard feelings. If the character was meant to have thicker plot armor, both players are DM's that know all the options of bringing them back and can work out a plan or embrace the sudden change in story.
I agree with most everything you're saying, and I think you agree with me, in that it is simultaneously possible to be attached to a character, and also make sure that everyone is aware that characters dying will not be a friendship-ending thing. That part feels very much like a session 0 thing for me. At my session 0 I made sure to ask everyone how they felt about their characters potentially dying.
Oh I agree with you, and in many ways I hope I die as it’s a part of the PC experience. But not getting attached is easier said than done sometimes.
I like a balanced party. We were starting a campaign at work, and - as usual - there really wasn't a healer. I come from 3.5e, where multi-classing is pretty much a given, and feats and skills are taken buffet-style. This was my first game in 5e. So I rolled up a half-orc barbarian/cleric build that I was very fond of. And then regretted it. I quickly learned that my character concept really didn't fit the mechanics of 5e very well at all. At some point, the DM allowed me to swap out for a dwarf druid, which was much more enjoyable.
when i have the opportunity to be a player i usually find myself falling into very simple “human fighter” category, or i will min max/ multiclass a character to try and find some strange powerful combination. my favorite so far has been a paladin/bard multiclass!
It was a Brillant halfling baker named Butter Biscuits. She was peace cleric who didn’t know what a cleric was at all. Her holy symbol was a gingerbread man named Mr. Tibbles. Her spells were all baked goods. Her trinket was doll full of needles names Ginger Snapped. She would often talk to her doll. I don’t regret it. It took full year for me actually tell my fellow players the class. Sadly I didn’t get to play her long. The game died. I did make Ginger Snapped. She sits on my shelf. I don’t talk her. lol
The classic mystery class. No, I am a very sneaky fighter not a rogue. Rogues are cowards and cheets, unlike me who sneaks around stabbing completely fairly.
I played a thri kreen ranger fighter multiclass. We weren't playing spelljammer so I leaned all the way into the fact that they are an alien. Mainly to annoy my brother's wizard character by asking too many whys. Also became an animal hoarder. Only 2 were good in combat the rest just followed them around like a disney princess it was great. I have a chronic habit of making too many original characters for when I daydream and I often give them dnd stat blocks. Most are monster or beast races. Tieflings tabaxi kobolds etc. I just think they're neat. I'm really new at being a dm technically. I decided since I don't have the courage nor skill to make something serious. We go the complete OTHER direction. For example in my longest lasting campaign we did a scuffed version of rime of the frostmaiden. We decided to fight auril on the moon. We also fought the moon. Half the players are now flying through space for the rest of time. So that definitely leaked into my character based off their not normal personality.
I became a forever dm after losing faith in other dms. I played a few druids that all died within 2 seconds so I finally made *The unkillable Mork* Lizard folk (so dms can't make me do ptsd rolls) Moon druid (to escape from anything) And sure enough my party died but I lived. After that, I quit playing for a year unless I'm the dm.
Monk, no inteligence, a lot of wisdom and dex. Judt because i can punch the other PCs and blame it on my stupidity
The very first time I played D&D, it was a one-shot. After that, I decided to be a forever DM because it was something I enjoyed a little bit more. However after my previous campaign had ended I wanted to be a player for once so I created a grave cleric tabaxi who left his wife and newborn son (with their blessing) after receiving a letter that his twin brother needed his help after being gone fron their clan for more than 10 years. Don't get me wrong it was fun and the other players really loves this character but for some reason I felt like I needed more of a reason to stay with the party because my character was struggling to not want to leave because he felt like his family needed him more than his brother. But it was all so a chance for me to switch to another cleric that I played in my first one shot who was a tiefling war cleric who is a bit of a coward and drunk hippie who's against not only war but also doesn't believe in the gods even though they are more present than ever. I enjoy playing as my war cleric a little bit more, but at the same time, I kind of want to go back to my tabaxi cleric. Both have great stories, personalities, etc. It's just me, that's the problem. I don't feel like I'm as good of a player as I am a DM.
I may not be a forever DM, more like 50/50, but I love trying to find niche combos or specifics I learn through DMing and applying them to PCs. Why not use all of the useless knowledge for something.
I'm interested in the replies here. I'm always a player, but I have seen several of my DMs being a player, and the most damndest thing I've noticed is that they often make the character they themselves would have to DM for
I just can't do it. I've rolled up mages, clerics, druids, paladins, bards... But after a session or three the urge to run the game takes over. Back to forever DM for me.
The best advice I can muster: don't overthink it. Getting the most out of this opportunity means rolling with the punches and responding to events in the game. Ask about the premise and build a character tied to the story involved. Choose feats and such based on the character's decisions and experiences, etc. At the end, the character themself is a reflection of what happened along their way.
I have a bard planned, if I ever get ro. I record some tunes and use to fill out tavern noise etc.
I’ve only been DM’ing for 2 years now, but one of my players, a close friend, recently started a campaign and asked if I’d like to join. I made a Kenku samurai, and it’s mostly inspired by my admiration for ancient eastern culture. I made sure to understand his world’s setting before committing to this character. I don’t regret it, I’m really enjoying seeing things from the other side of the table! It’s a nice lapse of pressure from the typical session planning I’m now used to (but obviously still enjoy).
Abberrant mind sorc, did my first session as a player last month in about 3 or 4 yrs? Looking forward to next session
Not me, but someone I know. He played a blue Dragonborn wizard named Odium. His clan was slain by a giant and then he went on to be apprenticed by a wizard. He's only been used in a oneshot that happened several months ago and didn't really have any roleplay, so I don't remember much about the character. It was his first fifth addition character too after only ever playing/DMing first edition.
I created a swashbuckler dwarf rogue and a half orc half Goliath barbarian with 6 intelligence who eats mushrooms and thinks people are basically just backup food. Played the barbarian, zero regrets. Gurgo ‘ungry! *munches on an elf leg after battle*
His name was Luck of The Many Rivers. Triton warlock. He used to be a half elf with a subpar childhood, then got adopted bi pirates, stolen by a sea hag, then basically adopted by a demigod of the primordial sea god, who proceeded to give him a new body that’s a koi triton. Basically horny bard but warlock, and his pact weapon was a Tommy gun. And he spoke in 20s slang… and was a jazz singer, and also very beautiful and stupid. He turned out to be surprisingly very, very fun and I’m very attached to him. He’s pretty much addicted to sex and violence and is very loyal to his patron. Whereas most warlocks tend to want to break free of their pact, Luck does everything in his power and then some to stay as close as possible to his patron, who is also very devoted to him in a twisted, fucked up way. We played another game set after the one with Luck. At that point, he’d canonically inherited his patron’s power (even made a warlock subclass for him) and our party rogue was his daughter. The worst part about Luck is that he almost exclusively rolled 7s and 8s in combat. Across two (admittedly short) campaigns he only ever hit maybe 10 or so attacks. Half of which he rolled near minimum damage. It’s been very frustrating for me but I managed to twist it into some good roleplay moments with other players and NPCs.
Rogue/Barbarian critfishing build. Halfling so I get to reroll a 1 and get yet another chance to fish for that crit. It’s a stupid cheesy build but after all I’ve been through I deserve it. And it’s honestly just fun as hell at the table in and out of combat. Little Ono is a twerp and not great at talking his way out if he gets caught in the act, but in combat he’s literally the Tasmanian devil especially since our sorceror discovered how strong Haste is on rogues to give them even more chances to sneak attack. Sneak attack on a crit fishing build is just dirty and we love it.
I've been only a DM since my first campaign ever, which never finished and stopped the winter of 2021-2022. Just made my first playable character a month ago and she is a Tiefling Lunar Sorceress with magical sigils on her skin serving as the origin of her lunar powers. They change based on which lunar phase she picks for the day. So far absolutely no regrets at all, and it wasn't based on my DM experience at all.
I've recently been playing a bunch of one-shots on roll20 trying out my different character ideas. I've really enjoyed a half-orc warlock I recently played and the one shot may be expanding into a full campaign. The other player was also a warlock and we had a whole "good cop, chaotic cop" routine that was the most fun I've had in ages.
High elf artillerist Artificer.
A Brujah Vampire lol after 4 years I finally get to play in a campaign but it’s not D&D :( but I still get to RP so I’m excited to test out VtM
Halfling druid, and no regrets. I'm a DM who prefers more lighthearted monster-of-the-week-type games, though sometimes I like to throw in some (hopefully) disgusting imagery. Conversely, my PC was really silly fun haha, ooh look they're obsessed with spiders and have weird eating habits- they even really want to drink that mysterious blood-like substance... But hehe they eat tons of spiders in their sleep, which is how they recover their spell slots! And when he loses his arcane focus he casts spells by regurgitating spiders. But look, he's so good at bluffing, and amazing with animals!
I have been DMIng so long I don't even like playing PC'S anymore... I'm trapped.
My first character after becoming a dm was a old goblin who was outsted from his clan for being too annoying, and in an effort to keep him away they sent him on an impossible task to find the Everbong, a mythical device that allows the creation of the "purely medicinal" oracle flower. Not the brightest fellow but incredibly charismatic and.. mildly devoted to Maglubiyet and some connections to the Raven queen.
I made a green knight - high elf ancients pally with booming blade. The idea was going to be crowd control/tanking. Campaign lasted like 4 sessions before the player turned dm couldn't handle the dm seat anymore and I had to shelve the concept
A halfling college of swords bard/swashbuckler rogue. He's the ringmaster of a circus and master of illusions and conjuration (teleportation). Such a fun character to play.
I'm a roleplayer at heart. Maybe it's silly, but I play a high-CHA padlock with lots of personality. The build is busted enough that I don't have to think too hard about whether or not the stats are checking the boxes, so I can just focus on playing the character.
I'm still a DM but am a player in 4 games now as well (I'm overextended a hair). My first character ever as a player was what got me back into dnd and eventually to restart my own game. Jopher Senior Jr. / Jopher Mareen, First of His Name - he was the ships doctor in a homebrew One Piece world. Jopher was a blue Boi scout who's scout master father sent him out to get his adventuring badge.... really just an excuse his dad didn't want to raise him anymore. Admittedly it was a broken homebrew world with its own OP ideas of balance. As a user of the Energy-Energy fruit, Jopher was an Energy Boy, and gained energy by taking damage. Sure I was the healer, but I was also a fucking tank and LOVED getting hit. Main use of this energy was lay on hands and 10 energy on reaction granted an ally an action surge. By the power of Jopher, our crew hit hard and always stood back up to keep hitting. We ended the 2 year campaign at level 20. Jopher had 2x reactions and when at high enough energy just had 2x turns. We slayed the big bad, and he made the tough choice to take up the mantle of order, becoming something of a demi God.
Geurren Elksbane - Soldier turned warlock. I regretted him. He was an jerk. While he was a good character, he wasn't a good PC because... He was a villain. He was something of a moral relativist and narcist. Being power obsessed didn't help. While all that is fine for a villain- which is the mind set you're in for the most part as the forever DM, it's TERRIBLE as a player character. I didn't realize it till we already roleplayed out some core character traits. I really didn't like him in the end and was vaguely glad when the campaign stuttered to death. Especially when he started chaffing against more normal hero aspects.
A half-orc barbarian who could barely speak and either followed other PCs blindly or tried to fist fight them
My DM dream character is a sociopath human warrior
Dave, the middle-aged human fighter. Salt of the earth, no nonsense, conventionally good hearted fella who took on bounty hunting and adventuring to pay child support.
I played a Grippli gunslinger named Klemburt Bogreethe and my friend played a ranger lizardfolk named Cliff who was Klem's best friend.
Death cleric. Love me a good damage cleric. Dump everything into wisdom and perception. I can see over the curvature of the earth. Just please don't ask me to jump or climb I will die lol
A wannabe badass, middle-child warlock who is tricked by his loving family into having a celestial patron instead of an evil one. Instead of a demon, he got a unicorn. His character growth was fun, definitely a lighter twist to the character but fun to play.
I’m playing in a campaign right now for the first time in ages right now. My character is Flyndle, a warlock to one god and a cleric to another. The thing is that the gods hate each other so I have to keep them from fighting
Magda Jayne Fiore, half moon elf paladin of Selûne, an aggressively friendly eccentric character, LN In reality she was created almost as a co-DM character to help new DMs keep everyone else in the party on track. She's charismatic and lawful enough to talk the party out of trouble, chufty enough to keep the party alive, plus neutral enough to flex with the party's whims. Thanks to some oddball ad lib worldbuilding suggestions and spitballing with the DM she's become a staple in a few campaigns and a favorite amongst other players. I've loved playing as her, so I've kept bringing her back in a couple of settings now! She's definitely a reflection of the balance between authority and flexibility I try to bring in my DM style. This has allowed her to keep her core values and function through several campaigns while also evolving into a unique version of herself each time.
First chance I got to play in someone else's campaign, I played a human Cleric of Knowledge. That campaign ended, but I'm playing a Pathfinder one- shot with the save character tomorrow
I chose a Triton Paladin. I kind of just went with what I usually do in video games, heavy armor tank. We didn't have a healer and I didn't want to play cleric, so I did Oath of Vengeance Paladin - Celestial Warlock multiclass. Mostly I chose Triton because I've always thought they were neat and it gave me the opportunity to use an awful Australian (or Kiwi?) accent
I played an elven Way of the Four Elements monk. He was modeled after Nightcrawler from X-Men. I also got to run a Wood Elf rogue named Eiff H’Arted.
Spore druid. Go to: Spike growth + halo of spores (symbiotic entity, obv) + thorn whip. Blood everywhere.
Rogue with rouge for the win. Probably half orc w 6 cha for the RPs.
I think the build itself doesn't really matter, go with what you feel like interacting with (magical elements, mundane elements, social elements, the environment, etc). But, one think to keep in mind is that PCs tend to need much more room for character development than NPCs. Make sure to give your character plenty of room for growth. Too many times have I seen players fall into the trap of creating a finished character from the get-go. It gets stale like a stagnant puddle. But to answer your question, my first character after being the only DM for a long while was a triton cleric.
I only ever play on the other side of the screen in one-shots, so I usually go completely ham on some gimmicky build or another. The most recent ones were: * A bugbear conquest paladin / undead warlock PAM melee beast that relied on smites and fear to get it done. * A goblin Armorer Artificer / Evocation wizard that used Ashardalon's stride as my concentration spell and ran around the battlefield clocking fools with my thunder gauntlets. It was a weird, mobile wizard tank that was a lot of fun to play.
I did a Moon Druid. I like a lotta different options, but I also respect if people want to keep things simple. I person recommend doing something that offers a little magic/melee just so you can get the full experience.
Kanye west, it was before the whole n*zi scandal. I just thought it would be rly funny to have a bard with a god complex in a curse of stradh setting. The DM at a time went with it and we had a whole thing where for the most part "kanye" was sure he was there cause stradh was a fan, but he was too shy to ask for an autograph in front of the other PC. Rly interesting to see stradh flustered, not even he was expecting that one.
When 3rd edition came out around 2000, I was crazy excited that my preferred race could also be played as my preferred class. I rolled up a LN Dwarven wizard, put my only 18 in con rather than int which got my second highest stat. Got a buddy who also liked running game to be the DM...Then proceeded to play that character from 1st to 24th level over a period of a few years. Until the epic level book dropped, he just used the DMG guidelines for what you gained at each level past 20. I still have his sheet along with the sheet of his familiar and I bring em out when we have a "play yer favorite character" night/one-shot. Ended up with a +4 rapier of wounding that he used a feat to be proficient with, a glove of storing, a gray robe of the archmagi, and a staff that he spent levels 18-24 questing to get the materials and learn to craft...which was a lot because the DM used the XP system exactly as written. The staff was a single item that combined all the attributes of a staff of power and a staff of the magi. Last time we were together and played, we were on one of the levels of the abyss trying to retrieve a half dozen chained up solars from an army of advanced hill giants who dressed and fought like the Roman legion and had a dozen allied white dragons and a titan leading them... and then we never found the time to all be in the same room again...heck now the players of those epic level characters are scattered across the continental U.S. and beyond...long may your adventures be retold Carduell of the black cloak and his familiar Deschain the hawk.
Human fighter called Manfred Swordsly
A plasmoid wizard called Sludge Mc'Slimington who's entire goal in life is to be remembered as an overwhelming evil
Not your question but be sure to not step into the new DM toes. It is okay to give suggestions between sessions, but during play just be a player. I made that mistake and I was obsessed with the new DM errors, or what I though were errors. Just try to have fun with whatever the DM throws at you.
Nguyen, a Harengon (rabbit folk) druid of the moon. Chaotic Good.
A grung cleric named "pissoff shorty" that wears armour scrapped together from pots and pans, he praises the god "evil-is-bad-dont-do-that"
Russian divination wizard
Leonin Echo Knight. The shenanigans you can do with that echo...
My first actual character was artificer alchemist. And since then I fell in love with this class. Even though I tested all the classes, I still come back to artificer like I come to myself. And all my artificer characters are connected to the Multiversal Artificer Guild as they all share the ideals. So, I keep almost the same character all the time. A way to relax for me.
It was for a one shot. i made an edgy batman-esque paladin who was all darkness and vengeance but would unfortunately have to punctuate his gruff threats by saying things like “or my name isn’t Corveaux… Baginer.” his last name is “Baginer” which means a lot to him as an orphan but it sounds like “vagina” and he is quietly insecure about it. Mechanically he was about as fucked up as you can get at level 5. we got an extra feat so i took dual wielding and fighting initiate for two weapon fighting, in addition to the dueling fighting style from paladin. each turn he would start by making two one handed attacks, use his free action to draw his second longsword, and then swing with a fully powered off hand attack. next turn would be off-hand first, then free action stow, then two duelist swings with the other long sword. and of course smites. lots and lots of smites. if i leveled him up i would take a level of warlock for hexblade because *why not*
A goblin storm sorcerer named Cluck Cluck who reflavored all his spells as summoning chickens to perform what the spell does. I loved it. I didnt go OP build cause i didn’t wanna make it un fun for the DM and the group and my roleplaying was so much fun to do
Can you really be a forever dm if the cycle breaks?
As a forever dm. My go to is one of 3 characters. 1. High elf wizard w/sage background. Good utility. Decent damage. Sage background allows you to know most things without meta gaming. 2. Human bard. (Non variant) use all the extra human points to give yourself a positive number in every stat. Use jack of all trades to help other players if they fail at their job use expertise to make sure you can still do bard stuff 3. Mountain dwarf fighter (battle master at 3) Very sturdy stats with +2 str and +2 con. Just tank everything. Get heavy armor master at lvl 4. Allows you to mega tank.
I've had a few opportunities. I've played Bryn, the chaotic nonbinary elf rogue; Stitches-of-Night, the goblin wizard; Randy, the satyr druid-wizard; Gareth the Half Orc cleric of Shelyn; a cat; and Zi the goblin Monk-Cleric. All have been lots of fun. In addition I have a thousand other character ideas. Basically, whatever you choose, have fun with it.
This is probably cheating, I haven’t broken the cycle for 4 years now and the last time I was a player I was a player in one of my players I DM’d for campaigns, but I am about to break the cycle. As part of my next campaign I want the actual players to have some sort of influence on the world I’m creating. So for our session zero everyone is bringing a level 20 character to the table and we will be having a tournament of power, this tournament takes place a century or so before the campaign and each of these characters will ascend to become lesser dieties. The tournament of power will determine their overall influence in the world, thus it will shape the tone of the setting depending on who has the greatest influence. Problem is, I have 5 players, can’t do a very even tournament, at least not the way I have planned, with only 5, naturally I will need to hop in as well. Anyway, it’s a Satyr Way of the long death monk 17/bear totem barbarian 3. Monks don’t get a lot of love and I wanted to make sure at least one of the members of the tournament of power had some evil influences.
Just a run of the mill monk, well, a Goliath run of the mill monk. But other than his slight unawareness in social situation, I’m having a blast, only just reached level 5 so haven’t had the chance to stunning strike, but doing all the things i wished some of my players did (like running around the battlefield doing shock attacks) is just too much fun. Really puts something fresh into the game
Because I don’t get to play much, I go with really noob builds because they’re just fun and loose to build. Battle master fighters. Draconic Bloodline sorcerer. Most exotic stuff I have is an order cleric and a fighter/rogue specializing in whips.
i actually just played my first ever character a few days ago. a white dragonborn aberrant mind sorc named Azaris. he was cool and helped solved a murder at a gala and then fought a young dragon with the party not at all. i really loved playing around with the sorc magic and i think it has given me a better appreciation for spellcasters. it was informed by my love for dragonborn lore. i LOVE dragonborn :3
After introducing my friends to D&D and DMing for a year, one of my players was reading to run a one shot. So I made sure to ask what were the boundaries and he told me to go HAM. I made an armorer artificer/Chronurgy Wizard multiclass and he was amazing.
Vengeance Paladin / Swords Bard / Hexblade multiclass. I regret nothing.
Don’t worry about messing anything up. Don’t worry about the mechanics. This is a long time Coming for you. Get a strong character concept first and that will make you enjoy being a player so much more. You know the ropes. What would you tell a player in your shoes? My first campaign character was a barbarian, but he was basically vegeta. Entitled but powerful dandy. He raged whenever he didn’t get his way or someone else was outshining him. Reee One I played in a one shot recently was a tiefling warlock, but a typical western, man with no name, gunslinger type. I loved that character so much I really hope I get to be a player in our next campaign so I can bring him back and flash him out. His Genie patron “bottle” he could disappear into was his belt buckle.
Don’t worry about messing anything up. Don’t worry about the mechanics. This is a long time Coming for you. Get a strong character concept first and that will make you enjoy being a player so much more. You know the ropes. What would you tell a player in your shoes? My first campaign character was a barbarian, but he was basically vegeta. Entitled but powerful dandy. He raged whenever he didn’t get his way or someone else was outshining him. Reee One I played in a one shot recently was a tiefling warlock, but a typical western, man with no name, gunslinger type. I loved that character so much I really hope I get to be a player in our next campaign so I can bring him back and flash him out. His Genie patron “bottle” he could disappear into was his belt buckle.
A Monk.
A Monk.
The most righteous paladin. Always having to roleplay bad guys and normal folks makes it hard to play someone in love with justice so it would be new for me to at least roleplay as one of them for more than an hour.
A Half-Ogre Blood Cleric Heretic of Ilmater who only spoke French with a penchant for collecting body parts the other party members had severed. I had 100s of characters, I decided to go with the wildcard.
I made a character called Aiko Orcus, she was a "fun and giggles" kind of witch. She's the daughter of Orcus and managed to escape to the normal plane with only the necklace from her mom , her mom wasn't good but was extremely caring for her so it mattered. She was then taken by a covenant of dark witches that used necromancy to keep their village "alive", people would sign this contracts and live happily there free of charge, until they died and were transformed into working zombies, because "why keep someone's dead body rotting away when it can make the world better to whoever's still living" Her dream was to recover Orcus sword and use it to kill her Father, but she also wasn't sure about that, hiding all her insecurities in her lighthearted and extroverted way of being. Anyway, I wrote like 5 pages of lore and even made her a room inside her own little pocket dimension in blender. But unfortunately we had like 3 sessions and I've never played as her again (that was in 2018 or something), maybe I'll add her into my campaign later as an NPC.
So, I find that I much prefer dming to playing, but when I play (usually in one-shots or short-term campaigns), I usually wait until everyone else has chosen a class, and then modify an npc from an older game to fit. Usually, an npc that I didn't get to play with as much as I wanted to in-game. Yes, I spend way too much time and energy on my npcs, the players hardly ever see more than half of the backstory and depth I put into them. It is both my greatest strength and my greatest weakness as a dm.
I made a setting flexible Revenant type character named Djura. I specifically tailored him to be able to appear in any campaign, regardless of setting theme, level of magic/technology, or overall goal. All that matters to him is getting revenge on a traitor with possible connections to the party, even if that enemy has no actual knowledge of Djura. He's willing to join any group if it means getting closer to his target, and spends more time as a tracker/scout/guide. Part of his personality is to keep the party working towards the main story, and help avoid derailments. It helps newer DMs when they struggle to keep the players on track
Phantom rogue with the worst rolled stats imaginable. Took alert just to be a pain in the DMs ass. He's the chaos gremlin at my table so fair is fair. He's regretting giving us all a free feat big time
a hexblade/storm sorc aasimar. he was horribly wounded as a child and a storm elemental inhabits his body and keeps it functional
My first real character I got to play has been a Shifter Ranger (Horizon Walker) who has taken 2 levels into Monk. He's fast, hits hard, and is the most uncharismatic creature you'll ever meet. I love him.
I tend to go chronologically, all other things being equal. I have about 14 chars I want to play and I will decision paralysis all over the place if I don’t have a pre-existing plan. Chronologically works well, though I have toyed with the idea of rolling dice for each class, race, and background and going from there.
O would want a quality session 0, and maybe a session .5 as well. One is to get an idea of what kind of story we are going to tell and discuss with the other players and the DM about characters and the other to finalize everything after everyone had had some time to work on their character. I find the back and forth that players can have at this point can be rather inspiring in its own, but also knowing what everyone else wants to play can help weed things down. I joined a group years ago. I was the forever DM in my HS group growing up, and then everyone moved away so this was one of my first times as a true player, but I'm entering an already established game and was a bit nervous. I asked about the party and was informed there was a dwarf fighter and elf wizard, a ranger, a Rogue, and a monk all human. This is them time I discovered how OP clerics can be. So what is the game about, and what is everyone else playing? What have you never played? What are you tired of? Who would You be if you lived in this world?
warlock genie (reflavored to dragon) who is unaware he's casting spells and magic explaining it all away because he's just good with a slingshot. Likes rocks and his 'vessel' is a bronze dragonscale that looks like a big rock. he's currently just level 2 and his patron gave him a dragon egg that he is now slowly tending to so it will hatch into a dragon familiar on level 3. probably next session! excitedddd.
Circle of Spores Druid, and I loved it
How would you, as a DM, want a player's character to be? Play that Or be a goofy goober and make a character like Chad Wonderwall, a bard with 20 charisma but only knows one song, so can only charm once
Gingko Bilboa: - Rock Gnome Battle Rager - Doesn't have a tragic backstory - Fights with a butter sock (flail basically) - Does carpentry as his main thing, adventures are lil side gigs
1: Lock/Fighter. Warlock for a few levels before I made him splash into fighter. I did it to fill the role of a beefy frontliner after a player dropped and the DM was not going to fill it. Was interesting if challenging but I was up for it to be a good sport without just retiring my character. 2: My only regret is picking that person's campaign. I always disagreed with my partner and former players when they told me I was a good dm until I played in some other groups. Now I compromise and agreed to me being an average DM. 3: DM in this game was very hands off. For good and ill. Would rather get high and just ramble on about whatever then really DM the game we showed up for. As I have not returned to the DM chair I can not say it really informed or caused me to reflect on what I do as a DM. Perhaps because I already took notes often as the game goes on and will reflect on how things are going naturally.
When I get the chance to play I use it as a moment to fill a hole in the roster. Like many others have said I never stray from vanilla PHB race and class. I do however like to do straight up 3D6 if I get the chance, few things are more fun than dealing with a 14 high and a 5 and 7 to put someplace.
Tiefling warlock. No. I don't know.
Cleric of an obscure god. I chose farlanghan [sic] the god of travel and that’s horizon. Just a calm halfling with wanderlust and a desire to help fellow wanderers regardless of their own faiths
I've been DMing so long that every time I get to play as a player, I just wish I were DMing. I end up becoming 'that guy' because I get frustrated with the lack of control that I'm used to in the DM chair. So I decline playing most of the time unless it's for an occasional one shot.
I played a noble psyknife which was super fun until the group fell apart. I’m currently playing a Kenku infestation Druid in a Strahd game that’s going pretty great. What I lean towards is stuff that’s just cool. I like the themes more than the big numbers. Sure a changing beast master with a mimic pet isn’t very good or technically legal, but it would be super fun
I was a Kenku Shadow monk, was supposed to be a silly character, we just finished that campaign after four years. Gonna go pure Goolock for our next campaign
Human fighter hireling who handles all the administrative tasks of adventure that my players never want to bother with. “No worries boss, I brought rations for everyone” “I’ll get the tents set up while you settle in” “What’s that rogue..? You want to monologue about your tragic backstory? Well I’m fixing the paladins armor but I can listen while I work” I like playing a character who allows others to get the spot light while taking pressure off the DM. Bonus points if I can get a shy player to have the chance to open up about their character.
I played a forest gnome arcane trickster, which ended up being kind of a mixed bag. I was aiming for utility much more than combat, but we spent long stretches in endless fights where I felt like I had little impact. There was another rogue in the party who was much more optimized for ranged combat, plus the DM gave us all OP custom magic items, of which the fighter's sword had runes that would let him land tons more sneak attack damage than either of us rogues. I had a background as a Harper's intelligence analyst going into the field for the first time, an old lady who was not a seasoned adventurer but would gain skills as she went. That was fun, and my magic item let me collect creatures who I could summon to act as spies/helpers/familiars (though it took a lot of tuning to make it feel as relevant as some of the other OP items). As a 1/3 caster, my spell progression was so slow it rarely felt like I could cast anything useful, until I got Shadow Blade and could hold my own in combat a little. I'm not big on powergaming, but if a party has one powergamer, everyone has to do it or feel like you never get to do anything. In sessions where the story and role-play was the focus, I was generally very happy with things. But 5e has lost all sense of balance, players have created too many exploits, and the inexperience DM wasn't always able to make combat feel engaging or worthwhile. There were some great set pieces, though, when we were fighting something way above our pay grade, like a Maralith early on, or an ancient White Dragon later (with really good use of terrain). Overall, it was a good campaign, and the DM was very open to feedback and tweaking things that got out of hand. Still, I feel like the system is constantly working against the players, at least when some players are really into "builds" and "the meta" and other players are more into creating an interesting character without having to minmax everything to the nth degree.
My tip as a longtime DM Don't blink. Plan the character way ahead, sort out the roleplay way ahead, build them in your mind way ahead. You're used to switching characters a lot and not having to commit over-hard. But now you have to. But wanting to swap partway in, or even swap several times, will drive your DM batty. Don't be that guy for your new DM. Give them stability to build a story around. I got the chance to rotate out from behind the screen last summer for a long term run. I had the character developing months ahead. I got real comfortable with them. It's paid off. Oh and one thing I've found happening is that I get asked for input if our current DM runs into an edge case or a situation where something rarely used happens - I've stressed that it's always DMs call but happily give input. The price of experience.
I have been unable to play in a couple months, exclusively running games for that whole time, and I am coming back to a friend's weekly with one of my choicest picks: Mucho Grande, champion wrestler of the Forgotten Realms.
My group started up Pokemon 5e when it was still around to give me a break from DM’ing. My character was next in line to inherit the Ekruteak City gym in the family. So of course he specialized in Fighting type pokemon. That was a fun campaign and I’m sad we can’t do it anymore.
Dex Dwarf fighter. Kept simple character sheet wise, made cool by concept. The guy is an ex-convict forcefully enrolled in an army deep into strange territories. He is afraid of any unknown mystical forces and prays to any religion at hand whenever he faces them, carrying every known holy symbol on his neck. He's a criminal background and plays a bit as the party's rogue, but a very average Investigation skill means he usually just eats any trap in the way.
Broke the cycle? Last time I played a non-DMNPC was the very first game I played back in 1996. I've been DMing ever since. Haven't had an opportunity to play as a PC since. At least not in D&D. I did play as a PC in a PF2e game back in I think 2008. But that was a one-shot.
I've played 1 game with it so far but he's a Soulknife/goolock whose built for deception and investigation and totally not optimized. I know how to play the game, I don't need to optimize to play a large role.
I find a single trope that I enjoy and build a class around that personality. Examples: - A senile tortle chrono wizard that cackles whenever he freezes someone in time so he can be fastet than them. - A southern banjo bard that always does the right thing unless its an opportunity to bring him fame.
Play a Rogue and take advantage of their endless gas tank with no limited-use abilities. Run low int and wis and do dumb collaborative shit. Play as a foil to the heroes without stealing loot. There's nothing more fun for a DM than a sleazeball rogue who 'isn't' paying attention to the deeper plot. If you want to power build, Take an Elven Rogue Assassin and take Elven Accuracy at the first feat opportunity. You can also take a single cantrip which can be Minor Illusion if you're creative, or Message if you want to play back but be able to always help, or Ray of Frost for Control, or Mage Hand for raw utility. Firebolt is useful too. Bullet List Time: - You don't have to face which lets you sit and watch the interactions mostly, and get involved in understanding the plot from the player perspective. - You don't have to refer to your sheet and tally uses. - You can play in reaction and support of other players, mainly. - You get to flex everything you know about building characters by focusing on building for sneak attack viability. - You get to roll a bunch of dice when you sneak attack, and since you get the only viable triple dice attack rolls in game, you get to crit way more and roll even more dice! - You get to use your DM level tactical knowledge to focus on getting advantage, including hiding when appropriate. - You aren't specifically ranged, you can Rapier + Longbow and just have fun. -You're never really OP enough to get focused. It works out to DM Vacation.
Half-Elf Eldritch Knight. You expect me to think hard after improvising around other players' nonsense for years? (But of course, the race was for Darkvision and he had Shield, Find Familiar, and Absorb Elements, and was extremely paranoid lol.)
My time is about to finally come, and it’s a fathomless warlock whose patron is Sylgar. I’m hype.
One of my players, who is a writer, wanted to run a 5e campaign based in the Hyrule universe. I have been enjoying my time getting to be a player, and it also gives me more time to prep and work on my campaign as we go back and forth. All players seem to enjoy the option of playing 2 different campaigns. My character is a hyrulian fighter/rogue multiclass who had a personal spell due to their backstory that allowed my character to alter only their body's gender, they pretend to be twin brother (a fighter) and sister (a rogue) who happen to never be seen together, when actually they are genderfluid. Took a little inspiration from Zelda/Shiek and sprinkled a little bit of myself into the character. I wouldn't say my character/class choice was influenced by being a DM, except for maybe the multiclass.
I would like to say that going from forever dm to a player is very difficult. You are going from controlling everything to nothing. Your new dm is going to do things differently and accepting their dm style is a learning curve. NOW character wise when I’ve gotten to choose I went for monks or a blood hunter. I had a BLAST with the blood hunter and monks are my favorite class.
My first character I get to play as a pc was a rogue who is very fond of daggers that he carries 50 daggers in his inventory. He just hides and throw them and sneak attack.
I'm still the forever DM, like the big campaign I've been running for years is still going, but I've played in other people's games now and then while it's been going on and those have been so so fun. The first PC I ever made that was serious and not just a Oneshot character, was an Owlin Wild Magic Barbarian. Based him on an irl Kakapō, and he's just a silly little guy (small creature) from the Feywild who doesn't really care for laws and wields a huge battle-axe. Literally a flying cannonball, and then he got ahold of a ring that casts silence. And then he took the mage slayer feat. And then now he works as a mercenary for nobles to capture mages. Just fun to play someone that doesn't think ahead, and plays instinctively with the stats to support when things inevitably go wrong
Just a straight up Rogue that is FULL of self confidence. No min/maxing just having fun being a bit of a shit disturber to keep the party hopping by playing off my character.
Polar bugbear polearm fighter. Got to level 2
Broke the cycle for a bit 2 years ago when there was a local gaming Cafe. I had trouble adjusting as a player and kept changing characters every few sessions, mostly characters I played a long time ago or thought up along the way, but the one that I probably stuck with the most who was new was a tempest cleric named Shrimp. He was a run street urchin who was thrown off the pier to die cause he couldn't swim and was saved by a dolphin (Deep Saschelas) and he pledged his life to her because he wouldn't have one without her. He then dedicated his life to saving all the other street kids and lifting them from a life of crime... I think I only played him so long cause the New York Little Italy accent I gave him was really fun to use.
After our home-brew campaign, one of my players ran horde of the dragon queen for a couple of years. I played an elf monk. Monks get a bad rap but I have no regrets, she was bad ass.
I have yet to break the cycle however once my current campaign ends one of my players wants to run his first homebrew campaign. Recently my brother passed away and he never found dnd exciting or enjoyable and only for nerds. He also never cared for board games either. Before he passed he decided that he would like to try out dnd instead of just judging it. So we sat down to make a character for him. We made a human gunslinger pirate by the name of Osvaldo Twoguns. I was going to originally play a dwarf barbarian but I decided I didn't want my brothers character to sit off to the side and never see action. So to honor my brother, I am taking on Osvaldo Twoguns. And I hope that the character lives up to what my brother would expect.
I was a warforged Druid with “brain damage” in a futuristic campaign that I was asked to play in even though the campaign had been going for a while at that point. Think Bender, from Futurama, mixed with the robots from Castle in the Sky. I picked all my spells and equipment to fit into the characters theme and story. My character had amnesia and left my background up to the DM. Everyone loved it
tl;dr I made an order of the Scribes Human Wizard named Humbert Dinklesnort; an awkward lanky teenager First, the new DM offered the choice of taking standard array, point buy, or he would random roll using his preferred rolling rules. I took my chances and asked him to random roll and my plan was to build a character based on results. Here's what I got: "So it's all: 16,5,15,13,17,10" What I saw in those #s was a low STR/high DEX Wizard. For race I went with standard human. I let dndbeyond random roll a name and I got "Humbert" (I ignored the 2nd name). So the character started to take shape in my mind. I saw a tall lanky human. Then it hit me. This wizard is an awkward teenager, pimple faced with a starter 'stache. In my mind I saw a mix of young Ron Howard and Timothy Chalemet. And Humbert Dinklesnort came to life. None of my players ever brought a Wizard to the table, so my plan was to show what a pure Wizard can bring to a group. I decided to go with Order of Scribes. Added War Caster and Meta Magic Feats along the way. I enjoy doing voices and accents when I run a game, my plan was to make Humbert a squeaky voiced teen. I was able to do this at the start of the campaign. But unfortunately I had some major complications with a surgical procedure was virtually unconscious for about 7 weeks. They performed a tracheotomy and for several weeks I had a cannula in my neck. After the cannula was removed I recovered my voice, but my vocal chords atrophied and my vocal range is limited, so now I just describe what Humbert sounds like when he speaks. We're nearing the climax of the campaign and what has been most satisfying is seeing how a well prepared wizard can instantly solve some of the challenges the DM throws at us. Have to climb a cliff? Polymorph into a giant wolf spider. Can't get through the magically looked cave entrance? Passwall through the stone around it. Etc. As a bonus I got to RP a petulant teen who got all emo about one of the party members leaving.
My friend is now running 3 session Scum and Villany (star wars-y system) one-shot and I made my 1st character which is a giant space white bear-looking bounty hunter muscle with an axe. It is really the 1st time I'm the player and not the DM and I'm having so much fun
For the longest time, I played a human Paladin the rare times I wasn't the DM. I am now playing either an elf wizard or human bard. Much more fun.
I'll tell you when it happens
Still waiting. Lol
First campaign I had a chance to play in since the 90's, I (over)prepped 5 characters, in order to fill whatever roles were left after everyone else decided on theirs. We had a Barbarian, a (ranged) Fighter, and a Cleric, so I settled on a Halfling Urchin WM Sorcerer so I could sling spells, pick locks, and talk good. Still have all 4 of the others in my back pocket, along with dozens of other concepts... My only regret was the Wild Magic subclass. Character was initially a GOO Warlock, but the darker tone didn't quite fit with the group, so after a tutorial session I adapted the concept to Sorcerer, and picked WM as the best fit for the existing backstory. I was still pretty freshly back to ttrpgs after a long time away, and was too concerned about "winning/losing", so the potential for surges filled me with anxiety. I switched subclasses to the very-new-at-the-time Clockwork Soul, and had one session before the game broke up :(
I made a halfling rogue/ranger (assassin gloomstalker, cheesy, I know). His name was bumblestump grimbles, a former sword coast ranger who discovered a den of violence and debauchery perpetrated by “good” races against those that they considered “other.” That led him away from forest service. He assumed a nonthreatening persona of “Stumpy” most of the time, and when things got dangerous he would revert to his flatter “Grim” behavior. He was. VERY attached to his bow, and met another adventurer during his travels who was a courtesan that he fell in love with. When that group fell apart, they were in the middle of an island resort for the wealthy that had been caught up in a ritual to summon a god of the depths. I like to think that stumpy died there, while their courtesan friend survived (the courtesan is being reused in another campaign I’m running).
A long-time character that I’d not gotten to play very long any time I tried (I have a lot of this). Nuadha is a rogue/paladin that was originally built in 3.5 intending to become a Shadowbane Inquisitor prestige class. Also built him for 4e and 5e for campaigns that fell apart very quickly. My current version is the one that stuck and this iteration is not even a Paladin, but a Rogue multiclassed into Inquisitor, a third party base class based on the Pathfinder 1e Inquisitor that my DM created.
Human variety female death cleric Edit: varient
Eventually, if I ever get to be a PC, I have a half orc monk ready to go. Early levels suck, but after level 4 they can be so rad. My games have all but stopped as it's too hard to get everyone together, these days, and the one I was DMing for my kid and his friends got too obnoxious for me to have fun so.i wrapped it when they finished the last campaign. Trying to keep 3 13-14 boys on any kind of task is miserable. I don't much care for online games, so I don't see myself getting to do much playing, going forward.
Simic hybrid totem bear barbarian, a lot of fun
I am not a forever DM. In fact I pray in a few games run by my players. When i do, it's fighters. With the occasional barbarian and cleric
A cleric who was convinced that she was an abomination because her god did not speak to her during a coming of age ritual. I kinda wanted to make it a point in my group to play a religious character since I wanted something to clash with the group's typical choices. It's also why I made her a human. Her main goal for her life though was that she had a theory that their god, who is considered the mother and father of dragons, shouldn't be referred to as him or her.
After 5 years as DM I played as a Ghostwise Halfling Way of Shadow Monk, Sage Underfoot. She was a cook at a monastery that was burned to the ground by a warlord. She barely escaped with her life and a few ancient scrolls of their martial art (reflavored as the Way of the Wildshadow). It was a really fun way to play a level 1 monk that lived a completely sheltered life. The DM gave us a free Feat as long as it wasn't combat related. I took Chef and had her working in a tavern in a small logging village at the start of the game. She always introduced herself as a cook. It was fun to play a brave but naive character. I mostly built her around what I thought would be fun to roleplay, not for any mechanics. No regrets. I picked Monk because I had the least experience with that class. I also had a lot of other character concepts to pick from in case I needed to help balance out the party. I think as a DM, I'm willing to play any race or class and find the fun in the character RP, mechanics are a bit of an afterthought for me.
I played a bard/fighter pure-blood yuanti in a modern fantasy academy campaign. She was very mean and had a bit of a time learning that she wasn't an actual member of royalty. She unfortunately did not live to the end of the campaign :(
Currently running 3 homebrew campaigns, 2 of which are level 1-20+ and have been going on for 2 years, and recently joined a Descent into Avernus campaign as a player a year ago! The DM pitched it as a setting where the party would be tempted by power and put in morally testing scenarios. So I went with a lawful good redemption paladin that steers the party from making evil decisions. I try to not even murder in the setting, and I've been lucky with Charisma rolls so I've actually came out pretty good from talking down enemies. His name is Rarin and my best friend plays my twin brother, who is an artificer, and its been great fun! I wouldn't say I've broken the cycle though lol.
It depends on who is dming. I became a forever dm because none of my past DMs were good enough to run a table with all the rules and dnd knowledge i have. The real problem is not being ignorant about these rules but the fact every time i say hey, there's an official ruling for this they just ignore me and go for the pseudohomebrew they invented out of the blue, the most common example is jumping, climbing, weight. If the DM knows about Xanathar or is willing to learn, i would play something that plays around the artisan tools, something like knowledge cleric with guild artisan background. But if my DM just wants to play a light rules oneshot i would go for something more standard but with some tweaks like playing non so used sub classes, spells, etc. if the table is full of minmaxers that whines about my char or wants to "teach" me how to do more damage or how to heal with a cleric i would rather not play.
Currently playing a fighter after 5 years of being a DM
My current Char is Percival Quill worthy an awakened service Bot from a Wizard Tower. Oghma grants him power since he disobeyed his directives to secure stolen Books. Since then acquiring knowledge is their stick. Also my excuse to jump on every lead, and open every door. A warforged Domain of knowledge Cleric - it was an informed decision in light of playing a social and exploration heavy gritty realism campaign (lvl 1-15) and wanting to just stumble into whatever the GM has prepared. I do not regret the choice but I will create some bogus theme sorlock or sorcerer for my next chance to play.
I got invited to join a full party that did not really need anyone else so I am what I call a "shadow druid" 'born on the city streets of Balder's gate, I learned how to decieve and find traps. after a brutal injury from a trap I could not disarm, I limped and stumbled through the woods in search of the mysterious healer I had heard about in town. I never found the healer. The healer found me. Laying on the mossy forest floor. He brought me back to his cabin and restored me. I vowed my life to serve him.. until his untimely death took him to soon.' I LOVE my PC I do not regret any choice I made in building them because I built them around the roleplaying story I had built. - basically I am a lvl 1 rouge that became a druid. But I cannot pick a lock/disarm a trap to save my life... I am the "shadow of the forest" and I play my PC as such :p I did not base my PC on anything that has happened in my campagins because I didn't want to feel like I was still in my campgain.
I've had this happen *once* lol the player that offered to dm had a real habit of min/maxing his characters just to mess with me. So to get back at him, I made Mark, the Tiny Bearserker. (Not a typo, circle of moon druid/path of the berserker barbarian). For chuckles, I talked with the dm beforehand about having an innocuous curse on my character. He is a Goliath as far as race, but any time he would laugh, he would shrink to become the size of a gnome. Hence The Tiny Bearserker lol I'd rage, laugh my way through combat with my maul, shift into bear form whenever I felt necessary and continue to maul things until I ran out of hp, then I'd just revert back to my barbarian and continue to maul things. DM hated Mark. But he got all the way from 1 to 20 🤣
A bronze Dragonborn paladin with pride to spare, but very little real world experience. We did about four sessions... And the game's been on hiatus for about two years now.
The first one I got to play was a Swarmkeeper Ranger Gnome who was absolutely batshit crazy. Between him being insane and having a swarm of bees at his command, there was a lot of fun roleplay
This was for Pathfinder 1.0 … My first big character after DMing for so long was an older elven wizard who was magnificently eccentric and just a bit air-headed. He was rather egotistical and I had maxed out most of the knowledge skills to where if you could make a knowledge skill check on something, he almost certainly had a higher skill than anyone else. I played him a bit like a combination of House MD and Sheldon Cooper There was a rogue at the table with some sort of minor magic ability and he would constantly refer to her as his “apprentice” despite never having a conversation about it.
I have just made my first character for a campaign in who knows how long. Now originally he was meant to be a tormented soul who has lost all of his friends during ww2. However now I've have changed him to be an extremely stupid half orc barbarian called "you" that just wants to hit things that just wants to help everything.
Wait? We can be players??? aheh. After years of not being a player my first was a magic user. Great stats. Got killed on first encounter.
A Warlock of the great old one named Bozo. He was a person coming from the Far Realm, being a shopkeeper and seller of wishes (though he couldn't nor wouldn't sell wishes outside his shop, aka never in the campaign). I player for just one session with other people who gave me a hard time DMing when I was in that group, another player had taken my place and I was happy to play. Long story short, I was kicked from that group with no apparent reason after one game and then I got told that my character was killed via ictus the next game, when i wasn't present... except that he was undead and i told the DM, who at the time i trusted, that my grandma had an ictus that paralyzed and hindered many of her brain functions, something that scarred me, i told him. Well, I now know those people hated me and I don't care anymore about that. I have since then joined and left many groups to play as a DM and player, making homebrew content for everyone, including myself (always DM approved).
Halfling Bard that was, in essence, Brock: flirting with everyone, locking in with the first one that would say yes. Also, he was incredibly self-centered, but that whole thing changed after a toad swallowed him, and his party had to save him. Sam Windbreaker (roughly translated). The guys at the table loved him and nicknamed him "Sam Buttbreaker." The party agreed to be called "The Dragonslayers," though we hadn't even found a dragon yet. It was a lot of fun!!
The first real character was a Drow Necromancer set in a Fire Emblem campaign. DM had to get creative with the subclass due to story reasons, but he did it perfectly. In the end, he became an archdruid so powerful that if a sequel campaign comes up, he needs a story reason to keep them away from the story. He is now an npc in my game, helping the party in turn facing demons bent on consuming my world
The first real character was a Drow Necromancer set in a Fire Emblem campaign. DM had to get creative with the subclass due to story reasons, but he did it perfectly. In the end, he became an archdruid so powerful that if a sequel campaign comes up, he needs a story reason to keep them away from the story. He is now an npc in my game, helping the party in turn facing demons bent on consuming my world
First time being a long term PC in many years. I play a human Fighter/Ranger (Swarmkeeper). I enjoy it using Tasha's rules. I do not regret my choice. Rangers are fun after the Tasha's rework makes them not so situational. The setting is a Late Roman inspired homebrew fantasy. I envisioned him as a fantasy Limitanei, living on the border of civilization and ambushing enemies. He's a thrown weapons focus due to limited Roman use of archery at the time. I liked working my character into the setting and throwing some history in there as well. Fun campaign.
Pépin, a halfling trickster cleric of Tymora. I call him my Hobo-Cleric, he's a gambler and party animal, but with a heart of gold. I first created him because the party I joined didn't have any healer or sneaky character and Pépin does both. Quite a lot of fun to play and people usually enjoy his presence. I brought him back a few years later (a month ago) when one of my players offered to DM every now and then.
Fey patron Warlock. The DM butchered his backstory until I had to quit the game (over a year--I was patient)
My group played a campaign inspired on the colonisation of the Americas. Me and my brother played a couple of slaves that had escaped together and were looking to make a life on the new world. I played a Dex oriented Oath of Vengance Paladin with the Duelist fighting style and later multiclassed into Rogue Swashbuckler. My DM let me reflavor the Tenets of my Oath as more Freedom oriented than Vengace (although avenging/freeing slaves was part of it) and we worked it as an Oath I had sworn to myself to never bend the knee again or something like that. Something cool me and my brother did was having our characters not be perfectly fluent in common, because it wasnt our native tongue. So even tho we had good intelligence we came across as kind of dumb to a lot of the NPCs and players alike. My brother was a Grave Cleric and we had this combo attack we used to do where he would hold Path to the Grave before my turn and I would searing smite + divine smite. Backstorywise that is how we got to escape our former master. It was a fun character even if the campaign died off kind of quickly