Creating your Character

What is a character?
When you play a roleplaying game such as D&D, you take on the role of somebody else, usually a character that you have spent your time creating. Your character can have any kind of personality, ideals, bonds, or flaws that you can imagine. They also have different sets of skills, as well as a race, class, and background. A set of basic races would be Humans, Halflings, Elves, and Dwarves, while some basic classes would include the Fighter, the Rogue, the Cleric, and the Wizard. Whatever your character might be, the first step is to imagine them. Once you have an idea, you can then start fleshing it out.

What is a character?

When you play a roleplaying game such as D&D, you take on the role of somebody else, usually a character that you have spent your time creating. Your character can have any kind of personality, ideals, bonds, or flaws that you can imagine. They also have different sets of skills, as well as a race, class, and background. A set of basic races would be Humans, Halflings, Elves, and Dwarves, while some basic classes would include the Fighter, the Rogue, the Cleric, and the Wizard. Whatever your character might be, the first step is to imagine them. Once you have an idea, you can then start fleshing it out.

Understanding Ability Scores

Ability Scores, your stats, are a huge part of your character, and determine how effective they will be at doing certain things. The six ability scores can be explained with long and complex explanation to help you understand them, but I'm going to keep it simple and use the tomato analogy.

Strength	Strength is your ability to crush a tomato.
Dexterity	Dexterity is your ability to dodge a tomato.
Constitution	Constitution is your ability to eat a rotten tomato and not get sick.
Intelligence	Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom	Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.
Charisma	Charisma is the ability to sell a fruit salad full of tomatoes.

Filling out the Character Sheet
There are many character sheet styles, but I'm just going to explain the process in the easiest way. First, make sure you know what race, class, and background you intend on using. Figuring that out is up to you, and your options depending on what resources you have available to you. Once you know that, start filling out your equipment, skills, and proficiencies that come from your background. The reason we start with the background is because we don't want our skill or proficiency choices to overlap with what we already have from our background. When you choose from a list, why pick to gain something you already will have because of your background? Once you've done that, we then go to race, and fill out our speed, proficiencies, and features we get from there. We also take note of the ability score increases. How you get your ability scores will depend on your DM, but most of the time, the standard array or point buy is used. I won't cover point buy here, but the standard array consists of point totals of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. Assign those to the stats you want them on, and add racial modifiers to them afterwards. Then, find your ability score modifiers by taking the score, subtracting 10, and dividing by two, rounding down. Finish up by filling out your hp, equipment, class features, and hit dice from your class. Once you've done this, your personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws are made by you, but suggestions exist within each background, so I would suggest checking there for some options. Write up your backstory, so that you know how to roleplay your character, and you have a character ready for play!

Filling out the Character Sheet

There are many character sheet styles, but I'm just going to explain the process in the easiest way. First, make sure you know what race, class, and background you intend on using. Figuring that out is up to you, and your options depending on what resources you have available to you. Once you know that, start filling out your equipment, skills, and proficiencies that come from your background. The reason we start with the background is because we don't want our skill or proficiency choices to overlap with what we already have from our background. When you choose from a list, why pick to gain something you already will have because of your background? Once you've done that, we then go to race, and fill out our speed, proficiencies, and features we get from there. We also take note of the ability score increases. How you get your ability scores will depend on your DM, but most of the time, the standard array or point buy is used. I won't cover point buy here, but the standard array consists of point totals of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. Assign those to the stats you want them on, and add racial modifiers to them afterwards. Then, find your ability score modifiers by taking the score, subtracting 10, and dividing by two, rounding down. Finish up by filling out your hp, equipment, class features, and hit dice from your class. Once you've done this, your personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws are made by you, but suggestions exist within each background, so I would suggest checking there for some options. Write up your backstory, so that you know how to roleplay your character, and you have a character ready for play!