Rolling a Nat 20 on Character Building

Have you ever sat in front of your computer trying to come up with a good character for a script you’re working on? The computer screen stares back at you, oh so mockingly. You decide to take a step back and do something else to get the creative juices flowing. 

“What would you like to do?” your brain asks. 

Great question, brain! There are many things you could do, one of them being playing Dungeons & Dragons. As nerdy as it may sound, it is actually a great tool for character building. 

While it may seem as if you need to know all of the rules of D&D from the start, you actually don’t really need to. One of the greatest tools to use is DnD Beyond to create your character. It is free and easy to use! It has the basic rules to get you started. 

You don’t need to have a backstory yet to create your character. Once you start making your character, ideas will start rushing through your brain. You’ll also have a more solid understanding of who they are, then you can move on to working on their backstory in more detail. Remember: always give your characters a motivation. 

Let’s say you decided to make a tiefling cleric with the background of a folk hero. That’s great! However, maybe fantasy doesn’t really fit the setting for your script. How do we translate this to fit the modern world? 

How about a very charismatic doctor struggling to separate their faith from their practice? Or maybe a quirky priest who has lost touch with their faith? 

Another character could be an elf ranger with the background of a far traveler. Well, maybe your character is a very perceptive archeologist who traveled alone to a forest and got lost. 

Regardless of what character you create, there is a way to make the fantasy aspects fit into real-world scenarios and your story. 

This character creation and exploration can even be taken further. A great way to get a real feel of your character is by actually playing as your character in D&D. Roleplaying as your character can help you pinpoint their motivations, flaws, personality traits, and many more aspects.

You don’t need to have a long running game to test out your character. A one-shot is a simple way to do this. There are hundreds of prewritten one-shots online you can use with your friends, family or even by yourself! There is no written rule that says you can’t create multiple characters and play them all yourself. 

Regardless, if you decide to take the extra step to play as your character, Dungeons & Dragons is an easy tool to create in-depth characters for a movie, story and many other things. Also, now your computer screen won’t be able to mock you. If it does, then maybe you should roll for initiative.