Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

Speaking about Character... If you're a player or DM who likes being in-character, one of the best ways to help establish a character is through the use of a unique voice, one that is somehow different from your own nature voice. This can include something like a catch phrase. If you think of Wolverine and his use of the word "Bub" in relation to those around him, or The Thing and "It's Clobberin' Time" these are great ways to help you identify a bit about the character. Wolverine tends to be a man of few words, and more action, so "Bub" is a great line, and for the The Thing, "Clobberin' Time" makes him sound a bit uneducated, but also hints that he's not a bloodthirsty killer. Another way to help get that unique character voice is through the use of an accent. Here I must admit that accents are not my specialty, though I have be trying hard to keep the right accent for Count Strahd in my current CoS game. If you are ...

As a follow up to my previous post, "Let Your Campaign Talk to You" , I've been thinking about new ways to approach developing character backgrounds, and looking at various techniques from literature and television. Rather than what I suspect is the standard approach, that of drafting the background and incidental details all at once, and typically before even the first game session has taken place, what I'm now envisioning is a process where the character background grows organically over time. In this new approach, players should at the time of the first game session, know the basics, what's readily apparent from their character sheets, but details beyond that can be left somewhat vague and filled in over time. This could be something as minor as character details, or something as major as character motivations and goals. In the past I might have a character background that states that "Johnny" is the oldest of 5 siblings. But in this new appro...