The 7 Deadly SINS of D&D Character Creation

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Haha, had to click bc my next video is ''"7 Deadly Sins of D&D Combat" - and glad I checked this out. Nice video!

One of my fav characters I've ever played had the stereotypical rogue backstory, the orphan escaped slave, but I played upbeat and friendly. Yes he wanted revenge but he knew he couldn't do that on his own so he needed friends. Best way to get friends? Be friendly.

The Lone Wolf Syndrome
I have a somewhat controversial take here. Generally yeah, be a team player. Take your character and find reasons for them to be a team player.
Parties, if you have a player that specializes in stealth. LET THEM SPLIT SOMETIMES.
The most glaring examples of this was when i was playing a Lizardfolk Rogue / Gloomstalker Ranger with the Outlander background. I was in my favored terrain, a swamp.
Readers, take a moment to look at your books and really understand what that means. Not only is Stealth much easier as a single player, but i was also an invisible Aligator-man traveling via River-ways at double speed with advantage on my skill checks.
This is what my character was made for! I get BONUSES for traveling on my own! Let me cook for a solo scout mission! I don't need Clunky-Clang Paladin following me and disabling all my stat bonuses and having disadvantages on all Stealth and Swim checks
I was...miffed. so please. Let your stealth members stealth...especially your Rogues and Rangers.

Unfortunately the Druid had a negative nature modifier and ended up poisoning the whole party.

My first character was ver vanilla half elf fighter, with a tenuous background at best, but the story has been making him to grow, eventually he multiclassed with barbarian, after the death of another character that made him feel guilty, after a few months he fully transitioned to a barbarian following the treason of an archfey to the party, my character fully embraced the rage

The backstory issue is one that I've solved by just starting all campaigns at low level. The characters haven't had time for elaborate backstories. It's basically, who is your family, where are you from, and how did you train to become 1st level (maybe you had a mentor that taught you your first spells, or you served in the town guard, or you spent time as an acolyte in a temple, or you grew up an orphan who had to learn to fend for yourself on the streets by picking pockets, etc.). From there, "backstory" is an emergent trait that comes from what they do in the game.

One of my characters is a set of twins that were forced to act like a lone wolf by a master who isolated them from society and made them believe they couldn't trust anyone but themselves. However, they left because one of them always had doubts, and the other just wanted to keep his brother safe.
Another member of our party is the opposite side of the same coin, an overly trusting social butterfly that was isolated during his youth and lied to during his upbringing too, and that character has opened my character's eyes to the beauty of letting the right people in.
Together they've learned a lot, while it was not always the right thing to learn because they don't always know better, they're trying their best, and that dynamic has been so much fun.

My characters usually want to go adventure.
Adventuring alone is too dangerous.
So they want to find a party.
One character I made relatively recently is a kobold that was part of a dragon's army. The dragon attacked a city, trying to take it over for herself. The kobold was part of the attack. The attack went badly, the dragon retreated with most of her army. The kobold was part of a group that got pursued and surrounded. The kobold was the one who convinced the others in her group to surrender to the city soldiers. They were sentenced to five years of hard labour. Some escaped, some tried to escape and failed, but the kobold just accepted her sentence and worked it off. Afterward, most of the remaining fellow dragon army soldiers just left, but she wanted to stay in the city. It took some convincing, but it worked. But then she had trouble finding a job; the city guard didn't want to hire a former enemy. She ended up having to work as a barmaid, and she's not happy with it (especially since her small stature makes it hard to reach the tables). So. She has combat experience (enough to be level 1, with the option to go higher in case whatever campaign she gets added to starts at a higher level). And she has a reason why she wants to leave. Now she only needs a party. And would you look at that, she already works at a tavern, which is a common starting location for campaigns.

#1) Sustainability.
This is heavily dependant on the player. The character has to be someone that the player can sustain.
For example, i am completely incapable of playing serious, brooding, and quiet characters. It irritates me greatly, but it's a complete player/character mis-match.

My secret to well balanced characters is to lift good characters from Star Trek and filing off the serial numbers. My current character is a half-elf druid sailor, high on intelligence and wisdom and low on charisma, named Sapok Sarekson. So he's Spock. And he rules.

Morality Mismatch "it's what my character would do."
I have said this exact phrase many times in campaigns, sometimes causing or caused by PvP conflicts. Sometimes this overlaps with a character's flaws or characters have minor disagreements. The Barbarian Outlander won't always agree with the Noble Paladin.
I've played an Evil Cleric in a party of Good-Aligned characters before. It was fun, there were a couple times where PvP initiative was rolls. Good times.
Character conflicts should never be Player conflicts. And ideally, they should be able to be quickly solved.

First video I've seen of yours, and its an easy sub! I adore the examples you gave of how to make this character right, it gave me the urge to want to play this character or a character very much like him! Very good tips given and can't wait to watch the rest of your vids :)

I've got a female drow thief that is experiencing growing pains with her party. Q'rra (pronounce like Curare) is self assured and believes that Drow are the pinnacle of creation, she did live for 150 years absorbing Drow culture after all. Then it all changed one day when there was an explosion in her father's lab. He didn't die. Oh no, she and her mother couldn't possibly be THAT lucky. But if was worse than she or her mother knew. Dear ole Dad had been commissioned to research and develop a magical item for a Priestess who had invested a serious amount of moolah in the item's development. The explosion destroyed the item and meant he wouldn't be able to provide it to the Priestess unless he could find a way to raise the capital to redo his idea post haste. After a discussion with his wife they sold her to a slaver and never looked back.
While heading to the auction site Q'rra made the acquaintance of an Elistraee Priestess. They bonded to the point that when they arrived Q'rra had become a worshiper of Lady Elistraee. The priestess when sold refused to move unless Q'rra was also purchased by her desperate owner. Unhappily he agreed as time was running out for his errand: return quietly with a priestess to cure the head of his Thieves' Guild. When they got to Waterdeep she was able to Heal the GM without anyone on the surface of the city knowing how it had happened. Everyone bought by the Guild Rep was freed and allowed to join the Guild if they wished to. Q'rra and her adoptive maternal figure and Priestess did.
Q'rra spent the next 45 years or so doing odd jobs for the Guild that others refused to take on. She was then assigned to a surface mission and started working with a group of fellow adventurers. They leveled up quickly being as successful together as Q had been during her training with the Guild. She bonded with a harengon most closely and they became best friends. Then they got separated from the rest of their group when hitting a war band of goblins and wolves. The pair came across a party that was having similar problems so when Angora wanted to intervene Q unhappily agreed. They've been traveling with the new group for a while. Some members have come and gone, a couple died. Through it all there has been a running debate when Q was coaxed out of her shell (She's so agoraphobic and paranoid that she hides in bushes or trees to sleep slightly away from the party, but close enough to aid them if required. Obviously she is truly happy when adventures lead underground).
This is about the nature of the Drow and all the lesser races. She is constantly belittled for being racist when she is merely talking facts. She is slowly becoming used to the new group and much to her surprise befriended a Dwarf of all things. Sabin, the dwarf, is a priestess of Oghma. Their travels have led to them bonding over their shared disgust for both goblins and duergar. Just recently (last week in real life) Q'rra shared with Sabin most of the details of her life including the existence of the small cell of Drow living under Waterdeep. She has come to respect several other members of her current party and is still very untrusting of the rest of them. Sabin was pleasently surprised by Q'rra's religious following. She had been wondering for a while how a Lolth based child could be so pleasant to be around. The biggest problem that hasn't been resolved is what happens if the original companions turns up. Well that and what will she do if her current group of "friends" want to go down to the Underdark. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that. Right?
I'm kinda proud of how she's evolving and thought you could appreciate her development.

One of my favorite characters was a neutral evil rogue trickster spy who became an accidental warlock of Yog Sothoth.
Middle classed family, mother and father both alive. Two siblings one of which was a paladin. No tragic backstory. Just A regular guy. He became an adventurer because he realized he was really good at being a spy. But he had an issue with touching things he shouldn't which caused him to become an involuntary warlock.
Ended up pulling Zariel's sword in Avernus so he became part Celestial. After his first (and only) death he met his patron and was absolutely terrified of it and what it did to him - he became part outsider abberation.
Ended up making a deal with Bel to become his spymaster when he took over after Zariel's death.
In the end he was part Celestial part devil and part outsider with three conflicting natures.
All of his tragedy happened in game.
His alignment manifested in self interest and greed but he realized early in life that you always need minions and bodyguards so he had no issues working with the party and even risked his own life to save members in trouble. When asked why he'd say something like "You are my friend. Even if you were not at bare minimum you are one more body between me and the monster trying to eat me or the guard trying to catch me. You have worth to me."
Most amusing was he outright told the party early on that there would be a price that would make him sell them out but he doubted anyone would ever be willing to pay it. That honesty caused the party to trust him implicitly.

FUN FACT: I made a soul knife rogue/lycan blood hunter that was chaotic evil due to some dealings with demons. he specialized in poisons, alchemy & cooking and to this day I find it really funny that my whole party trust the chaotic evil rogue who's capable of making cyanide MORE than a chief they hired. I asked about this and they said "your too proud of your cooking to actually do anything to Sully your cooking".... And He was right...

I DMed an online game with entirely new players. One said they had played Baldur's Gate 3 and thus knew a fair bit about D&D. He made a character that was an asocial barbarian- raised in an isolated tribe and not trusting of others.... And yet, they made Charisma their second highest stat. I know Charisma can also be intimidation and just a character's general "presence", but it was pretty obvious that they were just min-maxxing after playing BG3 where Charisma plays a huge *roll* (haha) in almost every single social interaction, especially because he would always choose Persuasion over Deception or Intimidation because "if I fail a Deception/intimidation check, that's more likely to lead to combat". Any time the party would speak to an NPC, they would talk out of character to say "hey, barbarian, you should tell the NPC this". I would try to cut the behavior short by saying "If you have an idea of something you want to be said, then you should be the one saying it", to which they would always respond "but my Charisma is super low. I'll just fail". Eventually, everyone got bored because of course they would when they aren't engaging for 70% of the session. People would have video games up, or leave without saying anything in order to take a call.
The BG3 min-maxxing was especially obvious because there were numerous times where he clearly viewed Charisma rolls as the "get your way with no strings attached" option. Many times, I had Persuasion checks that were more along the lines of "pass the check to not get your face beat in" rather than "pass the check to have this person hand over all their possessions and every secret they've ever known".
All of this to say that min-maxxing when the ENTIRE table isn't on the same page is one of the worst campaign killers I've ever seen.

Mechanical Mismatch
This is harder to do in 5e, but i have struggled with something similar to this in older D20 versions. You make a character and his mechanics are mismatched to the campaign or DM itself.
1: a Gloomstalker Ranger, but your DM has never heard of light-level rules before.
2: a Ranger in general, but 99% of campaign tables give your class bonuses out to the entire party for free, leading to you feeling like you are worthless because you are.
There is also Party mismatches. AKA, the party overlap issue. 3 Wizards and a Rogue. Has happened to me before...i was the rogue.

In terms of balancing power for my first character, what do you think of a changeling rogue that has almost all points dumped into charisma to get into places with persuasion but lacks basically any combative skill? Would that work?

Unfortunately my lawful good paladin would indeed never trust the arch demon of lies, and would indeed murder the warlock that just admitted to worshipping it and desiring to end reality after I politely ignored it in meta for 20 sessions.

"Thank youuuu" we all say in unison

Thanks for the video. Excellent list of character flaws that cause game issues if taken too far, done too often, or done for too long.

I think the concept of a Wizard with average or even low Intelligence can work quite well--you only have to be more picky with the spells you choose. Buffs, obscurements, and a few area of effect spells don't use your spellsave DC or spell attack, so you can absolutely make it work.

For the first one you could explain it as your character progressively getting more lead poisoned like soldier from tf2

I’m usually pretty judgmental about this kind of advice, since “rules” are generally more like guard rails than constants. But most of this seems pretty good. My thoughts…
One Dimensional: Depends heavily on player and setting. One shot? Way more leeway. Player not just using the gimmick as a crutch? Depends on gimmick, but it can work. Preferably you’re making a full on character though rather than a single joke. Helps a lot.
Backstory Blunder: Agree full heartedly with this being an issue. Not that it’s impossible to play someone with tons of story already, but you want the adventure to be the highlight. Think where I start to disagree a bit is on tragedies. You want to avoid “chaotic mess,” but the key is to make it natural. If it makes sense for a sequence of tragedies to have led up to a character, then that’s what you want. Though generally… don’t get too hung up on tragedy. What matters is how it’s shaped the character. As for mystery, fine but not necessary. It’s great giving DM something to work with.
Lone Wolf Syndrome: Yeah… This is a problem. It’s a group game. Disagree a tiny bit on a goal that needs allies, but you absolutely need a reason your character will join the party. If it would make sense that they won’t, not the end of the world. Just understand you better be quick with a new character, because DM is following the group, not just you.
Spotlight Hog: Agree on this one being an issue too. Not quite sure on your solution. Think avoiding the harm is easy enough. Just be socially aware enough to back off the limelight if you’re constantly in it. And don’t try to steal it from others by one-upping at every turn. But going from avoiding-harm to building up others is a bit trickier, since you can still steal the limelight by doing this. Experience helps.
Morality Mismatch: General rule, don’t harm the group. This extends slightly to group’s comfort. There can be reasons to do so. Either it’s something you’re sure everyone is fine with, or it’s some big twist that you’re fine losing your character for. But mostly, even if your character is purposefully a bastard, have the decency to not subject your friends at the table to stuff they don’t want.
Mechanical misalignment: Ehh, not entirely sure what my thoughts are on this as a problem. My character creation process never has this issue because it goes back and forth between mechanics and story inspiring each other. Think I see this mostly as an issue of a player not getting why certain things are valued, whether it’s about not dragging the party mechanically or being an eyesore narratively.
The inflexible concept: I disagree with this… If it causes friction for others, there’s a problem. But ultimately, this is a story, and some people do not grow. Personally, I do like planning at potential arcs for characters. However, I’ll also plan out failure arcs. And regardless of how things turn out, I’m ultimately making sure my character responds to what life throws at them. They’re a top I’ve wound up and let loose into the world. I just stay aware of everyone else’s boundaries and when I might need to reroll.

I stay vague at first and let actual game play and real interaction with other players develop the character more naturally and in line with the story line. Any developments prior to gaming is to try and predict
a future your DM may dump before it gets off the ground.

so, my character is a kobold bard. Backstory is boiled down to 'tribe was generally amicable and peaceful, as they were guided by a silver dragon. The dragon recently died, and the tribe left their old home to leave it as a tomb for the dragon. He got separated from his tribe during a snowstorm in a mountain pass. Now, he's alone, afraid to go alone to try to find them, and only knows the new home is somewhere in this massive valley.'
Narratively, I chose bard as him finding the magic in rhythm in music, but his passion is cooking. So all his bardic skills would revolve around cooking, and initially he used music to keep in time with all his work, humming to himself as he diligently produced food for the tribe.
He'll be a supportive bard, mostly trying to keep allies buffed and healthy, and use a homebrew subclass that allows infusing spells into edible items (these essentially act like movement stable glyphs of warding that cast the spell on the eater, and cost both a spell slot and a bardic inspiration to make, and lose their magic if uneaten for 24 hours).
I'm not trying to build him as the face. He lacks confidence and is going to slowly gain it over time. Already he's developed a bit of a codependency with the half orc barbarian. Still, despite that, he likely saved the party cause he convinced the king's advisor to front some of the reward for their first task upfront, which allowed us some supplies that came in clutch

Ya ok, one or two of these might be helpful, but I think you definitely going off the deep end when you start saying that making a character mechanically is a "sin". Sorry, not agreeing to that BS. Look, here is the simple truth: 1. Sometimes ideas you think are going to be fun DO get old over time and if you dont want to make a new character, then you will need to switch it up. Its not hard to do, and its not necessary to go through a 1000 obstacles to do it. 2. Yes, a totally lone wolf/totally anti team character can be a real pain for all involved. So dont do it unless you got a way of at least working with the group. Simple. 3. DnD is largely about kicking door, killing shit and stealing their shit. Yes there are story elements to it, but its not high narrative, whatever that might mean, game. You dont need to have "character growth" you CAN just have a fun night rolling dice and slicing heads. and yes 4. Making your character intentionally terrible mechanically will likely have you dropping it eventually. For the case of the wizard who was self trained, I would suggest, take that 11 Int, but pick Sorc. Then flavor that you ARE self taught and you thought you were book learning from your negilent parents old books but secretly (even to you) you were BORN to magic and and you created this whole block of how and why you can use it. That would be an interesting character and who the hell is going to know otherwise....I mean play in Strixhaven where you fail all the written test and excel at the practicals. Really, that does sound like fun.

i cant imagine deriving any kind of fun in playing a one note character that feels incredibly dehumanizing

2: Backstory blunders
I'm guilty of this one, the most.
Most level 1 D&D characters are depicted as between 16 and 20 years old. This is backed up by their lack of experience and low stat scores
I am an old man and i don't want to play a child. So instead, i like to play a character who is an established villager with some amount of adult history. Maybe i am the town baker, the town executioner, a butler for the local lord, an established hunter, or a farmer.
My backgrounds are always a little more detailed than a starting adventurer's backstory should be, and i usually have 1 or 2 monumental achievements that tie myself into the plot (aka, answering the question of why i was hired for whatever job the campaign starts with over any of the other townsfolk)
I usually don't play much character development because my characters already know who they are as people. They are past that formative part of their lives where their opinions can still change drastically.

Hey this content is pretty good, maybe I'll subscribe.... wait a minute, he's only got 1400 subs? Wait, only 11 videos? Started uploading 2 months ago?
Bro you look like you've been doing this for years. What's your secret? How did you start out great?

4: The Spotlight Hog
God, i wish i had one of these people in my play group. I have this thing where i have to fill up the silence.
I try my hardest to shut the hell up, but i have 3 party members that just don't roleplay much
I guess this makes me the defacto Spotlight Hog...but i've tried it before...if i don't talk, nobody does. Prolonged silence.
Can someone lend me their Spotlight Hog if they're not using them?

The whole table is correct.
I have lost a few games due to social interactions failures.
One was so bad, it is the game I wished for a Total Party Kill, and grinned as it happened. Due to that refusal to assist each other, they also refused to health and buff each other as needed for the boss fight. Hence my grin, I didn't have to do anything, they did it all to themselves. Bleed damage took out the big bad of the chapter though, so a technical win?

To the question,
"Why shouldn't I just create the character I want to play?"
I answer...
If you want to play in a group, you have to be someone that the group desires. The group does not OWE you their time or cooperation."
Going one step further, if you want to play a fun game you must be willing to make it fun for the others you intend to play with. If you are unwilling, you will find yourself without a group eventually.

You think my one dimensional character is flawed but I realise it won't last long enough for that to matter

Is there any way I can contact you friendly wise to pass ideas back-n-forth on for characters? I need someone who's not in my current party and is knowledgeable on DND

I won't lie, I have 2 characters who commit Sin 2. However, I have that as part of their story.
The first, my Ranger, is someone I have played since April 2004. Started on EverQuest and moved into online role-playing and then to TTRPGs (D&D/PF1). However, when he came to the table the first time it was part of a universe/sphere hopping misadventure. When that game ended, one of the players became the DM and ran a game involving gods bringing heroes to Golarian (as we moved to PF), I wanted to learn the differences between 3.5/PF so I brought out the character again as I had only played a couple months in the previous game (that ran for a few years). So how I explain his backstory fitting with a Level 1 character? Every time he goes to a new universe/sphere his connection to his god is muted and he has to reforge that connection through experiences gained in this new land.
The second is a similar situation. Years later, this same DM was running a new group and gam. Using Golarian as the setting but we were playing 5e. So I created a new character, a Vampire (reflavored a Dhampir into a Vampire Spawn) who is a monster slayer, a Paladin that has a pact with a good aligned god (Celestial Warlock) to bring vengeance on those who prey on innocents. I liked the character but the game got cut short when I moved to NYC (where I joined my GF's friends in their ongoing PF2 game), so I rebuilt him in PF2 and used the previous game as backstory (since this effectively jumped him forward 500 years). That game ended just as a friend started a Curse of Strahd game and invited my GF and I in, he LOVED the character concept especially with the setting so we picked up post-epilogue (real time just 2 days before the final session of the PF2 game) that the Mists came and took the two of them into Barovia and suppressed their powers.
So Sin 2 isn't a Sin if you work with your DM and you can make it make sense.

NUMBER ONE MADE MY FIRST ONLINE CAMPAIGN UNBEARABLE, we had a trio designed to be a group, but one of them kept leaning and bringing up a "mulch addiction" which broke some serious moments and made it irritating to play around

Inflexible Concept
I get around this by avoiding moral Absolutes. My characters have a moral grey-ness that goes above their alignment.
For instance, i am playing a Soldier Rogue / Mercy Monk right now. He's a Medical Doctor. He's Lawful Good. He's also a serial killer, fueled by a vindetta with the Gods, he targets Clerics and other Divine manefestations.
This character concept allows for him to be Lawful Good on paper and in 99% of character interactions, but he's not morally above an evil action or two. He also worked for the Mob for 20 years during a point of economic uncertainty.

My characters often start fairly one-dimensional but become more nuanced as the campaign proceeds.

Seems the spotlight hog isn't a character creation problem. It is a flaw in how the player participates in the game.

using the link unfortunately doesn't work for me

I made a crafter character, and it was perfect for a party, though it was a non-combatant. The campaign gave no room for crafting. There was plenty of time skips though my dm never allowed my character to craft during the time skips. During sessions, it was mostly combat with lots of interactions with npcs. I retired that character

🥳🫂👍🏿
I miss Tordek… and Regdar and Lidda and Jozan and Mialee and Krusk… I feel like I didn’t appreciate Soveliss enough when I had the chance

I'm confused - why would the party require the rogue's skills of stealth and lockpicking? Didn't they have an arcane caster? Why trust a plan to chance (something requiring a dice roll) instead of going with the auto-success option?

For most of my new characters (I make to much) I give them 2 Flaws that they try to work with or try to fix in the campaign.
Side note, I'm trying DMing for the 4th time with a new party. Wish me luck that the campaign will be more than 2 sessions. Thx :3

Lot to agree and lot to disagree. What i strongly agree with, is the tragedy aspect and the no room for development. KISS (in keep it simple and std ) one single sentenced description of how the character came in this position where he starts in the campaign is more than enough.

Great video quality! ☺️

My rogue's quirk is that he's a terrible liar and even worse actor. (CHR 8)
He's quite forthright and is often respectful to authority figures unless he thinks they may be corrupt....
Then he tends to do more breaking and entering to sabotage and expose them.

6:40 Well, unfortunately I was already taking detailed notes 😂 But thanks a lot

Very nice video, mate. I do have one thought, driven from another very interesting video. The other guy was suggesting on creating half the character, or the basics in a reduced session zero and quickly start playing (filling the missing parts afterwards before the next session or something). Would you consider a character build to be modified and fix some of these issues later on (especially if you have new players in the party)?
PS
Not re-rolling of course, but maybe altering some elements to better fit the party, the fun and everything.

7:06 is a blue lock reference fr

Last one was bs.

I'm in for a treat😋
Thank you!

Great video. Love all the advice.
One thing: epitome is pronounced eh-PIT-oh-mee :)

7:22 why are you here then?

Great video!

Your characters are just representation of your personality. I tried making charisma based class just to try their features, NOPE, cant do it, cant roleplay the thing.

Thanks for the vid mate. You might want to google the pronunciation of ‘epitome’

Wish i had a group thatlets me play non humans over discord and roll 20.......

Epitome is pronounced "ehh•PITT•ohh•MEE".
Similarly, synechdoche is pronounced "sinn•EKK•doh•KEE".
I don't know why, but it's definitely not "ehh•pihh•tohm".

Would love to see how you run games. Like, in practice, a campaign

It's very good advises. Also, my first two campain have exatly all sin's broken, it was terrible T . T