First as farce, then as tragedy. Building compelling player characters in tabletop RPG's

I like playing pen and paper RPG’s. Now, for every single RPG out there, there is an enormous amount of material on how to build a powerful character- I love that stuff! However, it makes me sad that there isn’t an equal amount of material about building an emotionally powerful character. A character that will make your friends at the table- and you!- exalt and wince, a character that will make everyone chew their fingers when you make death-saving throws.

I don’t claim to be a master at building and playing emotionally powerful characters. There are, however, many people who are worse at it than me, including some thoughtful, charismatic people who nonetheless have plenty of room for improvement in this area of tabletop roleplaying games.

I’ll introduce my theory of character building with a visual aid. A while ago this cartoon was going around:

This cartoon is very funny because it captures a fundamental truth: campaigns often start funny but move towards a much more serious tone. We see this in many many campaigns and depictions of campaigns including Order of the Stick, Not Another D&D Podcast and The Adventure Zone.

I think there’s a good reason for this. Most DMs and players aren’t masters of narrative, description or acting. Even if they were such masters, they’re in a situation where they’ve got to improvise and each other player is another moving part. Under these settings, creating a setting or characters that have gravity and tragic resonance from the get-go is really hard. If you try too hard to do it, you risk making something cringe. For these reasons, most campaigns don’t start seriously.

On the other hand, if the game never becomes serious, depth is lost.

How do we steer between the Charybdis of endless emo backstories and the Scylla of total frivolity? Well there are probably many methods, and I don’t want to prescribe one formula to be slavishly followed, but here is the strategy I most often use: we boil the water slowly- starting funny and slowly getting more serious- while never losing the spark of humor. This tends to happen instinctively in pen and paper RPGs, but you can plan for it when designing your characters.

When planning a character arc, start silly, with a vein of seriousness, end serious, with a vein of silliness

“Woah, Woah Woah- hold on there!” You say, “what is this about planning a character arc? I just want to make a character- what happens to them will be determined in the game.” What I mean by planning a character arc is quite modest. I mean, when you build a character, you should have some ideas of what the end game could be for that character- ideally four or five different end games.

Here is a somewhat extreme example of an arc that starts funny and goes serious to bring out the point. Consider Tames. Tames is an ordinary mortal. As a young man, he saw an image of Trudd, the Dwarven god of strength, carried by a Dwarven merchant. He was instantly smitten. Much to the bemusement of every dwarf he meets, he’s a passionate worshiper of Trudd, and does his best to honor him, despite having none of the cultural background necessary to understand what that means- and not even sharing an ideology with Trudd- beyond his alignment. His reason for adventuring is to make himself more attractive to Trudd- although his class is certainly not one would normally associate with a Dwarven god of strength. The odds against him may seem long, and to the best of his knowledge, Trudd remains oblivious to his existence, yet one never knows one’s luck on a big material plane. The idea of “PC as wannabe starfucker” strikes me as ripe with potential. In the early game, it can be used to comic effect, and later in the campaign, it can become a poignant meditation on unrequited love, or who knows, maybe even triumphant.

I’m sure you’ll agree with me that while Tame’s has comic potential, there’s also something quite sad, even pathetic, about his quest. Tames is probably a little bit too far towards the comedy end of the spectrum for many purposes, but you can tweak how comically you play him as you need. Now, what are some possible trajectories you can envisage for Tames that capture a movement from funny to serious? Stop reading and list four or five, then go on.

Here are mine:

1. Tames realizes that these kinds of idle fantasies belong to a younger him- from before all the calamity and war of the campaign. He looks back on them fondly but puts them away: When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.

2. Tames meets Trudd at the very end. We are left on an entirely ambiguous moment that could be Trudd just about to let him down gently, or could be Trudd just about to ask him to grab an ambrosia sometime.

3. As above, but it happens in the afterlife, just after Tame’s heroic sacrifice.

4. Tames sees his own behavior “from the outside”- observing someone who feels the same sort of unrequited love he does. Tames realizes that, once he strips away his sentimentality, his behavior is somewhat pathetic, even a little creepy. It’s a bitter lesson, but he reorients himself accordingly.

5. If Trudd dies early in the campaign, the childish nature and innocent narcissism of his ambitions might be a poignant contrast with the violence of his end.

6. Maybe the campaign never gets especially serious. In this case, a nice twist ending might be one of the NPC’s was Trudd all along.

There’s no need, in planning out Tame’s arc, to know which of these is going to come to pass- but it’s good to think through them- to have options in mind and make sure there are directions his story could go in so you don’t write yourself into a corner. This kind of thinking things through in a flexible manner allows you to avoid two extremes: A) Your character just having “one damn thing after another” happen to them with no sense of narrative closure B) Trying to railroad your character into a particular end.

Koli Venjor and the test of the Starstone

Here’s another take on the farce to tragedy trajectory and planning out different possible character arcs.

Koli Venjor grew up on the streets of Absalom a city on the world of Golarion, the main setting of Pathfinder with her beloved brother Igferr. Now in the city of Absalom there is a Cathedral called the Starstone Cathedral, and in that Cathedral there is a test which anyone may undertake to become a god- only four people have ever succeeded. Surrounding the cathedral is a huge ravine, and the first part of the test is to cross that ravine without using a bridge.

One evening just before the stars came out Koli and Igferr were begging for bread when a murderous nobleman pursued them with a sword. They were chased right up to the edge of the Starstone Cathederal ravine. Koli looked across,and it may have just been her imagination, but somehow it seemed narrower than it normally did. Her brother did not hesitate, immediately leaping across, and from the other side of the ravine he shouted for his sister to join him. Yet she had not the courage and ran off in another direction.

That night Koli dreamt of her brother. He explained that he had passed the test of the Starstone and become a god. He touched her on the forehead, and she felt strange powers awaken within her.

Igferr told her that he was lonely being a god, and wanted his sister to join him. The test of the Starstone was a test of character more than power, and he felt sure that with enough practice she would be able to pass the test and join him.

When she woke up, she began to preach the gospel of he brother. At first, no one believed her claims that her brother, a 13 year old urchin, had passed the test of the Starstone. Yet her powers were undeniable. She began to gather the other urchins into a church, and so begins her adventure.

Now there’s plenty comic potential here- although it’s less slapstick than Tames. “I’m a Cleric” “Who do you worship” “My brother- he’s a god you know”. There’s plenty of room for it to grow more serious as the campaign progresses. Her little church of fellow street urchins will also be a great resource for role-playing on the part of both the PC’s and the storyteller. The urchins can be used to create both comedy and drama, and the player characters might end up adopting them en masse.

The big bifurcation in her story is going to be is she right? Is her brother a god, or is the story something she made up to cope with trauma. Once she is revealed to be right or wrong- one way or the other, and her brother stops being Schrodeinger’s god the emotional stakes of the campaign rise.

If she’s correct, it lends a magical realist feel to the campaign- a sense of spontaneous wonder- that anyone can simply become a god if they get lucky. Her brother’s ascension could have all sorts of consequences for the balance of power- divine and mundane- on Golarion.

If she’s wrong, we have a much sadder story, and many open questions. Where are her powers coming from? What will she do when she finds out (e.g., will she try to raise her brother from the dead). How will the church she established cope with the revelation?

Mishkik- how I played the comedy to tragedy arc in a real campaign

Let me tell you the story of one of my favorite PC’s ever. Mishkik- Knowledge Cleric 14, Lore Bard 6.

Mishkik is a character in Out of the Abyss, so this section will contain spoilers for that adventure.

Mishkik is a savant that was raised by a strange religious order which believes there is only one God worthy of worship, and all other Gods are false pretenders. He spent his whole childhood training and studying in numerous arts (hence why he is a skill monkey). He has more books memorized than you have read in your life. His passive perception is, at this stage, 27. Yet Mishkik is quite oblivious to many subtleties of social convention. As a teenager, he became obsessed with demons, in particular, the demon of seduction, Graatz who, for reasons he didn’t quite understand, he spent many hours reading books on- (especially picture books). He believed the reason for his obsession was trying to figure out a way to defeat Graatz (it wasn’t). When he became an adult though, he briefly lost his obsession with Graatz and instead started permanently following around another member of his order, Samuel, with whom he was besotted. They became fast friends. Then, a few months after they met, Samuel died in a tragic accident involving yellow mold. Mishkik’s order tried to revive him but to no avail. Mishkik became convinced that it was his destiny to resurrect Samuel, and that he must become powerful enough to do so. He had a vision in which the angel of his lord came to him and said that he must go into the Underdark to fight demons and that by doing so he would become stronger.

The adventure starts with the characters being kidnapped by Drow. Unlike the others though, Mishkik deliberately wandered down into the Underdark and waited for the Drow to arrive and kidnap him. When they finally did arrive, he said “you’re late”. As they walked through the Underdark he spoke with his new companions- the other prisoners. Though Mishkik was only 19, he constantly referred to them each as “my child”. Glee, another party member was very fond of Mishkik, but explained to him that it was inappropriate to call someone 280 years your senior “my child”.

A lot of jokes were had at Mishkik’s expense. His erotic obsession with Graatz, his strange awkwardness, the absurdity of being a monotheist in a polytheistic world, his tendency to count everything and make decisions through kabbalistic numerology… all of these were deployed to entertain the table.

Yet slowly Mishkik matured and developed. It became clear that the party must prevent demons from coming into this world. Mishkik felt this had been his destiny all along and his life had been preparation for it. He began to have vivid dreams of becoming a great prophet and of leading hordes of Underdark creatures to salvation. Visions from his lord became more frequent. He always looked forward to the day he would be able to use the divine intervention class feature since he believed this would be the key to returning Samuel to life.

When he achieved that power though, he found it wasn’t working- Samuel wouldn’t come back to life. At the same time he had begun to notice that he had feelings for Sir Idris the Paladin, another party member, and he worried his disloyalty to Samuel was the reason he couldn’t work the required miracle to return him to the world of the living. Glee noticed that he had begun running off to cry at odd intervals and sat down to talk about it with him. Mishkik tearfully explained everything. Glee suggested that if he was trying to use the power of a God to resurrect his friend, he must first establish whether or not his friend actually wanted to be returned. Mishkik was confused- of course, Samuel would want to live again and be with him. Nonetheless, Mishkik agreed.

Mishkik began working on a spell that would allow him to contact a petitioner- the spirit of a dead person. With much difficulty and several failures, he cast his spell and Samuel spoke with him. His voice was brimming with compassion. He seemed so happy, and yet he flatly stated that he had no interest in returning through divine intervention or any other means. He was one with his God now. One day, after a long and happy life, Mishkik would be with him again, and with his God. In the meantime, he should keep living for himself and for God.

Mishkik was near broken. He went off alone, and when the party finally found him he was reading from his holy book, eyes dried through prestidigitation, yet clearly red from tears. The only thing that kept Mishkik going was a new, darker ambition. He would be a great prophet, yes, and then he would die a martyr, preferably as soon as possible. But there was an even darker undercurrent. The thoughts of Graatz were getting harder and harder to keep out of his head, and their eroticism was finally made explicit.

What happens next? I don’t know yet- we’re still playing through the campaign. I hope that I can find a narratively appropriate way to steer Mishkik off the path of martyrdom- I do like happy endings- but whether I do or don’t, I’m very happy with how Mishkik has turned out, as a wellspring of both comedy and tragedy.

A note: the intelligent use of cliche

In writing the above discussion of Tames and in playing out Mishkik, one of the things that preoccupied me was the intelligent use of cliche and trope. Tropes are a problem for every narrative crafter because A) overuse makes your work bad B) at the same time, there is a reason why tropes became so popular to begin with- they’re good.

The solution, especially in a genre like fantasy, is to use tropes but use them intelligently.

After all, the genre has been so thoroughly hashed that it’s almost impossible to think of something that doesn’t contain prominent, fairly obvious cliches or tropes. Once we’ve given up the goal of avoiding tropes we can try being trope neutral- just writing and not caring whether we use tropes or not- or, and I think this is the better approach, we can intelligently select a limited number of cliches as a kind of ornamentation to the narratives we create.

I don’t know if there are general rules for this process, I think it’s just something you’ve got to do on a case-by-case basis, but I hope that even framing it in terms of using cliches intelligently will help you.

APPENDIX: SIX DIVINITY-THEMED BACKSTORIES FOR AN RPG THAT CAN FIT THE TRAGI-COMIC MODEL.

This essay was originally inspired by a list I wrote of divinity themed prompts for Pathfinder

• One idea that I had always thought would be interesting is an entire party made up of characters who are each pursued by a different faction. Tying this back into the divine theme- consider a character who is relentlessly pursued by an evil cult. It would be too simple to say that they pursue her for revenge or out of bloodlust- although she may believe this in the beginning. No, rather they pursue her because they believe she must be elevated to her destiny- the bringer of their god’s new order. Meanwhile, the other three or four party members are each pursued by a different faction- yet eventually, it is revealed that these things are not as disconnected as they may seem.

• You are wrongly believed to be the child of a god. Others seek to kill or to elevate you. You just want to get on with your life. Yet while the rumors of your greatness may be exaggerated, you will have to rise to them if you are even to survive. [Avoid the temptation to do the double twist where it turns out you actually are the child of a god- it ruins all the charm of this scenario as described.]

• You lived with your younger sister on the streets. One day, a ruffian pursued her and you both to the edge of the chasm that surrounds the Starstone cathedral. To your surprise, the chasm seemed far narrower than it ordinarily does. Your sister leaped across, but you had not the courage and ran off in another direction. Your sister was a perfectly ordinary young girl, yet that day, she became a goddess. That night, she appeared to you in a dream. She explained to you that the test of the Starstone was not so much a test of power as a test of character and potential- one which you had failed in not making the leap. She hoped one day though that you would succeed, for she feared the loneliness of her new condition. She made you her first cleric (or divine blooded sorcerer, or affiliated oracle etc. etc.) and charged you to go into the world that you might grow and one day succeed in the test. No one else, or very few others, believe that your sister ascended to godhood that day, believing it a child’s fable for coping with trauma. The only bit of real evidence is your undeniable powers.

• You do not regard yourself as a worshipper of a particular god… and yet, it seems the god in question disagrees. You find yourself with the powers of a cleric. Worse, some aspects of what this god believes are repugnant, or at least alien to you. For best effect, ask your DM if they will homebrew allowing you to play as a character with an opposed alignment to a deity, who has, nonetheless, been granted clerical powers by that deity for reasons beyond your comprehension.

• Not exactly original but in my experience, for light-hearted comical games, village atheist in a world where being an atheist makes no sense is a great concept.

• I think it would be fun to play as a worshiper of a particular God who desperately wants to seduce their deity. Tames is an ordinary mortal. As a young man, he saw an image of Trudd, the Dwarven god of strength, carried by a Dwarven merchant and was instantly smitten. Much to the bemusement of every dwarf he meets, he’s a passionate worshiper of Trudd, and does his best to honor him, despite having none of the cultural background necessary to understand what that means- and not even sharing an ideology with Trudd- beyond his alignment. His reason for adventuring is to make himself more attractive to Trudd- although his class is certainly not one would normally associate with a Dwarven god of strength. The odds against him may seem long, and to the best of his knowledge, Trudd remains oblivious to his existence, yet one never knows one’s luck on a big material plane. The idea of “PC as wannabe starfucker” strikes me as ripe with potential. In the early game, it can be used to comic effect, and later in the campaign it can become a poignant meditation on unrequited love, or who knows, maybe even triumphant. Also works with a 5e warlock’s patron.

I originally made these with Pathfinder in Mind, but I’m fairly confident they would fit any system like D&D, and that most of them could be adapted to just about any other setting with very little trouble. Just as an illustration, let’s take number 3 and pick a random RPG, e.g. “Vampire: The Masquerade”. Rather than the character being rumored to be child of a god, we stipulate that they are rumored to be the childe of a very powerful elder vampire- maybe even a Methuselah.