Let me cut through the crap and get to the point. Which I know is an odd way to start a Long, Rambling Introduction™.

A lot of you experienced GMs — and a lot of your players — are going to hate the s$&% I’m selling today. Not that I’m a stranger to that. I say lots of s$&% people hate. But when I finally break their spirits and they try my advice, they always discover I was right.

When I told you the best way to introduce new players — and new yourselves — to TTRPGS involved crappy published one-shots and pregens, you told me I was nuts. But a lot of you have actually tried it. A lot of you started successful GMing careers by following the advice in my book. And now you’re all happily trapped behind a GMing screen watching a bunch of whining ingrates piss all over the fruits of your creative labors.

When I told you you could run a deep, engaging open-world game just by lowering your standards, using the tools in the rulebooks, and prepping a lot less, you laughed. I know you laughed. I heard you laugh. But now, dozens of you are running the most fun campaigns you’ve ever run. I know because you told me.

Remember that quick-and-dirty dungeon crap? That’s all some of you are running now. Hell, there’s a QDD club in the Secret Angry Patron Discord that publishes a QDD e-zine every f$&%ing month.

Look, everyone was always telling Fox Mulder his theories were insane. Impossible. Everyone told Adrian Monk and Gregory House they had it wrong. In every f$&%ing episode of every f$%&ing TV series about a quirky genius who solves impossible mysteries, someone was always telling the quirky genius he was wrong.

He never was.

Let’s Make Some Characters!

What’s a Simple Homebrew TTRPG Campaign without a roster of player-characters? What’s any TTRPG campaign without a roster of player-characters? Well, it’s a lot easier to run. Actually, it’s a f$&%ing delight to run. Way less stressful, way more consistent, and…

Crap. That opening didn’t work like I hoped. Damn my radical honesty. Let me start again.

However much it sucks, you can’t run a campaign without a cast of player-characters. Running a game without players playing characters is just writing a novel. And as fun as writing novels is — unless your George Motherf$&%ing Martin and you’ve decided writing novels is beneath you — as fun as writing novels is, it just ain’t the same as running TTRPGs.

This article’s a continuation of my Let’s Start a Simple Homebrew Campaign series. Which you could hopefully tell from the f$&%ing title. This fourth article represents the third lesson which covers the second step of the Simple Homebrew Campaign launch checklist. But I ain’t getting bogged down explaining that s$&% again.

Today’s lesson is about gathering your party. Helping your players generate characters so they can play your game.

What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Goons

This whole series is about starting a Simple Homebrew Campaign, right? One that’s easy to start, easy to run, and easy to maintain. As such, you — the GM — are forgoing all the heavy world-building crap and all the long hours of prep work and the time and expense of reading bloated, overwrought, crappy remakes of perfectly good adventure modules.

Well, if you have to keep s$&% simple, so do your players.

The point of character generation’s to build a cast of characters quickly and easily so you can all just start playing the f$&%ing game. And I’m gonna help you do that by introducing a unique character generation system.

Introducing Curated Character Generation

I’m going to teach you how to run your players through Curated Character Generation. That’s my name for this system. And it’s the system I use. Not just for my Simple Homebrew Campaigns, but for most — almost all – of my games. Regardless of the system. And regardless of the kind of campaign. Yep, even the campaigns wherein each character’s pursuing their own goal or the whole party’s on some giant-a$& quest. Sure, I sometimes have to make a few changes. But not many.

Now, this CCG thing goes against every ounce of conventional gaming wisdom you’re likely to find splattered across the Internet. But dogmatic adherence to conventional wisdom’s a great way to run a mediocre game and truth isn’t a popularity contest. If it were, we’d be celebrating how 99% of the world’s scientists were smarter than Galileo and Max Planck and Albert Einstein and Steven Hawing for seeing through their idiotic rejections of geocentrism, atomism, fixed space-time, and black holes that are actually black.

Why yes, I am comparing myself to the greatest scientific minds in history. Thanks for asking.

Point is, I know you’re going to read this s$&% and say, “this all sounds crazy! This isn’t roleplaying gaming at all!”

And I ain’t going to tell you why you’re wrong.

All Method, No Madness

This article’s all about practical instruction. Not counting the thousand words of introductory crap, of course. I’m just explaining how to get a party of characters out of a group of players. I’m not explaining why this is the best way to do it. Or second best, anyway. You’re either going to trust me or you’re going to f$&% up the beautiful Simple Homebrew Campaign you dream of running. Your call.

Look, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll do one of those Supplemental Bulls$&% articles where I defend all the s$&% I say in this one. And prove that Curated Character Generation’s the best way to handle character generation even if you’re goal’s a deep, engaging, story-driven campaign with actual roleplaying. Second best, anyway. If you want that, you know what to do.

Simple Characters for a Simple Campaign

Everything about this whole Simple Homebrew Campaign launch process is about doing the absolute minimum amount of work needed to start playing the f$&%ing game. And that includes character generation. Now, while character generation’s actually something that’s mostly up to the players, you’ve got an important job to do. You’ve got to drive your players through this process as quickly as possible. And you’ve got to keep them from doing anything more than the absolute minimum.

Character Generation is Not Roleplaying

Lots of players have this idiotic belief that making a character is a big part of the whole roleplaying thing. But it’s not. Building a fully-formed, detailed character with a complex backstory and flaws and all that crap? That’s the opposite of roleplaying. It gets in the way.

Roleplaying’s about making choices and then letting those choices shape the game, the world, the story, and the characters themselves. To put it simply, the more done a character is — the more defined it is — the less it’s shaped by in-game experiences.

The point is to get your players to make characters who are at pretty much the start of their stories. Characters who aren’t interesting. Yet. Who haven’t done interesting things. Yet. Characters who are about to become interesting and do interesting things. And be forever transformed by the experience.

Backstory Already Included

Conveniently — though your players won’t see it that way — every character’s already got a perfectly serviceable backstory. You’ve seen to that. It’s in your Premise. Where?

Check out the first and third paragraphs of my working premise…

The Adventuring Adventurers Who Have Adventures

In a fantasy world littered with the ruins of ancient empires and fallen kingdoms, in a dark age of history, a group of humble individuals leaves the simple work-a-day lives of their kin to make their way as traveling adventurers. Though they start as strangers to each other, they soon learn to work together and eventually trust each other as each seeks their own fate and fortune in the world.

After a chance event…

As the campaign opens, the would-be adventurers meet for the first time at a roadside inn on their way to the town of Acrea’s Hold. Until recently, Acrea’s Hold was an abandoned ruin beyond the reach of civilization, having been ravaged by orcs during the Age of Empires. But the town’s been reclaimed and it’s currently being rebuilt. Its people face numerous challenges on the frontier edge of civilization. And the lands beyond its walls — the Lands of the Forgotten Kings — are dotted with the ruins of a civilization that predates the Zethinian Empire by centuries. Acrea’s Hold is rife with opportunities for do-gooders, fortune seekers, sellswords, sellspells, and explorers. But the adventures don’t wait for the heroes to reach Acrea’s Hold. For at that roadside inn, still days away from the town, the heroes are called upon to resolve some trouble on the road.

That’s it. Every character’s backstory’s right there. All the characters were normal, humble people who one day said, “you know what? F$&% this work-a-day life all my kin are living. I wanna be an adventurer.” Then they decided the best place to start being an adventurer was the town of Acrea’s Hold. So they packed their bags and set off.

Part of your job, as the overseer of character generation, is to rigidly and strictly enforce the game’s premise. After all, that’s the game you’re running. So if the players build anything that doesn’t fit, they aren’t building characters for your game. Stop them.

“No, your character never fought any goblins. Your character hasn’t had any adventures yet.”

“No, your character isn’t questing to reclaim his father’s lost kingdom. Your character is a normal person who wants to be a wandering adventurer.”

“Your character was not an enslaved minstrel in the Faerie Queen’s court who escaped from the Feywild with no knowledge of the mortal world. That is not a normal person who rejected a work-a-day life to become an adventurer.”

Will your players whine and complain? Will they beg? Plead? Will they try to force pages of complex, expansive backstory on you? Will they fight you every f$&%ing step of the way?

Yes.

Moving on.

The What of Character Generation

So, what’s in a character? At least a simple character for a Simple Homebrew Campaign? A complete character’s got three parts. And only three. Three is the number of parts a simple character shall have. Two is not the right number of parts and no character should have just two parts unless the player continues the process and creates the third part. Four parts are too many. Five is right out.

Every character comprises:

• A Completed Character Sheet^{Not Counting Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws}
• A Motivation
• A Two-Sentence Physical Description

That’s it. That’s what you want each of your players to produce. And where you want them to stop. If they give you more, refuse it. Better yet, tear it up. Better still, if they try to do more, stop them. Fortunately, my process takes away a lot of their opportunities to do more.

A Completed Character Sheet

I really f$&%ing hope you know what it means to fill out a character sheet. If not, check out the Player’s Handbook. Or the rulebook for your système du jour. Do not ask your players to fill out the boxes labeled Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. Forbid them from doing so. Hell, black them out or find a character sheet that excludes them.

You won’t be using the Inspiration rules in your Simple Homebrew Campaign anyway.

Do feel free to ask your players to pick an alignment though. I totally encourage that. Partly because it’s a useful thing to do and partly just to give a bunch of you f$%&ers an apoplectic fit. Or an aneurism.

Remember to support the site to ensure I can keep providing great gaming content like this, by the way.

A Motivation

No matter what they think, players don’t actually need any sense of their character’s personality, backstory, or goals to start playing. That s$&%’s a crutch. Worse, it impedes roleplaying and encourages, self-centered play-by-portrayal.

But players do need to know what motivates their characters. And so do you.

Motivation refers to a character’s inner drive. The thing they want out of life and can’t get enough of. It’s not a goal. Characters don’t need goals. Roleplaying games are already full of goals. Every adventurer’s got a goal. Often a few of them. Campaigns usually develop a goal. Even if they don’t start out with one. Multi-adventure arcs can crop up with goals of their own. And characters usually adopt and complete numerous personal goals throughout play. TTRPGs are good on goals.

Motivations aren’t goals. They explain goals. A character’s motivation explains why they accept the goals they do. Most of them. And why they reject the goals they do. Most of them. Yes, characters will take on goals that don’t feed their motivations. Just like real people. That’s because characters have needs. Money, survival, the trust of their allies, and so on. But a character’s motivation is the one that spotlights the most meaningful of their goals.

Motivation’s described with a single word or a short phrase. No more than three words. I like to form them as combinations of verbs and nouns. Amass wealth, acquire power, serve good, help others, learn the truth, explore the world… look, I’ll include a big ole sample list below, okay?

Meanwhile, understand a motivation’s a nebulous thing. An inner need. It can be fed but never fulfilled. A motivation’s never done. If a player proposes something that they could actually complete, they’re choosing a goal. Ask them why their character wants that goal and you’ll be closer to a motivation.

A Physical Description

At the start of the first session of the first adventure of your Simple Homebrew Campaign, you’re going to make each player describe their character. Physically. That is, you’re going to make each player tell everyone else what they see when they look at that player’s character. It’s got to include all the relevant, important, obvious details anyone might note. Race, equipment, sex, age, physical attributes, any symbols worn or displayed. S$&% like that.

And they’ve got to do it briefly. It’s not like anyone’s going to pay much attention anyway.

Problem’s that players suck at extemporaneous description. That’s one of the many, many reasons why they’re players and not GMs. So it’s best to warn the players that you’re going to put them on the spot like that. That way they can prepare something to read out loud during the first session. And whenever else you ask them to.

Honestly, it’s a good idea to ask the players to describe their characters at the start of every session. And to rewrite and modify their description every time the character levels up. But I digress.

The How of Character Generation

There’s lots of ways to handle this character generation s$&%. That is, there’s lots of ways to get the players to sit down and make their characters. And by lots, I mean three. Three-and-a-half. And every GM’s got their favorite. And every GM can list all the advantages of their favorite method and none of the disadvantages. Which is how you know you can’t trust their opinions.

As I said above, I ain’t going to talk through all the threes of different ways to handle the character generation thing. That’s what supplemental bulls$&% is for. Instead, I’m going to tell you how you’re going to get characters made for your Simple Homebrew Campaign.

Thing is, you’ve got to be involved. You’ve got to push the players through the process. As quickly as you can. Get each player to make the choices they’ve got to make, write them down, do some math, and move on. You don’t want to give them too much time to think. And you sure as hell don’t want them interacting with each other too much. But you also don’t want to waste too much of your own time on this s$&%. This means giving each player their own, private, individual session is just not an option. Unless it’s your only option because of life and schedules and non-gaming s$&% like that.

How do you manage all of that? I give you…

Angry Brand Curated Character Generation

The idea behind CCG is simple. Before you let the players sit down with dice and pencils and character sheets — or whatever — you want all the big decisions made and approved. That is, basically, every player already knows what they’re making when they sit down to make it. And since you’ve already approved everything, you know you’re getting a good party out of it.

Here’s the steps:

1. Write and Hand Out a Campaign Primer
2. Ask Each Player to Submit Two Different Character Concepts
3. Secretly Decide Which Character Each Player will Play
4. Help the Players Fill Out their Character Sheets
5. Take Everyone’s Sheet Home with You
6. Start the Game As Soon As Possible

Basically, you give the players enough info to choose, in broad strokes, two characters they’d like to play. Broad strokes mean race, background, class, and motivation. Once everyone’s submitted two character concepts, you pick one of the two for each player. You don’t tell them which character is approved until it’s time to sit down and make the character. Then, you sit down and make characters with your players. Mechanically. Go through the steps and fill out the sheet. Then, you take the sheet home — with some bulls$&% story about reviewing it and making a master list of skills and things — and keep it until it’s time to play. And then you get everyone together for the first game.

I use this method all the time. For all sorts of campaigns. And it not only works, but it also produces way more of that buy-in s$&% that online GMs are always running their mouths about. Depth, engagement, involvement, all that crap. Which is why I use it almost exclusively now.

But I’ll explain why it works some other time. For now, let me tell you how to do it.

Priming Your Campaign Pump

The key to this Curated Character Generation s$&% is the Campaign Primer. That’s just a fancy way of saying a premise and a list of options. Open a new document, highlight your Campaign Premise, and copy-paste that s$&%. Good job. You’re half done.

Remember, players need the Campaign Premise because it tells them what kind of game they’re making characters for. And it tells them the only backstory their characters are allowed to have.

Now, save the document. Don’t forget that part. Grab your PHB — or whatever — and a pen and some paper to take some notes. It’s time to figure out what characters the players are allowed to make and how they’ll make them.

Generate How?

First thing’s first. You’ve got to decide how a baby character gets born. What are the actual character generation rules you’re going to make every player follow? Because every player makes their character the same way. No letting them choose between point-buying or rolling attributes or any s$&% like that.

There’s an easy way to handle this. First, open your Player’s Handbook. Or whichever of your system’s rulebooks contains the step-by-step character generation process. In D&D 5E, you want Chapter 1 of the PHB. Starts on PHB 11.

Read the step-by-step character generation process. Even if you know it — or think you do — read it. As you read it, write down each step on your piece of paper. Whenever you come to a spot where there’s a few different ways of doing something, pick a way and write it down. Write. It. Down.

In D&D, players can roll their characters’ attributes or arrange a standard array of scores or they can do that point-buy s$&%. Characters can roll for starting hit points or start with the maximum. They can buy their starting equipment ala carte or take what their class and background provide for starting equipment. Pick the methods you like and write them down.

While you’re at it, check out the advancement procedure and do the same thing. Whenever there’s options for doing s$&%, pick an option and write it down.

Want my advice? Use the standard array for attributes, maximum Hit Points at first level, average Hit Points at each level thereafter, starting equipment as assigned by class and background, and f$&% feats. Players cannot exchange ability score increases for feats. Feats are crap in 5E. A great idea that was obviously executed by a firing squad rather than by a team of competent designers and developers.

Once you’re done, you’ll have something that looks like this:

1. Choose Race and Class
2. Determine Ability Scores
   • Arrange the Standard Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8)
3. Describe Your Character
   • Choose a Background
   • Select an Alignment
   • Ignore Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws
4. Choose Equipment
   • Begin With Standard Equipment for Class and Background

Generate What?

So far, this is easy, right? And you probably don’t hate me. Yet. Well, hold on. Because now it’s time to decide what characters are kosher for your Simple Homebrew Campaign. What character options are the players allowed? And which are verboten?

First, the rule is simple: however many options there are in the core, vanilla Player’s Handbook? Your players will always have fewer options. Always fewer.

In D&D 5E, there’s nine races, twelve classes, and thirteen backgrounds. Your players get to choose from less than nine races, less than twelve classes, and less than thirteen backgrounds.

No exceptions.

I’m actually being kind right now. In the original draft, I limited you all to four races, eight classes, and eight backgrounds. Which are actually really good numbers.

But I’m feeling nice today. Don’t piss me off.

So how do you make your Big List of Not Enough Options?

Cull First

First, it’s time for a culling. Go back over the step-by-step character generation thing. Look for the steps where the players must choose options for their characters. Like race, subrace, class, class details, build, background, whatever. Look at all the options offered in the core, vanilla, unmodified, unsupplemented, base version of your game. That’s the list you start with.

Don’t start crying. I’ll let you add supplements in a minute. Sort of.

Start with the list of core options. Remove from your Simple Homebrew Campaign at least one from each major group. One race, one class, one background. Remove more if you want. Remove lots. Just make sure you end up with at least four races, eight classes, and eight backgrounds. Any less is actually too few. At least for modern, whinging, whining D&D players.

How do you decide what to remove? However you want! Remember, it’s your world. Maybe there are no happy little druids hugging that tree. Maybe there are no airbender monks dancing across the bright, fluffy clouds. Maybe Mr. Squirrel doesn’t have any gnome friends because gnomes don’t f$&%ing exist.

Seriously, though. First, look for anything that your gut tells you just doesn’t fit. Fit your vision, fit your world, fit the game’s style, fit whatever. Not playing a nautical campaign? Dump the sailor. Eastern monks chafe in your western medieval fantasy? They’re gone.

Then, look for anything that feels mechanically off or problematic. To you. Doesn’t matter what the Internet says. Do you think druids are broken? They are. Axe ‘em.

Then, look for anything that you just don’t want to deal with. Wild magic? F$&% that randomness. Away it goes.

Finally, look for anything you just don’t like. Gnomes? No one likes gnomes. Goodbye gnomes.

Write down whatever’s left. Now, check those things to see if there’s any decisions under them. Subraces, class builds, background features. Remove any of that s$&% you don’t like. Don’t need player characters playing evil, villainous dark elves? Or the uniquely good-aligned drow rebelling against his evil kin? Out go the drow. Don’t want to deal with any creepy necrophiles who don’t understand the basic sanctity of life? Necromancy is no longer a wizardly option.

Keep track of the suboptions you’ve removed. And now you’ve got the list of things players are allowed to play.

Sort of.

Now Replace

You don’t have to limit your Simple Homebrew Campaign to just the core, vanilla options in your particular game. Seriously. I’m totally down with you including genasi or tabaxi or bladesingers or whatever. Yes. Angry did just say he was fine with you putting furry cat-people in your game. If they fit.

But there’s a price.

See that list of options you culled down? You’re not allowed to add anything to it. Which means every option’s got to replace another of the same kind. Tabaxi in? Something’s got to go. Maybe tabaxi fit your jungle campaign better than dwarves. Same rule applies for builds and subraces and s$&%. Want the bladesinger? Drop the eldritch knight to make room.

As a side note, feel free to tweak or rename anything you want. For instance, given the whole humble beginnings thing, the Folk Hero background doesn’t really work. But it does work if you remove the defining event and just call them a Peasant or a Commoner. Since D&D doesn’t have a background for Common Potato-Eater. Which is a total fail.

Those are the rules. And they’re damned good rules. Which I’ll explain some other time if you want. If you don’t want to follow them, fine. I can’t make you. But if you do trust me — and you should — you’ll follow them in spirit. That means you won’t leave extra options on the list during your culling just so you can replace them.

Act in good faith or just tell me to f$&% off.

List Some Motives

This Primer’s all about getting the players to make the big decisions before they start making characters. Recall that there’s four big decisions players gotta make: race, background, class and motive.

While it’s perfectly fine to let your players make up their own motivations — since you’ll be approving all this s$&% before you even let them touch a character sheet — most players struggle with the whole motivation thing. So, give them a fairly exhaustive list of motivations to choose from, but invite them to discuss it with you if they’ve got a better idea.

Of course, you GMs struggle with this s$&% too. So, here’s a handy-dandy list you can crib. Cull whatever you don’t like. Or whatever you don’t think works. Whatever.

• Amass wealth
• Earn glory
• Gain respect
• Accrue power
• Achieve status
• Earn recognition
• Obey duty
• Discover truth
• Do good
• Help others
• Perfect self
• Gain knowledge
• Indulge pleasure
• Fulfill destiny
• Stave off boredom
• Satisfy wanderlust
• Instill chaos
• Slake anger
• Mete out justice
• Spread the faith
• Take revenge
• Climb the ranks
• Build a following
• Prove you mettle
• Master a skill

Campaign Primed and Ready

Got your option lists? Great. Now just slap that s$&% into your Campaign Primer after the Campaign Premise and you’re done. I mean, it’s just making a document. You should be able to handle that s$&%, right? Making documents is 90% of GMing after all.

A few notes though…

First, don’t give them the Character Generation Outline. The one which lists how to do ability scores and equipment and s$&%. Do not arm them to generate characters on their own. You must purposely withhold that information.

Second, if you tweaked any options or removed any suboptions or anything like that, add a parenthetical note.

Human (Non-Variant)
Elf (High or Wood)
Wizard (No Necromancy)
Commoner (Folk Hero but Ignore Defining Event)

Third, if your players don’t know the game or the setting or if you included a bunch of weird-a$& options, write a one-or-two line glossary-like definition so they know what they’re looking at.

Elf: Wise and graceful descendants of the faerie folk renowned for their magical skill and for living in close concert with their woodland homes.

Fourth, if you’re pulling options from supplements, note which books they’re coming from so players can reference them. Maybe even provide links to online services where the players can legally pay $30 to $50 to access the entire book in which the one page they need appears. Absolutely don’t scan or copy the pages of a book you paid $50 for and provide them to your players for the sole, express purpose of participating in a game you legally paid for. That would be a flagrant violation of intellectual property laws. And it’s highly immoral besides. People like you are the reason music ended forever in the late 90s and there will never be any music ever again. You monster.

Tabaxi (Tomb of Annihilation p. 35)

Picking Your Party

Now, take that finished Primer and hand that s$&% out to your players. Then, arrange a playdate for a character generation session. In fact, set a date first, then hand out the Primer.

Then, it’s time to get your party generated.

No-Nonsense Instructions

Now’s the hardest part. Second hardest. Once you’ve got a date set and the players have Primers in their hot little hands — or inboxes — say this:

We’re agreed. June 6, 4 PM is character generation. I haven’t decided yet how we’re doing ability scores and equipment, so don’t ask. We’re doing character generation together anyway. Meanwhile, read over the fancy Primer I just gave you and come up with two different character concepts. Outlines, really. Pick a race, class, background, and motivation you’d like to build a character around. Then do it again. Send me both ideas by June 4. Just the race, class, background, and motivation. I ain’t reading anything else. This ain’t a priority thing. It’s not a first-choice, second-choice setup. I want two characters you’d be happy to play. Two different characters. If you send me basically the same character twice with one small difference, I’m going to make you come up with a third. Once I’ve gotten everyone’s character proposals, I’ll review them and approve them. And then we’ll make characters together. Together. And until we all sit down together, keep this s$%& to yourself. It’s important for my secret campaign plans.

Now, I realize some of you are big wusses who can’t just say s$&% like that to your players. Soften it if you want but say basically that. Even if it’s lies. Which it is. Point is to sabotage their ability to generate or communicate until you’re there to play taskmaster. You can’t prevent them from talking or coming up with ideas, but you can make it difficult enough that lots of players won’t bother.

If your players have questions about the options, answer them. But don’t get bogged down in mechanics. Be vague. “Pretty much what the book says,” is your answer. And if they want to borrow one of your books to read up on an option, check with your attorney, but it’s probably okay. I can’t give legal advice though.

Don’t approve anything that’s not on your list. Don’t even promise to think about it.

Can you play a goliath stormwarden? Is it on the list? Let me check… no… no I don’t see it anywhere on the list of things you can play. This suggests to me that probably it is something you can’t play. See how the list of things you can play doesn’t include that thing you asked to play? You can only play the things you can play. That’s how the game works. I know this D&D stuff is complicated, but don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.

Don’t tell the players how you plan to handle ability scores or feats or anything else that might let them start working on either of their characters.

Then, sit back and wait for the ideas to pour in.

Taking Submissions

As the Character Generation Playdate creeps closer, you’ll hopefully receive some e-mails. Or texts. Or Discord messages. Or smoke signals. Whatever. You’ll probably get at least one within ten minutes of handing out the Primer. Then you’ll get a few the day before they’re due. Then you’ll be missing one on the due date and you’ll have to cajole the delinquent into sending you their s$&%. Cajole however you want. Me? I just uninvite anyone who doesn’t send me what I ask for on time. Some GMs think that’s too harsh. Some GMs are wusses.

As the submissions come in, glance at each. Make sure each player followed your instructions. If they didn’t, slap them down. Watch out for players trying to sneak two similar concepts to get around the pick two rule. Red pen that s$%&. Make them submit a third. Also watch out for anyone who submits more than the four to eight words it takes to define a character’s race, subrace, class, background, and motivation. At the very least, chastise the player for not following the instructions.

All I want right now is race, class, background, and motivation. Dump all that other s$&% until we can get together to generate.

You can keep the offending concept, but make it clear the player did wrong.

Otherwise, just pile up the submissions for now. Don’t approve anything.

Picking Your Friends’ Noses

Once you’ve got all the submissions, the next step’s to decide which character each player gets to play.

Now, I know y’all are expecting me to share some kind of process or goal or system or set of criteria or some s$&% like that. But I can’t. Because there ain’t any. I mean, sure, there’s some obvious s$&% you can probably figure out. S$&% like ensure there’s a mix of roles and avoid overlapping skills and roles. But that s$%& really only matters because players like to feel like their character has a unique job to do.

The point of this process ain’t so you can tailor-make your PC party. It’s just to keep players from getting attached to — and overthinking — their character concepts before the game starts. And to keep them from talking to each other too much.

But, since you can tailor the party to your liking, you might as well. Pick characters that seem interesting and fun and easy to write adventures for. Look for complementary rather than clashing motivations, but make sure there’s variety there too. Above all, do not overthinking this s$&%. Players think the party makeup matters a lot. Some GMs do too. But smart, experienced GMs know it doesn’t. Not at all.

You’re talking to a guy who once ran an ongoing campaign for a party of four wizards. That started at first level. So drop that “four white mages? It’ll never work!” bulls$&%. It’s a lie.

If you can’t handle picking a character for each player — like, if you just can’t bring yourself to do it — just let everyone play whichever character they wrote down first. That’s their favorite anyway. I guarantee it. Though, if you really want to do the thing right — and you’re afraid of your own judgment — make everyone play their second option. That’s the one they put less effort into.

But really, if you’re afraid of your own judgment, have you considered being a player?

And if you really don’t think you can get a good party out of the options the players have given you, ask them to submit more ideas.

Whatever you do, though, do not tell the players which characters they’re playing before the Character Generation Playdate. Just keep saying, “I’ll let you know.”

CG-Day

Here you are. The big day. Everyone’s together. You’re excited. The players are… well, they’re probably confused. They still don’t know what characters they’re playing and they don’t feel ready for this at all. Which is just how you want it.

It’s time to make characters.

Your Character Generation Session should feel like the first day of Boot Camp. The players are sleeping and then suddenly there’s a trumpet blast and they’re on their feet and someone’s yelling instructions and they’re being herded from one thing to the next and they can’t get a word in edgewise and by the time they have a chance to think, they’re collapsing on their cot wondering what the hell just happened.

Start by handing everyone a character sheet. Or asking them to open their PDFs. Or open the new character in the VTT. Whatever.

And then…

Let’s do this. Race, class, background, motivation. We already did that so we can just fill that s$%& in. Alice, you wanted the human cleric. Acolyte background. Write that down. Motivation: to help people. Put that in the Ideals box, I guess. Bob? Fighter, right? Mountain dwarf? Artisan who wants to prove his worth. And Carol, the human rogue, who was a noble before she decided she wanted to explore the world. Cool. So, ability scores. You’ve got 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. Arrange them how you want. If you need help, let me know. All done? Good. Racial modifiers. Alice and Carol, did you bump up all your scores by one? Bob? Constitution and Strength up by two. Great. Let’s fill in those racial abilities. Alice, Carol, you get speed 30 feet and I’m granting you each a free extra skill proficiency. Pick it now or wait until later. Bob, you’re a dwarf. Write down Dwarven Resilience and Dwarven Combat Training. You’re proficient in smith’s tools, mason’s tools, or brewer’s tools. What’s your pleasure? Great. Class abilities. Starting with the cleric. Carol…

Remember, the point of all this Simple Homebrew Campaign s$&% is to start the game with as little forward work as possible. All you need from your players are a bunch of completed character sheets. That’s the only reason they’re there. They’ll want to do other s$&%. Talk about their choices, establish backstories and relationships, and think carefully through every f$&%ing thing. That’s all a waste of time. So don’t give them the chance. Keep them moving. And if they try to slow you down — if they try to talk about their choices or backstory or whatever — say, “we’ll get to that stuff later on; I want to make sure we get this character sheet filled out first because that really bogs stuff down.”

And then don’t ever get to that stuff.

If the players call you out on it, assure them they’ll have a chance to handle all that stuff. But now’s just about the character sheet.

Basically, treat the Character Generation Playdate like you’ve got a hot date to get to. And that’s way more important than this pretend elf bulls$&%.

And… Done

And now your Simple Homebrew Campaign’s got a cast of crazy characters.

If it’s possible — if you’re working on paper in real life like you should be — collect the sheets and take them home. Mumble something about “updating your notes.” If you’re working electronically, you can’t do that. Oh well. But however you’re working, make sure you have a copy of every character you can access before the first session. Because, as I noted in my recent article about Fondling Your Dice Bag, you’ll want to prepare a master list of the characters’ ability score modifiers, proficiencies, saving throws, Armor Class, Passive Scores, initiatives, and s$&% so you can roll checks whenever you need to without involving the players.

Meanwhile, set a date for your first session, tell the players to prepare their two-sentence physical descriptions, build your first adventure, and then you’re ready to launch your Simple Homebrew Campaign.

Go you!