Teaching Character Creation in Your School Gaming Club
One of the most exciting and creative aspects of tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs) is character creation. For many students, the process of designing their own unique character is a thrilling way to explore new identities, abilities, and backstories. As an educator running a school gaming club, teaching character creation can be a valuable opportunity to foster creativity, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
In this post, we’ll explore how to guide your students through character creation, including tips on how to make the process fun, educational, and accessible to all players.
Why Character Creation is Important
Character creation is much more than choosing stats and abilities—it’s an opportunity for students to express themselves, develop critical thinking skills, and engage with the game world. Here are some key reasons why character creation is a vital part of RPGs:
Encourages Creativity: Character creation allows students to explore new personalities, backgrounds, and stories, pushing them to think creatively.
Fosters Engagement: When students create their own characters, they are more invested in the game, as they feel personally connected to the story.
Promotes Decision-Making: Players must make choices about their character’s skills, strengths, and weaknesses, encouraging strategic thinking.
Builds Storytelling Skills: Developing a backstory for a character helps students practice narrative thinking and storytelling.
Steps for Teaching Character Creation
1. Explain the Basics of Character Creation
Before diving into the creative aspects of character creation, it’s essential to start with a clear explanation of the mechanics behind it. Different RPG systems have different rules for creating characters, so it’s important to ensure students understand how the process works within the game you’re playing.
Introduce Key Components: Explain the basic elements of character creation, such as attributes, skills, abilities, and backstories. Clarify the purpose of each component and how it will affect gameplay.
Use Visual Aids: Provide character sheets or templates that guide students through the creation process. Visual aids can help them understand where to input their character’s stats, skills, and other information.
Go Over the Game’s Setting: Ensure students have a good understanding of the game’s setting and genre. Is it a high fantasy world with magic and dragons, or a futuristic cyberpunk city? This will influence the types of characters they can create.
Basic Components of Character Creation:
Attributes (e.g., strength, intelligence, dexterity)
Skills (e.g., swordsmanship, stealth, magic)
Class or role (e.g., warrior, mage, rogue)
Background or backstory
Equipment and special abilities
2. Encourage Students to Be Creative
Character creation is an excellent opportunity for students to stretch their imaginations. Encourage them to think outside the box and come up with characters that are unique and interesting.
Challenge Traditional Archetypes: Encourage students to break away from traditional RPG archetypes like the stoic warrior or the wise old wizard. Ask them to think about unusual combinations, such as a scholarly rogue or a barbarian who loves poetry.
Incorporate Personal Interests: Suggest that students draw on their personal interests or hobbies to inspire their character. For example, a student who enjoys science could create a character who is an alchemist or inventor.
Create Compelling Backstories: Guide students in crafting backstories for their characters. What is their character’s motivation? Where do they come from? What events shaped their personality? Backstories add depth to the character and make them more engaging.
Creative Prompts for Students:
What is your character’s biggest fear, and how does it affect them?
If your character could have any superpower, what would it be, and why?
What is one secret your character keeps from the rest of the group?
3. Balance Character Strengths and Weaknesses
A well-rounded character has both strengths and weaknesses, and teaching students to balance these traits is essential for creating interesting and realistic characters.
Teach the Importance of Weaknesses: Help students understand that weaknesses make characters more relatable and fun to play. A character who is overly perfect can quickly become dull.
Use Game Mechanics to Encourage Balance: Many RPGs have built-in mechanics for balancing strengths and weaknesses. For example, characters might have a limited number of points to distribute between skills and attributes, forcing students to make trade-offs.
Explore Flaws in Backstories: Encourage students to think about how their character’s backstory might influence their weaknesses. For example, a character who grew up isolated might have poor social skills, or a character with a dark secret might struggle with trust issues.
Ways to Balance Characters:
Distribute skill points carefully to ensure a character has strengths in some areas and weaknesses in others.
Encourage students to think about emotional or psychological weaknesses as well as physical ones.
Discuss how weaknesses can lead to interesting character development during gameplay.
4. Incorporate Character Goals and Motivations
Characters in RPGs are driven by their goals and motivations. Teaching students to think about what drives their characters can deepen their engagement with the game and enhance the overall story.
Ask About Long-Term Goals: Encourage students to think about what their character wants to achieve in the long run. Are they seeking revenge? Searching for a lost artifact? Trying to prove themselves to someone?
Discuss Short-Term Motivations: In addition to long-term goals, characters should have short-term motivations that influence their actions in each game session. For example, a character might be motivated by a desire to protect a friend or to find a hidden treasure.
Tie Motivations to the Game World: Help students tie their character’s goals and motivations to the game’s world and setting. This will make their characters feel more grounded in the story and give the GM opportunities to build plotlines around them.
Character Goal Prompts:
What is your character’s ultimate goal, and how far are they willing to go to achieve it?
What motivates your character in their daily life or during adventures?
How do your character’s goals align (or conflict) with the rest of the party?
5. Encourage Collaboration with Other Players
Character creation isn’t just about individual creativity—it’s also an opportunity to foster collaboration among the group. By encouraging students to work together when creating their characters, you can build stronger relationships within the gaming club and create more cohesive party dynamics.
Discuss Party Roles: Help students think about how their character fits into the larger group. If the party already has two warriors, for example, a student might want to create a healer or a rogue to balance the group.
Create Interconnected Backstories: Encourage students to link their characters’ backstories with one another. Perhaps two characters grew up in the same village or share a common enemy. These connections add depth to the story and create more opportunities for roleplaying.
Foster Collaboration in Gameplay: Remind students that their characters will need to work together during the game, so their abilities and personalities should complement one another. This also helps students practice teamwork and cooperation.
Collaboration Tips:
Encourage students to communicate with each other during character creation to avoid overlapping roles.
Suggest ways characters could have known each other before the game begins.
Promote the idea that working together is just as important in character creation as it is in gameplay.
6. Provide Feedback and Support
Throughout the character creation process, provide constructive feedback and support to help students develop their characters. Make sure to keep the process positive and open to creative exploration.
Offer Suggestions, Not Restrictions: When offering feedback, make suggestions rather than imposing restrictions. For example, if a student’s character seems overpowered, you might suggest ways to balance their abilities rather than outright saying “no.”
Encourage Growth Over Time: Remind students that their characters don’t have to be perfect from the start. Characters can grow and evolve over the course of the game, so it’s okay to start with a rough idea and refine it later.
Be Available for Questions: Make yourself available to answer questions or provide guidance throughout the character creation process. Some students may need more support than others, especially if they’re new to RPGs.
Feedback Tips:
Praise students for creative ideas, while offering suggestions for improvement.
Encourage students to revisit and refine their characters as they gain more experience.
Provide resources, such as guides or templates, to help students who need extra support.
Conclusion
Teaching character creation in your school gaming club is one of the most exciting and rewarding aspects of running the club. By guiding students through the process, you help them explore their creativity, develop storytelling skills, and engage more deeply with the game world. Whether they’re crafting a noble knight, a mischievous rogue, or a mysterious mage, students will learn valuable skills that go beyond the gaming table.
By explaining the mechanics, encouraging creativity, promoting collaboration, and offering support, you can ensure that character creation becomes an enjoyable and enriching experience for all of your students. With the right guidance, your school gaming club will be full of unique and dynamic characters, ready to embark on their next adventure!
