Three Legged Characters: A Simple Tool for Character Creation

When making a character for a TTRPG, players tend to focus on answering two important questions: who are they, and what do they do?

"What do they do," in this case, is the mechanical question. The classes, abilities, qualities, etc. Even things like tactical role- DPS, tank, Support, etc.

"Who are they," ofter leads players to think in terms of backstory, and the purpose of this backstory is to establish core facts about the character. Some players get very invested in this, and produce reams of backstory, some players just lift tropes from popular media, or even dismiss the idea entirely. Most produce a few paragraphs.

Let us set both of those aside. Assuming we want to tell a story with our characters, that means that both the characters and what we know about them needs to grow and change. Our goal, at character creation, should be less a focus on establishing facts about the character and more about establishing interesting questions we want to answer about the character.

I believe that learning about characters through play will produce more interesting, more dynamic, and more fun characters, not just for the player controlling that character, but all the other players around the table, including the GM.

What follows is a slightly more formalized version of the approach I use for making my characters, which I share in hopes that others find it useful.

The Three Legs

To that end, there are "three legs"- three things I like to establish about a character. The Anchor, the Deal, and the Problem.

The Anchor

The Anchor is a key fact about the character which connects them to the setting. It establishes a relationship to the world, and helps explain what they may have been up to before the campaign started.

They could be a member in good (or poor!) standing with the Mage's College. They're a cop in the most dangerous precinct. They're the youngest child in a sprawling, massive family. They're a caravan trader with a well established and mildly profitable route.

The purpose of the Anchor is to show us how the character fits into the campaign setting. A good anchor will lead us to questions about NPCs in their life, factions in the setting and how the PC relates to them, as well as just broadly how the character navigates the world of the game. How do other Mages react when they meet your poor standing mage? Is our cop where they are because they're tough, or unlucky? Is the family close, competitive? What happnens when someone tries to horn in on the caravan route?

The Deal

The Deal is the character's main approach to the world. It's how you might answer the question, "What's your deal?" It's a loose combination of what they want from the world with how they try and get it, and it's an excuse for why they're going to go on adventures.

A character could just be in it for the adrenaline rush, or think they're on the edge of scoring a big heist and don't want to take any chances. They might believe there is a rightful order to the world, and if the gods don't enforce it, they will. Maybe they believe there's no such thing as forbidden knowledge, or maybe they fought in the Revolution, and will do anything to ensure that its legacy is assured.

The purpose of the deal is to help establish our call to adventure, and provide an excuse as to why our character will do dangerous things like wander into dungeons or stow away on a pirate ship. A good deal is going to open up questions about how the character will apply their deal in new situations: how does the adrenaline junkie cope with needing to do research? What risks will our thief take for the heist, and where do they draw the line?

The Problem

The Problem is the thing that gets our character into more trouble than they should be. I don't like to think of this like a flaw, as if it's an imperfection. It's a problem- it's the mistake they make, the temptation they succumb to, it's the thing that makes their life harder.

Maybe they're a dirty cop. Maybe they have an addiction. Maybe their problem ties directly into their deal- if you believe there's no such thing as forbidden knowledge, what if the problem is that some knowledge is actually dangerous. If you're enforcing justice or protecting the revolution, maybe you're willing to go "too far".

A good problem is a story hook, because it's going to let us ask the most important question we can about a character we care about: how are they going to get out of this mess? It also lets us ask questions like: how does their problem make this already dangerous situation more dangerous? It's a tool for raising the stakes.

Using the Legs at Character Creation

As a player, you don't need to work too hard on these. Each of these can be described in any order, and in minimal detail. A sentence at least, a paragraph at most. If you want to put more time into it, don't expand on these details- write down questions that these details make you think of. Share them with your fellow players and the GM.

Using the Legs during Gameplay

At its core, each one of these Legs is a chance to ask a key question: if this is true, what else is true? If I'm a Mage in bad standing, what else is true about me, or the world? How did I get into bad standing? Do I want to get out of it? What if I got the opportunity? As a player, these are questions you can ask yourself, and as a GM, these are ways for you to craft situations where we can find out the answers.

Conclusion

The purpose of this approach is to create more vibrant, interesting, and dynamic characters, while at the same time reducing the pressure on players and GMs during the character creation process.

By thinking in terms of questions and not answers, we can more easily allow the characters to grow and change, and by answering those questions through play we will find answers collaboratively- between all the players and the GM- which will usually lead us to answers that we wouldn't find on our own.

By asking each others questions as a group, we have the chance to be surprised by the answers we find.