Prepping Your Character for Play

Tools for prepping

We spend a lot of time on GM game prepping, and comparatively little time talking about players prepping for games. I want to propose a method for players to prepare characters and the stories they want to tell in the next session or campaign.

Like a GM might prepare a session, players can also do things to prep their characters before a game session. Among these are reviewing what happened in the last session, coming to terms with recent changes, and updating their character.

How much time should you take with this character preparation? In general do not spend too much time on this unless you’re really inspired. If its a liner or GM driven adventure or module, you wont have to do much at all as the story is mostly ready for you to play. The opposite is true if you’re in a sandbox/PC driven campaign, because the PCs are the driving force for the game. Another major factor is spotlight and time management. This is a shared story and you shouldn’t plan so much that you take the spotlight away from other PCs or the GM’s story. Remember, most game sessions only last four hours or less so you only have time to make one or two points in a night.

• Review the Session
• Update the Character and Story
• Bring the Updates to the Table

Reviewing the Last Session

It is important to be engaged in the game while playing, because it not only makes the game more enjoyable in the moment, it helps you keep track of important moments that will help your play in the future. Reviewing allows you to understand the character’s place in the campaign. This process can include one or more of these: talking at the end of the game with the group, reviewing the game in your head, or reading over your notes.

Traditionally we sit around at the end of the game talking about the game. This is totally fine as it often captures the feelings of the game as the group decompresses. Modern game theory has formalized this into several approaches with names like Debriefing, Roses and Thorns, or Stars and Wishes. My favorite is Stars and Wishes: Stars give players and the game master positive feedback for their action, while Wishes let all players share their desires for future games. A strong round of Stars and Wishes gives you information about where the other players/GM want to take the story, allowing everyone to be on the same page, and should be applied when creating scenes in step three.

I am terrible at taking notes, so I embrace the mental playback step. This needs to be done as soon as you can since you are relying on your memory. It allows you to move the mind’s eye around like a camera, zooming in and out of the game, replaying scenes from different angles and points of view, allowing you to see things that resonate with you. While Stars and Wishes is a group activity, this is an individual activity where you focus on how you and your character saw events of last session. This helps with updating your character and in developing scenes for your story.

Taking notes while gaming is a skill a lot of us need to master, because it helps capture key details of the session. Note takers not only have access to last session’s activities, but a history of the previous sessions linked to people, places, and things. This allows you to center yourself in the story with more story details than just running through your mind. Even if you cannot take notes at the table there is often someone taking group notes, or even transcripts if you’re in a VTT that you can access. While a strong source of information, you have to review and use these notes or you are wasting a lot of energy.

Updating Your Character and Story

Putting these different methods together, you get a good view of where everyone’s character is going in the next session(s). Now it is time to update your character. Though we are all familiar with updating your stats, we also need to update story aspects: their motives, relationships, and their place in the setting.

This starts with the motivation of the character for both the mechanical and story updates. When updating a character, ask yourself about the character’s reason for the updates and how you can explain these in a story, not just out of character. By doing this you create a more complex character. Motivation is important to telling the story arc or where the character is going. Blowing up the GM’s enemy invasion fleet might save the world, but what does the character get out of it? Think about what the character wants out of the next few sessions and move them motivationally and mechanically towards that. You want to be a spy? Focus on the skills and events that get you there.

With the work on your character done, it is time to take a good look at their relationships. How did the session affect the relationships between the other party members and the NPCs? What is your character going to do about any changes? This is a chance to sketch out the drama you want to bring to the table while advancing your and your friend’s characters forward. You have advanced those spy skills, but where do you use them? If your group are on a trading starship, what spying are you doing? This is where you think about about those steps and scenes you need.

In character creation you often develop background stories for your character even if they are just mental sketches. When talking about campaign changes, it is about how the campaign changes or adds to these backgrounds. If these are significant changes then they need to be brought to the table.

Bringing it all to the Table

With the session review done and updates prepared it is time to bring the drama to the table and shine. To shine, like all stars, you need to prep the key points you want to bring to the session. Lots of people resist this type of prep, preferring to adlib the events at the table – but this is about prepping so you have room to adlib. Keep in mind even the best actors know the story and characters they are acting as, so the adlib is not out of place or character and they can add to, not distract from, the story. In the end you cannot adlib your character spying if all you’re doing is fixing engines, so be a proactive actor and help the GM get you where you need to be.

Yes, your character shines, but everyone should be working together to shine like a galaxy of stars at the table. You do not want to outshine others at the table, so you should help the GM with moving the spotlight to show fairness to each player.

Lets see how this works out through our space spy. Reviewing the last session, you realized with a little bit of work your character can become a great spy. You start by improving the mechanics you need for it. Some narrative help is needed, so you pull out from your background that your uncle has the Lord’s ear, and they can get you started. With two scenes in mind you tell the GM you need to talk to your uncle and the Lord. He agrees, reminding you that you need the other players’ help to get your character to the uncle and Lord.

Now you have to work in a scene where you talk to the other players’ characters. Then you have to travel to the two contacts. You have three scenes now, so you might have to split it up into two sessions, allowing other players including the GM to do their scenes. This opens up a lot of questions. Do the other characters just agree to your need, or do you have to cut a deal? Do you get there quickly or are you attacked by pirates along the way because the GM has plans too? You have to play to find out.

Here the PC has a whole arc to hand the GM.

These three steps are all about taking the time to prepare you and your character to help tell the story in the next game session. Making this effort will help you take control of your character’s arc, and role playing will improve at the table because you are engaged in the story. This engagement enhances your story by allowing you to really explore the world through your character’s eyes.

I would love to hear how you bring your character to life at the table!