By Xander Dickens and Cynthia Riccobono
Have you ever wanted to go on adventures like some of your favorite characters from series like
The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Skyrim? Everyone has at least one character
that they’ve seen and wanted to emulate. While it may be impossible to actually be your favorite character, you can do the next best thing and go on your own adventures in a Tabletop Roleplaying Game (TTRPG)! In TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, players each control a character and use dice rolls to interact with a world created by a Game Master, who acts as a worldbuilding narrator. TTRPGs allow you to kill monsters, explore mystical terrain, and deceive nobles and warlords alike.
When playing TTRPGs there are many challenges that new and veteran players alike succumb to. One of the big ones is how to make your character interesting from a narrative standpoint. Because TTRPGs at their core are about telling stories in new and exciting worlds, when player characters don’t fit in, the stories become less interesting.
To help members face such challenges and get the most out of their experience, the BPI RPG club is holding workshops during parrot time. The first of these was hosted by the club’s treasurer, Cynthia R., and taught students how to make characters that better worked within the narrative framework of a TTRPG.
After the workshop, we had our first meeting, where members joined the groups they will be playing with for the year. We found that the players who went to the character workshop had a new understanding of the importance of their characters and have made a lot of progress on improving the characters they play. Multiple Game Masters have also commented that their players have been making characters better and faster than in previous years.
The success of this event has led us to start planning more of these workshops, particularly to help new Game Masters who don’t have much experience. Some potential ideas include How to Worldbuild, How to Improvise, How to Write a Good Story, and How to be a Good Player. These workshops are designed to be accessible for everyone, even people who aren’t in the club, so if you’re interested in any of these please contact Mr. Mabry using our club page.
