Constrained Optimization in Dungeons and Dragons: A
Theory of Requirements Generation for Effective
Character Creation
Brian Ballsun-Stanton
The University of New South Wales
Australia
brian@ballsun.com
Samuel Russell
University of Sydney
The University of New South Wales
Australia
g.samuelrussell@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The articulation of effective character requirements during the
process of character creation in a RPG can provide for more
interesting, functional, and rewarding characters for all players at
the table. This document explores a theoretical model of character
interaction that relates a character’s mechanical and narrative
components to the underlying game and applies that model to the
practice of character creation in D&D. This model includes three
levels: the mechanical-theoretical, a design space of potential
choices; the mechanical-functional, an articulation of instantiated
choices within the rules, and the story-expression level, providing
links between the desired character narrative and the earlier
levels. With these requirements, we then provide methodologies
for individual and group character creation using the theoretical
model.
1. Introduction
Character generation does not have a magic “What you get is
what you wanted” feature. All characters generated for role-
playing games are expressions of a player’s intent as mediated
through the rules. While some players may desire the infamous
Pun Pun’s1 absurd power level, and others may want to explore
the melancholy and heartbreak of a destitute orphan without a
skill to her name, there is always a dissatisfaction with a character
that does not live up to the player’s intentions. By articulating that
desire through requirements2, players can achieve much better
approximations of what they want rather than what is produced by
blind choices amongst the many rules.
This document explores some of the theoretical underpinnings of
character creation in role-playing games by positing a theoretical
model of interactions between the player and the system that,
ultimately, results in the player articulating her desired character
and the system furnishing an appropriate simulacrum: one that
performs appropriately in the roll- and role- playing elements of
RPGs. By providing a theoretical model of character and some
ways that players and groups can take advantage of it, this
document can be used by academics, game designers, and gamers
themselves. This model and methodology should help players and
dungeon masters (DM) create and explore effective requirements
for characters in their games. The act of describing and fulfilling

1 A Kobold in D&D 3.5 who could achieve infinite or near
infinite stats at level 1. http://bit.ly/4FudKJ
2 See the fields of requirements analysis (Anton 1996) and design
space analysis (MacLean, et. al. 1991) for the basis of this
strategy.
requirements, just like in a software product, is one that will
happen whether or not the requirements are verbalized. However,
by articulating requirements, players can engage in a far more
nuanced understanding of their characters' roles in the world, their
strengths and weaknesses, and their objectives for entertainment.
There is an incorrect belief that a well-articulated character in the
mechanical sense necessarily precludes effective role-playing.
However, the relationship between role-playing and mechanics is
fundamentally delinked3. Each side of the relationship are
effective in proportion to the amount of effort the player
generating the character chooses to place into roll- and role- play.
The relationship between mechanics and role-playing that arises
out of the very act of shared story telling (Montola 2008, 23-25).
Mechanics are a way of realizing and frustrating a character's role
and ambitions. Vincent Baker (2011) notes that rules are there to
“create the unwelcome and the unwanted in the game's fiction...
You want things that if you hadn't agreed to abide by the rules'
results, you would reject.” The player’s engagement in her story
is supported by the mechanics of the system and the mediating
influence of the DM: if the system does not support her intended
agency4, engagement is broken.
A well-designed character has sufficient characterization5 to
generate scenes in the game that the player finds engaging, and a
concomitant mechanical support such that the character performs
at the level desired during those scenes. Persistent and unexpected
failure subverts players’ engagement with the game. When
characters remain persistently incompetent in areas of play, that
their characterization indicates they should be competent in, this
sets back player engagement and the story. A character must not
simply be expected to perform, but, must render that expectation
of performance into a mechanical capacity to perform.
Unmitigated unexpected failure negates the will of both player
and character. The level of failure experienced by a player's
character should be in the hands of the player and the DM, and
not in a faulty implementation or understanding of the
fundamental mechanics of game. This understanding of failure is
reflected a number of emerging systems like Mouseguard and
Apocalypse World that use failure as an opportunity to develop

3 See the “Stormwind Fallacy” as discussed in the story section.
4 Agency: The articulation and instantiation of a player’s intent as
manifested by the character’s actions. See Bratman (1999) for a
more scholastic look at agency.
5 Characterization: the creation of a role, collection of her tropes,
personality traits, and backstory.

the story through complication, rather than as the end of the story.
To ensure that character failures are expected, or mitigated, or
both, players need to establish clear requirements about what
mechanical capacities their characters should possess as well as a
clear understanding of the story elements they wish to explore and
personify.
A DM, if presented with accurate player requirements, can use
them to shape a world that will challenge and reward characters,
rather than subverting and frustrating the players' fundamental
desires and routes to satisfaction. While there is some debate as to
the reason for playing a role-playing game, entertainment and a
positive use of time are essential elements of any game. This
document should allow players and DMs to understand and
articulate requirements for their game to reduce the number of
unintended unsatisfactory elements within a game.
1.1 A caution against hyper-optimization
Just as failure is inherently negating, so too is complete and
persistent success; while some of the methods described in this
document can be used to make a character that fits the
requirement of "complete and perfect success in a domain all the
time" that requirement is a seductive trap. Without failure there
can be no tension or possibility of ultimate failure within the
story. The sacrifices necessary in most games for "perfect success
within a domain" mean that the player is functionally choosing to
exclude herself from interaction in any of the other aspects of
gameplay.
By creating a supremely competent character in one domain, the
length of time spent in that domain decreases due to the potential
for conflict in this domain being subverted by the absence of a
possibility of failure. Enacting power fantasies is a core element
of many players’ gameplay. The realization of power is best a
negotiated between player and DM such that the DM can provide
for appropriate and dramatic conflict that highlights the
character's prowess and ability to affect the world. When
combined with a satisfying character arc, the power level of the
character becomes justified and better satisfies the desire for a
power fantasy. Characterization allows the player to invest more
fully in the power fantasy that her character represents. Over-
optimization in one domain decreases a sense of achievement and
thereby decreases the ultimate value of a character's actions for
most players.
2. Model of Character - Mechanical
Interaction
The character-mechanical interaction model describes the
relationship between expressive role-playing requirements and
mechanical fulfillment requirements over a stacked set of levels
of character structure. The model relates a game’s fundamental
mechanics to a player’s story design, and allows players to
articulate goals within that relationship. The fundamental level,
the mechanical-theoretical level, presents a character’s
relationship with the abstract mechanics of the game. These
mechanics define intersecting axes of possible choices and their
consequences that are instantiated as specific choices in the
mechanical-functional level. Those choices, and their narrative
consequences for the player, are informed by the story-expression
level.
Before a player’s conceptualization of a character can begin, it is
critical that the group define a social contract. The social contract
provides a definition of the possible choices a player can make
with respect to her character. Questions of group interaction are
threaded through all the subsequent levels. The social contract
should articulate which situations are likely, possible, desirable,
undesirable, and forbidden, as a negotiation within the domain of
Montola's (2008) "invisible rules" of the role-playing process. A
social contract produces ramifications in both the mechanical and
story levels and must be crafted such that it addresses the norms,
expectations, and social requirements of everyone in the group.
When discussing group interaction, players should also plan their
character’s mechanical synergies and mutual characterization.
The social contract can be revisited as the requirements of
individuals change, creating a theoretical picture of how
characters interact and the connection between their mechanics
and their backstories. The group should decide on a theme and
rough structure of their group before proceeding, as that is an
important requirement that must be addressed in other levels.
2.1 Mechanical-Theoretical level
The mechanical-theoretical level sits closest to the rules of the
game and furthest away from the story. This level describes the
fundamental conflict models of the system and the statistical basis
of all players’ possible interactions. Game designers, in the
mechanical-theoretical level, frame the potential responses of all
players to world events. This level articulates the range of
potential choices to be instantiated by player action and the game
consequences of success and failure. To the mechanical-
theoretical level, characters exist as specific instantiations of
statistics that mediate players’ agency.
The mechanical-theoretical level does not theorize specific
expressions of character abilities, as those require player
interaction with the system. This level represents the game
designers' conceptual design space with respect to the characters
and their actions, not the specific actions that a given character
can take.
Table 1: Player agency modeled for a combat oriented
roleplaying game at the mechanical-theoretical level.
Preventing Failure Enabling Success
Primary axes of
conflict resolution
Damage capacity Damage dealing
Secondary axes of
conflict resolution
Damage mitigation
Non-combat
interactions

One variable across all games is the idea of "complexity."
Theoretical complexity is a measure of the amount of mechanical
choices presented to a character at any given instant of gameplay.
Complexity is not the time it takes a player to mechanically
resolve a decision she has made, it is the number of mechanical
choices available to a player. Complexity enables or hinders a
player’s ability to feel that her character has agency. When an
axis of conflict is particularly complex, a player has a wide
variety of mechanical choices. When a character has few
mechanical choices at a specific time within a conflict, they have
a low complexity. The absolute boundaries of complexity are
chosen by the DM's interpretations of the designer's system.
However, a player using this model to create and understand her
character must select a rough desired level of complexity relative

to the system and other players representing the maximum and
minimum level of rules involvement that she is interested in at
any given time. Systems provide different levels of complexity
for their different conflict systems, increasing complexity where
the majority of the game is focused and increasing abstraction in
supplemental areas.
Game systems focus on different mechanisms of agency. Agency
is the intent and execution of a player’s will toward her
character’s action within the game world. To create tension and
excitement, there must always be the capacity for failure in any
meaningful action. Most games' primary conflict resolution
mechanics are marked by a reservoir of potential failure.
One common measure of progress towards failure is a character’s
damage capacity. Damage capacity is a major factor of the
character’s design space as players can spend resources during
character creation to increase a character's capacity to withstand
damage, and therefore the amount of time before she succumbs to
failure and a loss of agency. The ultimate mode of failure in many
games is character death, and characters are drawn closer to
failure by taking damage. In Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition
(D&D 4e), that damage is inflicted by enemies through the loss of
hit points reflecting the character's progress towards failure
throughout an encounter and the concomitant loss of healing
surges as she progresses through an adventure.
Another major factor is that of damage mitigation. Damage
mitigation provides increased and situation specific damage
capacity for other characters. While damage capacity is a measure
of a character’s innate failure reservoir, damage mitigation is a
measure of how the player can influence the damage capacities of
her allies. Most healing and "debuffing" actions, as well as some
defensively focused “buffs” are a function of damage mitigation,
as they do not contribute to the success of any given situation, but
they do allow players to mitigate their failures or have more time
to achieve success. In D&D 4e lowering a monster's accuracy is
damage-mitigation as is healing a player's lost hit points or
improving their armor class. Damage mitigation allows players to
impact and modify the agency of other entities within the game
world, to perform a successful act on the world itself.
Players seek success. Conflict occurs when players cannot
automatically gain success over their environment. As conflict is
the obstacle and the means to player success, it occupies a
significant conceptual area in the design space of the mechanical-
theoretical level. Every subsystem of conflict is represented by an
axis representing the possible capabilities of characters in that
conflict.
In combat, the primary conflict within many games, success is a
function of the ability to deal damage to enemies and ultimately
neutralize them as a threat. Therefore, a consistent axis across
many games is the “damage dealing” axis, representing a
character’s ability to contribute to combat’s successful resolution.
A secondary axis is “non-combat interactions” which are usually
modeled as challenges involving skills outside of combat. In
games that do not revolve around combat-as-conflict, the axes
change to represent the means of gathering success within those
game systems. In all instances these axes of conflict are those
where characters enact their agency upon the world. These axes
represent the potential for success.
2.2 Dungeons and Dragons and the
Mechanical-Theoretical Level
What follows is an articulation of the first level of the stack as
applied to D&D 4e. Characters exist within a design space of five
axes: damage dealing, damage capacity, damage mitigation, non-
combat interactions, and complexity.
In practice, these axes are not completely orthogonal, as a choice
or requirement of one reduces the choices one can make in the
others. By articulating requirements within this framework, it is
possible to both design and assess the design of a character to
insure that it fundamentally meets expectations.
2.2.1 Damage-Dealing Axis
This axis articulates the character's capability to deal damage to
the enemies, either directly through attacks or indirectly through
granting others benefits to their attacks or additional attacks. The
fan community has analyzed this axis in depth and produced a
model of its functioning in D&D 4e. Rearticulating that model,
there are four distinct zones of damage dealing: "/2", "/4", "/8",
and "pacifist". The zones are named for the average damage a
character contributes to the battle with an at-will attack each
round, indicating what proportion of a monster’s total hit-points a
character deducts every round.
To drop a monster in two rounds, ”/2”, requires almost all
resources of the character to be devoted to dealing damage and is
remarkably difficult to achieve. It is also remarkably difficult to
have the character remain fun over the long term. In order for a
character to achieve a 2-turn at-will, there is a strictly prescribed
series of tactical actions that must be taken. These actions offer
little opportunity for mechanical variation and can be easily
frustrated by specific elements of an encounter.
Defeating an opponent in an average of four rounds of attacks,
”/4”, requires significant resources from feat selection, item
selection, and/or class features. A player establishing a
requirement of /4 indicates that a player wants to focus most of
their theoretical efforts on doing damage, but not at the expense
of all else. Achieving ”/8” requires no dedicated resources. This
level represents the center of the damage dealing axis and is
average for characters who have other objectives in mind than
pure damage dealing.
“Pacifist” is an edge-case. A choice of pacifist indicates the player
choosing not to contribute to the success of a conflict in order to
significantly increase their damage mitigation capacities. Pacifist
characters are not characters who grant others attacks, as those
“lazy” characters inherit the damage capacity of the characters
they are designed to support.
There are significant group considerations here. In experimental
practice, a combat is enjoyably paced if a group's overall damage
output adds up to 1. By summing the desired damage capacity of
a group before the characters are generated, the group can discuss
allocation of character creation resources and find areas of
redundancy. As combat is a shared moment of agency in most
Dungeons & Dragons games, resolving damage output issues as a
group may validate individual players and their role.
To test a character’s performance on this axis, choose their
primary at-will and apply the DPR formula found on the “DPR
King Candidates 2.0” page.6 Indirect benefits to other players are

6 Multiply the character's to hit chance by the average damage on
a hit, then multiply the critical chance by the average critical

then added to this number, with the damage of the other character
multiplied by the contributed increased chances of success. In the
case of a granted attack, the increased chances of success are the
targeted character’s normal attack. This formula is descriptive,
validating the choices the player has made during character
creation.
2.2.2 Damage Capacity Axis
A character's damage capacity is a calculated function of: her hit
points, her defenses, her resistances, and expected damage from
monsters.
A character should articulate their willingness to invest in damage
capacity, because it is damage capacity that informs the choice of
playing a melee or ranged character. A character with low damage
capacity must be ranged, and one with a high capacity is served
well in melee. While there are edge cases, stealth being chief
among them, the ability to take damage and attract the damage
meant for others is a choice of range and tactical capabilities.
Articulating this choice as damage capacity instead of ranged v.
melee is a truer representation of the player’s intended tactics:
engagement versus evasion. As with all the other axes, this metric
can be reduced. Here the reduction is to the scale: “how many
rounds can I survive in combat, with one monster attacking me,
all other things being equal?”
Damage capacity also tends to be a measure of a player's desire
for the spotlight. Players and the DM will pay far more attention
to the high damage capacity individual who is being targeted than
to the archer in the back making attacks and then fading out of
sight. Those who seek to engage the enemy also seek to engage
the spotlight, as the attention of the DM and the game follows the
center of the action.
A functional categorization of this axis articulates four
benchmarks: 4 rounds, 8 rounds, 12 rounds, and 16 rounds. The
nature of the system makes it difficult to make a character able to
survive less than four rounds of combat (on average), and
exceedingly few combats last more than 12 rounds, much less 16.
The higher numbers on this axis represent a willingness to engage
multiple enemies at the same time, rather than a willingness to
literally stand in front of an enemy and ignore them for 16 combat
rounds.
A four round character is described as “glassy” as taken from the
term “glass cannon.” A glassy character chooses not to invest at
all in damage capacity, allowing her to have unusually high
investment in another axis, usually that of damage dealing. This
character must be evasive to be functional in combat, as the
attention of even one monster for any length of time spells certain
doom.
An eight round character is the center point of this axis, being
willing and able to engage one monster for the length of one
combat, with enough resources in reserve to deal with unexpected
situations. However, simply attracting the attention of one
monster is difficult and so some evasive resources are indicated in
case the character finds herself with entirely too much attention.
A twelve round character disdains evasion, choosing to be able to
endure the tender mercies of two monsters attacking for the
duration of an entire combat. Non-trivial resources are necessary
to survive this, usually requiring very specific class and armor

damage. Then multiply everything by the number of attacks.
(borg285 2011)
choices. While this character is tough, there are usually sufficient
free resources to make choices on other axes that are not geared to
surviving combat.
A sixteen round character is close enough to invincible. They tend
to be extremely boring characters because, while they can endure
unbelievable amounts of damage, they have few ways of actually
enticing monsters to attack them. By sacrificing their damage
dealing on the altar of defense, monsters treat these characters as
mobile walls. Still, such a character can be tactically satisfying if
made sufficiently sticky.
This axis can also be measured by inspecting a finished character
sheet and estimating the number of rounds of survival by
calculating the average monster DPR against each of the
character's defenses and dividing the character's hit points by that
average less damage resistance and the odds of having temporary
hit points.
As with the damage dealing formula, this formula is also
descriptive rather than prescriptive. It is most effectively used to
validate the choices made during character creation rather than to
guide character choices. The huge levels of choice possible
preclude using this formula to identify a specific area of
improvement, though it may serve to highlight an unusually low
defense.
2.2.3 Damage Mitigation Axis
This is the complement of damage capacity, functionally
extending others' damage capacity. Damage mitigation comes in
many forms, from the more useful buffs to the more reactive
leader heals.
This is more difficult to measure than the prior two axes, but
reflects a choice of focusing on the self or others. The selfish
character is the prototypical striker, the recipient of buffs who
does nothing to mitigate the damage of others save for the critical
task of killing the enemies quickly. The pacifist cleric is
completely other-focused, contributing very little herself, but is so
specialized in handing out buffs and debuffs that she can
significantly enhance the rest of the group.
It is useful to know the willingness to mitigate damage of
everyone around the table to insure that the people who want to
engage tactically with the battle are other-focused and the people
who just want to kill things honestly focus on killing things. A
requirements mismatch on this axis can lead to very frustrating
gameplay as a player is guided to engage in activities that are
invalidating due to the constraints of class or powers chosen.
Players cannot assess the damage mitigation axis as easily as they
can for the prior two axes. The best measure of this axis is a
simple proportion: how many of the character’s powers out of the
total number of powers taken by the character provide a benefit to
her allies? A benefit can be anything from healing, to a status
effect placed on a monster, to forced movement. By looking at the
proportionate number of benefits, a player can see where her
attention needs to be focused during the battle and will get a
better sense of the best tactics available to the character.
2.2.4 Non-combat interactions
Unlike combat, the amount of focus a game places on non-combat
interactions as skill checks varies greatly from DM to DM. The
relative level of non-combat interaction in a session should be
discussed during the social contract generation and the
requirements of this axis should stem from the relative importance
of non-combat interaction to the game as a whole.

A character over- or under- specialized for non-combat
interactions can generate extreme levels of frustration for her
player. Sacrificing combat abilities for the ability to achieve
during secondary conflicts that never arise negates the player's
expression of agency. A character designed for combat facing an
endless succession of skill challenges will inevitably lash out and
try to instigate combat. It is important to catch these discrepancies
before the game begins and insure that the appropriate
requirements are in place to allow every player the level of non-
combat specialization that they feel comfortable with and that
matches the DM’s expectations of the game.
This axis is a way of articulating how many resources you
effectively want to devote to skills, powers, and items that do not
directly impact combat. Optimally, the DM will address the
player’s wishes and create adventures suited to their expressed
interests, but in the case of DMs running prebuilt modules it may
not suit their purposes to give significant non-combat interactions
outside of skill challenges.
To measure this axis, count how many resources (items, feats,
utility powers) are skill focused out of the total set of feats, items,
and utility powers. While there are certain irreducible minimum
levels of combat centric design introduced through the character
design, the proportion of investment for items, feats, and utility
powers will serve as a good indicator of the player’s wishes in
this regard.
Everyone in the party should agree on a rough resource
expenditure, give or take 25%, on non-combat resources such that
no one will be over or underinvested when it comes to these
times.
2.2.5 Complexity
This axis measures how complex a player’s character can be. In
general, a player must decide how much attention she wants to
pay to combat outside of her turn and how many conditional
bonuses or unique things she is willing to track during combat.
This scale tracks the mechanical complexity of a character. It
makes no measurement of the story complexity and the
concomitant role-playing enjoyment.
On one side of the scale is the slayer who charges people, hits
them, and then sits there. The slayer does nothing except charge
and all of her bonuses may be pre-calculated. This character may
be mechanically simple, but may demonstrate surprising story
nuance. While this may sound simple, not all players enjoy
engaging in complex tactical calculations during the middle of
combat, preferring instead to use it as a cathartic outlet and beat
people up with remarkably large swords.
On the other side of the scale is a theoretical epic level leader-
controller hybrid who must transition between tactical
understandings of the board depending on which half of herself
she’s playing. Characters at this level of complexity have little
room for role-playing during combat, not because they’re
overpowered, but because most of the player's brain’s resources
are trying to figure out the correct application of choices on the
fly. Characters at this level of complexity should engage in
combat pre-planning, articulating tactical options with checklists7
and ensuring that the effective complexity of their character is
reduced to a manageable minimum during combat.

7 The checklist has proved to be a remarkably useful modern
technology for reducing mental processing needes in stressful
and chaotic environments. (Gawande 2009)
2.3 Mechanical-functional level
The mechanical-functional level takes the theoretical and
mechanical requirement decisions made by game designers at the
most abstract mechanical-theoretical level and instantiates them
through choices offered to players through the rules. In order to
have a satisfying character, these choices must be made to reflect
the fundamental requirements implicitly or explicitly formed by
the player. Not every expression of requirements is achievable
through the rules of the game, which is why the theoretical model
is interpreted by this level to present discrete and coherent choices
and their mechanical consequences for players.
A lack of system mastery, that thorough understanding of the
system and the intentions of the system, leads to a common trap:
players page through the book looking for interesting powers and
using them as the basis for character. By having no articulated
requirements and little to no understanding of the system, it is
likely that the interactions between their chosen play elements
will not behave in the fashion they desire. Thus, their imagined
character will not correspond to their character in play. While it is
certainly useful to have mechanical-functional requirements like
"I don't want to play an elf, or a striker" they should not be
confused with the mechanical-theoretical requirements already
dictated. A lack of system mastery, however, does not imply that
the player will fall into the trap of no requirements, merely that it
is easy to be led astray by choosing many complicated rules
elements that interact poorly, especially if one is not aware of the
pitfalls ahead of time.
At the same time, paging through the book is a fantastic way of
finding inspiration for requirements. By finding something that
strikes the player’s fancy, it is then possible to articulate a
framework of functional requirements around that one item. The
inspiration can be as wide as an archetype or as narrow as a
specific power. Functional requirements are the basis of character
and if chosen directly, override the theoretical requirements
described earlier.
Not all powers in D&D 4e are created equal. There are a number
of powers that do not perform to a player’s expectations due to
subtle variations in their wording. These powers are commonly
known as “trap powers.” There exists significant literature
exploring the consequences of power choices on the “Character
Optimization board.”8 However, the “character handbooks” on the
board are useful to everyone merely in their identification of “trap
powers” that should be shunned by most players.
Part of the group contract, if players are willing to read the
handbooks of classes they’ve chosen, is to create an agreement on
the “power levels to avoid.” By agreeing on choices that will be
forbidden to the group, either by banning particularly bad and/or
good powers, a more coherent power level across the group may
be achieved, reducing the likelihood of any player under-
performing accidentally.
Instantiation of this level requires the choices articulated in other
answers be tested against previously articulated requirements. By
knowing the group level agreements on role and the theoretical
goals, a player may then test the character mechanics against their
requirements to ensure that they interact with the mechanics of
the game in an expected way.

8 http://bit.ly/r9ARZU

2.3.1 Creating Functional Requirements in
Dungeons and Dragons
D&D 4e has a rich, fun, and detailed character generation system.
The system directly supports game goals by making players’
choices overwhelmingly focused on combat the primary area of
conflict in D&D 4e, with a minor but useful nod made to the
world in the DM’s hands by offering skills and “utility powers”
that may be used outside of combat.
Character generation is the process of choosing attributes, race,
class, skills, powers, feats, and items. Therefore functional
requirements can be drawn from any of those categories. As each
element chosen also comes with descriptive text (“flavor text”) it
is possible to confuse functional requirements with narrative or
story requirements. In many games of D&D it is feasible to re-
flavor powers to suit the specific narrative requirements of the
character. The act of re-flavoring changes the visible
manifestation of the powers within the game world without
altering their fundamental characteristics.
An example of a functional characteristic is: “I want to play a
charismatic and agile character.” Therefore, the emphasis of
choice will focus on classes, races, and powers that draw upon
charisma or dexterity, appropriate skills and feats to support those
choices. The functional requirement guides and greatly restricts
the act of choosing elements, while theoretical requirements are
used for validation of an element’s functioning according to
theory.
The theoretical validation of a functional requirement would
detail a need for high skills that can pass moderate difficulty
checks, and once the character was built, check to see if the
character could indeed pass moderate checks. If she couldn’t,
resources would need to be exchanged (while maintaining the
functional requirement) so that the character satisfies the
theoretical requirement.
All theoretical requirements are interpreted through the functional
mechanics of the game and it is difficult to meet a theoretical
requirement exactly during design and extremely difficult to
check for them during the vicissitudes of play. The game of D&D
begins when a character is created: exploring not the world
described by the DM, but the choices offered by the rules that will
make that world possible. This “meta-game” continues when the
character receives treasure, and when the characters levels up
during the course of play; the player is interacting with the rules
directly, rather than a world mediated by the DM. During a level
up, it is absolutely vital to reflect on the successes and failures of
the previous level.
The more precise a functional requirement, the more the
theoretical requirements will have to be adjusted. If a player is
dead set on having the “Hand of Radiance” power, a significant
number of aspects of the character become set and inflexible in
order to satisfy this one requirement. While this is the intent and
purpose of functional requirements, players should not choose
more than one or two of these requirements, as it is easy to have a
character torn in different directions and so unable to fulfill any of
the theoretical requirements.
2.4 Story-expression level
Consider the Stormwind Fallacy. A character built to
requirements has no more or less role-playing potential than any
other character:
Just because one optimizes his characters
mechanically does not mean that they cannot also
roleplay, and vice versa.
Corollary: Doing one in a game does not preclude, nor
infringe upon, the ability to do the other in the same
game.
Generalization 1: One is not automatically a worse
roleplayer if he optimizes, and vice versa.
Generalization 2: A non-optimized character is not
automatically roleplayed better than an optimized one,
and vice versa.
...Proof: These two elements rely on different aspects
of a player's gameplay. Optimization factors in to how
well one understands the rules and handles synergies
to produce a very effective end result. Roleplaying
deals with how well a player can act in character and
behave as if he was someone else. (Stormwind 2006)
A person can act while understanding the rules, and can build a
powerful character while still exploring an engaging story. There
is nothing in the game, mechanical or otherwise, restricting one
aspect of role-play at the expense of the other, though a
character’s complexity may cause inexperienced players to have
insufficient attention for either story or well-functioning
mechanics.
Story elements may either provide requirements to the other
layers of the model, or may be shaped on the mechanical
fundamentals of the other layers. A useful rule of thumb is to
spend as much time on story elements as is spent on the other
layers, pursuant to the type of game desired by the group.
Creating a story heavy character in a group designed for beer and
pretzels dungeon crawling is an incredibly frustrating experience
for everyone at the table and is just as frustrating as the tabula
rasa character in a game with almost no combat.
2.4.1 Articulating the requirements of story
When building a shared narrative space, the simulation of the
world and the conflicts within it, a certain amount of jargon or
shorthand is useful in the establishment of story requirements.
The essence of a story requirement is a request to the world-as-
DM or world-as-other players, or even mechanical support for a
specific element of narrative.
All three of these types of story requirement must draw from a
common pool of potential requirements. While the other levels are
informed by the theoretical basis of the system and the options
offered by the system, the story level is constrained only by
genre, setting, and narrative. A different design space is necessary
here, one that can allow players and DMs to understand the
ranges of options, but one that can support the necessary freedom
of story.
That design space is textual, literary culture (Harviainen 2008), a
vast domain rendered simple for players by the typology and
compilation of tropes found in the website TVTropes, “a catalog
of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction.” Role-playing games
are fictive; their stories draw from the cultural history of the
players. That cultural history includes other fictive media that are
well categorized in TVTropes. By categorizing the requirements
qua tropes, a useful shorthand is created, one that is remarkably
unambiguous when dealing with the hazy potential of a fictive
story. By articulating tropes, a player can build her backstory
around those tropes, creating a character’s personality tailored to

her narrative requirements. By expressing those same tropes
across the table, a player can simply and effectively communicate
the essentials of her characterization to the other players.
This shorthand is also incredibly useful for DMs looking to create
stories. A set of tropes as requirements then provides the
equivalent to citations of past literature for the DM: she may use
TVTropes as the basis for narrative research to see what plots
features those tropes in the past. By selecting tropes, the player is
explicitly requesting participation in stories that contain those
tropes. A DM can fulfill these player desires with only minor
research into stories containing such tropes. Tropes as
requirements also allow the DM and the player to communicate
the important aspects of character more effectively. While a well-
written backstory will give a DM many interesting and useful
“blank plot checks,” the DM’s reading of the backstory may not
correspond well to the players’ intent. If done well, this difference
in understanding is the basis for creativity and narrative
exploration (de Manzano et. Al 2010). However, a backstory
misunderstood by the DM can also end in discomfort and
frustration, as the DM takes the story in the directions the player
is uncomfortable with. While some discomfort may not reduce
enjoyment, discomfort due to a poor reading of a character is a
mistake best avoided.
In order to effectively choose tropes, a player should consider her
character’s backstory and the stories that she wants to be involved
in. While the overall shape of the world is determined by the DM,
the requesting a specific trope in a story allows for an anticipated
narrative of character growth. Specific tropes in her backstory
may prove to be useful connection points with other players’
characters, especially if the act of describing and evolving
character backstory is carried out as a group effort.
2.4.2 Story Requirements in D&D
A game of D&D 4e seldom focuses purely on its story. While the
narrative is important in providing motivation and framing the
action, the essential activity in most D&D games is that of
engaging in highly satisfying tactical combat. In order to have this
combat provide maximum satisfaction, however, characters must
have motivation to not only enter the combat but to know what
consequences they are risking should they fail. A properly
articulated story has the “set piece” combats' success and failure
drive the story with real consequences to the players narratives
from their actions, successes, and failures within combat. For this
reason, killing the party is a narrative failure in a combat, as that
provides no narrative resolution and completely defuses any
dramatic tension the players had in imagining their characters’
fates.
The central story requirement that should be explored by a
player’s requirements is: why does the character fight? In a
broader sense, why does the character participate and find their
own reasons for engaging in the primary activity of the game?
Just as painful is the combat focused character in a diplomatic
game: the mismatch between player tropes and narrative
intention, and the game’s narrative requirements produce a
profoundly unfulfilling experience across the table.
In order to avoid this mismatch in a D&D game, the central story
trope of the game must support and be supported by the chosen
tropes of the characters. While antithetical tropes certainly are
interesting and add internal conflict and tension to a character
fighting against their “base/peaceful/whatever” desires, the
tension cannot be the central motivation of the character. If the
character is designed around avoiding the plot, the player and DM
have to come to an explicit agreement to forcibly involve him
through accident or malice from other parties, just how Sir Terry
Pratchett must use the environment to coerce his inimitable
character Rincewind to engage in the narrative.
He's not my favourite character because it's hard to
give him any depth. Rincewind is just the eternal
'reasonable' character. Therefore, he's a coward. He
doesn't see the point in being kicked about. And he's
surrounded by idiots and fools who often do want to
get killed. And it occurs to one that he's probably
decent under all. But, from my point of view,
someone like Vimes or Granny Weatherwax is a far
more interesting character. We can see far more going
on inside their heads. They're more screwed up.
(Silver 2000)
There is an unfortunate necessity to add non-rational elements to
adventurers such that they are willing to go adventuring.
Articulating those elements as tropes gives a justification
framework to the character and allows them to pick and choose
their fights to support their style of play and their personal
narrative.
Besides answering the question: “why do you engage in conflict?”
it is also important to answer: “why are you with this group of
adventurers?” By selecting a shared trope with another character
or two, it is possible to build in a mutuality of concern (Beebe &
Masterson 2003) for the players that allows a basis for real trust
instead of the simple convenience of travelling together.
Some games feature a more descriptive and engaging combat
where the consequences of attacks within combats is narrated
with a level of in game realism. Game masters can describe the
hack and slash of swords, the visuals of a mage’s magic missile,
and other decorative but immersive character details. If the game
is of this nature combats will take longer than in more abstract
games, but may be more rewarding, depending on the
personalities of players involved. In this type of game it is useful
for players to select a trope that is a signature of their attacks, for
example, the fire wizard. Many “effects” tropes exist, spanning all
of the senses. Articulating a thematic agency for the player allows
the DM to render the attacks of the character in a more
personalized and therefore more meaningful fashion.
There are very few obvious mechanical links with the story
requirements presented with a player. The simplest link is the
potential for re-flavoring a class that fits mechanically but not
thematically. By taking the mechanics of one class but calling it
something else and re-describing the powers to fit with the new
theme, a player can instantiate an arbitrarily chosen narrative or
archetype without deviating from the well balanced mechanics of
D&D 4e. Even if the complete class is not re-flavored, specific
elements can be completely visually redesigned to correspond
with the player’s chosen tropes.
3. Applications of theory
A theory is not useful if it cannot be applied to practice. This
section of the document will explore the procedure for building a
character with the above insights. At the start of the character
creation process, all characters are possible. The act of setting
requirements reduces the set of possibilities that the player cares
about until the possible choices are reduced to a manageable and
assessable set.

The act of creating a character can be either a singular or
communal act. A singular character provides an excellent vehicle
for establishing a player’s personal motivations and acting as a
vehicle for their agency within the game. A character created by
the group, however, tends to be more well-rounded: the
unexpected interpretation and application of other peoples’
requirements tends to cause a reevaluation of the character’s
nature.
The act of group creation can cause characters to grow in
unexpected directions. These directions often cause further
insights and spark an interesting creative process at the cost of a
feeling of sole ownership. Both personal and group character
creation will be covered.
3.1 For a single player
Creating a character with all of the choices available in all of the
books of a game system can be a daunting task. The intent of the
requirements, as stated above, is to provide a scaffold for choices
made during the process. In order to start that basis, a player
creating their own character must start off with some
requirements to fulfill.
The essential basis of these requirements stems from asking of
three questions: “What actions will bring the most satisfaction,
how can I contribute to the other players’ satisfaction, and what
activities do I not want to do?” Centering the question around
satisfaction rather than fun is an attempt to focus the player’s
mind on which expressions of agency provide mental validation.
The fundamental validation offered by a character that fits the
psychological needs of the player is hard to overstate: and the
lack of validation from a character designed to frustrate the player
is an incredibly unenjoyable experience. Linking a game actor to
validating agency thereby gives the player her core reason for
playing: to gain more validation through the actions, the story, or
the situations the character finds herself in and the resolutions
therein.
3.1.1 Positive Personal Requirement
“What actions will bring me the most satisfaction?” is a question
necessitating a remarkable amount of self inspection from a role-
playing game. While some gamers can answer this question with
ease, there are many valid approaches to sidestepping the
question. It can be replaced by questions like: “What fictional
character do I want to emulate?” or “What kind of character do I
think will look cool?” These side questions assume components
of validation (emulation as hero worship and looking cool
generating the admiration of others and self-admiration) that
should not necessarily be assumed, but are not a bad guess as to
the cursory motivations of some gamers.
To answer the question, a player should choose a theoretical,
functional, or story requirement. The requirements can be as
complex or as simple as the player desires, but they must be
positive requirements. While stating “I don’t want to play a
leader, again” is perfectly valid, the articulation of negative
requirements comes in the answer of the third question.
Sample requirements are:
 Functional: I want to roll at least six dice during my attack!
 Theoretical: I want to contribute between /2 and /4 damage a
turn!
 Story: I want to explore diplomatic and stealthy stories: I’m
going to be a con artist!
Each of the requirements above can be used as the kernel of a
character, and each greatly restricts the design space by
articulating a positive requirement that many potential builds
cannot meet. The need for a positive statement initially is
precisely to restrict choice: negative requirements subtract fewer
options from the design space, and are therefore a better
modulation of existing positive requirements than their own basis
for character. Also, few characters are defined by what they are
not, though the story requirement of “I do not want to be forced
into being a knight.” contains enough hidden positive
requirements to satisfy the criterion, as it inspires a character with
knightly talents running away from an obligation.
There can be as many of these requirements as the player wants,
though more than two or three will become increasingly difficult
to solve. It is better to try to have one requirement from each of
the domains: theoretical, functional, and story. Critically, the
player must prioritize these requirements by their relative
importance. This prioritization allows an easier choice to be made
when the requirements conflict in implementation.
3.1.2 Positive Group Requirement
The second requirement set is subordinate to the first and also
positive. This requirement is a function of the other characters or
stated intents of the players of the group. The question, “how can
I contribute to the other players’ satisfaction” is one that
encompasses everyone at the gaming table, as the DM also seeks
validation through play.
Answering this question will avoid negating other players agency,
and will provide ways to support their choices and their
characters. The act of negating agency is a clear violation of
Wheaton’s (2007) Law, “Don’t be a dick,” inasmuch as it
represents one player refusing to go with the current plot,
intention, or design of the activity for putatively honorable
purposes. It is critical to avoid choices during character creation
that would cause situations like this to come to pass. In this stage
of requirements it is useful to understand the other characters,
their function, and motivations. A paladin in a group of thieves is
begging for inter-player conflict (instead of the far more
satisfying inter-character conflict that can form the basis of
satisfying (if tense) role-playing sessions.
In D&D 4e, there is a mechanical component to this requirement.
Parties function best when designed, mechanically, to support
each other. By allocating intended roles between players, even in
the midst of individual character creation, players may satisfy this
requirement and help the party achieve greater success.
3.1.3 Negative Personal Requirement
Many people find the act of setting boundaries difficult.
Unfortunately, as role-playing games can be intimately bound up
within a player’s psyche, the setting of boundaries for the player
and for the character can be quite essential to avoid unwanted
discomfort or worse from occurring at the gaming table. A player
should set as many negative boundaries as she needs to,
incrementally removing from the character creation design space
the likely possibilities of discomfort.
Negative requirements can occur at any level, articulating stories
the character does not want to engage in and activities the player
does not want to undertake. One fairly standard personal
requirement is: “I do not want to feel powerless.” While the
instinct is to append “too often” to that sentence, the much more
certain statement of “I do not want to feel powerless” is a
perfectly valid requirement to bring to the table. From a

theoretical and functional point of view, it means creating a
competent character, one who can be reasonably expected to
succeed in the tasks that she was designed for. The creating of
heavily optimized characters may be an instinctive response to
past feelings of powerlessness, representing the player’s desire to
reduce the frustration of failure at the table. The ability to triumph
during conflict is direct validation of simulated prowess. It is
important to moderate negative requirements to allow for some
failure and some success, otherwise the dramatic tension
necessary for the suspension of disbelief is far more difficult to
establish.
However, negative requirements may also form part of the social
contract, articulating themes or stories that the player is simply
not interested in exploring. Requirements indicating categories of
allowed, disallowed, and “off screen” actions are quite acceptable,
leaving the other people at the table to determine their own
acceptance of the boundary and any responses they might wish to
make. Groups may wish to follow the movie classification guides
in common categories of potentially objectionable material.
3.1.4 Mechanical Creation
The basis of mechanical creation is articulated by the core
sourcebooks of the system. However, there may be some
difficulties in applying the requirements process to the
mechanical creation of character. This section explores a process
that will gracefully lower the options of the design space until a
single character emerges, blinking, from the fog of imagination.
In any system, in order to create a character to requirements, it is
important to understand the character creation system and the
fundamental rules of the game. While complete and perfect
system expertise is not necessary, the first step is to play around
with the rules of the game until an understanding of why those
rules exist is reached. System mastery is critical because it is
through the system that player agency is expressed. Systems
themselves vary in their levels of mechanical detail, but a shared
level of system mastery and awareness of areas of ignorance is
part of the courtesy of shared play.
3.1.5 Requirements in D&D
The process of character creation in D&D iterates over the choice
of class, race, powers, items, skills, and feats. The first stage is a
process of familiarization with the options possible. Players
should begin by being aware of all the classes that they have to
choose from by reading the class description and their “at-will”
powers either from the books themselves or the character
optimization board.
The act of reading the character optimization board is not an act
of optimization, but an act of reading the neatly summarized
descriptions of each class as a shortcut to reading the class
descriptions in each book. As Dungeons and Dragons is a living
document, the character optimization boards usually provide a
articulated understanding of the possibilities of each class as
understood through practical play.
The central choice of the character is the class of the character,
and the reading of the class should then indicate if the class bears
further examination or if it can be set aside. With a short list of
classes chosen for their mechanical attributes, as flavor can be
adapted to fit many of the story requirements, it is important to
then create a quick mechanical sketch of each character. The
sketch consists of a vague race selection, identification of the
most important at-will power, items, its to hit and damage, and of
the feats. This process can be trivially done in either of the
software tools that Wizards of the coast has made available, or
manually.
This sketch can then be compared to the theoretical requirements
to assess if its damage capacity, mitigation, and damage dealing
theoretical attributes are all approximately where they are wanted
by the player. While the selection of encounter powers and fiddly
class features is important, a look towards the at-will power and
the bare minimum needed to support its to hit and damage
calculation can suggest whether or not the character is on the
desired path. These sketches can also be communicated to fellow
players to get their feedback and to inform how they, themselves,
are producing their characters.
Once the short list of characters is pared down to the character
that best fits the requirements, the rest of the character may be
completed. In order to demonstrate mastery of the character and
understand the basis of her attacks, it is then important to prepare
a checklist of strategies. By articulating the conditions required
for certain attacks, what a player needs to be watchful for out of
turn, and the setup for other attacks, the player does not have to
reinvent their tactics during game.
Of course, throughout this process it is vital for the player to
communicate with the DM. Not only because she has the ultimate
say over the validity of a character, but because she can both spot
potential mistakes and discuss story and mechanical options that
are appropriate for the world. Creating a character with more in
world ties can lead to a far more rewarding game experience as
the character can have reasons to enter into conflict beyond the
purely mercenary and generic.
3.2 Group Character Creation
The process of group character creation solicits input on all of the
characters by all of the players in the group, allowing for the
formation of a cohesive and linked team with capabilities known
by everyone at the table. As the players cooperate in creating a
group, characters will start play enmeshed with each other, both
mechanically and in the story. This process tends to produce far
more effective gameplay at the start of game, and more satisfying
world interactions as the tedious and obligatory contrived meeting
of the characters is avoided.
By having all the players provide input on all of the characters, it
is also possible to create a reserve of characters in case the game
does not allow character return from injury or death as well as to
create a stable of characters to switch in and out of play. The
concept of a stable of characters works to provide a level of
continuity if people miss sessions or if players become tired of
their current characters. By creating a large reserve of characters
and gradually adding to the reserve as the game progresses, it is
possible to develop a trusted community within the game that can
provide a useful and valid source of replacement characters
without trying to find ad hoc justifications to explain why the
group has the sudden and complete trust of a new character.
3.2.1 The Process
Group character creation should be performed with all of the
members of the group in real or virtual proximity. “Shuffling the
sheets,” the process of sharing the character sheets, is what allows
everyone to be invested in all of the characters. It also allows
everyone to learn more about the mechanical options available to
the group and how these interact.
The start of the process is a discussion about the group social
contract. As part of the social contract, the group should also

discuss what kinds of narratives they want to explore. Articulating
this before the start of the character creation process is essential as
it allows everyone to put binding positive and negative
requirements onto the group. While these requirements are
usually story based, there is no reason why they cannot also
include functional or theoretical requirements.
With the group requirements set, everyone then articulates one
positive requirement for a character. The positive requirement can
take many forms, but at its heart it is an idea that will shape the
rest of the character. Depending on the size of the group it is
worth allowing one or all of the players to make one or more
characters at the same time. To ensure that everyone has choice,
even if players choose not to make an extra character, the DM
should participate in this process. While she will not end up
playing this character, it means that every person, even the person
choosing last, will be presented with a choice of characters.
Preservation of choice and agency is critical at all stages of the
game.
Negative requirements will not be solicited, as they can manifest
as post hoc editing of individual characters. As each player claims
ownership of a character to play in game, they will be allowed to
make whatever edits they want to the character: customizing it to
fit their own particular requirements. It is futile and un-fun to
expect a player to choose to play a character that doesn’t fit their
own requirements, however it was generated.
Players then provide a mechanical sketch of each character. A
sketch varies by system, but is best described as a single choice of
a mechanical characteristic by each player. Shuffle the sheets and
repeat until every character has a complete sketch. This outline of
character, with everyone making a choice for every character,
provides a community consensus over the nature of characters.
People engaged in this process are encouraged to ask for help or
information from more experienced players, but to not allow them
to dominate character creation. One way to enforce this is to
allow suggestions only as a response to a direct question.
The process of making single choices also is a sneaky way to
inculcate system mastery. As each choice is treated as a different
event and is explained to the group, that explanation combined
with the act of making a decision serves as a reinforcement
mechanism for learning. In this way, the character creation
process can teach a new group a system far more effectively than
a solitary creation process.
With sketches completed, shuffled many times between players, it
then becomes time to sanity check all of them for their
faithfulness to the requirements. Edit sketches as needed so that
they align with the group social contract and the individual
requirements for each character.
With the mechanical-functional sketches out of the way, a group
backstory should be invented. As the group comes to exist as a
joint entity, it is trivial to create real bonds of trust between
characters. One common theme of group narrative is an
organization, providing a convenient trope to explain trust, a
history, and a source for new characters. It is important only that
there exists trust between characters; the form of those bonds of
trust is up to the party.
With a group backstory in place, shuffle the sketches and allow
players to craft and share a backstory for each character. The
backstory can be as long or as short as the player wishes, but
should draw upon the dominant mechanical themes in the sketch.
It is at this point that the characters should be named.
With sketch and name in place, it becomes time to complete the
build of every character. Groups may choose to continue the
random shuffling for the complete build or may simply allow
players to choose their character at this point and have the
eventual “owner” of the character complete the creation process.
With creation complete, the group should articulate general tactics
for each character. By allowing the group as a whole to
brainstorm, individual players will not have to play out
unprofitable interactions with other characters through trial and
error. These tactics may be encoded as checklists at the group’s
discretion.
This group character creation process involves everyone in the
group at every step of the way. One downside of this is that it
becomes proportionally more difficult to add new players to the
group after the fact. They will be presented with pre-established
characters to choose from. While the new player will be welcome
to customize the character they have been handed, there is very
little room for originality within the constraints set by the original
group. If the occurrence is seldom enough of if combat losses
have been incurred, the advent of a new member of the group may
be a time to do another round of group character creation, adding
the characters so generated to the already existing game
organization. This activity then becomes a formal welcoming
ritual and keeps the group strength up despite losses to
unfortunate events in the world.
4. Conclusion
The rules of the game act as a scaffolding for the creativity of the
player. By providing sufficient structure to guide player choices,
far more elaborate imaginings become possible. If players
misunderstand the purpose of this framework, however, the trellis
that allows for greater enjoyment and growth becomes a
constricting jail, foiling fun at every turn.
We hope that this framework and methodology presents a way for
players to use the rules of the game to support their visions of the
characters. While this academic approach to character creation is
certainly unusual, it may allow for better gameplay through
characters that fundamentally reflect player intentions.
The theoretical model should be useful to groups, game designers,
and theoreticians alike. Groups can use it to articulate
requirements and produce more satisfying realizations of player
agency. Game designers may alter their character creation
processes to more directly evoke requirements gathering or
generation. And this document can serve as a part of the start of a
theoretical study of RPG mechanics, extending academic support
to this little explored field.
Further research is welcome and anticipated in the application of
literary criticism to the typology of tropes in role-playing. We
also seek to encourage research into the uses of failure to advance
gameplay. While we have articulated the basis of character
creation interactions, actual application within game design would
be a gratifying validation of our theory. Furthermore, this research
must be extended to further RPGs, as word requirements forbid a
discussion of Ars Magica and Apocalypse World in this work.
Further research is also necessary in the nature and parameters of
instantiated social contracts and character.
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