Now your character is almost ready to go. Before you jump into your first adventure, though, take a few minutes to think about your character’s goals and what ties you might have to other characters in the group. Even if you’ve made your character on your own, it’s a good idea to take these last steps together. Setting up goals and ties as a group allows you to riff off each other and come up with ideas that are complementary.
Goals
Your character can have any number of goals, but try to come up with at least three. Goals usually have something to do with why your character became an adventurer in the first place. It’s not a common calling after all, and certainly not a safe one. These driving forces often translate into one or more goals.
When making your list, try to come up with a mix of short and long-term goals. Short-term goals are things you want to focus on now, and long-term goals are of a size and scope that may require years or even decades of struggle. A good GM will take your goals into account when running the game, and the more info the GM has to work with, the better.
So what makes a good goal? Two things. First, a good goal should help define your character by making explicit what is important to him. Second, it should provide story hooks that other players and the GM can grab and use in play.
Guidelines for designing more complex and longer-term character goals can be found in Chapter 6: Advanced Roleplaying.
Example
Kate is nearly finished with Locke. At the first session of the campaign, she gets together with her group to finalize their characters. Kate decides that a good short-term goal is that Locke wants to find her missing brother. He left the alienage on a mysterious mission and never returned. Locke’s next goal is to learn the elven language. Few city elves speak it anymore and she wants to reconnect with her heritage. Lastly, she picks a long-term goal of destroying the alienages and finding a new homeland for her people. She may not see this in her lifetime but she will strive to make it a reality.
Ties
The classic RPG set-up has the group meeting up in a tavern and embarking on a series of death-defying quests together despite being virtual strangers. That sort of approach can work if you are developing the characters as the campaign goes on. The group’s cohesion will be stronger, however, if the characters start with some ties. It doesn’t mean that all the characters need to know each other before play begins, but they should have some connections. Characters might have grown up in the same village, served in the same military unit, or even been romantic rivals. Or maybe they are distant cousins, chased by a shared enemy, or in debt to the same underworld figure.
You should try to come up with at least one tie for each other player character, even if it’s a tenuous one. The group bond will grow over time but it’s a good idea to plant the seed early so it can grow.
Example
The other players in Kate’s group are Gloria, who is playing a Ferelden warrior named Ulla, and Keegan, who is playing a circle mage named Oswald. Gloria was intrigued by Locke’s goal to find her missing brother. She decides that Ulla’s best friend also left home and never returned. Ulla found out that Locke’s brother was on the same journey and tracked down Locke to see if she knew any more. Keegan decides that Oswald has but slight connections with the other characters. Locke was briefly a servant in his Circle tower (perhaps they share a secret from this time?) and Ulla served as bodyguard for some of his Circle’s mages. With that finished, they are ready to play!