Loader image
Loader image
Back to Top

Blog

Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons  > Character Builds  > How a Poll Created a D&D Character – #NerdyProject
RPG player character

How a Poll Created a D&D Character – #NerdyProject

Effects Of Age On A D&D Character Can Enhance the Experience
D&D Dungeon Masters Level Up Too

D&D character

The cover of the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide illustrates a diverse group of D&D characters. [Art by Tyler Jacobson]

In the video above from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted build and add flavor to a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character. The character specifics – race, class and background – were chosen by the Nerdarchy Twitter community through a series of blind polls.

The #NerdyProject was a series of 11 polls. Each one narrowed down the field of possibilities for each of the three D&D character aspects. Creating and administering the polls was a lot of fun. Based on the video content and comments the fun continued for the Nerdarchists and community, too.

Now that the polls and D&D character build are complete, I thought it might be interesting to peel the curtain aside and give people a peek at how each poll was put together. The polls were blind – answer choices were purposely vague – and the reasoning behind answer options might be of interest to those who participated or anyone who watched the video.

#NerdyProject D&D character polls

Phase One polls – background

The very first poll cut the field of background choices clear in half. The idea at this stage was to eliminate as many options as possible to narrow the field. On a spreadsheet, 26 D&D character backgrounds were categorized as ones that included an element of public life and those more isolated or private in nature.

The public category

  • Folk hero
  • Urchin
  • Entertainer
  • Sailor
  • Soldier
  • Charlatan
  • Noble
  • City watch
  • Urban bounty hunter
  • Courtier
  • Mercenary veteran
  • Knight of the sword
  • Faction agent

The private category

  • Guild artisan
  • Outlander
  • Acolyte
  • Haunted one
  • Hermit
  • Sage
  • Criminal
  • Inheiritor
  • Cloistered scholar
  • Waterdhavian noble
  • Clan crafter
  • Uthgardt tribe member
  • Far traveler

The second poll experienced a stumbling block I realized after sending it out – who wants their D&D adventurer to stay put? In a reply to the tweet I clarified this poll refers to our mystery adventurer’s early life. Whether the clarification had an effect I can’t say; 33 of 44 people voted for travel. That being said along with the public results in poll No. 1 it seems voters wanted this D&D character out and on the move.

The travel category

  • Entertainer
  • Sailor
  • Soldier
  • Charlatan
  • Mercenary veteran
  • Knight of the sword
  • Faction agent

The stay put category

  • Folk hero
  • Urchin
  • Noble
  • City watch
  • Urban bounty hunter
  • Courtier

Poll No. 3 took a look at what motivates our emerging D&D character. At least in their early life before becoming a full-fledged adventurer, what drove this character? Remaining choices from the travel category felt like their pursuits stemmed either from passion for an ideal or lifestyle, or straight-up money.

The coin category

  • Entertainer
  • Charlatan
  • Mercenary veteran

The cause category

  • Sailor
  • Soldier
  • Knight of the sword
  • Faction agent

Finishing up Phase One with three choices left I designated each as relying on one of three aspects in pursuit of their passion. Physical prowess, shrewd cunning or artistic talent were the final determinants to give us a result.

Body category

  • Mercenary veteran

Mind category

  • Charlatan

Spirit category

  • Entertainer

Phase Two polls – race

Phase Two was very tricky to construct polls for without tipping voters off to the options. Initially the first step was based on relative height with short, tall and in-between. That felt too on the nose. Swapping out small, medium and large would have been confusing, too, since there are no large playable races. After staring at the list for a while I went with animal, mineral and vegetable. Animal was easy – all the anthropomorphic-style playable races. Vegetable were the ones sorta linked to the natural world. Mineral had dwarves, deep gnomes and earth-based races. It also wound up as a catchall category since, like in the classic game of questions anything not animal or vegetable is considered mineral.

Animal category

  • Triton
  • Orc (they’re kinda feral and animalistic, no?)
  • Yuan-ti
  • Half-orc
  • Aarakocra
  • Lizardfolk
  • Goblin
  • Hobgoblin
  • Dragonborn
  • Kenku
  • Minotaur
  • Tabaxi

Mineral category

  • Halfling
  • Dwarf
  • Deep gnome
  • Human
  • Aasimar
  • Genasi
  • Goliath
  • Tiefling
  • Kobold
  • Revenant

Vegetable category

  • Half-elf
  • Elf
  • Gnome
  • Firbolg

In this step the notion of height-based categories was revisited with high, mid and low. A few notable exceptions were made however. The celestial and infernal races were high and low respectively (one from “on high” and the other from the Lower Planes). And one straddled the line between life and death, placing it firmly in the middle.

Low category

  • Halfling
  • Dwarf
  • Deep gnome
  • Tiefling
  • Kobold

Mid category

  • Human
  • Genasi
  • Revenant (because they exist between life and death, get it?)

High category

  • Aasimar
  • Goliath

character poll

Genasi appear in the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. [Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast]

The last step of Phase Two was easy. Revenants are in the ground (when they’re dead). Humans are out of the ground populating kingdoms across the land. Genasi, like the elements themselves, are all about in the wide world. I was pleased with the outcome of this poll for two reasons.

First, I like genasi and it’s a nice unusual race to add distinct flavor to our mystery D&D character. Second, I realized a bit of a mistake including revenant. Looking more closely at the Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Heroes document I realized revenant is not exactly a distinct new race, but a subrace applicable to existing races. Like genasi it would’ve made for a peculiar character, but a little awkward in the delivery.

Phase Three polls – class

The final steps to #NerdyProject would provide the D&D character class to go along with the background (charlatan) and race (genasi) established in the first two phases of polls. Step one again narrowed the field by half. Some character classes derive their power from sources such as divine forces, manipulation of energies, separate entities and the like. Others draw power from within themselves through devotion to ideals, discipline or strong sense of self.

Internal category

  • Paladin
  • Barbarian
  • Sorcerer
  • Rogue
  • Mystic
  • Fighter
  • Monk

External category

  • Warlock
  • Druid
  • Bard
  • Artificer
  • Cleric
  • Wizard
  • Ranger

Next up, step two examined whether our D&D character relied on honed talents and attributes to achieve adventuring success or simply pressed on through sheer force of personality.

Skill category

  • Monk
  • Rogue
  • Fighter

Will category

  • Paladin
  • Barbarian
  • Sorcerer
  • Mystic

The climax of the D&D character polls wound up being a little obscure. But with the choices remaining it made sense. One generally meets challenges head-on, particularly combat. Another typically waits for an opportune time to strike unawares. And the last can come from multiple angles at more than one target.

Front category

  • Fighter

Back category

  • Rogue

All directions category

  • Monk

class to your classAfter all of these polls were complete, the mystery D&D character was…a charlatan genasi monk. That’s a pretty interesting combination.

I particularly like that genasi was the race, because that would give the Nerdarchists a bit of room to play around. Nearly all of the races have subraces, at least the ones in the Player’s Handbook. With genasi the differences feel more diverse. I was curious to see what flavor would be chosen.

But that wasn’t the end!

Every finale needs a climax. For a plot twist I decided to share one final poll to give our D&D character a second class and make it a multiclass character.

D&D character

Arguably the most famous artificer in D&D 5E, Taryon Darrington appears on Critical Role. [Art by Kit Buss]

For this climactic poll the choices were limited to the classes in the external category from Phase 3 Step 1. I figured the options were different enough to make for an unusual combination. To avoid including seven possible choices, the options were lumped together in some cases. If any of these came out on top, I reserved the right to pick between the options myself.

The hand category

  • Artificer
  • Cleric

The land category

  • Druid
  • Ranger

The brand category

  • Warlock
  • Wizard

The band category

  • Bard

D&D character poll final results

With a bit of input from Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and a pinch of influence from me in the final poll, the mystery D&D character created with the #NerdyProject Twitter polls is an air genasi charlatan monk/artificer. As they say in the video, a super weird combination. But if I’m honest I was hoping the results would be very strange. Giving them odd elements to work with would be a challenge but I had confidence they’d come up with something really cool. And I was right!

Because the two classes are so different, and by the very nature would be at least a 2nd level character, part of the character build included story elements. The way background and race provided details to help flesh out how and why this character would emerge is exactly the reason I created #NerdyProject in the first place.

Based on the comments and engagement with the various tweets and the video, it seems Nerdarchy fans enjoyed the project, too. Thinking of new and different ways to interact with the Nerdarchy community and connect our social media with the YouTube channel and the website is a big priority for me. Being the web editor-in-chief is something I’m very proud of and I hope to keep growing and improving our content and expanding our awesome community.

Please comment below what you thought about #NerdyProject and the results. Did you vote in any of the polls? What do you think about this unusual D&D character? What other sorts of projects would you like to see in the future, either here on the website, on YouTube or on our social media accounts?

And as always, until next time, stay nerdy!

[amazon_link asins=’0786965800,0786966114,B005MUAOYU’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’nerdarchy-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’6231e89a-70ec-11e7-af3d-91f2abc4d786′]

 

Share
Doug Vehovec

Nerditor-in-Chief Doug Vehovec is a proud native of Cleveland, Ohio, with D&D in his blood since the early 80s. Fast forward to today and he’s still rolling those polyhedral dice. When he’s not DMing, worldbuilding or working on endeavors for Nerdarchy he enjoys cryptozoology trips and eating awesome food.

No Comments

Leave a Reply