As I worked on my Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) character for the Dungeons & Toast guild (Toastmasters club) Year of the Manticore narrative campaign, I stumbled when I hit this roadblock—character likes and dislikes. Likes and dislikes?! How should I know? It’s a first level character! And to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never delved that deep into character creation to create likes and dislikes for any of my roleplaying game (RPG) characters—ever. (And I delve deep when it comes to character creation, as I seek to mine the character for all it’s worth and to uncover treasures heretofore undiscovered.)
What was I to do!?
Well, I reached out to the Aether (internet) and contacted the sages there. And I found some hidden nuggets of knowledge—ancient scrolls which contained wisdom about character likes and dislikes. Right away I incorporated these character traits into my character’s personality and backstory as these wise words dovetailed into what I had already created for my character.
If you want to find likes and dislikes for your D&D, or other RPG system characters, go here. (The list is also a good list for writers’ prompts, per the author.) Although some of the prompts are modern, and thus may be a poor fit in your campaign—or they might be!—they might be a good resource to create the historical or futuristic equivalent, if possible, or used as a springboard to other ideas for possible likes and dislikes for your characters.
If you’d like your characters likes and dislikes to be more random and left up to the gods of chance and fate, and determined in a random fashion, go here. (This is a great way to stretch yourself and include likes and dislikes for your characters that you might otherwise pass on.)
Another way to draw inspiration for likes and dislikes for your characters is to draw from your own life experiences; or perhaps you know someone who has likes and dislikes that are different or unusual, odd or eccentric, or quirky. Another source to draw inspiration from for characters of your own is from characters that you like from other sources (books and the like; please be sure to respect the author’s works.) People watching is another great way to get ideas for character likes and dislikes.
Now go forth and create characters! If you have any great character likes and dislikes that will enhance the roleplay, fun, and experience for all those at the table, please share them so that we can all benefit!
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