Making a Tirenian character

5th Edition D&D is the first edition that has mechanics for roleplaying! I'm not counting alignment here; alignment was on your sheet, but it's always been vague, with no mechanical consequences and often ignored by players. No, I mean the personality traits, bonds, ideals and flaws which every character has, and which can earn a player inspiration for acting in accordance with. The only problem with them? They're so utterly anemic! I've played in many store games where players haven't even bothered to fill them in. For good role-players, they can be triggered so many times as to be overwhelming; for indifferent role-players, the reward they offer, advantage on a single dice roll, is so minimal as to be not even worth attaining. Some aspects of them, like bonds, are often never relevant; other aspects may be hammered. In one game I played in, we were given inspiration for acting to our self-detriment because of our ideals, leading to characters acting like idiots.

One of my goals for Tirenia has been to strengthen these rules. In my first game I ran, The Company of the Wolf, I let players spend inspiration to create narrative details, a much meatier reward from more story-based games (I specifically was thinking of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space.) I'd get players to introduce their characters to the group without mentioning their class, which got them thinking about how their characters would view themselves, and then I'd reward them by giving them inspiration. The very first adventure involved infiltrating an impregnable, heavily defended fortress. It had no vulnerabilities at all - unless the players used inspiration to invent those details themselves! So one of the players spent their inspiration to declare that a friend of theirs was a travelling bard who had performed in that castle recently, and they all rushed off to find them and get some inside information. Once they rescued him from fairies, another player spent Inspiration to invent caverns under the castle, and the characters bought tunneling equipment and were able to dig in from the caves to the castle's cellar, and thus breach its defenses. Inspiration was seen as a vital resource, and players would actively go out of their way to role-play so that the party had at least three instances of it at all times to get them out of any tight spots. I haven't bought this back for every game. That game was specifically about a special forces-esque mercenary company, and it didn't fit the tone of every subsequent campaign.

I've tried to invent new rules for Traits, Bonds, Ideals and Flaws as well, which everyone will get to see in full when we release the Dragons of Tirenia Player's Guide, probably in 2022. Traits in D&D traditionally come from your character's background, which is fine, but I thought about how Tirenians would believe that personalities were formed. Tirenians would believe it was determined by your humours and your star sign! If you're not familiar with humours, go play The Nine Lives of Nim: Fortune's Fool (plug for our own game!) which covers them really well. Basically, everyone has a different amount of each of the four elements in them, and that balance determines their personality. Of all our new rules, this is the one with which I'm least happy, because while it immerses players in the world a bit more, it doesn't do anything new.

Ideals and flaws in D&D are tied to your background and your alignment. It always seemed strange to me that your Ideal might be an evil thing, and your Flaw might be a good thing - your ideal might be Greed, or your Flaw might be that you're too selfless. That sounds like the sort of flaw that people make up for job interviews! We've changed it to reflect the Christian virtues and sins, which are more evocative for a Renaissance setting. Now they represent the better and worse nature in everyone. So your villain, rather than having Greed be their Ideal, has it as their Flaw, to which they've succumbed. This leads to the sorts of shades of grey that I wanted for Tirenia: everyone has a virtue to which they aspire, and everyone has a sin to which they might succumb.

Finally, Bonds are my favourite change, although we're yet to playtest the rules for these. Traditionally, a Bond is the thing that ties you to the setting - a person, object or place that's important to you. It's then incumbent on your GM to include that thing in the adventure, which may or may not happen. In Italy, as in everywhere else in the world, the most important bond that you have is to your family. With a family bond, you can define who your people are and where you came from. My fox-headed mercenary Reynardo from our Discord game had a farming family from eastern Tirenia. He felt guilty about running away from home, and sent money home to them. More importantly, you can use your Bond to create an ally who'll help you out when it's appropriate. However, every time you do, before you can use it again, the DM will create a time where you have to help your family in return. I was inspired by the Marcus Didius Falco series by Lindsey Davis, about a private informer (detective) in ancient Rome. In one book, Falco might get help from his useless brothers-in-law Lollius the boatsman or Gaius Baebius the customs clerk; in the next, he's babysitting his moody nephew Larius, or looking after his brother's orphaned daughter Marcia. His family aggravate him, but they're always there for him, and he's always there for them: a very Italian attitude.

Image: 'Francesco Sassetti and his son Teodoro.' Domenico Ghirlandaio, c. 1488.