I don't want to say too much about how to make a character for a game, but I also don't want to say too little. There's a lot of setting-specific and player-specific things, like what you want out of a story, that make it difficult to have absolute "must-do" things.

However, there are definitely things that you want to think about, things to "worry about", and things that just don't work.

Before I go too far, I want to point out that in a roleplaying game, your character has two parts: the concept–what you see them as–and the mechanics–how they are represented in the game.

Think of concepts as half-formed archetypal beings. You get the most out of storytelling when you have an idea of the story you want to tell in mind, but roleplaying requires give-and-take. A good character can take the spotlight without being pushed out of it entirely.

Think About: A Character as a Concept, not Someone Else

A big issue I see with a lot of novice roleplayers is that they come up with an idea that they're going to play a character from one of their favorite series, or someone that they're inspired by, or the like.

This isn't necessarily a problem, but I've found it tends to make players get dissatisfied and burnt out?

Why?

Think of Keanu Reeve's John Wick, from the John Wick film series. Let's look at two examples of players I've had at my table, Player A, and Player B, who both saw John Wick and want to create a Wick-esque character.

Player A asks: "What does John Wick do?" He's a retired master assassin, motivated to seek revenge after people take what is dear to him away.

That's a concept.

You can take that concept, and run with him. Players who take inspiration from characters can quickly find a nice clear concept that can guide their future development.

Furthermore, you can layer things on top of this without taking away elements. What if you're in a fantasy setting? A sci-fi one? One where violence isn't a focus?

You can flesh out this concept in almost any game, using the same touchstone for inspiration.

Player B asks: "Who is John Wick?" He's Neo, but with a beard and black suit and tie combo this time, conspicuously few "woah" moments, and an epic history and backstory, wielding two pistols and no sense of mercy.

Taking a character and trying to make them in a system is an interesting academic exercise. However, Player B had a very hard time getting his character to fit the system and the setting, since it was always Keanu Wick with a special twist, instead of their own character.

Playing a character like this has some other issues; you're stuck with having to decide how they would make decisions, and it can be fatiguing to keep up a particularly consistent persona when you're emulating something rather than responding as you would; if a concept is a lens, trying to roleplay a character based on another character is like putting fifteen generic lenses together in sequence to try and produce a better image.

A game can also last for a year or more, and Player A was able to stick to the same character without issues, and Player B had to change characters because he didn't like the concept as much after it had come into conflict with the narrative as it unfolded. The other problem is that Player B's character came pre-assembled with assorted baggage, and people weren't sure what to expect and he wasn't sure how he wanted to play the character.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, both of these players are me. I did the Player B thing earlier this year, when I tried to make Indiana Jones in D&D. It went about as well as planned, with the Indiana Jones schtick lasting for about two sessions before it was dropped, leaving a hollow and ill-thought-out character.

Think About: How Your Concept Fits The Rules of the System

One of the things that I've found is important when making a character is to have them be interesting in a mechanical sense, because that'll be part of what goes into how you play a character.

Think of the character not as a whole, but as parts. You have the concept, then the mechanics. The system determines the mechanics.

There's a caveat here; as a novice, you may not be able to find out how to do this. I'm actually internet-skeptical about this (except for me; you can always trust me, and there's nothing ironic in that statement), since The Internet is known to be wrong about things from time to time, and asking "Can I make a gunslinger in D&D?" will lead you to results that don't actually follow the D&D rules, or rely on exploits of the existing rules.

However, ask the people at the table, or if you feel comfortable, use the rules material to explore how you can flesh out the concept within the system.

For instance, one thing you might want to think about is how you can represent your concept in basic terms. To make his character based on the John Wick concept, Player A from the previous example wants to find things that meet his goals of playing a grizzled ex-assassin with ties to the underworld.

So the player makes choices that further that. He might choose a background or special ability that gives him ties to allies from days past, another that makes him excel at risking everything to destroy his enemies quickly, and focus on having a strong skill-set as well.

In D&D, which is in my opinion one of the more difficult systems to represent particular concepts in, you can achieve this in a number of ways, using, as you decide, the Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Sorcerer, Bard, and Warlock classes alone or in conjunction.

This is where having a concept rather than a particular person in mind works well. The current edition of D&D doesn't allow you to make someone like Neo from the Matrix, but you can totally set out on an epic quest of sacrifice to make the world a better place.

You also want a character to be decently powerful. I'm not advocating that you power-game, and generally I'd advise that you never make a decision that goes against your vision for a character because it makes the character "better" at something. I've personally moved to playing more games where there's a more narrative approach to being better in mechanics, where saying that you're good at a particular thing is more important than saying how when you're designing a character.

Worry About: What Your Character Does for a Living

One consideration that you need to make is what your character does in terms of their concept and their mechanics coming together to make sense. If you're a very good doctor, that will work well in a post-apocalyptic campaign or a combat-heavy campaign, but it might not make sense if the world is full of robots.

That's not to say that it can't be interesting all the same, but remember that there's a reason that you want power, which is that it allows you to make interesting storytelling decisions.

Two things to consider here:

A lot of games derail because a player says "My character wouldn't do that."
If you're joining a D&D game, do people a favor and make an adventurer, or at least a random person who got roped into adventuring. Having a minor noble who's been dragged away from home because some random strangers brought him with them on a quest is humorous. Having a brooding cloaked elf who won't do things "because they don't want to" is not conducive to storytelling.

You need to find something that you're going to be doing in the course of the game, and make a character who will at least attempt to do it (they don't have to be particularly good).

Another consideration is that the notion of a power vacuum can be applied in inverse.

What happens when everyone plays a fighter and nobody plays a healer?

Typically, a lot of angst and finger pointing over why everyone's dead all the time.

If everyone's a healer, however, your game is going to grind along at a snail's pace as you fail to do damage to foes who do meaningless damage to you.

That's a combat-focused example, but you need to think about what makes your character interesting if there's another character who already does the same thing.

If you're going to have two characters who are going to be very good at persuading people to do things in the same adventuring party, then make them have an interesting distinction. Maybe the other guy's the Machiavellian, and you'd never lie to anyone. Remember that you can only define your own character; you can shoot out ideas all you want, but don't get pushy. People use roleplaying to explore concepts and ideas, and they may not be interested in doing something that's too far away from what they were originally interested in.

Worry About: Making a Character Too Good

I know I told you to try to make characters powerful, but there's an important distinction between powerful and annoyingly powerful.

What I mean by this is that you're in a cooperative effort, at least usually (if your first game is Paranoia, may Friend Computer have mercy on your soul), so you don't need to make a perfect character.

You don't want to get bogged down in optimization. By the way, The Internet and the local powergamer are probably wrong about what the best character in the system is. Perfect is the enemy of good, and there's a stereotype about people who try to get unfair advantages or sacrifice everything so that their character can do one really specific thing with infinite power.

Not only do you not want to be that one guy (or gal; I come from a place where "guy" can apply to anyone, so I sometimes forget to add that), who is always breaking systems, you also want to have a chance to fail.

Failure gives you a chance to explore what's next. A lot of stories involve a Hero's Journey, and that's a process of growth and development. Even if you figure out a way to make a character who can defeat the main villain at the start of the story, you're not really doing yourself a service by doing so.

Plus, the GM will usually figure out a solution to keep the story going; that's not necessarily just them being adversarial, it's them trying to give your group a good story. Having a character that derails things just shuts down that story.

Avoid: Getting Personal

You have the final say in what your character does while you are roleplaying, with some very few circumstances in some very few systems dictating otherwise.

What you will not typically have is the final say in what happens to your character.

Get invested without getting attached. I should whip up a summary of my process for creating characters, because I always think about how they respond to suffering, defeat, and their own impending death when I do so.

Not because those things tend to happen very often. I've only once had a character die in a way I didn't have control over, and it was the GM being petty because I'd killed one of his characters in a previous game.

Dangnabit Sam, the plane taking my character home after the campaign ends should not crash into a lake of cyanide (there isn't even such a thing) just because you didn't have your character sniff the mystery vial before drinking it after three "Are you sure?" moments.

At the same time, the world around you is crafted by the GM, and they're often trying to tell a story. You don't have to go with it word-for-word; a good GM can improvise and flex to meet their demands, and if they can't or won't it's considered a flaw.

But you're entrusting the story in part to chance and dice, and in part to a whole group of people. Give them enough faith to let them do things that effect your character. This isn't a playground dispute over whether Batman could beat Superman, and if that's what the table you're playing at comes to in an average session, you're probably better off leaving.

Wrapping Up

Making a character is a time consuming process, and it helps to think like a storyteller. Not everyone has to be a hero, but even a great hero can't do it all by themselves, so there's room for multiple people to tell their stories in a roleplaying game.

Your goal when making a character is to fit your concepts into the story's universe and, with help if needed, find the game mechanics that tie into that. That makes it surprisingly easy to make a character that is memorable and fun to play, and serves as a building block in a great story.