Character arcs for D&D characters

By Brenn and Lindsay, the two writers who built Inkling

The character sheet tells you who your PC is on day one. It does not tell you who they could be by the last session. Novelists have a small, plain toolkit for exactly that, and it fits at the table better than you might think.

If you have ever built a PC from the four boxes on the classic character sheet (personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws), you know they are a good start. They tell you how your character talks, what they care about and where they are weak. What they do not give you is direction. There is no box for “what changes.”

That gap shows up around the middle of a long campaign. A player on the D&D Beyond forums put it well in a thread about building an arc, not just a character: the rules help you make a character, but offer nothing on how that character grows, and interest can quietly drain away once the level-ups stop feeling like change. We have both felt that at the table. The fix we reach for is the one we use for novels.

Why do D&D characters need an arc at all?

Not every PC needs one. Some of the best characters at any table are simple and steady. But if you want your character to feel different at level twelve than at level one, and not only because of the numbers, an arc gives you something to play toward. It also gives your DM something to press on, which makes your character easier to write situations for.

The trick is that a tabletop arc has to work without a script. Nobody knows the plot, including your DM, who is (or should be) preparing situations rather than a story you walk through. So you need an arc built on who your character is, not on what will happen to them.

What are the wound, the lie, the want and the need?

These four terms come from novel-writing craft, where teachers like K.M. Weiland use them to map how a character changes. They sound grand. They are not.

• The wound. Something that happened before the campaign and still hurts. Not the whole backstory, one event.
• The lie. The wrong lesson your character took from the wound. It is a belief, and it feels true to them. It drives their bad decisions.
• The want. What your character is chasing, on purpose, out loud. Gold, revenge, a title, a person. This is the thing they would tell you if you asked.
• The need. What would actually make them whole. Usually the opposite of the lie. Usually not what they want.

The arc is the distance between the lie and the need. Your character starts believing the lie and chasing the want. The campaign keeps putting them in spots where the lie costs something. Over many sessions they either move toward the need or refuse it.

A worked example: Tamsin Vell

Here is a PC we made up to show the shape. Tamsin Vell is a ranger who used to guide merchant caravans along the salt road out of Harrowmere.

• The wound: Three years ago raiders hit a caravan she was leading. She got most people out. Her younger brother Pell was taken, and she called off the search after a week.
• Deepest fear: Being the reason someone else does not come home.
• The lie she believes: If anyone relies on me, they get hurt. Safer to go alone.
• What she wants: To find Captain Orla Grake, whose raiders took the caravan.
• Why she wants it: Because if she finds Grake, maybe she finds out what happened to Pell, and maybe it stops being her fault.
• What she actually needs: To let other people carry some of the weight, and to forgive herself for stopping.

Notice what is missing: any idea of what happens in the campaign. Tamsin does not need the DM to include Grake at all. The lie can be tested in a dungeon, a city, or a storm at sea. Every time the party offers to split the watch, every time someone says “we will come with you,” the lie gets a little pressure.

Positive, negative and flat arcs: which one fits your PC?

The same four answers can bend three ways. You do not have to choose at session one. It is often more fun to find out.

• Positive arc. Tamsin slowly learns to accept help. By the end she asks the party to come with her, which would have been impossible at level one. This is the classic shape and the easiest to share with a table.
• Negative arc. Tamsin doubles down. The hunt for Grake matters more than the people beside her, and she starts making choices the party cannot follow. This can be brilliant, but talk to your DM and the table first, because a negative arc can pull against the group.
• Flat arc. Tamsin already believes something true (for example, that nobody should be left behind), and she does not change. Instead she changes the people around her: an NPC who abandons others, or a town that sacrifices travelers. Flat arcs are great for steady, principled characters.

Bell of Lost Souls has a short piece with roleplaying tips for playing a character arc that pairs well with this; it leans on the same idea of letting change show up in small choices.

Personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws: examples that do work

The four boxes on the sheet are the fastest way to make your lie and need playable. B.J. Keeton makes the case in his piece on bonds, flaws, traits and ideals that fewer, sharper entries beat a long list, and we agree. Two traits you actually play are worth more than six you forget.

Compare vague to sharp for Tamsin:

• Trait. Vague: “protective.” Sharp: “Counts everyone in the party out loud at every rest.”
• Trait. Vague: “quiet.” Sharp: “Answers questions about her past with directions to somewhere else.”
• Ideal. Vague: “loyalty.” Sharp: “A guide who loses a traveler has not finished the job.”
• Bond. Vague: “her family.” Sharp: “Pell’s compass, which still points the wrong way.”
• Flaw. Vague: “stubborn.” Sharp: “Takes the dangerous watch alone and lies about how tired she is.”

Each sharp one is a thing you can do in a scene. The flaw is the lie in action. The ideal is the need, dressed up as something she already believes. If you are still building the character, our backstory template your DM will actually use is a good place to write these down.

How do you share your arc with your DM?

Briefly, and early. A session zero questionnaire is the natural moment, but a message before session two works fine. Give your DM three or four sentences:

1. The wound, in one line.
2. The lie, in the character’s own words.
3. The direction you are leaning (positive, negative or flat), and that you are happy to be surprised.
4. What is fixed and what is open. For Tamsin: Pell’s fate is open; the raid happened.

That last line matters. Forum threads are full of players upset that a DM “used” their backstory in a way that broke it. Marking what is flexible gives your DM room to surprise you without trampling what you care about. It also respects that the DM is juggling five characters, not one.

How do you play an arc without hogging the spotlight?

This is the part that separates a great arc from a problem at the table. TheGamer has a blunt piece on main character syndrome, and the lesson is simple: your arc is one thread in a shared story, not the story.

• Move in small beats. One small shift every few sessions is plenty. A single line (“Fine. You take first watch.”) can be the whole beat.
• Tie your want to the party’s goal. Tamsin’s hunt for Grake should run alongside what everyone is doing, not drag them off it.
• Hand the moment to someone else. Arcs change through other people. When another PC reaches out, let the scene be theirs.
• Do not require the DM to build a plot for you. The lie can be tested anywhere. That is the point.

A copyable arc card for your PC

Paste this into your notes, fill it in, and send the top four lines to your DM.

CHARACTER ARC CARD
Name and one line:
The wound (one event):
Deepest fear:
The lie they believe (in their words):
What they want:
Why they want it:
What they actually need:
Leaning: positive / negative / flat (open to surprise: yes)
Fixed:
Open for the DM:
Two sharp traits:
  1.
  2.
Ideal (the need, as they would say it):
Bond (a person, place or object):
Flaw (the lie in action):
Beats so far (add after each session):

The last line is where the arc actually lives. After each session, write one line if your character moved. Our list of 30 journal prompts for between sessions has a handful built for exactly this. And if one day you want to write the whole thing up as a book, the arc card is the spine of turning your campaign into a novel.

How Inkling fits

Inkling’s character builder has these fields built in: the wound, deepest fear, the lie they believe, what they want, why they want it, what they actually need, and the arc. The Weave button can draft an arc from the answers you gave it, in your own terms, which you then rewrite as you like. There is room for age, appearance and notes (voice, quirks, relationships), and a portrait slot where you can upload your own sketch, a commissioned piece, or a photo of your painted mini.

Your cast is searchable and stays with you from one campaign to the next, and you can export it as a Google Doc to send your DM. What Inkling is not: it is not a character sheet for stats. There are no hit points, spell slots or dice, no battle maps, and it is not a VTT. Keep your usual sheet or VTT for the game, and keep the person your character is becoming here.

Inkling is an independent writing app. Dungeons & Dragons and D&D are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC. Inkling is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Wizards of the Coast.