Getting Started

Curious what to expect at your first event? Check it out here!

Character Creation

A Brief Overview

Creating a character for a LARP is like making up a character for a story or a tabletop RPG. Think about your character's history, personality, and motivations. A well-thought-out character is easier to roleplay and feels more real. That said, don’t stress if you don’t have everything planned from the start. A lot of growth will happen in-game.

The basic elements of a character are the Race/ Culture, Class, and Background. You will also buy Skills with Character Points to define your abilities in the game - more on that later.

1) Choose your race/culture. Each race & culture has a detailed description to give you a better understanding of how to roleplay and costume appropriately. 

2) Choose your class. Once you have chosen a race, choose a class from the list of available classes at the bottom of the racial description. These are the only classes available for that race as a starting player. Here’s a fun quiz to see what you might like.

3) Decide on your character’s name. Choose a name that you think would be reflective of your race and/or culture. Try to avoid obviously modern names like Bob, Bill, and Ted or fantasy names from existing content like Conan, Merlin, or Daenerys. 

4) Decide if your character is devoted to a particular faith. A number of deities unique to the Realms of Adventure lore appear in the world of RoA. Most characters believe in their existence and some choose a specific patron, even if they are not a cleric. If you are unsure, you can wait and see what the faiths are like in-game before deciding. 

5) Choose starting skills. Every character begins with 55 character points (CP), or 60 if they have submitted a detailed background. Information about skills and their CP costs is in the Rulebook.

6) Write your character's background. This is an easy way to receive 5 extra CP and fit yourself into our world! Learning about your character’s culture is a good start. Now you define your character’s personality, motivations, and experiences. Leave some “loose ends” or “hooks” so we might tailor plots to you. These guidelines include some dos and don’ts.

7) Send your information to RoA. E-mail your character information and background to us at updates@realmsofadventure.com. You can copy and paste this format into your email.

If you’re still unsure how to get started, feel free to Contact Us!

Additional Class Information

  • Every character at RoA starts by selecting a single class for free. However, at some point during your character’s career, you may find that you wish to branch out and acquire skills or abilities that are not available under your current class. The solution to this is multiclassing. 

    During your update, you may spend 15 character points to purchase a second class for your character. With this purchase, you receive all of the benefits that the second class has to offer (higher maximum health, spell casting, more weapons available, etc.) Any skill that appears on both of your class lists will be available to you for the lower of the two costs. Please be aware that this does not work retroactively. If you have a skill that was purchased under your first class and it appears for a lower cost on your newly acquired second class list, you do not get back the difference in costs. 

    Skills that are listed as single purchase skills may still only be purchased by your character one time (not once per class). Skills that are listed as per period or per event are still only usable a number of times equal to the total number of purchases your character has of the skill (again, not per class). If a skill is listed as self-taught under one of your classes, but not the other you may consider it to be a self-taught skill for your character. There are no limitations as to which classes you may choose for your character (within the available choices for your character’s race), but you may not have more than 3 classes (a 3rd class will cost you an additional 15 points). 

    Be creative and use the different classes to further your character towards the ultimate vision you have of what your character is. Feel free to contact staff regarding any questions you have about multiclassing

  • For an additional $20 fee, you may play an alternative character (Alt). This allows you to play your original character (a “Main”) and the Alt in a single event. The Main Character is defined as the character with the most character points. If your Alt passes your Main in character point total, it becomes your new Main. Your Alt and Main cannot assist one another in any way. They may not teach each other or trade items or goods between one another. In addition, knowledge that one character learned in game cannot be “shared” to the other.

    After each event, if you have paid the Alt fee, both characters receive 4 points for the event, and 4 points for a completed PEL (You do not need to submit two separate PELs.) Service point conversions for character points count for BOTH characters. Buy-ins also count for BOTH Alt and Main. Two separate updates should be sent in for your Main and your Alt. The rules for updating and playing Alts are the same as your Main; they must be submitted by the update period deadline. 

    You may play your alt for any duration over the weekend. You are required to inform the cast in your update when you intend on playing your Alt. For example, Friday Night, Saturday Until Refresh, Refresh to Saturday End, Sunday.

    If your Alt FDs, you may only use the points you’d gain from that death on ANOTHER ALT. If your main character dies, you may add the points gained from Final Death to your Alt’s bank. You may only choose to play an Alt if you have attended at least 4 events with a Main character.

  • Although this step is not always necessary, we felt it should be mentioned here. Once you start playing RoA, you may learn things that change the way you initially thought about your character. Maybe you realize you love fighting and hate casting spells. Maybe you feel you chose your skills unwisely. Maybe you hate wearing tons of makeup as a Kelonian. Don’t worry! You can rewrite your character in whole or in part at any time prior to your 4th event and not be penalized with any lost points. We only ask that if the change is significant you make it known to staff. If you keep your race and class and just want to change skills, it makes no difference. If, however, you can suddenly cast arcane magic you may wish to explain it. If you change race you will need to redo your character background to reflect it. You cannot start a character as a Human and become an Elf after an event without anyone noticing. Once you make your changes your updated character is locked and cannot be changed again. Likewise if it is your 4th event or later your character is also considered locked. 

    This rewrite period also applies to new characters created following the final death of a previous character. If your character permanently dies, you may make a new one on the spot at the event. Since it is a new character you have the same 4 event leeway to make a new one if the new character does not meet your expectations. 


    NOTE – You may rewrite your character as a multiclassed character if you spend the 15 CP for a second class. You would then calculate CP spent per skill based on the lowest cost between the classes you possess.