he Haunted Cup is crowded. Every seat taken, every place to stand filled, faces fill every open window. The excitement is electric. The legendary bard Melodious Melvin tunes his lute with every eye trained on him. He stops, looks up. Breaths are held.

From the first pluck of the lute you are hooked. Melodious Melvin tells the tale of The Alabasters Angel’s fight with the demi god Orcnas and how they saved the realm from certain doom.

You step out into the cold evening air, head buzzing from the tale and ale. The air smells different, it smells hopeful, exciting and full of potential. The only thing you need right now is to find an adventuring party of your own and soon Melvin will start singing songs about you.

Finding a group to play with is arguably the hardest thing about playing tabletop-roleplaying games (TTRPGs). Many of us are spoiled by having like-minded friends, that live close by and have the time to meet and slay dragons. But what do you do if you just moved to a new country and all your friends are back home? What do you do if you just had your second child and you can’t go out of the house but you still want to play? What do you do if your friends are not interested in playing TTRPGs?

Below we summarize the key ways to find TTRPG groups to play with as well as some great alternative ways to get started playing.

Where to find TTRPG groups to play with:


Looking-for-group communities
- Paid GM services like 


- Create your own group
- Friendly local gaming store (FLGS)
- Join organized play
- Join a living world community
- Find fellow students or co-workers interested in TTRPGs

Looking-for-group communities have existed for a while now. Online they can be found on Reddit and on Discord servers. On the subreddit communities the concept is pretty straightforward. You can post a game advertisement and potential players can apply. These posts usually have a structure to them, starting with the title saying pretty much what is being played, what system and when. The body will have all details on the game and a description of the ideal player profile. Sometimes there’s even a link to apply via Google Forms or similar services.

As for Discord you kind of need to know where to go. Google can be your buddy as well as Discord server search engines like 

. What you should be looking for are channels within those servers that advertise 

. Another tip we recommend is to check if your favorite streamer or podcaster within the space has a Discord server and typically there will be channels for finding games to join.

Pros of looking-for-group communities for finding games

First of all, these communities are probably the most used and most active. You are almost guaranteed to find a game.

Furthermore, there’s a lot of variety in the games being run. You can find a game for almost any TTRPG system, genre (sword & sorcery, horror, sci-fi, etc.), style of play (combat heavy vs. role-play heavy), inclusiveness, and more.

Additionally, the commitment you are making is not huge. You show up and if you don’t have fun you are not parting from dear friends. Just say thank you, but this is not for me.

Finally, you can also advertise yourself if you want to be a player in a group. Often groups are trying to fill that last spot and want to find someone that might be a good match. This is your opportunity to get your name out there.

Cons of looking-for-group communities for finding games

The most critical issues have to do with group dynamics and quality of the games. We’ve all 

 about games that have exploded because of problem players (or GMs) and just weird stuff in general. It is important that the group gets along great and their intentions and style of play match the game being run.

It can be hard to judge the quality of the games being advertised. There’s no official rating system that gives you insights into what you are joining. Anyone can post a game for free and there’s no vetting done. Free games are run by people doing so in their spare time and might not have the proper time to plan their games. Paid LFGs also exist and are usually higher quality but lack of social proof still means they can be bad.

Don’t let this stop you though. Just keep the above in mind and not let it shape your thinking on all LFGs. If you have a good experience, great! If you don’t, just move on. That’s the beauty, there’s usually no commitment in playing online.

Looking for group communities for tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) on Reddit:

Find games to play in on our Discord server. Suggest new features and give feedback to help improve Quest Portal.

Join our Discord

Being a game master is hard work. You have to know the system you are running, prepare your games, read the adventure you are running (or write it yourself!), role-play all non-playing characters, provide tech support and much more. It is very understandable that many have decided to charge for those talents.

We highly recommend using paid GM services like 

 to find paid games. There you will see everything you expect to see about the game: What is being played, when are they playing, how much is each session. Additionally, you can see who the GM is, how many games they’ve hosted and reviews of past games. You can see the technology they intend to use for their game, content warnings, safety tools used and more!

You can easily search for games that match your preferences, read all about the game and GM and book your session to reserve a seat. When game time comes you can be pretty confident that everyone shows up because they’ve paid for their seat. You can be pretty confident that the game will be high quality since the GM depends on good social proof to book further players. And you can be pretty confident you will have fun (and if not 

 will actually give you another game for free).

Playing online can be like playing roulette. Better yet, it’s like dating. Since you are trying to find a group to potential play with for several sessions (or several years!). Finding a group of strangers that are compatible to you can be hard. This is a reason why many games will advertise an ideal player profile.

An alternative that has emerged recently is a TTRPG profile matching service called 

. They allow you create a profile of how you like to play TTRPGs by setting your availability, game preferences and answer several other questions. It just take a couple of minutes to set up your profile and then you’ll instantly start seeing matches of people that are similar to you.

For any potential match you can message them to setup games with very like-minded strangers. You can view their profile and make better judgement on the people you choose to roll dice with.

Here’s how you can find people that use Quest Portal as one of the listed VTTs.

RPGMatch is fairly new and will be adding more features in the future. We do highly recommend you give it a spin and find a match.

Starting up your own group and becoming a game master is a great way to connect with others. There are a lot more players in the world than game masters and we do need more GMs. This means that you shouldn’t have a problem finding players. It’s mostly about finding the right players (see issues discussed above).

To become a game master you can start by picking a system you are interested in, grabbing their quick start rules (or buying the core rulebooks) and running an introductory adventure.

Now, we said earlier that being a game master is very hard. That’s true. However, there’s also a reason millions of people choose to become GMs. It is very rewarding. It is one of the best creative outlets out there. It allows you exercise skills you won’t have an opportunity to work on elsewhere. It means you can connect with a lot of people even if you tend to be more introverted.

Quest Portal VTT is the easiest platform to pick up for new GMs. Once you have your party assembled, create your campaign in minutes and send out invites to the new group to join.

Get started for free

If you do decide to form your own party we encourage you to get familiar with running a session 0, choosing safety tools and setting expectations early on how the group should communicate about possible problems.

If you live by a friendly local gaming store you can always check if they host gaming nights. Sometimes they might do board gaming or war gaming nights, don’t dismiss those since the audience for those gaming nights are likely to overlap with interests in TTRPGs.

FLGS are a great way to find groups to play with in real-life if you like more than playing online. Just know that you still have to contend with the same issues as playing online. The quality of games and the group dynamics can be an issue. Make sure your GM knows what your experience level is and what you are looking for out of a gaming session.

Many of the publishers in the TTRPG space offer a way to play called 

Adventures League by Wizards of the Coast

In organized play you usually have a character that you can bring to gaming sessions. After each session your usually progress in some meaningful way (like earning experience points). You earn gold or items and your character becomes more powerful. Each 

 has its own rules for progress and how to interact with the community.

Often these organized play leagues are available through gaming stores as well as online. To check if your favorite gaming system has organized play you can simply search for “[gaming system] organized play” and there should be information on the publishers information about how to join.

Living Worlds (also called West Marches campaigns) are similar to organized play, but more flexible and run by community members. They are TTRPG gaming worlds where you don’t have a fixed group to play with, instead you can join sessions as you want and play in a world where the actions of one group can affect the experiences of other groups. These worlds are often organized on Discord and games are run there and/or on VTTs. Our favorite is from our friends at 

Schools and workplaces are fantastic to find groups to play with. Keep a lookout for TTRPG societies/clubs (might simply called D&D club) on campus or in school. Ask on your company’s intranet if someone is interested in forming a gaming group or someone has a group with an open slot.

Tabletop role-playing games are the greatest form of gaming in our opinion. They foster empathy, teach collaboration and are very beneficial to mental health. Accessibility to the space is one of the biggest blockers of adoption of TTRPGs. We are on a mission to make TTRPGs more accessible along with our friends mentioned earlier in this post. We wish you luck on your journey to find a group to play with.

Finding Your TTRPG Gaming Group

Allow you players to play from anywhere in the world. Connect to session, view scenes, roll dice and chat with the group all from their mobile devices. 

Download the app today and start playing on your favourite device.

Investigate the unknown as the GM leads you through an adventure from their desktop directly to your mobile device with crisp audio.

Enjoy crisp and clear audio as your GM narrates the story and sets the mood for each scene.

Move tokens on the virtual tabletop to simulate combat and exploration.

Collaborate with your fellow players to solve puzzles, overcome challenges, and achieve your goals.

Access your saved dice formulas or instantly determine your character's fate with our mobile dice feature.

Choose to hide or show your results to other players.

Whether it’s scheduling your next session or keeping in-game banter flowing, our chat feature has you covered.

Coordinate with your group to schedule sessions.

Bring your character to life with emotes and GIFs.

Roll dice and see the results directly in the chat.

Quickly create a campaign, invite you friends and start playing right away with hundreds of scenes, maps and sounds at your fingertips.

Join the adventure

Quest Portal Mobile

We know picking a VTT can be daunting. Does it have all the features you need? Does it support the style of play I want to run? How exactly does it work, and is the learning curve steep?

We wanted to take a step to make it easier to try out Quest Portal and learn all about it in one quick session. That's why we are introducing a new demo campaign: 

This campaign is fantasy based and uses D&D 5e as the base ruleset. There are three premade characters that come with the adventure that utilize our 

. They are not meant to be fully fleshed nor include all the statistics, skills, and options you would normally find on a character sheet for D&D. Instead, we wanted to keep this light on information so you can get started quickly.

The beloved party pet, BatCat, has been catnapped by an evil cult. Can the party save BatCat before the cult manages to use BatCat in a ritual to raise their undead king Durgur?

If you are looking at Quest Portal as a possible VTT for your group or you are just curious how it works, you can now select 

 as a campaign option when you create a new campaign.

This will create a copy of the campaign in your account, and you will have full control over it and be able to customize it as you see fit. Have a read through the notes that explain the campaign and what your players will have to do.

The one-shot campaign can be run in one to three hours and works best with two to three players excluding the DM.  We hope our adventure will help you and your awesome party become acquainted with using Quest Portal and give you the confidence to create your own fantastic homebrew adventures. 

Try Quest Portal with a new demo campaign

In the tutorial below our very own Gummi is here to walk us through the Call of Cthulhu Character Sheet in Quest Portal.

Quest Portal has the best support for playing Call of Cthulhu online of any VTT. Learn more about the character sheets by watching the tutorial or reading about the anatomy of the character sheets below.

Overview of the Call of Cthulhu character sheet

In the top right corner you can access your character options. 

If you are the GM viewing your own characters you will see options to make characters claimable or hide/show them.

If you are the GM viewing a player character your will see options to manage that character within your campaign.

Players will see options to manage their character, such as going into edit mode.

The Call of Cthulhu sheet has multiple tabs or pages that contain different information.

and contains the main characteristics and skills of your character.

 tab contains skills and characteristics related to being in combat as well as you list of weapons.

tabs contain text fields that are standard on the CoC sheet.

tab includes a text editor where you can add any additional information you want about your character.

You character's main characteristics such as Hit Points, Sanity, Luck, and more can be found at the top of the Stats tab. Characteristics that you can roll dice for are a lighter gray and look like a button. By clicking them you will roll dice for those characteristics.

To edit your characteristics in the Quest Portal Cthulhu sheets you can click the 

The list of skills comes prefilled with the default values for a Call of Cthulhu 7th edition character. You can manage this list of skills and edit the values by clicking the manage button or right clicking. 

From the manage modal you can choose to show/hide certain skills or create your own custom skills.

Right clicking will show you options to roll a skill requiring either a normal, hard or extreme success. If you choose either hard/extreme Quest Portal will do the calculation for you to see if you succeeded or not.

You can easily navigate between characters when playing in the right sidebar. Just click on the character avatars to view that character.

If you are the GM you can also add new characters by clicking the plus button at the bottom of the sidebar.

Call of Cthulhu Character Sheet overview transcript

Howdy! Today, I'm gonna show you the Call of Cthulhu sheet and how it works, how you can set up your character and to play a game of Call of Cthulhu. If you hit the app, you can navigate over to your character screen by clicking the character's icon right here on the left. From there you click new character.

And create a Call of Cthulhu character sheet. This will bring up the character editor. And as you can see, you get a blank Call of Cthulhu sheet. The main characteristics are all set to zero, but the skills are set to the default lowest value. Let's start by customizing the character a bit, just so it feels more alive. I'm gonna give you the name: Mr. Mandrake.

Let's choose. A nice avatar for him. Ooh, this one. I like this one. So. Hit this let's add a token. He feels gray-ish, Maybe. A little bit square. [00:01:00] So now his token is set. As for the sheet itself you can see the core characteristics here at the top. There are two main ways to can edit any of the stats.

You can hit this manage button. And the manage button. Will edit any of the stats that are below it. As you can see, click manage. And it brings up this dialogue. You can edit the display name of the statistic if you need to, but ideally you are editing the score. So let's say he scores. Okay. On strength. Decent dex. He's quite intelligent. He's a handsome fellow. Low pow. So if I save. You can see that the. statistics have been updated. I can do the same for the hit points, but there I wanna right click. To hit, edit. So I'm gonna set it to the max value. I could have changed the max as well.

He's starting out with fairly high sanity.[00:02:00] And he rolled okay on his initial luck. So let's start there. He's a move of five.

Yeah, this is the best way to edit things quickly. Either, either right click or click the manage is when you see the manage button. And you can do the same for the skills. The skills are come in a bit different dialogue. Again, you can edit any of the names. That are displayed.

You can edit the scores. But you can also remove and add stuff to the sheet. So let's say I won't use anthropology because it's gonna be a skill that I don't foresee using. I can. Remove that. And it will disappear from the list and from this same menu, I can add a custom skill if I wanted to add something like that's very bespoke to my character. But you can also just do it by changing any of the values here You can do Gummi's mega skill.

Let's add that to [00:03:00] the sheet. And it will appear. Right here.

And that's the stats tab there. As you can see, there are multiple taps. So let's go into the combat tab. The combat tab will show you some of the things that are relevant for you in combat. You have some of the other. characteristics available to you here. You can change the values again by right clicking and choosing edit.

You have the combat skills and you have any of the weapons that you might wanna bring in. If you click manage on the weapons. It works similar to the skills. You can add it to the sheet. You can rename, you can add a custom weapon. And let's say I have a, some type of pistol a 38 or a nine millimeter revolver. I'll bring it here. And we'll just show up in this table. The bio fields are the same fields as you would find on a normal character Cthulhu sheet. Same thing with the possessions. [00:04:00] But the notes is a way for you to kind make it your own. You can write whatever you want in here. And this is just a text editor, so I can do like description.

And I can write something out tall and handsome.

So when you've actually brought the character into a game, either as a GM character, or you as a player have brought in the character for to play with. From here, the sheet looks the same. It's accessible on the right from the sheet tab. But when we're playing a game, of course, we wanna roll some dice. So let's say I've been asked to do like a climb check. I can just click the climb skill. It will roll. Some dice for me. And I can see from this menu right here. That I failed. I I rolled the 46. versus my 20 skill. Skill check and it was it was a failure.

I can see that the results also appear in chat for everybody else to see. But[00:05:00] let's say I wanted to do something else and I might, it might be a hard check to do so. My first aid is quite high. I might have to do like a hard roll. I right click to bring up the menu. Roll hard And you can see that I got a 85 versus a 15 instead of a 30.

So the actual skill level check is factored in. From here from this menu as well, I can add bonus dice. So if I do that and I roll a regular check. it'll roll. up One more time. And it will calculate everything for me to make it so I can just see if I succeed in or not. And now I got a seven versus thirty, which is a hard success. I can also develop this skill, which means that if I use this successfully in a game then. I get this small green check mark in front of it. Which means I can roll for developing that skill before my next game. If I'm playing like a long [00:06:00] term, Cthulhu campaign. And that's pretty much it that's the Call of Cthulhu sheet, that's how you use it in a game. If you have any questions, hit us up in the comments below, or reach out to us on 

The Call of Cthulhu Character Sheet

In this tutorial we cover how to create and run a game on Quest Portal. You can watch the tutorial below, read the step or the video transcript all in this handy post.

 or login. Then from the home screen you can create a new campaign by choosing the plus icon in the left sidebar or clicking on "Create a campaign" button.

This should create a new campaign and bring you to the campaign home.

From the campaign home you can adapt your campaign to your liking by changing the campaign name, the campaign profile photo and banner photo, write a description, invite players, add notes and more.

In the right toolbar you will see a few tools available to you in order to prep your game. Click on the "Sheet" tool and from there create a new character or bring in an existing character by clicking the "Add a character" button.

. Those characters are only visible to you (the GM).

From the character card you can open the character options by clicking the ... button in the bottom right. From there you can make the NPC visible to players or claimable.

are visible and claimable by your characters. When a character is claimed the player gets a copy of that character and has full control over that copy.

You can bring in as many hidden or visible characters or claimable characters as you need.

In the "Notes" tool you can write out private and campaign notes to help organize the game. Private notes are only visible to you whereas campaign notes are visible to your players.

You can have notes in your private sections and drag them into the campaign section to share them with your players.

In Quest Portal your game is organized into scenes. Each scene comes with a visual and an optional music/sound track. 

You can add new scenes from our scene library by clicking the "Add a scene" button in the Scene bar or open the "Scenes" tool in the right toolbar.

If you want you can also create your own scene by uploading your own assets.

From the campaign home you can click in the "Invite players" button and from the modal that opens you can choose to share a link or invite players by searching for them.

Once your players are in you will see their player cards in the campaign home if they haven't selected a character or their character cards if they have selected.

When everyone is ready, just go to session and start playing.

It only takes 2 minutes to sign up and create a game on Quest Portal. Sign up now and be on your way to playing a matter of minutes.

Sign up for Quest Portal

How to run a game on Quest Portal transcript

**Gummi:** [00:00:00] Hey, how's it going? Today I'm gonna show you how you can start your game on Quest Portal. So once you hit the app, you can navigate over to this plus button here, and that will create a campaign. And campaign is just our name for a game. It can be a one shot or a long running campaign if you like.

So once the campaign is created, you'll get this campaign home screen. From here you can do a couple of things. You can of course edit any information. So the story of Mr. Mandrake is the game I'm gonna be running. I can change out kind of any icons. So let me just bring up my My icon and I can write a description.

This is all visible to my, my future players. Write in anything you want for them to get context of the game you want. And then I, from here, I have several tools available to me on the right side, and I'm just [00:01:00] gonna quickly show you how the notes tool works because that's fantastic to organize your game.

We have two sections, private notes, and the campaign notes and the private notes are just for you. So if you create a note here, it will only be viewable by you.

So once you create a note it will bring up this text editor. You can bring in any text you want, you can copy from a PDF or just write something out on your own. I am gonna call this a slow start. It's just my note to make sure I remember what I'm gonna talk about when in the first session. And I can create Subnote, that's gonna be all about Mr. Mandrake. So this is gonna be Mr. Mandrake, and I'll paste in the text that I've prepared about him. I could have written, of course, this all out from the start. And as you can see now, Mr. Mandrake is now a subnote. And I can collapse to expand [00:02:00] it and show it. If I create a campaign note, it's gonna be visible to all of my players.

Players can see this, so I might wanna take in something like the description of Mr. Mandrake and just paste it here. So they can read about it and that this is something they might know about him and they can view it. So once I've prepared my notes and everything, I can actually bring in some characters.

So let's go to Sheet. The Sheet tool is where you could create new characters or bring in characters that you've already made. I want to do I have a lot of characters, so I want to bring in Hannah Rosenberg, who's one of the pre-made characters that I want to be have available in the campaign.

So I'm gonna mark her as claimable because this is a possible pc. So as soon as I mark it as claimable, [00:03:00] my, my players will be able to see it and claim it. Once they join the campaign. Let's bring in another character. So I have another character right here, George Mathis, so now I've brought in George as well. And finally I'm gonna bring in the main man himself, Mr. Mandrake. So Mr. Mandrake is gonna be a GM character, so you can see that on the screen here, he appears in a different column or a different row. And he has this hidden icon on him, which means that I haven't revealed him to the players. And I could easily do that by just show the players from this menu.

But now we have brought in all the characters. Let's say my players have claimed Hannah and George, and we go to session. This is the view that you have when you're running the game or if you're preparing the game. For a gm, you will see the scene deck for the players. You won't see the scene deck look like this.[00:04:00]

We organize the games into scenes. So to add a scene it's as easy as click, add a scene or go to the scenes tool here on the right. From here I can choose one of the scenes from our pre-made scene library if I want to just find something on the fly. But I can also upload my own. So if I go to choose a file, I am gonna start this at the restaurant.

And I'll just give it a name. I will search for some nice tracks to add to the scene. So Moonlight Flower. I know that's a calm, nice track I could write description. I'm gonna skip that for now. But as soon as I save, I can add this to my scene deck and then when I'm ready to show it to the players, I can move them over by clicking the players I icon.

When you change the scene, you are also changing the atmosphere along with it. So the music that starts playing is the music that I've attached to the scene. So it makes managing [00:05:00] the whole atmosphere a bit easier and puts it into context of the scene that you're showing at any given moment.

You can read about all the characters from the Sheet tool, and we have all several other tools available to you here on the right that we cover in another video. If you want to roll some dice, then you have this handy Dice menu. From here, you can choose whatever you want to roll. And click roll and it will throw this magical die on the screen and any result from the dice will show up in chat.

So I rolled an eight, it's got an eight, or you can have this open and the notifications of the dice roll will just come up here on the left side. And since we're in chat, we can say, Hey, hi. Is everyone ready to start?

We will cover a lot of the separate tools available to you in a separate [00:06:00] video where we go in in, in a deep dive on that tool. And if that video has already been released, you can probably find it in the description below. And that's it for now. Let's hope Mr. Mandra ke gets caught. Thank you.

How to run a game on Quest Portal

The verdict is in…Elder is a hit! But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what folks are saying online.

I can be quite critical of AI, but this is the exact type of tool that AI is great for (at least in TTRPGs), as it allows us to focus on the creativity of playing. I can usually keep track with a rulebook PDF, but this really does ease up flow of the game. [Gabrielle de Bourg]

You know what, this sounds like an excellent modern adventure: "A company trains AI in eldritch stuff only to discover it is trying summon Elder God. Enter the Investigators"...[Marcin Roszkowski]

A remarkably good use case for the new generation of Chatbots. [Dr. Stuart Wolley]

The Quest Portal team were amongst the earliest and most generous supporters of the podcast. Their AI Keeper assistant, 'Elder', created in collaboration with Chaosium, looks a classy piece of work, potentially removing barriers to entry to the hobby 👏 Excited to try it! [The Apocolypse Players]

Quest Portal is a great VTT. I helped test the platform when it was in beta, and I particularly found interesting how they managed to integrate an AI art generator into the VTT. [Victor Hurtado]

For additional reading and reviews check these articles written by the good folks at 

This is just the beginning for Elder. We are excited to continue improving its eldritch knowledge with even more Call of Cthulhu source material. Stay tuned for more updates by following us on 

What People Are Saying About Elder

You approach the mysterious tavern at the edge of town. As you open the weathered door, one question enters your mind…WHO THE HECK AM I?! Creating an incredible character for your next TTRPG can feel overwhelming. There are endless systems to choose from and so many choices to make even before your first roll. But fear not, dear adventurer! Whether you are creating a TTRPG character for your first campaign or are a seasoned player looking for a bit of inspiration, we have you covered with a helpful guide on creating characters from start to finish.

At most tables, backstories are used as fuel for the GM to create a connection between your character and the campaign they are creating. Backstories also deeply influence how your character interacts with the world and other characters around them. For example, are they afraid of the dark because they found a monster lurking under their bed, or does the smell of roses create fond memories of their late spouse?


Here are a few questions to spark inspiration while creating your backstory.

How would you describe their demeanor when calm and under pressure?

How do they carry themselves around friends, strangers, and authorities?

Who will they betray in pursuit of their goals?

All great and heroic tales must have a beginning. The characters we create at the table are no exception. When designing your backstory, it is important to consider the moments leading up to your adventure. To illustrate this point, let’s examine two of the most famous rouges –Robin Hood and Catwoman. These two may seem extremely similar on a character sheet with their high charisma, combat skills, and ability to pocket almost anything unseen. However, one is motivated by robbing the rich to give to the poor, whereas the other steals to survive. Even if they both existed within the same world, their motivations would drive them to make drastically different decisions. Establishing your past will give your character the stakes to propel their point of view. The world around them shapes this point of view, so don’t hesitate to reach out to your GM and learn more about the world they live in.

Several TTRPGs allow you to play fantastical beings like elves, dwarves, birds, and even sentient blobs of slime. Playing these types of characters can be extremely rewarding because it forces us to think outside of ourselves and see the world through a completely different lens. Many TTRPGs will give you breakdowns of the cultures and origins of these characters. Use those as a roadmap but do not be afraid to veer off the path and go against written stereotypes. For instance, halflings were inspired by the Hobbits from the Lord of the Rings. They are typically gregarious and peaceful folks who love food and value the comforts of home. However, you can choose to play a gruff halfling mercenary that grew up in a seedy town known for gambling and unsavory affairs.


Using your culture can also be a wonderful way to add a personal touch to your ancestry and origins. Nothing says you cannot create an elf inspired by Desi culture or an Orc inspired by Norse mythology. Adding these details creates rich worldbuilding that goes beyond typical fantasy that is traditionally centered around European lore. The most important part of this is to be true to your character to avoid unnecessary real-world stereotypes.

In some games, ancestry is more than just cultural and includes biological differences like the ability to fly or keen night vision. These ideas can also be expanded upon to create interesting and memorable characters. For instance, if you are playing a bird folk or Aarakocra, what does it look like when you take flight? Do you have one wing that is bigger than the other, forcing you to always fly at an angle? Are you beautifully elegant upon landing, or are you like a puffin and constantly smash into the ground below? These small quirks can be extremely fun to plan and add unique depth to your character.

Now that you have a general vibe of your character–let’s name them! The name you choose can have a deep and metaphoric meaning. Or it can simply be a ridiculous pun or an inside joke that makes your table laugh. However, names can be the hardest part of character creation for some people. But luckily, there are a few great resources aimed to spark inspiration and help you find a name worthy of your hero. Check out 

 for a plethora of names and their meanings, or you can even generate your own in any genre with the 

. While being precious with this step is tempting, try not to overthink it. Your character can be one of many names or even receive a nickname during the adventure. Once you name your character, you are another step closer to bringing them to life at your table.

Skills and attributes are the perks and actions your character can perform during the course of the game. These can vary from system to system, but many games share key attributes such as intelligence that add modifiers to your rolls. Simply put, these are the crunchy bits on the character sheet that help you do stuff! When creating your character, it is useful to consider why they are proficient in certain areas and not others. Did they have a mentor that taught them how to be a sharpshooter? Or did they attend a prestigious academy and were ranked highest in their class?

, many TTRPGs also have specializations or occupations to choose from. These systems offer skill perks that differentiate your character’s specialty from others at the table. For instance, a professor in Call of Cthulhu will receive perks in library use, psychology, and a few academic specializations. In contrast, private investigators receive perks in bargaining, fast talk, etc. For a deeper dive into creating characters in Call of Cthulhu, check out this article by our dear friend and resident Call of Cthuhlu enthusiast, Nik.

STEP 6: Physical descriptions and artwork

Describing your character’s appearance lets your artistic and creative side shine. What style of clothing do they wear? What physical attributes are the most memorable about them? A great way to draw inspiration for your character is to create a photo collection that matches the feeling you’d like to achieve. From there, you can commission a fantastic artist to bring them to life or utilize Quest Portal’s ultra simple ai-generated Avatar Creator. The Quest Portal avatar portrait generator is designed to create images specifically for TTRPGs and can be used earlier in the brainstorming process to spark inspiration. After selecting the options listed, write your character description (as detailed as you’d like) and hit generate. From there, you will receive six images to choose from. Select whichever makes you the happiest! Now you have an awesome hero (or villain) to share with your table to further immerse yourself into the story.

In the words of the great Marie Kondo…does this spark joy? In the midst of epic adventure or solving spooky mysteries, what items does your character choose to carry with them and why. Considering this is a fantastic way to immerse yourself within your character's world further and gives you a sentimental attachment to your items beyond their practical use on your character sheet. For instance, if your character is a gunslinger, perhaps they carry a battle-worn pistol named “Sheila.” This same character could also carry a locket containing a photo of their daughter. While they are a grizzled gunslinger who takes pride in their prowess, they are fighting to keep their daughter safe in a world filled with violence. These small details tell us so much about the character. Moving beyond the character sheet and treating items as a reflection of your character is an easy way to ground them into the world. Here are a few questions to ignite your imagination.

Was this item passed on through generations?

Does the item have any symbolic meaning or arcane symbols?

Of all the weapons in the world, why does your character choose this one?

What connection does this item have to the world around you? For example, is it a standard weapon used by a particular group of people, or is it a sigil from a secret society?

The final touch for character creation is establishing their connection to the rest of the party. Starting a game with established connections will help you and your fellow players find why their characters care about each other, leading to more dynamic interactions. Playing a loner archetype works well in films where the audience can see that character's inner world. However, it is much more difficult to accomplish due to the nature of collaborative roleplaying games. So don’t be afraid to build your backstory with the rest of the table or find reasons why your characters have chosen to travel together.

However, some campaigns start at the very beginning, which can lead to the awkwardness of meeting each other for the first time. A fun trick around this is to work with the GM privately or publicly to learn more about the world, and potential connections characters could have, even if they do not know each other directly. For instance, are they members of the same faction, or is one character interested in studying the same arcane legend as you? Finding commonalities within games has the exact same effect as in the real world. Once common interests are established, roleplaying reasons why the party chooses to travel together becomes much easier.

The characters we create stay with us long after their adventures end. As storytellers and gamers, they often become extensions of ourselves and the stories that excite us. The character you create can be inspired by your own culture or life experiences. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your GM about the things that inspire you no matter how small.

Quest Portal is a great place to collect your thoughts and build character. With our ai-powered avatar generator, you can create a gorgeous character portrait in minutes. Not only that, our notes feature allows you to write in-depth notes about your backstory and keep track of special moments within your session. Check it out for free at questportal.com. Have fun creating epic characters!

Create Epic Characters For Your Next TTRPG

BIG NEWS! We’ve teamed up with the fine folks at 

 to make your Call of Cthuhlu experience more accessible and interactive.

Introducing Elder, the eldritch AI assistant trained to deliver rules and lore straight from Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu tabletop roleplaying game.


Simply summon Elder, voice your query, and receive all the knowledge you seek –instantly. Chat about different spells, monsters, and even brainstorm with Elder to find suitable locations in Arkham that fit your next scenario.

Elder is trained on all the content from Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition’s Investigator Handbook, Keeper Rulebook, Malleus Monstrorum Vol 1 & 2, and Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic. Keep an investigative eye out for the entire Call of Cthulhu collection of rules, lore, and scenarios planned to arrive in the future.


 subscription. Chaosium Core will soon include other popular classic games from Chaosium, such as Pendragon, RuneQuest, and 7th Sea.


We are excited to bring Elder to life in the hopes that both new and seasoned players will be able to spend less time researching and more time crafting memories around the table.

Elder is waiting…will you heed the call?

Introducing Elder - Your Eldrich AI Assistant

 is a horror tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror universe. You play as a regular person drawn into a sprawling investigation (either through unlucky circumstances or grim curiosity) until you eventually uncover truths no human should ever confront.

Does that sound ominous? Don’t worry, it gets 

. As the game's mysteries unfold, your character will come face to face with the 

. The Mythos is a collection of cosmic horrors lurking within the deep shadows of the universe around you. You know, that eerie feeling of being watched as you walk down a dark alley, that horrible drop in your stomach as you enter a dark room, that surprise realisation you are actively in a cult? THAT is the Cthulhu Mythos staring you straight in the face. Because behind every uneasy feeling within Call of Cthulhu lurks the dark deities and sinister gods of Lovecraftian lore, like the Outer Gods, Elder Gods, and the Great Old Ones.

The Call of Cthulhu system has a rules-light approach that allows you to focus on roleplay and immersive storytelling instead of being bogged down by too many stats and numbers. All of your skills work on a simple percentage with their d100 dice system. However, the lethality of combat means that anyone thinking about riding in guns blazing will quickly be reminded of their own mortality. You are, after all, a normal human person.

If you’re looking for a game filled with eerie mystery, then delve into this guide to creating your investigator as you explore the unknown.

The most common era to play is in the 1920s, but many eras are supported, from the Roman Empire to the Dark Ages, the Wild West to 1890s Victorian London, right the way through to the modern day and beyond.

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