Below is a step-by-step guide for the player on how to create a character from start to finish.

Step 1 - Consult your game master.

So many different kinds of adventurers can contribute well to an adventuring group. Make the kind of character you'd like to play!

Sometimes GMs impose additional constraints in consultation with you and the other players on what type of characters are permitted in their game, usually in consultation with the players. For example, a group might decide certain character classes are forbidden, or that everyone must choose a certain character class, because of the type of story they would like to have for their campaign. Once you understand the type of storey that the group expects to play, and what mechanical restrictions there are on the type of character you may make, move to step 2.

Step 2 - Character concept

How do you envision your character interacting with the world, and contributing to the party? Are you a warrior who slices through foes on the battlefield? Or a diplomat that uses intimidating blustering to get their way? Or both of these at once? Perhaps think about one or two characters from popular media in sword and sorcery settings who you would like your character to be similar to.

Remember when creating your character: they are a hero! They’re going to be an important player in a dramatic story about conflict and danger, and so they should be disposed to throw themselves headlong into risky situations when well motivated. They are also going to be part of a team of other characters, and they should be disposed to help and support them in those same risky situations. It is much harder to have a successful game with characters who are selfish, cowardly, and indifferent, than with ones who are helpful, intrepid, and passionate about some cause or another.

Once you’ve got a vision in mind for who you would like your character to be, it is time to start building that character with the tools the game gives you.

Step 3 - Start a character sheet

You’re going to want to record the information about your character as you build it. Below is a good template for recording the relevant information about your character, and organizing it so it is easy to reference while playing the game. Pick a name for your character and record it on your character sheet.

Name: 
Classes: [class 1]/[class 2]
Level: 1
Proficiency Bonus: 1
Injuries: None
Adventure Points: 3/3
Fitness # - Dexterity # - Learning # - Awareness # - Charisma #
Backgrounds:
Talents: 
Biography:

Some of the relevant information about your character has already been filled in on this example sheet, because they are the same for every character created at the 1st level. Here are those elements of the sheet already filled in and what they mean:

Level - Your level determines a lot about your character, and is always a number between 1 and 10. Normally when making a new character, your level is 1, and this guide presumes you are making a level 1 character, but consult your GM - it may be higher at the start of the game. Notably, your character level should be the same as the other characters in the party, and so if you are creating a new character to join an existing campaign, your level will almost certainly be greater than 1. To make a higher level character, follow the steps in this guide to create level 1 character, and then level them up to the desired level by using the rules on this page.
Proficiency bonus - Your proficiency bonus is equal to 1/2 your level, rounded up. It is the bonus that you add to skill checks when you have a relevant background.
Injuries - Through gameplay, your character might acquire injuries from facing mortal peril. These injuries go away when you refresh. At character creation, you start with none.
Adventure points - This is an important resource for your character. You start at level 1 with a maximum of 3 adventure points (3/3), and three current adventure points (3/3). Your current adventure points are reset to your maximum adventure points when you refresh. You can spend adventure points on various things: by default, to re-roll the lowest die on a skill check when you fail (possibly turning a failure into a success - see the section on skill checks for a more detailed explanation) and to re-roll what injury you get when facing mortal peril (see the page on mortal peril for a more detailed explanation). Your classes will give you additional ways to spend adventure points.

Step 4 - Character Backgrounds

When you create your character, choose three character “backgrounds” that describe their past experiences and accomplishments in general terms. When you build your character, they’ve already had some important life experiences that make them well suited to the adventuring life. Each background represents a piece of what you want your character to be like. Backgrounds help your character to succeed on skill checks. Each background has a name, decided by you, such as “circus bear wrestler” or “archery contest organizer” or “guardian of the elderwood tree” - it should be a short evocative description of how your character sees a part of their life.

When you make a skill check, if you have an background that implies you have life experience relevant to the skill check (and your GM agrees with your assessment), you can add your proficiency bonus to the skill check. Bear in mind, backgrounds by themselves do not give your character magical powers. With the archery contest organizer background, for example, you could add your proficiency bonus to checks involving knowledge about bows, knowledge about famous archers, successfully organizing something, trick shooting with a bow, and plausibly much more.

Record the name of your backgrounds on your character sheet under “backgrounds”, and a bit of information about the life experience they relate to under the “biography” section of your character sheet. You might want to string these together into a very short story about what your character’s life was like before adventuring (3 or 4 sentences. Or more if you feel like it. Ideally, these describe relationships to friends, rivals, and enemies that your game master can bring into their campaign).

Tip! - If you’re having a hard time thinking of backgrounds for your character, each character class comes with a list of example backgrounds that fit well with the class concept. These might inspire you in the creation of your own, and of course you are free to copy down any that you think are fitting for your character concept from these lists.

Step 5 - Character attributes.

A character starts with three attribute points. You can distribute them any way you like among the five attributes, except none of your attributes can start with three points. In other words: you can have three attributes with 1 point, and two with 0 points, or you can have one attribute with 2 points, one attribute with 1 point, and three attributes with 0 points. When making skill checks you add your points in the most relevant attribute to your roll. Here are the attributes and what they do:

Fitness is the relevant attribute in skill checks who’s success depends most on your character’s strength and speed.
Dexterity is the relevant attribute in skill checks who’s success depends most on your character’s balance, precision, or ability to be undetected.
Charisma is the relevant attribute in skill checks who’s success depends most on your character’s persuasiveness or charm.
Learning is the relevant attribute in skill checks who’s success depends most on your character’s ability to recall trivia.
Awareness is the relevant attribute in skill checks who’s success depends most on your character’s ability to detect things with their senses which are not trivially detectable.

Record how you distribute your attribute points on your character sheet.

Step 6 - Character Classes

Pick two character classes. Your choice of classes an important choice that determines what talents will be available to your character. There are many classes to choose from. See the section on character class in the sidebar for a list of character classes, and what talents they provide.

Your choice of class gives you two talents at the first level - one from each class. Your class also provides you with a pool of further talents which your character may gain as they level up.

Once you have chosen your classes, record their names, and the two talents they give you, on your character sheet.

Step 7 - Dispositions

This step is optional, but it is something you can do as a player to enhance the quality of the game for the whole party, including the game master. Using the information about your character that you’ve invented through steps 1-6, create some dispositions. A disposition is a reaction that your character has to a situation that you expect to come up while adventuring, that you can write into the biography section of your character sheet. These help you depict your character as the distinct and interesting adventurer that you have in mind without having to worry about always being in your character’s head while playing the game (which is difficult for most people who are not professional actors). Here are some examples:

When Broadric The Bard helps to defeat an important enemy, he starts work composing a very mean-spirited song about what a pathetic pushover the enemy was.
When Klak the Kobold meets a gnome, she speaks to them in an annoyingly sarcastic tone because of her cultural prejudice against gnomes.
When Obiter the Historian sees an ally do something impressive, she gives them a fancy epithet and refers to them as such in the chronicle she is writing about her adventure (EG her friend Broadrick the Ogre-Crusher)
When Noachi the Dragonborn Blacksmith completes an important quest, he mints a commemorative coin for the accomplishment, and gives each party member a copy.
When Helgana the Barbarian isn’t sure whether or not to trust someone, she challenges them to arm-wrestling. If they refuse, she finds them untrustworthy, and if they accept, she finds them trustworthy.
When Raviolix the Goblin Inventor hears someone mention a profession, he mentions that he had a cousin in that profession, and that they died a grizzly yet silly death in the practice of it.

Step 8 - Bonds

Bonds are the relationships that you have to the other characters in your party. This step will be done in the first session of the game. A bond is a sentence or two which describes how your character knew another character before the adventure began. Every character should have a bond with at least two other characters in the group. The game master will ordinarily bring materials to help players quickly choose bonds for their characters, but feel free to get creative with them. Write these bonds down into your biography section.