Creating a character in Tiny Dungeon is streamlined but can still be varied with a bit of extra time and imagination. You'll need to refer to the core source material (Tiny Dungeon 2nd Edition page 23) initially, but the process boils down to a few simple steps:
Select a Heritage from the Heritage List.
Select three unique Traits from the Trait List.
Select a Weapon Group to be proficient with, and mastered weapon.
Select Family Trade.
Select Belief.
I won't elaborate on those steps, as those details should be researched in the original source material. Reading the character creation section along with the heritages and traits will help you appreciate the appeal of Tiny Dungeon’s simplicity. Players can quickly complete a one-session scenario as a sampler and immediately start thinking of ideas for homebrew content.
I've already begun creating unique homebrewed traits that bridge the mechanics, worlds, and lore from other systems. Before revealing any of my mechanical approaches, I would like to list other categories of personal details you might consider describing about your character.
Biography and Story
The original intent of the Tiny Dungeon character sheet is that players could capture their ideas on something as small as a note card. However, if you incorporate all the ideas from this blog, you may find yourself needing as much space as other traditional game systems, roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper. Once again, I emphasize that all elements I present are optional.
That said, I believe players could benefit from expanding the sketches and concepts of their characters with a few sentences prompted by categories of personal information. Many mainstream and alternative RPG systems include an additional page on their character sheets for this purpose, often with roll tables to help generate descriptions for players who are less familiar with character development.
While I won’t create roll tables for these categories—so as not to stray too far from the Tiny Dungeon framework—I will list and describe some categories for consideration. Keeping the descriptions freeform maintains congruence with the Tiny Dungeon approach. Feel free to use as many or as few of these categories as you like, though I suggest that players agree on a standardized set for their adventure or campaign to ensure a shared understanding of how to approach character creation.
Beliefs and Philosophy: Basically the same as the original version of Tiny Dungeon. I expanded it to philosophy as I think "belief" alone leans a bit into religious connotations. If that's what a character values that's perfectly valid, but players might like to develop nondeistic spiritual or mystical philosophies for a world, or deeply valued completely personal philosophy void of religious implications.
Personality: A few words or sentences describing the characters general temperament. Could be as simple as "warm and friendly" or "mischievous and fun loving", or go into greater detail about psychological profiles and mental health struggles.
Family: Replaces "Family Trade" as an open space to describe the makeup of a characters family in greater detail. Could include occupations or other important information like important family events.
Relationships: Any kind of personal relationships outside family ties such as close friends or love interests, as well as any backstory they wish to elaborate on regarding said relationships. How and where they started, how long they've been that close, key moments such as saving or losing someone, things they like to do together, etc.
Factions/Groups: Larger social groups or formalized factions they belong to such as trade guilds, criminal gangs, mercenary bands, royal houses, etc. Any pertinent details about their role in it, how long they've been a member, how long the group has existed, key leaders or trusted superiors, etc.
Enemies/Rivals: Any opposing individuals or groups the character feels threatened by or knows to be working against them or organizations they belong to. Could be as simple as competitive mercenary bands, or actual enemies actively seeking their death or public downfall. Pertinent details about how long they've filled an opposing role, key leaders and individuals, methods and actions they've taken against the player etc.
Important Events: A general collection and description of life events the Player considers pertinent. Could be the loss of a loved one, accomplishing a major victory or goal, witnessing or undergoing something traumatic, etc. This could be especially important in campaigns with a horror or paranormal theme. The important event could have an especially strange and narratively important context for the broader adventure. They might have witnessed an unnatural phenomenon like spacial warping or time dilation, sighted an eldritch monster, or experienced repetitive unnatural dreams/visions.
Important Locations: Specific areas or locations that the character especially values due to treasured memories and experiences. Could be as broad as a specific city they were raised in, or as small as a specific tavern they mingled in most frequently, a public fountain they proposed to a spouse at, their parents grave etc.
Important Objects: Things like personal belongings or trinkets that have no magical, practical, or combat value, but the character values greatly like an heirloom pocket watch, or small photo album. Could serve mechanical importance for gameplay, such as triggering a corruption test if the player character loses their wedding band due to personal mental stress.
Flaws: Personality or temperament traits that generally work against a character's best interest in certain contexts such as social events or specific tasks. Could be a fear of heights or other specific phobias, could be a penchant for narcissism, kleptomania or other obsessive behaviors. I'd emphasize phobias and manias specifically as the GM could consider extending mechanical significance to those, like a specific context that would trigger a corruption check for just one character in a party.
Stat Modifiers
Many traditional RPGs differentiate characters with a set of numbers or statistical figures that describe certain base attributes and effects dice rolls related to those tasks. The most commonly used attributes are as follows.
Strength (STR)
Dexterity (DEX)
Constitution (CON)
Intelligence (INT)
Wisdom (WIS)
Charisma (CHA)
I saw the difficulty of incorporating this feature into Tiny Dungeon, as involving statistical formulas of any kind would likely clash with the intended minimalist design philosophy. Not having them at all however, was also one of my main hangups that made me see it as a touch too minimal for my liking. I believe I found a happy medium leaning into the dice pool mechanics. See my ruling below.
Each category defaults to one of the 3 advantage levels of Disadvantaged, Normal, or Advantaged.
On character creation, players may have the following allocations for any attributes of their choice.
1 set to Advantaged.
2 set to Normal.
3 set to Disadvantaged.
Improvements to an attribute can be purchased with experience points.
10 EXP to improve a disadvantaged Attribute to normal.
20 EXP to improve a normal Attribute to Advantaged.
The best a character can build to with their allocations are as follows.
2 set to Advantaged.
3 set to Normal.
1 set to Disadvantaged.
Game masters and players may consider allowing higher allocations for especially epic character builds like super heroes or legendary adventurers. Absolute maximum I'd consider is as follows
3 set to Advantaged
3 Set to Normal
If you read the traits list in the original rulebooks closely, you'll note that some traits effectively act like these attributes. There's already a "Strong" and "Charismatic" trait that let you roll with advantage in situations that merit those qualities. If you encounter any traits that you consider identical to an attribute rating I'd suggest ignoring them in favor of improving an attribute advantage level.
If you recall, Tiny Dungeon suggests that you cap player growth at 2 mastered weapons and 7 attributes, not including attributes granted by equipment. I Haven't played a campaign out to the point where this cap has become an issue yet, but I would likely not count attribute ratings as effecting traits or any caps you set on them.
If using the "Strong" trait which is mechanically the same as an Advantaged Strength rating, that would occupy one of your trait slots. I'm not going to bar you from another trait just for having an advantaged attribute rating.
Lastly, if you'd like to experiment with even more granularity to slow the process of character development over an extended campaign, consider the following tweak.
There's an additional step between each level of advantage for attributes where players must first get +1 to highest non passing roll bonuses before ascending to the next level of advantage, with a cap set at Advantaged.
Disadvantaged
Disadvantaged +1 to highest non passing.
Normal
Normal +1 to highest non passing.
Advantaged.
EXP costs to level up remain the same with Normal and below costing 10 EXP and Normal +1 and above costing 20 EXP.
Handicaps and Buffs
This isn't a rule as much as a subtle stylistic choice. Characters may encounter situations that warrant temporary or permanent boosts or handicaps to their abilities. For example, if a character is downed multiple times during combat or gains the favor of a religious figure, they might receive temporary strength penalties or a blessing to some rolls.
Recently, I had two characters who were both downed twice in a single session. I decided they would make strength tests down a level of advantage for two sessions or three combat encounters, whichever came first. Additionally, I removed one character's berserker trait for the same period to reflect their struggle to recover from their injuries.
For a Buff example, suppose a player kills an entire group of goblins in one combat round. A goblin scout witnesses this and spreads the legend, earning the player a reputation as a goblin slayer. As a result, the player deals extra damage to goblins.
Permanent handicaps are more difficult to remove. For instance, a magus might seal a magic user's powers until they fulfill a promise or perform a task. A martial player who uses all their death saves in one encounter may sustain life-changing wounds that requires advanced magic to heal.