Three Tips for Immersive Character Creation

1. Build WITH them. Yes, with them. Though there is immense joy for your players in building hundreds of their own characters on D&D beyond - you'll both find a satisfaction in tailoring this character to this story from the beginning. Start with species, background and class and continue on from there!

2. Make sure to have an idea of how long the campaign will go when you start building characters. Is it a short story levels 1-3? Maybe you are going for a module for levels 1-8. This could be the 1-20 campaign! Having this in mind will help guide your characters on how big their goals should be. If they know they are going to start at level 1 and have 19 levels to build - they might want to trek out with practically nothing. Their story could be rags to riches. They start their journey with a little club and a shield, moving through the world to eventually become a knight!

3. Work with your players in depth so that they know this character is going to be important in this story. Craft the backstory with them. Ask the questions like - did you have childhood trauma, do you have parents still, no - what happened to them, siblings, scars. Make the character come alive. Sure, they will be working with a group to become renowned in the realm. They will also be working on their own to find that person that killed their sister. Hunt down the bandit who stole the family heirloom. Get enough renown with the group to go become a Dragon Rider.