D&D character creation

You have to make a character that obviously isn't a "hero" or someone noteworthy, just a regular soldier or wizards assistant but still gets caught up in the events happening. How do you play them and develop their character?

I feel like if he's gonna be less of a hero type he should focus on out-of-combat stuff. maybe a schoolish know-it-all who's well learned in books and has a bunch of ranks in knowledge.

he doesn't really want to adventure but his master won't let him back till he travels the world and actually learns some practical knowledge.
I feel like experiencing battle for the first time would be a good development. and on top of that this person who's never really fought before adjusting to having to fight constantly as an adventurer would be interesting to watch, see how he adapts.

I played a lumberjack before. Normal lumberjack whom became a soldier (2 levels fighter)in the war but settled down in the country once he wasn't needed any longer. Nothing made any sense any more so he turned to nature and found beauty he had forgotten, so he decided to become a ranger (x levels) and vows to protect that which he believes to be most valuable.

> be apprentice
> master tells I have to go adventuring
> after every adventure, come back to master, ask if I can stay
> answer is always no, my apprentice, you need to do more
> at level 11 (or whenever Wizards supposed to get their towers nowadays) come back, master dead, has a last message: now you can come back, tower is empty

In a way, I feel like most DMs would appreciate it more if players did act more like ordinary people, in the sense that they still get excited, surprised, and terrified when seeing even modestly strange stuff.

Most players are at the point where they can encounter plane-warping sorceries and world-shattering monsters and just consider them neat, while commoners and peasants would still be impressed by stuff like glowing gems or small boxes that played music.

Once played a Circus Strongman. Two levels in fighter, paladin, and monk each by the end of the campaign. In the beginning he was only interested in furthering his strength, but by the end he saw that his strength was useless without purpose, and started using it to protect his party, and when he retired he became a firefighter with his cleric party member. Dust of dryness is a surprisingly good house douser.

You know that guy with the pocket bestiary who's always screaming "we're screwed!"

That's me.

This is my prefered style. It lets me have more interesting drawbacks like cowardice, gullibility, and lack of experience. As said, overreacting to mildly interesting stuff and being relatively inexperienced with adventuring is what makes the character.
One of my favorites was a farmhand who helped out a feeble old wizard move some trunks into his gypsy wagon and was given a dozen gold and an offhand druid's guide. With that he saved his crops, kept his animals in check, and defended the town alongside the guards when it got rough.

I played a hunter like that. He was just an ordinary hunter expelled from the nobleman's court for uncovering his daughter's mischief.
His faithful hunting dog followed him to his exile and he met the party in an inn.
It was great fun paying him, as all other players were your run of the mill munchkins, and my character was the most 'sane'.
The best bart was when the GM caught on to my game and played to it, so when two gods were having a fight in the backyard and all the players went to watch despite my hunter's freaking out, sure eneugh, I had to carry them back in after two of them nearly lost their lives.

The fun lasted for a while, but I felt that I had to really bend my charcter's, well, character to continue following the party, so I had him lose a little of his stuck-up-ness and gave him some feel for adventure when the opportunity presented itself.
Really one of my favourite creations and I'm looking foward to playing him some more when the GM gets around to it. (most likely with a different group though)
I have some neat stories about him, if anyone is interested

>I have some neat stories about him, if anyone is interested
Pls storytime for me.

Shit, I really gotta catch some sleep. Oh look, a request on the internet!

So, the character concept was literally pic related. His backstory is unnecessarily fleshed out, but here's what's relevant:
The Slavic fourth child of a clayturner got recruited into a noble's court as a kennel helper and worked his way up to being the houndmaster. Life was dapper, he got lots of money to drink away and dress properly, he got to know some nobility, overall good life.
Then one day he notices all the bitches (heh) are queasy. And some puppers look hurt. So he starts investigating and after a week it turns out, lo and behold the nobleman's daughter's got a sadistic streak and hurts puppies for fun. So he drags the cunt by the ears to the daddy and tells him to rein in that pisser.
Which ends in him getting the month's pay and a hard kick for the way. Luckily, Saba, the half wolf which he raised from cub, faithfully follows him, escaping the first chance she gets.
And this is how Pokaj's adventure began

Now this is where he meets the party
We agreed to have a prologue session so all our characters are already bonded when we start, to avoid the awkward silence.

So Pokaj was on his way to finding out what to do with his life now that he didn't have a job. He actually got a decent idea of starting his own kennel for renting out dogs. This had to wait, though, as night encroached, so he stayed the night at the "Under a feathered pheasant" inn. Didn't catch that much sleep, though, as one of the party members set fire to it. (This time it was intentional and agreed upon, but this is not the last fuckup of Lucio Velasquez).
So my helpful and down to earth character went about rescuing people out of the fire, and as the only sensible, sent a messenger for the closest village to get the water engine, as the only on hand extinguisher was a water well and two buckets.
The water engine arrives after some two hours, so the innkeepers room and the basement are saved. He pops open the largest keg he has to thank us.

Why can't I make a big dick hero guy?

So finally I get to know the party. It went like this:
Pokaj - me, hunter with his dog
Aaron - friend 1, thief, although good hearted and non-lethal
Akna - friend 2, girl from the woods
Ziemowit - friend 3, weed man, could heal pretty good, "status effect man"
Giorgio - random 1, sea captain turned merchant, paranoid AF, sufferable
Lucio - random 2, insufferable. He will come up often in this story, if I get to finish it. The edgiest guy on the block, he performed an abortion on his backstory so he could be rich enough to afford two pistols and a cutlass and also be a "badass magehunter with no morals". He was antagonized more by our group then the fucking BBEG, because fuck evil upfront, it's backstabbing that's really fucked.
Now if this thread is still up in some time after I wake up, I will post the rest.

Doit now dubz man

Bumping for story time. Better deliver mate.

I have slept 3 hours.
You're probably not there anymore
Phoneposting
Let's do this

I'm here user. About to step out for a smoke. Was going to make this my last bump before bed.

So last time I described anything, the inn just stopped being on fire.
Our thief, who didn't yet decide how thief his thief gonna be, swipes the edgelord's cutlass from the bundle saved from the fire. Edgelord gets agitated, thief says he didn't see shit, GM has them roll. Thief fails, so edgelord confronts him, but is too beta to actually point out that his cutlass was stolen by the very scoundrel before him, so we get this Monty python shit:
Edgelord-"this cutlass looks surprisingly like mine"
Thief-"What? Oh, it must have been the same blacksmith"
E-"Oh really?"
T-"yeah, I travel a lot, got this beaut on Velasquez soil"
E-"and that blacksmith encrusted this very similar cutlass with gems very similar to my family jewels?"
T-"Look, I'm really sorry that your gear got lost in the fire, but there's no reason to take it out on me"

This back and forth lasted for a while, I think Edgypus pulled a gun on Thief, so everyone told him to chill, and Medic, who had a linked backstory with Thiefikins apologized for him.
In the meantime I was searching through the embers and found:
One (1) Messenger haversack with some (like 3 or 4) letters
One (1) Messenger body, burned to a crisp and stabbed.
So.
Mystery afoot.
The Weed-Medic quickly diagnosed that the man died of stabbings and not of fire. The first thing that comes to the party's mind is to open the letters. My Hunter asks if they have a death wish, and says that he will not cross the Messenger Guild and advises anyone to not do so. I resolve to find the nearest Messenger outpost and return the haversack.
Now the party wants to leave. Hunter is baffled by the godless swines who would leave a man out to rot. I insist on burying him. Woods-girl agrees. We dig a grave and bury the poor sod while the rest of the party bickers.

Finally, we set out. Session zero finished.

Session one
Small timeskip, we have travelled for a few days now, and have to make shelter before nightfall. My hunting dog is a great help, we make a venison stew for supper instead of eating rations. Weed doktor throws caraway into everything. I threaten him with my cudgel. I hate caraway.
We make small talk, Edge is silent, thank goodness, paranoid merchant-sailor (Giorgio) offers to take watch.
It starts to rain.
The night is rather serene, and one by one, all but the watchman sleep.
Just before dawn, even Giorgio's insomnia gives in to the pressure of the night, if but for a short while. Thankfully, nothing happened while he nodded off.

I once joined a party of level one adventurers as a town guardsman who was tagging along to try and help uncover the source of the plague afflicting a mining town. Level one Warrior, alongside a Fighter, Wizard, Rogue and Ranger.

I was the only one who brought torches and a lantern to investigate the dark caves; the wizard had only memorized offensive cantrips and Prestidigitation.

I was the only one who brought rope to investigate the mine shafts; the Rogue was the sole character with a decent Climb score.

I was the only one to have a ranged weapon - a crossbow (the group crossbow formerly shared between ten watchmen), which I ended up loaning to the Rogue. The Ranger was 2swords and while the Fighter did bring some throwing axes, he lost them all in the first fight by flinging them at kobolds who were backed up against a deep chasm.

I was the only one who brought food. The Ranger managed to scrounge up some edible cave mushrooms and even speared a cave fish once, but only enough to feed one or two people each day.

Bumping.

>master was killed by a bunch of goblins because he never went out to level on adventures

>just a regular soldier
>gets caught up in the events happening
That's literally my character right now.

Just a regular guy, no nonsense. His main goals are serving his country and staying alive. He rather enjoys being assigned to the adventuring party because if they're successful maybe he'll get noticed by his superiors and get a promotion.