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View Full Version : How do you get players to make good characters?



Baalthazaq
2011-03-30, 03:19 PM
Here's a fun question.

I'm thinking of DMing a game soon and I'm wondering what techniques people use to get players to flesh out their characters beyond the numbers, and more importantly how do you get them to differentiate the characters from themselves.

We have a player in particular who has cool backstories, but his characters always play as just flat out him. Paladin to Necromancer they're not thoughtful when it comes to action.

Should I actually start using phrases like "What does your character do" instead of "What do you do"? Has anyone experimented with this kind of thing?

Examples I already know of:
Start the game as children, get them to make many non rule (non-combat usually) choices which should be important to them.

For Combat: Give them their stats as kids that do not resemble stats of:
Their character as an adult.
Themselves.

That way, they cannot make the same decisions as a kid that they would have opted for as an adult or as real them. This the Barbarian player might take on board that he is a character with his own upbringing, maybe bullied as wimpy, maybe that's his motivation for being a hero, or for bulking up to begin with.

Any more ideas?

ooknabah
2011-03-30, 04:03 PM
Get them to write up back stories and as often as is practical, use those stories to inform your world. Also, as a general rule, make sure that there are benefits to role playing properly and penalties for not doing so. If the NPCs have a memory of who these people are and the things that they do (or won't do) and this affects the world around them, the PCs will become more invested in how they play their characters. As a side benefit, any decent party will spend a while working out the ethical issues between party members which can make for very interesting sessions without much investment by the DM. :)

valadil
2011-03-30, 04:04 PM
Most my RP skill comes from LARPing. Not the foam sword kind. In the LARPs I played, we were given premade characters who had tons of personality and backstory. This forced me to play traits that I would not have chosen for characters on my own. The LARPs were more about acting than about tactics or strategy.

Anyway, I bring this up because I think your players might learn a thing or two from premade characters. Not for a long term game, but maybe a one shot. Give them characters with outward personalities to play.

Volos
2011-03-30, 04:05 PM
Have the players answer a series of questions that help them to develop their background. Even the best roleplayer will have a hard time coming up with a good character every once in a while. Breaking it down into smaller pieces makes it easier to get a good concept going. Here is an example of what I use in my games.

1) Do you have a father and mother? How do you feel about them? If not, then who raised you and how do you feel about not having a regular family?

2) Do you have any siblings or close cousins? How did they treat you growing up? How did you treat them? Are you still close?

3) Do you have any extended family members (to your knowledge)? How do you feel about them? Are you currently in contact with them?

4) What does your family do for a living? Did you fall far from the tree?

5) What motivates your character? Why?

6) What are you character's main goals in life? (e.g. Cleric wants to build a church, Bard wants to be famous poet, Fighter wants to start a war academy) How do you plan on achieving said goals?

7) If your character had to take a stand for what he believed in, what would he be defending?

8) Who is your character's closest friend? What sort of person is he/she and how does he/she view your character?

9) Who is the one person your character hates or cannot stand to be around? What did they do to your character? Are you jealous of them, are they jealous of you, or are you rivals? If none of those apply, how would you best describe your relationship or lack thereof?

10) Does your character have any outstanding obligations or oaths that they must fulfill? If so, are they unable to complete their oaths for any reason? Are they in trouble with the law for any reason, false accusations or otherwise?

watchwood
2011-03-30, 04:28 PM
In my group, most DMs will give you a bonus level for having a decent backstory. It doesn't work for everyone, but a lot of us are quite happy to cash in on that.

Kiero
2011-03-30, 04:32 PM
Aside from having a good group of players interested in that sort of a thing, playing a system that actually makes knowing who your character is, rather than merely what they can do, matter can help.

Get them to make characters together, at the same time, not turn up with finished ones ready to play. Devote the time to welding them together before play starts.

Comet
2011-03-30, 04:33 PM
Also, as a general rule, make sure that there are benefits to role playing properly
Yes.


and penalties for not doing so
No. :smallbiggrin:
I always prefer the carrot to the stick. Makes everything more fun for everyone involved.

Anyway, the important thing is to ask them for a few important bits of character information that are going to be relevant to the upcoming story. Stuff like "How often do you bathe and what are your hobbies" are rarely useful in fantasy adventure games, for example. Don't bog down the players with useless trivia to attempt to create 'real' characters, create the depth so that every piece of background and personality fits into the themes of the story you have in mind. Less is more.

The most important thing, in the end, is to get the players invested into the fiction. No amount of backstory writing and beautiful sob poetry is going to do much good for the roleplaying experience if the players aren't allowed to make important decisions constantly and in a way that feels meaningful.

That is why I require minimal backstory writing from players before the game begins. They don't know anything concrete about the game at that point, so they aren't invested in it. I prefer it when they build most of their characters through decisions within the game itself. Much more organic and compliments the interactive and group-oriented nature of the game better than everyone sitting at home writing backstories and extensive personality summaries would.

Vladislav
2011-03-30, 04:39 PM
An often-missed step is that, as a DM, you can have a talk with them and explain what the campaign is about. No, you don't have to reveal trade secrets such as "the head priest of Pelor is actually the BBEG in disguise, and is planning to overrun the material plain with cacodemons!"

But, do tell them about the world, about the general direction the game is supposed to take, set the mood (horror? high/low-magic? epic fantasy? swashbuckling? light-hearted?), what their starting point is within the world ... basically, jump-start them.

cattoy
2011-03-30, 04:54 PM
Step One: Make sure your players are role players in the first place.

Jay R
2011-03-30, 05:30 PM
Should I actually start using phrases like "What does your character do" instead of "What do you do"? Has anyone experimented with this kind of thing?

Yes, but you need to go further than that. "Your character" is almost as bad.

Real people have names. If you want the characters to be real people, use their names.

"Dave, what does Frodo do?" "OK, Frank, now Boromir has initiative. What does he do?"

Also, the NPCs should use the characters' names. Every time you can treat the character as an individual, do so. This applies to the NPCs, too. Don't tell them they receive another message from the High Priest; tell them they receive it from Richelieu.

Finally, read the backstories and use them. If they don't write them, then their previous adventures are the only backstory you have, but use it. Bring back the princess they rescued, or the thief they arrested, or the merchant they cheated, and have the reactions be based on what they've done in the past.

Ideally, you will introduce new NPCs briefly three sessions before they are going to take center stage..

And create adventures in which their non-fighting attributes and skills will matter. Is one of them a cook? Have them meet a starving man who will remember them several months later because the food they shared with him was excellent. If one is a fisherman, put the quest object at the source of the river, so they spend time walking up it.

If you treat the characters as people, they are more likely to act like people. But if your adventure treats them as a sheet full of battle skills and powers, that's all they will be.

Katana_Geldar
2011-03-30, 05:33 PM
The 4E Dungeon Master's Guide 2 has a fantastic section about group storytelling. It asks you to come up with three things:

* A connection to another player's character
* A rivalry on conflict with another player's character
* An NPC from your characters past

I also like to work with people on their characters and prefer an otuline that I can help them fill in to be relevent to my campaign.

The Rose Dragon
2011-03-30, 05:48 PM
"OK, Frank, now Boromir has initiative. What does he do?"

He is decomposing! Of his own free will!

some guy
2011-03-30, 06:09 PM
I just came back from an emergency dungeons and dragons session*. I was the DM without any preparation, the players had no preparation. So when the players had their characters ready, I told them to roll a d100 twice and refered to these two (http://dungeonskull.blogspot.com/2009/02/dungeon-motivations.html) tables (http://bxblackrazor.blogspot.com/2010/08/give-me-reasonor-hundred.html). One for reasons for being in a dungeon and one how you've met two other characters.
Some people will abhor the absence of choice and agency herein, but my players had great fun with it and used their randomly rolled motivations and occurences of meeting to a great extent. They kept referring to it and made it part of their character.
I don't think many people will use it for a campaign, but if you play a one-shot and just want to jump into action and still have some role to play; it's great!




*emergency dungeons and dragons session in the way that I expected to be a player in a campaign, but because one player cancelled** I became an emergency DM for the tomb of horrors***.

**:smallfurious:
***They're only in the beginning, theyve played pretty intelligent 'till so far: they're still all alive. One player almost died, 2 are low on hp and one almost ragequit because he lost al his gear.

Morph Bark
2011-03-30, 06:22 PM
Most my RP skill comes from LARPing. Not the foam sword kind. In the LARPs I played, we were given premade characters who had tons of personality and backstory. This forced me to play traits that I would not have chosen for characters on my own. The LARPs were more about acting than about tactics or strategy.

Anyway, I bring this up because I think your players might learn a thing or two from premade characters. Not for a long term game, but maybe a one shot. Give them characters with outward personalities to play.

One of my best friends had this too, and it certainly gave a boost to his rounded character-making. As for me, play-by-post freeform RPing online for five years helps.

I've also found that people who have DM'd quite some in the past tend to create rounded characters more.