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Kaeso
2011-07-25, 03:04 PM
Hey there playground,

I have a somewhat grave issue concerning DnD and the enjoyment I get out of it. I have become very adept at what you would call optimizing (or powergaming, whichever sounds better :smallamused:), but I think I've never develloped any real roleplay skills.

I've noticed that almost all of my characters are two dimensional, most are nothing more than a class-race combination. My cleric is a courageous warrior of virtue, but nothing more. My rogue is sneaky and cunning, but nothing more. This bothers me, because it robs me of at least half of the DnD experience. If I wanted to grind a class-race combination to max level, I'd play World of Warcraft instead, but I want to play a person with his own personal story and motivations, yet I completely fail at it.

Are there more experienced roleplayers out there that might have any advice for a beginning roleplayer?

P.S: It might help to know that most of my games are PbP.

Sipex
2011-07-25, 03:15 PM
First you need to decide on your character's personality/traits/fears/goals/etc before you even touch a character sheet or decide your class. Give him quirks and make him fun to play. Maybe a phobia (as long as it's not too extreme).

If you need help starting, copy the personality of a game or movie character you really like then adjust it from there.

Then build your character around this personality and always have a reason WHY for everything. Why is he a paladin? Why does he use a sword? Why does he worship pelor? Etc.

Kojiro
2011-07-25, 03:26 PM
Hm. Well, I've roleplayed for quite a while, and while I don't have any process or anything for character creation, there are probably some things that you should consider:

General personality. While the character will probably act differently in certain situations and based on their current emotional state (provided that they have emotions at all), they probably have a "default state" of behavior and set of traits.

Motivation(s). They're an adventurer, more likely than not, so they need a reason to adventure. I've learned through experience that, if your character has no reason to be with the group, then you may very well have trouble having them be a part of things.

Likes/Dislikes/Fears/Quirks/Whatever: More or less that. What they like and dislike, and things that make them differently from how they normally do. Even little things are good; anything to add depth can make the character feel real.

Also, note that it may not be an immediate thing; lot of characters develop over time, both as you think about them, and after implementation. Also, you may want to be a bit careful and not go overboard with things; while extreme characters can be amusing, when you're playing with other people, you don't want to spend the whole time overshadowing them or stealing the limelight constantly.

Related: Your character doesn't have to be completely docile, and can in fact be rather unpleasant if that's what you're going for, but they should be able to function with a group. You know those stories of allegedly "Chaotic Neutral" characters that like to stab questgivers and steal the paladin's trousers, or the evil ones who use arson as a means of communication? Don't make one of those. You may have fun with it, but it'll be at the expense of everyone else, and when they/the DM get/s fed up enough...

So, yeah. Hope this is helpful. Basically, consider a few key points, let the character develop, have fun, and don't be a jerk. Easy enough, right?

Techsmart
2011-07-25, 03:43 PM
I would recommend a big not from Sipex. If you want to focus on the role-play, make the class fit the character, not the other way around. If your character isn't a religious type, but is a cleric, there's going to be problems there.

Generally, I start with the character's history. Where was he born? What do the people there think of his race/class? How does that impact his personality? For example - My human rogue grew up living around a large elven community. As such, he was commonly looked down upon by his peers for his racial "inferiority," and by his elders for his profession. This gives him a tendency to want to show people up, especially elves, even if that might sometimes get him into trouble. It also makes him disrespectful of his elders.

I would also consider his family. He has one younger sister, and no other family. His parents were killed by orc raiders when he was just a child. Seeing the carnage of his parents' deaths shocked him greatly, and gave him a deep-seated hatred of orcs. However, this also made him value his sister greatly, and means he would never do something that would hurt her. In fact, he often returned to the elven village despite his sneering peers to visit her. Despite his disrespect for the law, this means he has a tendency to protect younger individuals, especially girls, who remind him of his little sister.

After that, I try to make other traumatic experiences or mental quirks he might have that could influence his behavior. For example. That same character might have a smoking habit. If he is in a town where he can't get a smoke, he becomes increasingly irritable.

Also, as kojiro said, everyone has motivation. Why is your character out and about? In my character's case, he might be trying to prove himself to the elders. He might be trying to get gold to support his sister. He might just be out because he is sick of his peers.

Then, to finish it all off, I try to determine what his day-to-day personality might be like from the information I already gave myself. From the first part, I know he has a bit of an arrogant streak, usually being the first to do something. From the second part, he cares a lot about those close to him, and is probably fairly friendly. From the last part, he has a tendency to go out on occasional trips looking for a smoke.

Not necessarilly a complete, three-dimensional character, but he already has a decent bit of depth that can influence his actions in-game that is not necessarilly optimization-related. The smaller details would have to be filled in on a case-by-case scenario. You would just have to stop sometimes and think "what would this guy do in this situation?"

Kaeso
2011-07-25, 05:27 PM
Thanks for the replies guys.
It sounds like a good place to start, but filling in the blanks you guys gave me will still prove quite difficult.
Again, thanks for your replies :smallsmile:

Mastikator
2011-07-25, 06:06 PM
This is generally how I do this.

Start of by choosing race, and then subrace (or tribe or whatever you wanna call it), your character automatically gets the culture from that place, that means stuff like traditions, taboos and superstitions. Nobody is disentangled from their own culture, if it's tradition to wear different colored socks on Tuesdays for your character's people, then so does he, maybe there's a deep meaning behind it too.

Think about the players family, what is their social status, what are their personalities? This is the environment that your character started out in. These defines the personality traits your character had as a child. Were they rich or poor? Popular or unliked? Were they loving and forgiving to their children or firm and strict?

Then think about some meaningful event (doesn't have to be tragic or fast) that changed something for the character, this is linked to the reason your character is an adventurer. Your character should have almost the same traits here, one changed. Now is also the time that the character will start to define who s/he is to him-/herself, "what kind of person am I?" and "what do I want to do?" are questions that the character asks, you don't need to know the answer to these yet necessarily, and the answer may change along the road (it probably should in fact).

Now, think of one more trait to change, this will change over the course of the game, it can be fast (and if so, develop the character further when it happens) or it can be over a long period. Maybe the character realizes s/he's wrong about something very important, maybe the character gains a lot of power and becomes arrogant, maybe the character sees a lot of bad things and it stops bothering him/her.

dariathalon
2011-07-25, 06:27 PM
It might help you to try a different system for awhile too, if you can. Certainly, do as others have suggested about trying to come up with personality before mechanics. That helps a lot, but your old D&D optimization skills will still be there in the back of your mind nagging at you. (I'm not trying to say you can't both optimize and roleplay, this is more about breaking out of the mold and old habits.)

With a new system, you can really concentrate on the character's personality because you won't know how the mechanics work out until you start building them.

UserClone
2011-07-25, 06:42 PM
Something similar to this technique (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=406#tips) might help you.

EDIT: Alternatively, if you are just looking for an inspirational seed, this can be helpful (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/one-sentence-npc-generator/).

FatJose
2011-07-25, 06:47 PM
Mr. Wilson is a Fighter/Wizard Half-Elf

Ted is a friendly but forgetful man in his 30's who gardens and likes walking through the market to get a look at the new merchandise. He has a fear of riding horses ever since an accident at his dad's farm.

Ted and Wilson are the same person. People are people. Think of a down to earth, ordinary character and then figure how the class/race you're aiming for fits in.

He's from a farm and maybe he wasn't very wealthy so he joined the town militia and then the country's army. Maybe there were benefits to it, like a free scholarship to mage school. Or he picked up the skill from working with a mage for a few months. He's a half-elf, so he already had a natural knack for it. You can fill in the blanks as you go once you make a very basic skeleton of the character's....character.

Look at, say, Hellboy. Guy is a demon who fights monsters but Mignola wrote his personality based on his own father, a blue collar guy. Even with all the high-magic going, Hellboy is essentially a rough and tumble plumber with a few quirks.

Vladislav
2011-07-25, 08:40 PM
An important piece of advice that wasn't mentioned so far is: work with the DM to make sure your characters' background and motivations actually matter.

It doesn't matter if you're playing a dark sorcerer whose beloved sister, the only joy of his life, was kidnapped by bandits and will do anything in his power to bring her back, if the game is a generic "fetch the McGuffin to save the world" quest and said sister doesn't actually play any part in it.

Talk to the DM about your character ideas. Make sure he can support them within the game.

NikitaDarkstar
2011-07-25, 10:16 PM
An important piece of advice that wasn't mentioned so far is: work with the DM to make sure your characters' background and motivations actually matter.

It doesn't matter if you're playing a dark sorcerer whose beloved sister, the only joy of his life, was kidnapped by bandits and will do anything in his power to bring her back, if the game is a generic "fetch the McGuffin to save the world" quest and said sister doesn't actually play any part in it.

Talk to the DM about your character ideas. Make sure he can support them within the game.

This is VERY important, especially if you end up writing a long-winded backstory. (Which can happen when inspiration strikes.)

I myself tend to start with the fluff and work from there, but you might want to experiment with starting at the crunch honestly, just with a twist. When you pick a race look that race up, read up on it's culture, it's history, naming convention and so on, anything you can find. Now you have a rough generic idea of what people will think of when they first hear about your character. Then you pick your class, if it goes with the races fluff find out why and how the race normally goes about to attaining the class, if it's something they normally don't do (elven barbarian for example :p) figure out why and how your character went about becoming that class. Maybe he didn't grow up with people of his own race at all and got an entire different races beliefs and culture.

If you ended up rolling any exceptional stats it can always be fun to explain why they're so much above average. For example I had this half-dragon fighter I was rolling up out of boredom, I rolled 3 18's, they obviously went into str, con and dex. This was supposed to be a purely hypothetical character that was never going to see play. A couple of days later I was talking to my DM on msn, he went "Well if you can justify it, you can play it in the next campaign." (We'd known each other for a good 5-6 years at that point, so he trusted my rolls.) Anyway we kept talking and half joking about how she came to have these utterly ridiculous scores, and the next day I realized I had a backstory for her. She was the daughter of a retired female adventurer of some renown and a brass dragon. Mom was a dual wielding rogue/fighter styled person and dad was a fairly curious but diplomatic and peaceful individual. Amy (my char) took after mom quite a bit. (Mom was alsoa dual wielder and I decided that's who taught Amy to use that fighting style) Well Amy was quite strong from the beginning due to her dragon blood, then one day she stumbled over an old, half-forgotten magical artifact among her dad's stuff that accidentally boosted her physical attributes even more. (If you're familiar with the Asterix comic, Obelix childhood incident with the magical potion cauldron was the inspiration) As a side effect she also became a bit stronger than she could handle, so she got the flaw deadly strength" (I think it's called, pretty much she can't control her strength well enough to do non-lethal damage. A jokeful punch? Yep lethal damage) Then I looked at the consequences this would have on a small kid. Now (human) kids are notorious for being mean to each other and picking on anyone who's different, right? So how would they react to the scaly, horned kid? They'd tease her to no end. But here's the kicker, she'd be way stronger than them, so she'd most likely get into fights over it and winning. So now she has the upperhand and well she's a kid and kid are mean, I decided she was a bit of a bully as a kid and gave her that trait, along with a one time starter wealth related trait. (No way mom and dad would let their daughter leave without some cash!)

And I kept doing that for every feat, skill and so on. Look at the skill or feat you want, see if you can justify it somehow with your character. Want to dual wield? Right, Can you justify how/why your character learned to do it? If yes take it, if no sorry but you can't have it. That knowledge (dungeoneering) skill? Can you explain how your character learned those things (experience, listening to more experienced adventurers? etc.) if so take it, if not don't.

Once you've worked your way through the sheet and at least written down a rough guide for the major things that stands out you should have a pretty decent character going. And if you got some skill points to spare put a rank or two in random things that normally don't make sense. I got a rogue with 2 ranks in preform (dance), why? Because she wanted to be a dancer as a kid, but ended up taking a different route in life. Is it optional? Not really, but it's fun. Maybe you have a fighter with a rank or two in heal cause they normally didn't have a healer on hand when he was starting out so he figured he could at least learn some basic first aid?

Simply put, keep asking "Why" as often as you can, some things may not need to be explained, but some things just may. And not everything needs to have an answer right away, but if it's mentioned in RP you should have a rough idea of the how and why, even if it's an IC "I have no idea, I've sort of always been able to/It just sort of happened." Might even lead to a side quest or at least interesting piece of extra backstory to explain the why. ;)

Kuma Kode
2011-07-25, 10:24 PM
I use Ash's Guide to RPG Personality and Background (http://rpg.ashami.com/) to help me come up with ideas. A fun thing to do is roll personality traits randomly, then try to come up with how such a character would function. It's not uncommon for people in real life to have different, contradictory personality traits that interact in fascinating ways.

Requiring yourself to stick with the character you've developed can help you to break out of your comfort zone and do things you wouldn't normally have a character do.

Work out the character's family. Have relations with them. Having no/dead/absent parents is a cop-out, a handwave for plot convenience, and you want to avoid things that will drain your character of realism.

CarpeGuitarrem
2011-07-25, 10:34 PM
Read through any material you can get on the Burning Wheel system, even if you're still playing D&D. It ought to spark (no pun intended) some very easy and dynamic things that you can outline about your character.

Post with link to free Burning Wheel Gold preview (http://www.burningwheel.org/?p=276)
Download link (ZIP) (http://www.burningwheel.org/pdf/BWG_Preview.zip)

Gadora
2011-07-26, 12:28 AM
I'm working through much the same situation you've described. I kept building characters with an eye towards combat more than anything else, so, as a challenge to myself, I rolled up a medical droid who was a hard-wired pacifist. This worked marvelously, and I actually drew a few compliments for the character. Sadly, Sparky shuffled off to meet the Maker before he was able to give the gungan a comlink,1 but still, I had fun and developed my roleplaying skills a bit.

So, do you think playing a pacifist might be worth giving a shot? Or,to put it differently, have you tried optimizing your character towards encouraging roleplay?

1Yes, this would have taken a medical droid. The comlink in question would have been given through use of the feat Cybernetic Surgery.2

2 This was not a particularly sane droid.

Morghen
2011-07-26, 07:49 AM
I haven't read the previous comments, so I don't know if this has been suggested, but here's a shortcut:

1. At chargen, take one of your higher ability scores and put it into something that you don't need. Fighter = Charisma, Healbot = Strength, Rogue = Constitution, etc.
2. Find a reason why that stat is so high.

Serpentine
2011-07-26, 08:43 AM
Here is my quick and dirty character development cheat sheet:

- Fear: Full-blown phobia, a constant dread, a general dislike, or an "that's icky".
- Fetish: Full-blown philia, something you have a "thing" for, a general like, or generally attracted to.
- Virtue: The character's major strength, and/or something they will always respond to.
- Vice: The character's major weakness, and/or something they have trouble resisting.
- Alignment priority: What part of your character's alignment is most important to them? e.g. is a Lawful Good character more concerned with good deeds or upholding the law? What does their alignment mean to them?
- Short-term goal: What are they striving for currently?
- Long-term goal: What do they want to do before they die?

Come up with a reason for each of these, ask "why" and give events in their past. Clearly this is not an exhaustive list, too.
Remember that your characters live outside their character sheet. They did things before the game started, and they don't live in a vacuum. Moreover, the character sheet is more than just numbers, it's numbers that represent abstract features of them. What does their Intelligence number mean? What about their Charisma - is it more looks, self-confidence, people skills, or what? Are they sensitive about their dump stat? Are they proud of their main stat? How did they learn their skills, and why were they important to learn? And so on.

TopherKersting
2011-07-26, 08:44 AM
For each of my HackMaster characters, I defined their prime motivation during character creation.

1. Saruwatari Kaito, Human Samurai - Work to return his master's realm to its former prominence
2. Oswald Anderson, Human Soldier - Go home--his homeland was overrun by orcs when he was a small child
3. Zymun Ruc, Human Detective (Sole Practitioner, Divination) - Learn as much as possible, with the eventual goal of starting a library
4. Zecnyd Inraky, Human Anti-Mage (Sole Practitioner, Abjuration) - Achieve true freedom
5. Seamus Xavier Kelly, Pixie Leprechaun Constructor (Sole Practitioner, Abjuration) - Never stop having fun

For roleplaying purposes, I'd just ask myself (multiple times per session), "Which course of action furthers his motivation?"

Saruwatari eventually recaptured his family's ancestral castle, Zymun has one of the best libraries on the plane, Zecnyd has succeeded in breaking ties with both the army and the rebels, and Seamus always has fun. :smallsmile: Oswald hasn't quite learned that you can't go home again. :smallfrown:

Topher

jseah
2011-07-26, 09:47 AM
The way I do it is to create a long term goal of the character.
That's it. Now, instead of simply looking for plot hooks to further that goal, you look at the world and attempt to accomplish your goal proactively. Don't wait for your DM to do things for you. Do them yourself.

Even if you're a hero, it doesn't mean you should sit around doing nothing when the BBEG isn't apparently doing anything.

Interact with the world and its NPCs, the rest (character's morality, opinions and personality) is shaped by what you decide to do at each point.

SamBurke
2011-07-26, 09:53 AM
When creating a character, i try to keep one thing in mind: Cliches. Oh, and tropes.

DON"T USE THEM. A few tropes are OK, and almost entirely unavoidable. But your character should be ORIGINAL. Someone shouldn't be able to mash together two characters and say, "So that's what you're playing?" There may be parts that you take, but not everything.

How do you create a character like this? Kinda easy, honestly. What I like to do is make the absolute most sterotyped character I can think of. Load him down. Then? FLIP IT. Spin random stuff on its head until you have a character with the most original motivation ever. Or the best backstory. Or whatever else.

One thing to remember: you will fall into archetypical characters. For example, you'll probably have two different basic moods (mine are Troubled Hero of Justice, and Moody Psychopathic Nice Guy) which you'll use for about 75% of your characters. This isn't bad at all. Just vary it up. Throw in some fun, random characters. Change your basic likes.

Roderick_BR
2011-07-26, 10:11 AM
Making a personality after using the rules is not really that hard.
Just get your final sheet, look what it is, and what it can do, and then decide *who* he is.
He's a fighter-type? Why he fights? What makes him adventure instead of staying home and work as a mercant's helper? How did he learn how to fight. Why he choose the weapon he uses?

He's are an arcane caster. Why risk yourself in dark and dangerous caverns instead of just setting yourself in some city and work with minor tasks? Who was your teacher? Why you choose your current style of casting?

Same thing for any class. Rogues, divine casters. Find who he is, where he came from, how he learned what he does, and what he wants to do with his life. Even if it's something simple like "prove my power/worth to <person>" "I feel like there's something important for me out of this little village" "I want to find and defeat <monster> to avenge <event>".

dsmiles
2011-07-26, 11:30 AM
My take on interesting-to-roleplay-characters?

Step 1: Define the character's personality, motivations, and goals. Who are they? What do they want out of life, and how far are they willing to go to get it?
Step 2: Define the character's history. What happened, in their past, to make them who they are today?
Step 3: Define the character using only a race and a profession (not a class). What do they do? How do they make a living? (Yes, "monster hunter" can be a profession. It can actually make for an interesting profession, if done properly.)
Step 4: Add a class and all that other mechanical stuff.

Once you start playing, situations will come up where you will be tested on whether or not you can play the character. Stop and think about what a person with that particular set of personality, motivations, goals, and drives would actually do. Don't just make a snap decision based on the character's mechanics, it's not always the right answer for that character.

For instance, fairly recently, I was playing a LG Elven Gun Mage in EtCR. Saving a village from a zombiepocalypse was going to be time consuming, while she was on a time-sensitive quest. Personally, I would have said, "Screw the village, I have to find Strahd, he's the bigger threat." I was poorly equipped for saving a village, and didn't have very much in the way of combat skills that were built for crowd control, just one-on-one fighting. What did I do? I saved the village, even though it went against every instinct I had as a player. I was likely to die in the attempt, and eventually did die while rooting out the source of the zombiepocalypse. I never even got to Castle Ravenloft. To me, that was a well-roleplayed character.

gkathellar
2011-07-26, 12:54 PM
A lot of what people have said is true, but also, bear in mind that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with playing two dimensional (or even one dimensional) characters. If you have fun playing the character and he fits into the game world, you're doing a good job, 2D or not.

If you find creating interesting, original characters is difficult, you might want to confer with other players in your group, or with the DM. They can help you during generation, but they can also help you flesh out your character in game by communicating with you in character and forcing you to find a "voice." We've all met players with pages of backstory that couldn't roleplay worth a damn because their character had no voice of its own, and it works both way — it doesn't matter how simple or unoriginal your character seems to be if you can adopt their persona and speak with their voice.

In other words: The real challenge of creating a three-dimensional character is getting into that character's head, not creating lists of attributes and reactions.

Stallion
2011-07-26, 02:27 PM
This is going to sound slightly silly and quite possibly very insufficient compared to some of the other posts in here, but what I do is find an accent for a class/race combo and work from there. I've even gone as far as waiting til after the first session to really flesh out the details of characters backstories just so I can really fall into the accent that I've chosen.

My favorite example of this is my latest: A still currently 1st level halfling druid, Cor Tiggerdiddles, and his riding dog, Tickles. I though at first he would have a bit of a country drawl or would use New Orleans Yat, but he ended up speaking like a cross between Boomhauer and the stereotypical "YEEEEEHAAWWWW!!!" cowboy. Since then I've been able to get a much better grip on what I want the character to be in terms of personality and what he would do in X situation.

Knaight
2011-07-26, 03:35 PM
Here is my quick and dirty character development cheat sheet:

- Fear: Full-blown phobia, a constant dread, a general dislike, or an "that's icky".
- Fetish: Full-blown philia, something you have a "thing" for, a general like, or generally attracted to.
- Virtue: The character's major strength, and/or something they will always respond to.
- Vice: The character's major weakness, and/or something they have trouble resisting.
- Alignment priority: What part of your character's alignment is most important to them? e.g. is a Lawful Good character more concerned with good deeds or upholding the law? What does their alignment mean to them?
- Short-term goal: What are they striving for currently?
- Long-term goal: What do they want to do before they die?

This is pretty solid. However, I'd also focus a little more on the characters interaction with other people.
-Actuality of Character
-Desired Self Portrayal of Character to close friends.
-Desired Self Portrayal of Character to strangers.
-Important Secrets.
-Who they would let know these secrets.
-What the secrets mean to them, if they happen to be released unknowingly.
-The Dynamics of Trust

Serpentine
2011-07-26, 10:42 PM
It is a work in process. Not sure whether all of those work properly for me (but, well, this is my cheat sheet. For sure everyone else will have their own things that are important to their character creation, this is just a handy example), but lets see about incorporating them...


My Character Background, Motivation and Roleplay Cheat Sheet
- Fear: Full-blown phobia, a constant dread, a general dislike, or an "that's icky".
- Fetish: Full-blown philia, something you have a "thing" for, a general like, or generally attracted to.
- Virtue: The character's major strength, and/or something they will always respond to.
- Vice: The character's major weakness, and/or something they have trouble resisting.
- Alignment priority: What part of your character's alignment is most important to them? e.g. is a Lawful Good character more concerned with good deeds or upholding the law? What does their alignment mean to them?
- Short-term goal: What are they striving for currently?
- Long-term goal: What do they want to do before they die?
- Ideology: What do they believe in? How does the character think the world works? What do they consider "right" and "wrong"? Is there anything they would die for?
- Personality of Character
- "Face" shown to friends.
- "Face" shown to strangers.
- Secrets, large or small, and under what circumstances they would reveal them.
- What does the character look for in friends?
- What do they demand from them?
- What is enough to make someone a personal enemy?

bokodasu
2011-07-27, 12:12 PM
You can try starting from the mechanics side too. It can be easier if that's the way you're used to thinking; just ask WHY your character has every feature they do, and try to make a narrative out of your answers.

Wow, Aasimar have the stats I want, but I also want to play an evil character. What would have turned this character evil? Um, hm, ok, she wanted the world to be a better place and went a little nutty on the means justifying the ends side of things. So what's her goal? Oh, to create Utopia, naturally. (Insert detailed steps of plan here). Ok, so how does that make her act? Proud, egotistical, completely convinced of her rightness, not afraid to use any method if she thinks it will accomplish her goals. Also, she thinks of herself as a shining paragon of justice and goodness, so when she gets people killed in the service of her dream, she makes sure to send their families a fruit basket and a letter of condolence.

And so on. Some people would call this cheating, but if you're going to have optimized characters ANYWAY, they might as well get personalities too.

prufock
2011-07-27, 03:09 PM
One common thread with my characters is to take an actual psychological disorder, then scale it back enough so it doesn't interfere too much with PLAYING that character.

Eakin
2011-07-27, 03:24 PM
A lot of what people have said is true, but also, bear in mind that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with playing two dimensional (or even one dimensional) characters. If you have fun playing the character and he fits into the game world, you're doing a good job, 2D or not.


This is absolutely true. Really, anytime you generate a new character you should decide: 2D or not 2D? That is the question.

...Sorry

Eakin
2011-07-27, 03:30 PM
Sorry for the double post but I didn't want that pun to interfere with my actual advice.

I know it's tempting to just come up with a static list of characteristics to form the foundation of a new character, and that's a great way to start, but don't be afraid to give your characters contradictions in their behavior, as long as you can come up with some justification for why they might have it. Real people are a mess of contradictory impulses and behaviors

Maybe you have a neat freak PC who likes to smoke even though it's considered "unclean" by their society.

Or have a character who's a super uptight by the book do-gooder type, but whenever he drinks (or maybe even thinks he drank an alcoholic beverage that was really booze-free) his personality does a total 180.

Basically just do what feels natural. RPing comes easier to some folks than to others

TheThan
2011-07-27, 05:24 PM
I suggest you step away from Role playing games that rely heavily upon a system. Try to get involved in freeform or rules light systems for a while. That way you don’t really have any or much in the way of mechanics to focus on. So you can spend more time developing characterization.

After you get a hang of playing in those sorts of systems, then you could go back and apply what you learned to playing DnD or whatever your preferred system happens to be.

Just remember that any character can be interesting.

Knaight
2011-07-27, 05:54 PM
I know it's tempting to just come up with a static list of characteristics to form the foundation of a new character, and that's a great way to start, but don't be afraid to give your characters contradictions in their behavior, as long as you can come up with some justification for why they might have it. Real people are a mess of contradictory impulses and behaviors

This is critical. Contradictions, hypocracies, wildly different behaviors according to relatively similar stimuli, with larger patterns still evident - those are the trademarks of humanity, part of what it is to be human.

Kaervaslol
2011-07-27, 07:28 PM
Play a game where the mechanical optimization is not a mayor part of the fun.

Older D&D, Vampire, Dogs in the vineyard, earthdawn, gurps.

Knaight
2011-07-27, 07:46 PM
Play a game where the mechanical optimization is not a mayor part of the fun.

Older D&D, Vampire, Dogs in the vineyard, earthdawn, gurps.
Wait, GURPS? GURPS is pretty much built for optimization. I could see Fudge or FATE, which basically can't be optimized, but not GURPS.

UserClone
2011-07-27, 10:03 PM
You know what? Find someone to be Arnie for you, and play this (http://mightyatom.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-to-say-when-someone-asks-you-what.html). Then try it again, with yourself as Arnie. literally ANY practice roleplaying is time well spent, if you want to slip into a character's mind.

Incidentally, it really is an awesome response to when someone non-gamer asks you what roleplaying is.