Of Making a Character

[Chained Birds]

As frequent player of many RPG-type games like D&D and anything else that my friends are playing, I've discovered that I have a method when making characters for these games. I didn't realize it until recently that I was doing it for every character, but I guess I rolled a 1 on my Spot check or something until now. :smalltongue:

My method seems to be:
- Figure out the least likely character role that will be filled based upon the interest of people currently playing or the knowledge of my friend's styles.
- If roles are already given, then I take the remainder and work with it to the best of my ability.
- I then create the character and make sure all the crunch is completed. Remembering to dot the "i"s and cross every "t".
- Afterwards, I scour the internet or one of my friend's extensive library of cool and interesting looking characters and use an image as an example for what I want the character to look like or eventually become.
- Then I fill out the Fluff portion of the character and give it a name fitting of everything I've done to it.
- I then write the story of the character and how he/she did X to become Y.
Now this method is only my most common tool for making characters and not the only thing I do. It might seem mechanical and may also sound like I don't even care about the character I'm making, but it's just how I do things and I do enjoy every character I make (100% of the time).

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Why I made the thread,

Do any of you guys use any method(s) when making or developing a character?

[rmg22893]

As frequent player of many RPG-type games like D&D and anything else that my friends are playing, I've discovered that I have a method when making characters for these games. I didn't realize it until recently that I was doing it for every character, but I guess I rolled a 1 on my Spot check or something until now. :smalltongue:

My method seems to be:
- Figure out the least likely character role that will be filled based upon the interest of people currently playing or the knowledge of my friend's styles.
- If roles are already given, then I take the remainder and work with it to the best of my ability.
- I then create the character and make sure all the crunch is completed. Remembering to dot the "i"s and cross every "t".
- Afterwards, I scour the internet or one of my friend's extensive library of cool and interesting looking characters and use an image as an example for what I want the character to look like or eventually become.
- Then I fill out the Fluff portion of the character and give it a name fitting of everything I've done to it.
- I then write the story of the character and how he/she did X to become Y.
Now this method is only my most common tool for making characters and not the only thing I do. It might seem mechanical and may also sound like I don't even care about the character I'm making, but it's just how I do things and I do enjoy every character I make (100% of the time).

------

Why I made the thread,

Do any of you guys use any method(s) when making or developing a character?

I generally decide on an interesting concept and then try to fit my character to that concept. It generally results in more flavorful characters than the role->character->concept approach.

[Amidus Drexel]

I usually do either what you (OP) normally do, or min/max the **** out of one class feature.

I once had a lv1 char (using core only) that had a +10 to hit. His Will save was -2.

[Averis Vol]

yea i'm the guy who fills the open role too. mostly because i enjoy building characters more then i like playing (only slightly) and i'd much rather see my friends enjoy their character that they really want to play then have everyone divided into sections that don't really fit their character concept.

so my process would be:
-find out what we still need covered
-roll up stats
-scour my library for gear to make the best use of my available skills
-check to see who changed their character
-completely rebuild the character for a new role
-repeat steps 2-3
-after i'm done building take one last check for the others characters
-if they didn't change again, co-ordinate some tactics
-if they did, repeat steps 1-3
-play.

[Olfgar]

Usualy, first I:

-Find out what kind of character i will be playing (Caster or Non-Caster) depending on what roles are already being done, seeing as how a couple of my friends have like 50 diffrent character ideas bouncing around in thier heads.

- Determines the role/class in regards to type (If im melee, Im I going tank, dex user, Str bruiser, skill monkey, etc) Oor If im a caster, will i be going a blaster, or Battlefield controll, summoner etc.

-Once i get that down, I start making my characters backstory, personality, etc after which I start thinking on what levels im going to take what class till etc, since thats the least important part to me, because aslong as I enjoy the character, i could usualy careless (you know, aslong as It wouldnt cripple me late game lol)

[Sutremaine]

- Think about which classes I'd like to try playing.
- Fill in the "feat tax" feats (eg. PA for melee) and the PrC prereqs, also any skill points that must go into a particular skill. Also traits, if the bonus is something I'd consider necessary.
- Character concept. Having the basics of the build in place means I have something to focus on. I don't look at what's on the sheet and try to engineer a character based on that, since a character's personality and sheet-crunch are two different things, but it does provide a base when considering how a character fitted into the world before I started playing them.
- Fill in the rest of the sheet, using the character's personality as a guide in case I get struck with indecision when making a choice.
- Use other players' character sheets to finalise saves and AC.

Character concept comes in quite late in the process because I find thinking coming up with a personality to be easier than expressing it mechanically. Mechanical expression is constrained by the game rules, personalities aren't, and so getting the limiting factor out of the way first makes things much easier.

I kind of lucked out with the role-filling in the PbP I'm currently in. I wanted to play a Binder, I found a game, we had point-buy, it's an Orc game. While we have a couple of characters with 12 Cha, the stat is even less of a priority than usual and Binders have all four social skills as class skills. Go Team Diplomat!

(Not that you're going to get very far with 2+Int skillpoints and a racial Int penalty. Thank god for synergy bonuses.)

[prufock]

I generally decide on an interesting concept and then try to fit my character to that concept. It generally results in more flavorful characters than the role->character->concept approach.

These aren't necessarily contradictory, though. Take my usual approach, for example:

#1 Have a list as long as my arm of character concepts I'd like to try.
#2 Figure out what role I'd like to play to complement the composition of the party.
#3 Pick one of my many concepts to fit #2.

I have so many more character ideas than I have time to play, this has never been an issue. #2 is easy to do as a group, since there are only 3 of us.

[Strawberries]

Figure out the least likely character role that will be filled based upon the interest of people currently playing or the knowledge of my friend's styles.
- If roles are already given, then I take the remainder and work with it to the best of my ability.
- I then create the character and make sure all the crunch is completed. Remembering to dot the "i"s and cross every "t".
- Afterwards, I scour the internet or one of my friend's extensive library of cool and interesting looking characters and use an image as an example for what I want the character to look like or eventually become.
- Then I fill out the Fluff portion of the character and give it a name fitting of everything I've done to it.
- I then write the story of the character and how he/she did X to become Y.

I usually do it backwards. Of course, I only play pbps, so I might be a bit conditioned by that.

My creation process is usually:

-Read up on the setting
-Getting struck with an inspiration for a character concept, that "feels right" for the setting, or that I previously wanted to play
-Jot down basic fluff, usually in a few sketchy sentenes
-Figure out stats (Roll or assign points), and completing the character sheet (sans equipment)
-Finish writing and expanding on background, personality, appearance and similar
-Curse a lot and buy equipment, completing the character sheet (I hate that part)
-Expand some more on non-essential pieces of fluff (contacts, enemies, family and the like)

Heavily slanted on fluff over crunch, I know. I don't like doing the crunchy bits much :smallsigh:.

[nedz]

I have a huge list of character concepts I'd like to try.
I also like to explore parts of the system in more depth.

From the campaign background I try to find one of my unused character concepts which, ideally, allow me to explore more of the system and fit into the milueax.

I'll then draft the build, and the backstory. I probably won't fill in the details about the higher levels at this stage.

I will then think about the character, and iterate through reviewing and revising the character.