Creating Your Character

[goken04]

What kind of stuff do you guys use to help create a character's personality for you? Post some questions and other resources that help you develop your character. I'll start.

Obviously, I start with a general concept of a character I want to play. Then I consult my questions. I developed (i.e. copy+pasted from multiple websites) a long list of questions I like to use for any character I'll be playing more than a handful of times. I cut out whatever questions just aren't applicable for the character, but for the most part I do my best to answer each one. It helps me take a good, hard, long look at the character.

For such characters, I also like to roll randomly on the DMG Random NPC Traits chart. The reason for that is that, in real life, people have foibles you wouldn't expect. Sometimes, it's impossible to guess at this or that strange detail of a real person's personality. And those nitty gritty details are what make fictional characters come alive. Sometimes these random traits become an integral part of how I play the character. Sometimes, they're minor and hardly, if ever, come up in game.

Finally, if I really love the character or have lots of extra time and am bored, I like to consult this website (http://similarminds.com/index.html) and take a personality test or two, answering the questions as if I was my character. This can give you a good summation of your character, as well as a snapshot of their worldview, especially if your not good at coming up with that stuff yourself.

Here's my long list of questions that I use. I'm about to begin answering them for my new PC. I'm excited, because I don't get to PC near-often enough.

Motivation:
Marriage Status:
Education:
Inner Personality Traits:
Random NPC Trait:
Social Personality Trait:
Behavioral:

Basics
Full Name:
Meaning of Name:
Goes By:
Birth Place:
Age:
Race:
Any Scars or Distinguishing Marks:
Build or Body Type:

Family and Childhood
Mother:
Father:
Parents' Occupations:
Family Finances:
Brothers:
Sisters:
Other Close Family:
Best Friend:
Other Friends:
Pets:
Home Life During Childhood:
Important Experiences or Events:
Health Problems:
Culture:
Religious Views:

Your Character's Character
Bad Habits:
Strong Points:
Temperament:
Attitude:
Weakness:
Fears:
Secrets:
Regrets:
Feels Vulnerable When:
Pet Peeves:
Conflicts:
Motivation:
Priorities:
Philosophy:
If granted one wish, what would it be:
Goals and Hopes:
Exercise Routine:
Speech:
Tag Words:
Gestures:
Day or Night Person:
Introvert or Extrovert:
Optimist or Pessimist:

Likes and Styles
Music:
Books:
Foods:
Drinks:
Animals:
Social Issues:
Color:
Clothing:
Jewelry:
Games:

Where and How Does Your Character Live Now
Home:
Household furnishings:
Favorite Possession:
Neighborhood:
Town or City Name:
Details of Town or City:
Married Before:
Children:
Relationship with Family:
Best Friend:
Other Friends:
Pets:
Career:
Dream Career:
Dream Life:
Hobbies:
Talents:
Finances:

Your Character's Life Before Campaign
Past Careers:
Past Lovers:
First memory:
Most important childhood event that still affects him/her and why:
Biggest Mistakes:
Biggest Achievements:

Psychology

One word he would use to describe self:
One paragraph description of how he would describe self:
What does he consider his best physical characteristic:
What does he consider his worst physical characteristic:
Are these realistic assessments:
How he thinks others perceive him/her:
What four things would he most like to change about self:
If the first chang was made, would character be as happy as he thinks:
Greatest source of strength in character's personality (whether he sees it as
such or not):
Greatest source of weakness in character's personality (whether he sees it as
such or not):
Character's soft spot:
Is this soft spot obvious to others:
If not, how does character hide it:
Biggest vulnerability:
How he feels about self:
Past failure he would be embarrassed to have people know about:
Character's greatest fear and why:
What is the worst thing that could happen to him:
What single event would most throw character's life in complete turmoil and why:
Character is most at ease when:
Most ill at ease when:
How character reacts in a crisis:
How character faces problems:
Kinds of problems character usually runs into:
How character reacts to NEW problems:
How character reacts to change:

[Thomas]

Never create more than you'll use in-game, I say. (When is your "first memory" going to come into play?)

I start with a concept (usually a familiar character, like D'artagnan), and develop it as I play. What your character does is much more important than all the history and background in the world. (I adore the "create your character on the run" option a few games have.) If I need background, I can improvise it on the spot (and write it down somewhere). I've created several great characters this way.

Who'd ever remember that much stuff written down, anyway? (And how could you only give one response to like half of those questions? Were talking about characters, who are people, not pieces of code. Reactions are very situational and changeable.)

[pestilenceawaits]

I like to look at various sources for inspiration sometimes it is a prestige class other times it is a tv character (my favorite being a conspiracy theorist ranger/ rogue with vermin as his hated enemy based on Dale Gribble from king of the Hill). sometimes it is based around a spell I really want to be able to cast. then I build up a back story that will best allow the character to fit the roll I have for him.

[Kiroho]

Goken -

This is a fantastic example of someone setting up to Role Play as opposed to Roll Play. I agree that it's the little details that bring a character to life and knowing all those little details beforehand help you to roll-play the character instead of the stat sheet.

In the past, when I've been the DM, I've had players give me this kind of information before they even start on rolling dice. I've always found that it makes for more interesting gaming.

[Zincorium]

Goken -

This is a fantastic example of someone setting up to Role Play as opposed to Roll Play. I agree that it's the little details that bring a character to life and knowing all those little details beforehand help you to roll-play the character instead of the stat sheet.


First, Stormwind Fallacy. Second, often I find that starting with a set of ideas and behaviors then developing your character over the course of the game, rather than having a story written before it all starts, goes farther to creating a memorable character and a harmonius group. This works best if you start at level one, and reveal/invent details like the ones above that fit the character that you are playing, as opposed to the one that you intended to play before you met all the other characters.

[Pegasos989]

I am much more interested in my character's current personality than designing, say, his favourite color or past lovers. :P I normally just find a concept I would like to play (either mechanically or roleplay wise) and then write a bit down but mostly keeping just concept, style and mood in my head and improvising if needed.

[Sahegian]

I always like to start with a little snippet of the character. Kind of like a commercial for the character. I generally write it out first. Depending on what I'm looking for in the character it can be a little action based segment or maybe a humorous moment in the life of the character. I then try to build on that as that little snippet is the view of my character that I wish to highlight. It has the added benefit of making a nice little submission for a background as well.

I generally use a much abbreviated, but similar list of questions as well though yours seems to cover a lot of areas that mine doesn't. I generally like to start with a little piece of something and build onto it. I use the list of questions as a sort of construction plan after I have the inspiration piece and I answer them to suit it.

[Thomas]

I think HeroQuest has perhaps the coolest character generation system: the core of your character is a 100-word narrative. It has to include your keywords (culture and nationality, occupation, magic keywords like religion); the 100-word-limit forces you to be brief and concise, but you have to put everything important that defines your character in there. (And just about every adjective or noun can go on the character sheet. If you describe your character as "A canny warrior, bold and fleet-footed...", you get Canny, Bold, and Fleet-Footed as abilities...)

As you play your character, you pay Hero Points gained during play to "cement benefits" you've gained in play (for instance, a magic sword you found, or a cult you joined), and add these to the narrative (no word limit applies here, since the bit that's going to be on your sheet is already defined).

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I like my heroes to be "legendary". With the DM's consent, I will write an backstory spanning eons and creating a rich history for my character to exist in, within the confines of the setting (though I usually create something distinct there instead of borrowing from the setting itself. Playing in it instead of to it). My character usually has some important connection with this timeline and the characters/settings involved. After finishing several, several pages worth of it all, I hand the histories and such to my DM, go over the basics, and explain how my character fits into it all. Then I make a few suggestions as to how they could incorporate what I made into the campaign, if they wish.

Next, I fit my own personality into the character's situations. Specifically, if I was in the PC's shoes, how would I want or believe myself to act? This is why I'm almost always chaotic good, since my "true" personality reflects that. If I'm not, it's because the events that occur in the backstory somehow shape and change "me" to be something else.

Also, I usually have an ensemble cast in my backstories. I leave their inclusion in the campaign up to the DM's discretion, but I deeply love it when the DM has them make appearances. I particularly like choosing my favorite among them to be my cohort when I obtain leadership.

Most importantly, let your class reflect your character, not the other way around. Don't take up magic just because magic is overpowered in D&D- pick magic because it's something your character would like to learn/is learning. That said, learn to powerbuild inside of the confines of your roleplaying, and you'll have a wonderful time.

And it's always nice to see someone so dedicated to their roleplaying. I really respect that.

[Thomas]

I like my heroes to be "legendary". With the DM's consent, I will write an backstory spanning eons and creating a rich history for my character to exist in, within the confines of the setting (though I usually create something distinct there instead of borrowing from the setting itself. Playing in it instead of to it). My character usually has some important connection with this timeline and the characters/settings involved. After finishing several, several pages worth of it all, I hand the histories and such to my DM, go over the basics, and explain how my character fits into it all. Then I make a few suggestions as to how they could incorporate what I made into the campaign, if they wish.

Sounds a bit dull, honestly. I'd much rather see PCs become legendary, during play. A victory or adventure you make up isn't anywhere near as cool as one that you and your friends played out.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Well, not quite like that. I mean more of things like prophecy, destiny, expectations, bloodlines, etc. And I really like making it something my character has to oppose for whatever reason, like an outcast prince or a good character with a horrible, destructive destiny. Mostly just so I don't feel like "Phil, guy who wants loot and XP" when we start out.

[Zincorium]

Well, not quite like that. I mean more of things like prophecy, destiny, expectations, bloodlines, etc. And I really like making it something my character has to oppose for whatever reason, like an outcast prince or a good character with a horrible, destructive destiny. Mostly just so I don't feel like "Phil, guy who wants loot and XP" when we start out.

Middle ground, man, middle ground. I tend towards the 'ordinary person put in a position to do extrordinary things' myself, but I try different stuff most of the time so I don't overuse that one particular concept, and it remains special. Also, it tends to annoy other people less than playing essentially the same character each time.

Prophecy and destiny are good in a book, where the ending is predetermined, and bad in a roleplaying game where the ending and method of getting there are constantly in flux and impossible to determine.

[goken04]

Thomas- Well, then, you and I use very opposite methodologies for fleshing out characters. Hence the discussion. But I'm an author, and I love writing so I don't see a problem with writing a short (paragraph or two) story that never even comes up in game. It gives me a more complete view of the character's personality. These questions help me discover things about my character that I had no idea I'd include in his histories when we started.

I always start with my stat sheet. I mean, I might say I want to play a character who is impetuous, fast, and strong. But then I go right to making it mechanically. I never start this sort of character history until I have the mechanics rather set in stone.

To have a character that has a feel like a real person, you have to know things about his life before playing him. If you're starting playing a character, there's at least two decades of his life that happened before you began playing him. Everyone's current personality is determined by past life events. If you're starting with a complete personality (and if you play the character a couple of sessions, you'll be pretty close to having developed a complete personality) and then manufacture a background as you go along, logically, you're reverse engeneering everything. Unless you're an extremely good story-teller, it's likely to come off a little fake. You're letting the character's personality determine the character's past, rather than letting a character's past define who he is now. This, generally, leads to bad writing (or, in this case, storytelling).

Now, it depends on your own desire for depth, roleplay, and ad libbing. If you're in a group that's heavy on combat and light on rp, then maybe you don't want to put that kind of work into a character. If you don't think your interaction with your fellow PCs will ever go in-depth enough that it matters if your character is rather two-dimensional or not, then maybe you don't want to think about your character ahead of time. If you are an amazing ad-libber that can come up with great names for important NPCs and detailed events about your life off the cuff, then maybe you don't have to bother with that stuff until someone asks you.

However I'm not such an ad libber, and I think it's always important for me to understand my character's motivations. If you don't, that's cool. But I like to let my character's motivations determine his actions. And his motivations are determined by the life he lived before I became him.

I've started on the character history for the character I mentioned earlier. Before I started, all I knew was that he was a Wood Elf Ranger 2/Monk 4 named Zidiki Dathajah, he has a fiery passion for justice, came from an all elf monastery that emphasizes mixing the traditional arts of elven swordplay and archery with martial arts, and I thought it'd be cool if he was married.

Now I know that he comes from a small village in the Forest of the Ten Rainy Suns where he grew up with his mother and father (Aretirr and Eladhinh), his older brother Rilhoun, and his much younger sister Gahehlaah. He joined a monastery of the Monks of the Silver Arrow, where he was trained for 75 years, because he was impressed by them when watching them protect his village when he was a child. He fell passionately in love with an elf girl named Oporlail Moonbreak before finishing his training, but was too young to marry her yet. He married very young for an elf and he and her still live in the village, because she doesn't want to leave her family. However, he is constantly travelling wide on quests for the Monks of the Silver Arrow and is unable to see her for many months at a time. He was taught many things by the monastery, not the least of which, was his respect for the balance of nature and the value of human life. He views necromancy as the ultimate perversion of life and an unbalancing force of nature. He hates necromancy and destroys all undead when he comes in contact with them. His first encounter with such things was one of his first training missions that pitted him against a cult of Nerull where he received a sword wound that has still, nearly 50 years later, left a scar on the left side of his stomach. He also is, surprisingly, a passionate art lover, something he learned from his mom.

All these things effects how he feels about being shipwrecked on a strange island where all sorts of weird things keep happening when he was on his way home and the way he reacts to situations that came up. When we ran across the ruins of an ancient city, not only was his calculating mind trying to discern what happened to it, but he was interested in the many statues of a strange courtyard and the craftsmanship with which they were made. It's the little things that make a character real. The devil's in the details.

And I'm not even done with his history yet.

[ArmorArmadillo]

One of the real triumphs of the D&D system is the alignment system, so that is where I like to start. Going beyond the simple 9, I like to decide what the character's complexities of morality and ethics are.

In my opinion, good roleplaying comes from conflict, and the key to successfully play a conflict comes from knowing morality.

Situation 1A person very important to your character is terminally ill. A Cleric has recently developed a potion that will heal her, but he's charging too much for you to afford. You've offered to pay later if he gives you the potion now, but he refuses. Do you steal the potion?
If you do, do you try to do it secretely or make your identity public?
If you do, do you try to leave the Cleric alone or make him pay for his greed?
You worship the same God as this Cleric, does this change things?
You worship an opposed God to this Cleric's, does this change things?

Situation 2You've just defeated an evil warlord, but the damage he's dealt to the city was staggering. The people are moving to overthrow the king, not out of necessity, but out of a general anger over the damage that was caused, the king is not a particularly great ruler, but he often helped you in your campaign against the warlord.
Do you support the king, or do you allow him to be overthrown?
If you chose to support him, but keeping him in power means alienating the citizenry, do you still support him?
If you chose to support him, but doing so requires quelling a violent civilian uprising, possibly having to kill some of the mob, do you still support him?
If you had the support of the citizenry to replace him as king, and could prove a more effective ruler, would you still support him?
If you are leaving the city soon, does that change things?
If the king is overthrown, he will lose his place in the Kingdom's royal cemetary, a position of great honor. Does this change your decisions?

Your answer isn't the important thing here, but the rationale behind it. Honestly, you shouldn't be deciding the answers as part of your character, but if you have a well-developed character the answers should result from the character.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

That's why I run my stuff by the DM first. I try not to outshine the other PC's when I can help it, even if that means writing backstories for every single PC myself (with their permission and input, of course). By destiny, I mean what's supposed to happen, not what will. I make a point of telling the DM not to allow any deus ex machina's to let me fulfill any of it. I want an uphill battle. But I also want it to feel like even if it's very hard for me, I'm ultimately the only one who can do it. Whatever it is.

But the regular farm boy that raises to meet impossible odds is also fun to see in action. I've just never played one, as it's not my favorite character story :)

[Thomas]

To have a character that has a feel like a real person, you have to know things about his life before playing him.

...

Now, it depends on your own desire for depth, roleplay, and ad libbing. If you're in a group that's heavy on combat and light on rp, then maybe you don't want to put that kind of work into a character. If you don't think your interaction with your fellow PCs will ever go in-depth enough that it matters if your character is rather two-dimensional or not, then maybe you don't want to think about your character ahead of time. If you are an amazing ad-libber that can come up with great names for important NPCs and detailed events about your life off the cuff, then maybe you don't have to bother with that stuff until someone asks you.

The first is plain untrue, and the second is just more Stormwind Fallacy.

Practically the only times I get to actually play a PC is in a MUSH; there's no monsters to kill, nothing to do except RP your character, interacting wiht other characters. I still don't go in with ready backgrounds. I just have the basic idea of what I want to play, and I go to it. After a month, I could fill out any quiz or questionnaire form in incredible detail. At this point (having played my characters for 5 and 3 years, respectively), I could go on about their personalities, quirks, habits, and in-game histories (which I have never written down anywhere) for hours.

All you actually need to know is things that will come up in play, and that define how your character acts. You don't need to know how your character became that way (and there's no such thing as clear, consistent, obvious causation between past history and personality traits; most real people don't even know why they act the way they do).

Also, "great names" ? Maybe I'm weird, but I really don't bother agonizing over names. Any name will do (I prefer to borrow from Shakespeare's plays and the Cymric language).


The archetype I choose at the beginning gives me everything I need to play immediately. For my favorite characters, Priam and Uwaine, the archetypes were "D'artagnan" and "evil wizard" (covers everything from Voldemort to Raistlin to Emperor Palpatine to Iznogood to Disney's Jafar). During play, I quickly developed some quirks (Priam only ever smiles faintly but acts very flamboyant; Uwaine speaks in a hissing voice and becomes incredibly, vocally annoyed when his questions are met with willful idiocy). Every week I played them, more traits developed; events in-game defined their personalities further. When questioned about their past, I improvised something on the spot (Uwaine was a bastard child who'd joined a monastery as a young adult and eventually travelled far and wide trying to learn about real magic and demonology). At the in-game age of two years, Uwaine had been a librarian and had begun to learn sorcery; Priam had joined the Royal Guard, resigned in a huge fiasco, become embittered at what he saw as a rotten, corrupt Royal Court, and had turned from a flamboyant fencer into a gruff, tough-as-nails cop. They've both been fun and engaging characters (for me and for others) throughout the whole period of time.

The characters are as fully-realized and as detailed as any; they also feel real, because their defining moments and significant history have actually happened in-game. They don't need to refer to pre-game events to explain anything about themselves (which gives them, I'd say, additional versimilitude in a closed environment like a MUSH; other characters can learn my characters' past before ever speaking to them, without any contact with me, the player).

[Pegasos989]

I think it is time that the stormind fallacy was linked here again...

http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=9165883&postcount=338

[Viscount Einstrauss]

That gives me a fun idea. A campaign that's all about growing the characters, from children up to old age. There's stats for that sort of stuff after all.

[goken04]

The first is plain untrue, and the second is just more Stormwind Fallacy.

Of course 3-5 year old characters aren't two-dimensional.... Anymore. But I guarantee you, the first and second session where you played the "evil wizard" who you knew next to nothing about, your character came off as two-dimensional. No biggie, it's not an insult. You seem like a great role-player with cool characters. But PROFESSIONAL actors will often create rather cliche or two-dimensional characters when they're ad-libbing. Creating in-depth personality takes time. If you want to wait around until that time occurrs in game, then sure you'll eventually develop a character that feels like a real person. But I like to have one from the get go.

As far as stormwind fallacy, nothing could be further from the truth. All I meant by that paragraph was that I was acknowledging that there is more than one way to play DnD and that different kinds of preperation are needed. For the most part, my gaming group is VERY combat focussed, so that we'll spend 75% of the session in initiative order most of the time. Which is fine, I enjoy it, and most of the time I power game. I also love the roleplay, too, so I put a lot of work into being able to have an in-depth feel for my character before the first session. Other members of my group don't love to roleplay, so they don't put much work into it. That's fine. Sometimes they're characters can be pretty simplistic when we get into situations that require roleplay. That is also fine. They have more fun with combat than they do roleplay, that's cool. I thoroughly enjoy both.

I think you seem like a good roleplayer. You don't put as much preparation into creating a character's personality as I do. That's cool. I like to. That's how I have fun roleplaying. There are other ways. People have offered some pretty cool methods they use for creating there characters in this thread (I like the "commercial from his life" idea and the two conflict situations). That's what I was going for. If you don't like my method of preparation, feel free not to use it.

(Finally, as for the name thing, I just mean, I suck at creating names. As a DM, I have a list of a bunch of names, sorted by race, that I consult when I unexpectedly name NPCs. I've also heard other DMs/PCs come up with some stupid names on the spot. Mostly we all just have a good laugh about it. Other times it breaks the mood. All I'm saying is, if I mention I have a wife and someone asks what's her name all of a sudden, I don't want to be stuck with a wife named "Rollllllllleeeeeeendaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.")

[axraelshelm]

most of the time i go with class and then start asking question why this character chose to walk that path.
My abjurer concept was a man that got hurt emotionly in the past and because of that had chose a life of sheilding himself from harm emotionly and physicly.
An emotional cripple wizard, to me it would had been too easy to have said wizards wife been murdered by orcs it's not the emotion i want him to be portrayed he is miserable but in a very quiet recluse sort of way. I been meaning to play him in my next compaign.

[cupkeyk]

I basically follow the character creation for WoD VtM Malkavians.

Aside from making my character I pick one derangement and three quirks on how it manifests. As per personal history I make that up along the way. I also lie and make stuff up as aside jokes.

Like my megalomaniacal mage: a) Never introduces himself (waits to be introduced and announced). b) Never opens doors/equipment for himself or performs any manual labor for himself. c) Never runs, at most, hustles.

I think this totally makes it oober fun for roleplaying.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Goken: That is fantastic. Much better than going solely on how much damage you can do in a round, and how well you can one-up your other players.
I follow a similar thought process when I create a character. I like to create the base central idea; e.g. what the character is designed to do. Secondly, I do all of the "fleshing out" of the character, all of their quirks, personality, etc. The last thing I do is do the actual ability scores, classes, and feats.

[Shazzbaa]

To have a character that has a feel like a real person, you have to know things about his life before playing him. If you're starting playing a character, there's at least two decades of his life that happened before you began playing him. Everyone's current personality is determined by past life events. If you're starting with a complete personality (and if you play the character a couple of sessions, you'll be pretty close to having developed a complete personality) and then manufacture a background as you go along, logically, you're reverse engeneering everything. Unless you're an extremely good story-teller, it's likely to come off a little fake. You're letting the character's personality determine the character's past, rather than letting a character's past define who he is now. This, generally, leads to bad writing (or, in this case, storytelling).

I would call myself something of a writer, as writing plays a HUGE role in successful comicking. So, I ask you as a writer, haven't you ever had a moment when you realised something about your character or his past? Haven't you ever been writing or working on a character and suddenly realised what made him the way he was? It happens to me all the time. The character wasn't any less deep or fleshed-out or "real" before I realised this; he already had his own personality. It's not reverse-engineering; I just didn't know why he was the way he was until that point.

It's just like real people. Most of my real-life friends, I never bother to seek out information about their past life or relationships, unless they feel like telling me. But upon meeting and interacting with them, I know what they're like. All their quirks and personality traits and, often, motivations become clear just by hanging out with these other people. But as for what gave them these motivations and quirks, I learn that as I get to know them.

Can't a character be largely the same? I don't think it makes a character any less real to know what they're like without knowing why -- in fact, knowing why is not entirely ever necessary for making a complete character.


Now, it depends on your own desire for depth, roleplay, and ad libbing. If you're in a group that's heavy on combat and light on rp, then maybe you don't want to put that kind of work into a character. If you don't think your interaction with your fellow PCs will ever go in-depth enough that it matters if your character is rather two-dimensional or not, then maybe you don't want to think about your character ahead of time. If you are an amazing ad-libber that can come up with great names for important NPCs and detailed events about your life off the cuff, then maybe you don't have to bother with that stuff until someone asks you.
I don't think this is fair at all. :smallfrown: If filling out a great deal of questions and inventing a lot of background information helps you flesh out a character, that's awesome. But that doesn't mean that people who haven't done that have 2-D characters or don't care about roleplay.

Quite the contrary, for some people (myself included) having all these stats and backstory and past experiences is quite meaningless. It doesn't make the character any more real and, once I've learned the answers to these questions, it doesn't make my character any more deep. In short, it may help you, but it doesn't help everyone. I could fill out ten questionaires on my character and I still wouldn't know who he was until I observed his behaviour a little.

I generally have a vague idea of the sort of character I'd like to make, and in the time between conception and character creation, just observing him in my own mind tells me what I need to know about his personality in order to create him, and the time between character creation and the first session is plenty for me to have a good sense of who he is.

I don't think it's quite fair to say that creating characters this way results in something fake or two dimensional. I think it's that different people see the world -- and other people -- in different ways, and thus are going to go about developing their own characters in different ways. Some people are going to get a "sense" of how someone is, so they'll probably build characters on a similar concept -- others are going to fully understand someone when they understand their motivations, and those people are probably going to want to know where their characters got their motivations.

I mean, heck, even roleplaying is different for different people. Some people take on their character's mindset while in-character; others understand their character's thoughts and wishes as if he were a separate entity, but act in his name. There are probably still other ways of looking at it; and the way you roleplay could also make a significant impact on the way that you prefer to design characters.

Basically, I understand why you like using your method, and I think it's really neat that you can get something out of that -- but at the same time, I know that approaching character creation in such a way would do nothing for me, and certainly won't help everyone, and that there are definitely other ways of creating a deep and real character.

[goken04]

Shazzbaa, I agree with most of what you said, because I think you significantly misunderstood me. Did you read the whole post? I don't think my way is the only, that's the point of the thread. However, I do think it takes some preparation to develop a three dimensional character. If you spend time just thinking about your character, that's preparation. I was responding to Thomas's assertion that he can create a very in-depth and well thought out character by coming up with a vague archetype (like "evil wizard") and making it up as he goes along in five minute's time. I don't think ad-libbing is a valid means of character preparation. Though there's nothing wrong with ad-libbing.

[bosssmiley]

Start with a vague but plot-hooky origin, background and description, fill in with the GM's help as the game progresses. Always have one or two memorable things about the character plotted out in advance. That's about it, everything else emerges in play. Has worked for me for...too long now. :smalleek:

Think of characters in well-written serial shows like "Firefly" or long-running book series like "Discworld"; you find out a little something new about their personal history or character every episode/story. Maybe these things were plotted in from the character's inception, maybe they were just thought up by the writers or actors on the spur of the moment. Either way, they all add depth to the portrayal.

Building up the character's history over time adds a little verisimilitude as that's the way we learn about the tastes and quirks of our RL friends. Eventually these created characters can become as distinct, unique and memorable in the minds of those who 'know' them as a lot of real world people.

[ArmorArmadillo]

Think of characters in well-written serial shows like "Firefly" or long-running book series like "Discworld"; you find out a little something new about their personal history or character every episode/story. Maybe these things were plotted in from the character's inception, maybe they were just thought up by the writers or actors on the spur of the moment. Either way, they all add depth to the portrayal.

Building up the character's history over time adds a little verisimilitude as that's the way we learn about the tastes and quirks of our RL friends. Eventually these created characters can become as distinct, unique and memorable in the minds of those who 'know' them as a lot of real world people.This is a standby of D&D, but not necessarily the best way. Think of other well-written shows like Cowboy Bebop, where we ultimately learn very little of the hero's past, but rather learn his character through his day-to-day actions.
It often feels much more real than a stop-go flashback series where every few episodes you stop and explain backstory, continue, and repeat.

Sometimes the best backstory is the one you get a hint or hook from, but never an exposition.

[LordLocke]

It depends on method, really.

If I'm coming in with dice rolls, I might have a loose idea what I want (a dwarven caster, or a human skillmonkey, for example) but I tend not to flesh out much more then that, both because of not knowing if I could support a more-complex concept before die rolls, and partially because I'll expand them a little more with each placed stat. It's always fun rationalizing why your Dwarven Enchanter has 14 strength but an 8 for Wisdom. (He's used to making people he associates with see things the Dwarven Way- by force, if not by fun mind-affecting spells Even if the Dwarven Way is currently making life harder for everyone involved.)

If it's a point buy or stat spread, I'll usually have a concept fully-realized when I sit down to stat 'em out, and it's just a matter of placing numbers in best relation to that. Which it lacks the potental creativity of doing so while stating out your character, sometimes you just have this really, really good concept for an Elan Knight/Psion/War Mind or something, and you want to be sure you got the numbers to pull it off (to the best of the spread's ability, at least)

It doesn't really matter how much you flesh your character out beforehand, though, as long as you bring it to life when you play. The world has enough stock stick-in-the-arse paladins, grumpy bookworm wizards and dashing and witty rogues that it doesn't need someone to run one without any thought or effort just for the sake of having a character out there. Even old cliches can be new again with the right approach and enough joyful enthuasum from the player involved.

And, if you're feeling a little bolder next time, you can go with that necromancer-hunting, scythe-wielding halfling cleric of Nerull.

[Dhavaer]

What do you mean by Behavioural:?

[Diggorian]

I develope persona much like some of the other "libber"s here. In a blatant opposition to Stormwind, my Method Acting informs my power gaming and vice-versa.

Sometimes I'll have a role/class I want to fulfill. After choosing the stats, feats, skills stuff I let my choices hint at who this PC is. Kek'Kess (http://www.geocities.com/thelorddiggus/kekkess.jpg) my thri-kreen ranger has Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 6. Combining these stats with the flavor text of Kreen being alien, insectile clutch pragmatists creates a persona.

Kek'Kess is too dumb for complex planning, an ambusher who only speaks when spoken too or when it's cataclysmically necessary with a one sentence or less. A clear glistening footlong line a drool hangs from his constantly moving manibles, which turns yellow when his poison sacs are full. Yet, He's always on alert and would eat a gnoll's skin like the breading off friend chicken for his friends (clutchmates.)

Other times a concept comes first and my stat choices follow it closely. Read the Ecology of the hobgoblin in Dragon 309 and became fascinated with the race. Their lawfulness and strict discipline made them seem a race of samurai. Yet, he's gotta fit in the party. So I hatched a sketch story about a young hobgoblin that deserts a corrupt, honorless clan to seek his own path and one day return to redeem them. This made Noriyuk (fake Japanese) the clan-less, my avatar.

The samurai class isnt a fave :smallyuk: so I did fighter. Improved initiative, quick draw, heavy blade focus and specialization (UA) etc. Took Warblade levels as soon as we got Tome of Battle. blah blah blah

He joined the party by swearing an oath of service to the cleric who just led the party in a victory against goblins :smallamused: That clan was a part of the corrupted so I owed the PCs. I'm lucky to have two women gamers in my group, so getting in-character conversation was easy to define him .:smallbiggrin: :
You're a savage baby eater hobgoblin!
:smallamused: "Ha! Why waste a perfectly good child that can be raised into a loyal slave?"

Why do you bathe so much Hobgoblin, afraid of getting fleas?
:smallyuk: "The way you halflings eat, you should keep a damp cloth tucked under your fat chins."

What do you know of tactics, ignorant monster?
:smallmad: "I've fought more battles than you've read pages, mage. Now search your tomes for something to make you useful; the meatshield is working here!"

I hope my goddess will provide her blessing upon you.
:smallannoyed: "Praise Her name; now shut up and buff me!"

After loosing about 150 hp in damage and surviving 10-12 confirmed crits, they came to respect me. :smallbiggrin:

[pita]

You're smarter than me.
I hate when people are smarter than me.
It makes me feel not smart.
I like this idea you have.
I'll use it on my half ogre. He's a collector of items.