What motivates your character creation?

[Radiun]

I don't mean their flavour, I mean their mechanics.

Do you usually make characters to try out new mechanics? Do you build characters so they can survive the harshest attack? Or do you simply try to make something new each time?

I tend to make characters I believe could break out of prison.
I don't know if it says more about me or my DMs, but I am eternally determined to not have my usefulness mitigated by a paltry set of iron bars.

[Saintheart]

What motivates my character creation?

POWAAHHHH!!! UUUUNNLLIIIMMITTED POWAAAHHHHH!!!!


*ahem*. Actually it's probably more like "what spots are missing in the team at the moment? What can I do to fit myself into the available niches?"

[Stephen_E]

Varies ussually involving 1 or more of the following -

1) How will this game mechanic work.

2) How will this back story/character type work.

3) What hole needs filling in the party.

4) What would be interesting to do today.

5) What sort of mood am I in today.


Stephen E

[Grumman]

I find 2-3 abilities, feats or PrCs that vaguely fit the same mechanical theme, and try to work out how to fit them all together. For instance, take the Body Outside Body spell, Incantatrix 2 for cooperative spellcasting and persistent spell, the Flux Adept's capstone so you don't get killed by your clones exploding, and you end up with Ashley Denisson, the One Woman Pike Regiment.

[Rixx]

I typically look for the options that seem the most fun to play, and build a character around that.

[BobVosh]

What motivates my character creation?

POWAAHHHH!!! UUUUNNLLIIIMMITTED POWAAAHHHHH!!!!


*ahem*. Actually it's probably more like "what spots are missing in the team at the moment? What can I do to fit myself into the available niches?"

This. I've played enough that every class is kinda old.

Also I try out things I haven't done before if every niche is filled, like a grappler or so forth.

[Grifthin]

What's awesome. That is all.

[Mongoose87]

I generally find some sort of mechanic I've never tried before, or been satisfied with my ability to play before, and try that. For example, I want to try a Goliath Barbarian/Bear Warrior, for one of my next characters.

[VirOath]

I often make characters just to the ludicrous speed of insanity. My favorite characters have been ones that not only filled in party holes, but also were zany in their own right. And not just by RP either, mechanics as well. Like applying your Cha score to your damage output, or odd ball weapons.


Now, I don't do this all the time of course, and every character must meet the guidelines I set myself down to for the character as a whole (RP and Fluff, keeping the concept). But every time a DM goes WTF?! because of me, my day gets a bit brighter.

[Duke of URL]

I don't mean their flavour, I mean their mechanics.

For me, the mechanics are motivated by the flavor. I don't (usually) have a "mechanical" goal in mind, such as "I want to play an optimized uber-charger"; instead, I start with a concept that simply sounds like fun.

That can either just be an idea I've wanted to try out, or something inspired by the specific setting/background of the game.

Now, once that decision is made, I'm then going to work on the mechanics to create an effective character that best matches the initial concept.

The exception to this is when I actually am testing out a mechanical concept, typically a homebrew mechanic, but that's usually outside of my normal gaming and more in the realm of playtesting.

[Temet Nosce]

When I'm going to make a character I start skimming through my book collection, I'll often go over a dozen books or more just glancing at classes/spells/feats/etc, and running them by the DM until I find an idea or a few interlocked ones I like and which fits with the party/DM.

Poor explanation I know but really, it comes down to whether or not I can get a clear feeling for how such a character would play (I.E. my last character was an AoO tripper who had almost no AC, with regeneration)

[Chrono22]

I almost always base my characters' mechanics around a character concept first... and then I fine tune the character to match my preferred play & combat styles.
I like to play characters that are tactically flexible, can create strategic advantages, and allow a high degree of specialization/individuality.
Beguilers, rogues, wizards, multiclass duskblade/warblades, rangers... it's a pretty long list, but high skill ranks and flexible class features are usually a requirement.

[Tshern]

I usually try to adapt to the needs of the party. Even though I greatly prefer casters, I try fix my character's role to fill whatever jobs are still not being handled by someone else.

[Eldariel]

I build something fun. That's about it. More precisely, I figure out a concept, figure out the best/most interesting mechanical representation I can use without breaking anything and go for it.

If I know what the others are playing, I might also skew my choices to fill in the gaps in the team; I rarely have strong preferences one way or another so it doesn't hurt my gaming experience and probably improves others' so it's a win-win.


Also, I like to play multitaskers; Cloistered Clerics, Swordsage/Daring Outlaws, Druids, Wizard/Unseen Seers, Warblades, Factotums, Rogues, Mystic Ranger/Swift Hunters, Bard/Sublime Chords, etc; generally, I want a good number of skill points, some interesting class features and some scaling stuff like spells, maneuvers, sneak attack or similar; preferably something with versatility of choice like spells, powers, maneuvers and other open-ended systems with infinite options.


This all comes together in that my concepts simply aren't usually one-dimensional; I have trouble imagining one-dimensional folk single-mindedly focusing only on a single goal and as such, my character concepts generally fall into multitaskers simply because I find them more logical and interesting. And as multitaskers can, by definition, be built to do pretty much whatever, filling in the gaps in the party is relatively easy. I just have to build the character in a manner to cover whatever we're missing.

[Quietus]

I tend to get my head stuck inside of some given character concept, then create mechanics to work around that. Example : Nalani, a highly inspired dancer who always wore a mask, so that the audience's attention would be on her movements, not on *her*. Then I looked at options; Aiming for master of masks? What about Dervish? Both seemed too "hard" for her; The first didn't fit because the focus was on the masks, not the dancing. And Dervish didn't fit because I didn't want to jump through all the hoops to qualify for it early enough to really see it in use in-game. Eventually I chose to go with Bard, using perform(dance) to inspire allies and distract enemies, preferring buffing-style spells along with things like Daze and Charm Person, so that any time she was dancing, she was either calling forth the primal feelings rooted deep within her allies, causing them to fight with renewed vigor, or dancing in such a way that the one person she paid the greatest attention to was equally entranced by her movements.

This is pretty much how it always works, with me. I pick a concept, then I scan the vast amount of mechanics available to me to make that concept as optimal as I can, within the bounds of what my party is capable of.

[misterk]

I try to get an idea of who my character is before building them in most systems. Obviously it depends- in wod the character will usually be rather campaign dependent, I'll come up with an idea for that, then build a character that reflects that.

In L5R I like to pick a role the party doesn't have, then look at advantages and flaws to think about what kind of person I'd like my character to be, then finally pick skills( I don't tend to minmax skills, but I usually do attributes because those are just kind of essential, and you need to actually fit the role you are in).

Obviously in more random systems such as WFRP the concept comes later. I am usually not too informed by the stats as to who my character is as I kind of hate doing that.

[dsmiles]

I start with the fluff. Character history and motivations, then build the 1st level character to fit the history and develop to fit his/her motivations.

[Nero24200]

For me, usally I'll just play around with a few ideas randomly. I'll take one that appeals to me then play with it a little more, maybe explore some themes with it and then begin thinking how it would apply in game.

For instance, I was reading the shifter entry in the Eberron book a while back. Off the top of my head I began thinking of...well..like a child shifter in the playground being bullied because he hasn't quite got the hang of shifting yet. This then got me thinking of "well, how would he learn? Would he need to learn discipline like a monk? Or maybe master magic or something?".

Later, I looked at the SpC and saw a few lycanthropy themed spells, then the idea just came to me. The idea was a shifter who is poor at mastering shifter abilities, so he/she learned druidic magic to help overcome this problem. And well..the theme developed to a Moon-Themed/Focused shifter druid.

[bosssmiley]

My last one failed a save-or-die, or got shanked somewhere in the endless corridors of the underworld, and I want to get back in the game.

3d6, in order.
Pick class and alignment.
Grab a starting kit selection.
Roll for motivation of a d% table (eg: "12: You owe Jabba the Hutt 1d6x10,000gp").
Play.

Flavour is what we add during play.

It really is no more complex than that for me.

[Kol Korran]

i must say that for me it's flavour as well. first what fits the character concept (which is mostly roleplay driven), with some side interesting mechanical aspect (like trying a character with max Edge in a shadow run game i'm about to start). all the rest comes to how i imagine the character will act in play.

[Guinea Anubis]

For me I look at what the party is lacking and try to fill that spot. Once I see what job I need to do I try and come up with a fun character background, Once I have a background I work on making the character fit that background.

[Ormur]

I think of a very broad character archetype that I want to play and then try to make it mechanically viable and perhaps fitting to the party. Somewhere along the way I think of more details to fill out the picture. But I really haven't made that many PC characters so there are plenty of roles I haven't played yet.

[TheCountAlucard]

For me, I typically start getting mental images playing through my head as I read the books for a game. When I start building a character, I try and give that image enough crunch to support it.

[drengnikrafe]

My general thoughts are fairly simple.

1) Is the party missing anything that isn't a Cleric that I can play as? (For some reason, I really hate clerics)
2) Do I like the DM? (If yes, go to 3, if no, go to 4)
3) Cool, I'll build something where there is a hole in the party (or a rogue or illusionist, if there isn't (yeah, I don't get to play often enough for that to get old))
4) Cool, I'll build something and pump it full of cheese.

[erikun]

For me, the mechanics are motivated by the flavor. I don't (usually) have a "mechanical" goal in mind, such as "I want to play an optimized uber-charger"; instead, I start with a concept that simply sounds like fun.

This. If some part of the mechanics inspires a character concept ("I want to play an Ultimate Magus!") then I'll see about creating one. However, I will start with creating the character first, then see how well I can fit the fancy prestige class into it.

I wouldn't say, "I want to try the King of Smack." I'd say, "I want to play a monk who flurries with a Sugliin," and then look at the King of Smack build as a way to optimize it.

[Gorbash]

I build characters that can perform in any situation. I don't mean jack of all trade type, but I don't try to specialize too much and I like to be well-protected and self-sufficient. Needless to say, I usually play spellcasters. My current characters are a Batman Wizard in a 3.5 game and Rogue/Red Mantis Assassin in Pathfinder Legacy of Fire campaign.

My next character will be Half-Orc Cleric/Ordained champion with War, Travel and Pride domains.

[Cyrion]

Mechanically, I look to fit my power level to the other players so that we can have some sort of cohesive party. I don't want to be the only one playing a highly optimized character, but at the same time I also don't want to be the only one NOT playing a highly optimized character. Raises everyone's survival and fun quotients.

After that I'll often look to fill a missing role (Except rogue. I'm not a good rogue.) and then create an interesting character for it. Like many others I start with the fluffy concept and find the mechanics that will make it fun to play. Sometimes I'll look for something that tries a new game mechanic, but I tend to be in campaigns that last a long time both IRL and IPL (in pretend life), so I tend to reserve mechanics testing for play testing and only run with something I'm pretty sure will be viable over a lot of levels.

[Gorbash]

I don't want to be the only one playing a highly optimized character, but at the same time I also don't want to be the only one NOT playing a highly optimized character. Raises everyone's survival and fun quotients.

Heh, in my group, out of 6 players, 2 of us are the only optimized and since the DM doesn't pull punches on the non-optimizers it falls on us to get the party through encounters. I mean, it's not like we're doing 100% of the job, but if we weren't optimizing there'd be way more TPKs.

[Cyrion]

Heh, in my group, out of 6 players, 2 of us are the only optimized and since the DM doesn't pull punches on the non-optimizers it falls on us to get the party through encounters. I mean, it's not like we're doing 100% of the job, but if we weren't optimizing there'd be way more TPKs.

Exactly my point. I don't want to be one of the K'd if I can avoid it. At the same time I don't want to be the one who makes it not fun for everyone (DM included) if I can simply blow through the stuff that pushes everyone else to the edge.

[valadil]

Depends on the game. Usually I'm trying to use mechanics to represent a person.

For a D&Dish game, I try to be aware of the role I'll fill and I try to make sure the build is competent at that role. Ideally I'll be the only player in that role.

I also try to make sure I will always have a way to contribute in any situation. I don't like wasting turns or swinging a mace for crappy damage because I have nothing better to do.