[Starfinder] Character Creation Writer's Block

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Lately I've become absolutely desperate to play more Starfinder, currently playing in play-by-posts of the Dead Suns and Dawn of Flame Adventure Paths as well as two more homebrew campaigns, so I've wanted to pre-make some PCs I can just drop immediately into any recruitment threads I can find the moment I spot them, but I'm finding it hard to come up with coherent, compelling characters that resonate with the narratives and themes of the APs I haven't played yet (Against the Aeon Throne, Signal of Screams, Attack of the Swarm! and The Threefold Conspiracy) that feel different enough from my current four characters to be interesting, and I've struggled with this problem for weeks. Either I can come up with a basic concept that doesn't have any personality or ability to fit into an AP's plot, or I come up with something that's perfect...but for an AP I'm already playing in, or it's perfect, but the same as a character I'm already playing in one of the homebrew games, and I'm getting increasingly frustrated.

Spoiler: My current PCs

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Arcalinte Soter: My Dead Suns character, a Half-Elf Scholar Solarian who worships Sarenrae and is kind of a warrior-monk archaeologist.

Belmarniss Rycast: My Dawn of Flame character, a Drow Solar Disciple Technomancer with the Star Knight archetype, a knight-errant and pilot who wanted to see the stars and is now walking on one.

Bonar "Bravo" Vizetelly: One of the homebrew characters, a Human Career Trooper Soldier with the Starfinder Forerunner archetype, a taciturn boy-scout who was written deliberately to be as boring as possible.

Rokayla Vonarx: The other homebrew character, a Ferran Colonist Solarian with the Starfinder Data Jockey archetype, a friendly dilettante looking to help found a Starfinder lodge and a colony of her people on the abandoned ecumenopolis she and her friends are exploring.

How do I get out of this rut I seem to be in and make characters for the other APs good enough like these ones yet not identical to them to maximize my odds of getting selected by any random GM looking to run one of them? Am I overthinking this?

[Maat Mons]

If it helps, here's the one Starfinder character I've ever built.

Thirteen Thirty-Seven: An android with a passion for extremophile organism. He enjoys nothing more than wandering about environments that few other races could survive in, scraping samples of lichen off rocks, filling sample vials from strange bubbling pools, and examining the things he collects under a microscope. He carries only a Pulscaster Pistol, which deals nonlethal damage, for self-defense, will not involve himself in any conflict that does not directly concern him, and provides expert first aid to any wounded creatures, even ones that were trying to kill him moments ago.

Currently, he's working with two men whose default solution to all conflicts is murder, doing the bidding of a violent criminal organization, in order to gain rewards that he doesn't actually care about. ... The closest I've been able to come to providing a rational explanation for his involvement in the plot is that he's collecting material for a case study on how awful and violent biologicals are.

[Psyren]

Have you read the newer classes in Character Operations Manual? (If not, they're freely available online thanks to being OGL.) Those might give you additional ideas.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Have you read the newer classes in Character Operations Manual? (If not, they're freely available online thanks to being OGL.) Those might give you additional ideas.

Indeed I have. In fact, a few of the vaguer ideas I've had for characters are for those classes, like a biohacker "gene-warrior" or a vanguard with a shield and one-handed rifle, but the problem there is figuring out personalities and backstories to flesh out those vague sketches, especially ones that will narratively work well in the APs in question.

[Telok]

Two that I've had some success with,

Parkour ninja speed walrus.
Typical dex & stealth operative with acrobatics and athletics, but you take the space walrus race plus all the land speed boosts you can get. Grab a jet pack and climbing suckers to round out your movement modes.
You can go charisma secondary, wear a cheerleader outfit and play ships' captain, or strength secondary to play with your natural attack and lean into the trench coat, katana, and shades image.
Either way you're a ton and a half of amazingly mobile, wall phasing, ceiling walking, flying, swimming, jumping, walrus operative.

The other works at low levels but starts failing around level 11+. SRO heavy armor melee drone mechanic who knows no engineering or computers. It puts arms, a toolkit, and the eng/comp skill modules on the drone instead. Unfortunately around level 10 the drone's skills are roughly 5+ points behind where the game expects you to be and its armor & hp have stopped keeping up with enemy to-hit and damage.
But it does pretty well in combat and rp up until then.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, now things have gotten more complicated: the game I play Rokayla Vonarx in just died, and now I need to figure out if I can fit HER into an AP or hope some GM somewhere wants to play another homebrew Starfinder game somewhere.

[Psyren]

I can't help you with the APs part of this since we haven't gotten to play through any of the SF ones either.

As far as making a SF class that feels plausible - the best advice I can give you is that there are tons of sci-fi properties you can draw inspiration from, ranging from tv shows to movies to video games to novels etc. Almost anything you can think of in Starfinder is bound to be somewhere.

[catagent101]

Since you've got multiple goals that each character has to achieve I'd suggest writing (or typing) down what reaching each of these goals means in your mind's eye. What does it mean for a character to resonate with an AP (either in general or for each)? What would make a character feel different from your other characters? What would maximize the odds of you getting selected by a GM? What does "coherent" and "compelling" mean to you? This should make it clearer how you could make such characters. This may be a little obvious, so apologies if you're doing this already.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Since you've got multiple goals that each character has to achieve I'd suggest writing (or typing) down what reaching each of these goals means in your mind's eye. What does it mean for a character to resonate with an AP (either in general or for each)? What would make a character feel different from your other characters? What would maximize the odds of you getting selected by a GM? What does "coherent" and "compelling" mean to you? This should make it clearer how you could make such characters. This may be a little obvious, so apologies if you're doing this already.

No apology necessary, it's something I should probably explicate.

When I say I want a character to resonate with an AP, I mean that I want the character's story and hypothetical character arc to slot into the AP's narrative seamlessly, so it feels like the character was written FOR that AP, rather than just being something I just thought would be cool to play shoehorned in to a narrative they don't fit in. As I'd be auditioning with a number of other potential players, I can't know what kinds of characters they intend to play, even if the potential GM sets guidelines, so I feel compelled to be the person who DOES tailor their character to the AP in order to guarantee it. There's always those people who want to play something completely wild that requires the GM's narrative to bend over backwards to explain how such a character became involved with the plot. The ninja in a party of vikings, the catgirl in a party of dwarves and hobbits. I can't change the fact that some people like playing such characters, but I can counterbalance it by grounding my own character in the narrative, even if the rest of the players don't.

This ties in to how I'd maximize the odds of getting selected: primarily by having the character ready to submit when I first spot a recruitment thread. The sooner I'm in, the less likely there will be other players who've posted a character concept similar to mine, forcing me to change it to fill a niche the party might just to have a shot at getting selected.

As for making my characters different from each other, that's a way of showing I'm a flexible roleplayer, and not just playing the same character with a different nametag. I want to headcanon that the APs I play in are all happening in the same universe, so it's necessary for the characters to be different people unless one AP is explicitly placed as a sequel to another one, something that's now much more likely with the three-part "half" APs like Against the Aeon Throne or the upcoming one The Destruction Arc. I want to get SOME use out of the books I've gotten through my subscription, especially since I'm scared to GM.

Not going to lie, this feels less like me elucidating my character creation process than me talking through my various RPG-related compulsions and neuroses...

[Psyren]

Have you asked on the paizo boards? Since you want character concepts that fit so well with a Starfinder AP, it's necessarily going to require people who've played through the AP in question to evaluate your concepts. You'll find more such people there than here.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

That's actually where I went for advice first, especially since all the Starfinder play-by-posts I'm currently in are there as well. But the majority of the advice was kind of vague, along the lines of "just roleplay what makes you happy" and "come up with their personality BEFORE you worry about fitting them into the story." It's not BAD advice, but it doesn't stop me from doing that thing where I stare at a blank screen trying to come up with ideas and worrying I'm just bad at applying literary analysis techniques to the APs.

[Psyren]

Well of course they're saying that - these APs are written to accommodate a wide variety of character concepts (from aspiring hero to paid mercenary to unlucky patsy), and that's by design.

You might want to try asking your question in a different way, such as:

"I'm going to play {insert AP here- e.g. Signal of Screams}. I've read the blurb/overview and I have some general ideas for character builds, but i really want them to fit into the adventure path from a background perspective. For example, I know that big parts of this adventure path involve the Plane of Shadow and the planet Verces. Could someone help me look over {insert desired character concept} and help me figure out ways for it to better fit in with this AP instead of feeling like another random adventurer?

By demonstrating you've done at least some legwork on your own, people will be more likely to suggest specifics to you that could improve your concept further.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

That's a much better way of putting it! Thank you!

[Albions_Angel]

My one character I have played in SF was a Vesk Vanguard. Full on punch heavy, took a taclash for read AoOs but tried to get in close for the fully levelled unarmed strikes. Pumped Str and Con. Wore Hardplate. Was an untouchable god that demolished enemies without trying (unfortunately, he upset party balance. Enemies that could hit him oneshot the other players, and if the enemies were balanced for them, Rudd just wandered around the battle field bopping them). Took Friendly Fire, Entropic Charge and the other vanguard option that let him take half an ally's damage as a reaction. Also took the feat that gave him BAB kinetic DR. I think I chose the combat manoeuvre discipline but it actually wasnt all that important. I never really spent any of my EP, just made sure I always had 1 for that extra AC.

Rudd was of average intelligence, and low charisma. He had a prehensile tail. And eventually wide spectrum eye implants. He rarely spoke.

But he did have a deep backstory. Several pages of it. With the Merc background, it was easy to build a Vesk from one of the worlds in the Veskarium who signed up to be part of a mercenary company as a coming of age rite. His sole aim is to earn enough money to "retire" to his homeworld, find a mate, and raise a clutch of warrior children. The meat of the backstory comes from fleshing out which companies he has served in, what his prejudices are, what battles he saw, etc. And then what is his reason for adventuring with the group. Rudd was hired by the Starfinders as protection for the party - an excuse to bring me in mid campaign. Thus his aspirations led him to take risks to save single members of the party who were out of place, and even hold choke points by himself because losing a party member would cost him a chunk of the money. It also sometimes placed him in conflict with the party, when one of their plans was too dangerous. He actually got between the party and the end boss and tried to talk both sides down - unusual for him to say anything usually - specifically because one of the party hated the species of the end boss, but it was a battle the party simply couldnt win (DM later confirmed it nearly worked, and he would have let us walk away, but after grappling the angry characters gun, rudd failed the second grapple vs his side arm and so combat got started).

He was great, and survived the campaign. He got a large pay out and is now returning to the veskarium.

I also created a back up character. A blind Vlaka Witchwarper with the Esper theme. His blindness in this world led him to see through the places between and into other worlds, where he could pull on their infinite possibilities to alter reality. A minor disruption pistol worked well with that concept. But it never came into play, and we moved on to playing WFRP (which I am now DMing).

This was all for a Roll20 live campaign, so it was more combat oriented that I imagine PbP is.

[Psyren]

That character sounds awesome Albion Yeah I've been curious about a Vesk Vanguard for a while now.

I do want melee in Starfinder to be a bit riskier, because guns should be dangerous. That might help with the balance issue you noticed. I've been wondering if bumping all the guns up a level or two might help contribute to that feeling.