Character Theory Recurring themes in your characters?

I've found a liking for making crazy or violent sarcastic characters. Just seems real fun to do most of the time. I also like giving them habits.

My characters are related around depression, loneliness, and liking orphaned children.

A good many of my characters (of which all but my D&D Elven Paladin originate in the Star Wars Galaxy at some point in the timeline) are the sort that don't have a good sense of self. Instead , they feed into ideals , or if not ideals than their station in life , for their identities. Mostly it's because they're soldiers or Assassin Droids or Warriors , and are rather brainwashed and are likely to have experienced (and done) quite terrible things by now. Now that doesn't mean they themselves don't have goals (they all have real goals that are varying degrees of separate from what their superior's goals are) - it just means that their self-identity isn't entirely their own , and that can and will cause issues with how they behave and interact with the other characters. I suppose you could say they're broken (and one or two of them actually are , especially the ones that have goals father from what those ideals or stations dictate) , but I like to think they're lost more than anything. Which is fitting , I believe , since Star Wars is in a large part about war , and War tends to produce a great many lost people (not just soldiers , too - think about the people in the territories the soldiers are fighting in , watching their homes being destroyed and being forced to evacuate to places they may never have been before). Probably , out of my 6 characters currently in active play , 4 of them could be counted with great certainty as lost as it relates to self-identity. And one of the two that aren't still could be considered that as well , from a certain perspective. (That even includes my insanely narcissistic , self-driven HK-50 Assassination droid , because his only real identity is 'I'm Oh-Nine , and I'm superior to everything in the Galaxy' , which he really just retro-adapted from Sith philosophies).

That's not at all to say they aren't strong personalities with distinctive character traits and behaviors - they all are (most of the other characters and players agree on that) - it's just that they most commonly introduce themselves with their name and a title afterwards , and describe themselves using that same title.

I think it's mostly that I have reoccurring characters rather than themes. Generally they follow a subset of rules and then I adapt them to the Universe they're in. Reason being that I have so many characters by now that cover every archetype that if I make a new character it just tends to be a personality copy of the old one. For instance, one of my characters is usually designated by a C_ name, is a bastard (literally) and a bastard (figuratively). Generally has some sort of amnesia. While another, designated by an I_ name is generally a stick-in-the-mud religious figure with a psychopathic side.

I have some sort of power/authority fascination so my characters are either ridiculous crime bosses, aristocrats etc. or they're the most horribly downtrodden sonbitch in the society. Also even my real-world settings drift inevitably towards being dystopias.

One day maybe I'll make a character that's, like, comfortably middle class. But not today.

I usually hover on two extremes.

The first is a normal character with normal attitude. Not normal as in "perfectly average", but like that everyman you can see everyday.

The other one is the "screw destiny" type.

small and cute young adult female humanoid whose figure and features make her appear far younger and less mature than she truly is. generally dons an innocent persona and is usually a covert spellcaster, psychic, government operative, scout, or noblewoman, generally has a wealthy relative and usually has no issues taunting the perverse minded characters with something they know they will never be willingly allowed to touch.

I found that a lot of my characters have a strong relationship with their father or a father figure. I never put the same amount of emphasis on mothers. I also give many of my characters older brothers. Never younger, always older.

I have recently come to think I do this because of the fact that I have no father in my life and I am projecting the relationship I want on to my characters.

I guess I should work on that. I just noticed that this is consistently something that comes up in my characters. Sure, I'll add in bits and pieces of me sometimes, but it's usually just one personality trait, or one physical trait and that's about it. (In fact, most characters look nothing like me x). Pale with red hair has become my recent favorite)

My characters somehow all end up being left-handed, if that counts. I didn't even realize it, until I was like
Celia Silayeva - left-handed
Macon Gale - left-handed
Rachel Gene - left-handed
Darren Jupiter Winter - left-handed
XD
Also, they somehow all have a physical handicap-
Celia is, well, dead
Macon misses the lower half of his left arm
Rachel misses her right pinkie
Darren's entire left arm is metal
And they all know how to kill basically everything with basically everything...
Heh X'D

i can say, i never played a 7 year old killing machine, but i have played a nonhuman killing machine in her late twenties or early thirties who could pass for twelve to fourteen due to her figure and features due to some fantastical element like delayed aging, lucky genetics, or simply really good skincare.

I've noticed certain traits go together in my characters. Teenage girls are often cool-headed and in control, young men are often bookish wimps, smart-aleckry goes along with hidden, deep-seated insecurities (makes sense), maladjusted losers are paired with confident and conventional people, clean-cut, handsome and dutiful young men are deep thinkers who secretly doubt their place in the world, older women are unconventional and formidable, dandies are either sinister and morally dubious or misunderstood. That about does it I think, lol.

Oh, and a whole slew of my characters have dead mentors, but I think that was deliberate (younger me having a laugh)

They're a bunch of weirdos. Neurotic, clingy, talkative, anal-retentive, beaurocratic, narcissistic, alcoholic, mad scientist, megalomaniacal weirdos. And if they're not weird, you can bet some weird sh*t is going to happen to them they can join the club.

Wait, sh*t...I just realized my characters are basically the cast of Futurama...

I always love to make sarcastic, over the top and cheerful characters but.... my avatar begs to differ.

a recurring theme for me is my characters don't usually have depressing backstories. i should probably add some angst in there once and a while...

Well, to be fair, I DON'T have any recurring theme for my characters.
Which is somewhat of a recurring theme, most of my characters are very different and very strange.
As a player, I like (and have made a few) completely mad old man who can't think straight for shit, always wander around, fights for a cause but not for good, not for bad, just for a stupid and ridiculous reason. When you had up that they are a mage, they end up changing a castle into a Gigantic Ketchup Elemental. (YES, THAT HAPPENED AND IT WAS AWESOME, 4 weeks of preparation, 20'000 GP and a great team effort)

Reoccurring Theme 1: Most of my characters (male and female) have black hair and blue eyes.
Reoccurring Theme 2: All female characters are well endowed.

my chars are all adults, their age range varies between 25 and 32, only two exceptions are the parents of one of the characters, who are in their 50s.

My characters are usually heavily sarcastic bastards in some way. That or they're just your average joe in a cast of edgy, tight-assed, or no-chill characters.

My guys are usually laid-back jokers. My girls are usually a bit more serious and bitchy.

A good deal of the characters I've played as generally act in the service of others i.e. as a retainer or something along those lines.

And they're usually all male as well.

Generally a lot of my characters tend to be quite happy, bubbly creatures by nature - even my villains. Like I had one that would picture your slow, agonising death but he'd be giggling the whole time.
I have a few grumpy souls but yeh, majority tend to be upbeat (some overly so).

I usually try to avoid creating too similar characters. If anything, a recurring theme would be that my characters tend to overthink and self-reflect a lot. I find it fun to write because it can create depth even in simple situations.

I came to realize I really like making child characters over time. I´ve also had fazes with animal characters or trap characters, but children is what really stayed with me. Actually, I take that back, animal characters stook with me too.

Regarding powers and magic, I found myself being really found of powers that can either "drain" or which provide me with multiple power options in a sense.

mayhem TR4NQU1L17Y said:

A lot of my characters cook really well or just blow up a kitchen when they try. That, and a good portion of them likes booty. :I They all booty men.

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