Character Help

[Corrupt]

I need help making a character. All my characters have been wiped from my old laptop. And as I said in my intro post I'm an Anti-Hero/Villain kind of guy. So help would be great.


I like characters like the Tracer from Elsword. (Obviously.) I enjoy Scifi, Modern, Fantasy, and High Fantasy themes.


Advice please?

 

[ManicMuse]

I would suggest finding a role play group that you are first planning to join. The GM should then provide you with a character sheet or what they have for requirements for the character creation. I would move forward from there. If you just make a character, you could end up finding that they don't fit into the built world that you are looking to join later on and all your time will have been wasted. 


I suppose my first suggestion would be go to interest checks or formulate your own role play, then move forward from there. 

 

[Corrupt]

@Manic Muse


Would be nice only I'm trying to do a little world building. Trying to make the character first.

 

[ManicMuse]

Okay, if you are doing world building, I would suggest giving every one the parameters of the world. That greatly plays into a character build for me. In general I build my characters based off character traits they would have from surviving in the world. I start with one good, two neutral and one bad. Next, I build the history off the traits and so on. 

 

[Mythee]

I usually start with some vague idea of what I want the character's current daily life to be like and some vague idea of what circumstances I want that character to be from.


Then everything falls into place with relative ease, since you're just working out the details of what personality and choices/inevitabilities led that character from point A to point B. Like a mental connect-the-dots! 


So, what do you want their daily life to be?


And from what sorta family/culture/social class did they come from? 

 

[Corrupt]

@Mythee


No family. Father was a test tube. Mother a computer chip.


Hmmm..... Trying to figure out more past that xD

 

[kibou]

Now, I don't really know any of the characters your're referring to, but I wouldn't want to come up with a character idea for you anyways. I think the best thing is to read advice on how to come up with them yourself, so that's what I'll try to give you.


So, if you have a particular trope/character archetype you like to play a lot, obviously it would be good to start from there since you'll enjoy playing them more. Decide what you like about these characters and build off of that if you can. 


With the anti-hero example- do you like characters with grey morals, that you can't be sure if what they're doing is really right? Is it their own personal struggle with that? Usually with my characters, I have one or two main ideas like that and I build the rest of their personality and history around that/to compliment it. Even if you choose the same "main idea" for different characters, all the other traits that make them up can make a character present very differently. For example, low self-esteem. I have two characters right now that were built around that idea- one person gets obsessed with people who give him any positive attention and has a strong victim complex, the other is a drug addict who tries to act confident, puts up a front, and doesn't want to disappoint his parents. 


Another thing you could do is pick parts of your favorite character's personalities and use that. Of course, plagiarism doesn't help you learn how to build your own characters or improve and other players tend to frown on that sort of thing, so straight-up plagiarism isn't what I'm suggesting. Instead, choosing one or two things from a couple or more characters, making certain traits stronger than others and downplaying some. Choose positive, negative, and neutral things to round your character out more like Manic Muse suggests.


Yet another option is to start with the history first. If you can flesh out their background, you can think logically- how might this affect someone's personality? Someone who's left alone all the time might have trouble interacting with others in a normal manner. From there, you can logically build off of that too. If they have trouble interacting with people, maybe they're self conscious. Or maybe it leads to them getting into a lot of misunderstandings, or being overly honest. Choose whatever you think would help the plot more, or what you like more, or what you think would lead to good character interactions, use a random generator to pick, whatever. After you've decided more things tend to just lead to another, for me. Like a tree! Start with their roots and go from there.


I hope this was even just a little bit of help! :0


Edit: Didn't see your latest reply, but I hope this can still apply. ^^

 

[Corrupt]

@Ghost


Rather helpful, thanks. Though the hardest part for me is figuring out how to add good points to this character. He's supposed to be a marvel of science, an organic lifeform with some tech wired in. Trying to figure out how he wouldn't become a complete killing machine or something similar without being a GodMod.

 

[kibou]

@Ghost


Rather helpful, thanks. Though the hardest part for me is figuring out how to add good points to this character. He's supposed to be a marvel of science, an organic lifeform with some tech wired in. Trying to figure out how he wouldn't become a complete killing machine or something similar without being a GodMod.

I think I whether or not someone would kill is really dependent on one's personality. Everyone has the ability to kill- poison, choking someone, using weapons. Any normal human can theoretically murder another human.


So you'd have to figure out his personality and what's stopping him. Does he have empathy? If not, even some kind of moral code? Is he aware that normal humans would try to kill him if he killed other people? Those sorts of things.

 

[Saccharine Cyanide]

Hmm, if you want a character who has tech augmentations, you should do some research on transhumanism. How would your character's nature be influenced by the fact that he's not quite human? Do others perceive him as not human, and how does that affect him? Does he try to shut others out? Does he feel superior? How does he feel about the part of himself that's still human? Does he reject it, or does he reject the part of himself that's technology? If he's been created to be a killing machine, does he try to rationalize it, does he just accept it, or does he fight it?


I feel like you could have a character who is a killing machine, but don't forget that the world around him is going to push back. The more he kills, and the more of a danger he becomes to others, the more people will try to destroy him. There could also be more implications: he could cause people to look at any tech augmented human, supposing there are others, with suspicion and distrust, causing his own kind to resent him. Or they could prop him up as a figure of anarchism against a human-ruled state and a vision of a future where humanity has embraced evolution through technology. If he tries to fight his nature but fails, it could be a good opportunity to make him a tragic character, too.

 

[RatFlail]

What does your character want most? Whether it's kill moose & squirrel, building a "better world", or millions in untraceable government bonds, I usually find villains and antiheroes interesting because they clearly want something and don't hesitate to get it.


That want also gives you his weakness. Want to be left alone? Publicity will hound you. Want to rule the world? Well now the world wants to rule you out of fear. Want to find your parents? Well the corp that made you don't want you to know, and are willing to harm them to prevent the meeting. 


Physical harm is not the only thing at stake for most people. Social and psychological damage is more commonplace. And a transhuman is likely to have far more complicated wants that are easy to block or damage. Who wants to be able to calculate the orbit of a thousand suns, but be relegated to a file clerk for four to eight years because society requires cultural hurdles be cleared first? Especially when any college class is remedial for you?

 

[Corrupt]

@RatFlail


Thats something I still don't know. As he's tank bred I have no idea what he wants.

 

[RatFlail]

Hmmm, @Corrupt, then where do you need him to go? That can let you find an excuse for him to go there.


Otherwise, you could always pick something that you are struggling with currently and apply it to him. It's always cathartic to do that. Then you can back in how it fits into the world and plot. Sometimes, it helps to arrive at the same place from a different direction, which is why bad writing advice is rare.


Just don't, you know, tell anybody else that you do it that way. Make something up about it popping up or a dream or something.


The key is to find a few things that you can focus on. Writer's block comes from too many options most of the time. Pick a few memes that you want to spend time on, and let that be the foundation for everything else. If all else fails, go for a walk and let the back brain chew on it for a bit.


Edit: The reason that we have a hard time giving specifics is that we aren't going to be spending most of the time with this character. It's important that you like the character, otherwise you'll struggle to deal with him. If the creator isn't having any fun, neither will anybody else.