So I have a minor problem. A dnd group I'm in has a member who struggles with any decisions related to their character- just today we were helping them make their sheet (scores, spells, etc) to guest star in a different campaign and they can't finish because they're asking us to help pick things that should be their own decisions based on their character's background and personality. Their character(s) don't have backstory or personality beyond a few descriptors (second-latest character is "pretty boy mute aasimar with amnesia"). They often ask for help with these kinds of things and we just can't create all of their ocs for them. It gets a little troublesome for the dm and us players when we play together as well.
We've tried explaining the concepts of how to create a backstory and more fleshed out character, but their biggest problem is that they struggle with anxiety among some other stuff and can't do anything without being guided through each step of the process. The second biggest problem is long pieces of text also stress them out and they might be neurodivergent, so they don't read anything that's too long, and character questionnaires I've found that go in-depth tend to be pretty long. Open-ended questions stress them out too- asking how they interacted with a sibling was too vague and they wouldn't answer.
The whole situation is admittedly a little exhausting.
tl;dr - I want to create a short character questionnaire that doesn't have many open-ended questions (choosing between 2+ options would be best) but still ends with a character that has a backstory and a somewhat fleshed-out character.
To that end, what sort of things do you think would be absolutely essential to a character if you had to break them down to their most base pieces? What options would you present?
We've tried explaining the concepts of how to create a backstory and more fleshed out character, but their biggest problem is that they struggle with anxiety among some other stuff and can't do anything without being guided through each step of the process. The second biggest problem is long pieces of text also stress them out and they might be neurodivergent, so they don't read anything that's too long, and character questionnaires I've found that go in-depth tend to be pretty long. Open-ended questions stress them out too- asking how they interacted with a sibling was too vague and they wouldn't answer.
The whole situation is admittedly a little exhausting.
tl;dr - I want to create a short character questionnaire that doesn't have many open-ended questions (choosing between 2+ options would be best) but still ends with a character that has a backstory and a somewhat fleshed-out character.
To that end, what sort of things do you think would be absolutely essential to a character if you had to break them down to their most base pieces? What options would you present?