How do YOU create characters?

[Ignitedstar]

Whether you are here at RPNation for tabletop games or for text-based roleplays, we all start here.


To engage in a story, no matter the kind of character or genre of the story, we must create a character. Every facet of fiction can attest to the vast array of characters who interact in them. They are as different in appearance, personality, and underlying philosophies as the every one of us, the creative minds that produce them.


Take a few steps back and think. What process do you take creating a character you call your own?


---


I ask this question, because I've been sitting here for a few hours thinking about... how I write my characters. I'm nowhere close to a professional. I don't think I could ever call myself one. I write for fun. So I think my writing should reflect that— yes, I do enjoy writing. If writing becomes a chore to me (and sometimes it does), then it's probably not a good idea to not write anything.


I wanna talk about a character that people can find on RPNation. Unfortunately, I don't have much to show except for Lizard Wizard's Epic.


When I first started writing Lizard Wizard's Epic, I didn't have any idea who Lizard Wizard was supposed to be. I had some primary ideas, and this is probably how a lot of characters start out, don't they? The idea for the story started out as an entry for a contest for stories whose main idea was revenge, for goodness sake. I thought I wanted to try to tie in he is as little in personality as the fact we never got to know his true name (I still don't know it). So how do you address a character who has no real name themselves?


I had to keep using pronouns, but this became an early problem. I noticed how boring it quickly became, and I needed a reason to call him Lizard Wizard. That led to people coming up to the guy and randomly calling him names and then using those names in place of what should be Lizard Wizard's name in the narrative. I thought I'd be stuck using the name series of pronouns over and over again and I didn't want to be: Minion, Lizard Wizard, Ugly Thing, The Whitescale... the titles go on. Anna randomly calling him Daddy— I thought that was funny, and kept it because it was cute. Maybe it's a little more than just that, now that the story is over and reading how their relationship grows.


Then I thought up of something else. Wouldn't the narrative be a little more fun if Lizard Wizard's name changed according to who was addressing him? So that's what I did. Anna would talk to Daddy, but Master speaks so lowly of Minion, while the humans call him Lizard Wizard, and the zerdians call him The Whitescale. No other character got as many titles as Lizard Wizard did. There are a few reasons why. One of them is cause they all had names while Lizard Wizard didn't. The other reason is because... well, if you've read the story and got to Chapter 8, you'd know.


A little shameless self-advertising? Maybe, but spoilers are spoilers. It's that giddy feeling, where you want to tell people how your story and the characters twist and turn, but you know that you shouldn't. It's not very fair to them, is it? But it's not very fair to us either, is it?


Something that I think seems to come up a lot in roleplays is what people usually call godmodding. Basically, moving lots of things in favor of the character you control. I will admit right now that this is why I have a very difficult time doing roleplays. I feel so restrained; I have very little control and I vastly dislike it. If I try to do something, it's not that other characters won't receive it well. I feel it's because I'm afraid the other people I'm writing with won't receive it well.


I've written this before, and I'll write it down again. People have varying interests and that translates into the characters we make and even how they are perceived to interact with other characters. How does this mix when you have one character you make and they are supposed to interact with other characters made by other people? Think about the former phrase. People making all kinds of characters because of their interests is fine and dandy to me. This was kind of the point in The Inn Between, if anyone remembers that. The latter? Not to much, not because I hate it or anything like that. It is because there is so much... "connection" lost. I don't know if "connection" is the right word. Anyone else wanna give it a try?


It's odd. I realize that, I have this level of control I desire from my characters, but it's also a level of... no control whatsoever. And I like that a lot. Every character I create seem to take some wild personality on their own. I don't know... maybe it's like conceiving a child, watching them grow, then finally learning that it's time to let go. I don't really think about what my characters say and do, at all. I just... they just do what they do. And I try to fly with it.

 

[HumanPlus]

I do enjoy the way you write.


Anyways, while i don't really forum roleplay i have a nice little gaming group here in Denmark and have gone through many characters over the last 5 years i have been invested in Pen and Paper Roleplaying. My 3 most recent characters (all women for whatever reason) have been created in very different ways and for different systems and universes as well. One of them is for Exalted 3ed, a setting i am familiar with but a system that is not out yet, another is a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Character who is retired after much play now and the last is for Hero's Journey but had first been played in Scion where i came to enjoy playing her.


Feather: Exalted 3ed


Feather is a bit unorthodox for my part in how she originated. It was a it of an epiphany i had on my way to work. A unique weapon design had formed in my head that could only ever work out in ridiculously epic fantasy like Exalted. In my lunchbreak i began sketching it down but as i did i started wondering, "how does one wield this thing" and once again my creative juices started working. In my head i imagined a very distinct fighting style and different uses for it. First after this process and after i had told my friends about the weapon did i begin pondering about the character wielding it.


This is the first time i've created a character based on a weapon and a fighting style but it was actually a surprisingly good baseline. Some friends of mine mentioned that it was pretty graceful considering that it was a hammer so i made the character a woman (Men can easily be graceful as well but it was what went through my head at the time). The weapon couldn't easily be moved around so the woman became pretty muscular and yet i wanted her to have a feminine streak so she got some very long hair and accessories like earrings.


Then i needed to know what she was like and what powers she had. Seeing my own Exalted 2ed campaign i knew that the other players in the group was likely to be wildcards and crazies the lot of them so they needed someone to rein them in and make sure they went in the right direction. Feather became what resembled the lawful good paladin type in her personality and would hold the others back with an iron fist if needed. She became a Zenith Caste Solar focusing on the judge part of the job. This laid a baseline which i chose which powers i'll give her at character creation. I didn't want her to be a complete sourpuss though so i made her previous life the very sweet and free dancer and performer who reveled in attention very unlike Feather herself. As Feather held the previous life's memories that other personality would shine through at times.


Now that i had an idea how she looked and what she did, i began thinking of background story and the first thing i needed to know was where she was from. She was broad shouldered and muscular so i thought that since a hard climate bred hard people she'd be from the cold north. Probably a small ancestor-worshiping village out near the wandering tribes of hunters and raiders. The village became very conservative when it came to gender roles, men should be the ones who were big and strong and went out to hunt and fight while women meek and do their household duties and other woman things. Feather's full name is Graceful Feather Carried Upon the Wind, granted to her by her parents upon her birth in hope that she would follow the ideals so she could be married off easily and with a good dowry. They didn't get what they wanted. Feather were broad of shoulder and of arm, her fascination with the men's duties made that worse. Her size made her be seen as vulgar and so she brought shame upon her family and ancestors which made her run away from the village and join some raiding tribe...


Once i get started on thought-trains like that i don't stop and soon after she was pretty fleshed out(no pun intended). Now i just need the book to come out so i can stat her and play her. She'll grow as a character from there.


Johanne: WFRP 2ed.

Johanne came to be when my previous character in that campaign got a bullet to the face and i quickly needed to play someone new. This system has a wonderful random character generator so i used that. I rolled a Male, 23 years of age, brown hair, copper eyes, a bit heavy for his a tad above average height, went by the name Johann, had a facial scar as a distinguishing mark and who worked as a Hedgecraft Apprentice. The city they were in, though, had all it's men of fighting age taken away to war in the north so i added an "e" to the name and Johanne was born. A tall woman with wide hips and a bust, who had the ability to heal the wounded, knew some hedge magic and could brew simple potions and poisons.


As i began playing her, a personality quickly emerged. She was friendly, loudspoken, had nothing that held her tied down and enjoyed pipeweed and alcohol as she enjoyed the company of men.


Many hours of gametime took it's toll on her though. She came to get a collection of scars and the like over the course of her journey. Started with bandits, then she was taken into the Under-empire and enslaved by Skaven, when she came up and reached a city, a greenskin WAAARGH! came upon them, then she became entangled with a war between Vampires and Tomb Kings and ended up with a curse that would only be lifted with the death of the one called the Unperishable. She traveled to the endless deserts of old Khemri where her own magic began marking her and warp her shape and almost died many times. In the end their quest suceeded-ish and she returned to the Empire, bought an inn, married and had seven kids. Her character really grew over the course of the campaign and i was proud to retire her when the time came.


Helen: Scion/Hero's Journey

When i initially made Helen for Scion i had many vague ideas of how she should work but nothing really concrete. She should be this young ginger girl who took pictures of everything and used it for blackmail. She was in a group where the two others powered their way through things and she being the social one. I had a background story for her where Hera being angry at Zeus had gone down on Earth to do what he always did and got a kid with a mortal man and named the kid after the child of Zeus who had caused the greatest tragedy in Greek history. Now, i had played many kinds of characters before, from berserking powerhouses to intelligent Indiana Jones-esque characters but being the one responsible to talk her way out of things was interesting. As Helen kept interacting with everything and grew as a character she became one of the most multifaceted characters i've played and i really came to enjoy playing her. The campaign died though and everything was sad but with people around me now being hype on Hero's Journey i took the opportunity to remake her and play her again. I've reworked a lot in her background and what she's capable of and i can't wait to play her again. This time she'll be a thorough character from the beginning.

 

[1for3]

I think I usually figure out the setting and give the character a random name. The name doesn't usually effect my character to much. Except for Blaze who has the powers of a blaze from Minecraft. Once I do that I give them powers or items and stuff and a bit of a backstory is how I finish with extra stuff coming up as I go.

 

[DamagedGlasses]

I like to put references in my names. I had a law student that I named Matt, because of Ma'at being the set of traditions that modern law was first founded upon. It provided a nice touch to his personality, and it made picking his name a much better experience, helping me get closer to him as a persona.

 

[A Guileless Fable]

When I create a character, I literally don't know what the hell to do.


I mean, so many different recipes one can use in order to create a delectable


character, and there are always those flavored with too much of something and even burnt


(I have plenty which I am willing to admit.)


Now that I've been asked, I don't know really. I guess I start with gender, and once


the gender is picked I then go to race. If I were to think about how I start it, I would say


I create a character based on my image of them. An example is if I find a sweet looking child,


then in response I would create a background suitable for this child to live as well as possible names


for the child to have. Although most of the time I just create a weirdo with a sad back story or sometimes


weird ones because, hey it's fun to be weird. Plus I'm a big fan of comedy, so I make it so I can do a lot


of random stuff with my character. Don't want to be restrained by a "cold and dark" personality. Currently


into creating bullied chubby girls, for some reason, but ehh life. Have a whole page of where I keep my babies.

 

[Mordecai]

You know, I'm not a professional nor do I claim to be, but I love creating characters. It's probably one of my favourite past-times and I own a slue of characters who have never been used anywhere, just because I enjoy writing them. Anyways, my character creation process has been known to vary, but usually I start with one major life goal. Deciding on an age for my character usually comes at about the same time I develop a goal, for a fifteen year old student is not likely to have the same goals as a forty year old widower. Usually, these life goals, as I like to call them, are just random snippets my imagination has come up with. They range from simple to complex, dark to light, evil to well intentioned, and everywhere in-between. These goals are what I designate to be the centre of the character. I try to make them goals that could be achieveable for the roleplay/story they'll be thrown in to that, unless the character is completely mental or extremely young, would be reasonable for a person to wish for (i.e.: No "I want to sprout wings and fly" for a character in a modern slice of life).


For example, the goals of the last two characters I created were:

1. Maintain some normalcy in her life while still putting her victims (ahem... patients) out of their misery.
   
2. Avoid being bullied by the high-school primadonnas while maintaining a goddamn near-impossible-to-achieve C average.
   

Once I have a solid goal in mind, I begin to pack in their personality around that goal. Since this goal is generally central to their character, I develop a personality that would be suitable for the goal they're hoping to achieve. For example, my character who wants to avoid being bullied by other students is probably not going to be overly social and popular with his classmates. Seeing as maintaining a C average is difficult for him, he's probably not going to be overly ambitious in his schoolwork either. I deduced then, that he is lazy in most areas of his life. Once I have the basic premise of a character down, I begin to throw in some "spices." What are the character's hobbies? Quirks? Strange habits? I consider mental and physical strengths and weaknesses and begin to apply them. Again, everything I apply to a character is based on that one goal. Going back to my bullied example, he is probably not going to be the president of the class (unless by some fluke) nor a member of the chess club.


Next in my list of to-dos is history. Now I begin to consider everything I have already applied to the character and give reasons for why that character acts such a way. For example, if a character likes basketball, I begin to ponder questions like: how did he get involved in basketball? Is it special to him in some way? Motive is probably the most difficult thing for me to work with, but I really try and hash it out during history. For example, my character above, who murders her patients, wasn't just a happy, go-lucky gal until her needle slipped one day... Instead, I tried to demonstrate how emotionally distraught she was from a young age by dropping hints in her history (ie: fire starting around the family home, abuse of family pets, etc. etc.).


Appearance is the least important to me, usually. While there are some rare examples (ie: a character who has low self-esteem because she was relentlessly bullied through school for a birthmark), appearance is pretty bland. Sure, a fifty year old woman would not be suitable as a high-school student, but eh, appearance is usually an after thought for me.


O___O; Sorry for the novel. Ahem.