Character Theory How do you like to make your characters?

[mxthra]

I've seen many many different ways of making characters. New roleplayers like to ask "how do I make a character?" and I've seen so many answers given that it made me a bit curious. I like to use many different kinds of methods depending on my mood and circumstance, but I wanted to see how many methods there were and maybe what works for certain kinds of people so I can more readily give informed advice to anyone who asks.

 

[Edric Blight]

I don't know if this will help much, but I like to make my characters shy and timid, because I resonate with it a lot. I'm never one to make a confident, go-getter, adventurous character. Now, I must warn you- you can EASILY fall into the trap that so many do when making the classic (and yes, even cliche) shy and introverted character. You never wanna be uninteresting with these types of characters. ALWAYS give your partner something to write off of, even if your character isn't necessarily saying a lot in the scene. I think I probably went off topic from this post but my point is- I like to make my characters shy, quiet, and reserved young guys, typically played against a more out going female.

 

[GojiBean]

I have one process for creating characters, and it looks like this:

Step 1: Identify the story premise and physically blend with, or oppose it

Every story premise contains a promise of a certain kind of journey for any and all characters involved at the physical level. Depending on my mood at the time, I will design a character's physical nature based on a desire to either blend with that journey, or oppose it and make it more difficult for the character to participate.

It might be a bit morbid of an example, but let's say there's an epic journey across mountains, rolling hills, through thick brush forests and jungles, etc... And my character is a cripple, missing one leg and either on crutches or in a wheel chair.

Step 2: Identify my desired emotional journey, and design my character's flaws

Self explanatory, this one. But I'll explain anyway.

Once I know what kind of character I want physically, I'll design the mental/emotional aspects of their personal journey whether it's in harmony with the physical journey or not. For example, if I want my character to be emotionally clingy because of abandonment issues, I'll spend most of my time figuring out how and why those abandonment issues plague them so, and work to really, really sink my teeth into the backstory and put problem after problem in it in order to give this character as many obstacles to overcome as I feel necessary based on the journey ahead.

If the story/journey makes fewer promises of opportunity for your character to face their issues, your character may not be able to realize their true potential and become the person you want them to be. Conversely, if the journey brings more promises of opportunity for your character to face their issues than the character has actual issues, you'll bring their personal journey to a close far to soon and spend a good portion of the experience with a fully realized character who's overcome every flaw and obstacle in their path and is now at their peak. The result: stagnation.

It's a balancing act, here.

Step 3: Make plans for various ways the most glaring flaws my character has can be addressed

Every major flaw in your character must be addressed at some point in the journey.

Now, that does not mean they have to be "solved."

Addressing your character's flaws simply means that those flaws are brought out/called out by forces outside the character's control. It could be an enemy character who is able to challenge one of their physical weaknesses, or a moment of reckoning where your character is faced with one of their greatest fears and if they don't act now they'll let one of their friends/loved ones die.

So long as your character is forced to face their flaw, it's being addressed.

I would actually make the argument that addressing the flaws and allowing your character to fail is the more compelling path to take, as opposed to resolving them on the first try. Very few people are able to face their flaws and immediately make a positive adjustment to overcome them. And the sooner you overcome your character's flaws, the sooner their personal journey and story are over and the sooner they'll reach stagnation.

So I will plan out early which major issues I want to address, which ones I want to fail at resolving first, which ones I want to resolve, and then how to resolve the ones which resulted in failure the first time around later down the line.

Step 4: Have a plan for what comes after

Having a plan for what happens when the entire story is over is arguably one of the most important steps of story telling.

Why?

Because the life this character will lead after this particular story is over is the one which is most true to this character's essential essence. The truest parts of their heart and mind.

Now, this doesn't mean that the end game has to be positive. In fact, it can be dark and bleak. Characters who fall from grace end up in a worse place than they started, and very often this is the true life they were always meant to lead. The truest to their essence. The truest to their mind and heart because they were weaker than they and everyone else believed, and they were always destined to fall and keep falling.

The opposite can, and is far more commonly, true as well. The character ends in a better, or even FAR better, place than they were when they started. And this is the truest to their essence. The truest to their mind and heart. They were always destined to rise above it all and become who they are now.

What comes afterwards doesn't need to be planned out beyond this surface level realization of who and what the character is meant to become. For example, if your character ends the story as a stronger, better version of themselves and has a final scene where they're speaking of the possibilities the world presents, you can end things there. You don't have to delve into specifics like what the most interesting possibilities are, or what they want to do right this very second.

But knowing that this is where the character will finish their story, staring ahead at the horizon contemplating the innumerable possibilities that lie before them, is the point of this step.

If you don't at least have an idea of where the character will finish their personal journey in this way, it will be to your detriment to just fling things at the wall and see what sticks. While you can do that, I've never once in my 20+ years of role-playing seen someone do that and actually end up in a place they're happy with. So while I'm sure it's possible to do with positive results, don't rely on that slim chance that you'll be in that tiny minority that can pull it off through sheer luck. Rely more on skill and proper planning, and be ready for who and what your character is meant to become by the end.


Anyway, those are my four steps for creating and designing characters from a macro perspective!

Cheers!

 

[Idea]

I start with a core concept, usually the particular thing I want the character to be and the initial idea I had for the character. It could be anything, ranging from a certain personality, to a set of powers, to a role in the group or a certain vibe. From there on out, I essentially have two things I do:

A) Expand upon the core concept, building each element of the character around it using my “Golden Rule of Consistency”, which in a nutshell says that the thing it’s being applied to must remain both internally consistent (it does not break the rules it establishes for itself, this including any set facts in the case of characters, lore, among others) and have consistent implications (things have a cause and effect which is consistent with the rules created in the earlier step).

B) Graft and mish-mash other ideas I come up with that I would be interested in doing, though always making an effort to ensure they blend in well enough.


(A) is a particularly good approach in my view, as it carries many benefits. Thinking about how something came about and why, or thinking about the effect something would have on a character and their life are more streamlined questions than than a broad “what should happen next in the backstory” or “what else can I add?”, making it not only a great source for new content and depth for the character, but also working even in less inspired moments, and by nature it remains a process which ensures the whole of the character is tied together to an extent. The consequences of the personality and backstory and everything else will each impact and be caused by the other elements.

Circumstances will affect how I design characters of course. In group RPs I will look at other character sheets to see what kind of characters might make for interesting dynamics with or be missing from the group (if nothing else than because I like to have my own “thing”). In instances with planning, there may be pre-arranged character elements, or some might be required might be the plot, and of course there’s future plans of my own whose seeds I might have to put right on the character from the very start. All of these things, however, don’t really change the overall approach, rather they act as the rules I need to be consistent with or in some cases as additional ideas that are blended with and grafted onto the character.

Regarding coming up with a character concept itself, that that has a very diverse range of origins. Often I join RPs because they got my gears turning for a certain type of character. Other times, I might have some kind of character I saw in a piece of media, and I break it down to the core elements I want to take for a spin myself. Sometimes it’s just an interesting idea that came to mind at some point and I’d like to try, or I felt inspired by an image I found (in fact looking from image folders is one way I sometimes come up with character concepts).


Images are also helpful towards the latter stages of the characters, helping me to get a more solid or complete image of the character in my mind (though the use of the word “image” there may be a little confusing or repetitive at least) in order to get those last few details in, rounding out some rough edges of the personality or backstory, but mainly helping with likes and dislikes, which I like to make a little more disconnected than most of the character, partially because of the nature of such things being more innate and also because in practical terms, I use things such as likes and dislikes to more organically generate certain actions or behaviors from characters. Pictures are also not the only things that can help with this rounding out by the way, just about anything can, but pictures often have additional elements like some part of an outfit or some object a character is holding that is particular prone to that kind of usage for me.


The (B) process is made a bit more on instinct. It’s often one of the most complicated approaches on the simple fact that it exists out of me having several ideas I don’t want to give up despite them not initially fitting in quite well for the character, more often than not due to some minor detail that is reconcile among them. Other times though, it’s easy to just insert, but when it does present those difficulties it can turn into me mashing my head into a wall until I either decide it’s not worth it and drop some or all of the ideas I was considering, or I find some way to put them together in a fashion. i can be satisfied with. There are still some common strategies to this approach, however. Finding common elements is a pretty obvious one in my goal to blend them in, but trying to break ideas further down into the core of what I like them is another big one: a shapeshifting ability is harder to square than simply having multiple forms, some of which happen to be this or that, but it might work just as well for the shapeshifting’s worth of my goal was never the flexibility of the shapeshifting but the character having access to certain specific forms, for example. Speaking of which, segmentation is also a strategy that can be used here, putting the grafted elements into different aspects, forms or times for the character. A character with a strong comedic quirk but which acts more focused and seriously when engaged in combat or in danger, for instance.





There is more I could say, especially if I started going into specific parts of the characters - like how I usually come up with names via google translate- but I’ll leave it at this for now. Hope it’s helpful or that you like the read at least!

 

[Inno]

Listen to different music and come up with a character. I don't have an encyclopedia explanation of it because it's really quite simple for me.

 

[Chordling]

Step 1: Browse through fantasy art on pinterest until I find a character design that "speaks" to me. I should be able to feel like I could put "life" into the character I'm looking at. I should feel like I can create a new, unique personality.

Step 2: Understand the character's conflicts and sort out the types of relationships they would have. Once I have a sense of the inner conflict they struggle with and the problems they could face, I am able to develop plot ideas that are adaptable for various pairings and settings.

Step 3: Have fun and roleplay. A lot of the character development for me happens through the act of roleplaying. I am able to see a character grow throughout the story I write with other people and parts of that growth can be added onto the character's details for the future.

 

[BurntCook]

Fricken love this question. I love experimenting with how to make characters and honestly, I make them in many different ways, depending on the rp I'm in. I usually try to make a character after I know the basic plot and direction of the new rp, so that I'm not making someone that is going to cause awkward plot pauses. On the other hand, I try to make a character that isn't a cookie cut either. I usually get inspired by music, specific playlists, even aesthetic pictures I see and grow from that. Sometimes if I'm stuck on personality traits, I go to character trait generators and get some help. Other times, with appearances, I LOVE putting physical traits in randomizer and see what I get- or let dnd dice decide between some things. Sometimes it's the decision of fate that's made some of my characters non-bias to myself and results in diversity.
Another thing that I usually do is that, in some way, I like to emotionally relate to something they have gone/are going/will go through so that I make them more believable. I'm not putting my trauma or myself in the character, but it does make them feel more alive when I can relate to their jealousy, anger, sadness, fears- something, anything.

 

[Echowrites]

Mine is a bit more... "I wonder how it would be to see things from the perspective of X/be X". I have no idea how a character is going to turn out usually when I start writing them, and how it ends up written is completely dependent on how, if they were a real person, they would react to a scenario thrown at them. I don't think I have a lot of control over my characters in that sense. It's kind of difficult to explain.

 

[discorights]

medium rare

 

[bastion]

When I'm intending to create a character I start with a basic concept. Usually it's something like a role, specific personality trait, since backstory detail, or a design I wanna draw. From there I try to expand outwards based on what benefits it.

For instance, a character I just created is the good of community. I knew I wanted them to be very focused on creating healthy communities and have a bee theme. I had a basic idea of the personality in being community-focused, so I figured out the design by collecting inspiration images. The design ended up two designs because I knew I wanted a bit if an unsettling, regal look for the god, but after seeing a design in a fluffy cloak I secured to give them a human form that had "little guy" energy. Figuring out the design fleshed out the personality, as I decided they present themselves distinctly differently in both forms and approach the community-focus aspect from different angles.

Sometimes I don't plan to make a character though, which typically is when I'm playing a video game and give voice and character to the player character. When that happens the character just comes together pretty naturally, and then once I decide they're officially a character I take all my ideas for personality, backstory, etc. and refine them.