Other What's the hardest thing for you when creating a character?

[Qazi]

I don’t think they are specifically meaning sheets. They mean the character as you play them. So even if you make it up as you go is there a particular part that is difficult to come up with?

Fo sho, dude. Just making some unwanted commentaries, totally not specific, you know.

But, hey, I don't find any real difficulty at all, 's cool and everything. It's juz like watching teevee.

 

[Trickster Crayon]

To deal with this, I usually just decide whether I'm playing a self-insert or not to start with, and if so, how "true" she is to me. If not, I start listing character traits, and if I see some that run too similarly to me, I grab a few and reverse them.


Like:


- enjoys reading, bicycling, and writing poetry

- highly empathic

- a medical student, wants to be a nurse


Okay, so right off, the only thing "different" from me is her dream to be a nurse (and being a med student). I could try changing some of her likes, but she might still end up being a lot like me in her behavior. So what if I keep all her likes and change "highly empathic"? Make her so bad at empathy that she unintentionally steamrolls other peoole's feelings? Not something you would expect out of a person who writes poetry and wants to be a nurse. So now that that's different, it shifts all her other traits into a new light. What does she like to read? I'm sure she gets her fill of medical textbooks in college and might not be so interested in those (or maybe they fascinate her, who knows?), so maybe she likes nonfiction, such as political studies. Or she likes fiction, but instead of the dreamy-eyed fantasies I consume, she likes steampunk, or horror. Bicycling to me means adventure and enjoying scenery; she might be logging miles, heartrate, calories burned, etc.


What kind of poetry does a person low on empathy write? It could be a struggle for her, as she's certain she FEELS something deep inside her that wants out, that part of her that longs to touch humanity in a way that can't be satisfied standing beside a hospital bed. Maybe it's all the feelings bottled up inside her while she wears her "professional face" and can only be released within the confines of a spiral notebook. Maybe she writes humerous poetry about a hot looking man who's so terrified of needles and getting his blood drawn, so she writes about the guilty sadistic joy she feels in tying him down to the chair.

And there you go. My self-insert is no longer a self-insert, but still has qualities I relate to. Basically, just change the character's outlook on life, and that repaints everything else into different colors.

ENFP powers, activate!

Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a long winded rant like that, we're just supposed to be discussing what we find hard about making characters, not solving each other's problems, oops.

Also my strikethrough is stuck. Oh well.

I’m an ENFP! Also thanks that helped a lot.

 

[kouzcy]

literally writing out the personality paragraph(s).
i hate it s o m u c h

 

[Trickster Crayon]

literally writing out the personality paragraph(s).
i hate it s o m u c h

Dude same.

 

[Starlet]

Usually abilities for me, because I end up overthinking everything and wondering if something is too OP or cliche or overused/overdone/lacking, etc. @u@;

But then again that happens with everything else too, so I guess everything in general is difficult for me... But abilities is definitely the one I tend to linger the longest on.

 

[PhoenixMire]

Usually abilities for me, because I end up overthinking everything and wondering if something is too OP or cliche or overused/overdone/lacking, etc. @u@;

But then again that happens with everything else too, so I guess everything in general is difficult for me... But abilities is definitely the one I tend to linger the longest on.

Dude I relate
I spend forever trying to think about what abilities would be best, and what kind of weakness to give them, and if the ability is too boring, etc etc etc
It can take me hours... sometimes a few days

 

[Redfork2000]

The name for sure. Whenever I create characters, usually the backstory, the personalities and the abilities come to me pretty easily. But where I always struggle for a good while is coming up with a good name for my characters. Usually if I want a cool name, I'll try one of the following:

-Those sites that offer a list of names for soon-to-be parents to choose for their babies.

-Find a word that related to your character, and use google translate to translate it to some other language. Sometimes I get pretty solid names this way. For what languages to translate to, I find myself mostly using Latin, French, Italian or German.

Hopefully the advice is helpful to anyone.

 

[Melpomene]

I think the hardest thing for me when creating a character is actually finding a balance for them. Whether it be flaws to virtues or strengths to weaknesses or that perfect balance of asshole, I'm kind of obsessed with making sure my characters are balanced in the position that I am putting them into. My characters go through so many drafts and changes for their backstory and their traits to make sure that they are perfect for their role.

Also names. Names are freaking hard.

I usually look for names based off of a particular cultures names, such as if I have a Japanese based culture, I look for Japanese names and study them to give the best names for my characters, same for a North African culture and such. I like to read literature that is based from all around the world, so that has helped me make some good names, haha.

 

[loveablelorrie]

trying to fiqure out the background and story for them

 

[obieblu]

Appearance and stats usually come pretty easily. I get tangled when I create a character for something specific.

I don't want to let the story idea determine everything about their history and personality, but I struggle with avoiding that so much that I end up with a character that I have to 'force' to engage with the plot. I have a hard time finding that middle ground of character-defined purpose. In a TT game, my character just walked out of the city because "Nope!". The End. I re-entered with a very passive character that easily went with the flow and had little purpose to his own life. Since, I strive, but struggle finding a middle ground.

Ironically, another player's very easily-engaged character died the same week mine left the story. He returned with a character that was so defined and principled, he had a hard time accepting the rest of our characters as teammates. It was kind of funny for us to watch each other go in opposite directions.

 

[CrowOuttaHell]

I'm a fast character sheet writer most of the time, so this should be fun.

I usually don't mind this, but personality paragraphs are a pretty difficult thing to write for me especially when the mod demands so many things from the character's innermost thoughts and/or feelings. I can write a clear image of what I want my character's personality to be, but when the mods start asking for stuff like "oh, what do they think of politics" or "do they like what they're doing now" I struggle.

I always feel like those things are better off left to be found out through character interaction. My usual thought is, "why don't you ask them in-game yourself and find out?"

Names largely depend on the setting or aesthetic of the RP. If I don't have any idea what setting the RP is in, I browse the other characters to see how they did their names and try to emulate that. Can't deny it's difficult at times, though.

 

[PhoenixMire]

I usually don't mind this, but personality paragraphs are a pretty difficult thing to write for me especially when the mod demands so many things from the character's innermost thoughts and/or feelings. I can write a clear image of what I want my character's personality to be, but when the mods start asking for stuff like "oh, what do they think of politics" or "do they like what they're doing now" I struggle.

That kinda stuff drives me up the frikkin wall. No, I'm not interested in writing every single teeny detail about my character's opinions on politics and work and their deepest innermost desires and struggles, thank you. I can write a paragraph or two on the basics of how they act and feel, and maybe even a couple paragraphs of backstory, but it starts to irritate me when people ask for things like, "what do they think of the current US president and foreign affairs and taxes and the economy?? What scars and other physical imperfections do they have, please list their full medical history including vaccinations and any surgeries???? What's their favorite pair of shoes to wear jogging on Tuesdays?????????"
Overly detailed forms just kill a character and the RP for me. It's like... I don't care about all this information. I highly doubt many other people care about it either. Please don't hold me hostage to write all this stuff, lemme go I'm begging you

 

[Jannah]

That kinda stuff drives me up the frikkin wall. No, I'm not interested in writing every single teeny detail about my character's opinions on politics and work and their deepest innermost desires and struggles, thank you. I can write a paragraph or two on the basics of how they act and feel, and maybe even a couple paragraphs of backstory, but it starts to irritate me when people ask for things like, "what do they think of the current US president and foreign affairs and taxes and the economy?? What scars and other physical imperfections do they have, please list their full medical history including vaccinations and any surgeries???? What's their favorite pair of shoes to wear jogging on Tuesdays?????????"
Overly detailed forms just kill a character and the RP for me. It's like... I don't care about all this information. I highly doubt many other people care about it either. Please don't hold me hostage to write all this stuff, lemme go I'm begging you

I personally love thinking about all those little tidbits about my characters so I will get detailed about them.

 

[PhoenixMire]

I personally love thinking about all those little tidbits about my characters so I will get detailed about them.

And that's awesome, everyone likes different things. But I absolutely cannot stand it and it's pretty irritating to me when someone expects a detailed form from me even when I tell them I don't do detailed forms.
If they wanna write something incredibly detailed like that, then hey, good for them. But I probably won't read it all because I have a crappy attention span... ...and I certainly don't want them pressuring me to write a character sheet equally as detailed.

 

[rae2nerdy]

I personally love thinking about all those little tidbits about my characters so I will get detailed about them.

I think there is a difference between being detailed in your head and being detailed on paper. When it's just something that you do on your own as a means of fleshing out your own character than it's kind of fun. It can also help you flesh out the world of your roleplay.

For instance one of my current OCs (a side character) is a single mom whose a professional author. So I went down a fun rabbit hole trying to figure out what her income would be based on wage averages in the US and also a little information that I made up for the world. It was several days of essentially time wasting. As it's very unlikely that the OC is ever going to be like "I got paid this week, looks like we got $$$ to throw around girls!". No in all likelihood it's just going to be an interesting fact I keep in the back of my mind.

Which I think is the difference between being detailed for yourself and being detailed for other people. If your detailed for yourself you just jotting down things that you might or might not share in the roleplay. If your being detailed for other people your writing a lot of meaningless filler that the other person probably doesn't care about.

I know I'm not going to read twelve pages of random facts about your character and I wouldn't expect you to do the same.

 

[PhoenixMire]

I think there is a difference between being detailed in your head and being detailed on paper. When it's just something that you do on your own as a means of fleshing out your own character than it's kind of fun. It can also help you flesh out the world of your roleplay.

For instance one of my current OCs (a side character) is a single mom whose a professional author. So I went down a fun rabbit hole trying to figure out what her income would be based on wage averages in the US and also a little information that I made up for the world. It was several days of essentially time wasting. As it's very unlikely that the OC is ever going to be like "I got paid this week, looks like we got $$$ to throw around girls!". No in all likelihood it's just going to be an interesting fact I keep in the back of my mind.

Which I think is the difference between being detailed for yourself and being detailed for other people. If your detailed for yourself you just jotting down things that you might or might not share in the roleplay. If your being detailed for other people your writing a lot of meaningless filler that the other person probably doesn't care about.

I know I'm not going to read twelve pages of random facts about your character and I wouldn't expect you to do the same.

Definitely! I think this is the difference between making a huge, detailed character sheet for everyone to read, and just personally enjoying details about your characters.

If I get attached to an OC of mine, then sometimes I love coming up with fun little details about them. Maybe I'll think to myself, "He can't cook to save his life and turns food into a pile of ashes when he tries. He's pretty bad at math, and hates long division. He has a deep fear of outer space for no discernible reason. One time he made a sand castle on the beach when he was a kid and a big wave immediately came by and ruined it." Those can all be really fun details... to me. But not to my RP partner. My poor RP partner wouldn't want to read thousands and thousands of words of me spilling literally every detail about my OC and their history.

Plus, I don't think about those kinds of details for all my OCs, because I only start doing that if I get really attached to a character of mine. So, chances are, I'm never going to want to fill out one of those hyper-detailed forms. If people enjoy that, then great! But I don't.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Definitely! I think this is the difference between making a huge, detailed character sheet for everyone to read, and just personally enjoying details about your characters.

If I get attached to an OC of mine, then sometimes I love coming up with fun little details about them. Maybe I'll think to myself, "He can't cook to save his life and turns food into a pile of ashes when he tries. He's pretty bad at math, and hates long division. He has a deep fear of outer space for no discernible reason. One time he made a sand castle on the beach when he was a kid and a big wave immediately came by and ruined it." Those can all be really fun details... to me. But not to my RP partner. My poor RP partner wouldn't want to read thousands and thousands of words of me spilling literally every detail about my OC and their history.

Plus, I don't think about those kinds of details for all my OCs, because I only start doing that if I get really attached to a character of mine. So, chances are, I'm never going to want to fill out one of those hyper-detailed forms. If people enjoy that, then great! But I don't.

Exactly a lot of times these little details are just fun little vignette in my head (seriously had a whole mental exchange about how OC author mom brought her house, how she got the money for it, who helped her decorate it, how old her children where when she got it, etc.) This is mostly just me asking questions about how the world works and getting a feel for OC mom's personality to distinquish her from other side characters.

I do similar things for other OCs when I'm trying to get a feel for them in my head. I'll just imagine what a boring day is like in their lives. What time do they get up, what are their daily chores, etc. It's more to help distinguish them in my head but it's not anything that the other people of the roleplay would care about.

(Unless for some reason it's like plot relevant. If say the daily routine is something that the partner character is going to have to help with than sure I'll write it out. But in the roleplay not in a CS.)

 

[Jannah]

I think there is a difference between being detailed in your head and being detailed on paper. When it's just something that you do on your own as a means of fleshing out your own character than it's kind of fun. It can also help you flesh out the world of your roleplay.

For instance one of my current OCs (a side character) is a single mom whose a professional author. So I went down a fun rabbit hole trying to figure out what her income would be based on wage averages in the US and also a little information that I made up for the world. It was several days of essentially time wasting. As it's very unlikely that the OC is ever going to be like "I got paid this week, looks like we got $$$ to throw around girls!". No in all likelihood it's just going to be an interesting fact I keep in the back of my mind.

Which I think is the difference between being detailed for yourself and being detailed for other people. If your detailed for yourself you just jotting down things that you might or might not share in the roleplay. If your being detailed for other people your writing a lot of meaningless filler that the other person probably doesn't care about.

I know I'm not going to read twelve pages of random facts about your character and I wouldn't expect you to do the same.

Well, that's what I mean. I have so much information about characters that rarely even makes it into RP's. Their quirks, their political views, etc.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Well, that's what I mean. I have so much information about characters that rarely even makes it into RP's. Their quirks, their political views, etc.

Certainly but that's not really the same thing as writing a detailed CS which I think was what the OP comment was about. Like it's fine to have detailed characters it's somewhat exhausting and unnecessary to have overly detailed CS.

 

[Jannah]

Certainly but that's not really the same thing as writing a detailed CS which I think was what the OP comment was about. Like it's fine to have detailed characters it's somewhat exhausting and unnecessary to have overly detailed CS.

I wouldn't know. I rarely do character sheets as I don't really believe in them.

 

[Windsock]

Finding an RP that I like to put him in

 

[Malphaestus]

My biggest issue is making the character feel like they actually exist in the story. I am a rather passive participant roleplayer, so asking people if they want to have some sort of history with my character idea is likely the biggest issue I am faced with consecutively. In fact, almost all my hardships when it comes to character creation stem from other roleplayers. When I make my own stories there really is no issue. I do not mean to sound like it is their fault, though. It is my own, though I can't really seem to make it disappear after many years of writing.

 

[Sleek]

My main issues making original characters are generally making them in such a way that they are interesting to use and to be played with in any setting. Doing so is a lot easier said than done because for me staying consistent with the characters is fairly difficult.

 

[BoltBeam]

Hardest thing when making a character... It falls under two major obstacles, or three.

-Backstory - I try to arm each of my characters with one of these to either explain they key quirks, their motives, etc., or all of the above. This is honestly the lowest on the priority list, but it's still something I want done.

-Name - This is the biggest pain in the butt for obvious reasons. Need I say more than 'it's hard to come up with some random name'? It's a lot harder than it looks, and sometimes it takes me a researching trip to salvage some sort of hidden meaning or word play.

-Personality (And getting it to work) - Big problem number two. Hands down. Trying to make stable and understandable personalities while being able to wield and control them yourself.

 

[Jannah]

My main issues making original characters are generally making them in such a way that they are interesting to use and to be played with in any setting. Doing so is a lot easier said than done because for me staying consistent with the characters is fairly difficult.

Why would you want them in any setting, though? Don't like making a new character each time you RP?