What do you believe makes a good character?

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Tarbo
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What do you believe makes a good character?

Post by Tarbo »

Recently, I made another go through the character pool with my trusty notepad by hand. As I read and re-read the entries, short bursts of words were written down, grouped per character, about what my thoughts were. It's partly what we do as hosts and other dutifuls.

But what is it we really expect of characters? This 'we' is in the broad sense: what do we as a community, as individuals, believe makes a good (or at least viable) character? What are good points and what are turn-offs?

There are the basics. Personally, I expect people to read and understand the rules before they post a character. Sure, everyone has a little misunderstanding at some point --it happens-- so there's no point in going shock & awe on someone because they misspelled "Shade" or they allocated a point too many. But often, these misunderstandings are laziness and carelessness in disguise, and those have no place here.

Still, the most important part to me is the character background. Of course, isn't that the case with everyone? Hello-o, Earth to Tarbo, it's what we as players all put the most effort in. Thanks for noticing! Fruitcake. Yes, you are correct. But people sometimes mistake 'background' for 'wall of text'.

I personally don't care whether you can write 5000 words without stopping to breathe. I'm not impressed if you manage to create sentences that I can't fit on my screen, or if you know words that use all the letters on my keyboard -- if you can spell, conjugate, and punctuate, you're okay in my book. All that glitters is not gold, and pretty words don't make a good background.

What I really look for is content. I don't really want a story, I want a history, I want roleplaying hints. Basically, when I have thoroughly read a character's background, I should be able to roleplay her. Only then will I understand how she thinks, how she acts, what she wants, how I can make her part of a story. I can do that with an armourer's daughter that wants to surpass the meager livings of her father. I can't do that with a guy in a forest sitting on a dinosaur-pulled cart filled with gold.

In the end, I'd rather have three paragraphs of character description than seven paragraphs of a painstakingly beautiful story that I will undoubtedly love to read but will ultimately tell me little.

I would be interested to know what the players think when they read a character sheet. What do you believe matters when you make (or made) a character, or what do you think when you read those of other people?
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Post by Kajchi »

I think history is important because it gives a good idea about what a certain character will do in a certain situation. Though I think it's also very important to give a good description of the character. Although I don't think that you have to give a good description of your characters personality. I find that it is better to develop this while playing.

P.S. Ik ben ook van vlaanderen :D
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Tarbo
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Post by Tarbo »

It is true that characters evolve while playing. You can see this everywhere: characters in books, films, series, games all evolve in some way, both in the story itself as in the mind of the writer(s); even we aren't the people we were last year. You usually can't predict how they are going to evolve --especially because this partly happens in-game-- so giving a complete description is more than a little challenging.

However, a character sheet should have a few of the core attributes that you've mentally ascribed to her. Cocky or shy? Rational or emotional? Confrontational or evasive? The qualities you based yourself on when creating your character should be in there somehow, be it through a telling piece of background, or through plain description.

This doesn't mean that what holds true today should hold true in three months of play, but it shows you thought it through, if at least a little and, in my personal experience, it usually points to a good character.
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Post by Archdukechocula »

I don't really think it matters how a person goes about doing it, but in the end, what I look for in character creation in a roleplaying game is three things: Motivation, Back story and Hooks. Motivation represents the characters drive and ambitions. What are their goals? Why do they do what they do? What kind of value system do they have? What are their weaknesses? Back story and Hooks are sort of related. Back story is important to me because it tells me where a character came from, and it thus helps me see where they are going. It gives insight into why they have the Motivations they do, and what events were important to them in their life. Hooks are something special for me, the GM. Hooks are little pieces of character background, weaknesses, flaws, enemies, and history that give me as a GM a way to drag the player in, and to help propel their story alongside the larger plot.

Together, I think it is these three elements that makes for a compelling character. Some people do this with narratives. Some by answering questions. Others just by writing a list of traits and events. In the end, what matters to me as a GM is if these things are compelling, not as much how they are portrayed. Personally, I've never encountered a person who rendered a generous narrative that wasn't relevant in portraying the character, so I'm not sure how to contextualize that, as I generally encourage a sort of narrative to be developed, but certainly if such a narrative were just a story without context, it would be largely useless. The bottom line is, you need to make a character that you can develop, and that I can tell a story with.
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Post by Layne »

That sounds about right. You want a character who has been somewhere, and is going somewhere. You need to give yourself something to work with. You don't want to give too much away in your creation post, because you need to leave somewhere to go, but you need enough to go on with. Ideally someone who can actually fit in with what's going to happen in a normal RPG. I made the mistake of writing a fun but rather insane character, and it was difficult to to work in any insane moments, because it was hard to see how the character was going to do anything other than get killed, if I actually stuck to the background I'd written.

So that's my advice. A little story, not too much, with, as Archduke says, a bit of motive, and not too unhinged or you'll never make it work.
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Post by Dauricha »

Sometimes in my opinion having a character thats unique, and somehow total new is what makes them a good character.

Of course this can be hard as with most things, a wide varietycharacter styles and structures have been used across the board, from computer gaming, film, books and etc.

So if having a character with a unique background is hard to do then what makes a good character?

in my opinion its the one you put your heart into. Its easy to think up someone and give them a basic background, but its intirly different to getting excited about coming up with a character and wanting to see where their path will take them. But you can only know where yourr chracters path might go if you know where their path has gone so far.

BASICALLY:

I just made a character for the rpg side of this site. He has a simple background story. Its not overly long or indepth. If it was it would restrict the paths my character could take. But just because its short doesnt mean its didnt have effort in it. I can picture him now in my mind walking through the streets of Hag Graef.

A Good Character is the one you care and are excited about
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