Ahoy, folks. I'm working on creating a new character, but I'm having trouble coming up with a personality, motivations, goals, etc for him--basically the things that turn him from a cardboard cliche'd cutout into a breathing person. Google fails me, as does the Hero Builder's Guidebook. At the same time, I don't want to just rip off an anime character or something and call it a day.

Ideas?

I'd love to help. But do be careful, as this is your character, and someone else should just give advice!

Catch me on IRC and we can chat. Oh, and it is always easiest for me to get a rough idea about goals/factions the character might join/etc. before fleshing out the personality to fit what kind of character you want to play. After the personality is made, you can go back over the goals and figure out how a Bob the Destroyer's destructive personal habits can lead to him having the goal to raze Chabzash.

I often don't think of my characters personality until I start playing them. Often, I just think Sex-Race-Class-Alignment-Age-Attributes and put them all together when I am asked to RP. You'll often find that as long as you manage to improvise consistantly and not swap between too many personalities at once at character start, this is often the most fun way to start a character. Basically because it feels like they develop on their own.

However, lately I've been playing characters with high conversation skills and perform, meaning that I very often lie or exaggerate.

That's another tip; If you haven't already, play a bard with maxed out charisma and some intelligence. Then, cap your conversation skills and just walk around enjoying the conversations and the "Wow, you got 31 perform!" tells. Roleplaying takes on a whole new level when you have a character who revolves completely around it.

I tend to think about fictional or historical characters that I love and go from there. Your diety can also be a big factor in the type of character you want to play. Spend sometime with the faith and pantheons book.

Everybody has their own method though. Find the one that works for you. There is also nothing wrong with just creating a class/race you want to play and figuring the character out as you go.

This is actually for a racial app, so I'm kinda required to figure him out beforehand. :?

http://www.geocities.com/oak_thorn/characterization.html

This is really helpful, quickish guide to characterization. Hope it helps :wink:

I've two bits of advice:

1. Go to the library. My library has all the dnd sourcebooks. I picked up Races of the Wild and it really helped me flesh out a halfling character (of course that book is nor FR, but it helps). They also had books like 'The scoundrels guide'. These things can be skimmed in about 20 mins and they offer a host of concepts that you can personalize.

2. Go for a hike. Yesterday afternoon I had a broad character concept. I went for a hike in the woods and thought up a story, refined it a bit and..bam! I've got my character' personalty, goals, etc. I imagined it while I was walking than came home and wrote it down.

When I started RPing the character I refined him further, though there were a few things I did that I didn't like/want for the character. This is ok considering the setting..I mean you arrive..you're bound to be in shock, be overly trusting, not exactly be yourself..so I feel that any minor tweaks I make can reflect my character comming to terms with the situation and reverting to his normal personaility.

ohno3z http://www.geocities.com/oak_thorn/characterization.html

This is really helpful, quickish guide to characterization. Hope it helps :wink:

Throw the idea of character conceptualization out the window. I have a habit of doing it - I've even written backstories for my characters that were up to nine pages long.

Forget about it. Just get a basic idea of the type of character you want to play, get a class / race combo down, decide what you want to do with that character and start playing.

I've found that this works best for me as it allows for me to fill in the details as they come up. No one is going to ask about or care about what my PC was doing when he / she was twelve years old. All of my most favorite characters have been PC's that I really haven't written much background for - they've also been my most successful. When I start whipping out the FR timelines and trying to figure out what my PC was doing in 1367 DR then I know my PC is likely going to bomb - from experience. Conceptualization never works for me when the PC enters the gameworld - too many factors conspire to change the concept.

Oh, yes - build your PC to join the Marching Men. >_>

(I have no shame, folks. None at all.)

Meldread No one is going to ask about or care about what my PC was doing when he / she was twelve years old.

Sadly.

Backstories can be a very important aspect of a character, even if they are seldom touched. It's very helpful for when you want an interesting reason for something. For example; why does your character love roses? Why does she hate cats? Why does she love pastries? It can be pointless, useless crap, but it might come in handy. So rather than "I just don't like it," you can have, "when I was growing up, my mother always left cakes on the windowsil, but a certain halfling always came by and stole them."

Yeah, those things can be made up on the fly. If you want your PC to love roses then you simply have to create a reason after creation. However, if you do it before creation and begin playing - only later to find out it really didn't mesh well with what you had hoped your PC would be like... then well it's a bit too late.

2. Go for a hike. Yesterday afternoon I had a broad character concept. I went for a hike in the woods and thought up a story, refined it a bit and..bam! I've got my character' personalty, goals, etc. I imagined it while I was walking than came home and wrote it down.

This is actually a very good idea. Do something peaceful and time consuming where you can think a lot. During my frequent six hour drives, I can spend up to 30-40% of my time thinking about EfU, character concepts, and storylines I wish to create/pursue/alter/ignore/etc..

The other 60-70% of that time is spent thinking about how much I hate Kotenku, of course.

Throw in a couple quirks and weird personality traits. Por ejemplo, Parto compulsively polishes his crossbow. I've got a character on another server that always scratches the back of his leg to to an exciting FOIG. These little things aren't hard to build on, and can lead to sweet RP. Just my two cents.