Making Better Characters

I've been compiling some good resources for making better characters and thought I'd share them with the community. Great characters, in part, make for great campaigns. Having a good character can also make the difference in getting chosen to participate in an advertised game. So, enjoy: Six Questions That Will Help You Make Better Characters Would You Pay Money to See Your Character Fight? 25 Things a Great Character Needs You Are Not Your Character Character Concept Maker An Alternative to Backstories No One Wants to Read (Credit where credit is due: These aren't my blogs. If you like their offerings, I encourage you to follow them.) What do you think of the concepts being presented here? Have you used any of them before? What was the result? What other resources can you share with the community?

I found them to be pretty good. I used to always suggest leaving gaps in your character. That way as you play the character more you get a clearer idea of who they are. It also allows the player to get a feel for the game they are taking part in and the way they want to inhabit that world.

"You Are Not Your Character" is a great read. It's honest!

These are really good reads! The suggestion that you make up 2 groups that are interested in your character. One positive, one negative. Is a fun idea aswell, but I think you have to run it by your GM first. If you say: "I'm being hunted by the Assassins Guild" and there isn't a Assassins guild in your setting, then you're forcing the GM to change his story / world for the benefit of your character. Talking to your DM before hand is always a plus for me. I'd like my players to tell me what they're looking for. That way I can make adjustments to the story that suits them. I also liked the idea about taking your character sheet and flipping over all you traits. So instead of a Noble fearless Paladin, you become a money grubbing coward who uses the church as a defense against his crimes.

jell0crew said: "You Are Not Your Character" is a great read. It's honest! Glad you enjoyed it! That's one of my fav's. It's something I've been doing for a while but it summed it up so nicely that I like to share it. One of the major objections to it is that those chasing "immersion" often prefer to go with the Stanislavsky method which, as the article points out, is not the best fit for a game based largely on improvisation. For those concerned about losing their sense of immersion by drawing upon the metagame, here's another good read: The Immersion Hurdle . A quote from it: "Emotional identification is NOT dependent on limited information or even restricted to ‘character-only’ control of the game – emotional identification depends on being able to address the character’s emotional conflicts in play." Brilliant! Altaranalt S. said: These are really good reads! The suggestion that you make up 2 groups that are interested in your character. One positive, one negative. Is a fun idea aswell, but I think you have to run it by your GM first. If you say: "I'm being hunted by the Assassins Guild" and there isn't a Assassins guild in your setting, then you're forcing the GM to change his story / world for the benefit of your character. Talking to your DM before hand is always a plus for me. I'd like my players to tell me what they're looking for. That way I can make adjustments to the story that suits them. I also liked the idea about taking your character sheet and flipping over all you traits. So instead of a Noble fearless Paladin, you become a money grubbing coward who uses the church as a defense against his crimes. Happy to hear you liked them. Yes, different GMs will have different tolerances for players establishing new information in the context of the game setting. Me, I ask players to be as free with that as they like within the established genre expectations. It helps when my policy for the setting is "Nothing exists until it is established in play." If the GM has a lot of setting material or canon that exists but isn't necessarily revealed as yet (and is still considered de facto "true" regardless), then the player is advised to seek the GM's buy-in. To me, such offers by players are a gift to me and to the game, so I am always ready to work in their ideas. I recommend other GMs do the same. After all, RPGs are a collaborative game! That paladin idea is so cool.

Altaranalt S. said: These are really good reads! The suggestion that you make up 2 groups that are interested in your character. One positive, one negative. Is a fun idea aswell, but I think you have to run it by your GM first. If you say: "I'm being hunted by the Assassins Guild" and there isn't a Assassins guild in your setting, then you're forcing the GM to change his story / world for the benefit of your character. Interesting way to look at that. Being hunted by the Assassins Guild doesn't exactly seem like a "benefit" for the character. And insofar as the GM is being "forced" to change, the change is something that the player wants and is engaged with, and making that change all but guarantees interest at the table, something even the best GMs must constantly strive for. That's a benefit not just for the character (if it is that) but also for the player, the GM and the other players, all for no real cost.

I'm a writer (a starving, unpublished one, but a writer, nonetheless) with multitudes of not-writer friends that, coincidentally, tabletop game. Almost all of them are the a-typical roleplayer ("What roll do I have to make to talk to him?", "This combat is slow, can we speed it up?", "Blah blah blah, intrigue stuff.") with little insight or interest in creating and maintaining a different perspective; AKA playing a role. They have their own methods of enjoying themselves at the table, so, instead of "trying to groom" I left them to their devices and tried to find a game to my liking. I've experienced both ends of the spectrum; either too deep into the muddy waters of borderline schizophrenia, or not even bothering to craft a persona with agency and drive. The method-acting approach isn't all bad, to me, so long as you know where to cut the line, but sometimes the obvious (You Are Not Your Character) has to be hammered back into place. It annoys me more to be a part of a game where there are players who don't even try! This is your hobby, your Saturday/Friday/Fun night; make it fun for you! Try! Make it interesting for yourself and others! Don't drag us down with you if you're bored or uninterested! (Admittedly, this problem can stem from having a bad GM, but why would I be there if I was surrounded by uninterested murderhobos and a GM with the personality of moldy bread?)

They probably are making it fun for themselves, or at least comfortable. Why should they be concerned about making it fun for you?

Paul U. said: They probably are making it fun for themselves, or at least comfortable. Why should they be concerned about making it fun for you? Tabletop gaming is a collaborative effort, as I am positive you know. Every game I'm in I immediately try to forge past relationships with other PCs to make the game more interesting, talk to other Players to see if we can make up a rivalry for the fun of it; things that facilitate fun play for everyone! Making zero attempt and being dead weight doesn't lend any real credibility or clout to the game itself, and makes it barely-passable NCAA squares without the TV.

jell0crew said: Tabletop gaming is a collaborative effort, as I am positive you know. Every game I'm in I immediately try to forge past relationships with other PCs to make the game more interesting, talk to other Players to see if we can make up a rivalry for the fun of it; things that facilitate fun play for everyone! Not everyone finds that kind of thing fun. Collaboration can't be forced on others, really. You can only collaborate with what others give you. If they truly give you nothing, yeah, that's hard, but usually there's a little purchase you can grab and build off of, by accepting it and adding on to it.

Paul U. said: Not everyone finds that kind of thing fun. Collaboration can't be forced on others, really. You can only collaborate with what others give you. If they truly give you nothing, yeah, that's hard, but usually there's a little purchase you can grab and build off of, by accepting it and adding on to it. Agreed. The other option is to find another group. Not everyone is going to try to work together or collaborate for the sake of mutual fun, for whatever reason. That's okay. Is it for me? Not really. I had said previously that I'll let people do what they want because that's what they want to do. I can't stop or prevent them from doing so; that's unfair and selfish. I'm more than welcome to leave and find a group that's more to my liking, which is exactly what I do if I'm consistently stonewalled on multiple fronts.

It probably isn't said often enough that people who don't share the same goals should not be playing the game together. Find any "problem player" or "problem GM" post on any RPG forum and you can most likely boil it down to lack of communication and buy-in. They're just not playing the same game. Here's another good read on that from a smart blog: The Gamer Hurdle . The point made in a couple of the blogs I posted is that everyone at the table should be acting in service to the game. Not to their characters, not to themselves, but to the game experience as a whole. If your character (or you, for that matter) isn't going to contribute to a positive game experience for everyone, then either that character (or you) needs to change. The game experience comes first, always, however it is the group defines that experience.

jell0crew said: Paul U. said: Not everyone finds that kind of thing fun. Collaboration can't be forced on others, really. You can only collaborate with what others give you. If they truly give you nothing, yeah, that's hard, but usually there's a little purchase you can grab and build off of, by accepting it and adding on to it. Agreed. The other option is to find another group. Not everyone is going to try to work together or collaborate for the sake of mutual fun, for whatever reason. That's okay. Is it for me? Not really. I had said previously that I'll let people do what they want because that's what they want to do. I can't stop or prevent them from doing so; that's unfair and selfish. I'm more than welcome to leave and find a group that's more to my liking, which is exactly what I do if I'm consistently stonewalled on multiple fronts. Yep, that's all quite true, and its why as much pre-coordination as possible is a good idea. I make an effort to hold a "Session 0" with my players, so we all understand the expectations of the game before committing to play, and people can bow out before the game actually starts. I also like the suggestion of the "Same Page Tool": <a href="http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/the-same-page-tool/" rel="nofollow">http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/the-same-page-tool/</a>

Geez! More good blogs to read! &gt;_&lt; Be back later; reading until my eyes dry out.

I'm actually pretty bad at setting up a Session 0. I would rather just get playing. But having something like that has helped me in the past as a player, so I try to do at least a little level-setting in advance, and throughout the session.