Comments on: A Question of Character

By: Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Sunday Six: 2010-05-02

Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Sunday Six: 2010-05-02 — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:30:41 +0000

[...] A Question of Character Ahh… Character backgrounds. I love writing them, most players don’t. I guess it’s just the writer in me that loves creating a beautifully crafted piece of prose to illustrate who my character is, what his goals are, and why he ticks the way he does. Need a springboard to launch your next character background? Go check out what NewbieDM has to say on the matter. [...]

By: Tale

Tale — Sat, 01 May 2010 19:43:08 +0000

A recent campaign I started up involved sitting down with the players and just talking over how their character looked, where they came from, what was important to them, driving motivations and such.

Then I ran a short session (railroaded) in which I put the character in which he could believably be, introduce a story element they’ll have to face later on in which their character was faced with something they wanted to act against but where powerless to do so.

The freedom loving pirate captain was present at a slave auction, he didn’t have enough money to most of them. The renegade general was forced to watch how a civilian uprising was quelled bloody, etc.

Gave them something to look forward to, and now they’re all ready to hate a few specific NPC’s.

By: Erebus

Erebus — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:34:48 +0000

Yeah i agree with by the sword, my characters evolve over time as the story changes, adaptation is the hardest thing to cultivate in games.

By: by_the_sword

by_the_sword — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:47:42 +0000

I prefer to give a minimum of background for my own characters. It usually takes me about six to eight sessions before i know who my character really is. They tend to take on a life of their own.

By: Tourq

Tourq — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:59:08 +0000

I heard once: Player A explains how player B knows player C. Then player B explains how player C knows player D, and so on…

-Tourq

By: Tim Jensen

Tim Jensen — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:24:14 +0000

I would add one or two) more:

Pick another player character. How does your guy and his know each other?

Pick a different player character. Same question.

By: Charisma

Charisma — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:34:55 +0000

I love asking the question, “What is in your closet, you know, the closet with three padlocks?”

By: morrisonmp

morrisonmp — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:26:40 +0000

So, this is my current topic as well, though I’ve written about it in a different light. I, for one, would say I definitely fall on the more-is-better side. The best campaigns I’ve run/played in, have been those where the PCs were well fleshed out from the beginning, and the I/my GM built the game around character backgrounds and goals.

I’ve never been a fan of the “Character Quiz” style of background, though, with the rarity that players actually bother having any background at all, I certainly wouldn’t turn my nose up at any work by a player.

For the player who is just not ready to commit to a full background write-up, I like the idea of letting them pick from numerous hooks. What it lacks in depth and personalization, it makes up for in encouraging thought and giving a player something to hang their hat on… so to speak.

By: Geek Ken

Geek Ken — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:21:06 +0000

Nice list of questions, especially the last one. It is so important to at least get a bio sketch from your players the first couple of sessions. It really helps get some ideas together and help draw the characters into a story that they have a central role in.

By: newbiedm

newbiedm — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 23:13:00 +0000

@notintheface: that’s actually a very neat idea, you could also turn that into random character hooks “pick a card, any card…”