Highly detailed PC personalities?

[Jon_Dahl]

The character sheet.
It has so many lines, tables and slots about your character's fighting ability, skills and whatnot but rarely I see anything about your character's personality. It's kind of funny: It's called "roleplaying game" but still I don't see that much regarding the character's persona.

So a majority of games are very free-form about your PC's personality. To be honest I have no problem with this.

I like to play Football Manager -series. In the recent versions the psychology of the virtual people has been highly detailed. In the guidebooks these psychological attributes are explained. Someone who is ambitious views things differently than someone who is very loyal. I would call it like an extremely detailed alignment system. Sometimes I look how great and methodical all that is, and I wish RPGs had something like that too.

So the question is would it make any sense if a DM such as myself charted PC personalities before the game? I don't think it's a problem really, since the players should have some idea how they are going to play their characters. It would leave some room for development, because these values would be more like guidelines and could change over the course of adventures, just like alignment does.

The list could look something like this:
Importance of treasure
Readiness to fight until death
Hot-headedness
Tendency to revenge slights
Hopefulness
Whimsicalness
Tendency to lead others
The ability to take orders from others
How professional he is
How much does your character enjoy controversy
Willingness to take risks
Balance between rationality vs. emotions
Extrovert or introvert
Sense of humour
+ about 10-20 other factors.

What do you think? Would detailed character personality charting make you happy or irritated?

 

[Argyle King]

GURPS: Generic Universal RolePlaying System


That's exactly what some of the advantages and disadvantages in GURPS are. There's not an alignment axis based around good/evil and law/chaos. Instead, you can take things such as 'code of honor,' 'compulsive gambling,' and all manner of other options. I emphasize options because -as a toolkit game- those traits are just that; it's perfectly fine to play without them as well.

 

[steenan]

Many games use player-defined traits to describe character personality and to give it a mechanical significance. It works much better than numeric ratings for a long list of qualities, because it helps the player focus on what is most important for the character's personality.

I like games that have mechanical representation for personality and make it important in the resolution process. Fate, Dogs in the Vineyard, Mistborn Adventure Game - just to name a few.

But if I understand the OP correctly, what he means is defining a numeric rating for each of the listed qualities and some more. Such thing would be quite irritating for me - time consuming and not really useful in portraying the character.

There is also a question of how the ratings are used by the rules. If they are only a description, it's a waste of time. If they are used in resolution, like Fate aspects or Mistborn traits, I may be interested.

 

[Argyle King]

There's a bit more to it than this, but the way some of the 'mental' disadvantages work in GURPS does have a number associated, but not in the same way the OP is suggesting. Choosing one of the disadvantageous traits is more like what I guess I might call a contract between the player and the GM. The player agrees to roleplay a trait, and -in return- he is given some more points to use on other traits for his character. Where the number comes in is that some disadvantages have a control number; the control number comes into play at times when you may want to act against a personality trait of your character.


For example, you might give your character the 'Honesty' disadvantage. While honesty is generally viewed as a positive thing, it is considered a disadvantage because it has the potential to limit you. Generally speaking, a character with Honesty will obey the law and do their best to get others to do so as well.

Ok, so now let's say the fellow members of your adventuring party want to rob a bank. You might think they have actual legitimate reasons for wanting to rob the bank, but that triggers your Honesty. If you (as the player) want to play against the personality that you (as the player) voluntarily chose for your character, you need to roll against your control number. On the other end of the spectrum, someone with Kleptomania would probably be totally on board with robbing the bank. That's a pretty lame example, but I think it gets the idea across.

I'll also note that you're never required to roll. You can always choose to voluntarily fail the control roll if you simply just want to roleplay the trait. The control number is there for times when you might be in a situation where acting against a character's typical nature is something you want to do.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I prefer the Seven Sentence NPC method from Dragon magazine (reprinted numerous times in numerous places).

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

I spoke about it not too long ago on another post, but I've been developing a "personality sheet" for my characters in OMEN.

Basically it is tiered (like everything in the OMEN system) and has a small dose of mechanical impact but is mostly used as a guide to keep players in character.

At the top of the page it has a large blank space for a picture and the character's name to be folded over (if they so choose, sort of like an elementary school name tag) and then a few lines for brief description of the character to keep consistent.

Below that upper section are the three Core Traits that define the character's true inner foundation. Such traits could be large categories like generous, noble, aggressive, ambitious, honorable, logical, things like that. The player can write down whatever three core traits that he or she wants, we encourage creativity and have quite a few examples in the book. Every character is recommended to have at least one trait that is quite different than another (for example "hot tempered" and "logical" would be considered different enough.)

Beneath each of the three core traits is a series of empty lines to allow the player to fill in with more nuance and subtlety as many traits as he or she desires. We recommend at least three sub-traits beneath the core traits. An example would be the core trait of Creative, and the sub-traits being "artistic, insightful, dramatic, romantic."

The GM should be familiar with all of these traits and attempt to cater to them, and provide small bonuses for a player staying within the logical confines of those traits. This arose from a playtest group that was particularly shy and having a hard time thinking and acting in character, and after the implementation of this sheet (and the requisite +1 here and there for staying in character) role-playing and personality increased five fold.

After some more playtesting, we will decide whether we want to keep it or not, but I think that it works really well and is of course optional. I always go crazy with my own character motivations and backstories, but a lot of people don't.

As for a numbered axis of a bunch of specific traits, I think that is a little too pick and choose for my taste at least for a light system like OMEN, but I think for a more crunch-heavy system something like the OP is suggesting might be beneficial.

 

[Yora]

I go with Allegiance from d20 Modern. It does not require a lot of preparation, is flexible enough to spontaneously adapt to unexpected situations, and is very easy to memorize.

The main purpose of any such things is to help players to make descisions based on their characters point of view, so being able to access all the information from memory without looking anything up on the character sheet is important.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

FATE handles this quite well with their Aspects system. It also helps tie the group together.

A typical aspect would be a negative and a positive in one. For instance, "Great Rage" (not the best name, no) could be tagged for combat aspects, but could also be tagged by the villain to get your PC to do something stupid.

Aspects are always player generated, and three-fifths of them are developed in association with the other players.

In order to tag their aspect to get a relevant bonus, a PC needs to pay a fate point; PCs usually have 5 or 10, but some systems have you pay permanent fate points for magic, etc. The downside acts like a "bribe". The DM can "bribe" the PC with a fate point to submit to the negative side of the aspect. If the player refuses, their PC has to give up a fate point. (A DM can even "up" the bribe, eg gain 2 fate points if you accept, lose 2 fate points if you refuse.) If a PC is running low on fate points, refusing the bribe can become dangerous, or even impossible. Certain self-destructive aspects (eg "The Alcoholic") would actually make sense in this system. A PC has gone through a lot, now they want to drown their sorrows (in order to get back those fate points, mechanically). Of course, if any sort of skill check, RPing or combat breaks out while the PC is drunk, they're going to pay for it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I leave most of that to the players. I mean, having a system is nice, but I don't demand in-depth PC personalities.

The reason is I have had the good fortune of having gamed with a wide variety of players, and ive found that whether I'm playing with stereotypes and cardboard cutouts, the creations of master thespians, or game world versions of the players themselves, it makes no difference to MY enjoyment of the game.

 

[Argyle King]

I leave most of that to the players. I mean, having a system is nice, but I don't demand in-depth PC personalities.

The reason is I have had the good fortune of having gamed with a wide variety of players, and ive found that whether I'm playing with stereotypes and cardboard cutouts, the creations of master thespians, or game world versions of the players themselves, it makes no difference to MY enjoyment of the game.

I typically like to leave it to players as well, but I have had times when it did ruin my enjoyment of the game because somebody else was somewhat inconsistent with their character. That's not to say I expect a character to be set in stone and never change; I do not expect that at all. Character evolution is normal. However, after a far bad experiences with the player of a "Lawful Good" Paladin deciding it was perfectly ok to steal from the party funds and buy himself the magic item he really wanted while screwing over the rest of the party and similar experiences, I've come to also appreciate a game with a little more teeth when needed.