Creating Personalities for PCs

[Kid Charlemagne]

Delericho, that's a very handy shortcut for working up a personality. Consider it *yoinked*.

I tend to pick a trait or two to focus on early, and then let things develop from there. For example, I recently finished playing an elven wizard, and I started him off being fairly serious and curious. Early on he got a magic ring that had been taken from someone else, and that someone else kept sending magical minions after us to get it back. I didn't particularly want to give up the ring, so I started adding an element of daredevil/irresponsibility to his character. Finally, it got to the point where I HAD to give the ring up, or it was going to get very bad for the rest of the party. Soon after that, he got involved with a negotiation with an Infernal, and he tried to trick the Infernal into giving up some information for free - and the Infernal tried to take it out of his and the party's hide. Those two events caused me to decide that my PC needed to get a little more serious about things, and take a less daring view of things.

Then there's another favorite character, a British army Major. His initial personality and character concept can be easily summed as "the guy in the Agatha Christie murder mystery who you initially think is the killer, but it turns out he's foolishly covering for someone else out of misplaced honor".

 

[shilsen]

I've done 1,2,3,5 and 6 at some time or the other. I prefer to do organic characters, so that while the character's personality is in existence at the start of the campaign, it will evolve and be modified by experiences during the campaign. Unfortunately, I've only been in one real campaign when I haven't been DMing, so there's been little such opportunity for development.

 

[jerichothebard]

Delericho, that's a very handy shortcut for working up a personality. Consider it *yoinked*.

Agreed!


As for me, I voted 1, 2, 5, & 6. Though, mostly, it's 5. The idea driving my current character, a cleric, is, "All I really wanted to do was play my mandolin in bars and get laid a lot, but God called me to his service."

 

[Kanegrundar]

I start with a rough idea build up from there. Sometimes those ideas are inspired from a character in whatever book I'm reading at the time or a movie I've recently watched, while others are just something I've wanted to try out in character for a while.

Kane

 

[Orius]

I tend to base the characters on my own personality. There are differences depending on the race and class of the character, given that those differences in my mind might affect the decisions each character makes. I often make the chatacters up as I go along too, reacting to campaign events as they unfold and as I feel like doing so. My characters aren't all carbon copies of my own personality though; many of them have a love for strong drink, where I don't really have much of a taste for alcohol myself.

 

[diaglo]

Sorry, I've skewed you're result by voting for everything (or should I say failed to skew?). Sufficed to say, I've done everything on that list, often several at once.

ditto

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I sometimes make characters based on my personality, and sometimes the opposite. More often though, I try to go with something I haven't done before.

 

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

I usually start out with some flaw or obsession that the character has (I'm a fan of GURPS character generation), and build from there. Sometimes I find out that I have unintentionally based characteristics on myself that I didn't realize were there.

Rafael came to life because I chose "paragoblin" as race in Stormborn's homebrew Leviathan world. Paragoblins are blue-skinned, red-haired (think Mystique) and highly charismatic, so he became a bard and I played up his female-chasing proclivities, which have gotten him into trouble many many times.

Another character, Zachary (non-D&D, late 19th century) was an ex-baseball player/detective whose impulsiveness got him into trouble many many times.

Yet another character, Vaughn (d20 modern), was obsessed with research and had a fiancee named Button (!) whom he was totally unsuited for. Basically he was built around his having a hot, rich girlfriend that he had no idea how to deal with.

Yes, I've played female characters too (and I am a female despite my nom de game), but none quite so messed up as Raef and Zach.

I really love character creation and spend far too much time on backstory.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I almost always take a small aspect of my own personality and magnify/extrapolate from there.

Converse to Rafael, I rarely spend a lot of time on the backstory. I'm playing to forge my character's own story. There's nothing wrong with a well-written backstory, but as a DM, I hate when players give me a giant backstory for their characters that would easily have them at fifth level already.

 

[Quickleaf]

I have to say I've never been given a personality by the DM, nor have I given one to players when I DM. Also, I've never used ability scores to define a character.

Like dericho, I focus on several key points:

1. Breaking the mold -- I choose some archetype, or some defining quirk or background trait that springs to mind, and then I start playing with it. For example, take Prince Sanjar who was built on the "charismatic fighter" archetype. I decided he practiced barbaric techniques on the battlefield gained from a period of time among a tribe of cannibals; only his closest advisors know of his barbarism, which otherwise remains a secret.

2. Teachers & Training -- How has the character's life changed their baseline personality? What parts of their personality have been supressed or exaggerated over the course of their life? Prince Sanjar was the apple of his father's eye until his younger sister was adopted from a city the king conquered. This event brought out Sanjar's mistrust of his family, and suppressed his desire for his father's love.

3. Motives & Tactics -- What does the character want most? What are they willing to do to acheive those goals? Sanjar wants to take over his father's throne, believing it to be the only way to end the practice of sacrificing to the manticore-on-the-hill. To this end he hopes to win support covertly from key military leaders and politicians. He plans to win the people by conquering their enemies and winning the famous Chariot Races. He is willing to hurt, murder, kidnap, and extort to reach his goals, though he has a strong sense of honor and will never lie about his intentions.

4. Dirty Little Secrets -- What core flaws does the character have? What could others use against the character as leverage? Sanjar used to sleep with prostitutes in his younger years, and has recently learned he had an illegitimate son. Sanjar has recruited a group of rogues to kidnap all the women he slept with and question them about the whereabouts of his son. He both afraid of his son blackmailing him, and afraid for his son being attacked by Sanjar's enemies. He hopes to be the father the king never was for him.