Helpful advice on how to develop new chars.

[Cyath]

Ola everyone .
I just thought I would start a helpful thread for people who are looking to create new characters . I am extremely keen to know how people get inspiration to create their chars . Do people refer to old literature ? ..Do people use their own personal life experience to form a char's persona ? .
Anyhow ...I for one , am looking to create a new chars , so any helpful advice on the creation process would be great .
Many thanks
*P.S * Best wishes to everyone and I hope your christmas is a blast .

 

[Elf_Ariel]

Ehhh I read outlandish books. You know, books I'd never read if I actually wanted to. I've got several new and interesting ideas from my old physics textbook for example. It may have helped if I'd have read it two years ago when studying for my exams, but better late than never. I also like to steal the good bits from other folk's interesting characters I see about. You've gotta be subtle when you do that though.

 

[Venisad]

For a new character, pick a concept and start with the center out?

Sorry that I can't be more helpful

 

[Agarlin]

Nine out of ten times, my character concepts start with the ominous sentence: "Wouldn't it be funny if..."

 

[Toxicsyn]

i use the same method...

 

[Imreis]

Music is a wonderful insperation for characters...just turn up the tunes and start riffling through some D&D books for ideas of the classes and races. If you dont play D&D or dont own any books, another good approch is to just look at miscelanous items around your house...odd as it sounds it can help. For exampe; sitting on a shelf beside your monitor lets say is a small statue of a gargoyle...watch it and think...hmm, well back in mideveal times they would keep those atop cathedrals to ward of demons and wayward sprits....oh! a cleric, i bet that would be fun! from there look around more...hmm well my wallpaper is blue and white so perhaps he/she can wear robes of that color...

i think you get the point, just look around you, the simplest things can feed inspiration and all that jazz.

 

[MistyThorin]

One thing I find good to do with any new character is to figure out his or her motives for becoming an adventurer.

Was he kicked out by his magic-fearing family for showing bardic or sorcerous talents? Or for some other reason, forcing him to learn to survive on his own? Did she witness an orc raid that killed most or all of her family, inspiring her to learn to fight for vengeance? Or did she just want to be able to better protect whatever family survived the attack? Is he perhaps a scholarly sort, a scribe or a clerk, asked by his wizardly employer to hand-deliver a message to a correspondent on another plane? And did the exposure to a new world inspire him to attempt the study of magic for himself?

I've found that by working out a good background story, even if you leave some of the details blank to fill in later, you can more easily get into the character's head to react properly while playing them.

But be prepared for the occasional surprise, to, lol. Characters can go take left turns on you. I have one character from way back on WotC, a sorcerer-thief, who was designed with the intent of being a skirt-chaser of the swashbuckling Errol Flynn sort. He flirted quite a bit, even went home with a few ladies, but it was work for him to do so. Then he met that cute tiefling Amadaeo and came out of the closet, lol. (And no, he's not gay because I-the-player am female... I've got other male characters who do just fine with the ladies.)

 

[Dontella]

I rather like the..

It's 4 am, you've had -way!- too much Mountain Dew and everything you say seems like pure genius ..

or the

Wouldn't it be funny if..

approaches to character making.

Usually my ideas begin at wild and rampant tabletop sessions. Once I've gotten everything down in pencil and paper, and played with dice.. then I 'port them over to online.

Occasionally I'll create something just for ISRP, and run rampant with it.

But they are usually products of sugar, and an overactive imagination that is fueled on by the crazy people around me (But I love 'em)

 

[Ruthia]

I have two approaches. Ruthia and gang where based off of my favorite book series and an intresting storyline I started some Six years ago and am almost done with. My other characters you ask? Well thats easy...I find a picture I like on line an work from there. "Well ok...what if this picture was a half elf. With yellow hair and purple eyes and..." and it just builds from there.

 

[Saera Duraston]

Oh, fun thread! ^_^

Most of mine start with an OOC reason that I want to play out. The good ones become roles I can play as if it were improv theater. Stats and descriptions don't seem to make for long-term enjoyable ISRP play as much as a personality you can sink your teeth into (allusion intended, Cyath, hehe!). Thinking strongly about motivations and back-story helps with that.

Kathryn_aka_Kat was my first ISRP char. I'd scoped out the message boards first and everyone was complaining about high-level godmoders with tons of magic. Sooooo... she was human rogue-type, low level, not a single bit of magic to her. Funny thing, she started with four daggers. A year later she still had four daggers and now all were magic. People just gave them to her!

Kat tended to avoid combat in favor of diplomacy. I wanted to become more familiar with combat mechanisms and how to translate them into ISRP play. Sooooooo... Chelyrra is the anti-Kat in terms of diplomacy and willingness to fight. And she was developed at a time when there were a LOT of nicely-nice Drizzt-type drow, feh on 'em, so she isn't. She's had dozens of fights and lost all but 2 of them, because I still prefer playing low-to-mid level chars. Hasn't done a thing to reduce her arrogance though.

After exploring combat, next comes, you guessed it, spell-casting. Enter Saera. No fighting skills, not very diplomatic, but a nice girl with lots of spells. And I'd been playing a lot of Kat with a mind-blank ring where I couldn't post thought balloons. Sooooo... Saera keeps a running commentary in her head, where some of her polite "niceness" gets translated into what she really thinks. Avoids too much saccharine. The crafting proved a great way to make connections with people and gives an excuse for what she's doing with her life other than the tavern.

Having now egotistically told you all about coming up with -my- chars, I do want to make one point. Whatever char you have, it has to matter to YOU. Maybe you like it, maybe it's the sort you love to hate, but you need some interest in it and how it relates to others and how its life is going to progress. Because otherwise, you'll be one of those sitting around bored waiting for others to pull your puppet's strings for you.