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How do you make a 'Soldier' interesting?
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<blockquote data-quote="Positiveimpact3" data-source="post: 7156832" data-attributes="member: 6890727"><p>I see, that definitely helps me have a better idea of the character. For narrative this is pretty solid. If I understand correctly the war is essentially the inciting incident for the hero (if we are talking about the hero's journey) and feels she isn't the same and can't go back to the way things were. Fantastic start. She (I assume) is motivated by a desire to make a positive difference in the world and also do the objectively right thing. So she hears or knows of things in the world that she is motivated to participate. This definitely doesn't fit the grizzled veteran as that is a story of an experienced and battered hero, not a new one.</p><p></p><p>So the new hero gets an invitation which lines up with her motivation so she takes it. She is immediately confronted with conflict she did not expect that makes her doubt her original resolve to be a hero, her first trial essentially. This is overcome and she starts doing missions and then gets her first "real" trial of conscience - she trusts someone and they abuse that trust to harm a lot of innocent people. She would likely feel racked with guilt (for years or decades to come) and in the future it is likely she will be more paranoid and it will be harder to gain her trust. She may also become far more sensitive (and hostile or fearful) to manipulation attempted by friend or foe. She might start to distrust and dislike spell-casters and magic or irrationally angry or afraid of the darker places that large cities inevitably harbor. A few more experiences like this and she will be well on her way to the previously discussed trope of "grizzled veteran". There are plenty of other plausible reactions like denial, rage, bitterness, and self loathing among others - all of which serve as potential character development.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So this is a pretty interesting scenario, though not directly related to making your character more interesting. What your character does can reflect her thought process and personality as well as how she reacts to things like betrayal, deception, and high-stakes conflict. In this case there are politics involved which can get a lot of people hurt if it's screwed up - pretty high stakes. She wants to "pursue justice" against the deceiver without killing him/her. "Pursue justice" is a pretty fluid term so I am not sure what that means to Human. I will assume that it means she wants the deceiver to be held responsible for her crimes - also a fluid notion. Apparently to Human - killing the perpetrator wholesale is not acceptable and so is doing nothing.</p><p></p><p>Objectively If someone were a character that desired to do good and follow the law but had objections to killing the enemy and bringing in authorities what would someone do? Probably think on it for a good long while and try to plan how I could involve the authorities without causing all out war. If that failed I would try to rationalize my morals to see if I would truly be in the wrong to go out and exact justice personally. Failing that I would consider how far outside the law I would be willing to go in order to do the right thing. A lot depends on this answer, if killing isn't okay to do the right thing, is blackmail? coercion? stealing? conspiring? deception? staging a set-up? Depending on what you decide is morally acceptable will determine your options and therefore I can't give much advice here until I have more info on that particular question. If you can neither kill or contact authorities or break the law without compromise then your options are extremely limited. </p><p></p><p>Perhaps a trap, an ambush of sorts. Make a plan to bait out illegal actions from the perp where you will be in the right to defend yourself / kill or arrest the law-breaker or expose him to authorities in a separate illegal act that wont cause all out war. You cant get him for the first crime but you might get him with the second if you plan it right. You could hire a thieve's guild or some other party (if it isn't strictly illegal) to get more info and potential dirt on the baddie and use it to expose him to the authorities (assuming again that it wont cause all-out war). If it is legal or permitted you can commission a drawing based on the description of the guy and put a personal bounty/wanted poster over the town so that bounty hunters and adventurers hunt this guy down and people who recognize him might avoid him or rat him out to a bounty hunter for part of the reward.</p><p></p><p>Heck if it isn't illegal you can start rumors that a dangerous wizard / warlock is magically disguising himself and wreaking havoc and see if something comes up. If the city has any kind of witch hunter guild that finds and kills evil spell casters then you might be able to contact them. If you have or can obtain the ability to make a citizen's arrest you might be able to track the warlock down and arrest/detain it for a time until the war is no longer imminent and then turn him over to the authorities when it is safe to do so. Human could try to join the city guard or some other organization that has the authority to kill / detain threats to the city legally and then proceed to do so.</p><p></p><p>That's all I can think of at the moment though I am sure there are other options. It could be that you bite your tongue until you can safely act and then deliver your vengeance/justice cold. Who knows? I hope the feedback was of some use and look forward to your character's victory.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Positiveimpact3, post: 7156832, member: 6890727"] I see, that definitely helps me have a better idea of the character. For narrative this is pretty solid. If I understand correctly the war is essentially the inciting incident for the hero (if we are talking about the hero's journey) and feels she isn't the same and can't go back to the way things were. Fantastic start. She (I assume) is motivated by a desire to make a positive difference in the world and also do the objectively right thing. So she hears or knows of things in the world that she is motivated to participate. This definitely doesn't fit the grizzled veteran as that is a story of an experienced and battered hero, not a new one. So the new hero gets an invitation which lines up with her motivation so she takes it. She is immediately confronted with conflict she did not expect that makes her doubt her original resolve to be a hero, her first trial essentially. This is overcome and she starts doing missions and then gets her first "real" trial of conscience - she trusts someone and they abuse that trust to harm a lot of innocent people. She would likely feel racked with guilt (for years or decades to come) and in the future it is likely she will be more paranoid and it will be harder to gain her trust. She may also become far more sensitive (and hostile or fearful) to manipulation attempted by friend or foe. She might start to distrust and dislike spell-casters and magic or irrationally angry or afraid of the darker places that large cities inevitably harbor. A few more experiences like this and she will be well on her way to the previously discussed trope of "grizzled veteran". There are plenty of other plausible reactions like denial, rage, bitterness, and self loathing among others - all of which serve as potential character development. So this is a pretty interesting scenario, though not directly related to making your character more interesting. What your character does can reflect her thought process and personality as well as how she reacts to things like betrayal, deception, and high-stakes conflict. In this case there are politics involved which can get a lot of people hurt if it's screwed up - pretty high stakes. She wants to "pursue justice" against the deceiver without killing him/her. "Pursue justice" is a pretty fluid term so I am not sure what that means to Human. I will assume that it means she wants the deceiver to be held responsible for her crimes - also a fluid notion. Apparently to Human - killing the perpetrator wholesale is not acceptable and so is doing nothing. Objectively If someone were a character that desired to do good and follow the law but had objections to killing the enemy and bringing in authorities what would someone do? Probably think on it for a good long while and try to plan how I could involve the authorities without causing all out war. If that failed I would try to rationalize my morals to see if I would truly be in the wrong to go out and exact justice personally. Failing that I would consider how far outside the law I would be willing to go in order to do the right thing. A lot depends on this answer, if killing isn't okay to do the right thing, is blackmail? coercion? stealing? conspiring? deception? staging a set-up? Depending on what you decide is morally acceptable will determine your options and therefore I can't give much advice here until I have more info on that particular question. If you can neither kill or contact authorities or break the law without compromise then your options are extremely limited. Perhaps a trap, an ambush of sorts. Make a plan to bait out illegal actions from the perp where you will be in the right to defend yourself / kill or arrest the law-breaker or expose him to authorities in a separate illegal act that wont cause all out war. You cant get him for the first crime but you might get him with the second if you plan it right. You could hire a thieve's guild or some other party (if it isn't strictly illegal) to get more info and potential dirt on the baddie and use it to expose him to the authorities (assuming again that it wont cause all-out war). If it is legal or permitted you can commission a drawing based on the description of the guy and put a personal bounty/wanted poster over the town so that bounty hunters and adventurers hunt this guy down and people who recognize him might avoid him or rat him out to a bounty hunter for part of the reward. Heck if it isn't illegal you can start rumors that a dangerous wizard / warlock is magically disguising himself and wreaking havoc and see if something comes up. If the city has any kind of witch hunter guild that finds and kills evil spell casters then you might be able to contact them. If you have or can obtain the ability to make a citizen's arrest you might be able to track the warlock down and arrest/detain it for a time until the war is no longer imminent and then turn him over to the authorities when it is safe to do so. Human could try to join the city guard or some other organization that has the authority to kill / detain threats to the city legally and then proceed to do so. That's all I can think of at the moment though I am sure there are other options. It could be that you bite your tongue until you can safely act and then deliver your vengeance/justice cold. Who knows? I hope the feedback was of some use and look forward to your character's victory. [/QUOTE]
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