Making Your Characters Unique

[Delta]

We all write backstories for our characters that explains our skills and why we have them...

No. We don't all do that.

 

[dmccoy1693]

No. We don't all do that.

Ok, not everyone writes a backstory, but did your character pop into existance 5 seconds ago or was (s)he born and have some kind of history?

 

[WSmith]

My typical ideas: Give the character a "day job." In my one game right now, my character is a necromancer, but his family were mead brewers. So I put a few ranks into profession brewing. It doesn't get much use unless the party is in a tavern and we need to distract the bartender while a sneaky character did something.

This sounds a lot like secondary skills from the AD&D 1st edition DMG. You rolled (or picked if you rather) from a list of professions to determine what the character was prior to becoming an adventurer. It was very broad, (things like sailor, navigator, forester, farmer, etc.) and had no mechanic tied to it. Most DMs would use that in certain situations to help out with whatever the players were doing, like a forester could tell something about the vegetation.

Oh and the criminal one, don't forget to have him use the "I smell bacon" line too.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Oh and the criminal one, don't forget to have him use the "I smell bacon" line too.

LOL, I haven't played that character in years. But he's still memorable as the one that was questioned frequently by the cops for being "friends with criminals" but never going to jail himself.

 

[Claudius Gaius]

I've seen quite a lot of characters who apparently did just pop into existence, especially when someone wanted to replace a character they'd gotten killed, retired, or decided that they didn't like any more, and wanted to bring in an 14'th level barbarian warlord-hero whom somehow no one had ever heard of before.

As far as "what do I do to make the character unique, memorable, different from the other bazillion rangers that grewup in the wilderness because their parents died while they were young" - well, I try to make each backstory unique and different: I don't think I can provide you with a general rule for making things unique other than "do so" "or use lots of random stuff". It sort of seems like any such rule would be a contradiction in terms.

As far as making the characters abilities unique goes, that's why we use point-buy systems. You want a unique talent, unusual speciality derived from your background, training in some weird discipline, or other bizarre feature? Just go ahead and buy it. I haven't seen a "generic" character in years.

If you want some rules, Eclipse (shareware version linked in the sig) has a section on personality traits and their mechanical impact on the game, motivations, personality profiles, and discriptions (physical, mental, social, and historical elements, as well as current affairs).

Are you simply asking for some elements that have been used to make a character unique? That would be a very, very, long list.

 

[GlassEye]

I don't bother trying to make the character 'unique'. Because, really, is anything unique? I try to make sure the character resonates with me (and, hopefully, my fellow players) in such a way that I enjoy playing the character.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Sometimes this can lead to tried-&-true fantasy tropes (the barbarian chief's son who left his village to explore the world beyond their lands

How is this character unique? How is this barbarian that left the village different from the bazillion others that did that?

He isn't in that respect - hence the 'tried-&-true fantasy trope' bit. His differences came up in writing his story as dream-journey visits with his shamanic grandfather (adding a bit of spiritual & possibly magical depth to a melee character), & in personality quirks that emerged during play.

 

[Graybeard]

The characters I play all have a background that includes friends, family, likes, dislikes, etc. They all have a reason to adventure. The DMs I've had all use bits of the background in the game. For example, a changeling I played in an Eberron campaign had a family member killed by an unknown person who left a calling card. The PC also had a drinking problem so when the PC started to have a drink or two, he would need a will save to stop drinking.

 

[DungeonMaester]

The best solution is to go play GURPS.

---Rusty

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Oh, man, I had this one favorite PC. He was an elven wizard who adamantly insisted that every Friday night he and the rest of the party stop what they were doing, whip out a card table from the bag of holding and set up camp. From there, he'd pass out dice, paper, pencils, Mountain Dew, pizza and chips and for 4-8 hours--regardless of whatever random encounters came the group's way--that ole elf would tell story upon story. The rest of the group hated him!