I have trouble (been DMing way more than Playing for the past year) with dividing "good player" and "good character."
When every one of you starts talking about "quirks" and "flaws" I think that maybe your not makign such a wise judgement. A character should be a character, without needing to divide up the good and bad.
I like a character (player) that can motivate people on his own. I only have one of those right now, and I wish I could play beside him. He knows how to tell the DM what he wants his character to do. At low levels, he looks for some chance to go risk his life. He's being naive intentionally, for an IC an OOC reason. In character, he is truely naive, and probably doesn't understand the danger inherent in an adventure. Out of character, he is trying to aim as high as he can, and hope he doesn't fall. This helps him develop a history, and it helps some of the less interesting players develop a repoir with one another.
Once that stage is out of the way, he stops motivating the characters to follow hooks. Instead, he starts to make his own. He becomes pro-active, and does whatever is necessary. Sometimes he would lead the group into something fun, but mundane: like using your professions and crafts to turn a few bucks in town and make a better town out of it. "Elect our fighter to the constable of the guards!" and "Vote our *cough*rogue/bard*cough* to be the new governor of your beutiful democratic city!" All this helps further anchor and develop characters, meanwhile he plans to pull something much larger off. He puts all his friends in place, and he makes his plots and schemes.
In one particularly grand experience, he plotted to install his group as nobles, earn titles and land, then annex some of the barbarian lands. The barbarians wouldn't be forced out, but he certainly would spread such rumors. Then, unbeknownst to other rulers, he managed to convince the barbarians to ally themselves with him. He proceeded to use them tactically in order to get a reaction out of the local "Guildenstern's" brother, whom would hopefully antagonize a minor war.
Knowing his own group was by far superior to the normal soldiers of his enemy, they stood there. 6 characters against 200 armed men (with crossbows, longspears, swords, and daggers on even the least armed man), and intentionally prolonged the fight. I told him it would take the entire Barbarian group which he had sent through a certain secret passage he uncovered while being a friend to the "Guildenstern's brother" a few hours in order to take the main palace.
Of course, given his tactical superiority to the Marquis in charge of the "skirmish force" of 200 men, the players were able to survive and retreat from the battle field without wounding a man or being wounded. Those soldiers returned to thier general's home to find the flag raised in there enemies name, to say the least.
That's a good character/player to me. One that goes off and does something with the world the DM provides without being an idiot or weakening the story. He made the game more fun for the DM as well, and without any character flaws other than his lack of discipline with women (his character had 6 or 7 affairs if memory recalls)... all very realistic for a man of such tastes, and quite good fun. He also knows that he exists to be a hero, and he sticks up for the causes his character values, and that is what it takes.
Actual development can be done any-which-way, as long as the player is willing to bring himself above the level of simply "having" traits, and will do something with them. This is just me of course...
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(my WoD character).
