Character Creation and You

[Praetor]

Thank you SO much for this! I have been unsatisfied with my character bios and personalities...this is perfect!

 

[Skyway]

I like to say this is very helpful and it should be stick somewhere so people can find it. :)
A few notes to this though.

Much like Motive a character should also have goals. I be using Darth Examplus as in the post. A character should have a short goal and a long goal. You may have muti-goals if needed. And the long goal may not be reach in your characters life. Back to Darth Examplus goals, these are his motive but they can also be goals. A short goal be killing his master and his long goal be ruling the galaxy as the most powerful sith..

As a ending to finishing a character, I find it if I put more time in it as add detail, or what ever I ten to like it more and it wont feel I need to throw it out.

 

[Stacker01]

I know someone who uses flow charts for their fan fiction. It's insane.

Another pitfall to avoid in a character's bio and motivations is the death of their parents, unless you're going to have Batman-level depth as a result of it. Too many profiles I've seen over the years are "The Jedi killed his parents, so he joined the Sith for REVENGE!" It's overdone and hard to do well.

I actually just did this without thinking about how batman-esque it is. I purposely made a character that would go ever-so-slightly against societal norms as well as having a certain respect for compassion so as to set up that same kind of ideal about defending people and finding an inner peace rather than wholly destroying everyone.

...and THEN I saw this post. lol

 

[Green Ranger]

un-archived on request.

 

[Black Noise]

This should go in the character profiles board as a stickied thread in my opinion, it's extremely helpful.

 

[Indigo]

I agree with Black Noise; I've read this every time I've made or updated one of my characters as way of getting my mind rolling. I've even read it for writing projects outside of this site.

 

[Kiro]

This should go in the character profiles board as a stickied thread in my opinion, it's extremely helpful.

Agreed.

 

[DarthEpic]

This May take a while...

 

[NikosInCarcosa]

Just hopping in here with a concept, since this seems to be the place for it. Would "Join the Jedi Order to broaden my understanding of the Force, and use it to make the galaxy a better place" qualify as a workable motive?

 

[Bee]

Just hopping in here with a concept, since this seems to be the place for it. Would "Join the Jedi Order to broaden my understanding of the Force, and use it to make the galaxy a better place" qualify as a workable motive?

Certainly.

 

[Richie B.]

Guess it's kind of sad that my two main characters have dead parents :oops:

 

[The Derp of Hooves]

Hmm well Yuunda's parents were tortured to death, Mire lost her mind, Theresa's mom is a whore and bones mom and dad were shot to death..... I think I have problems torturing my characters :3

 

[Dmitri]

Having dead parents isn't necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. It's when the dead parents are the revenge factor or were killed by the PC out of evilness that it turns into cliche, in my honest opinion.

 

[Mr.BossMan]

I am using this now to help me out. Thanks

 

[Mr.BossMan]

@Green Ranger is there any help you could provide on Strengths and weaknesses? I am currently struggling on finding good strengths and weaknesses for my character.

Any help would be awesome.

 

[Timpo Falensarano]

Bravo. What helps me with character creation is a flow-chart. Sounds super-lame, but it's a big help. Still, I generally only play with one or two characters.

Do you happen to have a flow chart that I can get a copy of?