Character Creation Ideas.

[Jboy2000000]

Ideas you feel like sharing to maybe help give others ideas on what kind of characters they can make, or if you think its a good idea, but don't think you'd do the idea justice, or don't have the slots or the whitelist needed to make the new character.

 

• A young teen aged Unathi with braces. "Yetthh? Yetthh, I know I have a wortthh litthhp than other Unathi."
• More "Ser" characters, who speak like they're from the days of olde, when knights and mages rule the world.
• A psychologist there to "social science experiments."
• Any character of a different nationality, the only time you normally see this, its for stereotypical race joke chuckles.

[Vittorio Giurifiglio]

All of my Characters are different ethnicities

[Guest Menown]

[Guest]

Yes, you do.

Meow, care to share with everyone?

[Guest Menown]

How to make a new character.

Make a new character.

Simple as that. Expect for nobody to talk to you for the first couple days. That's when you make the idea of how you want your character to be.

You don't even need a backstory. Just make it up as you go (making sure you keep it sane.)

[Jakers457]

I thought meowy's expertise was dying?

I'd say get a base concept that'd you like to explore. Be it a down to earth botanist or perhaps an extravagant HoP. But that's just the seed to grow from.

[Guest]

It's both.

Anyway, I think Meowy's right. My better characters are the ones I've just made shit up about as I've gone along.

...I ended up making a really fucking terrible backstory recently.

[VoltageHero]

As somebody who loves psychology probably than most people here, making a psychiatrist who does actual experiments would probably not get a lot of traction. Most players tend to ignore any psychologist that comes on-board unless they have something already in mind, which is why so little people play them.

For the "best" way to make a new character, there is no "right" or "wrong" in this context. It comes down to the player, and what they've done in the past. Some players may find it easier to have a clear, laid out idea of how they want a character to be, so there is less room to mess up their personality, or ideals. Others may believe it's better to unfold their character as time goes on, letting things play out as they go along.

There are pros and cons to both of these ideas. I personally have found it better to have a brainstorm of a character before jumping in, to avoid having to retcon things.

That said, I don't think the point of the thread is to give people tips on just "making a new character", but more-so different types of characters, as seen in the OP. Something for people who have run out of ideas to try and take base character ideas from.

[Crescentise]

Time to make a big post about life, the universe, and everything. And by that, I mean characters. I personally subscribe a bit more to the Jakers method than the Meowy method. I feel like I can't go in game without knowing at least something. A 'gimmick', if you will. Like the ones shared (or intended to be shared) in this thread. Gimmicks are not inherently bad - they become bad if they're the only thing that defines your character. And also if certain gimmicks recur in many of your characters. We have several players around who have the latter problem, and one of them posted in this thread for my convenience!~

 

All of my Characters are different ethnicities

This is all well and good and interesting, mate, but the only character of yours that anyone cares about (being a bit mean and overgeneralising here, but I hope you can take it/understand what I mean without me having to sugarcoat it) is Vittorio. This is because not only does he have a defined race and ethnicity, you've got this very detailed political ideology that you manifest through him. And contrary to popular belief, he doesn't hate all xenos ever. I know that from interacting with him. See? Lots of facets, and more that I haven't described here. Good job with that guy. Lodewikus, however? He's like... Afrikaaner... and also does something political, I guess? Maybe? Who knows? My point is that he's also of some obscure ethnicity and he also does something political. Because of this people may view him as just another version of Vittorio. Because it doesn't appear that you've made an effort to really separate them. You have a 'Baguette Captain' too, or something. Hell, even this nickname you've labelled him with illustrates the problem. He's a French guy, as noted from his fancy name. And what else? Think on what I've said if you have a desire to be more diverse or if you want to generally improve your character roster or roleplaying ability.

All gimmicks are equal. Some are more equal than others. Literary quotes aside, I mean you can judge gimmicks on their merit. Observe:

 

• A young teen aged Unathi with braces. "Yetthh? Yetthh, I know I have a wortthh litthhp than other Unathi."
• More "Ser" characters, who speak like they're from the days of olde, when knights and mages rule the world.
• A psychologist there to "social science experiments."
• Any character of a different nationality, the only time you normally see this, its for stereotypical race joke chuckles.

1) Young teenage Unathi with braces? Cool, by all means explore dental maintenance among Unathi. But the moment I see the lisp - NO. Bad. Ignorant. Braces don't automatically give someone a lisp. Haven't you ever met a person with braces? And people are probably sick of lisps by now because that's the way some Skrell players have interpreted the 'slur'.

2) Please no more of these. As described above, there have been so many characters that have this as their only gimmick. It's irritating.

3) Interesting, I know of one character whose gimmick this is. However, it's not so common - and neither are psychs in general - so we can afford to have a few more of these running around.

4) Similar to what I said above, I think that if you have nothing to your character other than their nationality, then don't even bother. However if you can add it to a character who has a few other things going on - mad props to you!

I'm an idea-generating machine - it's why I whore myself out to other people for character-related matters - but yes, I don't like creating a character unless I have at least a few things to them. Like, very recently I was thinking stuff. I want to create someone on the autism spectrum. I want to create a Swede. I want to create a paranormal enthusiast. I want to create a cargo worker. Then I thought - why not all of those in one person??? If it's not completely implausible, combine ideas. An autistic Swede who works in cargo and has an intense, obsessive interest in occult and paranormal things. See? Instant interesting. And then comes the matter of actually playing them! Again, I don't like creating a character with gimmicks unless I extensively research anything I might not know about. Like Direwolf's "Korean" accent the other day - NO. Horrible. Incorrect. I'm a general enthusiast of afflictions and cultures and general stuff so this comes easy to me, but clearly not to some others.

More advice/preaching on how I do my thing! I take a lot of real-life inspiration from things. I've been in a nuthouse, I know what real schizophrenia looks like. My only Tajaran character to date is entirely based off my own mother and her experiences - I later found out that creating the character and getting the whitelist was cathartic for me, and didn't end up playing her for other reasons.

I guess I might just have... really high standards, or something. Perhaps my approach can be summed up as "you can make it interesting if you put enough effort into researching it". And "you will annoy the shit out of learned people if you're wilfully ignorant". Another example? Using "anorexic" as a physical descriptor. Ew. Don't. Especially if you don't make them have the illness.

I should stop, this is getting long. This concludes Volume One of Character Musings by Cres. Volume Two will probably bring actually ideas to the table beyond those in my experience!

[Guest]

I agree with Meowy. You jump in with basic concepts. Characters that start with complete backstory, personality and traits more often than not fail to get needed interaction to keep the player interested. It's not an issue of the idea being bad, it's the lack of fluidity. I usually make traits that people like more prominent and not push the other ones on my character. People interact with me more, complain less, which makes the entire experience more fun.

Otherwise, it takes a while to get the proper feel for the character. Trying to force yourself to stick to the script is annoying as well.

Also, make sure that people you're making fit the job. Scientists can't be dumbasses, security officers can't be hardcore pacifists, medical personnel can't be afraid of blood, etc.

These things make up real snowflakes. They are unfit for their duty, yet, somehow still work there. It's immersion breaking and it's what the real issue of snowflakes is.

[Curt5]

I'll just say how I do it, using one of my own characters as the guide.

Start with a basic, one sentence concept.

"Snarky old dude with a serious criminal past."

Good, good. Now, to create the backstory, just keep asking "why?"

"Why's he so old?" A: 'cause he's like 50.

"Why's he snarky?" A: 'cause he's really bitter about not being as able as he used to be, and he copes by making fun of other people.

"Why's he got a criminal past?" A: 'cause he used to be a big, big criminal. Basically a retired antag.

"Why retired?" A: 'cause the last job he pulled went really, really wrong.

"Well why is he working on a big station, if he has a criminal past? Wouldn't he be in jail?" A: No, he hid from the SpaceCops instead of actually getting captured when the job went bad.

"How'd he do that?"

And so on and so on. You don't need to come to every eventuality while generating the character, but as you play the character's personality will come through in their actions. When you feel like it, make up some BS to explain why he acts the way he does, connecting it with whatever backstory you already had.

[Tenenza]

I make little conversation/event snippits in my head about a character's backstory. Sorta try and imagine how they'll interact with people.