Character Craft, Step One: Character Concept
If you look in any random RPG rulebook, you’ll probably find that the character creation chapter has a list of steps to follow. Generating your character’s vital statistics usually comes first, with key aspects such as group affiliations and skills following closely after. Occassionally you may see a blurb before all of this to the effect of, “Brainstorm what kind of character you’re interested in playing.” Usually, however, this guidance is no more than a paragraph or two, if that.
The key to crafting a truly enjoyable character is to begin the process with a solid character concept. This may include one or more of the core character aspects, which is perfectly fine. However, it is important to try to ignore game stats as much as possible during this formative period. Develop a well thought-out sentence or two that describes what the character will be.
Here are a few examples. Are you going to play a human fighter or, “A brooding ex-soldier with a knack for dirty fighting and numerous battle scars?” Is your new vampire a 13th-generation brujah or, “A bloodsucking street punk who flies by the seat of his pants and has a good rep in underground racing circles?” Even if you don’t play D&D or WoD games, you can still get a feel for where I’m going with this. Remember, the character concept is the foundation upon which the character is built. It should be as solid as possible if you want the fun of playing the character to last.
September 29th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
I agree that concept is key. It’s what happens after the concept that is of great interest to me, specifically, how much of what I write down (and think about) during character creation has an impact on actual play?
The answer, for a great many games, is “very, very little.”
My Wizard’s Strength score may never once be referenced during play. Not once. Not to mention his ranks in Appraise. And his two-page backstory about his family heritage in the southern isles? Forget about it.
Games do not happen inside the individual minds of the players or GM. They happen when everyone is talking to each other, and making the game together. If the stuff on my character sheet (or, heaven forbid, in my 3-pages of frustrated-novelist backstory) doesn’t have a real impact during the actual game, it is worthless.
Sadly, most games only tell me to figure out my skill ranks in Appraise and how to detmerine my encumberance rating. So if I want to play someone *interesting* — someone worth telling stories about — I have to write all of that stuff down somewhere other than my character sheet. The character sheet is as useful as an x-ray when it comes time to tell my story.
This is one of the great shortcomings of most RPG designs, which has lead to whole schools of thought about character creation that are built around insufficient game design in the first place.
But imagine a game in which the things that I write down on my sheet are BOTH the things I really, truly care about AND the parts that make the game system go. Wouldn’t that be great?
Such games do exist. And man… they beat the pants off of the ones that don’t have this feature. At least, they do for me. I have no patience left for the old way.