Guide to Creative Character Creation

Started by Th3Wastelander, 14-03-2012

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Th3Wastelander

I wrote this one awhile back. So somethings might not transfer over. But it should be fine




Guide to Creative Character Creation


Goal of Guide: To teach people and help people understand the fundamentals of creating an intresting character who is not only fun to play, but is fun for another people to talk to.


Basics: You must understand that "You, Yourself" is not your character. I'm not saying that your character can not be modeled after how you act and all that, Most people have a character like that, I'm saying if you want an honestly intresting a fun character, you gotta think outside the box!


Features and Considerations of Creative Characters.


1. Backstory.
2. Personailty.
3. Speach.
4. "Ticks."
5. Apperance.
6. Life-Goal

Important.Scale of character development -
Backstory > Personailty, Speach, Life Goal. > Ticks, Apperance.




Feature One: Backstory.


Backstory is the most esstenial part of your character. Everything your character is or does should be understandable with a connection with your backstory. For one to be orignal, one must consider everyother backstory they have read. How many times have you read, "parents were killed by raiders."? You need to think of a new idea. Think of something no-one has ever done before. How about Orphaned into a ghoul society as a human? What about Supermutants? Think differently then everyone else.



Feature Two: Personality.


Personality is how your character acts and how he or she would interact with other players. To form a creative one, you must consider what you have seen already on your community or server. How many Caring characters are there? How many A-hole Characters? You must think of where your character falls from Selfless and Selfish. Now consider what you haven't seen. "Haven't Seen" has no limits. Have you seen a man who follows the teachings of being a clown as if it was a religon? What about a one armed midget with spiky hair? ( I have. :3) What about a person who bakes dirt into food? Crazy and Fallout-Crazy is a very wide margin. Think outside the box.

Side Note: Remeber your backstory is to reflect your personailty, Keep that in mind.




Feature Three: Speach.


Speach is text, how he or she communicates with other players. This is not onyl langauge with is preferbly english, but it is how they're personality reflects their speach. A man who is somewhat stupid or uneducated would speach as such; "'Ey, You Com'ere fer jus' sec'." You can't tell if they are uneducated if you say; "Hey, Can you come here for just a second." Does not have the same effect. Think of it as a personalized accent. Where some other character would say, "Bill wants you down at the Church, Sounds important." another may say, "Yo bro, William wants to parle with ya at the church, That cat ain't happy with ya man." You gotta think how you can use speach to reflect an orignal way of talking.


Side note: Accents are frowned upon in my case. Accents or Non-american characters do not make sense to me. Most likly cross seas mirgration in the fallout world is impossible in 2285. If the non-american character was born from suriviors of the War in 2077, the accent would not stay with them across two generations of the family. They are being raised in american around american childern and adults.


Feature Four: "Ticks".


"Ticks" is something I do alot with my characters. Ticks are actions your character would do by just idle-y standing around. An example of a tick is having a coffee mug in hand at all times and taking sips of it. It is something everyone can recgonize your character with. It also is a way to stand out from a crowd. It's good to have a tick, no matter how small. It can be a habit, like nail-biting/Over nervous, or Chewing swamp muck? Think outside the box. But there has to be a reason for a Tick. Peronailty reflects your Tick(s). (see "Scale of Character Development")


Feature Five: Apperance.


T
his is were you get to very creative. regardless of your character model, you can make your character seem as strange as you want, but not outragous.(Unless of your character is outragous, I guess. :3) Access your character's physical Desciption by typing, /charphysdesc and a box should pop up. Now having this reflect your personailty is opitional, but it is always good to add a feature that is different. Think of your backstory and how you can work a speacial piece of clothing or item onto your character. Your look needs to look nice in the text.


Side Note: Adding a scar is not orignal, or creative. Not that its not ok. Its fine to add it. But I would not consider it anything new or neat.


Feature Six: Life Goal.


Life Goal is not very important, but nice to have. It is what all true characters strive for. (lul) But seriously, You should consider this. The life goal is not really what you think of as "Life" but its what your character needs to do while on the server. Such as search for someone or something. Surviving is the easy alternative, but it would be nice to think of something creative.

Conculsion.


This guide is a templete for what to use for your character. A major part of character creation comes from YOU! Yes! YOU! You need to think of all this. You need to be orignal and intresting person to play as. If you can't think of things, Watch shows, and listen to music. One thing that could help, and I can't beileve I am saying this, but watching anime is a great way to think of ideas for characters. Every character is not only a fanasty character but has a unique personality that contrasts with the others on the show. Just remeber they have to translate into a realstic world with a sci-fy twist, AKA Fallout. So  with all that said, good luck!


Thanks for reading.
             -Written By, "Th3Wastelander."

Poler


Spades_Neil

While I can see some locations I'd say could be improved, this is overall not bad. I'd suggest cleaning up the formatting first and fixing a few minor spelling/grammatical errors. Overall however the message its self is good I'd say.

Quote from: Th3Wastelander on 14-03-2012
Side note: Accents are frowned upon in my case. Accents or Non-american characters do not make sense to me. Most likly cross seas mirgration in the fallout world is impossible in 2285. If the non-american character was born from suriviors of the War in 2077, the accent would not stay with them across two generations of the family. They are being raised in american around american childern and adults.

I might make one counter-argument. Accents vary across the United States for one, though for non-North American accents, I wouldn't say it'd be impossible to have an accent. Provided such a character would need auths from myself on the special character application page, but I could foresee accents occuring simply from a kid watching a pre-war movie and trying to copy the accent.

Of course, I wouldn't force it. If one has to force something on a character, it's probably something silly and unnecessary. Never force something to a character for sake of having it.

lolKieck

Good characters do not have their parents killed. Creative character creation is to make a character who is a normal guy/gal with a lot of character development space.
Not to mention mentally unstable characters tend to be stupid. So your guide is a guide to make a typical 12-years old player's character.
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Th3Wastelander

Thanks for your input. Kieck, If you truly think that and find it deconstructive to the server as a whole. I will take it down if you wish.

lolKieck

Quote from: Th3Wastelander on 14-03-2012
Thanks for your input. Kieck, If you truly think that and find it deconstructive to the server as a whole. I will take it down if you wish.
Believe it or not, but people will use your example. Change it to something else.
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Ket

(°╭ ◡ ╮°)

Th3Wastelander

Quote from: lolKieck on 14-03-2012
Quote from: Th3Wastelander on 14-03-2012
Thanks for your input. Kieck, If you truly think that and find it deconstructive to the server as a whole. I will take it down if you wish.
Believe it or not, but people will use your example. Change it to something else.


I think it is good to remove the example. Best people use the lines given rather then the any example.

Knife_cz

#8
Quote from: lolKieck on 14-03-2012
Good characters do not have their parents killed
Oh god, I seen so many applications starting with that.
Family : Mother (deceased) Father (deceased) Brother (lost).
Anyway yeah nice guide. Reminds me of the Paintcheck's one (here).
(I suggest to read it, somewhat same, except its focused on srp mainly, but basics are same.)


Spades_Neil

Loved ones being killed, because of how cliché it is, makes characters sometimes difficult to take seriously. It loses its shock if it's the norm. Make sense?

I usually go from another perspective. The parents are rarely dead in my new characters because I'm a better writer today than when I first started RPing. There's a false idea that shock and awe is what makes a character interesting. It doesn't. A character can be just as interesting without dead parents as a character with dead parents is. Usually if I do some sort of dead parent deal these days, it's because my character is older and the parents simply aren't alive anymore. No tragedy, just old age. Take my Head Paladin for example. His father is no longer with him simply for the fact that he grew old and passed on. Not like he was killed in battle.

Now take another character, this one from SRP. His name is Dimitri Voyla. His parents are alive and well, though he's also still young in his early 20's. His lust for adventure, his beliefs in karma, and his honest heart is what makes him so interesting. Now from another perspective, take my character Jules who's a bandit. His belief in living in the moment, take what you want, his dishonesty, and criminal background and lifestyle is what makes him unique. His parents aren't ever even mentioned. If they were however, then some sort of tragedy might be appropriate. Maybe his dad was a drunken asshole. Maybe he lived with a single parent who abused him. Maybe his parents fought. Or, maybe, he just fell in with the wrong crowd and his parents disowned him because of his choices. You get the idea.



tl;dr clichés aren't impossible to do, but they're much harder to do right.

Th3Wastelander

#10
The example I had put had given an explaination of the characters father, and showed how much of an asshole he was. He was only dead because he killed himself.(derp) I agree it is a cliche, but if can give a good enough reason, or it has an interesting story behind it. I don't see it as a bad thing. But I do see it very often.

What Neil said.

Das_Uberman

Quote from: Th3Wastelander on 14-03-2012
The example I had put had given an explaination of the characters father, and showed how much of an asshole he was. He was only dead because he killed himself.(derp) I agree it is a cliche, but if can give a good enough reason, or it has an interesting story behind it. I don't see it as a bad thing. But I do see it very often.

What Neil said.


I agree whole heatedly. It's not just that people always make their character's parents die, it's that it almost always happens in the same way. They die in some fight, or get killed by raiders. For once I wouldn't mind someone's parents slowly expiring because of some disease, or drinking themselves into the ground and eating a bullet. The point is IF your character's parents are going to die, don't make it sudden, and for the love of god leave raiders out of it.