RP character inspiration
- Thread starter dragsaw
- Start date
Well, start with the basics. What sort of person is he, or she? Like, what does he/she do? How does he/she pay the bills? What does she/he like to do on her/his own time?
Well, RP where? What is the setting and/or the game? Other than that, what do you want to RP? A bland normal guy ("I went to work today and then had tea, what did you do?"), a bastard ("Listen here, how 'bout you lend me, say, 100$ and I won't spread rumours about you?"), a righteous thug ("This is my hood, al right? Next time I see you or your buddies try to sell drugs here again, I'll start breaking above the knees, too.") or something different. Then try to construct it from there. Why does the character do it, what drove him to this. Have some backstroy in mind - might be short, might be long, but at any rate, you need a backstory, then just flesh the character more and more as you go along.
I like to start with what they are like, as a person, by thinking about "in X situation, what would she/he do?" for a variety of situations, and that usually starts giving me a picture. If you're hard up for those (and this sounds silly) go on FB or some other social crap hole and take a bunch of those "what type of Y" are you, but answer the questions 'in character' to get an idea.
Then see if you can get your hands on Hero Builder's Guidebook - it's a supplement for...well, hero building. It's for 3.5, though, you can still use parts of it for 4e, but not as many - lots of crunchy information there, that doesn't translate well. Still, the ideas are good for a D&D game. Not the best source for RP stuff, mind you, but it's a start. The section on building a history is pretty useful.dragsaw said:
Other than that, there are some free sources as well. I'll just throw in this one, if you want to be thorough, answer these 100 questions [http://www.miniworld.com/adnd/100ThingsAboutUrPCBackGround.html] about your character and you should have one ready by the end. Or just skip some of them, there is enough to give you a playable character.
That does sound silly... But it sounds like it could work quite well, so I might try that for my next character.Mylinkay Asdara said:
I like to start each of my characters off with one simple gimmick then flesh them out from there untill that gimmick is just a small part of their personality. My favorite character started of as the simple idea of a kleptomaniac rogue and is now fleshed out to the point that he had a character arc during an adventure and changed alignment.
Give us a character class and alignment. We can come up with ideas for cuthroat Druids who were literally raised by a pack of woods, like their meat raw and espouse a literal survival of the fittest philosophy, and enjoy dropping people in the middle of the woods just to see how well they'd fare against their lupine bretheren but ultimately ideas like that would be utterly pointless if you planned to play a Lawful Good Paladin.dragsaw said:
If you cannot give us a class and alignment, then the following might be similarly useful:
There's a group of ruffians blocking your path on the road and demanding a toll. How would you prefer to deal with them (character-wise)?
a1) Intimidate them into letting you pass
a2) Intimidate them into letting you pass and giving you their money to compensate you for not killing them.
b) Smash their heads in
c) Convince them that you're not worth the trouble (Optional: and that other routes would be more profitable)
d) Steal their own coin purses and pay them with money from that
e) Kill one and hope that scares the others off.
You've just cornered a thief in the streets. He looks desperate and willing to fight What do you do?
a) Kill him
b) Talk him down
c) Knock him out and hand him over to the local guards
d) Any of the above (elaborate, please) combined with taking what he stole for yourself
e) Let him go.
The aforementioned thief reveals that he was stealing because he needed money so as to provide for his paraplegic sister. The GM reveals that this is unquestionably true. Does this change anything?
Jack suggests either fightiness or explodiness. Actually, go with the exploding part, since mages and the like are so integral in kicking ass in DnD.dragsaw said:
A bitter misanthropic bastard who would be the greatest warrior in the world if not for his crippling alcoholism.
im going a warrior and planing on Neutral Good ,Ex sellsword? (dont know how that will work so maby more Chaotic Neutral sort like bron from gameofthones)Asita said:
i dont know what one my mates is geting the game it self so 4th? odds are what the cheaper one isHarkonnen64 said:
Techincally the ideal lineup for a sellsword would likely be true neutral, or at least that's the preferable alignment for the job, given that anyone can potentially hire you. That said, going against ideal setups tends to lead to fairly interesting characters, if properly thought out. The big question you have to ask yourself is how you want to play that angle. Off the top of my head, a neutral good sellsword could be played as a character who makes a point of only accepting jobs he views as just or otherwise moral. You could even tack on a no-kill rule (Granted though, the two combined basically make Himura Kenshin). Alternatively, you could play a character who despises his work and actively seeks loopholes around contracts of questionable morality (and/or offers penance for his sins on the job). More generally though, I'd familiarize yourself with the alignment and then ask yourself "How does this alignment reflect on my profession (and the flavor thereof?)" More specifically if you're going with the sellsword idea: "Why would someone of this alignment become a sellsword?"dragsaw said:
I had an idea for a cool character the other day.
A warrior who has a tiny piece of a god in him. A god who embodies battle and struggle. The god wanted to understand the struggles of mortal life, which were denied it as an immortal god. So it broke itself into dozens of soul sized pieces and allowed itself to be born as mortals.
So the warrior is driven by an obsessive urge to fight and test himself that has basically ruined his life and estranged his family, he is never satisifed and wants to push himself further and further. He scorns anything fun over training and testing himself(No women, no drink, no desserts)
I also had this idea that he was born in a barbarian tribe and that at the age of 15 he left his tribe and singlehandedly attacked His tribes enemy tribe. He killed every single man who could fight in that enemy tribe over a winter by sneaking in and killing them when they slept or when they hunted or whatever, guerrilla warfare stuff. When there were no more fighting men in the tribe the women, the children and the elderly suffered horrible without men to get food, or protect them. Some raiders or orcs or whatever heard about the tribes weakness and came upon the enemy tribe and those they didnt murder were enslaved and tortured.
When he came back to his tribe and told them what he had done, they called him a murderer and a monster because he didnt fight honorably and caused the suffering of innocents. They cast him out. He still doesnt quite understand what he did wrong, because hes crazy.
He has a rational human side that can be brought out by emotional things but his obsessive need for challenges is still very strong. The godshard might make him switch sides in the middle of a battle because he wants to be on the side that has the harder fight or attempt to murder powerful people just because he wants to know if he can. Also because he has a shard of a god for a soul, if the right person got a hold of him and managed to restrain him, they could extract a great deal of untapped power from him.
Steal that if you want.
A warrior who has a tiny piece of a god in him. A god who embodies battle and struggle. The god wanted to understand the struggles of mortal life, which were denied it as an immortal god. So it broke itself into dozens of soul sized pieces and allowed itself to be born as mortals.
So the warrior is driven by an obsessive urge to fight and test himself that has basically ruined his life and estranged his family, he is never satisifed and wants to push himself further and further. He scorns anything fun over training and testing himself(No women, no drink, no desserts)
I also had this idea that he was born in a barbarian tribe and that at the age of 15 he left his tribe and singlehandedly attacked His tribes enemy tribe. He killed every single man who could fight in that enemy tribe over a winter by sneaking in and killing them when they slept or when they hunted or whatever, guerrilla warfare stuff. When there were no more fighting men in the tribe the women, the children and the elderly suffered horrible without men to get food, or protect them. Some raiders or orcs or whatever heard about the tribes weakness and came upon the enemy tribe and those they didnt murder were enslaved and tortured.
When he came back to his tribe and told them what he had done, they called him a murderer and a monster because he didnt fight honorably and caused the suffering of innocents. They cast him out. He still doesnt quite understand what he did wrong, because hes crazy.
He has a rational human side that can be brought out by emotional things but his obsessive need for challenges is still very strong. The godshard might make him switch sides in the middle of a battle because he wants to be on the side that has the harder fight or attempt to murder powerful people just because he wants to know if he can. Also because he has a shard of a god for a soul, if the right person got a hold of him and managed to restrain him, they could extract a great deal of untapped power from him.
Steal that if you want.
There was an old King Arthur style game (probably Chivalry and Sorcery but I'm not sure) which had characters have a set of traits ranked 1-10 between certain virtues and vices. Eg Honour, Chivalry, Charity, Love, Faith, Bravery, Honesty, Loyalty. It was an excellent way to get an instant snapshot of an character.
A Neutral Good mercenary would have low Honour and Chivalry. After all what good are these things? You can't eat em and they seem to be for nobs anyway. His Loyalty, Bravery and Faith are medium as he is a mercenary and will work for almost anyone who pays and knows enough not to offend the gods lest their followers cease with the magic healing. Honesty would be higher and Charity and Love higher still indicating that not so deep down this person has a heart of gold.
Or think of your own set of virtues and rate em.
I would recommend sounding out the GM and other players. It's no good playing a grim, dark soul if everyone else is light, fluffy and making Monty Python references. And vice versa.
A Neutral Good mercenary would have low Honour and Chivalry. After all what good are these things? You can't eat em and they seem to be for nobs anyway. His Loyalty, Bravery and Faith are medium as he is a mercenary and will work for almost anyone who pays and knows enough not to offend the gods lest their followers cease with the magic healing. Honesty would be higher and Charity and Love higher still indicating that not so deep down this person has a heart of gold.
Or think of your own set of virtues and rate em.
I would recommend sounding out the GM and other players. It's no good playing a grim, dark soul if everyone else is light, fluffy and making Monty Python references. And vice versa.
My suggestion is to use your character as a petri dish. Pick one small, focused aspect you'd like to RP, and explain where it came from. You mentioned you want to use a bow? Ok, so the character has some bow skills. Where and how did they get that? How would it relate to the character? The more you follow these links, the more you're developing the character, until you've answered all the questions, and you have a fully grown bacteria character.