The HitchHiker's Roleplayer's Guide to The Galaxy Creation

fun with the voices in your head

So you want a character.

As pleasing as the idea might sound, it's generally a bad idea to just make up righteous and noble hero and rush onto an RP board. Creating a character for roleplaying purposes is the same as creating one for a book. Cliches won't go over well in either case. Take the time to think out a character before committing him/her to an RP. This page is designed to help you with the process of developing that character's personality and history, and will take you through it step-by-step.

First: Personality and History
Names, appearances, and species do not make a "person." The inner ideas and attitudes make a person. Therefore, whenever I am creating a new character, these two things are the first that I think about. The order that I think about them in varys, because the mind developes as its owner goes through various experiences. If I thought of an experiance first, I elaborate on that then think about how it would affect the character I have in my mind. If I think of a personality trait first, I think of a situation that might have made him be that way.

This is where cliches start to attack. Remember, you want to add some depth to your character. Try to answer these questions:

• How does he act most of the time? Keep in mind, how you act isn't necessarily how you feel. Or maybe it is, for this certain character.
• Is your character an extrovert (makes it known how they feel), introvert (doesn't let it be known how he's feeling), or somewhere in between? Make sure that you realize that even the most extraverted people need some time to themselves, and introverts are indeed capable of conversation. You don't have to make all characteristics to the extreme. Nonetheless, as long as there's a motive and reason behind it it is acceptable, although you run the risk of making your character unbelievable. Also keep in mind that introverted and extraverted refer to their true thoughts and feelings. If somebody hides those thoughts behind an extraverted mask, then that somebody is really an introvert.
• What does he value? What will he go to any length to obtain/acheive? And don't be telling people he values pure justice, and he cannot go without righting a wrong, "for his noble soul would not permit him to pass it by." Perhaps he does value justice or mercy or kindness, but why is that?
• What does he fear? What will he go to any length to avoid? Everyone has something to fear. And his fears don't all have to be tangible and visible in the 'real world.' They can be ideas and feelings, as well. What is that nightmare that comes to haunt him, the situations that he cannot bear to think of?
• What are his motives? True, sometimes this can't be answered until your character is in an RP, but there are some things that remain constant, especially if your character has a detailed backstory and a long term goal.
• How easily is your character angered? Upset? Depressed? Elated? For what reasons and under what circumstances do these emotions occur?
• What happened to your character in the past to make him the way he is? Remember, not everyone has to lose their entire family, and not everyone has to be perpetually out for vengeance/permanently depressed. People tend to get over things given a long enough amount of time. That's not to say that they ever really forget, or that they never encounter grief about the subject, but they're usually able to get on with their lives and become halfway normal. True, angsty depressed characters are a lot of fun to play, but at least don't have your character acting that way for twenty years on end.

  Another way to develop a character's backstory is to have one held very loosely in your mind and just set him loose. After awhile, a history might just come up to you and take you by surprise. My own experiances with this have been rather interesting, especially in regards to a character of mine named Geoffrey. Thanks to one line (it was, "Still trying to achieve immortality?" I believe) he was able to develop a full backstory and purpose for being.

  Just remember the RP that your character is in, and the world that it is set in. Computers don't tie in very well in the Redwall universe, and swords and sorcery don't tie in very well in a futuristic type setting.

The best way to develope any character's personality is through roleplaying and/or writing that character. If you can truly allow yourself to be in that character's mindset, you can type something that will reveal a whole other part of his personality. It usually helps to think of your characters as fully different from yourself, and simply residing in your mind. The more you use a character, the easier it becomes to know just how he'd act in certain situations. So, really, just like anything else, RPing well and developing the personality of a certain character is practice more than anything else.