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On character building

Home > WikiRP

Creating a character

To participate, you will need a character - a persona, an avatar, someone who you can become to see the world from another perspective for some time. 

If you have no idea where to start, how about you check out the Character Templates? You can also take over one or more NPCs for an evening.

So, how to come up with a character?

This is some personal advice from manavortex. It's not by any means mandatory, go ahead and do it differently! But know that I have given workshops about this very topic that were visited by international best selling authors, so you might want to read this.  ;) (He left after five minutes, though.)

Find a collection of external links on character building behind the link, if you wish to research further. 

 

A first step

My character is a vampire!

... I'm to ninety percent sure that you're about to create a shallow character, a walking cliché, and that he will stop to be fun sooner rather than later. Why? Because you started with "My character is a $minority."*

*That includes, but is not limited to: Akaviri, Demiprinces, champions of (D)Aedra, vampires, werewolves, liches and everything else that goes beyond a vanilla mortal. 

A better approach would be to approach the question from behind and then backstab it when it doesn't expect it.

Where do they come from?

Which road have they taken to get to Heimlyn Keep (or whereever you meet us), and why have they walked it? That's what is important. 

How long did it take them to get here?

That's like asking how old your character is, just better. A former street urchin will be far more experienced by the moment he joins the RP than a Dunmer noble. Let's call them Alrik and Viras.

How are they?

Are they curious, or timid, or fearless, or grumpy, or naive? And if yes, how come? 

Viras is still a bit naive. How come he is not dead yet, poisoned by someone who saw a benefit in removing him? Maybe he has overprotective parents. Him being without those now will influence him greatly... or maybe someone or something has sheltered him, without him even knowing? Discovering what that might be could make a great character plot.

Alrik is curious. He's seventeen years old now, and his life was hard, he never had any kind of education at all, yet he somehow taught himself how to read and came to the Telvanni to climb the Sadrith on search for the stars. How was that not beaten out of him already? How come he never joined the others, eyes dull, clothes stained with mead? How did he keep his dreams alive?

Look at children, bright-eyes and full of plans, and then take a look around you in the average subway at 6AM on the way to work. What happened that turned those children into what you see now? How come your character preserved that one defining character trait?

What did they go through? 

What are their defining moments, both in their early childhood and later?

Viras had a nix hound puppy that he loved very much when he was a child. One day it broke free when he was playing with it, running out of the sheltered enclave. A Cliff racer got it. Ever-since he's careful, looking up before stepping out of a door. 

Alrik committed his first murder by the age of six. One of the other children wanted to take his blanket away from him, the only thing that kept him alive in the cold nights of Skyrim. He retaliated with all he had. It was an accident - he never wanted that, but it did earn him a reputation and people never bullied him again. You can't live on the streets and have a conscience. 

 

When Viras reached adolescence, he had tender feelings for a girl. She seemed to like him well, and they would have been a suitable match, but he never spoke out to her. She married only two years later, a far better match than he could ever have been. 
He still wishes he had said something. 

Alrik has a crush on the innkeep's daughter. She's the most beautiful girl he knows. But her father despises him and the likes of him - and rightfully so, for he belongs on the street, and if he'd touch her with his grimy hands he'd stain her. But when she smiles at him when she re-fills his ale...
Of course he has left her behind to come to Stonefalls. Will he ever go back?

There are tipping points in life.

You will remember some of them from your own biography, moments that you look back to when you met a friend whom you'd otherwise never encountered, or watched a movie that you didn't really want to and it changed something. What would those tipping points be in a medieval kind of society, or in a Dunmer noble family (think Game of Thrones here)?

What are their weaknesses?

Viras never was a particularily good noble. He wasn't a bad one either, but his parents would have expected more from him, and knowing that he disappoints them merely by not excelling has shaped his personality far more than he would like to admit. He doesn't like to be reprimanded because it makes him feel inferior, so he'll not handle criticism well, either being offended or storming off mid-scolding. 

Alrik has come to learn, but he sometimes despairs at the vast mountain of knowledge in front of him. Everyone else is so much better at everything, he feels as stupid as the Dunmer apprentices call him. His usual strategy of problem solving, violence, doesn't help him here, but he has a hard time restraining himself...

Weakness creates conflict

Conflict creates struggle, struggle creates RP. You'll want weaknesses!

We see that both of them basically have the same weakness, but for different reason - and it manifests differently as well. What other weaknesses can there be? What's their origin?

What do they want?

Viras was sent to Heimlyn Keep by his parents, as a political maneuver - he's not sure whether they appease the Archmagister by sacrificing their firstborn to her or if this is an opportunity they bought to finally polish him to the diamond he was supposed to be. But those only exist under pressure, don't they? He just wants to stay alive, for now. An easy goal, if it wasn't for all the politicking going on, and the Archmagister is quite intimidating, especially the way she keeps prodding him about his condition... 
He only wants to survive, for now. Other ambitions will develop.

Alrik wants to learn, he wants to become powerful enough so that nobody will ever bully him again. Looking at the Serjos and how they walk like the world belonged to them this is the way to go. But does he have the brains to make it? The Archmagister says he does, but maybe she's just trying to be polite, or this is one of the veiled Dunmer insults that you only understand two weeks later. 

What does your character want?

A golden retriever, a house in Ebonheart and 1.4 children? The power of Creation at their fingertips? Finally understanding Divayth's Second Theorem (that I just made up)? Marrying well? Become a traveling actor while their parents forced them into apprenticehood? 

Who can they become, one day? 

Alrik is on a tipping point. He might one day become a wizard - he has what it takes. But if he takes the easier way out he might abandon that path, maybe become a Warden instead, eventually end up holding a high rank in the Aetherial Blade's spy network. Or, depending on how he fails, he might turn his back to the Telvanni once and for all, if he's humiliated thoroughly enough, he might even join the ranks of their antagonists. 

Viras might, one day, seize power after all - although probably not as a wizard, for that's not his real talent. He's a political talent, though, and if he realises, and hones his skills appropriately, maybe the Archmagister would even consider him as Mouth... if he gets his vampirism cured.

 

This is a rough sketch - just going over the basics. Neither of those characters is refined yet, and maybe they'd play out differently alltogether in the end, but this is what I usually go with to start. 

I'd rather play Alrik than Viras, though. He's far more interesting, as he has far more limitations that he'd have to struggle with - plus, I already have a Dunmer politician kind. (Viras is a bit like Tarvyn). I hope this helps you somewhat. :)

 
 
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