Character Creation

[Silky Gooseness]

Just a little question for everyone!

When creating characters - for RP, D&D, or for your own writing - what do you think about? Whats important to you?

Do you start with a name? A look?

Do you think about their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, what they do for a living, their family and backstory?


Or do you make it up as you go along?

I would love to hear everyone’s thought processes!

[Pele Alarion]

My first go to is the general looks and at least some main character traits, then a name to go with. All the rest slowly follows if I ever use the character in RP and not let it gather dust.

[Rillewen]

As someone who has made many characters... lol. For me, it's different each time.
Sometimes a character idea is sparked by a picture I came across, and then I go searching for the perfect name, and come up with a backstory and personality from there. Other times, I find a name I just love and I have to use it for a character, so then I go searching for the perfect face to go with the name.
Then other times, I start with a vague idea of a back story I want to do, and the rest come after much thinking and searching.

The process is really very dependent on each individual character, for me.

[Ercassie]

Most of my characters came into being because they are relatives or acquaintances or enemies of my original very few characters. They are initially conceived as a means of fleshing out the story and experience of my main character/s and they eventually take on a life of their own.

So they start with a name and a relationship. Their personality is revealed slowly through posting. They interact with my main character/s or other people on behalf of my main character/s. And most of their make up evolves around whether they look/dress/act like my main character in the MC's eyes, or for other peoples' observations.

They usually function as a means to drive plots along or to reveal another, often lesser known, side of my main character/s, which the MC wouldn't necessarily reveal otherwise.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

For character creation? Since July I started actual writing on paper with a pen a series of first person tales. Sometimes I don't have a name, because it is the person who tells everything. It is up to you as reader who you like the I-person to be.

1. Andrea Gonsalez is one of three sisters who has to discover she and her sisters were conceived in a clinic. They start as refugees in Holland. They are going to search for their family, the maternal side is quickly found in Chili, where they move to and are welcomed. Their natural father is an East-European man who they meet one time.
2. A pessimistic and skeptical jobless Russian named Alyosha, who curses a lot. A man in Dordrecht who attends interview training and gets speaking training in Dutch by a woman named Mariska. But eventually he doesn't turn up anymore. He has then flown to Khazakstan and from there taken a train to Novosibirsk and then Irkutsk to a village by Lake Baikal. Reason? He learned to respect western society, but missed home too much.
3. A man from Samoa (25), named "The Samoan". Lives in 2065AD in Nolloth on the westcoast of South Africa, what is by then lawless land. He lives with his family, father is employee with the oil concern who pomps oil at sea and have it transported to land and shipped off from there. The compound is attacked by local bandits and they must defend themselves, what is succesful. The Samoan decides then to travel through the midst of Africa, where a big 7 can be taken to the Horn of Africa and then westward over the Sahel lands. He comes with one message: to respect each other's integrity. After that he returns to Samoa, he marries, gets a daughter in 2067, a son in 2068, two daughters in 2071 and 2072, and another son in 2074. From his quite successful campaign in Africa to bring back a form of law and order by the people themselves there, he receives money what he puts largely into a fund to help the desperate in the word, solidifying his good reputation as man in Samoan society. He bears no name further.

Writing these tales give me a different look at my own European culture from total other aspects. It is curiosity for me, but also confronting at times. Because I come across things that are granted and normal to me, but for others totally foreign and even elements they find a dislike for. I am sorry I cannot share more, as these are not digitally written. But yes, they are written in English.

4. I am busy now with a wealthy Ecuadorian family in cocoa, coffee, soybeans and wine under the Morietas brand. The total revenue counts about 30% for the economical value in the food sector of the country. Thus the family home in Esmeraldas is invaded by a foreign military, but the mother and her two children escape into the mountains with their guards. When the father finds out, it has serious international consequences and he doesn't hold back. The I-person is young son (19) and his sister (18), who share both a strong bond. Neither their opinions are counted, as this is only over 30 years of age in the family. He tells what enfolds around him without having involvement than during the attack on the home.

I start often from the perspective of a situation that happens and from there the story, and the character(s) in it is revealed slowly. For the moment I like this offline writing with an inkpen, I can take it everywhere or just write on while I have breakfast, lunch or dinner. At much younger age in my twenties I despised I-characters, but now at 50 years it is actually fun. I guess it was a process of maturing for me, to able to appreciate these kind of tales too?

[Eldrith]

It depends what the character is for, but I usually start with a 'concept' and then a name. And then I start writing and allow myself to find out more through the process. Concept can be just a profession and a few characteristics.
In writing this of course means that you end up with a lot more drafts when you need to refine things and then you need to reign yourself in not to let the ideas take you into a completely different zone than you were intending, unless you want to turn over the whole tale.

[Hanasian]

Just a little question for everyone!

When creating characters - for RP, D&D, or for your own writing - what do you think about? Whats important to you?
Do you start with a name? A look?
Do you think about their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, what they do for a living, their family and backstory?
Or do you make it up as you go along?

I would love to hear everyone’s thought processes!

For myself, it is a bit of all of that. My namesake Hanasian was started by a name derived from my earlier character Halasian which I started with an idea and a look for an aged morally grey Dunedain Ranger for a group RP named 'Shadow Over Arnor' on the old TORc forum in 2000. The parameters of that RP shaped him, and Hanasian along with his sister Halcwyn were 'born' out of that RP in its closing weeks. After calculating the age Hanasian would be in T.A. 3018, I merged Hanasian with another character I had developed for another RP that sadly was aborted before it got started. This character was known by the working title of 'Ranger #26' (of the 30 Halbarad gathered).

The question of 'creation' of characters since then for Middle Earth role-plays have had their genesis in what part of the story they are in. A lot of them began as an NPC/NCE (Non-Player-Character/Non-Controlled-Entity) with a name and general outline of their role. Some eventually 'earned' a place as a fleshed out character. My 4th Age librarian Gilrenna was one, and she got tied into the Halasian/Hanasian family backstory. My 'Ranger #12' Durian was a draft concept I had created for 'Ranger #26' Hanasian being more like his father, but rejected at the time in favour of him having gentler traits inherent in his Rohirrim mother Forcwyn.

I could go on, but then again I talk too much. To summarise, I tend to make a lot of it up as I go, but usually start with some concept from one or more of the other things you list.