Creating Character's Personalities

[rklenseth]

I was just wondering how many people here determine their character's personalities and stuff. I think sometimes a lot of people just duplicate the same characters to have the same personality which is pretty much their personality as a person in real life.

I did this too with my first character: Falkirk Corla. I did this again with Thomas Covenant but both are dead now. But I have come up with a plan to develop character's personalities so that they are all different and don't resemble my personality too much. The first thing I do is determine the key traits of my character. Are they nice, friendly person or a nasty, son of a bitch kinda a person or perhaps in between? What do they enjoy doing such as do they like farming or traveling? Then when the character is spawned in an area I will determine from the start whether that character will conform with the society or try to fight it and I do this before I see what the society is. From there I allow events that that character witnesses or is involved in to further develop the character's personality such as what their actions will be or their thoughts. For example, my character, Graiwe Johnsmith, is a very nice person and extremely friendly but he was born in Blojt during the time of Al-Abhol and the lawlessness in that land. He is still a nice person today but hates lawlessness and is usually not very merciful toward criminals which has sort of developed as a part of the culture in Blojt. Graiwe is also very loyal to Lord Tony Stewart and the Commonwealth and all of his friends. Then there is Zak DoUrden who when he was spawned in Cantr City stole a large ammount of bread from the CantrInn and ran to Brinks Forest. Zak is nasty kinda of mean person who enjoyed killing people and taking from them. He is also very greedy and self-centered. When he got to Brinks Forest, he met Donald Fagen, an employee of Alenz Hills Mining Company, who introduced him to Piers Anthony, owner of AHMC. Zak saw that he could use Fagen and Anthony to get what he wanted and that was steel. He built his estates and built a mercenary company that he was going to use to gain and protect his wealth. On a mission to gather valuable oil, he was killed in Ladvicitavoi when he remarked to the Emperor of that Empire that he would kill him if he tried to take away his wealth because the Emperor had said something to him about wanting to expand to Brinks Forest and Cantr City (don't worry, this was around 200s and under Alexi Romanov; so this is old news). The Emperor did not take to kindly to that.

Usually I don't play the common run of the mill villians in Cantr who steal the notes and punch everyone in a town and end up being locked up or killed right away. Usually I try to play smart villians who actually give a challenge to some of the societies around Cantr. But I do try to play a wide variety of different characters with their own thoughts and beliefs and I think so far I have been a success with doing that. I thought I would share some of that with you and would like to hear how other people do this.

When children are implemented to replace spawning, I think I will determine their personalities by their childhoods. So at that point I think most of my character personality builder plan will solely be determine by events that occur during their childhood and as they live their life.

[thingnumber2]

My characters are mostly different, but some have the same ideals...I usually name my characters like : Silly...baby...likes to do gross stuff....just so I remember, although it's hard to make my character do somethin blatantly stupid to keep IC, but I try...

[west]

My chars have pretty much run the gamut; i've had patriots and patriarchs, mercenary-types and followers, social-justice smart mouths, responsible citizens, Rangers, outlaws, rubber traders, adventurers, real meanies and old softies...desert wanderers (man, why'd Ad Astra have to die?) and various others. I gotta say though, of the 30 or so characters I've had, the 10 I have now and 3 or 4 from before are the most unique and fun to play. Man I LOVE being law enforcement almost as much as being a criminal (yeah new island!)

[Meh]

I should have posted my comment in the other topic here.

But in general all my chracters are the same and the same as me.

The only choice I make for them is whether they support the town they're in. The rest is based on what they observe and who there friends wind up being.

Most just travel around lost until they find something that interests me then they join up with the interesting thing.

When younger chracters are available it will make for more well rounded 20 year old chracters.

[Solfius]

I tend to make my chars with a goal in mind, and maybe a bit of personality. I also let what happens to them shape them, but I don't think I do it enough.

I'm going to have to think more carefully about how experiences shape my characters from now on

[ephiroll]

Unless I have a specific thing in mind I just let events shape the char. I basically just start them out as completly "neutral" and go from there, I don't preplan a char except if I have something twisted in mind like with Lunatic Larry.

[west]

I only ever preplanned one character...and as he's still off being devious somewhere I'm not going to reveal his name.

[Missy]

I used to try to develop a personality from a simple idea in the beginning...but that doesn't work so well at all! I've found that they are shaped better once you land in a town and have a reason TO make them into something.
With some characters it's easier to do, others it isn't.
It's been mentioned before that it depends on what surrounds your character. And I couldn't agree more.
I like to add little characteristics as I go. For instance I have one char who has an odd need to BITE when she is excited. LoL!
And I have one who suddenly sprouted a speech impettament.
I think that sometimes you can't make a character into an idea you had for it, until a perfect moment or scinerio comes along. I mean surely its possible......But for me it isn't always so easy.

[Mr. McManus]

I have a this one guy that just is draging people into buildings and beating them. But he just started that.

[Solfius]

Call him the "Marque de Sade"

[Pirog]

I pretty much for my characters from the environment they are in.
I role a die for deciding the sex, and then I see what town they end up in before I start molding a personality. I don't even decide their names until I know where they end up.

I try to vary my characters, but often personal views shine thru...especially during extreme circumstances.

Often many of my characters end up as individualists, kind of lone wolfs...mostly because I like to travel a lot.

But I have an arrogant aristocrat, a ruthless scoundrel, a notorious liar, a giggly girl and a stuttering and shy man in my group of characters

[Augery]

I find that all my charecters deviate from each other in personality, even when my first three charecters all wanted to be king and nothing else, they all ended up different, I do plan my chars personalities now, but i do have trouble sticking to them, I might try lablaing them like someone said above.

[SekoETC]

I may do some planning for personality when I name my characters but usually they change quite a bit based on the things they encounter.

Examples.

I planned Keiran to be my bad guy since some people *cough*Nick*cough* complain how all my characters are too goody-goody. So I was thinking heck, if this one rans into a chance to be a criminal then sure he will. And in the beginning he was gathering grudge against the people in higher position. He was very willing to aid the deputies in Siom to kill a prisoner, just to get his hands on a weapon and taste some blood. But they didn't let him. Instead he became a tailor. Though from the bad guy attitude he kept somewhat rude manners and tendency to hold grudge against people. The name means small and dark. At first I was just thinking, ok he has black hair and Napoleon complex. Only a few days later I figured he might as well have dark skin too since judging from the plants on that region, it must be pretty damn hot and sunny. And at the same time he picked up that terrible accent.

Kenneth Ignathius, both Kenneth and Ignatio refer to fiery spirit, short tempered. And sometimes he is that way, but he's not a bad guy, just a bit impish and though he may flare up easily, he soon regrets what damage he's caused. He had to take care of himself in the beginning but that didn't make him a loner for some reason. I created Ken and Keiran on the same day. For both I was disappointed that they ended up on the regions several of my other characters had been travelling. But I liked Quillanoi Forest more (with the don't even try to start a goverment here! attitude) so I made Ken more outgoing and happy while Keiran is whiny and grudgy.

Usually the personality is a total surprise for me and it just pops up.

[BadMonkey]

I wouldn't even try to plan a personality. People are far too complicated to be set something like 'Nasty'. A few might have tendencies, but as a full blown personality it is developed as the character progresses.

Though many of my characters seem to end up law abiding, other than two of them, one of which died. But another got quite a powerful weapon at a young age and now he plots and schemes.

I like him, because he's so unlike me. Not only in the evilness, but in the plotting. I can barely think 10 seconds into the future.

[Sunni Daez]

I give mine a basic personality, like shy, agressive, talkative or not. Just as IRL, their surroundings will finish molding them for me.