Character questionnaire

[mortaine]

Something I wrote up with "the basics" for helping define a character (for your own purposes) for their early days. Sometimes it's hard to get a grip on who this person is at first.

CANTR QUESTIONNAIRE:

This OOC "questionnaire" is a private form you fill out for your character so you, the player, can get to know them better. You do not share this with anyone and should not keep it as a note in your character's inventory, in case the character dies and the OOC note gets passed on to someone else.

PRE-SPAWNING:
Name:
Sex:
Language:


ON SPAWNING:
Spawn Location:
Spawn Date:
First Action:


Speech:
Can I speak and hear?
How do I speak?
Do I have a speech impediment, accent, or do I typo a lot?
Am I playing in my native language?
Do I have an unintended accent?
How likely am I to speak? Am I shy? Reticent? Chatty?


Writing:
Am I literate?
Do I keep a personal diary?
Do I write notes to other people?
How well do I write? Am I creative, or fairly functional?
Do I enjoy reading others' works? What kinds?


Physical:
Do I enjoy physical labor?
Do I like to hunt? [follow-up for later: Am I good at it?]
Do I like to hit people?
If so, why? Do I like hurting people, or is it sport?
If not, do I do it anyway?
Am I willing to help others with physical projects (dragging, etc.)?
Do I have a favorite food, or any foods I avoid?


Interactions with Society:
How many times do I have to say my name before I get annoyed at being asked?
Do I consider pointing to be rude?
Do I consider it rude not to feed a newspawn?
How important are the written laws?
How did people treat me after I spawned? Do I like that?


Aberrations:
Am I handicapped or disabled in some way?
How does my disability manifest itself (i.e., how do I portray it in game)?
Am I crazy? How does this manifest? When does it manifest?
How serious is my crazy? Do I risk being locked up or killed for it?
Am I using crazy as an excuse for criminality? Why? Do I think I'll get away with it?


Criminality:
What side of the law do I fall into?
Do I think it's all right to take things, whether there are people around or not?
Do I think it's all right to steal only if you don't get caught?
Is it okay to hit another character?
Is it okay to kill another character, if you can?
Am I willing to reform if caught?
Am I willing to pay lip service to reform if caught?
Should citizens of a town take the law into their own hands (and capture or kill thieves) even if there's a local guard?
Do *I* participate in such parties?


ONE YEAR LATER:
Do I have enough to eat and a steady source of food?
Do I have a goal yet?
Have I done any travelling? Do I want to?
Am I part of an organzation? Do I want to be?
How am I compensated for my work?
What kind of work do I enjoy so far? Am I good at any particular things?
Who do I like? Do I have any friends? A love interest?
How serious am I about those I like? Do I take actions to help them?
Do I have any enemies? Rivals? How serious is my enmity-- will I take actions to get revenge, or am I content to just leave them alone?
Have I changed at all since I spawned? What would make me change?

------------------------
Any additions?

[Snake_byte]

That's pretty good

[Surly]

You put WAY more effort into your charcaters when they spawn than I do... I just kinda go with the flow wherever they spawn...

[west]

I like that. Might fill it out for ALL my chars, help me stay in char when I've got other things on my mind.

Thanks!

[mortaine]

You put WAY more effort into your charcaters when they spawn than I do... I just kinda go with the flow wherever they spawn...

Well, actually, I don't. That's the problem.

I have a bunch of characters (12, I think?) and for a few of them (maybe 6), I had a strong idea of who they were before they spawned, and they just kind of "fit in" pretty well with the area in which they ended up. For the rest.... well, Bruno's in his 30's now and only just starting to get a direction to his life, and he doesn't have any long-range plans or goals at all.

But for every other RPG I've ever played, I've spent time beforehand figuring out who my characters are, what motivates them, and that tells me how to RP them.

The form, incidentally, took me about 10 minutes to write up-- it wasn't that hard, you know. Filling it out probably takes longer, because you have to actually make decisions, but... meh.

And, of course, one can just fly by the seat of their pants, of course. But we're not all good at that, and sometimes.... well, sometimes we try and get candidates for Most Boring Character Evar. Like mine.

[Surly]

I had the most boring character ever. Seriously. Wasted 20 years of life... *he shudders* I have no idea why it took me so long to kill him off. Hated him since his spawnday. Strange situation...

Anyway, I might fill that out for my characters. West is right... it might help stay in char.

[Lumin]

There seems to be about five different personality types that my characters wind up naturally falling into, no matter what I try to do different. Consequently I find I struggle to remain interested in more than five characters at a time.

(Just as well I guess, with my schedule I can barely make time for that many anyway...and this is with none from my current batch even bothering with diaries, a first for me.)

[Jos Elkink]

I just kinda go with the flow wherever they spawn...

Doesn't that make the game very boring? I mean, I usually have a fairly strong idea about the basic ambition / type of character before spawning, making it much more challenging to get that down in a hostile environment. Otherwise you'll always nicely cooperate with fellow people in the town ...

[Surly]

Possibly it does... But I have had a few crazy psychopath characters... and characters with drive... What I meant is that their drive is shpaed/created by the area around them.

For instance, one character spawns in the woods. Over the next year he starves a fair amount and discoers he is good at chopping wood. His aim becomes to gather enough wood that he never goes hungry again, to do whatever it takes to avoid hunger.

Another character spawns in a city. There is plenty of food, and his aim is to be a success. To help someone achieve their aim, and goalong for the ride of success.

Basically, they go with the general sense of the area. Their lives and drive are determined by their surroundings. (NOTE: It also helps to bypass the extreme annoyance that skills pose if they oppose the initial idea... )