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Green 03-01-05, 01:43 AM

When it comes to creating and playing campaigns, there are a lot of threads about setting, mechanics, and player dynamics, but relatively few dedicated to what is supposed to be the focus of the campaign: characters. I suppose it's because so much of what's offered in gaming materials is so elementary. The things that are not remedial and pedantic tend to be too academic to be useful in actual play. I created this thread to try to rectify that. This thread is not about easy answers or quick fixes. I am interested in developing tools and techniques to expand and enrich player and GM understanding and portrayal of character. The general trend I noticed is that character creation methods in D&D (and most RPGs) mirrors the bottom-up method of world creation. You figure out all the little details (attributes, class, skills, feats, alignment, deities, history, personality, etc.) of your character and then try to determine what the true essence of the character is. Here on this thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=122587) I bring up an idea that is more like the top-down approach to world creation. First determine what really makes a character tick and develop everything else from there. One of the things I found that players and GMs can do to make this clear is to answer three questions for their characters: What, How, and Why. What does the character want? How did this desire come into being? Why does the character feel s/he needs the thing sought? Figuring out these things provides the following: a goal, essential backstory, and emotional stakes. Rather than trying to discuss the merits of this method, I'm interested in talking about how it affects the portrayal of characters. Specifically, I'm intrigued by the possibilities of using this method to develop strategies of character portrayal. How would or do you use the information provided from the inside-out method to portray (not just create) a character? What are some examples of how you would or have done this? Let's take the example of your standard BBEG who wants to find the McGuffin that can allow him/her to take over the world. We already have the "What" out of the way. Now for the "How." For simplicity's sake, let's say that our BBEG, through studying history and politics, has come to believe that people are enamored of the glamour surrounding powerful people. Finally, the "Why." The cliche BBEG wants power for its own sake, or to satisfy a specific goal that can only be achieved through wielding a great deal of power. To do something a bit different, let's say that this BBEG is motivated by the need to be loved. As a part of my portrayal of this character, I'm going to make this BBEG basically likeable. In fact, this BBEG goes to great lengths to be liked. The BBEG actually feels very bad about betraying friends and allies and destroying the lives of their loved ones. S/he genuinely wishes things could be different but refuses to sacrifice the glamorous ideal for something so mundane as respect for life and dignity. The BBEG does not go out of his/her way to hurt people and tries to avoid it when possible (though how the BBEG defines possible and how the rest of the civlized world does are vastly different). Taking it a bit further, I can say with some confidence that the PCs need not resort to violent confrontation to prevent the Very Bad Thing from happening. The BBEG is amenable to persuasion. If the PCs manage to figure out what really makes the BBEG tick, s/he can prove to be a valuable ally.