Post/Author/DateTime	Post
I Am Famine 08-24-05, 01:52 PM	Hi, thanks for checking out my thread. Have you ever come up with a unusual or original method for creating ideas for PC's. Last night I had the idea of playing my iPod on shuffle. Say the game had 4 players the first 4 songs played (it is random remember) would be the basis of their characters, eg each song represented a character in the party. Each player would have to pick one of the 4 songs and then use it as an influence for creating a character. Since I'm not DMing at the moment I had to use my own imagination and play it myself. I got the following tracks... 1: Murder Song by The Cooper Temple Clause 2: The Pestilencial March by Sauron 3: Flower Of Evil by Electric Wizard 4: Profeties Des Fouines by Happy Face It probably helps if you have a very varied playlist. My 1108 songs are mixture of rock, metal, hardcore, punk, indie, hip-hop, electronic, darkwave and experimental, all with different subgenres and themes. They can use whatever part of the song or band they like and be as heavily or distantly influenced by it as they please, so long as it 'is' influenced by it in some way. These are some very basic ideas I had for each... 1: A tortured soul and vigilante who often shows signs of pity towards children. Perhaps subconciously to make up for the fact she murdered her own. Human or Elf Fighter seems the best choice. 2: Insane Lizardfolk Necromancer; lost his family and friends to an incurable plague. Despite his evil powers he was never able to truly ressurect them, thus his twisted mind decreed that he should attempt to convert the living into the undying. 3: Sorcerous temptress with Dryad or Nymph blood. Her morals and decency are questionable, but she is far from a moronic 'lady of the night'. Seeks power, knowledge and skill. She isn't essentially evil but her methods and temprement aren't exactly pleasant. Prone to manipulation, a modest amount of cruelty and arrogance. 4: Vicous anthrotiger brawler. Though far from sociable he becomes very protective of a few individuals he has gotten to know. In this characters case I used the emotion, theme and name of the bands album 'Le Tigre'. What do you think? You could easily elaborate on these basic raw ingrediants of concepts. Why dont you try this method and tell me what you think. Do you have any interesting ways of developing characters, if so i'd like to try them out.
DBoot 08-24-05, 05:01 PM	I tend to generate characters out of two circumstances, neccessity or boredom. In the case of neccessity (which is either a character I will play or an npc the players will encounter), the process is something like this: 1. What do I need? This is often along the lines of 'which niche in a party needs to be fulfilled?', taking into account the other player's characters, campaign setting and so forth. For NPCs, its much the same thing but is based on whether the character is a potential enemy or ally. 2. Building I think over how to best accomplish my goal. As an optimizer I take a very close look at anticipated difficulty and fellow player ability. In less than optimized groups, this often allows me some more slack in creating unorthodox character, while still remaining on level with the other. This is not to say that more optimized characters are less stylish, interesting or unique, just that at the highest levels it tends to exclude some weaker options. 3. Basics I go back to level 1 and look at what the character is. I fill in age, gender, height, weight, eye and hair color, nationality, and the rest, and finally name and alias (if applicable). Though most of these are not intrinsically bound to a characters personality, I find a visual image helpful. Oh, and on names, as a personal touch I tend to use one of five methods. i. Named after food item. Typically Cheeses or wines. Sometimes mispronounced on purpose. Duncan Drake Blue. Merlot (as in car lot) Chardonnay (Car-doe-nay). Or simply Saga. ii. Take prexisting words or a string of letters and delete letters until something interesting and intelligible is made. ex. eohoiopsdnflibuowejfn becomes Hoisflowjn. This one is better suited to a last name, but you get the idea. iii. For certain settings (FR) or races (most non humans) I take a look at the name generators in the Races line of books. I often roll several times and change what doesn't sound good. I prefer mixing and matching a series of first and last names to just rolling one and moving on. Sometimes I don't. iv. Anagrams. Some feel they are cheesy. I think they're better than simple inversions. Also, if you come up with a full name and don't refer to yourself by all of it (how many of us 3+ name people actually do?) it becomes impossible to spot: Rahs Kurade (missing his mother's maiden name) or Gahfe Nur Tiekosk (Missing a nickname). v. Mix and match the above with real names. Felix Ortega. Gil-Leon de LaVaal. 4. Personality For this step I take a look at alignment, race, and nation of origin. These often color a character's perceptions, and thus personalities. This is not the be all end all, many characters break the molds. However, one can not discount that we are a product of our experience. So I give some credence to this. I list alignment as a factor of personality instead of the reverse due to the way I build characters. Certain builds demand certain alignment. When this is not the case, I assign alignment later. Usually by this point, I have a good mental image of a character, so some aspects become self evident. I often keep a question form or two on my computer to fill out to get some idea of the nuances of my characters beliefs. Then, its a matter of filling in the mundanes. Family, previous socio-economic status, life experiences (which should remain consistant with personality), friends, so forth. Usually around then, enough has been fleshed out to play the character. The rest tends to fill itself in as you play.
I Am Famine 08-25-05, 03:32 AM	Thats a nice summary of your creative process. I particulary like the name creation methods you've got. Example 2 'Hoisflowjn' would work well for nordic characters particulary. But for your 'What do I need?' section, I tend to create my concept first and foremost and then fit my character into the party logistics. I'm happy to make compromises or changes at the DM's discretion of course depending on setting or our options, but if I have a personality in mind I'd like to stick to it as faithfully as possible. Your 'Personality' section was a good read. As much as I love playing rebellious and bizarre characters, I understand like you that a personality that goes completly against the norm seems contrived. Like a lot of of 'rebellious' people in real life they seem to try to hard at being 'different', instead of actually being a unique individual. I often find that going indepth into traits and quirks can really flesh out a character. I love characters that have the balance of strength's and weaknesse's and they sem far more alive that these buffed heros often found in this game. Thanks for your take, now lets give that naming method a go... :D Dhfjfudhykhjgjgjrtpyihghsddehyu Fühyk Ghesdehyu?... somehow methinks' I haven't got the hang of this!... :P
DBoot 08-25-05, 05:25 AM	I also tend to create characters out of boredom instead of neccesity, when that happens, I tend to look through my books for interesting capabilities, and run with it. After a while you end with a stockpile of characters waiting to be played, one of which surely fits the party needs, no? As for Dhfjfudhykhjgjgjrtpyihghsddehyu It helps if you have some vowels in there. You have about half a dozen in there. Duohfaeojfiuudhykaehijgojgujrtoiapyihegi husioddeihyua Becomes Dofae Hyahigo and Gujro Iapi and Egi Sioddya I'm sure that favoring certain constonants in a random string will give your names a particular ethnic leaning, but I'm not sure as to what constonants those would be. [shrug] For Annagrams I tend to do the following First: Take the word or phrase to be changed. From your post, let's say The Cooper Temple Clause. Obviously longer words and phrases will result in longer names. This method works best for characters for which this is suitable. Next Break it down and rewrite in alphabetical order ACCEEEEEHLLMOOPPRSTTU Seperate further into Constonants and Vowels V: AEEEEEOOU C: CCHLLMPPRSTT Look for potentially interesting sounds (keep in mind your vowel to constonant ratio. If you have many more Cs than Vs, look for ways to lump several together with only one V. If you have many Vs (as is this case) look for double V set ups. See if you can make familiar names. However at this stage you're looking to make syllables. Don't be afraid to make nonsense. Ex: Proust (name) Leo (name) Ehle (syllable) Cam (syllable) Tepeoc (Nonsense) Next: Construction This is fairly straight foward, there are many tools to put these together. Proust Tepeoc Leo-Ehlecam Also, consider pronunciation: Proust is Proust. Tepeoc could end with a 'k' sound or an 's' sound. As the names are for a fantasy setting, we can be flexible. Leo can either be Lee-oh or Lay-oh (I prefer the latter). Ehle in Ehlecam could sound like 'L' and cam can sound like the beginning of 'camera'. Finally: Consider how the character introduces him or herself. Perhaps Proust goes by Proust. Or perhaps by Tepeoc. Or maybe Proust drops his middle name when introducing himself. Perhaps he's known as 'Sir Leo-Ehlecam'. Or maybe just 'Leo'. That aside, personally I like to play cerebral characters. As a result I tend to go for certain archetypes. The wizard who is as creative as he is learned, the fighter who is a master of tactics, the cunning barbarian, the witty bard, the philisophical anything (not just for monks anymore). This sort of preference usually leads me to play in slightly higher powered games. Granted, sometimes life deals you a bad hand (or the dice roll poor stats), I think the trick with character building is to make sure that no aspect of theirs, positive or negative, becomes a gimmick. Certainly there are things about characters that should rightly stand them apart from the average joe, they wouldn't be adventurers if they weren't. However if done poorly it can actually be a diservice to the character. Example: Elves, Alcohol and Magic Good Example: An elven mage who appreciates fine wine and tends to sample the local vintages can be interesting, as long as this is not the primary focus of their personality, and doesn't command attention every five minutes. Bad Example: An elven mage who gets rip-roaring drunk 24/7. Worships a dwarven god of beer, and constantly stumbles around every session. Just some random, 5:25 AM thoughts.
Need_A_Life 08-25-05, 02:51 PM	I open iTunes or Windows Media Player and open the "libary" turn on "mix songs" and let it explore my 3GB of music. The only difference is that I do it while writing the background, it helps change the genre at random intervals.
Gingerbread Guy 08-25-05, 04:51 PM	Most of my characters are at some level a result of my incessant need to do something that I haven't seen or done before. I sometimes try to "break" a class by doing something completely counter-intuitive with it, and yet still making it work. More often, though, I try to come up with a point of view, a personality, or a character flaw that I find interesting. I take that little nugget of inspiration, and build a sheet and history around it that best expresses the chosen theme. For example, I made a Sorcerer grappler who used spells such as Enlarge Person and Bull's Strength to fairly brutal effect. This was sort of my way of rebelling against the "I have d4 hit points therefore I hide in the back and cast magic missile nine times" sorcerer stereotype. And the original inspiration for the character was a simple, dumb, but strong farmhand who was struck by lightning (the freak accident kind) and survived. He always had dormant sorcerous powers, and the lightningbolt basicly awakened them. As far as he believed, the lightning bolt actually GAVE him his powers - as a result, most of his spells had an electrical theme. (related note: Casting Shocking Grasp and then bearhugging people is fun.) ~Ginger
lightman 08-25-05, 05:00 PM	Okay, I'll give it a try yojmujngjbfhbhajcgvasyhbjnsj Yomungj Hajcaj
Fithero 08-25-05, 08:44 PM	Ajey Lourtopa Im set my play list to random and it played this pacific island song with a guy singing about rainbows and blue birds. So my character will be a bear of a islander who has a soft heart and wouldnt hurt a fly. He will be an exalted bard who uses his greating singing voice to aid his allies. Not bad, i like this little method. :)
I Am Famine 08-26-05, 02:52 AM	That aside, personally I like to play cerebral characters. As a result I tend to go for certain archetypes. The wizard who is as creative as he is learned, the fighter who is a master of tactics, the cunning barbarian, the witty bard, the philisophical anything (not just for monks anymore). Thanks for you big well-thought out post. I to like playing characters who are unusual in appearance and personality. You have to be careful though because in some circles reversing race/class roles and traits is seen as a cliche in itself. If the character in played well though I dont see why it should be a problem. Ajey Lourtopa Im set my play list to random and it played this pacific island song with a guy singing about rainbows and blue birds. So my character will be a bear of a islander who has a soft heart and wouldnt hurt a fly. He will be an exalted bard who uses his greating singing voice to aid his allies. Not bad, i like this little method. Thats an interesting character concept. What kind of instrument would he play?. I could also see him having a few pet tropical birds. I'm currently listening to 'The Heat' by The Prodigy. I see an inpatient, short-fused CN Githyanki pyromaniac martial artist type. Violent heat ebbing around his body when in battle. Despite his angry nature is actually a very skilled unarmed warrior.
Fithero 08-26-05, 03:25 AM	Im thinking one of those really small guitar's they have in hawaii...im not sure what they are called these days. Basically he would focus on his singing, but would play his instrument aswell. Im thinking that he would be the savage bard variant from UA if im playing a normal class, or a bard/druid if its gestalt (which i tend to play alot lately) I just rolled some *uber* stats so im going to give this guy his own thread...looks like im actually going to play this guy.
schof 08-26-05, 07:38 PM	i dont really like the random letters process of generating names, the names usually tend to come out as too fake. i personally read alot so i take names from books and then systematically change ever syllable till i have a name i like, then i say it several times in my head and refine it till is sounds good too then usually a title or something that represents the character for a surname when it comes to gnome names you have to be a little more creative though, usually the names should have significance and can actually help with a backstory, remember for gnome names they are mostly given after birth so it partially depends on what the character is like here are some examples of the first process Andarin of the many blessings Son of Deagrin IV brevan nimblefoot Berdrin the Sturdy some are a little more bizarre though Dren-Djin-Gar Meft Shelet Mool Another thing to remember is to consider words of the race and use that dialect for names for instance my last name is schof which is similar to alot of german words (like bischof) same thing goes for fantasy, Human= think american names with a little french accent Dwarf= think german, hard, things you say when your angry Halfling= think of a word that reminds your of something light or weightless Gnome= very sparkly happy and bouncy but still serious Orc= somethign that almost hurts your throat to say Elf= somethign you would say just before drifting off to sleep these are just general tips i would give, they obviously are a guideline in any means not all names are normal or fit into a specific category, one of my favorite is Simply Char-Drin, a verana from oriental adventures my biggest tip would be to remember its fantasy, but not make names mumbo jumbo
braindead345 08-27-05, 03:32 AM	I create my characters in 3 basic ways. 1. Random For the standard races in the PHB, roll 1d8 to determine your race the die result is the number of the race entery as they appear. Results of an "8" is predetermined to be either "Human" or re-rolled for a different result. With the race chosen, I will either roll my stats in order (no moving them about, just adjusted for the race as needed) then deternining my class or I will randomly roll the class in a simmilar manner as above. The advantage to this method is that you can come up with some very unusual possiblities. 2. Party roundouts This means I will find out what the other players are playing and pick a character class that is needed to round out the party. Not so much creativity involved, but I pride myself on being a utility player. 3. Plagiarism Sometimes I just cant help myself. I will think about a character from a movie or book or other medium and say, "That would be a good character to play." However, I do not make straight copies of the characters. Mainly, I read books that are set in non-fantasy settings and therefor the characters need to be adapted. Example: I once created a spy/acrobat rogue character based on Ginger from "Giligan's Island", never played her, but she is all set for an unsuspecting DM. Others I have adapted include Donald Westlake's Tiny Bulcher (now a Half-Orc rogue), Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe (now a human ranger) and Janet Evanovich's Ranger (now a half-elf rogue/ranger). However, I must confess that it usually is the character's personality that really drives my creations.
I Am Famine 08-27-05, 03:56 AM	Human= think american names with a little french accent Dwarf= think german, hard, things you say when your angry Halfling= think of a word that reminds your of something light or weightless Gnome= very sparkly happy and bouncy but still serious Orc= somethign that almost hurts your throat to say Elf= somethign you would say just before drifting off to sleep Thats very clever. I think i'll give it a go... Joshuan Kerlot Myrian Chiba Haarka Arnariel There quite cool, might have to leave those in the 'to-do' archives... :D 3. Plagiarism Sometimes I just cant help myself. I will think about a character from a movie or book or other medium and say, "That would be a good character to play." However, I do not make straight copies of the characters. Mainly, I read books that are set in non-fantasy settings and therefor the characters need to be adapted. Example: I once created a spy/acrobat rogue character based on Ginger from "Giligan's Island", never played her, but she is all set for an unsuspecting DM. Others I have adapted include Donald Westlake's Tiny Bulcher (now a Half-Orc rogue), Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe (now a human ranger) and Janet Evanovich's Ranger (now a half-elf rogue/ranger). However, I must confess that it usually is the character's personality that really drives my creations. I know what you mean. They'ye based on the characters but you've made them your own. The next character i'm playing is gonna be a kinda of cross between Kimiko from Xaolin Showdown and Kaze from the Final Fantasy series.
Fithero 08-27-05, 04:09 AM	Using braindead345's theory of random character generation i came up with this. Half orc monk str:18 dex:16 con:13 int:8 WIs:15 cha:8 not bad....and his name will be hurk,esuydkgltaosfnsadog skldghoer[wgsdkghjreiog Hurke Skloer not bad i like this...this is one of the most usefull threads ive ever taken part in :P