Character development, lack thereof... [Archive] - Wizards Community

Character development, lack thereof... [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Ringmereth
04-16-04, 06:56 PM I'm playing a game with a severe lack of character development. There's a fair amount of roleplaying (the DM tries to spread the time half and half between roleplaying and combat). However, our group can't really develop our characters. We are basically motivated to get rich and powerful, and maybe help some people, if they have the money. Regardless of our alignments (mostly good), we always pick the option that will give us the best loot and XP at minimal risk. Our characters are faceless and souless, and it annoys me a bit. My DM blames it on the fact that almost all our players have been playing less than a year, and that we only play 2-3 hour sessions, so there's not enough time for the in-depth roleplaying needed to flesh out a character.

So... does anyone have suggestions on how to give our characters a bit of personallity?
Quenditar
04-18-04, 12:52 AM Sounds like a neutral/evil band to me.

Anyhow, how do they plan to obtain power and wealth? I mean, beyond just looting, pillaging, and semi-random murder. Do any of them want to win their way into the nobility? Conquer a domain for themselves? Become the power behind the throne? Buy themselves a title of nobility with all the money they've made lending loot to lords at usurious compound interest? Somehow I doubt any of them believe they're going to die in battle against the forces of evil and that's it.
Ringmereth
04-18-04, 05:26 PM Our alignments are good, but our actions are generally neutral. My DM has given our monk enough 'Dark Side Point!' (he's a little obsessed with KotOR, a Star Wars game) reminders that he technically should be lawful evil.

Anyway, we don't engage in looting, pillaging, and semi-random murder. We do stuff for the city and powerful organizations. So basically, we do good acts, but we're motivated because of desire for money and power more than a desire to do good. If we were incredibly powerful and had nothing to do, we wouldn't try to take over the city, we'd probably just retire. In my opinion, we aren't really good guys. We're just a mercenary band who's a little closer to good than evil.

The problem is that we don't have much personallity, not alignment issues, though. Our characters are just the players acting in whatever way will keep them alive and not in gross violation of our their alignment.
Trydan
04-19-04, 08:46 AM I think that the DM can help here. Get him to ask all the players for a single background item (the name of a relative, a childhood event, etc.). Then he can weave these into the next plot-line. AS a result, in order to complete the quests, the players must explore their own pasts.

For example: Say you claim that in your past, your family was always poor. Then, the DM can work into the next few sessions a letter that arrives at the tavern where your group is staying. The letter reads: "The mother of CHARACTER is very sick. But with no money for healing, it seems that she will die soon. We beg you to come home and help - or at least to be by her bedside as she leaves this world to go to the next one"

Sounds easy. Send some money, and be done with it.

But no. There is no return address. There is no name, other than the characters name.

All of a sudden, the character must recall the family name, where they lived, how they existed. They will need to travel there, and track them down, only to find that they'd moved due to some other circumstance. The others could ask why noone helped them, and further information about other relatives could also be divulged.

Perhaps this was part of a curse or omen. Perhaps something from some prophecy or somesuch.

All good places to start investigating character background, but without suddenly doing a whole load of it at once.
PSM
04-19-04, 12:54 PM Well, there's a lot of things you could do to define your character. As some one suggested give the characters backgrounds. Next thing, give them motivations. "Why do they want money? What do they plan on using the money on? Do they have any goals?" Next give the characters limits and exceptions (which you have done somewhat). Seriously, would your character ever do something amoral if a lot of money was involved. Would your character ever act altruistically. Lastly, (and usually the most fun) give your character personality quirks. Make him hate short or tall people. Have him/her be a vegetarian. Whatever, it doesn't matter.

Or build your character's personality as the adventure moves along (which is the method I'm using right now). Have your character react in a unique manner to some situation. Then keep building on your decisions. By time an adventure is over your character will be pretty well defined. I hope this helps.
Ringmereth
04-20-04, 10:38 PM Thanks for the advice, I'll ask my DM about it. As for adventures relating to parents, all our parents are members of the city Adventurer's Guild, and are off fighting a war. We're getting high enough level that we might be able to join them soon, so I'll ask my DM about it.

As for weird personality traits, one member of our group (who left us a month or so ago, had a very quirky character (who was trying to buy a suitable mansion for himself, liked soup a lot, and and when he left, bought thousands of gp worth of alchemical items and left the city without telling anyone. We think he was sorta schitzofrenic (sp?) or had multiple personality disorder.), but he has left us forever, as the divination spell told us. Too bad. I'm thinking my wizard will slowly become paranoid. He's always cautious (never gets near melee, uses lots of protection spells and flys a lot). Next time I get hurt (I've only taken damage 4 or 5 times the entire campaign) I'm going to invest heavily in protection spells and items (I've always wanted a wand of stoneskin).
m15a
04-21-04, 01:30 AM well, defnitely try to lead by example. i wouldn't go too overboard, though or people might be intimidated. i know in one of my games, there's a player who's far more experienced than any of us (including the dm) and i'm always thinking, like, "i can't act that powerfully." and so he gets the spotlight.

one not necesarily nice, but possibly effective option is to approach the other characters while in-character yourself. try to get the dm to give the players some sort of dilemma of being good vs. being succesful and if they choose the not-good route have your character confront the others about it. like, "what's all you guys problems? why won't you just help people for the sake of good? what's the point of getting all this money anyway?" or even without the dm total help (you should still clue him in), confront the players and be like, "i don't know if i'm up to this adventure. i mean, we have plenty of money. i can't just do it for the gold anymore . . what's the point?"
pillarofautumn
04-23-04, 03:09 PM You have to avoid thinking of a character "from this point onward". In KOTOR, you start with a blank memory (for essential plot reasons)... so you CAN work "from this point onward". You are a blank character sheet at the start of the game.

BUT, a character is not just a character sheet.

Unless you fall to amnesia with every character, you need to work "from the character sheet, backwards" in order to get your DM up to speed with what you want.

Prior to giving my stats to a DM in an ideal gaming environment, I try to give my DM/GM some background junk that he can run with. Assassination attempts on my family... relatives/brothers/sisters who have fallen to evil... a criminal past that I'm running away from... an abandoned wife and son in some crappy farm town... all sorts of junk that he can use to screw up the party for all of our benefits. DMs are not the only storytellers in the game... you have the absolute DUTY to do your part in the storytelling.

Give the DM background info... make your characters pre-"character sheet" lives as colorful as the ones in typical fantasy fiction.
Aluroon
05-05-04, 06:00 PM Your characters sound like the CEO's of most of the major corperations in america! (sorry could not help myself there) :smirk:

You might want to create new characters (I know alittle drastic but it might help). I agree with your dm that your sessons arnt long enough to really get into character (My last one lasted like 10 hours). :D :P

I agree with most other ideas on this page otherwise.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ringmereth 04-16-04, 06:56 PM	I'm playing a game with a severe lack of character development. There's a fair amount of roleplaying (the DM tries to spread the time half and half between roleplaying and combat). However, our group can't really develop our characters. We are basically motivated to get rich and powerful, and maybe help some people, if they have the money. Regardless of our alignments (mostly good), we always pick the option that will give us the best loot and XP at minimal risk. Our characters are faceless and souless, and it annoys me a bit. My DM blames it on the fact that almost all our players have been playing less than a year, and that we only play 2-3 hour sessions, so there's not enough time for the in-depth roleplaying needed to flesh out a character. So... does anyone have suggestions on how to give our characters a bit of personallity?
Quenditar 04-18-04, 12:52 AM	Sounds like a neutral/evil band to me. Anyhow, how do they plan to obtain power and wealth? I mean, beyond just looting, pillaging, and semi-random murder. Do any of them want to win their way into the nobility? Conquer a domain for themselves? Become the power behind the throne? Buy themselves a title of nobility with all the money they've made lending loot to lords at usurious compound interest? Somehow I doubt any of them believe they're going to die in battle against the forces of evil and that's it.
Ringmereth 04-18-04, 05:26 PM	Our alignments are good, but our actions are generally neutral. My DM has given our monk enough 'Dark Side Point!' (he's a little obsessed with KotOR, a Star Wars game) reminders that he technically should be lawful evil. Anyway, we don't engage in looting, pillaging, and semi-random murder. We do stuff for the city and powerful organizations. So basically, we do good acts, but we're motivated because of desire for money and power more than a desire to do good. If we were incredibly powerful and had nothing to do, we wouldn't try to take over the city, we'd probably just retire. In my opinion, we aren't really good guys. We're just a mercenary band who's a little closer to good than evil. The problem is that we don't have much personallity, not alignment issues, though. Our characters are just the players acting in whatever way will keep them alive and not in gross violation of our their alignment.
Trydan 04-19-04, 08:46 AM	I think that the DM can help here. Get him to ask all the players for a single background item (the name of a relative, a childhood event, etc.). Then he can weave these into the next plot-line. AS a result, in order to complete the quests, the players must explore their own pasts. For example: Say you claim that in your past, your family was always poor. Then, the DM can work into the next few sessions a letter that arrives at the tavern where your group is staying. The letter reads: "The mother of CHARACTER is very sick. But with no money for healing, it seems that she will die soon. We beg you to come home and help - or at least to be by her bedside as she leaves this world to go to the next one" Sounds easy. Send some money, and be done with it. But no. There is no return address. There is no name, other than the characters name. All of a sudden, the character must recall the family name, where they lived, how they existed. They will need to travel there, and track them down, only to find that they'd moved due to some other circumstance. The others could ask why noone helped them, and further information about other relatives could also be divulged. Perhaps this was part of a curse or omen. Perhaps something from some prophecy or somesuch. All good places to start investigating character background, but without suddenly doing a whole load of it at once.
PSM 04-19-04, 12:54 PM	Well, there's a lot of things you could do to define your character. As some one suggested give the characters backgrounds. Next thing, give them motivations. "Why do they want money? What do they plan on using the money on? Do they have any goals?" Next give the characters limits and exceptions (which you have done somewhat). Seriously, would your character ever do something amoral if a lot of money was involved. Would your character ever act altruistically. Lastly, (and usually the most fun) give your character personality quirks. Make him hate short or tall people. Have him/her be a vegetarian. Whatever, it doesn't matter. Or build your character's personality as the adventure moves along (which is the method I'm using right now). Have your character react in a unique manner to some situation. Then keep building on your decisions. By time an adventure is over your character will be pretty well defined. I hope this helps.
Ringmereth 04-20-04, 10:38 PM	Thanks for the advice, I'll ask my DM about it. As for adventures relating to parents, all our parents are members of the city Adventurer's Guild, and are off fighting a war. We're getting high enough level that we might be able to join them soon, so I'll ask my DM about it. As for weird personality traits, one member of our group (who left us a month or so ago, had a very quirky character (who was trying to buy a suitable mansion for himself, liked soup a lot, and and when he left, bought thousands of gp worth of alchemical items and left the city without telling anyone. We think he was sorta schitzofrenic (sp?) or had multiple personality disorder.), but he has left us forever, as the divination spell told us. Too bad. I'm thinking my wizard will slowly become paranoid. He's always cautious (never gets near melee, uses lots of protection spells and flys a lot). Next time I get hurt (I've only taken damage 4 or 5 times the entire campaign) I'm going to invest heavily in protection spells and items (I've always wanted a wand of stoneskin).
m15a 04-21-04, 01:30 AM	well, defnitely try to lead by example. i wouldn't go too overboard, though or people might be intimidated. i know in one of my games, there's a player who's far more experienced than any of us (including the dm) and i'm always thinking, like, "i can't act that powerfully." and so he gets the spotlight. one not necesarily nice, but possibly effective option is to approach the other characters while in-character yourself. try to get the dm to give the players some sort of dilemma of being good vs. being succesful and if they choose the not-good route have your character confront the others about it. like, "what's all you guys problems? why won't you just help people for the sake of good? what's the point of getting all this money anyway?" or even without the dm total help (you should still clue him in), confront the players and be like, "i don't know if i'm up to this adventure. i mean, we have plenty of money. i can't just do it for the gold anymore . . what's the point?"
pillarofautumn 04-23-04, 03:09 PM	You have to avoid thinking of a character "from this point onward". In KOTOR, you start with a blank memory (for essential plot reasons)... so you CAN work "from this point onward". You are a blank character sheet at the start of the game. BUT, a character is not just a character sheet. Unless you fall to amnesia with every character, you need to work "from the character sheet, backwards" in order to get your DM up to speed with what you want. Prior to giving my stats to a DM in an ideal gaming environment, I try to give my DM/GM some background junk that he can run with. Assassination attempts on my family... relatives/brothers/sisters who have fallen to evil... a criminal past that I'm running away from... an abandoned wife and son in some crappy farm town... all sorts of junk that he can use to screw up the party for all of our benefits. DMs are not the only storytellers in the game... you have the absolute DUTY to do your part in the storytelling. Give the DM background info... make your characters pre-"character sheet" lives as colorful as the ones in typical fantasy fiction.
Aluroon 05-05-04, 06:00 PM	Your characters sound like the CEO's of most of the major corperations in america! (sorry could not help myself there) :smirk: You might want to create new characters (I know alittle drastic but it might help). I agree with your dm that your sessons arnt long enough to really get into character (My last one lasted like 10 hours). :D :P I agree with most other ideas on this page otherwise.