Unforeseen or planned out characters?

[skeggsismad]

I was just curious about how many people in Infusco have made the characters they have based on the idea and strict planning out of a specific character, or just sort of blindly? I’ll admit to having done a careless job several times, and eventually have been forced to re-evaluate what I’ve written and re-edit it. But my characters are not ideas- they are fully formulated; So formulated, it is hard to write down everything about them. Yes, the introductions can be long winded and terrible to read in one sitting, but it’s the only way I feel will fully explain my characters. There have been things I have not unearthed about them until now.

For example: Gannon is my pride and joy . He is favorite above all others.

After Gannon, I found Marso I reasonably satisfying. He is the exact opposite of Gannon; while Gannon is impulsive, harsh and brutal, Marso is tender, slow, and sometimes nit-picky. While Gannon is a cruel killer with no purpose and only barbaric meanings, Marso is a trained killer who is fairy humane and kills for his amazing skill at it [ and money]. There are so many details I haven’t worked out about my characters even yet. Marso is obviously an emotional wreck, but as I read more into psychology, I am presented for several options for Gannon. The most clear are diagnosed diseases. He can have Paranoid Schizophrenic Disorder, or be a Sociopath, and perhaps the possibility of both.

So my question, I challenge you to (I really would like your personal answer):

How do you create your characters? Do you find there is so much change on a day-to-day basis on your characters, or do you know they are visibly lacking depth you might find to a human being?


Not to ramble. : ) I tend to go on and on. Responde?

[Sa.]

How do I create my Characters? I use the Character sheet of course! But seriously, I cant say I put to much time, or effort into the creation of my characters, because I allow them to grow and have personalities of their own as I move them through a Role play, If that makes any Sense

[Starcatcher]

A lot of my characters start from just one basic idea.

After that, I just sort of let them take over. I\'m not quite sure how to explain it, but it\'s like they do things on their own accord. I\'ve made characters loosely based off of people I\'ve known, but they always end up growing into something purely themselves, to the point where I could imagine some of them conflicting with each other, even the people they were initially based off of.
I have two musician characters, Adrian and Toridhealbhach. (Adrian is the only one I play here, however.)

Adrian is a very deep thinker. She values personality traits and immaterial things over physical attractiveness in people and money. She is polite, and quiet, and even a pushover at times. Despite her general asexuality, Adrian is secretly self-conscious about her appearance, and it\'s easy for her to become caught up and freeze in situations that imply any advances towards her. But she loves people for just being people, and is a very compassionate and understanding character.

Toridhealbhach is entirely Adrian\'s opposite. He dislikes admitting to being wrong about anything, and often lies or instigates the truth, even when he doesn\'t know what he\'s talking about. He enjoys the finer things in life (meaning, instant satisfaction). Booze, brawls, and babes. He is highly confident in himself, to the point of being egomaniacal, maybe, but he jokes around so much that it\'s difficult to tell if he\'s being serious about himself or not. And he\'s so vain, he probably thinks this song is about him.

There are different and deeper traits and quirks about both of them that just grew over time. The more I play with them, the more refined they become.

[skeggsismad]

How do I create my Characters? I use the Character sheet of course! But seriously, I cant say I put to much time, or effort into the creation of my characters, because I allow them to grow and have personalities of their own as I move them through a Role play, If that makes any Sense

Yes, I notice a lot of people dont like to do into detail on the sheets. Some people are amazing roleplayers with unique, creative, and remarkable characters, and you would never know from their character sheets. I suppose they aren\'t that important? But I like them. It\'s a way to organize my thoughts. It also helps with history, which I often get lost about. I much preffer discussing personality traits.

There are different and deeper traits and quirks about both of them that just grew over time. The more I play with them, the more refined they become.

Yes, I see. I like to develop these before roleplaying them. But hell- I haven\'t been roleplaying for hardly long enough to see my characters grow and develop yet.

[Sa.]

Yes, I notice a lot of people dont like to do into detail on the sheets. Some people are amazing roleplayers with unique, creative, and remarkable characters, and you would never know from their character sheets. I suppose they aren\'t that important? But I like them. It\'s a way to organize my thoughts. It also helps with history, which I often get lost about. I much preffer discussing personality traits.



Yes, I see. I like to develop these before roleplaying them. But hell- I haven\'t been roleplaying for hardly long enough to see my characters grow and develop yet.

Exactly. Character sheets are very useful, but They dont need to have your Character completely typed out.

[Trillian]

Yes those sheets ARE important.

If I can\'t see that you\'ve put a little bit of work into your character sheet, then why should I think that you\'ll put work into your roleplays?  ESPECIALLY when you\'re a new member.

Members who\'ve been here a while will get away with looser sheets and less history/personality work, but here\'s a guide I use for every character sheet:

If you make a character over 500 years old, the older they are, the more work you should put into the sheet, because if you don\'t, I\'ll nag you to add it  I\'m not fond of approving anything Ancient on the site unless I know the roleplayer can pull it off, or if a new member designs a fantastic and well-developed character sheet.

As for myself, the character sheet I make depends on the idea I have:

1) A personality concept - I want to play a character who is a certain way, and then throw them into the pot to see how they are in various situations.  That character will be extremely well-developed from the start.

2) A roleplay concept - I want to play a particular scene/roleplay with someone else and need a character to fill a role, I will design the character less developed and add things to their sheet as I go.  Two of my most intensely developed characters on this site (Ben and Lazarus) were begun this way - and as they grow, I add to their sheet.

[DoTheLimbo]

Members who\'ve been here a while will get away with looser sheets and less history/personality work.

...So how long do I have to be here till I can get away with looser sheets : P

Anyways, I think this whole thread is interesting.

I create my characters in different ways. Sometimes I will come up with a plot, and I base my characters solely to follow that plot. I sometimes also create a NPC character for sake of plot and they soon turn out to be very enjoyable to play. Then on the other hand, I will spend hours upon hours creating a character. I almost never blindly make a character, I always have to research something about them. Usually I spend hours to days just picking out a name (I dare anyone to look up name meanings of my characters - both first and last).

Through my lifetime of roleplay, I have created numerous characters. Some have in depth personalities, others are very shallow. But the only thing that matters to me is whether or not I enjoy roleplaying them and that they can interact with other characters. The interaction between characters in roleplays is the most important aspect to me.

[Trillian]

I find most people don\'t work on character flaws nearly well enough and end up playing a rubbish character and the product of this is rubbish roleplays.  There are many of these kinds of roleplays on RPC, superficial rubbish which I wouldn\'t read past the first page, but there are also a lot of really GOOD in-depth roleplays, and most of that comes from character developement.

This does NOT include superficial characters because a lot of them are really well-developed, they don\'t have to be deep to be terrific characters.  A pattern I find between well-made characters and those not so great is the fact the writer/member has very obviously thought about what they\'ve been through to make them that way.

And Limbo, did I or did I not accept Pansa first go That\'s a loose sheet for an Ancient.

[Fell]

Making characters is a real production for me. Some of them were spur-of-the-moment things, but most take me many hours over the course of several days to finish. Personally, I like to try to research the things important in my character\'s life (especially if they\'re from another culture) and I often get additional inspiration from that. Most of the stuff that happens, though, is just... natural progression. I don\'t know where most of my ideas come from. Pictures, I guess... I\'ll draw something/one, and things just go from there.

As far as the importance of character sheets... Well. I *need* to make mine pretty well developed, just because I have so dang many characters active at ant given time, both on and off line and in a variety of places. If I didn\'t keep careful track of who was  who, they\'d probably start to bleed into one another. So me? I love character sheets! ^^

[skeggsismad]

Yes those sheets ARE important.

If I can\'t see that you\'ve put a little bit of work into your character sheet, then why should I think that you\'ll put work into your roleplays?  ESPECIALLY when you\'re a new member.

Members who\'ve been here a while will get away with looser sheets and less history/personality work, but here\'s a guide I use for every character sheet:

If you make a character over 500 years old, the older they are, the more work you should put into the sheet, because if you don\'t, I\'ll nag you to add it  I\'m not fond of approving anything Ancient on the site unless I know the roleplayer can pull it off, or if a new member designs a fantastic and well-developed character sheet.

Yes. I\'m very lazy with my sheets, but once I go over them and re-write them, eventually I get to a point where I am alright with them. To this day, though, I could still re-write them, change some spelling errors here and there. I try hard to do nice character sheets--even if it\'s not the first go around. Personally, I think they\'re really important. And it\'s interesting you mentioned that sort of favoritism. As a writer, I\'d rather have my sheets ripped to it\'s very core and questioned than get off the hook. So, if the question ever rises, we\'ll all remember that

Making characters is a real production for me. Some of them were spur-of-the-moment things, but most take me many hours over the course of several days to finish. Personally, I like to try to research the things important in my character\'s life (especially if they\'re from another culture) and I often get additional inspiration from that. Most of the stuff that happens, though, is just... natural progression. I don\'t know where most of my ideas come from. Pictures, I guess... I\'ll draw something/one, and things just go from there.

As far as the importance of character sheets... Well. I *need* to make mine pretty well developed, just because I have so dang many characters active at ant given time, both on and off line and in a variety of places. If I didn\'t keep careful track of who was who, they\'d probably start to bleed into one another. So me? I love character sheets! ^^

I adore that! I wish I could force myself to research everything. But I don\'t. Although, I am researching into personality disorders I find it interesting for the better portrayal of my characters. The reason certain people are \'gifted, wonderful\' roleplayers is simply this: they take the time and effort to complete it instead of doing a half-assed job like most of us do [especially me].

[Ashlei]

Yes. I\'m very lazy with my sheets, but once I go over them and re-write them, eventually I get to a point where I am alright with them. To this day, though, I could still re-write them, change some spelling errors here and there. I try hard to do nice character sheets--even if it\'s not the first go around. Personally, I think they\'re really important. And it\'s interesting you mentioned that sort of favoritism. As a writer, I\'d rather have my sheets ripped to it\'s very core and questioned than get off the hook. So, if the question ever rises, we\'ll all remember that



I adore that! I wish I could force myself to research everything. But I don\'t. Although, I am researching into personality disorders I find it interesting for the better portrayal of my characters. The reason certain people are \'gifted, wonderful\' role players is simply this: they take the time and effort to complete it instead of doing a half-assed job like most of us do [especially me].

Actually my latest character is a mixture of careful planning and tons of research. Mainly I took an idea for a character and fleshed her out with help from a questionnaire I got off Squidoo.com. It helped me see many of the problems with my character creation projects in the past and correct them. I have just submitted this character for Infusco and am waiting on a response!:D
I do have to agree that sometimes I have to force myself to do the research but sometimes I enjoy the research because its like finding out more about this person I\'ve just \'met\' and she gets more intriguing and real as I research.
Research is a great starting point but to do too too much research and not enough growing of the character is another great fallacy we writers commit however unintentionally.
I try to give an overview of the character\'s history and fill in the gaps as I play out the character.
Seems lazy but it works out well for me.

[skeggsismad]

Hmm, you know what a new method has been for me when I\'ve been trying to develop a character? Astrology.

I\'m always very interested in finding ways that can map out the basics of a personality, and Astrology, at least for me, does that. Look at it this way: there are twelve zodiac signs, each with a different set of traits. Each person is born under sixteen planets. So your sun sign may be Gemini, but that doesn\'t necessarily define who you are. There are moon signs, ascendants, blah-blah-blah. Anytime I want to make a new character I pop a random birthday into my Astrology software and build off of that. James is my first character example of this, and I think he\'s come out fairly fine. Judas, in the Lucky Dip Box, is also a result of this new method.

If you know your birthday [ year, day, time] then you can go here and get your chart done for free. Of course the results you get are going to be pre-programmed so it will sound like a bunch of guesses, if you take your planets like your moon sign, ascendant, sun sign and look up their meanings it can prove to be very accurate. I actually prefer to use books written by people than the programs because they tend to be better at fully explaining what each position means.  This is actually one of my favorite websites regarding translation of what "Moon in ____" actually means, so if you DO decide to try it out you can look up the meaning there.

Anyway, I hope THAT is helpful now that I\'ve ended up going on another tangent.

[Mayquiri]

I tend to create a character based on an idea,  set of dreams, or other such things.  When I first create them, I don\'t know them well enough to rp with them properly, which only creates issues when I actually do rp with them, as I find I have to change certain things to fit what I learn about them as characters.

Though once I get the ball rolling, and especially if I get the character mostly right on the first go, I find them to be quite interesting characters.  Actually getting my ass in gear and getting involved on the site though....well, that\'s another story/problem.

[Harlequin]

My name is Brooce and I like to resurrect dead threads 8D
 
Most of my characters come out of a basic idea, and I build onto them as I roleplay them and get to know them better. Sometimes I have to alter them completely, as well, as they age and experience different things (Sabrina, for example, has been overhauled at least twice from the Neopets boards).
 
It\'s odd, watching these folks change, and grow. Sometimes I\'ll realize that I\'ve written characters to be like people I know without even realizing it. Ami -- for example -- is halfway between my father and a stranger (if that makes any sense).
 
I feel like my character sheets aren\'t as detailed as they should be -- especially in the areas of history and personality -- but the personality issue is often because I don\'t necesarrily know how a character will react to a certain situation until they\'re put in it. History, though...sometimes that\'s just laziness on my part, but some of my characters are simply present-people; they don\'t let the past dictate how they interact with the here and now (or, at least, they think they don\'t).

I tend to do a lot of cooncet based stuff as well. I\'ll start out with a question (for example: How would someone interact with the word if they were 8 feet tall? Or couldn\'t see in color?) or an idea, or something. And sometimes I\'ll  start on a character, and they\'ll morph into something else entirely. WIld Hunt started out as just Ami, who was a bassist, and then I thought \'Well, what about the rest of the band? How well does she like them? How central are they to her life?\' And then the rest followed XD