Character development is something that many players don't seem to spend much time or thought on. So many of the gamers I have met have complained that their characters are about as three dimensional as a piece of paper. I have received lots of compliments on my characters and been asked several times how I make them seem so alive and real. My answer has always been character development i.e.: character concept, background and personality. If you have no idea who your character was how can you know who he is now? It takes longer to make a character this way but I believe that the end result is a character that is much more fun and believable.
I encourage players to take awhile and really think about what they would like to play. This is the character concept. Not just a mage or a fighter but a cat burglar who uses her magic to get her into places and then back out, or an ex-mercenary turned bodyguard. Which of these sounds more interesting to play? You’ll probably say the latter two. The main reason for this is the picture that it makes in your mind. The word mage is a vague term, but a cat burglar who is a mage makes a more distinct image. It gives you a start on imagining her reactions and motivations. For a good example see here. This character is one of my daughter's characters for the game 7th Sea
The next step is a basic character. Everyone who roleplays knows how to role up a character so I won’t go into detail on that. This makes up the skelaton of the character , the bare bones that you flesh out with the added details to make a believable character. You do need to be careful and make sure that what you work up stays within the basic guidelines for the character concept you have come up with.
The next step is a background. Where is your character from? How old is he? What about family? Is this a kid from the streets or is she a rich kid who is bored and is looking for excitement? No, it isn’t necessary to know these things to play but it does make it a lot more believable and fun to play.
Aurora is my main Shadowrun character. She is a merc. from Aberdeen , Scotland. Once we went on a run to Scotland. I told the GM that while we were there I wanted to get in touch with my family who lived close to the area where we were going. Through my local family contacts we were able to get the run done much quicker and with less casualties than we had feared. If I had not gone through the background development we would never have been able to do this. Also it explains why my character knows Gaelic and has red hair and speaks with a brogue .
This came into play once as well. We had run into a certain NPC that had a major impact on that game. Aurora understood him when he spoke to a dragon in Gaelic and manage to get the team out of the way of a fire blast in time. A couple of years (real time) later we ran into the same man. The GM told me he looked familiar. He didn’t recognize me until I got a little nervous and unconsciously spoke to him in a brogue. That is when he remembered who I was . I didn’t realized I had done it until the rest of the players started laughing at me and agreeing with the GM that if I had done it so had Aurora.
So try and come up with as detailed a background as you can. What we have gone through (our backgrounds) make us who we are. If you have trouble with this have a friend sit done and ask you questions. Like you would when meeting someone new who you would like to get to know.
Where are you from? Where were you born? Where have you lived? Where did you grow up? How old are you? How many people in your family? Brothers and or sisters? What kind of education do you have? What is your occupation? What are your hobbies and interests?
Shadowrunning is difficult and dangerous. WHY DO IT? It seems to me that unless you have a concrete reason for running the shadows, you wouldn't be there at all. The same goes for characters in other generas as well. WHAT DO YOU WANT? A clarification of the above, but it does tell you when the run is done. Every character should have some kind of goal in life. Are you out to get rich so you can retire in luxury? Why? Maybe your character is searching for his long lost father and running is just to provide him with food and the funds to continue his search. Why are you doing what you are doing? Answering these questions adds another dimension to your character.
Anything else you can come up with that will help you understand what made your character who they are will help flesh out the bare bones of a rolled up character and will make him real to you and all the other players. Remember, who we are is a blend of our experiences and our personalities. Which leads us to the next step.
After this you need to decide what your character is like, the basic personality and skills your character has. . After the background check you are probably getting a much clearer idea about this. Don’t be surprised if at some point your character takes over and tells YOU who they are. You may even end up with a character who is nothing like what you had imagined in the beginning. The basic personality will tell you a lot about how your character will react to situations and the skills will tell you what your character can do in those situations. To do this we need to formulate a code of honor or ethics for our character. I like to do this by writing a version of the Ten Commandments.
Aurora’s Ten Commandments:
1. Honor before victory.
2. Thou shall not cheat thy employer. Never welsh on a deal.
3. Thou shall not kill needlessly, but never leave a live enemy on your backtrail.
4. Children are to be protected, not exploited.
5. Proper planning prevents poor performance. Double check everything. Think it through first.
6. Never leave a team member behind in combat. We all go in , we all come out.
7. A real woman shoots her own dog. Never ask someone to do something that you won’t do. A leader leads by example.
8. Never underestimate an opponent. Research ‘em before engaging in combat.
9. Choose the place to make your stand carefully and wisely. Your team’s lives depend on your skill in this.
10. When dealing with others, treat them with the same respect you expect to be treated with.
As you can see by this example , Aurora has a high ethical standard. She is a professional and conducts herself as such. She would never hurt a child except in a case of self defense. Each character will have their own set of rules by which they conduct themselves. A character who believes in the sanctity of life is not going to be involved in an asasination attempt.
Mask, my raccoon shaman’s , first rule is: Always carry a hammer. Sounds strange? Well it is ,unless you realize that a raccoon will steal anything that isn’t nailed down. And if it is nailed down …………Well...... maybe now you see why she carries a hammer. Of course, her second rule is never steal from a team member (except for practice but then you have to give it back.)
Give your characters some warts. There is nothing more annoying that to hang around someone who is perfect. Everyone has some character flaws. It is a lot more fun taking a mediocre character up the ladder to success than it is playing someone who can do no wrong. Think how boring a story it would be if Cinderella had met the prince at the market and married him the next day. Have you ever noticed that the story stops after the phrase " They lived happily ever after" ? We all need something to strive for. On the other hand don’t give your character so many warts that they are ineffective. We once had a player who did that. And it seemed to me that we spent more time saving his butt than we did getting the job done. The too-many-warts-problem means you've rolled an NPC because no one would see him/her as an asset to the group and therefore wouldn't run with him. Real players should avoid the other side of the coin as well. i.e.: "I want to be really relied on by my group" aka the munchkin problem. The player who says "See my charisma is 1 but my Strength is 11!" should be told that the character described smells bad, dribbles and scratches himself inappropriately and no one will ride in the back of the van with him. (I seemed to have wandered into a pet peeve area, sorry) Not sure what a munchkin is? Go read this and then come back to finish this article> Munchkin
WHAT DO YOU BRING TO THE GROUP? Ask yourself the question. What skills can I offer the team that no one else can? Why would they need me? Find yourself something you can offer and get as good at it as you possibly can. But you also need to know how you learned and why you have the skills that you do . This ties in with the background.
Nightshade is another merc character of mine. She has a skill in Magical theory. You might wonder how in the world a merc. (who is not a mage ) got such a skill? Glad you asked! When Nightshade became an officer in her mercenary cell she was assigned to the company mage for six months. Being the curious person she is, she listened and asked lots of questions. As she learned more from the mage she slowly acquired the skill. Makes sense now doesn't it? It also makes her an asset to a team if that skill is needed and a mage isn't available.
WHO DO YOU KNOW? The GM who starts off with a bunch of strangers has too much to do to run a good game, because if you have any brains at all you are not going to put your life in the hands of a stranger while you break the law. You want people who you know can help you and you know you can rely on. Therefore the GM is going to spend all of your game time trying to integrate this group of stangers into an effective team. This is not necessarily a bad thing and can make a very interesting game if played right. It helps to build a background for the team and can be lots of fun for a new group. But this is best done at the start of a campaign . So make it easy on the GM and make sure that as a group all the characters know each other unless you intend to spend time getting to know each other.
Contacts are important to every character so take time to think of who you would know. How did you meet them? How long have you known them? Why would you be friends? What do you have in common with them? This gives you roots just like your background does. Remember: " No man is an island unto himself."
Aurora has a media contact because she was hired to be a bodyguard to a star. She saved her life. The lady is grateful and we have struck up a friendship. Aurora also has a boyfriend who is a clothes designer that she met while shopping for a special outfit for a meet. These contacts also help define a character and make them interesting.
Who am I? Why am I here? What do I want? What do I bring to the group? Who do I know? These are all questions that you need to answer to have a well developed character.
After you have a basic character, their background , personality and skills , then you can go on to equipping them. Someone who has been a street kid will react to wealth one of two ways. Either they will hoard their money , thereby not having many possessions but a very large bank account (upon which they sit and growl at anyone who dares suggest that they spend any of their hard earned monies), or they will not be able to keep two pennies in their pockets , because of all the stuff they buy. Rarely will they have any idea how to wisely handle their finances. Spend some time thinking about how this character will react to having money. And to the kind of possessions they would buy. After all you don’t spend all your money on business equipment ,do you?
Aurora , for example, is a clothes horse. She is very flashy when not on a run. Which is how she got her street name, Aurora Borealis . She has been known to spend half of a run’s income on new clothes . I have a list of different outfits, including the accessories. Remember the clothing designer that Aurora is dating? Well I now get my clothes at a much cheaper price. ;-) Now ,of course, none of this information is necessary for play but it does make her a more interesting character.
Think about the kinds of equipment you might need that isn’t listed on the equipment lists in the rule books. You never know when that glass cutter or pair of pliers or wire clippers will come in handy. And in a combat situation you don’t have time to go get them. Even a stick of chewing gum and a ball of twine can come in handy to fish small objects out of places you can’t get your hands into. Get creative with your thinking. Your GM may have fits but in his saner moments even he ( or she) will admit that it is never boring with your group around.
As you can see a lot of work goes into creating an interesting character, but I believe it is definitely worth the effort. I encourage all our players to have their characters created several days before they are going to play . This gives them the time to get to know those characters before they have to sit down and play them.(not to mention the fact that we get to PLAY, not just sit around waiting for them to roll up generic ,uninteresting , and ineffective characters. Sorry, another pet peeve just ran through. ) You would never expect an actor to do well with a script they had only read once. So how well would you play a character you don’t know? And why in the world would you want to? If you create a generic character you will get a generic performance.
So spend some time thinking and planning out your characters. You and everyone you play with will have a lot more fun. And you’ll enjoy the compliments about your fabulous, interesting, real, alive characters. Have a great game.
Aislinn copyright © 1997
Many thanks to "Incognito", my beta reader for his comments and suggestions on this article. Some of the words are his and I have shamelessly borowed them. Thank you mon ami. ( Incognito is a pseudonym to protect the unbearably shy beta reader who refuses to let me give credit where credit is due and instead insists on remaing Anonymous.{ Though I must admit that he does have good reasons.} { you know who you are. ;-P } )
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