How to Create a Character

[Zelic Frobe]

Hello, Zelic Frobe here to teach about how to create a character. While some people direct you to all sorts of online questionnaires, this way will allow you to make a successful character without going through the hassle of answering all those questions.

I also ask that there is no posting until the lesson is completed. While there are questions that are asked, sometimes these may be answered later in the lesson. If you still have questions or extra help not outlined or just need general help, I do ask to leave them until the end, so that things will be streamlined and easier to read.

Thank you, enjoy, and I hope this helps.  

[Zelic Frobe]

LESSON PLAN

1. Alignment
2. Thematics
3. Powers
4. Personality
5. Naming
6. Background
7. Application  

[Zelic Frobe]

LESSON 1: ALIGNMENT

The first thing that must be considered is what side you character plays. Is he/she a hero, villain, or neutral party? There are two subsets to each role as well, as displayed on the table below:

Perfect Hero l Motivated Neutral l Perfect Villain
Broken Hero l Unmotivated Neutral l Broken Villain

Perfect Hero: Upholder of justice and law, this hero fights for the benefit of all people and believes in the greater good. The Perfect Hero is not a killer, but can still beat the bad guys into a pulp before handing them over to the cops. They are admired, and (mostly) flawless.
Ex- Superman, Batman

Broken Hero: A broken hero is usually identified as the anti-hero. While still keeping the idea of helping others, the Broken Hero is dastardly in his tactics. He/she will utilize every means possible to achieve the desired peace, including killing the badguys. Some Broken Heroes even suffer from mental instabilities/ disorders.
Ex- The Crow, Sub-Mariner

Motivated Neutral: A character that can be aligned as a Motivated Neutral is often a tough job to have. Motivated Neutrals intentionally walk the line between Good and Evil, making sure they don't stray too far into either side. These people are dangerous, and usually only take sides when that side has something desired by this character, such as money. If a Motivated Neutral has an agenda, it doesn't concern any side except to use them for gain, and later ditch.
Ex- Assasins, hitmen
(Note: most assassins are indeed Motivated Neutrals, only crossing the line into villainy where appropriate as described below.)

Unmotivated Neutral: The Unmotivated Neutral, unlike the Motivated, actually has an agenda: themself. While it is possible to find them on either side of a conflict, they usually only appear so because of lack of something to do or peer pressure (like their friends are ood guys so why not?). However, once on a side, they still look after themselves before helping their team, never putting her/himself in too much danger. When not encountered in a Hero or Villain team, they are on their own, and do things that they want to do. If they help or harm someone, its just because they feel like it, not because anyone told them to. They dislike control and do not work well in teams; and will usually strive to keep from being attached to any team at all.
Ex- Red X (Teen Titans/DC),

Perfect Villain: The Perfect Villain has the agenda. She/he always has a goal in mind, be it power, money, or something else. They have a range of personalities and tactics, but is always out for their own personal gain. Most do not suffer from mental disorders.
Ex- Lex Luthor, Robotnik (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Broken Villain: Broken Villains are the worst villains. Mostly chaotic, Broken Villains have no agenda, and eat the shopping list of the Unmotivated Neutral while disposing of her/him in a generally gruesome fashion. If not out for blood, the Broken Villain could even be someone who perceives themselves as a Perfect Hero, but whose deeds are violent and ultimately cause much destruction. Broken Villains that fill this second role never consider themselves a villain, and are extremely proud.
Ex- The Joker, General Hein (FF: Spirits Within)  

[Zelic Frobe]

LESSON 2: THEMATICS

Thematics, or, your character's theme. All pop culture Heroes and Villains fall into a theme. Spiderman- spiders. Batman- the night/ bats. Superman- is a 'super man.' The Human Torch- fire. Having the theme is extremely important, and everything after this step shall be connected and relies on it.

Animal themes are the most popular (Spiderman, Wolverine, Lizardman), but it is possible to make anything your theme. Batman's theme is the night, so he's a ninja and is represented by the bat (see footnote). Other popular themes are the elements, and characters displaying fire, ice, and wind talents are abound (Storm, The Human Torch, Iceman, Red Tornado).

Despite this, you can have a character based off of anything, like a city (Jack Hawksmoor- the Authority), spirits (Vixen- JL Unlimited), or mythology (Aztec- JLA).

Once you have selected your theme, you're going to want to think about what sort of things your theme entails. Sandman is made of sand, anyone who's read Spiderman: Reign will know about his daughter, who's got concrete powers. The Thing is made of rock and is super strong. For animal themes, look at the mythology and etymology of the animal. Spider themes run rampant throughout all sorts of places, and all vary differently (spiderman, driders, Black Widow).

It is sometimes also good to do something a little different with a traditional theme. People that use ice powers are generally known to be calm and collected people, but why not make them loud, brash, angry people, who will freeze someone in their tracks just because they were pissed off? (so a blizzard instead of a glacier)

Characters in things like medevil settings also have their themes. Knight, barabarian, wizard, and so on, the only difference being type. Is your knight a holy knight or unholy knight? Or is your Wizard a necromancer or an evoker? Every character has a theme.

So decide well on your theme (make it different!), as this affects what you decide on next.

(Yes, yes, Batman is "The Bat," but he is also "The Dark Knight." Over the years, Batman has evolved into the dreams of hope for a society in poverty and fear and despair. He utilizes the Bat as a popular symbol of fear, and after many many years of crime fighting, has become the night, those deep dark secrets and dreams of a deteriorated peoples. As such, his theme has evolved from "scary bat" to "night man in bat costume to scare the s**t outta people.")  

[Zelic Frobe]

LESSON 3: POWERS

Here is the funnest part to any character, and it relies completely on your theme. Any powers are reliant on the theme, such as Spiderman's webs, wall walking, and "spider sense." If he started throwing fire, then he wouldn't very well be "Spiderman," he'd be more of "The Molten Spider," or "The Flaming Arachnid," or something silly like that.

Then again, if fiery spider powers is your theme, then I just might have given you a name.

Otherwise, keep to the theme! If you're having problems thinking of what sort of powers to give your character, look at the following:

1. Pop culture characters with the same theme
2. Mythology
3. Biology (zoology)

By looking at pop culture characters with the same or similar theme, then you can see what sort of ideas other people have already come up with, allowing you to think along their lines, or maybe come up with something completely different because they have already used it.

The mythology of your theme is more focused around element and animal themes, so a character with spider powers could have divination magic as part of their powers, according to some mythologies that the spider is the "watcher." Mythology of elemental powers could be tied into old polytheistic deities, like Thor.

Finally, the biology of your theme (typically animal themes) is very important. What sort of natural abilities does you animal of choice have? If it's a gorilla, then you might have super strength. Like the spider, you could have webs, great jumping ability, and a sixth sense. For plant themes take a look at where your plants are found, what lives on them, and other weird stuff like that (ref Poison Ivy- Batman)
xxxxxxxxxxx(Zoology is the study of the evolution of animals, so pay attention to how your animal has developed over the years, and make sure to look at different species of your animal. A trapdoor spider and a brown recluse have very different natural abilities!)  

[Zelic Frobe]

LESSON 4: PERSONALITY

A character's personality is also usually tied into their theme. Since Batman theme is the night, he's quiet, dark, and evasive. Characters with fiery powers are generally hotheaded, headstrong, and pissed off 90% of the time. Think of how your theme is by watching its movements in real life and you have yourself a personality.

Of course, there are sometimes themes that just don't have a personality tied into them, like a cyborg. In that case, run with it! You can never go wrong!

And then there are characters that defy their stereotypical thematic personality. Peter Parker may be the spider, but he's a nice guy, silly, sarcastic, and cracks the funnies jokes as if he were Average Joe in a costume.  

[Zelic Frobe]

LESSON 5: NAMING

There are three ways to go about naming your character.

The first way is to just pick a name, any name, and that's it. Unfortunately, this usually results in people using the same name over and over again. If you do this, mix it up! You can even use the internet to look for not as popular names on one of the hundreds of online baby names lists.

The second way also utilizes the internet, but to a slightly different effect. First hunt down a website that will give you the meanings of names, and search for a name that means something that has to do with your character. If your character wields the spear, you may name him "Geir," which is an ancient Nordic name that means "spear." It's a simple and fun way to name a character.

The third way to name your character can include other people, if you so choose. Pick any letter, or have someone else pick a letter or two for you, and go from there to make up a completely new name, or come up with a real name. If I (or asked someone to) picked the letter "P," i could name my character "Penny," or pick another letter (or again ask for someone to pick one) and have the letter "A" as my second letter, I could decide on a whim to name my character "Parneticus." Just an example.  

[Zelic Frobe]

LESSON 6: BACKGROUND

Your character's bakground is very important. While many RPs don't require you to have one, if you at least have a quick something in your head, it will help you write the character.

It helps first off because it will allow you to keep to your character's personality, or help you create one in general. If you are having problems deciding on your character's personality, then look at the background. If, suppose, he/she was raised in foster homes his/her entire life, then he/she might be a very uncooperative person most likely due to never having known his parents. Like that.

The other way a background helps your character is it gives you something to think about when something happens. Maybe your character is afraid of something because of a traumatizing event in their past. Maybe once they tried a certain food that they really liked, and during the RP that food happens to be given to her/him, what would his/her reaction to the be?

So it is always good to at least have a bit of a preliminary background, even if it is not asked for.  

[Zelic Frobe]

LESSON 7: APPLICATION

In this lesson, I will demonstrate how to apply each of the six previous lessons. I ask that you do not use these characters elsewhere, as they are characters that I have created myself and are in use in RPs. And anyway, these lessons are so that you don't have to take mine anyway. XP


EXAMPLE 1: HERO
Heroes and Villains RP

Alignment: Broken Hero
Theme: Undead Joker
Powers: He's a zombie hero, so he can regenerate, slowly, and can survive major damage, because he has no vital points or blood and only breathes to speak. To make it interesting, he can slide through the ground as if he were flying, only undergroud. This ability only works down to six feet, and then he stops as if it were solid ground. He can't move through concrete or stone, just dirt and sand (or mud) because rock is too solid. He can also hear and see perfectly through and above the ground as if it weren't there, jsut sounds are slightly muffled. Finally, since he's undead, he wouldn't be very dexterous- being dead tightens the muscles and he's lose his sense of touch (so he couldn't feel pain either). And would be particularly flammable. And super strong because his brain wouldn't be able to stop him from using his full muscular strength. Because of the Joker (or prankster) aspect, he uses stuff like homemade explosives and would run into combat guns blazing and arm swinging, ignoring the fact that he's getting shot up. he would also often have just the right tool, or could slap something together with the stuff he's already got.
Personality: Irritated most of the time, overprotective, quiet, hates his (un)life, loathes surprises and jokes. Hardly laughs.
Name: Since this is just a modern day thing, I'll give him a regular name- James Beagle. Since he's a hero, we'll call him "Clown," and have him play it up like he's a mockery of life.
Background: In life, James was a rather funny guy, always playing jokes. But one day he was killed, then some dark power played the joke on him and brought him back- as a zombie. Now he uses his new (un)life to hunt and kill the villains that killed him.

EXAMPLE 2: NEUTRAL

Alignment: Unmotivated Neutral
Theme: Secret Keeper/ Finder
Powers: He finds out secrets, but instead of being boring and allowing him to read minds, let's instead say that he can walk on walls and pull the shadows around him like a cloak, an effective sort of obscuring shield so that he can eavesdrop in safety. Let's also say that he can influence people's emotions, and both speaking and eye contact make this power more effective.
Personality: Since he is a secret finder, he would be calm, collected, quiet, watchful. But to add a bit of flavor, let's give him a bit of a short temper.
Name: We'll use the second form of name making. Two of the things that strike me as important with this character are Secrets and Shadows. So let's find two names that mean the same things…Najwa (secret) Senka (shadow).
Background:

EXAMPLE 3: VILLAIN
Medievil RP

Alignment: Perfect Villain
Theme: Spider
Powers: Since this character has a spider theme, I'm first going to look at the biology of the spider. Most spiders make webs, have venom, and stick to walls. So for this character I want to think along those lines. The question is where does the stuff come from? Let's make him a martial artist, and make the webs come from his fingertips so that he can use them in battle, and also have one of his fingers have a stinger and poison in it instead of a web sack. He can walk on walls and such, so he'd be barefoot. Also, let's make it interesting, give him four spider legs that come out from his back. Yeah. And some spiders can spit, so he can also spit a small bit of acid, like, once per day, make it fair. And since his diet would be blood (cuz he's a spider) he's got vampire teeth. Now for the mythology. Spiders according to a few religious beliefs are watchers, so let's give him powers of divination, but to use it, he has to make a special web inside of a frame, and he reads this like you would read tarots. Sounds good to me.
Personality: Spider, so- Calm, sneaky, quiet, watchful, cruel, manipulative
Name: I'll make one up for this one- I choose M for the first name and S for the last, and I get- Marabarra Segrassi.
Background: Mara, as he likes to be called. Is the only surviving member of his family, but it is by design. When all of the Segrassi children reach maturity, a small war erupts in the family, and each of the family members vie to kill each other until only one is left. The remaining member inherits all that was previously gained by everyone else. When Mara inherited his family's fortune, he got a huge mansion. He now lives there, watching the current war, lending his services secretly to both sides, manipulating the outcome to serve him better.

(I only realized after I made this section that all of my examples are male. I apologize, girls! Go femenista! Lol, if anyone demands female examples, go right ahead.

I also realized that they are all slightly similar. Again, anyone demanding something different, I can easily do that.)  

[Zelic Frobe]

Reserved  

[Zelic Frobe]

This concludes the lesson. We may now discuss.  

[T3rran]

While I like this, there are a few things I thought I should point out. These are all characters who have some super ability about them. What about those everyday people? The ones that people can closely relate to, and are not all that different from the reader. A guy with the ability to phase into the shadows to reveal secrets is cool and all, but how many people in real life can manage it? (Of course, I mean actually turning into a shadow, not the metaphorical sense of a 'shadow'.)

There are also a lot of themes to base your character off of, not just the ones you listed (I understand it is an incomplete list,) so I'll fill in another one I often use when deciding a theme: I like to use an everyday item to help represent a character, like a bandaged hand to show his wounded heart. A glove to represent a vow to protect, you know, that sort of thing.

Other than the first paragraph, I liked it. It's a nice starter guide to new RPers, and a nice refresher to the vets. You covered the aspects of a character, a good character skeleton to always follow if you're ever in doubt.

Hope I wasn't being too critical, or not making much sense... I have a tendency to have something great explained in my head, but it gets lost in my word choices.  

[Zelic Frobe]

No, you're not being too critical, T3rran, and you are quite right, although I will point out that for theme, I did not mean to make a 'list' per se, just give a few examples.

And this list was meant more or less for the 'super powered' character rather than mundane characters. A character based off the reader would probably say that their theme is themself. Typical mundane characters for non-powered role plays are usually easier to create, though if you follow the lesson and skip the powers step you will have a character as such:

Alignment: This girl is a class-president type, sp she'll be following along the typical lines of a Perfect Hero.
Theme: Class president.
Personality: Straight-laced, commanding, intelligent, kind, observant, listens to others.
Name: Sarah Goldman
Background: Sarah is the clas president of her high school. She grew up with a rich lifestyle, but is not a snob; she actually sometimes goes out of her way to help people. Her father is a CEO of a news center, and her mother owns a restaurant chain. Sarah herself has goals of becoming a politician.
Other: Sarah always wears a hairband given to her by her uncle before he died.


How's that, T3rran?  

[T3rran]

Yeah, it works in creating a character. A rather nice theme, and a personality you'd associate with a Class President. I also understand you could change the alignment around a bit, as we all know not every president is a good one. Class President turned Class Dictator, for instance.

But I'd make her father CEO of a big name clothing industry... Like Armani Exchange. smile But, I am appeased, lol. Yeah, I like your formula, nice thread, I'm sure plenty of people will find it of use.  

[Zelic Frobe]

One can only hope. Thank you, T3rran. biggrin