Just for general discussion:
When you create a new PC, do you -
- create the personality/background and then build the mechanics to fit?
- choose class/feats/abilities/etc. and then write a background/personality to fit?
I usually start with a bit of mechanics.
Then, having narrowed down what I'm choosing from, I'll look at the available options. (To continue the example, we'll say that there's a cleric, a druid, and a paladin in the group, so I eliminate witch from my choices, leaving me to choose between Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, and Magus.)
Now that I have a reasonable set of basic mechanics to choose from, I pick one that inspires a character idea. (While looking at Bard, I realize I've been watching a lot of Indiana Jones, and really have an itch to use a whip.)
Hmm, a whip-wielding caster . . . It would be really fun to do tricks with it. So, a Magus (Maneuver Master) who uses a whip. I bet he'd be chaotic (rather than Lawful) and I'm not a fan of chaotic/neutral, so I'll go with a chaotic/good character who's a bit of a show-off.
I find it difficult to go the other way around. "I want to play a show-off who's chaotic/good. What class is that?"
Both. It just depends on whats on my mind at the time. One time I used a personality from one character on the build of another. It turned out to be one of my more memorable ones.
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I tend to go for the Class rather than the personality. Which, I am trying to change being that I have been a player for 5 years and I have been going off of class rather than personality. So, I have been trying to figure out how to do personality first, then class.
That is the reason why I consider myself a Build-Master.
Character sheet, always.
There's a ton of classes, combos, ideas, etc... I tend to want to try out. I suppose the fact that combat is my favorite part of RPGs has something to do w/ it, too...
Personality can be figured out after, mechanics has less of a hold on what you can fluff. Even when it does, you can re-fluff. My current melee alchemist I wanted him to be a friggin' ninja. But...the only traits that gave acrobatics and stealth as class skills involved being a pirate or a bandit (boo, paizo, boo!), so...I took the dang traits, then flagrantly ignored all the stupid bs flavor they forced on me that I didn't want. DM's yet to complain about me breaking the game for portraying him as a ninja instead of a pirate.
100% mechanics first, then when that goes well with the team, I try to find a matching personality.
It's sort of a back-and-forth. I'll generally get a ballpark idea of what I want to do - sometimes as vague as "hitting people with axes", sometimes as specific as "Tetori monk" - then I'll go and figure out the broad strokes of a character I can make from that, then I'll find more specific rules (feats, stats, race) that compliment that character, etc.
I've never created a whole and complete statblock without having at least an idea about the character. Once - and only once - I made a complete character before thinking about any mechanics, and he was terrible and dysfunctional and didn't mesh with the rest of the party. (Lesson learned.)
I usually start with the mechanics. I know that this sound sterile (well, maybe not to the people in this thread, but to many people), but some of my favorite characters I've ever played were people designed around a mechanical shell. Restrictions breed creativity in some regards, and I have a great time coming up with stories for why a character is mechanically the way they are - I'm a big fan of nonconventional mechanics/fluff pairings. I do have a sort of loose list of character traits and origins that I'm interested in, and I'll usually attach one or more of those to a character as well. I tend to think of characters personality-wise as sort of modular pieces that can be combined in different configuations up until the point where the character actually exists in a campaign. I have a difficult time nailing down personality too hard anyway, since I've learned from experience that it requires some actual playtime for most characters I build to develop into the personalities that they eventually end up with.
I also just find it easier to put together characters that way. When I do try to start from the fluff side, I'm usually so overwhelmed by the half-dozen or so reasonable ways to implement many concepts, especially martial concepts, that it's kind of a non-starter.