Personalities

[Player Someone.]

Hello all,
I need some help coming with personalities for characters. Not only to play with, but also for people of all kinds for game mastering.
Thanks.

[strayshift]

The game Twilight 2000 used a card system to generate persona's for npcs. I've added to it - pm you what I use.
G

[blackbloodtroll]

Do you have any favorite movies?

What about favorite books?

Maybe, favorite shows?

[gabrias]

You can get away with one or two basic personality traits. It doesn't to be complicated. I often just pick an adjective and play it to the hilt. For example:

The honourable knight.
The greedy merchant.
The vain bard.
The ruthless crimelord.

As you may have noticed O don't think cliches are bad in RPGs. :-)

[Mark Hoover]

In the GMG there's a table of personality quirks to give your NPCs; that might be a good place to start. Also books/movies/TV as BBT says. Finally just picking a skill/ability/feat an NPC is known for can suggest their personality. Take 2 warriors - one is a longspear wielder with his heroic array heavily weighted toward Str and Con, wearing heavy armor and having a low dex, however his third highest stat is Int and he weirdly has Knowledge: Arcane. He is known around town then not for his martial prowess but as a knower of arcane secrets. What image does THAT conjure?

The second warior is a halfling, heavily weighted on Dex and wielding thrown weapons. She also took as her feats Catch off Guard and Throw Anything. This warrior's hands are capable of picking up and throwing ANYTHING she can get them on and turn that into a weapon. What images come into your mind when you add THOSE details?

[Major_Blackhart]

Well, I can't speak for your characters, but I can certainly give an example of one I created:
A half-orc Wild Rager Barbarian. For feats and stats I went with an absurdly high will power as well as more bestial feats (Iron Will types and Ferocity related feats).
His personality was an interesting one that coupled well with his backstory (short version): Was a warrior from Wyvernsting in Belkzen for a time, the brother of a lesser warleader, but lost it when he saw his wife torn to pieces by a group of Kellid tribemen (literally torn limb from limb. She was pregnant at the time and when they took the dead baby and swung it by its heels and dashed it's head onto stones, he went absolutely ballistic). His madness after that began to consume him in the form of hallucinations and uncontrollable battle rages (hence the wild stalker archtype) and that, combined with his preference for grappling and killing men with his bare hands let to his surname Manripper (first name Orlack). His drawback was Attached (he kept the ears of his dead wife on a necklace around his neck at all times, never taking them off).
Overall, it worked well because he was played straight for the most part, a bit morose and withdrawn until battle. Then, he'd simply charge into the enemy and begin tearing into them, really doing some horrific damage with his bare hands (ripping out the liver of an enemy and eating it in front of him can definitely cause some real fear among your enemies). But then during battle he'd hallucinate, go crazy, and it was very difficult to bring him back down. Alot of his rage powers were less on offense and defense besides the obvious, but rather things like Auspicious Mark were chosen, in an effort to help him beat the roll he'd need to stay sane after he killed someone.

All in all, one of my more memorable characters, as well as extremely difficult to play (challenging really) but damn it was fun.

[blackbloodtroll]

Honestly, just steal.

Take a favorite character from a book/movie/series, and use it as a base.

Maybe add a few personal touches/changes, and setting appropriate changes, but no more is really needed.

This weird idea that every PC must be some special snowflake, unlike anything ever seen, is fallacy.

This is exactly the place where you should be able to be your favorite hero/character.

It's fun, simple, and rewarding tactic, that I highly suggest, to every new player.

[Player Someone.]

Thanks all.

[StrangePackage]

There are a couple game systems out there that deal with ways in which a personality can be created and expressed.

White Wolf, for instance, used an interplay between Nature (what a character is at their core) and Demeanor (what a character projects to others) using archetypal roles (Architect, Judge, Visionary, Monster). So, for example, you could have someone who is a Nature Visionary, Demeanor Monster- they see a great new world and wish to bring it to bear, and care absolutely not at all for the suffering that this transformation will necessitate.

They can be used to give rough thumbnail sketches around which you can construct a more thorough personality.

Numenera, a new game system, allows for you to generate ideas based on a simple formula of (Character) is an (Adjective)(Noun) who (Verbs)- for instance, instead of being a fighter with power attack, furious focus, and iron will, you could describe your NPC as a strong-willed fighter who wields power with precision. From there you can extrapolate how he would interact with the world around him- probably stubborn, direct, and willing to use force though not indiscriminately.

Finally, remember adjectives. They can be your best friend.Say your party is in the town sanctuary, bartering with the priest for goods and services. Their interaction can vary wildly, depending on if the priest is A- Doddering B- Novice C- Alcoholic D- Lecherous E- Judgmental F- Tolerant, etc etc. Sometimes having a table of characteristics for which you roll randomly to determine a single adjective which separates this NPCs from all others like him can be a help.

[Mark Hoover]

blackbloodtroll wrote:

Honestly, just steal.

Take a favorite character from a book/movie/series, and use it as a base.

Maybe add a few personal touches/changes, and setting appropriate changes, but no more is really needed.

This weird idea that every PC must be some special snowflake, unlike anything ever seen, is fallacy.

This is exactly the place where you should be able to be your favorite hero/character.

It's fun, simple, and rewarding tactic, that I highly suggest, to every new player.

Many of my NPCs end up sounding like characters from the old Tick cartoon. "23 Skidoo, Joe!"

[Jiggy]

Here's my advice for generating personalities en masse:

1) Go here.

2) Roll 2d8. Click on the second link within the article if you roll a 2, the third if you rolled a 3, etc.

3) Repeat step #2 two more times, but opening new tabs when you click the rolled links. You should now have three tabs up with random pages.

4) Create a character who incorporates elements of those three pages.

5) Close the first two tabs.

6) Repeat steps 2-5 until you have the desired number of characters.

-------------Example-------------

Rolling a 5, an 8, then a 6; I got "The Smart Guy", "Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness" and "Sarcasm Failure". So I make a character who is intelligent (perhaps a wizard?), likes to use big words, and his tendency to do so causes his attempts at sarcasm/joking to fail miserably as he makes his "quips" far too detailed or lengthy (possibly a CHA dump here). Boom, character personality. (Or at least, a solid starting point.)

Enjoy!