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Hello everyone. Recently a friend of mine had clued me in on profiling techniques based off of tips that professional writer Jim Butcher had given in various forms of media. I am both here to share my friends profile building technique (since I've found it very interesting and useful personally) and to see how others build and block out their profiles to get a better, more solid understanding of characters and thus to improve on my own character building through devouring your knowledges like their delicious souls......
Anyways. Here's how my friend, and now I, create character profiles. Do note that normally these are meant for writing books / stories, so we have to alter how we look at some things to get what we can use for gaming. Also note the following isn't ripped from Butcher's notes, more so adapted and based off of them.
Blurb: The standard really. We start with the general concept. Some personality traits, what they might look like, etc... you'll need a bit of the character formed in order to fine tune it with the stuff below.
3 Adjectives: Here we list three adjectives that the character would use to describe themselves. This is essentially how the character feels about and views who they are. Note that this is more helpful when you make NPCs that know of the character, as you would then create 3 adjectives from your characters perspective about the NPC and vice versa, which would help further define how your character is seen in the eyes of others as well as themselves, and of course would do the same for the NPCs.
Ticks, Tells & Habits: This should be fairly straight forward. What, if anything, does your character do when they're bored, tired, upset, happy, etc... Examples might be tapping the their thumb to the tip of each of their fingers consecutively when they're thinking, rubbing at their forehead when they lie, cracking their jaw throughout the day. These help add a bit of slight flavor and individuality to the character.
Defining Goals: Again, pretty obvious, but not always easy. It is, however, often very important. My friend and I prefer to make a solid primary goal for the character and then secondary goals. Smaller "quests" that mean something to them, but not necessarily to the story or game itself.
Nature / Essence: This is where my friend differed fairly greatly from Butcher's notes (which I forget currently). Anyways, my friend suggests using picking a primary, secondary and shadow archetype from the twelve mythological archetypes. This helps to further define the character, their likely reactions to certain events as well as possibly give them a sort of hidden flaw via the shadow of the archetype.
Exaggeration: This parts the more fun part and is fairly easy for most everyone. What makes your character stand out to others? Do they have a huge nose? Are they absurdly tall? Do they like big butts and are unable to refute this fact when confronted with the truth?
High Status: Here we make bullet points of things our characters are good at, confident at and such. This is pretty easy. Almost too easy at times as it can be easy to want to make them good at a lot of things.
Low Status: This is the harder part (or at least it was for me). These aren't just things that they're bad at, but that they don't feel or look right doing, essentially. At least that's the way I currently understand it. Low Status is like babbling and saying um all the time when trying to speak to someone important, or hitting a cat behind them every time they attempt to throw a dagger at an enemy right in front of them, or even just a noble that freaks out when he feels pain. There doesn't have to be a lot of these, but there should be some. Flaws make a character less one sided.
Locale / Bedroom: First, where are they from? This does help and is generally a natural part of character creation so I won't dwell on it. Then, detail their bedroom. If they don't have one, detail where they'd sleep, what they surround themselves with when they're alone and try to think of why. Answering why to those can offer further character background flavor and tidbits. This can also be extended to sentimental gear the player keeps with them. From a piece of rope, to a sword.
That's about it for the primary profile stuff. There are minor side things I do to further get into my character personally, but it's sort of doubtful anyone would get much from those.
So how bout it? What do your profile questions, and format look like? Either way, hope this helps someone.
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Here's a potential example of the above that I had written.
Bastion Le'Stance
Blurb about what they look like,personality, what they do, class and junk here.
3 Adjectives: Tenacious, Cheerful, Hulking
Ticks, Tells & Habits:
(Habit) - Bastion has made it a habit of challenging the first dwarf he comes across at a bar to a drinking contest.
(Tick) - Bastion tends to crack the knuckles of his fingers idly when bored.
(Tell) - Bastion wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand when he's nervous.
Defining Goals:
Primary Goal: Bastion wishes to enter the kings royal guard and rise in its ranks. (note this goal would probably depend more on the campaign setting and what's available)
Secondary Goal: Bastion intends to become well known in street fighting.
Nature / Essence:
Primary: Warrior
Secondary: Jester
Shadow: Destroyer
Exaggeration:
Bastion has two scars intersecting at his right cheekbone, which he had tattooed over in order to look like two swords clashing.
Bastion is extremely tall and muscular, yet oddly almost hairless.
Bastion's eyes are a stone grey.
High Status
- Fighting
- Drinking Contests
- Taking Hits / Being Tough
Low Status
- Talking to the more rare races.
- Flirting with women.
- Gambling.
Location / Bedroom
Bastion originates from Northern Brevoy. His Inn room is often extremely messy, his cestus lying by his bedside on a nearby table, a chair propped up under the door handle to keep would be invaders from having an easy time, with a candle stick sitting next to his bed, a gift given to him by his 5 year old step brother.
really interesting
thanks for sharing especially the 12 mythological paradigm
very interestingBHH
Sure thing.
Anyone have any interesting ways they use to Forge the profiles of their characters?