Chitchat How Do You Make Characters?

[Coreonysis]

I've seen many different roleplayers throughout my years, and many have had different ways of creating their OCs.

Me, I find a spot within my OC Network (Hentalix) that a new character would fit. Maybe I'm missing a character for mystery-style roleplays, or fantasy based. I create a character whenever a niche must be filled.

I go about actually creating the character by first coming up with the name, and then filling in traits that I feel would fit. I then write a (usually) 10 to 20 page story using them. Whatever traits come out in the story are the ones that stay.

It is pretty rudimentary, but it works for my development.

How do you make characters?

 

[MiracleGrazer]

I usually start with coming up with a problem or a conflict that may be interesting to address and build my character from there! I only have as much backstory as required to set up the conflict, and their personality to compliment it. For example, a conflict as simple as having issues with their family, like maybe their sibling had become enemies. I would write up a backstory that lead them to hate each other, maybe their father died and one blamed the other, but I also like to mention that the siblings have always butted heads. That being said, I also have in mind that the endgoal is for this character to reconnect with their sibling, so their personality might be something like aloof or proud, which is may be why the siblings haven't reconnected yet.

 

[CrowOuttaHell]

By creating something familiar to an audience- a trope, if you will, then filling it in with traits that you wouldn't expect of that. It actually works pretty well if you want to create characters that "appear to be this but is actually not" and the like.

 

[marshmarrow]

My character creation is fairly mundane. I start asking questions.

What does this character want? How do they make themselves happy? How would they react to a certain situation? I construct their personality by answering what, how, and sometimes when; when do they feel the most vulnerable? Their history serves to explain why they act a certain way.

I may occasionally add the where to adjust them to a particular setting. Where do they want to go? Where do they live?

It's a very effective method for me.

 

[Pryno]

Usually, I try to have a "sketch" of the character's personality. I give them general traits that represents their persona. Then, I ask myself: why are they like that? Who are their friends? Their rival? Their family? Where were they born? How was their childhood?

Then, I choose their appearances. I think about their way to react. The name usually comes at the end.

 

[Marius Addams]

To be honest, my character creation methods, much like my role play ideas, are somewhat random. Sometimes I think of an interesting role play and need a character for it, other times I think of a cool idea for a character and need to find a spot they'll fit. Either way, I usually just kinda sit and wait for thoughts to start flowing, usually listing to music, playing games perhaps, or just wandering and casually daydreaming various role play scenarios, often playing them out through a character's perspective. Regardless of the methods I use, my ideas come to me at their own pace, sometimes quickly, sometimes excruciatingly slowly. Sometimes I'll even get a sort of storm of ideas, a streak of wondrous creativity just waiting to be applied. This also applies to already existing characters and lore, allowing be to work out details I may have missed, come up with explanations for things I didn't have any good answers for, make various connections and additional backstory, so on and so forth.

Admittedly, due this fairly inconsistent method of creativity, I can have a lot of missing details and things that aren't fully explained. But, more often than not, those gaps are filled in with fitting ideas sooner or later.
I guess you could say I don't make the characters as much as they make themselves, lol

 

[Idea]

Well, I usually start by thinking what kind of role I would want to have in the roleplay's world and story. Then I think of how I would like to fit that role in, what tools I should use.
I imagine a few scenes of the character acting in my head and I use the backstory to justify the character's traits.

Sorry if this isn't a great response, but I mostly design the character's piece by piece

 

[The Gunrunner]

Music most times
Then I start building the concept around some specific idea that I want to play out. I’ve always wanted them to have a ‘thing’ going for them

 

[Hige]

Either I have an inspiration for character concepts (eg., werewolf, asia) and work with that or I have a theme I want to work on, and I just try to sit them next to an already established character (be it OC or fandom) and work on their design from there.
It takes a lot of time and I don't have the energy or muse to create a bunch of characters so it doesn't happen all that often anymore.

 

[arctic]

I usually begin with describing (or trying to) thier entire personality in a sentence. Once I have that basic outline, I jump into the nitty gritty. Their backstories usually compliment their personalities, and then I finish off with goals, fears, what they aspire to be. With that in mind, I can lay out a character arc and the obstacles in their path become their weaknesses. I love some inner conflict, so its always a must. I dump them in a bad situation and write a story from their perspective, and then I add appearances. Its a very long process, but this way I feel like I get to know them as real people

 

[Corrosion]

I usually bash my head against the nearest solid surface to come up with the best character idea I can think of.

 

[Jules8008]

Honestly? Most of my characters are either based on songs or on "slight sterotypes". You can basically every one of my characters into a category. About 50% of my characters will never be used in an RPG :'). I currently have *counts* Eddie, Adam, Pariah, Ascarius, Ouzma - 5 OC's. Out of those 5, 2 have either never been in an RPG or only for a very brief time before it shut down.

Most are based on songs, and depending on the song, I think about a background first, and then a fitting personality. For instance, for most of his life, Eddie grew up with his dad. Most of his dad's relationship with women ended just shortly after starting - I should note that his dad is somewhat famous in the (illegal) racing scene. Most were only after his dads money, others did it for publicity, to boost their career. Due to these circumstances, he did tuurn out to be some sort of douche. He is fairly smart, even tries to outsmart others. But on the contrary, he tends to become aggressive fairly fast. Oh, he also has a distrust against women. Not in the form of actively being misognystic, but more like "I'd rather be alone now, go away please.". On the contrary, his brother grew up his mother, away from his dad. (tldr Adam is the younger brother of him, but his dad decided that his then-wife should keep Adam) He is in some points similar to Eddie; Both are kind of smart and tend to explode kind of fast. But, unlike Eddie, Adam is fairly warm and friendly to basically everyone. He does tend to be fairly shy at first - You now, plot reasons.

- - - - -
Oh wow, this post basically revolves around my 2 most developed OC's, gg. Sorry for that, got carried away.

 

[Cinder_Rabbit]

I have quite a vivid imagination and can picture things as clear as me writing this now. Sometimes I reuse appearances from people I've met in the past or just seen in passing but as far as personalities I'm quite aware of people's personalities and such due to my own anxieties it's like a safety mechanism to be overly aware of my surroundings and people when I'm on a bad day.

I have this thing I like to do as well when I cant sleep. I like to imagine stories and really visualise them like I'm stood there watching them as they unfold. Sounds a bit crazy as I write it but that's how I come up with characters anyway I just erm ... Let loose xD

 

[The_Omega_Effect]

Most, if not all of my characters are extensions or versions of my own personality. What I do is, I inspect the setting and analyse what I want my character to achieve. Then I try to see what part of me I can use to create this very character. Than I use that one part of my own personality and make it the defining trait of the character I am creating. Then I just imagine what else this person would be like, how they would act and what would lead to them becoming this way.

 

[lostwanderer]

In making my characters, I tend to look at the plot first to see what I can try to contribute to the story and everything else fails into place. At times, I look for songs to use as inspiration for a character. I put a little bit of the quirks I have in real life and watch it play out as I go.

 

[minah]

I always make my characters according to things that have an impact on me. Hence, I dream a lot. I am also a daydreamer so things are easy for me. I dream about its appearance and personality and I even write lines for my character.
The other way to make my character to collect the people that I like. I collect every personality from the other and make them mingle in one.

 

[LordezzEmber]

I mostly start with a song.
So, if I need a character for an rp and none of my existing ones really fit, I usually start listening to one to several songs that fit to the gut feeling I get when thinking how my character should be.
And then I usually build it all up from there, with the song being like their main emotion/personality, if you know what I mean.

I also tend to connect my characters with each other, and with that my role plays, a lot like marvel.
So creating a new character always is a bit of a tricky thingy since it's literally having effects on other characters, too.

Also, a little Easter egg all my characters share: they are all left-handed!

 

[ceolsige]

Also, a little Easter egg all my characters share: they are all left-handed!

That's really neat!

 

[Lulidew]

Wow, I never thought of creating characters by using songs as inspiration. That's kinda cool

 

[Dair]

I try to take inspiration from a Steven King quote I read a while back. It talked about when you write a character you don't write a character you write a person. Characters are caricatures. You can't write characters you have to write people.

 

[Dreamtique]

I treat characters as the embodiment of a theme, to me a central 'theme' is very important, if not, crucial for a character or a story.
They are mostly kinda like components of a story I want to tell or a message I want to convey.
The recurring theme for most of my characters and stories are 'helplessness against fate', 'escapism', 'ideal vs reality', because these are the themes that I am really empathetic of and can truly relate to.

 

[LittleGemstone]

My character creation process ranges from "I saw a picture of a flower and then a character design sprung fully formed into my head and forced me to give it a personality" to filling a need

 

[Altayr]

And after all the great plans and ways to create a character, this weirdo bumps into the thread, saying

My characters are, the very most of them at least, based on songs that inspired me.

I don't even know how it all came this way, but sometimes there's just this one song and BAM- entire character just bashes into my mind and in front of my inner eye.

Kinda weird, I s'pose. But it really works well for me^^

 

[Rage Incarnate]

I just kinda...go with the flow. There is literally little to no thought process. I'm a winger. D :

 

[Primitive3D]

Honestly, music is a huge inspiration, but I also like to take cues from visiting places -- taking a trip to the nursery might make me want to make a gardener or botanist character in the future, or visiting the countryside might make me want to create a farmer or a hiker, or something like that. From there, I'll develop their personalities and what their motivations are!