Other Personality Tests ---> Characters

[mister_fawx]

Hey everyone, I'm a big personality quiz fan, and I used to spend a lot of time narrowing down my characters' personalities by Meyers Briggs type so I could get into their heads. Recently I discovered the Enneagram, and it's a much more fluid system that offers a lot of diversity and room for adaptation. I just wanted to know if I'm the only one who uses personality quizzes to build characters, or if anyone has suggestions of quizzes or systems or typologies they really like using! Thanks!

 

[Generic Brooding Antihero]

They're wonderful tools! To some extent, anyway. In fact, the character sheet template for one of the RPs I Co-GM has an optional section for your character's MBTI and OCEAN results, which is essentially the substitute for the typical personality section. OCEAN/Big Five and MMPI are the ones that see the most use in academic research, I believe, and this is exactly because their scope is much more general. I agree that more specific tests like MBTI might be more useful in character building though.

Personality tests can be a great tool for finding your character's voice. After all, the very process of taking the test as your character is already an exercise in immersion. But it should only ever act as a starting point -- a glimpse into your character. Something little more than a first impression. We must take care not to depend on them too much, or let the results confine us (I have a problem with sheets that require detailed personality sections for the same reason). If, in the process of thinking about your reply, you find yourself mulling too much about what an INFJ or a Challenger archetype would do, then you're going to end up stereotyping your own character, and making them little more than cardboard cutouts.

 

[mister_fawx]

They're wonderful tools! To some extent, anyway. In fact, the character sheet template for one of the RPs I Co-GM has an optional section for your character's MBTI and OCEAN results, which is essentially the substitute for the typical personality section. OCEAN/Big Five and MMPI are the ones that see the most use in academic research, I believe, and this is exactly because their scope is much more general. I agree that more specific tests like MBTI might be more useful in character building though.

Personality tests can be a great tool for finding your character's voice. After all, the very process of taking the test as your character is already an exercise in immersion. But it should only ever act as a starting point -- a glimpse into your character. Something little more than a first impression. We must take care not to depend on them too much, or let the results confine us (I have a problem with sheets that require detailed personality sections for the same reason). If, in the process of thinking about your reply, you find yourself mulling too much about what an INFJ or a Challenger archetype would do, then you're going to end up stereotyping your own character, and making them little more than cardboard cutouts.

Great thoughts! I don't think I'm familiar with OCEAN or MMPI. Yeah, tests with general scope are far better for academic research and business application.

 

[Yokai]

I do a similar thing with my characters moral alignments rather than personality types, since I RP a lot of large scale fantasy RPs!

Having the basis of whether they are a True Neutral or a Lawful Good really helps with making decisions IC. It is the difference between giving away their last coin to somebody who needs it more, or keeping it because they will need it further down the line.

 

[mister_fawx]

I do a similar thing with my characters moral alignments rather than personality types, since I RP a lot of large scale fantasy RPs!

Having the basis of whether they are a True Neutral or a Lawful Good really helps with making decisions IC. It is the difference between giving away their last coin to somebody who needs it more, or keeping it because they will need it further down the line.

Ooh, I like that a lot. I don't think I've considered alignment in my characters before, not intentionally outside of D&D anyway.

 

[Damafaud]

They are good for making characters as long as they're used correctly.

I've seen someone who just copied the entire result from Meyers Briggs test to their character sheet.
It's just awful that way.

 

[mister_fawx]

They are good for making characters as long as they're used correctly.

I've seen someone who just copied the entire result from Meyers Briggs test to their character sheet.
It's just awful that way.

Ohhhhh geez. Yeah, that's pretty bad. A personality type =\= a character. Haha. There's so much more to it than that. It's the practical expression of those personality traits combined with learned behaviors and complex psychology and processing through years of specific events, and that's even a poor summary.