Other What's the hardest thing for you when creating a character?

[Jules8008]

My main problem is the personality. Looks, backstory and likes/dislikes are easy (Names also). But personality? God, I know how they act, but I do not know how to write it down as traits.

 

[PhoenixMire]

My main problem is the personality. Looks, backstory and likes/dislikes are easy (Names also). But personality? God, I know how they act, but I do not know how to write it down as traits.

I can kinda relate to the part about the personality. I can perfectly picture in my head how my character will act, what their mannerisms will be, their manner of speech, and all that - but sometimes writing down their personality is difficult. Oddly enough, I don’t struggle to fill in the “personality” segment on a character sheet, but sometimes I’ll realize belatedly that I didn’t describe them well enough, and that the personality I wrote down isn’t really what I had in mind.
It’s hard to explain but yeah, it’s a problem I have now and then

 

[M.J. Saulnier]

The appearance is the last thing I worry about, because I never want to rely on it, in any way, shape, or form. That's not to say I downplay it as a rule, but it's usually decided late in the process, or pieces fall into place as the character is developed.

For me it's the synergy. Making a character good for a story, not just good because it's good on paper. If you know what I mean? My thing with characters is, make a character for a story, give it a purpose, and shape it so it plugs in as easily as possible.

I like synergy in character arcs and stories as a whole. Nothing worse for me than six off-brand randos crashing into each other until some chemistry forms by force. I largely got out of RP the last 4-5 years due to tiny, seemingly inescapable pet peeves piling up.

 

[Caffeine Freak]

Appearance is unfortunately something I spend the majority of any CS deliberating on. Written appearances are always tedious to write knowing that it'll end up being boring to read regardless, and choosing to instead take the easy route and find an image that suits the exact archetype I have in my head at any one point often takes some digging.

Perhaps the most difficult of all is inspiration. Sometimes I'll be typing up a character and think to myself "this is gon be some good shit" only to get into an RP the next day and find myself with a much more interesting idea that I hadn't thought of that makes the character that I actually made blush in comparison. It's tough to come up with features that stay interesting, so I'll usually make sure to take inspiration from some form of media to ensure I don't lose the original spark that made the idea so appealing to me in the first place.

 

[Caffeine Freak]

I dunno why I struggle with names so much.

I actually got a lil tip if you are constantly stuck for coming up with names. The answer is latin.

There's just something about latin that makes everything cooler, so once you've come up with an idea for a character - let's say, a dark assassin type - just plug it into Word Hippo and BOOM:

Sicario (literally: hired killer)

Probably explains why Ancient Romans had sick names.

 

[Psyche]

Names/appearance, 100%. I can come up with everything fairly easily, but when it comes to names and appearance it’s like my brain just short circuits.

 

[Dontforgettograbastick]

Personally, personality and appearance comes most easily to me. But backstories oh my god.... XD. I think my main problem is that I'll make this super over the top tragic backstory or one that doesn't really shape what kind of person they are today. I also can never name my characters for some reason.

 

[LocoMetal]

I always make the same scenario for myself. If I were to put all of my current characters in a room and have them talk, would you be able to tell them apart just by them talking? If no, I've failed creatively.

In short, speech and accents.

 

[ManofManyRoles]

Names, it's always the name. If I had a penny for every hour I've struggled with a name, I'd have quite a many penny. And then there's accents and how they would sound to another person. Should they have a deep intimidating voice, smooth and soft, perhaps something musical? I can never quite decide.

 

[Lord Aphrodite]

Backstory. I have to work hard not to fall into old stereotypes.

 

[peritwinkle]

Looks and name. Personality just seems to... slowly slip in on its own. I don't have much control over what the character is doing after I establish some general traits (it's why i don't do character sheets, because I know almost nothing about my characters in the beginning of the story). I tend to overthink the former and drown in hidden meanings and foreshadowing.

 

[AnimeGenork]

Getting them to leave me alone

In all seriousness, I struggle a lot with their bio/history. Sometimes I end up staring at their face claim, trying to see if that'll get them to talk, but a lot of times it doesn't work. At one point, I sat down with a character I was making and forced him to tell me his history.

It was really sad and I hated myself for it.

Sometimes, I struggle with names, and a lot with face claims, but a lot of the time it's getting them to completely flesh out inside my head. I have a lot of characters up there, both for RP and personal writing, so sometimes it's just a matter of focusing on the character I'm creating at that time. It's surprising how many times I've been listening to music and suddenly I know everything about the character I was struggling with.

I'm not sure if there's a specific secret to it, though. Sometimes the character just refuses to introduce themselves until you're not expecting it.

 

[TiltProof]

Personality. Especially when it has to be, like, two paragraphs or something. I can only say 'jerkass with a heart' in different ways so many times. Isn't it bad practice in writing anyway? It's more tell than show.

 

[Wonderblue]

It's usually the name for me. I don't really like "human names", since the majority of my characters are not. So I find exotic names (such as Malchior, Elezira, Attentäter, Verandaring) with some special meaning behind it that gives them my personal touch. (Attentäter translates to "assassin" in German.)

However, finding gems of names is very difficult and needs to "fit" the character.

Abilities and appearance come pretty quick to me. Personality is developed over time and through use/testing.

When in doubt- BehindTheName.

 

[PhoenixMire]

When in doubt- BehindTheName.

Lol I use that site sometimes. Even then I'm still picky about the names I choose

 

[Laifan]

I'm fairly new to creating characters. When I first started I had no clue how to go about it (still not doing much better, heh).

I guess I struggle most with the personality - I try not to be super descriptive, as in 'would react like this on this situation, and like that in that situation'. I try to go with a basic personality (are they serious, moody, friendly, etc, to put in in a very basic way) and also wonder how their backstory and personality would match.
So I guess I struggle mostly with consistency.

As for the names, usually I check websites with lists to see if anything seems interesting. Although I'm my latest character, the first thing that came to mind was his last name, oddly enough.

As for face claims, I don't tend to even search for those, as I imagine them in a very specific way (with the exception of one of my characters, but that's a special case as he's based on a dream I had and he had the same face as this character from a game). So I rather describe them and let people imagine them their own way - not sure if people like that or not, as I've seen quite a few threads mentioning face claims.

 

[Zeev]

Personality and character motive notwithstanding...

The hardest part by far, (but also the most fun) is making powers which are believable and work by some kinda ruleset, Its easy to just say "My character can shoot fireballs out of their hands cause MAGIC" and honestly this is why I lean Sci-fi, even if its not a totally realistic answer it still lends itself to a passable or decent explanation.


An example of this is how can explain how tough my character is without just saying he's tough, well besides his finer, denser, stronger muscle fibers and mineral dense bones equal to titanium in strength and advanced cellular regen and immune system that doesn't explain why his organs don't burst the second he's punched through a car or shot by a gun...

so I devised an interesting answer as his rib cage was a fused cartlidge structure with many composite minerals making up its structure acting like a fiberglass plate used in Kevlar vest body armor, as well his organs lined in strong mineral dense membranes able to hold them together better, as well in the case of bursting happening it would keep in the organ more intact.


Point is creative answers to how powers work is always hard but rewarding.

 

[Echopixel]

Would it be real asinine of me to say writing the character down?

 

[Purple Kitti]

- Names, kinda, although as often as not a good name will jump out at me. I have agonized over a good name for great lengths of time, though. Sometimes I reuse names just to cut time.

- Profiles with endless details. Look, let me find out who my character is by playing, I'm not interested in adding random scars, either. XD

- In fandoms, being sure to keep the character true to its source, even if it's an OC. Although I guess I don't struggle *that* much with it.

- I fall into phases where it seems like I'm playing the same character over and over sometimes, even when I'm trying to make someone different. Deliberately making a radically different character tends to be great fun, though.

The hardest part by far, (but also the most fun) is making powers which are believable and work by some kinda ruleset, Its easy to just say "My character can shoot fireballs out of their hands cause MAGIC" and honestly this is why I lean Sci-fi, even if its not a totally realistic answer it still lends itself to a passable or decent explanation.

I!!!! DO!!!! THIS!!! TOO!!!!!!!

 

[Spoiled Bread]

Personality is the hardest for me. I usually crate name, appearance and power based on a theme. But I can't do that with personality, I can't really know how this character will behave until I write a few posts.

 

[Thalia_Neko]

Not personality per se
cuz for me, personality is probably the easiest
i mean, i often have a personality in mind (or a few) for a few diff chars, immediately upon looking at an rp im interested in

what i find especially hard, though, is imagining what the other players would find fun to interact with. the type of character, the type of personality (without being overbearing, boring, mary-suish, cliche) that would best mix organically with the characters around, and still be a version of the personalities i had in mind, or personally would find fun to rp, and thus, not compromise on the char idea i had too much, while still fitting it within the confines of the other chars and rp

 

[Trickster Crayon]

I struggle heavily with trying not to make my character ME. I also struggle with trying to set a detailed personality description and limitations to my character. Appearance wise, my character always looks the same. I struggle with the variation on my character as well as coming up with a good arch for my character wihout going overboard.

 

[Purple Kitti]

I struggle heavily with trying not to make my character ME. I also struggle with trying to set a detailed personality description and limitations to my character. Appearance wise, my character always looks the same. I struggle with the variation on my character as well as coming up with a good arch for my character wihout going overboard.

To deal with this, I usually just decide whether I'm playing a self-insert or not to start with, and if so, how "true" she is to me. If not, I start listing character traits, and if I see some that run too similarly to me, I grab a few and reverse them.


Like:


- enjoys reading, bicycling, and writing poetry

- highly empathic

- a medical student, wants to be a nurse


Okay, so right off, the only thing "different" from me is her dream to be a nurse (and being a med student). I could try changing some of her likes, but she might still end up being a lot like me in her behavior. So what if I keep all her likes and change "highly empathic"? Make her so bad at empathy that she unintentionally steamrolls other peoole's feelings? Not something you would expect out of a person who writes poetry and wants to be a nurse. So now that that's different, it shifts all her other traits into a new light. What does she like to read? I'm sure she gets her fill of medical textbooks in college and might not be so interested in those (or maybe they fascinate her, who knows?), so maybe she likes nonfiction, such as political studies. Or she likes fiction, but instead of the dreamy-eyed fantasies I consume, she likes steampunk, or horror. Bicycling to me means adventure and enjoying scenery; she might be logging miles, heartrate, calories burned, etc.


What kind of poetry does a person low on empathy write? It could be a struggle for her, as she's certain she FEELS something deep inside her that wants out, that part of her that longs to touch humanity in a way that can't be satisfied standing beside a hospital bed. Maybe it's all the feelings bottled up inside her while she wears her "professional face" and can only be released within the confines of a spiral notebook. Maybe she writes humerous poetry about a hot looking man who's so terrified of needles and getting his blood drawn, so she writes about the guilty sadistic joy she feels in tying him down to the chair.

And there you go. My self-insert is no longer a self-insert, but still has qualities I relate to. Basically, just change the character's outlook on life, and that repaints everything else into different colors.

ENFP powers, activate!

Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a long winded rant like that, we're just supposed to be discussing what we find hard about making characters, not solving each other's problems, oops.

Also my strikethrough is stuck. Oh well.

 

[Qazi]

Everything. Why do I gotta write some sheet, man? Woah, not fresh.

But that's just me, you know. It's probably also why I only do 1X1s these days.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Everything. Why do I gotta write some sheet, man? Woah, not fresh.

But that's just me, you know. It's probably also why I only do 1X1s these days.

I don’t think they are specifically meaning sheets. They mean the character as you play them. So even if you make it up as you go is there a particular part that is difficult to come up with?