Character Creation

SkollWolfrun

SkollWolfrun

Virtuous
Soon I will be NPCing my first time since moving from Michigan 15 years ago.
Just looking for some basic input on how some people come up with their character.

I have read the e-rulebook a few times & have a rough idea of what I want to make.
So my question is this, when you made your first (or second, third, etc) character, did you start with....

a: basic idea of Race & Class then develop from there?
b: a rough outline of ideas: Race, Class, Skills to strive for, background
c: the whole kit & caboodle (up to a certain point at least?)


Right now my character ideas is b, with a very possible push right to c and damn the consequences of having a pigeonholed character.
 
I did things in the following order:
Picked my race and class
Wrote a back story to justify my race and class. The story also added flavor to the character and gave plot a few things to play with.
Once I did that I picked skills that made sense for the character.

Note the nice thing is after you first game as a PC you get a free rewrite of the character, keeping any XP that was earned. :D
 
The one piece of advice I give to people making new characters, particularly for the first time, is: Make a character based on one thing, and be very all about that one thing to start out with, then let RP and encounters help you mold the rest. Wanna be a fighter? Be all about trying to jump to the fore any time stuff comes rolling into town, or volunteer for front line duty all the time, then people will notice you and get to know you and now you're adventuring and you'll find out what else your character wants to be. Caster? Same diff, just different focus. Doesn't even have to be class- or skill-based. Maybe your character has a terrifying fear of spiders, so anytime anything that even remotely resembles a spider, rush shrieking into the night. Just make sure to pick one thing and NEVER forget that thing, don't be the guy who runs from spiders once and then next time they come into town people are like "Uhhh, dude, spiders?" and you "Oh, yeah, oops, AAAAAAAHHHH....!!"

Anyway, that's my advice and I do it every time I make a new character as well, 13 years and five characters later. Hope it helps!
 
Me, I gave my character a past, and the most basic ideas of where to go from there. Games for me have always been very, very good at messing around with whatever I write in as "long-distance goals".
 
I feel that in order to be believable (and enjoyable), you should base a character on a few of your personality traits, and then exaggerate them a little and fill in the gaps with other details. My character, like myself, did a lot of foolish, reckless things when he was younger, consequences be damned, and mostly got away with it. He has, however, had a relatively recent (just before starting the character) brush with something truly unforgivably stupid, and has developed a healthy fear of his past and of making any more mistakes, again, like myself. He is impressed by honor, integrity, loyalty and courage, and tries to aspire to those ideals, although he sometimes falls short of the mark because he can be focused on his own needs first, and others' second. All of that is based in myself, although I never had to go through the truly stupid piece, and I like to think I've matured better than he has. Some details, such as spending time as a mercenary and traveler, favorite color purple, having a wife that died and a child he lost, being childhood friends with a racist mass murderer... that's all gravy that grew out of the original concept that came from asking myself what I would be like if a few of my traits were blown up and other diminished.
 
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