What is most important to your character...

Taking care of and keeping her baby alive.

To not be an asshole.

it was to go home

now he's too entrenched in the problems he played a part in

now it's a big mess, he wants to protect his waifu and fix these issues, then go home

To claw his way out of the literal gutters. He started out with nothing, and has been determined to drag himself up to a higher standing. He's currently sitting at about 70 karma, and has now completed his second official shadowrun. More so now, he's interested in finding out what happened to a buddy of his who was nabbed during a run (unbenounced to him the character is in fact dead).

find the guy who enslaved him, discover where all the honest people are and invent anesthetics

My character wants to advance her social standing (started as a nun, currently an unlanded knight) and find her parents.

>Be apprentice to wizard mentor
>Wizard mentor is researching ground-breaking magic like teleportation networks and the extension of lifespans.
>Wizard mentor may have made some shady deals with shady people for resources and funding for this research.
>Knock at the door one night.
>Answer it because I'm a stupid, sheltered naive apprentice.
>Bunch of hired thugs standing there
>SWORD HILT TO THE FACE before I can even ask what's going on
>Pass out
>Wake up the next day in the local church (it's the closest thing to pass for a hospital)
>Wizard mentor is gone, lab is ransacked, research is stolen

Seemed like as good a reason as any to join the Bounty Hunter group that was the other players. I just want my magical not!dad back...

My Antipaladin is very hedonistic. She just wants to fuck cute girls, get what she wants when she wants, and kill people she feels like killing.

...

He needs to convert a town to a devil or else he gets his soul sucked into hell.
>Warlock Life

She wants to be loved.

She's not really that edgy. She's actually extremely lax and has a main personality of "silly". She is based off of Kuroko from the manga series, Murcielago.

Unchained Rogue merchant that lives to make a name for himself and make as much gold as possible. He probably wants some sort of power too, but I can't think of a third motivator for him. It's hard to play a smooth merchant character whose motivations go past "Be a smart business man whose name is known all around and earning as much gold as possible".

Family and fun.

Family being a pack of wolves that she was raised by.

Fun, because she's a prankstery Gnome.

>She is based off of Kuroko from the manga series, Murcielago.

Imagine. There are actually people who would do something like this. And not just that, but they even defend it.

The horror!

To spite the shit out of Daddy and his business.

>"Fuck you dad, I do what I want."

I remember the longer version of this that was posted a few weeks ago. I guess that means the game is still going on.

Maximizing potential profit margins and scheming more people into pyramid schemes.

A moral obligation. She abandoned her duties, ran away from home, became a vampire, and wandered the world for some 500 years.

Now that she crossed paths with her bloodline again, she sees it appropriate to aid them at least for a time, as means of atonement, more to herself than anyone else.

Power and glory.

Not for the sake of power and glory, for the sake of gaining more followers (cultists). His long term plans end in gaining godhood.

My Barbarian got revenge for his murdered family years ago--but recently realized he missed the mark. Now he seeks the surviving heir of his quarry and finish the job for good because the only family he lost was his son, and he intends to trade an eye for an eye. If he ever achieves this goal, he has little to live for

My Paladin/Rogue is deliberately unclear. He's either a vengeful knight or a serial killer. He's currently in Ravenloft--so he's either there to murder Strahd (and avenge hundreds by some twisted proxy), or he's there to seek shelter from some divine retribution (over killing hundreds).

My Diviner is deeply concerned about the state of his post-apocalyptic world. To figure out where it's going (and divert the other shoe from dropping), he hopes to find the writings of Nostrodamus. To find it, he needs passage to Europe, and to do that he needs a boat--and to do that, he needs money to afford the voyage. He needs money to save the world.

My Shadowrunner is just trying to make a profit. His cyberware and living space cost a pretty penny, and he's confident he's worth the money. He had a rough gang upbringing, so "making it" is his ambiguous goal (that he fails to totally breach the poverty line with).

Finding out who fucked the books in his library.

I'm something of a sucker for the absolution driven character. I love the character that has a dark past or who is ashamed of an ancestor and is out trying to make right what he has made wrong or, in some way, to atone for the sins of the past. It may be that the character will stand between an army and a village and defend it until death takes him because his grandfather abandoned his post and cost lives. It may be because the character, in youthful foolishness, defiled or destroyed what was sacred to his father and, in his later years, becomes almost fanatically devoted to that same faith that he scorned as a path to forgiveness from his father, even if the father doesn't require such devotion.

If I am honest with myself, I have to admit that this character concept has it's roots in a character I read. In a moment of crisis, we discover that he has formerly been an agent of evil and is going to try to sacrifice himself to give the hero a chance to escape. It is a deeply moving moment in the story though minor in the over all plot. I have wanted to produce similar characters with depth who are motivated not JUST by wealth and power but who want the wealth and power to leverage some change in their world.

I think this is the trick to good character design: to ask why and then give meaningful answer to that question.

My cleric is the last, best hope of his dwindling religious order in its fight against dark forces. In our setting, the mighty forces of evil won 20 years ago and my character was orphaned in the Great War and raised by an order of religious men who were engaged in resistance. If my cleric (and by extension, the party) fails to rid the kingdom of evil, the order is sure to be exterminated at last, and darkness will rule forever.

He will only stop when he has found the Truth.
He's pretty confident it's going to take a while. After all he's only been resurrected once.

He does it for money so he can buy more guns. Like, a lot of guns. A LOT a lot of guns. So many goddamn guns that he can out fit his own army. Then, once he has reached that point, he's going to buy more guns.
Mmm...guns.

Being a sellswords is more interesting than having a regular person job.
Now that I think about it," I'm a hero for fun"
Minus the obnoxious power level crap. Just a battle mage who's bored.

The thrill of it

SOUNDZ LIKE A PROPPA LAD
DARE JOIN MY MAGIKAL WAAAGH?

OI! YOUZ MY NEW BOSS, YOUZ IZ. LET'S GO TA WWAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

He only obtained his position of power by being paid to usurp the lands of his previous lord by feigning allegiance. Because of this, he feels that he hasn't earned his right to rule, and so seeks to prove himself and his family as true nobles and leaders.

Right now hes looking to get the fuck outta town. Fucking NO ONE likes him.

The possibility of getting back his dick.

still, not enough dakka...

I just like to play contrarian. Most people do things without really thinking and I like to force them to think about it. In the end, their decisions are mostly arbitrary anyways, I just like to make those grimdark edgelords and shinybright pillowdukes think critically about the impact of their choices. I know that sounds incredibly dickish, and I'd never tell them that, but I usually roll neutral characters because I like to make interesting choices.