Character Creation

Character creation general
How do you all go about creating your characters?
Make your characters around the sheet, or make the sheet around the character?
Your personal steps when making them, how do you go about making them fit the setting, quirks, what they did in the past?
I'd like to hear peoples methods.

Make the character around the sheet
Do the reverse and you'll only end up frustrated by the things the system can't do

Find an interesting character facet/personality/archetype to explore in the setting, or something interesting mechanically in the system and play a stock character that I enjoy. I talk with the GM and/or other players to connect the character to the setting/party and flesh them out that way. I don't bother with backstory beyond a motivation for doing whatever the game's about, unless the backstory is important for exploring the setting facet.

I normally think of a Badass Moment and build my character around that.

So like I'll think of some moment in gameplay that I want to experience, be it combat, story, or roleplay related. Generally I try to think of two or three that coincide with eachother.

So, (for DnD 5E) maybe I want to do the classic "Launch someone into the air, slash them a million times, then slam them to the ground" move. Open Hand/Kensei Monk on a race with fly speed or after getting a flight item. Stunning Strike > Grapple > Fly > Next turn full attack.

Insert some moment you want to experience roleplay/story wise and build around those as well (feats, ability scores, backstory)...

By the end of it you'll have a character that might one day live up to the moments you had in mind.

Alternatively (and preferably) by creating a character that could create certain specific moments you like, you end up playing through different moments you didn't anticipate but ended up enjoying as well if not more.

Generate a character in MAID rpg then replicate them in the system being used

first i consider what roles i've taken so far within the group.
then I just take something that is new to me mechanicly while also forcing the other players to take on another role, since i always manage to make the first character of the party.

I make a personality, background, portrait etc. before thinking about a certain block of stats. I know our system quite well, so I know beforehand where my limitations would be. and even if i fuck up in my choice of stats, roleplaying and subtly begging for powerups is just part of the fun.

Sometimes, I also get new ideas for my character while writing background and making artwork.
This guy was supposed to be a "muh bushido" type of guy, but since I accidently drew him some smug, I thought it was time to go a bit rogue.

I decide on a personality before anything. I aim for variety in character personalities, so that can be anything - a type I've never done before/not done in a while, a type I take guilty pleasure in, a type I'm toying with in my creative writing elsewhere (especially if scrapped), whatever.

Order of background and mechanics, it depends.

>new to the system and what it can do
I'll try to make something fairly vanilla based on typical backgrounds and roles that other players can describe to me. Background before mechanics.

>experienced and know the range of things that are both logical in the setting and possible in the mechanics
I think of a playstyle that would be interesting or unlike what I normally play, then this together with the personality I have in mind is usually enough to get my creative juices flowing for a background.

I'm dumb so I have to double check how fucking deviantArt I went after I build a character.

Step 1: Step 2: Did my stupid ass make a "sits alone at the darkest corner table in the pub" or something similarly unlikely to be interacted with by other players?
Step 3: Did my stupid ass make something too close to one of my fetishes?
Step 4: Rewrite if needed

I no longer bother with roleplaying in tabletops. To roleplay means having both a GM that understands what are you doing, a coherent setting in which you can place your character, situations that involve said character as an individual with specific background, history and what not AND in the same time other players who also induldge in such play, don't sneer and playing with actual characters, instead of just sitting there to find who the killer was.

So now my entire character making boils down to finding out what the group lacks mechanically, picking the most interesting option for me on mechanical part and then play it. I literally don't care about character outside her role in the party on purely gameplay side.
In fact, I didn't have an actual character for past 3 years while playing regularly and I don't even care.

>Make the sheet around the character?
This is the right one.

>Step 3: Did my stupid ass make something too close to one of my fetishes?
I figure as long as nobody knows it just happens to be my fetish, it's not hurting anyone.

Subtlety is key.

Sure, if you trust yourself. Or are just so much of a freak that you want to get off during games.

You could do it anyway, even if both gm and players ignore your attempts to be anything more than a statblock. It's what i do. I-It'll pay off one day, r-right?

>I'll just make a snarky tough chick, no-one knows my fetish anyway!
>I'll just make a snarky tough, no-one knows my fetish anyway!
>I'll just make a snarky tough chick, no-one knows my fetish anyway!
>I'll just make a snarky tough chick, no-one knows my fetish anyway!
>user, why do you always play snarky tough chicks? Is that your fetish?

Literally not worth the effort. Especially since it simly doesn't work in the end if you are the only person bothering with roleplay going further than talking in-character

Not him, but my fetish is so low-key most people either ignore it completely, not realising what it was, or even if they notice it, they don't relate it with sexual fetish.
Then again, I can only insert it into games with specific setting and it's not fun at all to always have it, so I'm not indulging myself constantly either.

Well yeah but if they're your friends or become your friends, and you have the What's Your Fetish conversation later, you have to deceive your friends, be left-out, or reveal this context to your past game.

>you have the What's Your Fetish conversation later
You have odd friends

Different user, but please explain us all what's weird about bunch of old friends talking about their sexual fantasies. Are you Mormon or something?

>Super cool idea
>Draw character
>Stuff all that bullshit together
>??????
>Keep making more sketches and adding more cool things like hats, allergies and birds
>Once matured enough the new host for roleplay is ready.

Well I start with a broad concept based on the setting. Let's say generic D&D.

So I figure do I want to use magic, might, or stealth? If I want to combine these, how much of each?

Then I pick race. If I can't decide then I'll go human.

At that point I pick my class, roll stats, and assign rolls to each attribute. May vary for others, but my group rolls and then assigns stats. I'll also consider what the group needs/wants.

Then I write a short background around my race/class. Fill in some details, like where I'm from and so on.

For example, I recently rolled an arcane trickster rogue. The game was going to be all rogues but I've been on a magic kick lately, so I wanted to use some magic. I didn't really like most of the other races in the PHB, so I went human. Rolled up my stats, and because we didn't have anyone good for social stuff, I made a fairly charismatic rogue. Then I filled in my stuff about being a more social rogue. IE, I'll pretend to be a duke. Use my imaginary position to extort things or convince people of stuff.

Only if you get a good group. Try branching out user.

Seriously? I mean, we didn't go into all the little details but my friends have a general sense of what I like and vice versa. Usually happens over a few beers with guys I've known for a long time.

I'll usually start sketching out a bunch of random characters and just kind of see what sticks.

When I find something I like drawing then I draw them a few more times and then try and make a character sheet around that

This sometimes leads to problems like the character design not fitting in to the setting (I wanted a ronin samurai lizard but the setting had not samurai in it) but it's usually fine.

I've made some characters I really really like out of it.

I imagined that fetish was gonna refer to something weird. Like, you make a Dnd character entirely based on chains and whipping, or that they're like a monk who's always barefoot, or something.

You sound more like you're talking about your preference or 'type'

Does it count if I played a furry? I was thinking of khajiit at the time so technically it's a "catfolk" or whatever.

>a monk who's always barefoot
That's 90% of monks

Good point.

I guess it'd be if they point out that they're barefoot a lot. Maybe they do things with their feet.

>make a Dnd character entirely based on chains and whipping
This is mandatory for shadar-kai & drow. There are feat trees that support such specialization. If you touch such weapons at all, it is required your character be entirely built around it.

To be fair, the drow and their culture were entirely based on the writer's kinky-ass fetishes.

They're an entire race of dominatrixes.

underrated

Nah being into fucked up shit just makes the conversation funnier. There's almost no entertainment value to having that conversation if nobody's gonna admit to wanting to be tied down and attacked by hamsters.

In the past, I would usually choose an archtype or concept that I wanted to try. Lately, I pick an item and work from there, namely why this item is with this character? What is this item used for? Is it a crutch or a boon? Afterwards I fill in other parts of the character to get a more complete picture of their personality, their looks, their M.O. etc.

>I like threeways
>I like lesbians
>I like anal
>I like corrupting tentacles and mind breaking.

sheepy

>sheepy
what

i really should have picked more extreme stuff, like tentacles or furries or diapers or whatever

I guess there's sort of a spectrum, and "snarky tough gal" is probably on the bottom of that spectrum

It's also one of the few that isn't made mandatory by game tropes or mechanical assumptions

Sometimes I have an idea for a character that's cool, I'll pitch it to the group if I think it'd fit the dynamic. Other times I'll roll stats down the line and work from there

I generally start with the aesthetic/feel

For example I like the feel of a masked character with an attachment to a lantern.
So I think of a class and/or role which would suit me playing this character. This type of character draws me toward either cleric or warlock. I end with a light cleric in a plague doctor type garb who directly experienced a plague and as a result seeks to thwart death of that scale wherever he goes, so he joins the party trying to stop the world from ending.

Woops, forgot this. I usually browse character art threads for inspiration too.

I usually think of something that would be mechanically fun to play, then let that lead my characterization. I think good storytelling in games integrates mechanics.

As for character concepts itself, I try to reduce it to one or two sentances descibing a backstory and personality that I can keep in my mind if I'm ever in doubt of how to act.

For example, 'Supposedly a lost noble son of the (whatever) family. An egotistical man with a thirst for gold and no shame whatsoever."