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.