Characters

So... Where do you guys find inspiration?

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youtube.com/watch?v=BVhr8FrtmOo
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obligatory

... I recognise both those sources, and just now make the connection, I truly am a failure.

This one has always seemed like a miss to me. The loli's eyes are nowhere near as arresting.

I mostly use art. I appreciate all the art threads over the years and I'm kinda sad they've turned a bit shit recently.

Other than that, I take inspiration from stuff I've read. Novels and such. I'm not naming any, because Veeky Forums can't keep on topic the moment specifics are referenced. I know what to take to Veeky Forums and /co/ or just stay fucking quiet about, unlike what seems to be 99% of this board at times.

For NPCs, picking out art is easiest, but I also like just stealing from pdfs I have lying around, or from fiction, usually wholesale. I try to keep them obscure enough my players don't notice and it usually works.

Fuck that dojin, user, fuck it to hell. Goddamn...

Nowhere?

I just make them as I need them?

>Nowhere
>I come up with fresh new ideas in a complete vacuum
Okay bro

Look, I just make them. I'm not picking any references. I need a blacksmith? I make one from a scratch. It's that simple.

So you're uninspired?

I dunno but that guy sounds like a douche.

Usually I use ideas I get from images on Veeky Forums or other places. They're usually at least a little subversive in some ways so I guess some people wouldn't like them. Other times I get ideas just from putting together two different things that don't really make sense.

The world needs douches too.

Have a giant robot test drive. youtube.com/watch?v=BVhr8FrtmOo

Sometimes I get ideas for characters from just seeing a picture. For example got the idea for a female barbarian nomad from a picture of a blonde chicken with half plate and a 2H warhammer. I'll also get ideas and go looking for pictures and build more detail from pictures I like.

I usually go off of simple ideas, or broader philosophy ideas. Like:
>What if a town guard had to be forced to adventure?
>Lawful Good doesn't mean Lawful Nice.
>What would a civilised goblin act like?
I start with those and flesh it out from there.

Jesus fucking Christ, please tell me you are just pretending to be this fucking obtuse.
I make them. That's fucking all. If you need to look up references to make a handful of NPCs, maybe it's you the one with a SERIOUS creativity issues

You don't?

Choose three strong,memorable details about their personality, and two strong, memorable details about their appearance.
For instance, entirely off the top of my head

>Loves sweets, and will go to great lengths to try an obscure delicacy
>Struggles with, and eventually overcomes their fear of lightning, over the course of the campaign
>Deferential to a point, but also strong-minded enough to tell bad guys to stuff it.

>Likes wearing pretty dresses, said dresses are easily convertable to battle robes
>Dozens of tiny bags on their person, bags are either boobytrapped grapeshot or macarons, and only she knows which are which.

I start with a motivation. What does this character want?

Then I add an obstacle. What is preventing this character from getting it?

And then I ask the question: what kind of person would be in this situation where this particular obstacle is keeping them from this particular desire, and what led them to this situation?

This is comedy gold.

Usually from movies or books. If I find a basic character personality I think works for an NPC I base one off it. Archetypes exist for a reason and NPCs usually don't need a lot of depth.

However sometimes I'll just straight up transplant a fictional character or even a real person into the game as an NPC. I've put Rick O'Connell from the Mummy movies in several games and he's always well-received. I also often feature John Hurt as a bartender in most sci-fi games. Even John Krasinski made a cameo in one of my games as a space commando.

I just watched Edge of Tomorrow and I loved Bill Paxton's character so much I think he's going into my next game.

I like doing this. It gives me a source of interesting NPCs without racking my brain for every little personality type. And players almost always enjoy it.

Why?

I usually take a trope I want to play, shrink it down, grab some related tropes that mesh well with it, shrink those down and then grab a conflicting trope or two and shrink it a lil. Then I just choose a random one and play it up a bit more.

>interesting character music videos
Here's one that I thought was inspiring.
youtube.com/watch?v=NTe6-26-fHg

Real life.

Nobody comes up with ideas in a vacuum.

But it's pretty normal not to recognize where you're scavenging your ideas from.

But user you must understand that all ideas are built upon others, the person you're responding to is trying to goad you into what you use as your reference for your ideas.

Take a character similar to X, give him personality Y mixed with Z. Then tinge his personality and character with bits of A, B, C, D and E, and see if everything fits together on paper. Then check again by running him through different scenarios
It doesn't take long and isn't hard

That picture is doctored to hell anyways.

Does anyone have that old character generator from a music playlist? Something to do with hitting shuffle and building character traits from the different songs that come up.

And I've already said it for 3 times, so I will repeat 4th:
Nothing. I just come up with characters. I don't base them on anyone or anything. I've never in my life made Not!Character nor even tried to borrow from existing characters. I consider Not!RealWorldCultures to be shit-tier worldbuilding and either you come up with something on your own going through the classic "pick factor X and work around it", or you shouldn't be even touching filling your setting with cultures.
My players end up exploring the setting if they want to know anything about it. If they don't want to do that, then they have zero point of reference and can use their own head-canon for that. Makes immensely satisfying hexcrawls, since they are basically forced by the fact they are playing at all to do exploration or otherwise their PCs will end up as ignorant outsiders crashing in and stirring up some shit with their lack of knowledge.

tl;dr - unless we count math logic, I don't use references and all sort of Not!X are shit-tier GMing.

No one does. Everyone regurgitates the things one is exposed to.

The fact that you think you don't merely proves that you are too unintelligent and unaware to see where your inspiration comes from.

Unaltered pictures do exist user.

Calm down kid

source?

I think the point is that sane people will be making characters by unconsciously taking traits from ideas they've consumed, they don't say "I specifically want this part of his mindset to be from X youtube video, his looks from Y character from Z animoo, etc." and to imply that that not being a conscious effort makes one uninspired is ignorance at best. If you say you consciously made every aspect of every character you've made specifically based on something you've seen or read or experienced, you're either lying to yourself or you're creating expies, which is, to use your own words, unintelligent and uninspired.
That said, you're still right that nobody makes characters entirely in a vacuum, since even unconsciously you do base most creative efforts on your own experiences.

Everything. I usually find something I like the idea of, fixate on it, then go from there. Unfortunately this happens often, and I get bored of the stuff after a day or two of writing campaigns and settings I never get the chance to run.
>play DOOM
>want to run a RIP AND TEAR campaign
>read The Dark Tower
>want to run fantasy western
>Veeky Forums has a long discussion about hexcrawling campaigns
>want to run a hexcrawl
>ect ect ect

you mus be 18 to post here

History, art, novels, and oddly enough a game. The game though was inspired by my favorite book though, and had atmosphere out the ass so it's not that weird.

At a certain level of unconsciousness in decision, or either purposeful or accidental abstraction, it's functionally new, especially for the creator. If you were as smart as you thought you were, you'd understand this and not bother arguing about it.

tl;dr--get over yourself brainlet

Not with big corporate magazines.

You're the type of guy who is so focused on being new you forget quality.