Wizard without Personality/Goals/Interests

Player in my game is having trouble coming up with stuff for his character to have as hobbies, personality, goals that aren't "Im a wizard, i do wizard things, i have wizard goals"

Hes been a blank slate of a character for 2 years now, he came back to me saying that hes got nothing and hes just not gonna do anything and keep the blank slate.

So I've started working on a list of random shit to hopefully have him cobble something together that speaks out to him, could i get your guys helps with motivations/goals/interests?

Depends on the context, my guy. What's the setting like, what is magic like and how are wizards viewed? How are they organized? What's this guys history+

>Hes been a blank slate of a character for 2 years now, he came back to me saying that hes got nothing and hes just not gonna do anything and keep the blank slate.

If he's actively fighting roleplaying, you're not going to get him to change. Some people just want to roll play, and murderhobo.

If that's not what you're going for in the game, let him know, and if he still wants to play decide if he's a detriment to the game or not.

Maybe give him a backstory where his character traded his personality for more magic power.

Wizard life goals
1. Conquer Realm
2. Build mighty Wizard Tower to oversee it

That could actually be kind of interesting. Traded away or burned out his personhood in order to become a conduit of pure magic, leaving him powerful but willless. Might use that for an npc

wizards like knowledge, mana and sex

>hobbies, personality, goals that aren't "Im a wizard, i do wizard things, i have wizard goals"

Make his lack of goals his goal. After years and years of sacrificing his personal life on the altar of academic and magical success, one day he realises that it's not really made him happy. Nothing really makes him happy anymore, not really, and so his goal becomes to shake off the depression and ennui and find something that he enjoys and wants to do, or else at least rekindle his passion for magic

So, he's driving a big noisy bike and part of the hell's angels?

Setting, big ol island full of mystery and wonder, players are trapped here by magic, tons of new magic and monsters to be found here. also theres like a massive ruling king and systems of rule all about it.

Wizards where hes from are seen as sinners and heretics, wizards on this island are seen as useful members of society and are plentiful. wizards are allowed to live their own life and do whatever they want like anybody else.

His backstory? welp its not much, he grew up a roaming gypsy, when his family found out he had magic they ditched him on the side of the road, he became a bounty hunter for a short time before joining a group of mages all in hiding, they all got killed except him so he ran, he hates this land hes from so he hopped on a boat and wound up here on this island.

Hes an ice and creation mage primarily.

whom pets bunnies, perfect

It wasn't a detriment so much at the beginning when everyone was new, but now that all the other players have gotten into the groove and are playing actual characters its sortof bringing the game down whenever he has to talk.

Not a HUGE problem, but when the other players try to role-play with him or when the world tries to interact with him he just sits there in silence and says "I've got nothing" after a few minutes

He says he wants to role-play but i dont know how to go about helping when everything I've tried has failed, so i decided to start from scratch with the characters goals hobbies likes etc... only to find out that he had none, his backstory is barebones and he has none of that stuff.

He's voluntary removing his thinking, his knowledge. He belongs to emotional crews to improve his intuitive thinking.
A way to improve his magic, like faster spells with less wording.

As a great wizard, he's worthy in this band and trusted by old bikers.

I wonder if i could help him swing this into his story, neat

dont bother. even if you give him a list of great stuff AND he actually choose some of them, he is not gonna roleplay them. its just how those people are. just classify him as ''another body'' and concentrate on the other players. he'll find his fun helping the others's story.

Give him nothing. Nothing but pursuers, investigators, curious people who want to know what he's up to.
Have him kill them all.

???

Sounds like the best route would be posing his lack of personality as an in-universe thing, like said. His backstory could figure into a certain level of desensitization, and being essentially self socialized while on the run and professionally violent. He might have minimized his sense of self and prominent personal drives in the name of survival and anonymity, and most of his ambition would have gone into survival and magical power. Assuming he's now at a point where his survival isn't as tenuous, his only real focus becomes magical power and control, even then in a pretty abstract sense, since he's never been part of a magical order or school. It also fits pretty well with his powers, cold and hard, but clearly channeling some sort of repressed creativity into his magic.

So either he literally sold his human spirit for magical understanding, and became a sort of freestanding, exploitable magical conduit, or he metaphorically sold his humanity to become a better, less distracted, less vulnerable sort of man. Either way, his power will probably be bound to a more willful agent, the party, or he will prize his independence and have at least enough will to resist subjugation, in which case he's just a wizard with a simple and disinterested view of mortal affairs, who lives in his own head and through his studies.

If he's acting like a mindless magical killbot for the party they should react to him like that, likewise if he's just kinda a nondescript guy that also does magic.

What does his character do in his downtime? Just prepare spells, eat and sleep? Is he paranoid? Confident? Does he use his magic idly to entertain himself? Is he efficient in combat, merciful or sadistic? Does his character fear or oppose anything in particular?

You said he dislikes his homeland, that can be a pretty good basis for an adventurer.

>What does his character do in his downtime? Just prepare spells, eat and sleep?

Exactly that, he refuses to do anything else, even more productive stuff like artificing or training.

Thank you very much these are excellent points.

everyone in this thread is really helping me out, i was this close to giving up on the player but you guys have been essential! I'm truly grateful

Make the wizard's nonexistent backstory a character point. Have evil, powerful people become aware of this wizard, do research to do something cheap like take his parents hostage or something, but find absolutely fucking nothing. Have people spy on him, trying to find something that tells who he is. They won't find anything, because there's nothing to find.

>Using his wizard powers to fuck with people for shits and giggles
>Blowing things up for shits and giggles
>A small herb garden
>Puppies
>Having a family
>Bullying the martials
>Picking fights with gods for shits and giggles

>my average CN character

Last bump for the the night from me

Honestly, (not op) this sounds like a great ideal. Give context to his actions, whatever he does was never really his free will because he never had modivation to do it. Whatever he did was some all powerful creature who made some human wizards to do its bidding.

Enjoyed a night of passion? The creature wanted it!
Burned down a village? All part of the creatures plan
Chased after loot? The creature wanted to better it's minion.

You can play fill in the blank on this one and you don't have to tell him you're doing it. Hell I'd even throw in a few more mages that don't have a history that do stuff for seemingly no reason. But that also tend to do stuff that that player would like.