A wall-crawling superhero with the proportionate strength of a spider…- A former Vietnam vet who has become a vigilante after his family was killed in a mob shootout…
- A drow ranger who fights for approval from the surface world, although some cannot see beyond the sins of his race…
- An alien, sent to our world by his parents before they were killed as their planet crumbled around them…
- A boy whose initial experiences with magic cause him to live with a disapproving aunt and uncle in a cupboard under the stairs…
- The only wizard in the Chicago yellow pages who can’t stand seeing a damsel in distress or some supernatural baddie making life miserable for mortals…
Chances are you can name at least one character from this list. They are iconic heroes and anti-heroes that have identifiable traits, quirks, mannerisms, abilities, etc. What brings them to life for people is their daily struggle, their “trouble” as it were. For most characters, you need look no further than their origin story to see how that defining moment forever imprinted itself on their personality and shapes their decisions.
Many of us role players relish the opportunity to create and breathe life into a character and would love to create one as iconic as a popular super hero or character with his own line of novels. There’s plenty of advice out there for adopting quirks and mannerisms, different accents, one-liners, etc. for your character. We even have articles related to backgrounds to help inspire you. What I want to encourage is to have you answer the Whys.
Why can the character do the things he does? (superpowers, 4E powers, exceptional skills)
Why does the character choose this profession (adventurer, soldier, superhero, etc.)?
Why will this character continue to follow this path?
Answering the whys behind your question will allow you to always have a grasp on your character’s motivations and make changing those motivations (if necessary) have more impact and meaning. You will know when to stay in-character (and more importantly what it means to be “in-character” for this character) and when to break from that. If you can break from the character established with everyone at the table while being true to the character’s origin, you’ve added another dimension to the character and to your storytelling.
For instance, in the first half of the movie Spider-Man, we see Peter Parker’s origin story. His trials and troubles that help shape him into accepting the mantle of hero and why he feels he has to be the one to deal with criminals. Even after several defeats at the hands of the Green Goblin, he still returns for more. Why? It‘s not for kewl lewt, or experience points, or because “this is the GM’s story and I’m doing my part to be a part of it.” Spidey does these things because of who he is. This is why 37 years after he first hit comics, he is still an interesting and compelling character that feels like he has some freshness left in him, yet has never had to change his core archetype. Instances of Peter Parker breaking from his expected behavior drove the plot of movies 2 and 3. Regardless of how you feel about those movies, they are still good examples of character-driven story.
For maximum impact at the table, you should discuss your origin with your fellow players. If you want to leave that cloaked in mystery, at least discuss it with your GM. At the very least, it will allow him/her to help you defend any choices that fit your character if the party objects, and will ultimately help advance the story. At best, it will give the DM inspiration and hooks to directly involve your character in the greater story.
Come back next time for an example of one Hiro’s rise to character greatness…
Colin Dowling
I’m an avid gamer who enjoys RPGs, board and video games (I’m currently replaying the Dawn of War games due to an overabundance of Warhammer 40K and Fantasy exposure). When I’m not hopelessly wasting time with these games or my wage-slave job, I’m moonlighting as a know-it-all for my chummers at the ’Shack. Peace, and watch out for street sams, they’re everywhere (just like chupacabras).
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You ask some excellent questions, and on a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve just gotten into two very different games, and it’s been interesting how the DMs have facilitated character development.
In one game, the DM conducted a free-form, party-level improvisation, where he went around and around asking each of us very specific questions about our characters and their relationships to the others: “How do you know [fighter]?” “Which of the characters do you trust the most? Why?” “Why couldn’t you be the leader of the group?” And so on.
In another game, the DM generated the backgrounds, personality, motivations, and appearance for the characters and distributed them, essentially turning into writer and director, and we players would be the actors. We can build our own little grace notes into the characters, but their basic structure is predefined.
This is an exciting time for roleplaying (honestly, I really do believe that!), and you’re asking exactly the right questions. Thanks for the article.
There is an essential difference between the movies (comics, novel), that you emply as your examples and the ideas, you suggest for roleplayers.
The stories of the heroes are presented inside the story, that we are watching. Batman becomes Batman during the movie, Superman becomes Superman and Spiderman likewise becomes Spiderman during the story. We see it happen – you don’t read about it before the movie begins, the movie producer does not go on stage to present his characters before the movie. However your suggestions to developing the characters happens outside the game. What I am looking for are ways to develop the character inside the game, not outside of the game or as a minimum – if the back story have already been written by the GM or developed by the player – that the pre-game produced story is revealed inside the game.
One of my own methods are to use Flashbacks in the game, that reveals the backstory of the characters: http://mortengreis.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/house-rule-minor-or-spontaneous-flashback/
Or to simply play everyday scenes, which we a lot in my Delta Green-campaign: http://mortengreis.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/delta-green-relation-scenes-getting-to-know-your-investigator/
@ Morten
We played a flashback once. It was quite cool and different. I’d like to do more of that, but I think many players want to “move on” to get to the loot and XP. I’d like to employ more of that in my games.
Thanks for commenting, and thanks for inspiring me!
Hi Tourq,
You’re welcome 🙂
The flashbacks we use are very brief, and thus there are room for several during one session, even if the players seem mainly motivated by loot and XP (BTW if they want to “move on”, why then bother them at all with character development?) – that is also why I tie the combat together with the flashback-sequences. The players control the flashback-sequences and they are activated solely by the players, so they are used, when they are of relevance and interest for the players.
Second I like to tie character-development or character-origins together with the reward-mechanics, so for instance you might earn XP for revealing your origins during the game. E.g. you might have a rule, that states that once pr. session a player can introduce an element from his backstory, present a monologue or reveal a part of the back story to an NPC and then earn 100XPs. Now origins won’t stand in your way of XP and loot 😉
Anyway I am looking forward to your next post on origins.
@ Morten
Hopefully, Colin will have that up soon. I’m looking forward to it as well.
@ Morten:
“There is an essential difference between the movies (comics, novel), that you emply as your examples and the ideas, you suggest for roleplayers.”
I agree, I’m just using these examples to start from a common frame of reference. If I have Spider-man sitting in at my 5-person game, I don’t want the first session devoted to how he became Spider-Man at the expense of my character’s story. I do however relish the thought of that player showing a character with a strong sense responsibility, cool combat abilities and some well-placed one-liners. When that player mentions during a session “the night Uncle Ben was killed,” i want to know that story!!! I admit, an excellent role-player can come up with those intersting hooks on the fly, but some of us (esp. me) could use the assistance of a little pre-game prep that will add oodles (scientifc term) of playability and depth that is hard to muster on-the-spot.
I’m totally in favor of in-game character development, something I personally do too little of. Unfortunately, I have had the experience often with players at the table not having enough grasp of their character to enjoy playing them for very long. They grow bored with their character because there is not enough meat, just bare-bones stats covered by a thin skin of superficial one-liners and quirks. As the game progresses, they aren’t satisfied with their character because they don’t know what the character wants to do or what he/she would do. This article provides one of a countless ways that can help those who want it.
I personally want to try out your spontaneous flashback ideas next time I’m on the player-side of the screen. Our GM provides a story-rich game that your ideas could do nothing but add to the experience.
Colin, this is some great stuff. Origin stories really deserve more thought in role-playing, even if the stories themselves aren’t played out in game. You see this kind of thing in comics all the time; a character’s origin story comes up again and again in subtle ways, keeping the audience aware of why the heroes are . . . well, heroic.
As an added bonus, it gives the GM ideas for ways to mess with the hero beyond the same-old, “here’s another monster to kill,” which can result in way more fun for everyone. 🙂
If I had Spider-man in my game, I’d want to appeal to his sense of responsibility throughout the session – sometimes with competing responsibilities. The way a character resolves those kinds of challenges is part of what defines them as heroes.
Anyway, good thoughts!
@ Colin: It is actually interesting, that you mention, that you don’t want the first session dedicated to how said character became Spiderman – as when I began my Call of Cthulhu – Delta Green-campaign actually did exactly that. We played the story of how one of the character’s became an agent for Delta Green, and his character was the on PC in the session. The other players played various NPCs and expendables, which they enjoyed, and we had great fun with it.
Secondly I really enjoy character-development during the game, and therefore asks the players not to create too much back story before the game, as it limits them when playing. A few pointers and a few notes on what is interesting and then the rest develops during the game. I understand and recognize that lack of satisfaction from having bare bones and nothing but stats to play the characters from, and that this makes it difficult to develop the characters. My solution were to encourage adding details as we played – for example using the flashback-mechanic – for as the details grew, so did the character and his back story, and PC gained the necessary depth to make him enjoyable. An alternate mechanic used in one of my D&D-campaigns were to have each player note some basic elements of his upbringing (which neighborhood, countryside or city), and then have the players refer to these backgrounds, whenever they rolled skill checks, to earn a bonus – e.g. “coming from a community of lumberjacks Ivan is very experienced in skipping from stone to stone in the river, so he can easily cross the rift in the corridor”, and slowly the player would add more and more details to his character’s upbringing as a lumberjack (without ever once referring to Monty Python), and he soon became a fullyfledged character whose behaviour was recognizable for all of us – and it was actually a great loss to see him fall last session even for me the GM.
Well, enough with the anecdotes. Looking forward to your next post.