Welcome everyone to my laboratory. To Start I would like to introduce myself as Dr. Freekill, the mad doctor. Now you may be wondering what this has to do with creating a roleplaying character, and I will get to that in a second.
Your first step to creating a character is to think of what your character will look like.
This is an important step, due to the fact that appearances can say a lot. By having a 900 foot dragon who breathes fire and glows yellow, people will be put off from roleplaying with the creator and that character. However having a 5'9 Dragon kin sage is an interesting spin on characters.
To describe your character, so everyone else knows what they look like, start with basics.
Species
Eye Color
Fur Color
Skin Tone
Scale Color
Body Type (muscular body builder thin etc.)
Height
Weight. (if thin dont be extremely heavy as that doesnt make sense at all)
Hair color
Markings.
After you come up with all of this, your next step should be designing your characters outfit.
Do they wear armor?
If so is it armor from the future?
do they wear accessories like necklaces or collars?
Match your character's outfit to their personality, or just throw on an outfit.
Do they use a sword or gun?
Do they have a Gatling cannon or a simple rock?
As such, a Holy Warrior would wear holy armor, a typical mage would wear a robe, a battle mage would wear armor with a robe over their lower body armor.
Now we come to personalities.
You can create your Characters personality as a reflection of yourself, something you hate, or something you want to be
and having a personality, comes the things they hate.
As such the Holy Warrior would be very disgusted to see black magic in use or see any demonic item of any sort, but a black mage would be almost bursting with enthusiasm.
Once you come to their personalities, we go onto names
You could name your character after just about anything really, your name could be binary code for a 3 letter word and everyone would just think your either really clever, or a computer, both work really.
Once you creates a character, and their personality, and a name, you should now focus on creating a background for your character.
Are they a disenfranchised teenager who wandered into the wrong section of woods and ended up joining the Black Hand?
Were they an orphan adopted by a monastery and raised in their holy ways?
Were they a former soldier going out on his own and working for hire?
Are they a Pizza chef who was in the wrong place at the wrong time?
If your character has a job of some sort, allow their background to explain how they got their training, what they encountered along the way, etc.
Lastly, once you have created a background, you need to apply what you have learned to the field.
Most roleplays on this forum have an OOC board
OOC stands for out of character, it's where you discuss the roleplay, while being out of character
If you see a roleplay that looks interesting, go to the OOC and Character boards first, or you'll get a message from the maker saying to post in that thread.
Some roleplays allow you to post as soon as you join, others you must wait for ratification, and others provide you with a character sheet to basically layout your character's information for pending review.
once you have read through this guide, and applied the information within, you should pm it to someone you could trust who could peer edit it for you, just incase something sounds a little weird or wrong, or there are plotholes in the character background.
(if we're allowed, you could just character sheets here to get a public opinion)
Good Luck out there, and remember, keep roleplaying, and dont drink the spoiled milk!
Topic: A how to guide on how to create effective characters (Read 38486 times)