#charactercreation

before bed doodl

Every person has a collection of scars; some are internal and some are visually obvious.  Many people, myself included, have both.  These experiences are what make people and characters interesting; scars are stories to be told.  They give depth, and they explain why someone is how they are, or why they like (or don’t, for that matter) like certain things.  Using these stories can benefit both the role-play and development of your character.   Making those flaws on your sheet really mean something can create great conversation starters, leading to memorable roleplay.  Also, if you play a Gangrel like I do, telling your story at the fire will get you some renown.

Let me give you an example from my character (no deep dark secrets revealed here, sorry, you have to get to know her for that).   Kit is a hardass, over-confident tomboy.  Is there a reason she is that way?  OF COURSE!  I created the concept, and then I thought about why she was that way.  So, I created a backstory that reflected someone who would turn out that way.  She was born in hard times, to a big family; essentially, she was born into abject poverty.  In character, she will tell you her memories of her parents, her siblings, and herself living in a four room cabin in the hills.  She describes what it feels like to be always a little hungry and to never have any new or nice things for herself.  She inherited hand-me-downs from her older sibs, and since she has always been tall and lanky, she was forced to wear her older brothers’ clothes, and not her sisters’ skirts.  Her dad, a glimmer of a memory in her mind, died in a mining accident when she was little, forcing her family into even harder times. 

So, how does she make up for it?  When she tells the story of her father, she tells it from behind a mask.   Kit made herself “hard” to deal with the pain. She had to be tough and unwilling to give up to live through just her childhood.  She had to compete for everything that she ever had;  it was all a fight, so of course she is confident.  It was succeed or die, so what other choice is there? 

The most awesome part of about this bare bones story is that what I gave you is basically nebulous stuff.  If I wanted to, I could tell you in depth about more of it.  There are many more stories that give Kit depth, that explain why she is who she is. 

How did I find these stories?  Like I said, I first decided what concept I wanted for her (in this case, I heard “Wanted Dead or Alive” on the radio, and made a character inspired by that song).  I picked some things I thought I would like to see on her sheet (like over-confident), and then I made a preliminary framework of a story, which led me to look stuff up online (where she was born, for example, and other details that have real-world histories behind them).  Once I had a beginning, it spawned into other ideas, like her father working in a coal mine and the accident that led to his death, which backed up my already existing ideas.  Soon enough, I had so many ideas that I had a complete background. 

There are various resources available online and from STs and Coordinators that can be used to give characters full stories, rich with history and detail.  One such tool is a general background questionnaire the OWbN Girls posted a few months ago.  For what it’s worth, borrowing story from books or movies can work, provided that you don’t over do it.  An idea here or there, used to inspire your own character, can work wonders on a dull background.  But because “creative plagerism” is generally frowned on, and there is no way to give the original artists credit, it is much better to use this tactic sparingly.

 In closing, I find it interesting to hear about where someone comes from (it’s more than just a place), and this applies to characters as well.  It is neat to discover funny little things you have in common, or to realize that two characters lived in the same place at one time or another.  Finding out why a character has a huge scar or why they are so paranoid can add real depth to a conversation, and will make it that much easier to remember the character in the future.  In the words of Richard Bach, “If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”  So get out and play and share those moments and stories; it is one of the many things that makes OWbN so great!

Barbie S. lives in Cleveland, Ohio with her fiance’, Mike.  She is now the somewhat-official Secretary of OWbN Girls, and frequently attends local games and events as the deeply developed Gangrel PC named Kit.