::A Geek in Korea::

I’ve got a strange problem. I don’t lack for imagination. I don’t mind writing. However, creating a character out of the whole cloth of the mind and pretending to play this character in a game has been causing me all sorts of grief.

My D&D group is going to start using the Living Forgotten Realms as it’s backdrop for adventures. We can use lots of free content to play short, 4 hour self-contained story adventures that have an overarching continuity to them. We get a character that exists in the world and is recognized by an outside organization. The actions we do in our party potentially affect the entire world. It’s like a Tabletop MMORPG in it’s own little way.

We’ve got to create an official character. I’ve gone through optimizing my character. I know which attacks he’ll use. Which armor or sword he should carry. I know his individual stats and which ones I should boost to get the most out of every level. I have spent time on all the mechanics and the number crunching. That stuff is fun for me.

All that remains are some feats which give some perks and add some flavor, and a backstory. The “fluff” that makes a bunch of numbers into an interesting character that people interact with and use to tell a story.

This backstory is killing me. I’ve gone through variation after variation of making up stories for my character. My last character was basically handed to me by one of the other players. He was a death machine that didn’t have any sort of charisma necessary to play correctly.

I’m not strong on characterization or actual “role playing” outside of combat. I pick classes and races that get the job done in combat. If the party needs something dead, I can usually help facilitate that. This is by far the easiest part of a role playing game. Throwing dice and seeing if you can kill the dragon. But this isn’t all the game is about.

Outside of combat I want to leave my mark in the party as well. No one playing complains about table talk, or expects us to stay in character the entire time. More often than not people make offhand comments that their character never actually “says” in the game.For whatever reason it’s hard for me to come up with a personality for my character to play.

My new character is a Genasi Warlord, which is a being that has been changed by living in the Elemental Planes into a sort of living embodiment of a particular element. My character currently manifests water for its tactical advantages, but with feats and more levels could change into another element. I think I want him to be a crusader for the oppressed, and a revolutionary for change. Someone that fights for the oppressed class, or sows the seeds of rebellion from within to bring down the unjust. You’d think this was enough, but their are more decisions to be made before I’m finished crafting this character.

I’ve got a rough idea what my character is about. All the other players have ELABORATE stories about people that know, loves they’ve lost, and all sorts of neat hooks that provide a way for them to get people into the story. I envy them for being able to make characters with motivations and desires that sound plausible out of nothing. Right now I’ve only got the basics.

Trying to tie all the ideas together has been really difficult. I don’t know which themes I should build on, or which ideas seems the ripest for exploration. Mostly I’m worried that a theme or idea I have will seem cool at the time, only to get old quickly and make me want to start over with another character.

I’ve got a guidebook for creating thematic and creative characters, but they ask detailed questions about the very core beliefs of a character, and I just throw my hands up when I get to the point where I have to answer about the childhood friends of my fictional character and say, “I don’t know! Do I really need to plan it all this deeply?!”

Right now, all I have is a simply credo that sums up my character, “Like waves breaking rocks upon the shore, change is inevitable. Do not fight change, you will only surely drown instead.”

No one is going to quiz me, or throw me out of a game for not having a detailed plan for my character, but I’d like to do more than play a murdering psychopath for once, and that doesn’t come without developing a character that is more interesting than the sword they carry and their moves on the battlefield.