Posts belonging to Category Characters in the world
Posted by Ravyn on June 8, 2011
One of the toughest things about a relatively new character can be figuring out where their boundaries and obligations lie—which is a pity, because those can be the fastest way of making a character interesting. Shinali recently poked me with a solution, based on her regular quoting of Gibbs’s Rules: write the character up a [...]
Categories: Character image, Characterization, Characters in the world, Exercises, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice |
Tags: characterization exercise, code of conduct, roleplaying, writing | 
2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on April 6, 2011
In Monday’s post, I talked about the idea of a small group of characters so closely associated that they might as well be a single character. So how does a small group as a character work?
Before we can discuss why they work that way, we need to understand what kind of group can serve as [...]
Categories: Character creation, Character dynamics, Characterization, Characters in the world, Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice, Technique |
Tags: roleplaying, small groups, unit, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on April 5, 2011
Yesterday, I talked about some of the elements for creating groups of characters that could also function as one somewhat complicated character role-wise. One of the points I touched on was the idea of each character’s role in the group, and how these roles can be used to ensure that the characters aren’t misplaced (unless [...]
Categories: Character creation, Character dynamics, Characterization, Characters in the world, Concepts, Dialogue, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice, Secondary characters, Technique |
Tags: role, roleplaying, small groups, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on April 4, 2011
Sometimes you’re going to have a group of characters that are so associated that they might as well serve as one single character; you hardly ever see them apart from each other, and it’s usually either plot-related or a fact about feasibility when you do. Presenting these sorts of groups onstage is a challenge, particularly [...]
Categories: Character dynamics, Characterization, Characters in the world, Concepts, Dialogue, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice, Secondary characters, Technique |
Tags: role, roleplaying, small groups, unit, writing | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on March 30, 2011
One of the things I found myself thinking, when writing about corruption among bureaucrats, is that in many stories and games bureaucrats, desk jockeys and others who live by papers and numbers get the short end of the stick.
We’ve all seen the types. You get the corrupt ones—oh, so many corrupt ones—who are behind everything [...]
Categories: Character archetypes, Characterization, Characters in the world, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice, Secondary characters |
Tags: bureaucrats, Characterization, narrative roles, roleplaying, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on March 9, 2011
This was inspired by (and, in fact, supposed to be a comment to, before it turned post-length on me) the recent Hathor Legacy article “Pride and Possession”. In it, Gena responds to seeing a debate on whether or not Mother Gothel might not have been so bad after all (I’ll admit, this concept rather scares [...]
Categories: Character dynamics, Character image, Characterization, Characters in the world, Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Motivation, Reviews and technique, Secondary characters, Symbolism, Technique, Voice and Style |
Tags: antagonists, Beauty and the Beast, Characterization, redeemable, responses, roleplaying, Tangled, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on March 3, 2011
A long time ago, I talked about choosing a character’s hobbies as a way to show more of her personality. There’s another direction this can be taken in, though—taking a character who already has a hobby, interest, or similar fluffy focal point, and looking through it to see what else you can learn, both about [...]
Categories: Characterization, Characters in the world, Exercises, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice, World-building |
Tags: Characterization, hobbies, interests, roleplaying, World-building, writing | 6 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on February 28, 2011
You sometimes see characters who despite not actually being present are moving the story at least as much as anyone who’s actually there. Sometimes they’re dead, other times it’s just a case of physical (or metaphysical) distance; they might be emulated, perpetually preempted whether they actually have an effect on the current storyline or not, [...]
Categories: Backstory, Character dynamics, Characterization, Characters in the world, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice |
Tags: absence, Characterization, presence, roleplaying, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on February 25, 2011
Making a character truly belong to his or her culture isn’t just a way to give her depth, color and a distinctive style. For the RPG player, it’s also a way to score points with the GM. What’s so great about a PC who’s clearly been shaped by her environment?
First, it shows a willingness to [...]
Categories: Characterization, Characters in the world, Cultures, For Roleplayers, For Writers, Player Advice, World-building |
Tags: Characterization, culture, player tips, roleplaying, World-building, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on February 24, 2011
Some of the characters I’ve run into could fit in anywhere, really. Maybe it’s just being archetypical, maybe it’s being in worlds that have a lot in common with the other worlds I’ve read, but I could swap them with other characters of their ilk all day and all it would get me is amusing [...]
Categories: Character creation, Characterization, Characters in the world, Cultures, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice, World-building |
Tags: Characterization, culture, roleplaying, World-building, writing | 6 Comments »