For those who imagine detailed lives and stories for your RP characters (i.e. Skyrim), what is your creative process?

[StaceyPowers]

My friend started a new character in Skyrim, and mentioned while playing that he was trying to figure out “what an Argonian is like.” He then bought some salt and told me that he had decided that Argonians like salt.

I found this amusing, but realized I had never tried to figure out what an Argonian is like, or what an Orc is like, or what a Redguard is like, or even what any particular character I created is like.

I don’t think I am very creative in this way. After playing a character for months and months in a game like Skyrim or Fallout, I may start to get a “feel” for them as distinct from another, but it is always just a result of their life events.

For example, my first Skyrim character ended up being bitter and resentful and willing to punish anyone for her anger, but this only reflected what happened in her life, which was Markarth getting traded away in peace negotiations.

My second character is more morally centered, but this is just because he made all the right decisions that I learned from screwing up with my first character. So they don’t really have personalities beyond “reaction to events.” He also took up cooking and smithing, but that was because I finally understood the crafting system at that point. So that was more “coincidence” than personality.

For those who are not like me, and who have super detailed histories and personalities for your RP characters, what is your creative process?

Do you start coming up with something based on reactions to events, and then build more deliberately off of that?

Or do you try to come up with a lot of stuff as soon as you start playing, or even before that? What form does the narrative take in your head, if any?

And how do you stay connected with your character? I feel like the more I would “invent” about a character, the less it’d feel like me in the game, and the more it’d feel like someone else.

Ironically I don’t feel that way when playing a developed character in a linear game with an existing personality. But that is because I don’t have to put mental effort into “thinking up” that person. They just are, so I can just “be” as well, in their shoes.

 

[The Blackangel]

When I played D&D as a kid I would come up with a pretty detailed backstory for my characters just for fun. My backstories actually became really popular, and people were actually paying me to come up with stories for their characters. I just needed a few bits of info, and $5. I always asked for a week to get a really good story written, and I would deliver them on Saturdays at the gaming hub. I made decent pocket change doing it. But that was more than 20 years ago.