Advanced Character Creation

Lady’s guide to Advanced Character Creation:
Authors note: This is a not so simple guide to creating characters. I will through what I usually do to create balanced characters. This is just one way to do it, I’m not saying it’s the best way or the right way to do things, but have some tips and tricks from someone who’s got some experience in character and world building.
 
1.     1.  World Building
Before you make a character it’s very important that you know a little something about the world your character lives in. Even when you are roleplaying in an existing universe it’s a good thing to have a closer look at the kind of environment you want your character to be from. Even within existing universes there are a lot of blank and unexplored areas you might want to fill in for yours and your character usually isn’t involved on a global scale, certainly not from their birth on out.


Think about it, your own behavior, personality and even the way you look and dress have been determined by your environment, your culture and the people you hang out with, the kinds of things you have been exposed to.



The same is true for characters. Therefor it’s much easier to build a character from their environment then it is to build an environment from a character.



Creating your own world is a lot of fun but also a lot of work.  You have to take several things into account when you’re building a world from scratch that are no issue when you’re roleplaying in an existing world in which you already know where things stand.


When creating a world you should start with the environment on that world. Does it have a lot of jungle areas? Perhaps it’s a giant wasteland? Maybe it’s surface is made up entirely of water with just a few island floating here and there on the waves?


Each of these environments require an entirely different lifestyle to survive in them and thus have a big impact on the character you’re going to make. Next you might want to think of the races that make up the planet population. Be they sentient creatures or none sentient creatures. Sometimes it’s even interesting to look at the flora as you might want plants with certain properties or significance.


Next you’ll look at culture. What is the technological development like? Do these races have specific behavior types or taboos? Are there Religions? Are there countries? Are these countries ruled by democracy? Tyrants? Royalty?



There’s a lot of things to consider and they all impact your character in some way shape or form. When you have your borders set up and know what is what and what have you. You can start considering a conflict.
 
 
There is always some form of conflict in the world. Warring countries, a shortage of resource, a new discovery. Conflicts aren’t necessarily bad events but also good events that can draw multiple people and then create a rivalry or smaller scale conflict between people or parties. But a conflict is always needed to create and interesting story and the same is true for roleplays. People quickly bore if everything is rainbows and sunshine every day.



Going through these motions you should have a pretty good idea of the environment your characters will end up in. Of course when you are roleplaying in a pre-existing universe these rules still apply but on a slightly smaller scale.


You could focus on one city, or perhaps one specific area in that city. Think of the kind of people and conflicts you might have there, special places such as well known shops or hangouts. They all help you give shape to your characters background, appearance and behavior.