How the FUCK do I think of interesting characters to play without copying video games or movies, /tg/?
Copy them a little bit, not completely. Mix and match with other characters or your own ideas.
base a character on your personality
Everybody steals from other sources. Good authors just hide it better.
>>45796076
By doing exactly that, but not tipping your hand that you are doing so
>>45796076
Don't make it obvious that you stole them. Also steal from old books and stories. People don't read books as much.
Be like tolkien, who stole his shit from relatively obscure viking lore and covered up all the names and obvious references.
Don't be like my DM, who copy-pastes LoL champs into his game without even changing their names.
You copy the themes and motivations without copying the character. It's not hard
>>45796076
Creativity means knowing how to hide your sources.
>>45797180
>Don't be like my DM, who copy-pastes LoL champs into his game without even changing their names.
Jesus Christ.
Also, someone post that image about originality and authencity. It's appropriate.
>>45796100
I agree with this post and its dubs
>>45796076
Think of an archetype. Change it a bit. Give it a (not too tragic) background and meaningful desires. There.
For instance
>noble Knight
>somewhat traumatised from war
>disillusioned, goes on adventure to find his love for God and Nation
>haughty, but honorable
>>45797180
have you just started posting this story 20 times a day or has LoL spiked in popularity?
>>45797391
Ian?
>>45796076
step 1: find archetype,tvtropes is good for this
step 2: apply twist, doesn't need to be massive.
step 3: work out what would have needed to happen for that twist to manifest itself.
step 4: use this to work out the rest of the character.
Start with an archetype or even just a gimmick, then build a character as you go along.
You don't need to flesh out an entire personality from the get-go - you should be prepared to react to what you're going up against in the setting you're playing in. You start with 'an old mercenary' or 'a guy who throws bottles of acid around' and try and figure out why they're doing that. If you just throw around bottles of acid without having any good reason behind it, and that's all there is to your character, that's not a good character. That's a statblock with a unique name.
>>45796076
I usually try to think about what normal people do in the setting I'm going to play in, then I think of why a person doing that would want to adventure, or need to adventure, and go from there.
For example I had a Halfling Bard that was actually rather young, and after he met a travelling Bard of a higher level in a tavern, and he sung about his party's adventures (exaggerating it all out of proportion), he wanted to become an adventurer.
This actually worked splendidly because the character was as new to the world as I was - he had never left the small hamlet he lived in except for the occasional trip to the nearby larger town to get supplies, so he doesn't know much about the wider world.
Its just little things like that that give your character life.
>>45796076
Consume less media that way your less likely to notice a similarity between your character and something you have watched as there is less stuff to find similarity in.
>>45798346
Zach?
>>45798335
>have you just started posting this story 20 times a day
A good portion are me, but there are other anons with similar problems. Like that guy who's player keeps playing that 9-tailed catgirl champ.
>>45796076
>Read through rulebooks/splats for something that catches interest
>Take walks while listening to music
>Doodle
My methods.
I often just look at a random bunch of pictures, usually in character art threads, and just make a story for them, why they got that way or in that situation. Then I give them a realistic goal and an epic goal.
>>45798667
definitely seconding this
It's so easy to steal a character and play them in a different genre.
Anyone have The Lazy Dungeon Master's Guide PDF handy? I think it's small enough for /tg/. There's a section on doing this.
>>45796076
Combine characteristics until it's unique. Then start reducing them to the point that it's not cluttered, but still unique. Then just think about the situation and it should just click.
>Rogue
>An exiled noble
>Has courtesy when needed
>Extremely two-faced
>Rogue who wears swagger often
Well, whoops, didn't even need to reduce. But still an example. Usually it's easier to go for interesting characters if you diverge from the main idea. Such as a noble being a rogue instead of a knight or a paladin etc. Seek conflict, but keep the idea simple.
But well... Now I accidentally made a character for myself for my next game, because I like that idea.
>>45796076
Just use a positive negative system and either choose a side or somewhere in between
>personality
Friendly - Mean
>appearance
Handsome - Ugly
>alignment
Good - Evil
>muscle
Strong - Weak
Mind
Smart - Stupid
Past
Happy - Tragic
Items
Mundane - Legendary
It's about mixing and matching key components until something works, or you can do the other thing and lightly copy another character
Aside from that, once you've pegged your character's base attributes it up to you how to write the fluff
Posting something I coincidentally made for myself before even seeing your post.
Basically, use a dice, roll randomly on the two tables, mix them together, and BAM - you've got a complex character with a mix of good and bad traits in unique combinations.
It doesn't help you give them a backstory or deal with physical traits, but it DOES give you the most difficult part to create - their mind.
>>45798588
If I could draw at all, that'd be especially fun. Instead of vague pictures in my head, I could make my ideas concrete and more easily tweak or edit them.
>>45796104
This
>>45798520
Nah
>>45796076
People typically don't try to be that complicated with their outward appearance. People usually fit into pretty typical archetypes in their interactions with other people; it's the insides that are complicated.
Think about the events in a character's past. Think about his vices, and his virtues. How might he solve his problems, or be unable to? How might he create his own problems, and what sort of problems would other people or his environment have presented to him? Family is a big deal, too. How did his parents and siblings treat him? What did they not give him that he seeks from others? What did his family provide to him that he doesn't really seek from others? This is in terms of emotional things (respect, love, caring, etc.) as well as physical things (money, good food, cultural interests, etc.) That's what defines his desires usually.
>>45800102
For example;
A young not!Chinese woman is growing up in the Heavenly Capital City. She is an extroverted, funny young woman. She loves to tell jokes and go out on the town. She grew up in the poor area of town, though, so while her family was very loving and supportive, they were always struggling to get by. Due to this problem with poverty, she really seeks financial security and sees this as a great virtue in another person. She is kind and very understanding, and gets along well with others. She's good at making people feel better. However, she's not very pretty, so she always wants to be beautiful. Maybe that feeds into her desire to be around people a lot, so she can get platonic love that it's difficult for her to find romantically. She is also, being both a woman and hard to marry off, a burden on her parents. They love her dearly, but being in tune with the emotions of others, she feels bad about it.
Here we have problems presented by all sides; from other people, with jealous bitches calling her ugly and men not wanting to be around her even if she's nice and funny. From her culture, the problem of her being married off and the difficulties she faces with that. From herself, with her lack of self-esteem and perhaps even jealousy of other girls.
How she responds to these problems is what makes her interesting; maybe she'll become a hopelessly romantic old spinster, beloved by all but the ones she wants. Maybe she'll turn away from society or men, running off into the woods to become a hermit witch, offering food and conversation to passersby. Maybe she'll go off to the monastery and become a nun, finding love in the gods or nirvana or whatever. Maybe she'll do all kinds of different things, which lead to various other vices, virtues, conflicts, and issues - and there you go! You've got a character.
>>45799429
You realize nothing holds you back from drawing? It's not like mountain climbing where if you do it wrong you get injured or die
just start drawing. you'll get better.
I have an entire story that I unconsciously copied from 40k characters, I regret nothing
>>45796076
Just keep in mind that all characters should serve to move the story forward. First you decide what you want them to do in certain situations and then you device a reason for them to do so.
Don't be afraid to make use of stereotypes - It helps with the immersion.
>>45802087
It's a physical skill that requires a baseline of hand coordination even before you start practicing, not unlike playing a musical instrument. Some people have an actual biological ceiling cap on how good they can get.
>>45796076
Have you considered coming up with something while high or really tired? Possibly from a dream.
>>45796076
READ A BOOK READ A BOOK READ A MUHFUGGIN BOOK
And take bits and pieces from things you like to make a composite character. All else fails, find a character type roller.
>>45800102
>>45800132
This is also really useful.
>>45796076
The "standard format" for creating simple but fleshed-out character is an "X but Y" system wherein X is how the character appears and Y is how they are once you get to know them.
For example, the tough-acting warrior that really just craves respect, love and adoration. The joker that's seen some terrible shit in the past and is now trying to "fake it till he makes" with his upbeat attitude. The guy that seems to take nothing seriously so people can't target who he actually deeply cares about.
If you can actually surprise someone with the second character layer, they'll wonder what other things they don't know about them, which projects more depth onto the character than they may actually have.
From that basic concept you can branch out into specifics to give your character its own flavor. For example, the archetype of an intimidating character that really just cares about protecting someone weak and fragile can be framed both with "Gentle Giant" and "Motherly Fury", which give you two very different characters, most notably in how they behave towards those they protect.
Lastly, use character bonds to your advantage. Families and friends killed in a bandit raid make for very clean backstories, but seeing how those old bonds interact with your character or what impressions they have with them is really valuable for characterization. What friends and enemies they made can tell a ton about the character, and gives a GM willing to help you a lot more to work with.
>>45796076
>>45796104
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.
>>45796100
>>45797180
>>45798393
These.
If you really want to try separating yourself entirely from popular media, you can even try this fun little time-killer.
Think of a real person: it can be someone you admire, a celebrity or someone that just stands out to you. Now imagine them as characters in the setting of your choice: fantasy, space opera, some sort of dystopia, whatever... What would their jobs be? How would they go about their daily lives? How would they have developed their personality within this setting? Play around with this concept for a while and simplify the personality traits you're interested in until you get to a point where you have a clear, not too overly complex idea of who you want your character to be.
You can still copy concepts from movies and whatnot, but try to weave them more into the world they'll be in. The more they seem to fit in the world, the less noticeable it will be.
>>45796076
Most concepts and tropes from film and tv are chosen because...well they are common concepts and tropes.
As long as you aren't being that guy with twin scimitars or ork-raised by humans, theirs nothing really wrong with recycling an idea that has already itself been recycled hundreds of times. Just try add your own angle to it.
I base nearly all my hand-to-hand fighting off Captain Kirk for example; except rather than using twin-fist hammer blows it's more about me describing over-telegraphed attacks.
Just be careful though what you take though. It gets annoying when I hear people talking about how "original" characters are from shit like Game of Thrones, Chronicles of Shanananananaanna etc etc
>>45802531
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Auguste_Renoir
Renoir developed crippling arthritis and ankylosis in his later years, so bad that he was pretty much confined to a wheelchair. He continued to paint even though he required an assistant to place a brush in his essentially paralyzed hand wrapped in bandages to prevent irritation. He had setups allowing his canvas to be raised, lowered, and rotated to accommodate.
If you want to draw man DO IT.
>>45796100
This.
Copy from so many sources that the composite is unidentifiable.
>>45797180
>Don't be like my DM, who copy-pastes LoL champs into his game without even changing their names.
>>45796076
Copy books.
Just be creative you dingaling.
