Character concepts: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

A place to ask beginner questions to be answered by other players. / Ein Platz für Anfängerfragen, die von anderen Spielern beantwortet werden.

Moderator: Gamemasters

Post Reply
Damien
Posts: 7845
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2001 5:59 pm
Location: Vanima and grey Refuge, of course.
Contact:

Character concepts: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Post by Damien »

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

A summary for easily creating character concepts.



You can also use these VERY SIMPLE ALIGNMENT CONCEPTS as inspiration for giving a character more depth. That may help to avoid drifting into RP-boredom that ends, especially with bad-schemed chars, with senseless dueling sprees.

If this post seems too long or too boring to be of interest, just read the colorfully marked parts that interest you.

For the first, forget about purely "black and white", flat standard-story-villains that act evil just for the sake of being evil, and likewise stuff. Just forget about them. Also, none of our characters is Darth Vader, the Joker or Sauron.


For simplification and definition, some categories like „good“ and „bad“, "lawful" and "chaotic" etc. are very useful.
I want to use a not too complex scheme, so here are six simplified categories:

1. "nice"
2. "good"
3. "normal"
4. "bad"
5. "evil"
6. „villain"

(These are very simplified !!! I leave away lots of aspects 'cause i could fill whole books with that stuff, and i bet you can come up with much more and much better concepts than the clichée-ish, basic categories i'm using here).

---
Here are the description of these six categories:


The "nice" guy is defined as an always helpful, always loving, usually forgiving person. He will usually follow the law, except if it makes others suffer.
They're usually nonviolent and some of them could even loose a hand or two trying to raise a pet blood-and-terror-warthog if they think they can teach it to be nice and eat flowers instead of human bone marrow.
Generaly, nice guys would suffer a great deal to prevent innocent beings from being harmed. They could only become violent against people willingly harming innocent beings, but only if talking to them does not help.
The nice guy can usually be considered an innocent being himself. Some nice guys may act out of "because i just love every living thing".

---

The "good" guy is defined as someone who generally follows the law, he may even uphold it. He serves public, perhaps tries to be an example for others. He will go over great struggles to achieve a lawful state and/or to help others. Good guys only sneak by the law if that law is harmful to an innocent being. Good guys should have high morale codes of different content.
Generally, good guys don't like to harm innocent beings. They will usually protect or help them.
The most good guys can be considered to be innocent beings. Most good guys act out of a more or less complex morale code or just because they want to protect others.

---

The "normal" guy is one who generally follows the law, but usually doesn't care about helping the public too much. He also sees it as the job of someone else to uphold the law and may sometimes sneak by it if he thinks the matter to be nonproblematic. "Normal" guys can follow morale codes, but usually don't take them as important enough to go through danger for them.
Generally, a normal guy does not harm innocent beings and may even protect them if it doesn't cause himself trouble and if he does not like the agressor. The normal guy can sometimes act good or bad, but not too long and they won't go into any extreme.

---

The "bad" guy is one who generally sneaks by or bends the law out of own interest or even out of revenge. He will still have to follow certain laws usually to avoid bad situations for himself, for example : To be imprisoned, thrown out of his favourite tavern, backstabbed by the don's men, executed by law enforcers and so on. The bad guy may want power, wealth, influence and usually acts out of purely own interest, but most still want to appear harmless in public. The bad guy may even lie if it harms others if it only fits his purpose. The „bad“ guy may follow a morale code, even if it's a tiny one like „never harm children“.
Generally, a bad guy uses every way to reach his own advantage.

---

The "evil" guy is one who generally does what he likes with no respect for others, perhaps even until he gets a beating. He will still have to follow some laws to avoid harm to himself. He should also avoid facing too many foes, for he is not suicidal. He might even harm innocent people because they have something he likes or because he's in a bad mood. He could be the typical bully or thug, he could be a secret cultist (but that needs to be kept secret, since he doesn't want all those paladins on his arse, right?). When it comes to authorities and when he gets outnumbered, he usually has to hide(in Galmair, he may just have to pay the Don). Of course, even an evil cutthroat or thug has to behave in places where certain rules apply or where he is outnumbered, that is if he wants to stay there or if he wants to stay alife.
Generally, an „evil“ character acts out of a bad mood and for his own advantage or pleasure. Generally, „evil“ characters can also have a moral code, but also a somewhat short life span.

---

The "villain“ is a very powerful, usually very feared person. He usually has many followers to command around who do most of his deeds. The villain is usually a character made for a story or a novel with the sole purpose to pose a threat to the hero character. Most villain characters exist with the goal to be killed by the story's hero in the end.
Because of that, and because illarion is not a novel, a player character can never be a „villain“ from the start. No villain could really anter a town except if he and his gang could overpower its guards and leaders (that is, npcs plus players). A player's character can only develop into a villain's role with the help of many other player characters. Every bad or evil, even some normal characters can develop into such a role. Usually, villains and their groups become very annoying for the community after a while (that is, when their presence is persistant in a place and other players get bored or frustrated by being robbed or killed every day). Therefore, the most villains you will ever see are NPCs.

---


It's good to let a character grow, to develop it slowly. Also, it usually does not work well to play a character as evil from the beginning, because that character scheme always leads to not having (m)any friends – starting a bad/evil/villain character with a normal concept and changing it over a longer time when his influence and ressources grow is a much easier (and much more interesting) approach, therefore i'd recommend that.

When playing an evil char or a villain, it's also recommended not to terrorrize every other char (or player) that comes in sight. It's always a good idea to choose your „victims“ amongst your friends and other fellow players : They can create characters that exist solely for the purpose of being publically killed off or robbed by your evil character. Played just like a theatre act, but of course with the chance that other players that observe the act can interrupt it or even beat the evil one (always keep in mind that this can happen, they also may not know that you planned this through as an act).

[Addition]
It's also recommended to think about what your char likes or dislikes, how he feels about things and how he perceives the world. Plus many, many other things. Most of that, however, will come through playing and can develop much later. Your char will grow with the other chars he gets in contact with.
--

This post is quite lengthy, however i hope it's a little useful – and that it may bring fun to make and play some more „living“ character concepts. ;)
Have fun !
Post Reply