[Discussion] Character Depth

Argent Dawn
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Character depth is what usually makes people invested in their stories, from film to book to roleplay characters. It might mean different things to different people, but in this context, rather than focusing on long and extended background stories that flesh out who the character is, I’d like this topic to focus on ways of making the character feel engaging to play with. How do you go about creating character depth in your roleplay?

Perfect characters are boring; is it a personality flaw, their faults or contradictions?

An addiction or obsession? Such as for magic, politics or revenge?

Secrets? Something they try keep away from those around them, drawing others to try dig deeper into what the character is hiding?

Going against a stereotype? I feel like a lot of people are inclined towards this to make a character that feels unique, but do you think it helps make the character feel engaging?

Their goals, wishes, achievements, sense of purpose, conflicts?

Character development: their growth and change over time, letting events that happen to them change who they are?

Something else?

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I would say that it’s a variation of all/most of the above. Real people are complex, with frequent flaws and contradictions. To make a character that is depicted in way that feels ‘real’, I think you have to incorporate as much as you can – or as much as you’re comfortable portraying.

A good character needs a goal, they need flaws and vices, they need everything that we have, but it needs to fit within the parameters of the setting.

To touch on this specifically, I tend to play characters who tend to be contrary to stereotypes associated with their race / profession.

The important thing to remember is that if that character does define convention, they still need to be informed by that convention. If a night elf uses technology rather than traditional druidism, why? What’s caused them to turn their back on the practices that have lasted millennia?

It could be something as simple as, “Druidism didn’t save us from the Legion when Archimonde tried to take Nordrassil. It took the help of the younger races, and their practices to do so.”

For myself, my druid despises the Night Elf immortality (lost though it is), and would reject it if given the choice. This is because he has experienced those years, he’s lived through countless ages. He’s seen friends from short-lived races perish, and he’s seen the deaths of their great-great grandchildren. It’s not natural to live but never die.

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It’s a cheap way of doing it, I think. But I tend to choose a central theme and make my characters a hypocrite over it. And then everything else blossoms from roleplay. I could type more but Loras has said everything I would want to say.

This too, there’s nothing wrong with a character being vulnerable or broken or whatever else you think of. As long as they’re “human”. As long as other people can understand your character’s motives and see their angle - and understand them - then you’re doing A-OK :ok_hand:.

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To a degree, depth is found in how one writes their characters in moment-to-moment roleplay. Being able to convey more than one aspect of your character at a time, seamlessly, through dialogue and expressive (yet not excessively so) emotes, imho, is far more important than creating an interesting character in concept.

You need both, of course, but the expression of depth is more immediately apparent rather than having it written out under ‘Personality & Background’ on your profile.

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Having a character defined by a central theme and allow them to develop from there isn’t lazy. We see a lot of people in the world who are one-note in their devotion or adherence to a single thing – be it religion or an ideal. It’s interesting to see how such dogmatic people might interact with a world as varied as Azeroth.

Your character design is as valid as anyone else’s xo

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oh u xx

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If I’m creating more than a skirt-length character, https://i.redd.it/hi16givtang11.png this can help. Even if you don’t answer them all it gives you something to think about.

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Something else that I feel is important toward creating & expressing a character with depth is: not being afraid to be wrong.

Your character can’t and shouldn’t know everything. Taking the time to consider what your character might be aware of, and what they would be ignorant to, helps to portray a more believable person within the setting.

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I like to create set of things my character knows and more specifically what they don´t know. One character can have vast knowledge of machinery, but be absolutely oblivious to anything regarding magic, while another knows a lot about history and races of the world but doesn´t know anything about recent events.

Edit: And Loras beat me by half a minute.

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You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.

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You´ll never catch me!

Mainly because borders are closed, good luck trying to come here.

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I think above all else, a character with depth is a character with their own agency, emotions, and internal logic.

Instead of following along a pattern because that character is “the funny guy” or “the timid girl with hidden potential”, you have reasons to explain these things. A character that follows a stereotype (e.g. a hot-headed honour-abiding orc) can definitely be a character with depth, as long as there is credibility to it. I personally enjoy building on “traditional” characters like that a lot lately.

Something that comes to mind is the character’s willingness to share themselves with others - do they directly start talking about themselves, or are they guarded and mistrustful? Maybe they’ll even lie to cover some of their tracks or flaws.

Something else that comes to mind is how self-aware the character is.
Some characters might look at themselves and see flaws and things they wish they were, or were not. Other characters wouldn’t give that a second thought, they just go about their regular way - both equally valid.

I also like to include loss, or trauma. It’s very easy in Warcraft to go “Which great tragedy caused the most personal loss for this character in the past 20 years, and did that change them?”
And again, those details maybe never come up in roleplay, ever.

It’s like a fun game of how much you can portray something without saying it outright.

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I find trying to work everything out about a character before I even start is hard. My main characters tended to evolve into their own over time during roleplay.

I’ll usually shamelessly steal DnD 5e’s traits/bonds/flaws descriptors as a starting point.

What are their personality traits, broadly speaking? Are they generous? Are they selfish? Are they civilised? Are they a brute?

What binds them to their path? What is their goal, short or long term? What do they value? What do they protect or treasure?

What are their flaws? What makes them angry or sad? What bad habits do they have? What parts of them might drive them into conflict with others?

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Through roleplay, usually. Which isn’t me trying to get about saying I’m such an excellent RP’er because I only progress my characters authentically or something.

I just struggle to write a fully fledged backstory from scratch with little inspiration so I’ll usually just create a super hollow framework and then fill in the details literally as people ask or it occurs to me to have some personal story.

Raes here is the amalgamation of about three or four Gnomes and firmly in my comfort zone by this point. If I was a better writer, I’d probably put out a couple of plot points but something appeals to me about improvising on the spot and making little additions to a character’s personal lore rather than having an entire narrative plotted out.

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I tend to go for a few character traits and a generic backstory/starting point and just throw them out there to develop on their own.

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May I inquire what kinds of character traits? And how do you think they help make the character feel interesting (both to yourself and others you play with)?

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What I usually do is a bare bones approach.

This means that I leave the background story and tale of a character relatively ambigious and let their personality form out toward a theme that I want to portray (though that can also change).

FYI character background and story aren’t for others, its for yourself.

I am currently in the process of actually creating a new goblin hunter character with that approach. Right now, their background story is not really important, but I want to portray a gritty gunslinger character with a very practical approach to life and things.

Due to my binging of wh40k lately, I also wanted him to have a bolter-esque semi-auto firearm, and a very orky/imperial guardsman look. I have been very successful with this so far: Further, since we are talking of a hunter class, pets come to mind but I opted for him to have darkhounds instead of mechanical pets, because it’d make sense for a traveling person to have pets that are small enough to fit/travel alongside him wherever he goes, but also fierce enough to protect him- Which, darkhounds certainly are. They are also replacable for a non-caring individual, do thats great. Further, I get to tap into endless reservoirs of pitbull memes.

I’m unsure if this comes across in this post but I think a lot about practicality in terms of both RP feasibility and IC realism. Things that a lot of other roleplayers may not even think of, and my character building branches out a lot into logical assumptions and suspensions of disbelief.

To give an example, there’s 0 point to make a sniper RP character because its anti-rp interaction (since those being your target have no real way to interact back at you) and has a very niche field of RP you can play around and leans extremely heavily on player permission, much like assasin RP does.

So what i do instead is design a character for mid-to-close range rp, because thats where most of the rp in combat happens.

At the same time, I also give a lot of thought to the interactiveness of my characters- and while this does absolutely come down to your own enthusiasm, it is very hard to interact with others if you have decided your character doesn’t speak a lot or is very anti-social.

And this process grows organically as you test out what works and what doesn’t, until you got a solid character. Also, recognise yourself! Distancing yourself from your characters is a good thing to do, but also recognizing what things you like is ok- And inserting them (hopefully) in tasteful ways.

My quirk for example is humour and wittiness, and almost all of my characters have moments where they utilize that- some more than itters, and not always tastefully either. I’m not perfect, but I try.

My tldr is essentially: Your character doesn’t need to be, or perhaps SHOULDN’T be ready when you start to Rp with them. Just have a general idea of what you want, a general idea of the aesthetics you like, and a general idea of what themes you want to emphasize in your character. Then, you let them grow.

What I have found to be really helpful for myself is describing my character in pictures, instead of words. That somehow seems to make me able to make more thorough and multi-dimensional characters very effortlessly rather than forcing myself to write about their quirks.

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Big truth. + :one: Find it so much easier to RP if the character is ready to interact, even in an unpleasant way.

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Emotional traits really, or personality traits…

For example in the past I’ve had two ‘street rats, trying to be more’ characters.

Both started similar in regards to origin.

Character A, was selfless, willing to share, loyal to their friends, sceptical of none humans.

Character B, greedy, a skin flint when it came to coin, saw the world as their enemy and wouldn’t spare anyone a copper.

Over time character A became less generous, her trust exploited time and time again, her scepticism of other races became more open, to the point where she became quite racist, believing the worst of each race she had met, to be the average member of that race.

Character B, became a little more generous, but only to those he trusted, and to Draenai children because the clip clop of their hooves cheered him up one morning when he was feeling wretched, which meant he secretly gave coin to orphanages so as to not wreck his hardman image.

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It’s slightly off-topic but agreed. I think it’s super important to roleplay to have a character who will engage with others – even the most withdrawn, mysterious scoundrel needs to be establish relationships or connections, otherwise nothing is going to get done for the player.

What I will say regarding characters who interact with others in a way that’s primarily negative or unpleasant, is that they need to ensure that their character still has a draw. They might have the most compelling reasons ever, but I think most people wouldn’t bother to find out if that person just pisses in their face every time they get close.

An example is Dr. Cox from my favourite sitcom, Scrubs. He’s thoroughly unpleasant most of the time, but he’s also passionate and altruistic – and it shows.

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