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Originally posted by xinne

I think that you should divide YOURSELF from YOUR character! Of course that is often difficult, because our characters are very different from our selves, but you should try (like the actors do) to convert yourself to your character : What will he do, not you, in certain situation.
First you should design your characters behaviour, then try to play it that way during the adventure. That is my opinion...

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• Anita: I've played an immature, manipulative, seductive and thoroughly spoiled sorceress/rogue in her teens who had no ability to stick to any sort of long term goal, but couldn't stand to be disliked. She wasn't actively malicious, but she was breathtakingly selfish and astonishingly clueless about who she might hurt. She was a waif with black hair and green eyes.
  



• Halandir Lightbringer: Tall, blond-haired paladin of the God of Light. Your classic heroic young warrior of chiseled jaw, Charles Atlas proportaion and an extra serving of both honour and integrity. Also a man whose personal definition of the terms were restrictive enough for them to chafe his adventuring companions severely, even though he did not make the same demands on others as he did of himself. Former cavalry soldier in a nasty border war, where he'd seen some ugly things and even done things that made him doubt his fitness as a servant of his god. Much of his rectitude came from a deep need for atonement and the rest was mostly caused by having fallen in eternal, ballads-of-courtly-love love with a girl who regarded their liaison in a more temporal way.



• Jesus de la Vega: Fast-talking street gunman and jacker in a dystopian world of mutants and government repression. Acquired a rat tail and a few accompanying features in some experiments, 'ese. Started off with a bit macho, cocky attitude and a light side serving of trash talking, but later on figured he was immortal, untouchable and unbeatable just because the dice were on his side for the first few playing sessions. As the dice didn't stop being on his side, he quickly became a legend in his world as the man whom nobody could push around. The rata could kill a tank with a single pistol shot, not because he had a superpower that made the bullet any more powerful, but because he was playing in a game system with open-ended success roll rules. Imagine if someone mixed together the badassitude of about a dozen Hollywood leading men, made it quip like a poor impression of a stand up comic doing an impression of a teenaged Chicano hoodlum and then injected the mixture into an anthropomorphic rat with a supersized brain. Yeah, it weren't a very serious game, by the end.



• The Janitor: The middle-aged janitor on an intergalatic spaceship that is blown seriously off course, who reveals to his increasingly astonished compadres, bit by bit, and without a word of explanation, that he may have at one point been something more. A master of martial arts, stealth and espionage tradecraft. Quiet, polite, unassuming and not really interested in anything anymore. Vaguely disliked people getting hurt and would act to minimise casualties, often without notifying other people what he was about to do.



• Colt Hyundai: A mutant in the post-apocalyptic Gamma World. Could concentrate on more than one thing at a time and instead of turning that talent into something useful, he became an uncannily accurate gunslinger who tracked multiple target at a time. Spent his time looting ruins for ammo and weapons, but Ford knows if he ever had a long term plan for what he was going to do with it. A daredevil with absolute confidence in his skills, but no desire to brag or impress, he mostly just did things to prove to himself that he could do them. And to feel alive.



• Nazren: A quiet, studious boy who looked like he was bullied when he was a bit younger. Always respectful towards his parents. Was studying wizardry, but at the age of 23, when most of his fellow students had chosen to either make their way in the world or seek out masters to improve their Art, he was to all appearances not ready for either. Well, appearances can be deceiving. Nazren was a diabolically clever young boy who had been mastering a tome of necromantic lore he'd discovered among dusty tomes in the ill-kept library and soon enough he found himself falling heir to his parents' modest fortune after their oh-so-natural deaths. He struck out as an adventurer then, using his funds to finance various expeditions. His fellow adventurers were, let us say, rather less successful than he was. Their players, you see, had a rather different impression of Nazren than they would if they'd have been allowed to see his real character sheet.



• Col. Hart: A former secret policeman from a repressive regime who had retired honourably in his homeland and sought service with an interstellar police agency. Pragmatic, utterly ruthless and possessed of an iron sense of duty. His mission, as he saw it, was to protect humanity from itself.

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Originally posted by Ugly is the new black

Do the characters you create reflect the person you are in real life? Are there certain personality quirks, backgrounds, or beliefs that you possess which tend to bleed into everything you create?

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Originally posted by Ugly is the new black

Do the characters you create reflect the person you are in real life? Are there certain personality quirks, backgrounds, or beliefs that you possess which tend to bleed into everything you create?

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* Sir Marcus: A human paladin of Torm in our "Us in the Realms" avatar campaign. Before we switched the campaign to 4e, I was a knight/cleric/prestige pally and I think that pretty much summed up my personallity. For character creation, we polled each other's opinion about race and class and general ability scores with 32 point buy. Turned our really well. So the character was practically supposed to be "Me".

* Ox: A burly barbarian (bbn 2/ftr 6/ frenz berserker 8) who's completly insane. He has severe alcoholism, dementia, and acts like a child when he's calm. He's loud, obnoxious, and ridiculously fun to play at the table. The only traits I see in him that relate to me is my quick temper and ferocious rage I sometimes exhibit when I get drunk and mad (never hit anyone though, so I'm not a bad drunk btw. I did take my real sword to my couch in college once).

* Zak: A rakish rogue (rogue 5/swordsage 1) in our Pathfinder camapaign. He's totally in love with himself and his abilities and suprisingly, almost I always roll a 1 when I try something extreme or show-off, lol. He's always hittiog on women (party members included) and his high-handed opinion of himself has landed him in quite a bit of trouble. This character is probably the complete opposite of what I am and I think it's my "alter-ego" expressing itself.

* Valdrake Alandrith: A no-nonsens human ex-noble of Impilture who thinks in terms of black and white when it comes to the law (LN Ftr 10/ tempest 5/ aristocrat 1). I based him pretty much on the "Headless Horseman" from Sleep Hollow for combat (uses a longsword and handaxe). I think this character exhibits my belief in law and order plus he represents the darker side of myself I think.

* Finch Elevenhair: My first 3rd ed character, and second character in total. A chaotic good half-elven fighter, self-appointed protector of the weak and slayer of all things undead. He'd do everything he could for his friends, and those who needed his aid, even if it meant total disregard for the law; He once pulled his flaming greatsword at two city guards who held his druid friend at sword point, after a failed attempt at charming one of the employees in a local money house. (For information, long story.) Since they were two, and she unarmed, he considered it to be unfair and cowardly. Thus the solution was simple, namely to even the odds and demand they release her.
He came from rather humble origins, after being rescued from a horde of undeads (which slayed his parents) by clerics of Kord, he was taken in by them. After he finished his training, and service to the temple, he strode out into the world to experience it for himself. Making a name for himself, and possibly avenging the murders of his parents. He acquired a faithful traveling companion too, an elven war horse which he named Steady Hoof. A companion that would follow him all his years thereafter, and whom Finch would protect with his life.

Modeled after my wish to be as courageous, and my willingness to do whatever in my power for my friends when they are in need.

* Eólanna Moonhair: Elven (moon elf) female wizard, chaotic neutral.
Now this one is a oddball, and a very special character to me. She is extremely intelligent, and quite cunning. However, she also seems very hyper, almost to the point of AD/HD, quick to anger, stubborn, opportunistic, and individualistic. Playing tricks and fooling other people is something which she amuses herself with quite often. While she has a great distaste for being tricked herself, she begrudgingly accepts this with respect as well; She knows it takes quite a bit to fool her. However, she always make sure that the perpetrator pays back in full. Often to both parties benefit, if the trick and its consequences were of the benign sort. She never forgets a strife, and anyone who crosses her, or those under her protection, will feel the full wrath of her fury. Regardless of how long it is in the coming, she will make sure to make it complete and devastating. (The Nine Hells surely hath no fury...)
Despite all this, she is also an excellent team player. Provided the rest of the team is (more or less) following what she perceives to be best course of action, both for herself and the others. She's not above using mind-controlling magic on her party, if she deems necessary (as per the above definition). She has proven this a few times, none more so than the first time her party met a vampire: The vampire commanded the fighter to drop down to the floor, effectively stopping the fight, whereupon Eólanna promptly hypnotized the poor fighter and commanded him to fight the vampire again.
Incidentally, it was in this fight she gained a particular penchant for mind affecting spells, and her hatred for vampires, as well as other more subtle spells and spell-uses. Ray of Enfeeblement and Greater Invisibility would soon enter the list of preferred spells as well, alongside Nystul's Magical Aura and the more sinister Bestow Curse.
She's driven by a great desire to gain knowledge and spells, but to what ends is unknown. Her past before her time in Candlekeep, or more specifically the time before when she ventured out from the venerated halls, is likewise unknown. All that is known for sure, is that whatever she does, she makes sure she's the one who benefits the most out of it. In the long term, as well as the short.

This one is probably the character that resembles me the most, yet doesn't. She's quite a bit more self-centered than me, as well as a somewhat "darker" personality. That is, however, all I'll offer on the similarities and differences between us.

* Chalithra Amalith: Female fighter/sorcerer/rogue/assasin, and venerating Lolth, as her destiny was once to become one of the Spider Queens clerics. A destiny that wasn't to be, however, due to the interference of another house and their desire to rise in the ranks of the city.
Chalithra was born to a noble house, but just before her internment as an acolyte to the cleric school the rivaling house attacked. Her entire family was slaughtered, as per tradition, except for her. She was taken capture, to be tortured and humiliated. Both for her capturer's enjoyment, and as final humiliation to their now vanquished rivaling house. After an unknown number of years, they finally grew tired of their sport, but instead of killing her outright they decided on one final punishment; They prayed to Lolth for her appearance to be changed, to that of a sun elf, for then to set loose in the world. Now appearing as their most hated enemy, broken and even more vile from all the torture, she managed to escape the Underdark and unto the cursed land of the sun and elves. There she swore vengeance upon her captors, and swore to Lolth that she would reclaim their house as hers. Punishing them in the same they've tortured her, but avoiding their failure of leaving a living witness.
To accomplish this vow she had made to her Queen, she set out to gather herself an army of loyal slaughter lambs, and to become a pillar of strength and might in her own right. She prayed upon the hospitality of local farmers, appearing to them as a beautiful elven maiden marked by a hard life and torture. Even while she charmed them with a friendly demeanor, and appreciative smiles, she despised the weakling humans for letting her in without any defenses. Most of the time she left them alive and unharmed, still safe in their illusions, lest she draw attention to herself and ruin her sacred mission. At times, however, she stumbled across someone which ignited her sexual desire. A desire made even more twisted and possessive by all those years of torture, a desire which drove her to take her victims and violate them as she herself had been. Always ending with her leaving the poor family's house, after washing herself of the blood and gore of the habitants, loathe with her inability to keep herself above and from the feeble and weak humans. Always was this the case, when the farmer had an especially beautiful daughter of age.
At long last she found herself with a party of similarly minded adventurers, accomplishing a mission from the god of death (Nerull) himself. One of which, a burly fighter with particularly bad manners and straying fingers, found himself on the wrong side of her blade one fateful night. After ignoring her, not so subtle, hint that "all men should die!" Thanks to her prowess with the sword, she made it look like the god of death himself had harvested upon his promise. After all, the rest of the party "knew" she'd been with the moon elf maiden sorceress they traveled with, all night. (Now marked as Chalithra's property, unknown to everybody but Chalithra herself.)
Further down the road, she embraced an offer (more of an ultimatum) of vampireism. Both as a means to further her own goals, to avoid being slain, and last, but not least, to avoid anyone else in her party power over her. When they came across another vampire, which was in conflict with her master, they agreed to slay the vampire which had turned her. An opportunity which she readily took, as a means to unshackle herself from his control.

And I think I'll stop there, before I write an entire novella. Needless to say, she is as far removed from myself as I think I can come. Something which made her even more interesting to play, as well as challenging.

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Originally posted by Alystra Illianniis

Does he play an electric lute?! ;-) Mine is a fiend on the strings (and the dance floor!!)

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