24. Arguably one of the most popular television series of the last decade.

The premise is simple, each one-hour episode depicts an actual hour in the main character’s life. That character is Jack Bauer and over the course of 24 episodes (or 24 hours), he takes on the bad guys and averts national catastrophe by the skin of his teeth.

One of the reasons the show is so popular is because Jack gets hurts. He’s been shot, blown up, beaten up, tortured, even infected by a killer virus.

And that’s just the physical side of the abuse.

The psychological scars run deeper. In many respects, the level of pain and suffering this man has endured reaches the realm of the ridiculous. Yet imagine how boring and short-lived the series would be if the writers were afraid of hurting Bauer.

This is what happens in a lot of RPGs. Players tend to play things safe with their characters as they avoid conflict and any other potential situation where their character may be harmed, physically or emotionally. It’s understandable, we all grow attached to our creations. The last thing we want as kind, caring and considerate human beings is to inflict harm on others.

Even fictional ones.

But it’s time to be sadistic. Time to be cruel to be kind, because no one remembers the play-it-safe characters. No one cares about the sensible characters. They are far more interested in ones that take risks. The characters that excite them and bring them to the very edge of their seats. The ones that hang them over the precipice and threaten to drop them into the abyss.

So go out there. Do something that hurts. Break your character if you have to. And abandon the notion of the Disney-live-happily-ever-after nonsense.

When he’s not encouraging people to embrace the Dark Side and break their characters, Marc plays in the World of Darkness based RPG Escaping Reality. He also dispenses other RPG tips and advice over on his blog Ramblingbloggers.com

In the opening scene of the movie Caddyshack, viewers are shown a bit of Danny’s home life. His siblings were the typical younger brother/sister fare, hogging the bathroom and delivering smart-assed remarks. His father was on his case, telling him golf would get him nowhere in life and that Danny needed a college education. His mother toiled away in a sloppy kitchen, obviously frazzled and harried.

Danny heads out the door and goes to work.

At this point, viewers are taken on a journey from the middle-class suburbs to upper-class estates as Danny rides his bicycle from one end of town to the other. When he arrives at the country club where he works, club members parade around in fancy cars and on horseback. Beautiful, rich women stroll the property. Wealth is everywhere and we can see in Danny’s eyes that one day he wants that for himself.

Show and Tell: How to Get Viewers to Know a Lot in a Little

The first five minutes of Caddyshack tells you a great deal about Danny and his life. Very little is said and all the viewer sees is a glimpse of Danny’s life, but there’s a great deal of information offered that plays right into the overall story.

We know Danny has a middle-class family that probably can’t afford college tuition easily, if at all. We know that Danny is probably a good kid, and he’s working a summer job to save money for the education his dad harps on about. We see that Danny has a wistful smile when he looks at the high-class estates. We also see the snotty looks he gets from country club patrons as they pass Danny by.

In five minutes, scenes were carefully crafted to reveal just who Danny Noonan is.

A good character introduction gives the reader more than just what meets the eye. There’s the physical, the character’s looks and clothing, and there’s the setting of the scene. There are the visible and tangible outside influences that affect the character, too.

Then there are small glimpses into the internal. People introduced to the character receive a sense of personality, character desires, their flaws, and their strengths.

When you show this to viewers and readers, you don’t tell them. The best way to convey all this information about the character is through action and dialogue, from anything like the meticulous wrapping of a gift to a bike ride to work.

Highlight the Best and the Worst

The opening scene for your character, whether in his first introduction to a viewer or reader or one of the many scenes within a novel, requires careful consideration and planning. You want a scene that showcases the best – or sometimes the worst – of your character to give everyone a good grasp of who this person is.

Take for example the introduction of the character Sebastian in Anne Bishop’s novel of the same name:

Standing at the kitchen counter, Sebastian closed his eyes and inhaled slowly and deeply to savor the smell of freshly ground koffea beans. Better than a woman. At least, a more sensual experience than the last two he’d been with.

Readers already know there’s something brewing other than the koffea. The next line tells a bit more:

When an incubus found sex boring, it was time to take a break – or think about another line of work.

As a reader, you know that Sebastian isn’t of this world (as if that wasn’t already apparent by the alternate spelling of “coffee”). You also know he’s not happy. You know that he sleeps around and that he’s had some bad experiences. You know that his line of work has to do with having sex, too.

Sebastian is completely alone with his thoughts, and you know that he’s a conflicted man with desires that aren’t being met.

As the introduction continues, you discover that Sebastian is tired of the crowded streets of the town, unhappy with the night life, and his quiet cottage is the only place he feels at ease anymore.

Using Action to Create a Character

The best character introductions use action as a starting point. The main character is always performing an action or doing something that serves as a catalyst for the rest of the introduction.

Think about your own actions. What do they say about you? How do you start your day? Do you jump out of bed, ready to face the world? Do you hate waking up, knowing you have to face an unpleasant task? You might stay in bed longer, or be distracted in your usual routine, putting one too many spoonfuls of sugar in your coffee.

Those little action details reveal a wealth of information. Use them.

Foreshadowing Your Way to Personality

Foreshadowing is a common technique used by writers. It places clues carefully, hinting at readers of some future event, possibly even the final outcome of the story.

Using foreshadowing in a character’s introduction helps build suspense and intrigue. A clever writer weaves these clues in so well that readers don’t realize the hints were all there before their very eyes until they get deeper into the story.

Foreshadowing isn’t the same as a flash forward, though, or a flashback. In these cases, you show readers and viewers the actual outcomes of specific events or suggestions of outcomes – but subtly. Never reveal too much.

The movie Gran Torino uses foreshadowing galore. All through the movie, there are hints and clues that Clint Eastwood’s character is going to die. The question is, how? The audience is primed with anticipation for the inevitable outcome to occur, making guesses at how it might turn out along the way.

When the end does come, the twist is delivered in such a way that it’s a huge surprise.

Now that we’ve gone over some of the elements of introducing a character and his or her personality, think back to a character you’ve already introduced. Did you use any of these elements? What would you change if you were to re-write the introduction?

Prequels to a familiar story are not just a cheap, Hollywood ploy to wring as much money as possible out of a box-office hit movie. When there’s a well-loved character involved, people are genuinely interested in that character’s past.

How many times have you read a novel, fallen in love with a character (or two) and then wondered what their whole story was?

A prime example of exploring a character’s past is the new Star Trek movie. The cast of characters appeared back in 1966 in a low-budget television show that by today’s standards would have been laughable.

Somehow, though, the characters captured the hearts and imaginations of generations – and they’re still going strong. Millions of people are familiar with the faces and names of characters from the show, and just as many are familiar with character quotes and specific episodes.

When the first Star Trek movie was released in theatres, fans flocked to catch up with characters as close to their hearts as old friends. They wanted to see what Kirk and Spock had been up to all these years. It was almost like a family reunion.

Explore Character History

Going back in time to explore a moment in your character’s history opens up new venues for the character’s present and future development. You can learn more and go in depth why certain relationships turned out the way they did, and why your character is the way he or she is.

In Star Trek, we saw how bonds formed between the crew of the Enterprise. Not everything was rosy in the beginning. There was plenty of conflict between characters, which made the story that much more believable and appreciated.

When you see the struggles of the past and know how the character overcame them, that character becomes more cherished. Who likes a hero who can do everything? That’s no fun. A hero that people know became a hero the hard way is far more enjoyable.

One way to do this in a role-playing game is to explore a friendship your character had in the past. If the two characters grew up together or have been together for a number of years, it’s fun to go back in time and poke around within that friendship and see how it developed.

Going back to the first time they met is always an adventure. Did they like each other right away? Did the sparks fly? How did they meet and what happened next?

Kirk and Spock had an explosive early relationship, for example. The television show had told us they were close friends, but how did they get to be that way? And what fun is a perfect friendship? The movie of their past revealed the struggles they shared, how they overcame the conflict, and how they earned the strong friendship.

No History? No Problem.

What if your character doesn’t have a history with any other character in the game? What if you’re stuck on creating an imaginary friend that won’t become part of the current game to act as a past friend? What if you’re bored stiff role-playing two of your own characters at once?

No problem. Grab a fellow player or a Storyteller. Tell them you want to explore a certain time in your character’s background, give them a specific character to play opposite you and let the fun begin.

All you need is the premise of the scene. Let the rest flow from there. Don’t be surprised if you get results you hadn’t expected, either. If you’re at the point where you’re diving into your character’s past, chances are he’s already taken on a life of his own and isn’t always predictable now.

Defining Moments

Not every exploration of the past has to do with a relationship. You can pinpoint a particular crossroads or event that occurred and define the moment with such clarity that it makes present playing a more enriching experience for you and your readers.

What part of your character’s history made such an impact it changed his or her life forever? What choices did he have to make? Does he regret any decisions he made then today? What would he have done differently, had he the chance to go back in time?

The beauty of revisiting these defining moments is that you can expand them far beyond the paragraph or two you wrote for your initial character concept. Some of these moments are whole stories in themselves.

And isn’t telling a story what it’s all about?

Are you baffled over how to create a character using a character sheet? Do you have plenty of half-filled out NPCs or a great concept rolling around in your head? What about stats like speed and strength – got those hammered out yet?

Character creation is an integral part of any role-playing game, but it’s not always easy to fill out a character sheet – until a nifty little character creation program full of WoD features came along.

A Shiny New Toy

Lone Wolf Development caters to WoD role-playing fans with a great program called Hero Lab. I love new toys as much as the next person, so when I saw Hero Lab generated World of Darkness characters, I had to try it out.

The core license for the full version of Hero Lab is $29, a reasonable price compared to some other software prices for similar programs that offer much less. There are free demos available for each Wolf Lair product, so you can try before you buy.

You can purchase add-ons to the core license for other gaming systems and expand your fun. Add-ons are available for $20 each and include D20 systems, Mutants & Masterminds, Savage World and 4th Edition D&D.

When you purchase a core license for Hero Lab, you get one free add-on for the game of your choice, so be careful and don’t make the mistake I did of buying the add-on before you install. Install first, and the free add-on option becomes available for you to choose the system you prefer.

I was disappointed that the only World of Darkness supernatural template for Hero Lab is that for vampires. All you Werewolf, Mage, Changeling and Changing Breed fans are going to have to wait for these character templates to be developed. Wolf Lair mentions they’re working on them, so… stay tuned, I guess.

What Good is Hero Lab, Then?

Don’t despair. Even if you can’t get that werewolf character template yet, you can still do a lot with Hero Labs. Beyond creating stats for vampires, you can also create them for humans and NPCs. I found this a great feature for our players at Escaping Reality, because we encourage characters to have that human edge first.

Hero Labs allows you to set up a brand new character or work with a character you’ve been playing already. The software also offers Quick Start character templates with pre-generated stats. Just pick a Quick Start character, click, and you’re ready to jump in the game.

How Hero Lab Works

The process of creating a character using Hero Labs takes a little getting used to. Don’t be surprised if you have to start over a couple of times.

The interface takes you through the process step by step. You begin by configuring your character, filling in fields for the character’s name, your name and the chronicle the character is involved in. Then you choose the template you’d like to apply from a choice including Vampire, Mortal, Ghoul, Animal, or Ghost.

The weapons stats within Hero Lab are taken from the World of Darkness Armory source book. There are settings like Weapon Degradation and -1 Pool per Lacking Strength, which is a complicated way of saying, “penalties for wielding a weapon too big for your character based on his or her Strength rating”.

Hero Lab also tracks experience points if your game uses them. Escaping Reality does not use an experience point system; however, we do allow players to have 15 free points when creating character sheets after playing for some time. You’d enter these points into the XP section of Hero Labs to spend on your character after creating him or her.

Once you come this far, you can access the main interface of Hero Labs. By following the tabs across the top, you’ll be taken through the rest of the full character creation process.

What’s nice is that you no longer have to remember how many points you get for your primary Attributes and Skills or have to run to the core system book to look that up. Hero Labs tells you exactly how many points you have to spend in your primary, secondary and tertiary Attributes and skills.

Advantages and Limitations

The main advantage of a character generation program like Hero Lab is that the computer does all the work for you. If you choose an ability that your character can’t have according to the skills you’ve selected, the on-screen validation tells you where you need to make adjustments.

This can be a limitation, though. Sometimes games have in-house rules that allow adaptations or special circumstances not usually permitted in core systems. Individual gaming styles and personal interpretation of rules mean that there may be some conflict.

For example, if your game includes a Bloodline you created for vampires, the stats particular to your Bloodline creation won’t exist in the program. Then your selections show as invalid, and you’ll have to adjust in other areas in order to meet the program’s prerequisites to get the abilities you need.

However, the program does help you learn to better create characters and generate proper stats. The WoD system can be confusing for new role-players, and it’s easy to miss something while flipping through pages of directions.

With the program, you can’t go wrong.

Another advantage of using Hero Labs for your character sheet creation is that it will generate the types of rolls you’d use in game based on your attributes and skills.

Need to know what your dice pool is for cutting a deal? Bam. – 3 dice. Will the grenade you just threw hit it’s target? BAMBAM! – 2 dice. This is fantastic for situations when your character is thrown into a sudden conflict and you need the stats pronto. Plus, you can take care of your own rolls instead of asking STs. Bonus.

In addition to listed dice pools, the program comes equipped with a handy dice roller.

Hero Labs also has a tab for combat scenes, and the program lists the rolls you’d need for combat basics like initiative, speed, defense, or for attacks in close corners, unarmed fights, grappling or with various weapons. It also takes into account any equipment your character may have.

The In-Play tab helps you keep track of damage your character suffers – and that’s great. Simply click on the Apply Damage button and it marks the sheet. As you play in game, you can click the little skull button to sustain the damage over a period or click the medical cross button to heal damage as time passes.

The whole character sheet can be printed out for personal reference, or you can save it to PDF. I tried the “PDF Canvas” add-on but found that it doesn’t work very well. You’re better off choosing “Print to PDF” in your print options to save a digital format of the character sheet.

The Final Verdict for Hero Lab

If you’re interested in creating character sheets, definitely give the free demo a try. It won’t let you generate more than a basic character, save your changes or print them out, but it gives you a quick look at what you might be able to work with in the full-feature version of Hero Lab.

If you like the demo, you’ll get all the bells and whistles once you purchase a full-version license.

Overall, Hero Lab is a good program that I’d recommend (and just did), and it’s a time-saver for role players, gamers and Storytellers alike. The ability to organize and keep track of stats is a bonus to any rpg game, whether played online or tabletop.

Now if you’ll excuse me… I have a character to create. How about you?

Beginners in role-playing games are often overwhelmed by the character sheet. It seems to involve a lot of numbers and statistics (called stats) that don’t make much sense at all.

The World of Darkness character sheet is really the easiest one to figure out, though. All you’re dealing with is a rating system.

How witty is your character on a scale of one to five? How strong is he on a scale of one to three? There’s no number crunching involved, no percentages to figure out, and no endless stream of tables and charts to deal with.

The character sheet is broken down into several sections that help you determine your character’s abilities and skills. There are Attributes (like strength, resolve or intelligence), Skills (such as in computer, the occult or brawling), and other traits like merits (little things your character is naturally good at), flaws (quirks your character might have) and vices and virtues to add some extra spice.

Attributes

Click on the screen shot for a view of a basic character sheet. You’ll see a section titled Attributes.

Attributes are divided into 3 categories: Physical, Mental and Social. Each category contains attributes that your character already possesses naturally – everyone has a certain amount of physical strength, intelligence, or composure. Everyone has some kind of presence, dexterity and stamina. Each character, therefore, starts with one dot in each attribute.

You need to decide which will be your character’s primary attribute. Is he a construction worker or athlete? If the answer is yes, then his primary attribute would be Physical (Strength, Dexterity and Stamina). Is your character a bookworm? Opt for Mental (Intelligence, Wits and Resolve). How about an actor or politician? Then Social (Presence, Manipulation and Composure) would be the best choice.

Now you must start adding more dots beyond the free dot in each attribute. You’re given 5 dots for your primary attributes, 4 for your secondary, and 3 for tertiary. Keep in mind that one dot in any given attribute counts as “poor”. (Skills are a different story, because not everyone is a born computer genius, so one dot wouldn’t count as poor but rather a novice level.)

When filling out the attributes, be honest. It would be nice to have a large dice pool in strength or intelligence, but is that attribute true to your character? If she gets winded walking up a flight of stairs with a bag of groceries, chances are she won’t have five dots in stamina.

This initial introduction may show why we like for players to get to know their characters before building a stat sheet. Many of the decisions you need to make about dots, skills, stats and attributes aren’t clear until you’ve played the character for a while to understand exactly what he or she is all about.

Skills

Take a look at the sample character sheet again. Along the left-hand side, there is a column titled Skills.

Skills are how the character expresses his or her attributes to the world. Many skills take time to learn. A character isn’t born with the knowledge of how to use a computer, drive a car, or shoot a gun. If they fight well, it’s because they learned how to do it over time, whether it was brawling on the street or in formal training.

Every character will have a different focus on the types of skills they do best. When filling out this section, you need to determine a primary (11 dots), secondary (7 dots) and tertiary focus (4 dots).

Skills are also broken down into Physical, Mental and Social categories.

When filling out this section, pay attention to your character’s history. You may think a character with kick-ass martial arts is cool, but if his history and background doesn’t explain where he might have learned these skills, giving dots to your character in martial arts won’t make any sense at all.

Where did he learn this skill? Who was his teacher? Did your character excel in training through his teen years or was it a half-hearted attempt at a hobby that was abandoned the moment something more interesting came along?

Unlike Attributes, your character doesn’t start off with any free points in Skills, nor does one dot mean that the character doesn’t know anything about that skill either. One dot merely indicates a novice. The character could have a general knowledge of the skill, could probably hold an intelligent conversation about it, but he or she is far from expert. Expert rank is reserved for those with four or more dots.

Some Skills are tricky, like Academics. Having no dots in Academics doesn’t necessarily mean your character has no education.

The core World of Darkness system explains it as such:

Dots in this Skill do not directly correlate to a given level of education. Your character could have entered a doctorate program but spent more time partying than studying, resulting in low dots. Conversely, a self-taught individual who read voraciously and studied intensively could have high dots without ever earning a diploma.

It’s a judgment call, and one you may want to ask your Storyteller about before investing dots.

As your character evolves and gains more experience, Storytellers may indicate you can add a new skill to your character sheet. Just like as in life, your character constantly learns and your character sheet evolves along with that learning.

You may also decide that you want your character to learn a new skill. When this happens, discuss options with your Storyteller. No one magically gains a skill, after all.

In tabletop games, skills are earned through experience points awarded at the end of each chronicle. In an online role-playing game like Escaping Reality, there is no experience points system.

Instead, the player declares that he or she wishes to learn a certain skill and that learning process is played out in game. The character has to find a suitable teacher, school, or resource to learn, and the player has to make sure the character has the means (whether financial or other) to do so.

Then the quest for knowledge is played out as a story of its own. Whether the character succeeds or fails all depends on the choices made during game play. A character doesn’t always get it right the first time.

If there is no mentor involved and the character is opting for a self-taught route, then the player has to make sure to play out the character’s attempts to learn and indicate exactly what the character is doing to achieve his or her goal.

Extras

Some extras on the stat sheet are there to add flavor and more of a challenge to your character’s profile. Items like Health and Willpower are mandatory and often come into play during conflicts. Health is more for tabletop games, but Willpower figures in when your character has to resist a temptation or resist a supernatural attack.

Merits and Flaws: Not every game requires players to choose merits and flaws. We happen to like them, since they add more flavor to the character’s personality. Our house rules are that you should try to have a good balance of each.

Merits are capabilities that your character has a knack for. These range from extra-sharp memory to a flair for learning languages. Merits can also have a bit of a supernatural bent (with the Storyteller’s approval), like clairvoyance or the ability to sense danger.

Flaws are just as important. None of us is perfect, and neither is your character. A flaw could be something as simple as a bad habit or as serious as a mental derangement or physical disfigurement. Simple flaws, like being aloof or socially inept, don’t need Storyteller approval. Others, like amnesia or a mental disorder, do.

Don’t take flaws lightly. Putting something down just because it sounds cool or different doesn’t always work well. You have to be sure that you can play this aspect of your character’s personality properly, and that it fits with your character’s personality from the start.

Some merits and flaws evolve over time too, so don’t be surprised if a Storyteller asks you to add one or two to your stat sheet.

Vices and Virtues: These are meant to add internal or emotional conflict to your character. They’re not easy to choose, either. For each vice or virtue, there are many shades of gray and where the balance tips is up to you.

For example, you could have a character with the virtue of Charity, but maybe he’s only being generous to fulfill his own ego, and thus his vice would be Pride. Maybe he’s always wanted to stand tall in the face of adversity (Fortitude) but can’t because he’s convinced himself the situation is hopeless (Sloth).

The potential combinations are extremely varied, once you start digging deep into your character’s background to learn what really motivates the individual. You’ll be surprised at what you discover.
You Try It

Now that you have the basics, go ahead and fill out a character sheet. See what you can do. If you have questions, post them here and we’ll walk through it together.

Most gaming systems require players to fill out complex character sheets, complete with statistics on strength, speed, power of weapons, dexterity, health and more. They’re full of dots or numbers, usually involve math, and only sketchily cover character concept and background.

The reason for character stat sheets is that as the game unfolds and characters become involved in conflicts, there comes a point where skills and stats can’t be guessed at. Dice rolls are required to know if the blow aimed at the supernatural force causes damage, or the punch in the bar brawl lands right in the eye, or the lock the character is trying to pick opens.

A stat sheet helps guide character actions and outcomes. It determines the number of dice to roll based on the combination of strengths of various skills and character attributes that character has. It tells players how many dice to roll, and what number they have to beat to succeed in their desired outcome.

Basically, stat sheets help determine whether a character succeeds or fails in his or her attempted action.

What Are Dots?

The basic World of Darkness character sheet uses dots, not numbers – the more dots, the better. The WoD gaming system also uses a “D10″ gaming system, which means that all dice rolls use ten-sided die.

Each dot you’ve marked on a character sheet equals one die. So, if you had 3 dots in Composure and 3 dots in Resolve, you’d have a total of 6 dice to roll. The more dice, the better chance your character has of success in action.

Dots also function as a rating system for various attributes, skills, merits and flaws. Think of them as a rating system, like a five-star restaurant or a three-star movie. One dot is okay, five is tops.

If your character has one dot in the skill of computers, for example, he or she has a basic knowledge of computer use. Two to three dots indicates strong working knowledge. Four or five dots gets into the expert range, where the character could possibly be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs – or hack into governmental agency records.

The Difference Between Online and Offline

In an offline tabletop game, action is the focus, not character development. Stat sheets are a must to have the game progress properly and give Storytellers a good idea what characters are capable of.

At Escaping Reality , we ask players to build characters a different way. Complex stat sheets aren’t important to fill out right away – we suggest players do so only after playing for a while and once they’ve gotten to know their characters well.

By experience, we’ve found that new characters change and develop differently from what the original concept suggested. Players start with an idea for their character concept, but once their character is acting of its own will in the game, developing on-screen, he or she tends to turn out quite different than originally intended.

That means that if a player had filled out a character sheet, it now needs to be redone completely. The original stats don’t fit at all. Maybe the character doesn’t have such strong composure as originally thought, or maybe he’s wittier or has stronger stamina.

Action and conflicts aren’t as frequent in a creative writing rpg either, nor are they usually part of the introductory phase of a character’s development. The player has enough to think about while getting used to a creative writing game and learning to interact with others. Tossing in stats just adds confusion.

Once a player becomes more familiar with the character, he or she has a clearer vision and can fill out a stat sheet more realistically. It can even be fun to fill in the sheet, giving a clear portrait of the character’s abilities and skills or his merits and flaws.

Stay tuned for our next post, where I’ll cover the various sections of a World of Darkness Character Sheet and explain what each section covers and how to fill it in properly for a human character.

You’ve decided to create a second character, you’ve mapped out the concept, and you’re ready to set the character loose in a role-playing game.

You have a new personality to explore, new adventures to perceive through a different set of eyes and extra playing time. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? It is exciting – and it’s important to learn how to manage multiple characters.

Pacing Interaction

It’s very easy to get carried away with a new character and devote all your time to developing the person. It’s like meeting a new love and exploring the relationship.

But remember, you need to strike a balance between your firstborn and your second child. Both deserve equal attention, and you shouldn’t favor one over the other. Other players love your first character as much as you did and they still want to see that character in the game.

Striking a good playtime balance between your two characters is smart. Although one or the other may have the spotlight at different times, you still have to write both characters well and keep them interesting.

Distinct Voices

Managing two or more characters requires skills to maintain distinct personalities. Each character has to have a unique voice. Character A should react differently from Character B in any given situation.

For the first few weeks (or even months), you may want to keep characters in individual scenes where they won’t interact with each other until you have a good handle on each of their personalities. Since both characters come from you, it’s very easy to allow similarities to leak from one character to another.

Separate scenes give you the opportunity to clear your mind and get into the second character’s persona without distraction. There may even be days where you find you can’t do it. Certain characters require you to be in a certain mood before you can write them properly.

You may even be switching between genders with your characters or moving between different types of characters. Character A may be a werewolf, while Character B is a vampire. Now you’re dealing with different human personalities, but also additional and distinct character traits as well.

Are you dizzy yet? Storytellers deal with these multiple mind-shifts when switching between half a dozen characters in one day or even within one scene. You can learn to do that too – practice makes perfect, so take it slow.

Start With Basics

It’s a good idea to start with the basics and get to know your character well before you add any supernatural aspects into the mix. You may have plans for your character to go through a First Change or an Embrace. Unless you’re a seasoned player, it’s very difficult to jump into a game with a full-fledged supernatural character. Even pros have a hard time of it. There are so many factors to consider that it’s easy to lose the humanity within the character that makes it so interesting.

Care is the Key

Seasoned players often spend months developing a character before changing them into something more. They plan a transition to a supernatural character carefully. Too soon a change and people think, “So what?”. Wait too long, and everyone thinks, “Sheesh, it’s about time.”

The time is right when you and other players or characters start to care about the individual.
Other characters have had the time to get to know yours and to form opinions and beliefs. They’ve had the opportunity to start to care – or not care. Both have an effect on any major change, and a change adds just the right drama at just the perfect moment.

Introducing a second character can be as fun and as exciting as it was when you introduced your first. Your first character may always have a special place in your heart, but with time and patience, you can make that second character shine too, so enjoy it.

When you’re into role-playing games, characters are a lot like potato chips. You can’t stop at just one.

Your first character will always be nearest and dearest to your heart. Eventually, a new concept pops into your head, and it’s too good to pass by. The urge to bring this new character to life becomes irresistible. You know you won’t be able to rest until that character comes out of your head and gets onto a page.

The only problem is that you already have a character. Should you really have two?

Double the Fun

Running multiple characters in a game definitely has its pros.

For one, you’ll never be at a loss for playtime if one character is out of a scene. For example, those have their characters sleep for a while have to let time pass before their character can awaken. Instead of waiting for dawn to break (which, in some online role-playing games, takes days of real-world time), you have a second character that keeps you active and in the game.

There may also be times when you have a character waiting in a scene because it isn’t your turn, and you’re itching to play. Having another character handy means you can jump into another scene and mingle with other characters in the meantime.

If you’re really looking for some serious action, try having fun with both your characters together in a downtime thread, exploring how they react to one another.

Are You Ready for Multiple Characters?

Multiple characters are a lot of work. Doubling your play time may sound great, but ask yourself if you’re ready to handle the commitment that takes.

Ask any Storyteller how it feels to run multiple characters in several scenes, sometimes all at once. Sometimes it’s a lot to handle. If you have two or more scenes in which you have to respond, it gets busy fast.

Having two or more characters to play and integrating them in different scenes has a big impact on your time and energy. Where you used to create three or more responses in a single thread as the day played out, you may now only have time to create one response in three or four different threads.

That spreads you out thin, it can slow down the game for others, and it can cause your responses to lack devoted richness.

Examine the game and the story, too. How many players are there already? What is the character-to-Storyteller ratio? If everyone suddenly decides to create a second character, the number of characters for STs to manage has just doubled. Granted, Storytellers don’t have to be in each and every scene, but they still have to read, moderate and keep track of what’s going on within the game.

You also have to ask yourself why you want to create a new character. Are you simply bored? Is it because someone else created a new character? Does it just seem like a nifty idea? If so, reconsider. Players and Storytellers may not enjoy going through the introductory process of your character only to have you lose interest or find you can’t maintain the commitment.

Most online gaming sites require players to be active for a reasonable period of time, often for at least three months, before requesting permission to create a second character. This helps make sure that the player has learned how to play and has developed their first character enough.

It takes a long time to get to know your character. Sometimes even three months may not be long enough.

Welcome to More Responsibility

When you’ve been granted permission for a second character in your favorite game, you’ve received silent permission to move up in the ranks of players. Your efforts have been acknowledged, as has your gaming ability, and you’re being trusted to maintain the level of participation you’ve held to date.

But you’re also facing a new situation with this upper ranking – it’s understood that you no longer need ST handholding and are now on your own. Your second character (and even your first) may not get the same level of personal attention as you once enjoyed. You’ve demonstrated you don’t need that anymore.

By taking on a second character, you’re telling STs that you’re ready to be more proactive and interactive than you were before. The Storytellers already have their hands full with their NPCs and working in new players, whereas you already know how the game works, how to find an “in” and create your own interaction within the game.

They’re going to rely on you to help yourself – and to help them.

Playing multiple characters in a game is a welcome challenge to many role players, and it can be a great boon to any game by increasing interaction opportunities for all.

Be prepared to run your own introductory scene and interact with other players just as you do already with your first character. Find your own ins and take ownership of your decision to run multiple characters. Be proactive with scenes and show that you can handle yourself – and your character – without becoming a burden.

One of the biggest challenges in role-playing games is to play a character outside your gender. Many love the idea of playing the opposite sex, but very few pull it off well.

Falling into Stereotypes

It’s hardly surprising that it should be so difficult to make a believable opposite-sex character. After all, it’s not as though you can rely on experience. The trap most people fall into is thinking of the opposite sex as a stereotype and crafting a character around that stereotype.

So a woman playing a male character might decide her character is a crude, violent, sex-driven bastard – because that’s a handy stereotype.

The same goes for the man playing a female character. He might choose the femme fatale, ready to seduce any man, solving all of her problems by flashing a bit of thigh to get what she wants.

Stereotypes aren’t believable characters. Worse, they aren’t interesting characters at all. If either of those stereotypical characters were to show up in a B-movie, how likely is it that either of them survives for longer than ten minutes of screen time?

That’s right. The slutty woman and the jerk guy are both going to be disposed of pretty fast. You don’t want other people to dismiss your character that easily.

So how do you get rid of the stereotypes and create a realistic opposite-sex character?

Instilling Humanity

Often, we’re so paralyzed by the differences between men and women that we practically consider them a different species. We’re bewildered by the opposite sex. Where did those guys come from?

If you have no idea how the other sex acts – or worse, you think you know exactly how the other sex acts – you’re forgetting something very basic. We’re all human.

Think of your character’s profession. Your character might be a car mechanic; he or she might also be a high-powered executive with a secret night life of crime-fighting. Or the exact same character could go from being a high-powered executive to being a mechanic. Would he completely change if that happened?

What about if he started out as a man and then magically became a woman? Same personality, different body? Would he start to behave completely counter to his original character?

Not a chance. Gender doesn’t make us behave like a different species any more than a job does.

If you’re so blinded by the immensity that your character is a woman – or a man – you’ll let that one fact be the driving force behind every one of your character’s actions. That will make you fall back on stereotypes to figure out how a man or a woman would act.

Perception Through Gender

So we’ve established that being a man or a woman is not the only thing that makes your character into a person. What else contributes to who he or she might be? Family life, social status, the place the character grew up, the friends and influences he or she has had, any big life-changing experiences…

And just when you thought we’d dismissed it entirely: gender.

Certain events are more likely to happen to men than women, and vice versa. Don’t use this as an excuse for stereotyping, though. Certain events are also more likely to happen to rich people vs. poor people, city folks vs. country folks, orphans than those with siblings.

If you gave your character from the streets of the Bronx a wicked badminton game, that would seem a little strange. It would also be a little strange if your female character was really into monster trucks as a teenager. Could either of those events happen? Absolutely. But you have to be aware you’re working against statistical likelihood.

For example, men are statistically more likely to have played a sport in high school. Does that mean your male character HAS to have played sports or that your female character CAN’T have played sports?

No way. It just means you need to be aware that the experience of a male character who doesn’t play sports would have been different than that of a woman who didn’t play sports. A female character probably wouldn’t think it worth mentioning at all. A male character might have felt isolated or left out from his peers because of it.

Don’t forget to bring all the other factors into play, too. If your male character grew up in Los Angeles and spent his after-school hours learning to be an actor along with half of his male peers, it’s unlikely he was teased for not playing football. Don’t make the likelihood of a gender influence completely override the rest of your character’s history.

Remember that gender is just one element in how your character experiences their life; it’s not the only element. There are far more similarities between men and women than we usually think there are.

Have you ever attempted to play a gender other than your own? Was it successful? What was difficult about it?

I recently read a post addressing violence in role-playing games. The question read:

I’m just wondering how it is that you can actually apply the moral qualms people have in the real world to that of RPG characters without disabling a character’s abilities completely.

Good question, and I’ll provide my answer here (lacking one at the original author’s site):

Whether you play D&D, World of Darkness, or Star Wars, extreme violence is an inherent part of role-playing games. Part of the fun is vanquishing the enemy and gaining experience points to propel your characters to greater heights. But characters are, in many cases, committing atrocious acts while beating the bad guys.

The warlord once asked Conan the Barbarian what he found best in life, and Conan replied:

“To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.”

In my D&D days, my characters were part of parties that obliterated whole villages, destroyed alien cultures, and lay waste with such zest that Conan would have been proud. In my opinion, this is what makes role-playing games exciting.

But I’ll tell you something: Hack and slash for the sake of hack and slash gets old. I also think that this type of mentality is more easily settled in tabletop than it is in a play-by-post RPG where the writing and character development is the focus.

It’s All About the Character

That’s not to say character development can’t be done with tabletop games. It’s just more difficult. Tabletop games move at a quicker pace, and there isn’t time to think much. Players don’t have a lot of time to spend in dialogue or introspection. It’s all about the action.

In a game driven by creative writing, you can afford to consider the actions and consequences. You can sit back and dig into why your character would commit a horrendous act, or how the character would feel if he or she witnessed one.

These moral dilemmas are what makes games like Escaping Reality so much fun. For writers, it’s not about the booty or how many experience points you they earn slaying the monster; it’s about the character and his or her development.

So the question was, how could we apply moral qualms of the real world to that of RPG characters without disabling a character’s abilities completely?

Creative fiction role-players aren’t disabling our characters at all. We see it as the complete opposite, that we empower our characters through inflicted adversity and hard decisions. We force them to grow, and many times characters come out stronger for having gone through a tough situation.

The World Of Darkness

This character development is exactly why I enjoy the World of Darkness over any other gaming system. No matter how hard I try, I can’t play high fantasy games anymore. The whole WoD system is built around how characters deal with the dark, mysterious, and often horrendous underbelly of perceived reality. In this game, fictional characters with amazing abilities are stuck in very real situations.

It’s all about what scares humans on a primal level.

As a Storyteller, I know that there’s a time and place for extreme violence. If overused, players become desensitized. When used sparingly, extreme violence creates more of an impact. One example includes that of a frightening dream – the violence of the dream was used to make the character think.

That’s how you introduce moral dilemma without disabling a character. You turn the situation around and present players with something they need to think about.