RP Hints

Anybody out there with RP hints/tips for bringing a PC more to life? I find sometimes it's hard to find Solomon or other PCs mindset or emotional responses.

I use a tip that I picked up as a writer a long time ago: Interview your character. You can start simply by going on okCupid and taking their little tests as your character, which will give you an idea of his aesthetic tastes. Then, start asking him the deeper questions as they suggest themselves to you. You want to know what he thinks, what he feels, how his past informs his present behavior. It can help to actually write your interview out, as though you were a reporter interviewing the character.

After I do this (and this is my personal preference), I like to take my character's rich inner life and bury it. Most people don't wear their hearts on their sleeves, so I try to keep my characters just as secretive. The 'interview' I did previously becomes a set of thoughts and feelings, ways of making judgments, that I keep in mind as I'm playing her, so that while they're not explicitly stated, they leak through here and there. Knowing what's going on in my character's head helps me to differentiate myself from her.

Anyway, that's just me. There are probably way less involved ways to do it.

When I start to build a new character I use the following tricks:

- Wear a signature article of clothing. Just putting it on can convince you that you are someone else. This trick works for doing chores too.

- Create a physical gesture you can repeat easily. Use this gesture whenever you are thinking about what your character would say. Not only will it help you think as your character would, but people will connect the physical gesture to your character.

- Move uniquely. Figure out how your character holds their body. Loose, tight, strong, tense etc. If you don't have any roleplay you are doing, focus on posing in that style, you'll be certain to be in character when someone addresses you.

- Identify your character's strongest (or most common) emotion. Focus your character's word choices around it.

- Identify what subject matter your character understands the most. Turn everything into an analogy for that subject. Basketball, geology, sailing, etc. Whatever your character would be familiar with. Be careful not to overuse this one, it can make your character look simple or one dimensional.

Honestly, I am not much of a roleplayer, I rely on tricks like these to convince people I put time and thought into my characters.

I would love to see the question sheet. It would be fun to use.

Yeah it would. Is that in the LARP books too or just tabletop?

http://stuff.mit.edu/~endeavor/Hydra/longest.html

Pretty sure this is a copy of the character quiz Adena was talking about from Amber. Don't know that this is word for word the same quiz as is in the book but carries most of the same general themes.

I think the Vampire quiz would still be a good one to have as the Amber one doesn't cover some Vampire specific questions or topics.

Don't know of any vampire specific ones. You could probably find something just browsing online though. The Amber one is pretty generic really though so minus a couple system specific questions it would probably work.

I could type it up if I find it in any of the books.

Check online. I'm sure you'll find that people post these things there.

My method is probably a terrible idea.

But I pick one feature about the character that makes it unique and work backwards from there. I love to fill in the blanks as I go along, improvising as a situation comes up, and as time passes the character's personality becomes dictated by the events surrounding it's daily challenges.

I feel that in real life people are always a little reserved and withdrawn around strangers. That it takes time to discover the core of a person's personality. I feel that defining a character is a journey of discovery, and to have their personality too well defined in the begining will make that journey short and bumpy.

However, I haven't had a steady character all my own in years...so what the hell do I know lol

The way I build characters is somewhere between the character quiz and what Jason is describing. I basically use a shortened version of the quiz to identify what I want the characters strongest traits and quirks to be and develop a general personality. Usually letting bits and pieces of my own personality seep into the cracks of the character. I do actually spend some small amount of downtime, especially on game day, running through various scenario's and conversations to get a feel for how I want the character to behave. If you've thought through certain situations it makes rping them a little easier.

I'm going to look for that quiz so keep an eye open later for me to post it up. I was also going to put up some questions from the Tabletop ST guide that are helpful things about Vampires, like "Do Vampires have fingerprints?" And no, they don't.