The Three dimensions of character (Part 3) – Psychological

The Three dimensions of character (Part 3) – Psychological

So when you take the physical (Nature) and you combine it with the Environment (Nurture) you get the third aspect of characterization the psychological.

To be clear when I talk about the psychological aspects of your character I am not talking about listing your character derangements, or determine on a sliding scale from one to a hundred how many croutons short of a salad your character is. Not that these elements aren’t a part of character design, but the psychological aspect encompasses more than having to yodel Chopin, while hopping on one foot to avoid a two dice penalty to basket weaving.

Really what matters most to us in the psychology of a character comes down to motivation. What drives your character to act the way he does? How does he react to certain situations, and stimuli? What experiences from the character’s past lead to this reaction? How did these reactions lead him to become the person he is today? These are the core questions we are looking to answer when we ponder the psychological aspects of our character.

The most overused cliché in gaming can serve as an example of this methodology. Fenris Orckiller’s family was killed by a party of rampaging orcs when he was a child, and now he hates them so much!

So applying what we were talking about before to this example we can surmise the following:

What motivates fenris?
Fenris’s hatred of orcs fuels his epic sojourn across the globe to eradicate the vile creatures.

What drives him to act the way he does? The loss of his loved ones at an early age has left him distant, and unwilling to forge close ties with others for fear they will be lost in a similar way.

How does he react to certain stimuli? When he sees an orc he kills it. When others get to close to him emotionally he lashes out to push them away.

How did this lead him to be the person he is today? He’s a battle scarred warrior, with no friends, or allies, who has become an expert in the field of orc genocide.

Now let’s throw a wrench in there. Despite his best efforts to push her away Fenris has fallen in love with a beautiful princess, based upon his past what reaction do you think he would have to this stimuli?

Well, considering the lasting damage done to his psyche by the death of his parents, the death of his true love would be equally, or far more traumatic. So in order to defend himself from this trauma Fenris would stop at nothing to protect his true love, even if it puts him at the mercy of some cunning evil doer with plans of over throwing the Imperial Senat….KING, I mean over throwing the king.

This is what separated role players from roll players in my book, simply because you can’t play a role if there isn’t one, and character motivation stemming from the psychological is what defines the role of the character. Great stories derive from great characters. Great characters generate conflict, both internal and external. I’m not sure if I said it here before, but the best advice I ever received as a story teller was, “Keep the story simple, and let the players fuck it up.” This can happen in a lot of ways, but the best ways are when a character’s in-game motivation is the cause of the swerve. (note: this doesn’t mean your character’s motivation supersedes the fun of the other players, always weigh the good of the story vs. the good of the game)

Well, you are now primed and ready to create your own 3 dimensional characters. As always questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcomed.

Good Gamin’

The Three dimensions of character (Part 2) – Sociological

The Three dimensions of character (Part 2) – Sociological

Where and how a person is brought up can effect a great deal about that individual. Factors such as religion, Socio-economic status, and even climate can affect how a person develops and grows, and it is these aspects that I mean when I talk about the sociological elements of a character.

Primarily, our sociological traits dictate our value system. What is good? What is evil? Our determination of right and wrong are strongly affected by the what, where, when, and how of our upbringing.

Let’s take religion for starters. Religion is what supplies most people with the foundation for a moral compass. If your religion dictates that if 3,000 souls are not sent to the underworld every March Jellotrix the Smuckinator will destroy the world in a deluge of grape jelly, then were does killing fall on your moral scale?  If you don’t kill aren’t you damning the entire world to an early grave, is that more evil than ridding the world of 3,000 “evil” souls every spring?  Throw faith and doubt into the mix, and now you got some story fodder.  What if your character is at 2,999 souls at 11:58, on March 31^st and the only person nearby is his son? Does he hold fast to his faith, or give into doubt, and what effect will the result have on his world view? What does it mean if nothing happens? Take a minute to think about your character’s relationship to the divine. What are his beliefs, and how strongly does he hold them, and why?

Socio-economic status is another important factor. Is your character rich, or poor?  Does he know the value of a hard days work, or has he never worked a day in his life? Supply and demand, our level of need dictates the value we place on things. If you have a hundred swords, but only one loaf of bread what do you place a higher value on? The ease in which you acquire your livelihood is also a factor in your value system. A farmer, who toils sixteen hours a day in the fields, sees his purse much differently than an aristocrat living off his father’s wealth. So, think about how your character earns his living. In which socio-economic strata he was raised. What resources were plentiful and which were scarce.

There are many other factors that play into the sociological aspect of your characters background.  Look to your own past, think about the people, organizations, jobs, hobbies, climates that affected your development. What values did these relationships instill?  Where we come from says a lot about who we are, and this is just as true for our characters.

Next up, the psychological.

The Three dimensions of character (Part 1) - Physiological

The Three dimensions of character (Part 1)

A common criticism that gets thrown around about characters is that they are two dimensional, implying that they lack depth; all surface and no substance, all sizzle no steak, etc. If you have studied writing you may also know this means that the character lacks one or more of the three dimension of characterization; physiological, sociological, and psychological. As a gamer these dimensions might sound more familiar in the context of Strength, Wisdom, and Charisma, and they will definitely serve as a starting point, but as we all know a character sheet hardly a character make. So, let’s take a gander at how we can utilize these dimensions to generate a well-rounded character background.

Physiological

This is the most surface of the three dimensions. Physiological elements are things like eye and hair color, his race, or even that scar he received from the Orc Chieftain who killed his parents, and now serves as a reminder of his oath of blood vengeance against all Orckind; you know stuff like that .

Physiological elements are important to a well-rounded character. They are the very first impression when we meet someone for the first time. Now, I know what you’re saying(‘cause I’m watching you through your webcam), “I never judge a book by its cover, because judging people by their appearance is wrong, we are all onions…blah blah blah”, yeah, we’ve all seen Shrek, but it doesn’t change the fact that if you have a giant pulsating boil on your eye and reek of old cheese and shame, a normal human is going to generate an immediate opinion about you before you say one word.

So take a minute, close your eyes and picture your character. What does he looks like, what’s he wearing, does he have any distinguishing marks.  Imagine you are describing him to a police sketch artist, try to go beyond the basics, think about what your character's features say about him? What trappings are associated with his profession, his upbringing, hobbies, etc?  What distinguishes your character from the masses roaming the streets of the city?

Remember to keep it brief. If no one wanted to read your 300 page novel about your character's struggles before he reache level one, they definitely won't sit through a rambling diatribe about each one of your characters nose hair.  Use strong adjectives, simile, and metaphor to paint a picture in the mind of the listener. Get a thesaurus, or find one online, in most cases one word can do the job of three, or four.

Of course in lieu of all this writing nonsense you could always draw your character, find an image on the web that resembles your character, or even decide who would play the character in a movie. In fact, this is a great way to find inspiration for your character, with the abundance of art work at our finger tips, thanks to the internet, you would be hard press not to stumble across a picture that conjures up a compelling character.

So, let’s get the ball rolling, here is a list of questions you can use to flesh out the physiology of your character:

·         What is his/her:

o        hair color?

o        eye color?

o        skin tone ?

·         Is your character:

o         short or tall?

o         Ectomorphic(skinny), mesomorphic(average), or endomorphic(stocky)?

o        muscular, or scrawny?

·         Does your character have any distinguishing marks? (tattoos, wrinkles, mustache, scars, piercings, scales, etc)

·         What does your character smell like? (old garbage, fresh soap, pungent perfumes, etc.)

·         How does your character sound?

·         Does the character resemble someone, or something?

·         If this was a movie who would you cast to play your character?

So now that we’ve started to piece together what our character looks like we need to move on to the next aspect of characterization and that is the Sociological.