With recent discussions into background vs. stats, I decided to whip up the steps I use to create character backgrounds and share it here. If you've got more tips, steps, or advice to add, feel free to add it here. Try to keep arguments in a separate thread so that this one is easy to navigate for those using the aids.
Character Development Aid
One of the hardest parts of Character Development for many players is creating a background, personality, and general state of mind for their new character. In order to truly get into the role of a character, these details are vital. This doesn't mean a player has to write a best seller sized novel, just a few lines in each step below can go a long way in helping develop a character's story and nature. These steps are useful for throwing together a quick concept for a pickup game, developing the background of an existing character, or even building a new character from scratch.
Step 1: The Voice Journal
Quite possibly the easiest way to get inside your characters head is to let your character talk. Gran a pencil and notepad or open up a new document, and begin answering questions. Don't go down a list like most surveys or twenty question forms, but act as though you are an interviewer and ask you character questions. No boundaries, after all, you're talking to yourself here. Write down what immediately pops in your head; you can always go back and edit out what you don't like later, but each answer can prompt new responses, emotions and feelings that can help you build your character into a unique individual. The most surprising revelations are often things your character tells you that you hadn't even thought about.
Step 2: Backstory
Now that you have a general feel for you character's voice and a rough guideline of answered questions, let's figure out his past. Look at the general concept you have for the character, you'll likely have several key factors that you already know and a lot of gaps that you haven't even thought about. How detailed you want your background varies from player to player and game to game, but these steps are useful for everyone.
2.a: Known Factors
First we'll cover the known factors. These are the parts of the character's background that you've already decided. They're vital to your concept. They may be cliché, they may be original; it doesn't matter because either way they are important and fundamental. Take these factors and develop them as far as you feel comfortable. You're a corporate security grunt turned Shadowrunner? What corporation did your work for? What kind of security work did you do? Were you good at that job? Don't go beyond the basics at this point, but answer the basics for each fundamental part of the character.
2.b: Unknown Factors
So now we've got a feel for the character’s voice, we know a bit of his background, and we've got a lot of unanswered questions and holes to fill in. Where do we go from here? Start by creating a list of what you need to know about the character to fill in each gap. Why did your corporate security guard leave the corporation? Where did he grow up? Where did he get his training? How detailed you go is up to you. Once you've got your list of questions down, create two lists of answers for each one. In the first list several answers you'd commonly expect to hear, and in the second list out several answers you've never or rarely seen before. You want to choose most of your answers from the second list.
Step 3: Timeline
Now that you have a good guideline to run with, create yourself a timeline of your character's past. Place every major event that you've detailed into it along with its timestamp. Look for conflicts and gaps. For conflicts, tweak things to fit; for gaps, repeat step 2 to fill them in.
Step 4: Reactions
Now we're going to take your timeline and further develop your character’s personality and state of mind. For every single entry on your timeline, you'll want to use each of the following sub steps.
4.a: Outer
Outer Reactions are pretty easy to get down; these are your character's actions that he took in response to each development in his life. Did your security guard become a drunk after getting canned, or did he go to school for accounting but fail out? It doesn't matter what you've chosen, just make sure to get it down, because it's important for getting ahold of his inner reaction.
4.b: Inner
Inner Reactions are how your character internally feels toward each circumstance he's dealt with. Sure, your character went to school for accounting, but why? Desire for money? To be more successful than his brother? Pressure from a family of accountants? Pressure from his mob buddies so that they have someone to cook their books? The answers are truly endless. Once you start hitting each answer with these questions and answering them, you'll get a very good feeling for you character's personality and you'll wind up with a perfect frame of his state of mind.
Step 5: Inner Struggle vs. Inner Conflict
It's important to cover the difference between Inner Struggle and Inner Conflict. A good character will have both issues cropping up in his mind at times. Inner Struggle is an issue that the character has brought with him and is independent of any immediate external factors. Am I competent? Am I a monster? Who am I? His psyche can be as complex or simple as you want, but it's important to get a good feel for it.
Inner Conflict occurs when the character has an emotional conflict because of immediate external factors. You're tasked with burning down an orphanage, how do you feel about it? Assassinating a priest? Trafficking sixteen year old orcs? Running for office? Appearing on an episode of Barrens Survivor?
While you should develop you general Inner Struggles that your character is suffering from while constantly, Inner Conflicts are at the time event. You can detail what your character was conflicted about at each point in his timeline, it can't hurt, but another way to get a good feel for you character's limits is to pose yourself questions. Add it to your voice journal. Act like a psychiatrist and ask your character how he felt when ****, where **** is the question. No holds barred. Asking how he felt when he wore that school girl outfit can reveal just as much as asking about surviving the Renraku Arcology by locking those children outside of his panic room.
Step 6: Breaking the Wall
Sometimes you get stuck when trying to come up with details. It happens to everyone at some time or another. Don't fret, just pay attention to the suggestions here, and hopefully they'll help.
6.a: Randomization
So you've been working and thinking and struggling, but you're still floundering to come up with any idea at all. Pick up a book and flip to a random page. Pick the first word you see, and adapt it. You're trying to figure out what your father did for a living? Pick up a book and pick a random word from it. You chose market? Did he work in a market? Was he a market supervisor? Did he work in Marketing and Advertising? The choices could be endless. You absolutely hate that word and the choices it offers? Cheat. Choose another one. No one is going to punish you for it. You can use this for names too. You picked the word Fugitive? Look to modern media or even movies. Harrison? Tommy Lee? Their fictional characters from the movie?
6.b: Just Write
Skip your current issue and cover something else entirely. A different part of the character's story. Even part of the character's mechanics. This will let your mind settle down and become relaxed where it will be able to better accommodate the thinking mode.
