Step Three: Where am I going?
Well, by know the player should know where his character is, and where his character came from. Next step is to find out where he is going. This is the step where the player actually chooses a character class, and should be done so using the information created in Steps One and Two.
So far, I have a neutral good city guard, who wants to be a warrior like his grandfather, wants to get rich, but doesn't want to break the law. So, how do I get from 0-level middle class city guard to 1st level Warrior?
The normal way for a character to have become an adventurer is via apprenticeship. Mages study with a learned master, priests study in the clergy, thieves get taken in by a guild, and fighters, well, they learn to fight. The story that needs to be developed here is how these characters either became apprenticed to a teacher, or how they developed their skills. What we need to do here, is to link the fledgling character to a vessel that will give them the �foot in the door� to gaining their class skills.
Creating a character from the apprentice-type background; a Lawful Good city that has a strong church may require that all youths spend their 15th year in service to the church, as an altar boy, page or servant. The characters that can be created from such a campaign setting range from 'noble' thieves, devout priests, fighters, paladins, and also opportunistic clergymen.
What is important in this step are the 'Defining Elements' discussed earlier. Using this example, we can create each of these five characters from a similar encounter, and focusing on our 'Defining Elements', demonstrate how the encounter can create the five different paths.
The situation is this: The church is responsible for law and order in the city, and forms the basis of the justice system. A rich merchant is arrested for rape, and is taken into custody by the church/city guards. After being taken custody, the merchant offers a bribe to the Abbot of the church, and is allowed to 'escape' both the dungeons and from justice. The character witnesses the exchange between the merchant and the abbot.
Character One- 'Noble' Thief: The character witnesses the bribe being accepted, and decides that the church is full of thieves. After completing his year of indentured service, he begins to prey on the priests and temples, stealing their gold and giving it to the poor of the city, where he believes it rightly belongs.
Character Two- Devout Priest: The character witnesses the bribe being accepted, and decides that the church is full of thieves. He decides to stay in service to the church, and to weed out the corrupt clerics and return the mission of the church to it's true purpose; the conversion of infidels, and well-being of the city.
Character Three- Fighter: The character witnesses the bribe being accepted, and decides that the church is full of thieves. He is rather fatalistic, and believes that if you have the money, you can escape justice. He joins the church guard, in order to catch out the criminals that escape justice, and prevent the crimes he knows occur.
Or, he thinks, "if it's good enough for the Abbot, it's good enough for me", and becomes a corrupt prison officer, taking a commission for each of the prisoners he lets slip out.
Character Four- Paladin: The character witnesses the bribe being accepted, and decides that the church is full of thieves. He receives a vision from the church's deity of a lawful and obedient church, with an honest and goodly clergy. The character becomes a inquisitorial paladin, crusading for order in the city, and ferreting out corrupt priests and guards.
Character Five- Opportunistic Priest: The character witnesses the bribe being accepted, and decides that the church is full of thieves, and he decides that this is the life for him. He studies hard enough to pass his lessons, but spends more of his efforts watching the other priests and acolytes in order to 'get the dirt' on them for future use. He ends up a very unpopular but politically powerful priest.
This was a quick example to demonstrate the importance of Defining Elements in character creation. For a full character description, each of the characters would need to have other defining elements that were the impetus for the choice they made. These may be other similar encounters, familial influences, or others. For example, Character One (the Noble Thief) may have come from a poverty-stricken area, and this affects his decision to champion their plight. Character Five (the Opportunistic Priest) may also be from a poor background, but sees the corruption of the clergy as a way to 'get ahead'. What makes the choices is what makes the character unique; the Defining Elements. To finish off the �Where Am I Going� step, we translate the encounter into a 'foot in the door� to gaining class skills. This is (as previously mentioned) generally by apprenticeship. The character may meet a like-minded individual who takes the character under his wing, and begins their training. Or, the character may seek out a mentor on their own. Using the example of the corrupt fighter (Character Three), perhaps the youth is sent to clean cells or cook for the temple�s prison guards, and is befriended by one of the sergeants, who becomes a mentor. Perhaps, in the same situation, the guard makes �over-friendly� advances to the youth, and another guard takes the youth under his wing to protect him. The possibilities for an imaginative mind are endless.
To use an example of developing skills independent of a mentor, the zero-level character rules in the Greyhawhk Adventures published by TSR used a percentage die to determine success at skill-based actions. If they rolled high (like 95% and over) they had the use of the skill at sixth level of ability for a short duration. EG Darius tries to pick a lock, and rolls a percentile die to determine success. He rolls high, and picks the lock, and remembers how to do so for a week. This is described as 'insight', and provides a method for learning skills outside of the traditional apprentice-style learning, and may be good for a skill-based RPG. Although it may appear difficult to create a character this way, it provides an alternative to the 'I was trained by Hum-Dinger the Nifty, and The K-Mart College of Wizardry' type character.
These characters are often good models for a lone-wolf type persona, such as an Artemis Entreri, but can also be very limiting to play if done haphazardly. Most of the characters that are created via this process would tend to be nature priests, rogues, fighters (barbaric) or hedge-wizards.
Last thing to do here is to get these life events, 'defining elements' and career choice into a format you can use to roleplay. The simplest way that I have found to do this is to get a plain piece of paper, and make three boxes on it. Label them Mannerisms, Favourite Quotes and Motivations.
In the Mannerisms box, write down some of the traits your character has. These can be anything from scratching his chin whilst thinking, always eats breakfast standing up, never sleeps with his boots on, always cleans his sword after combat with a piece of blue cloth, doesn't wear green clothing, and can't concentrate without holding his holy symbol (or sword hilt, or dice).
You can extend this to include some of the character's quirks. To use a modern example, these could be things like not stepping on cracks in the pavement, refusing to buy processed cheese, always having ketchup on hot dogs instead of mustard and so on. In a medieval setting, these may be a fear of horses (perhaps the character was thrown as a child), paranoia about pickpockets, refuses to start the day without a shave, and what ever other foibles you can think of to make the PC more real to you and the other players.
For my character Yusef, I will have him dislike authority figures (after his family�s treatment at the hands of the guard), never leaves the house without his weapons, never walks on the right hand side of the street, and can�t think clearly without his helmet on.
In the second column, we need to create a few Favourite Sayings. These are not necessarily sayings like "Don't count your chickens before they�re hatched', but rather things your character commonly says. For example, I had a woodsman character that used to say "Trees don�t crash �til they bin felled" when discussing making a decision. Dirty Harry's "Go ahead, make my day" typifies the type of character he was; straight up and down, and a no-nonsense hard-hitter. From fantasy literature, Conan used to always say �Crom and Mitra�, or �By Ymir�s beard� and other such expressions. RA Salvatore�s �Roddy McGristle� used to say �Had �im cleaned and dressed�, and �Let�s see what we can see�. These can be provincial sayings, made up sayings, or even a quote that you just like. However, make it appropriate to the setting and the character.
Again, for Yusef, he has a fondness for saying �Laws are for the lawful�, and �By the sands!�.
Motivations are probably the most important of these three roleplaying aids. The end defines the means, and you have to know what your character wants to know what he will choose to do. Is he in it for the money, on the run, revenge? Is he an adrenaline junkie? These things will help you to decide what choices a character will make in certain situations, and be based on the concepts discussed in Steps Two and Three.
Yusef decided to go adventuring to get away from the reputation of his father, to restore the respect his family once had, to get rich, and to prove to himself he is a better man than his father.
Step Four: Filling in the blanks
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