Many times in RolePlay it’s hard to create a character. We know kind of what we want, but don’t know how to get there or how to use characters in multiple roles in different stories. In this lecture, I’m going to go through the process of my creation of one my most iconic characters, General Emily Akerman.
Firstly, the popularity of your character is never in your hands. Yes, your favorite character may be the protagonist, a powerful king and the coolest guy ever, but he could totally get overshadowed by your minor characters, and can eventually become the characters you use more frequently. In my case, Alicia Burns, Queen Leah, and General Akerman all started as minor characters, and earned their legendary status because people liked their stories or their inclusion in stories.
With that being said, making strong characters ensures that characters aren’t one and done, they can be reused again and again to ensure they aren’t lost because they don’t have a role to play. Over the course of her time as my character, General Akerman has gone from a named minor character, to a member of the main cast, and now as new characters are being introduced, she is serving as a mentor figure to those new characters, coming full circle.
When I began, I needed a general to lead my nation’s armies. I gave her a random name, and decided she’d be stereotypically mean for no reason. She’d just be a complete asshole. Characters like these are great for minor characters that have one-off roles, but if you think they’ll appear more than once, it’s best to understand your character more fully.
The way to understand your character more fully is by asking questions. You’ll find that by expanding on even one question can get you further into their backstory. Like I said, Akerman is grumpy and mean. Why is she like that? It’s because she’s an underdog. Why she an underdog? It’s because she had a rough life.
As you unpack more about your character, not only do you make them multifaceted, but you open up the path to future stories. Knowing Akerman is grumpy being she’s an underdog who had a rough life before she got to her position, it opens up an opportunity to potentially tell the story of Akerman’s origin, her struggles, and her rise to power.
So far, I’ve focused on only one of Akerman’s emotion’s, her anger. No one is ever one hundred percent in one emotion. Angry people do smile eventually, and happy people do cry eventually, even if it is super rare. Akerman is such a hit with the RolePlay community not because she’s a badass general, but because she’s funny. She serves as a comical relief, and overall honest character. She says what others are thinking, and is a good "window into the RP" character.
Have your characters approach each problem like you would expect them to, not how you would. I’d personally be super scared if a group of five men were blocking a path, but Akerman would say "fuck you all" and began to kick their asses. Think about their needs and their wants and how they see the world.
Develop your character not as a "good guy" or a "bad guy" but how they view the world. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve made a villain and then while crafting them, I realized that I’d do the exact same thing in their shoes. My friend in high school always joked I was Frankenstein (who is, contrary to popular belief, the monster) because I’m so smart and would probably do something ridiculous like that, not cause I’m evil, but because I walk the line between genius and insanity.
Death is inevitable. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your character is kill them off. Do it right though. As much as it hurt to do it, I knew that Queen Leah’s stress would eventually catch up to her, and with her time as a character waning, I decided to pull the plug and kill her off. If I ever killed off Akerman, which I’ll be honest, I have thought about doing a few times, it would have to be her going down fighting against a huge force that barely was able to kill her.
In summary, good characters are characters that are multifaceted, can serve multiple roles, aren’t necessary good or evil, and when they die, it leaves an effect on the characters, the story, or even you.
Thank you.
Firstly, the popularity of your character is never in your hands. Yes, your favorite character may be the protagonist, a powerful king and the coolest guy ever, but he could totally get overshadowed by your minor characters, and can eventually become the characters you use more frequently. In my case, Alicia Burns, Queen Leah, and General Akerman all started as minor characters, and earned their legendary status because people liked their stories or their inclusion in stories.
With that being said, making strong characters ensures that characters aren’t one and done, they can be reused again and again to ensure they aren’t lost because they don’t have a role to play. Over the course of her time as my character, General Akerman has gone from a named minor character, to a member of the main cast, and now as new characters are being introduced, she is serving as a mentor figure to those new characters, coming full circle.
When I began, I needed a general to lead my nation’s armies. I gave her a random name, and decided she’d be stereotypically mean for no reason. She’d just be a complete asshole. Characters like these are great for minor characters that have one-off roles, but if you think they’ll appear more than once, it’s best to understand your character more fully.
The way to understand your character more fully is by asking questions. You’ll find that by expanding on even one question can get you further into their backstory. Like I said, Akerman is grumpy and mean. Why is she like that? It’s because she’s an underdog. Why she an underdog? It’s because she had a rough life.
As you unpack more about your character, not only do you make them multifaceted, but you open up the path to future stories. Knowing Akerman is grumpy being she’s an underdog who had a rough life before she got to her position, it opens up an opportunity to potentially tell the story of Akerman’s origin, her struggles, and her rise to power.
So far, I’ve focused on only one of Akerman’s emotion’s, her anger. No one is ever one hundred percent in one emotion. Angry people do smile eventually, and happy people do cry eventually, even if it is super rare. Akerman is such a hit with the RolePlay community not because she’s a badass general, but because she’s funny. She serves as a comical relief, and overall honest character. She says what others are thinking, and is a good "window into the RP" character.
Have your characters approach each problem like you would expect them to, not how you would. I’d personally be super scared if a group of five men were blocking a path, but Akerman would say "fuck you all" and began to kick their asses. Think about their needs and their wants and how they see the world.
Develop your character not as a "good guy" or a "bad guy" but how they view the world. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve made a villain and then while crafting them, I realized that I’d do the exact same thing in their shoes. My friend in high school always joked I was Frankenstein (who is, contrary to popular belief, the monster) because I’m so smart and would probably do something ridiculous like that, not cause I’m evil, but because I walk the line between genius and insanity.
Death is inevitable. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your character is kill them off. Do it right though. As much as it hurt to do it, I knew that Queen Leah’s stress would eventually catch up to her, and with her time as a character waning, I decided to pull the plug and kill her off. If I ever killed off Akerman, which I’ll be honest, I have thought about doing a few times, it would have to be her going down fighting against a huge force that barely was able to kill her.
In summary, good characters are characters that are multifaceted, can serve multiple roles, aren’t necessary good or evil, and when they die, it leaves an effect on the characters, the story, or even you.
Thank you.