Posted by Sa Chi in All The Galaxy's A Stage | 9 Comments
All The Galaxy’s A Stage: Developing Character (Backgrounds)
All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals. On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community. On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic. Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!
Are you the kind of Role-Player that likes to start with a blank sheet and develop your character as you go? Do you like to develop a detailed background for your character before you start? Maybe you approach character development somewhere in between these two approaches? Or perhaps you are new to Role-Playing and are wondering what in the galaxy character backgrounds are all about?
Hi, my name is Anakin, and I am your father.
The Blank Slate
On one hand, starting with a blank sheet is certainly easier. You decide your character is X class, from Y planet, of Z species, name them, maybe add a few more details and off you go. You’re like a painter sat in front of a white canvas, free to create whatever whim inspires your imagination.
However, the upfront savings in time and freedom will invariably come with a cost later on. The biggest challenge with blank-sheet characters in my experience is keeping their story consistent. Imagine the following scenario. You’re in a cantina looking for a way to keep the conversation going when you decide to tell a fine looking Twi’lek smuggler that you’ve done some seriously dodgy work for the Hutts. Now that you’ve established this piece of history for your character it really is in your interest to think about how your character got involved with the Hutts, whether they’re still working for them, and what the adverse consequences of such an association are or have been. You can skip this step, but when you think about it the less consistent you are about such details the more you might end up with threads from your character’s history contradicting each other. And if you’re not careful your character concept can become lost over time to a confused product of many RP scenes.
The Game Before The Game
On the other hand, some RPers (like me) spend a fair amount of time mapping out what happened to a character before bringing them into game. Whilst I am not a fan of describing every detailed moment of a character’s past, I do like to consider significant events and their impact on my character’s personality. By understanding the history of a character I can more clearly shape how that character thinks today and build a consistent sense of their goals and motivations. Another way to look at it is, past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. A character’s history helps me to make future decisions as my character. However, how the character looks at the world is also important. My RP goal is to create a three-dimensional character that is different to who I am in real life, that I think, speak, and react differently with. In effect, I seek to become that character in my mind. This is no easy goal, but I have found that the better I understand my character’s past and their future goals the easier it becomes to identify with them. With some practice I can start thinking as they would. This all leads to a fluid experience where what I type flows more effortlessly. And this, in my experience, is where a well-crafted character background can really make a difference.
The downsides to a detailed character background can include painting yourself into a corner. If you explain too much detail then you leave yourself little room to make adjustments later. In my experience, this is the biggest complaint of those RPers that prefer the freedom of a blank sheet. And there is certainly something to be said for having the flexibility to adapt to situations and groups.
A factor that is also worth mentioning concerns the character’s age. If you are Role-Playing a 16 year old Jedi Padawan that’s been in the Jedi Order since age 2 then there is not much background to write given such a limited experience. However, if you’re portraying a smuggler or Imperial Agent that’s been around the block a few times then the chances are they’ve got a mountain of stories about their adventures.
One compromise that has worked for me in the past is to think about the three or four of the most significant events in the character’s life. This approach can help with working out how a character was shaped whilst allowing a fair degree of flexibility. After all, it’s my experience that who I am today has been greatly influenced by my response to the many events that have unfolded about me. Wouldn’t this be the same for any character?
Next Steps
Did you enjoy Han Solo as a character? That depth and roundness of character is what happens when someone thinks really hard about how to make a character three-dimensional. Don’t be intimidated by creative genius – be inspired by it! Whether or not you opt for a blank sheet, a detailed background, or a mix somewhere in between my recommendation is to always strive for dynamic, three-dimensional characters. After all, the more interesting your character the more likely others will enjoy including them in RP.
If you’re looking for more guidance on how to create a character background I thought I’d close with some references. Vhanz at swtor-rp.com put together some excellent little RP exercises to get your RP creativity flowing:
If you’re new to RP and are looking for more detail on creating a character background you can click here. In the next column I will explore one of the interesting challenges of RP within an MMO. Until then comment below and share your thoughts about how you develop your character.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
The trouble I have at the moment of giving the proper consideration to such exercises… Is that while I have fairly extensive EU knowledge (and exposure to the old pnp SW games), I’m just not sure I’m aware enough of what options are going to be available in TOR when it launches.
I mean, I could sit down and whip up some generic background for say, a Sith Inquisitor based on the sith culture around the Hyperspace War… but that’s not going to mesh that well with how the Empire actually is. Which is going to cause contradictions when I try playing it…
Basic pyschological responses, yes, fairly easy to do and can be carried across.. but at present, we really only know that Sith Inquisitor’s start off as slaves, and get discovered to have Force potential. There’s so much room for fuzzyness when you try to nail down what causes those responses to situations when you don’t have the background focus to get to grips with.
And that’s just with one class as an example… With the other seven there’s just as much unknown to truly nail down beyond the basic ideas.
So the questions I think at the moment, you can really only answer the generic “this is the vague approach I’ll be going for with my character” rather then specific answers tied to background events….
There might not be tons of detail around ‘options’ but we do have a series of TOR books (Fatal Alliance and Deceived come to mind) that have been written either in extensive consultation with the SWTOR writing team or by a BW writer for SWTOR. Also, Wookiepedia goes along way to provide much of the information and history prior to events in the game. Add what’s been released through the forums and there’s actually quite a bit of information out there.
That said, as a Role-Player I’ve got to tell you that I’m actually not that fussed by how BW tells their story. The two SWTOR books I’ve already read have presented class archetypes that fit with much of my previous understanding. And in some regards, the BW story (and companions) have the potential to be a constraint.
From what I can tell it sounds like you’re headed somewhere between the Blank Slate and detailed approach. When you get more information (likely in-game) you’ll build more detail then. I’ve met and chatted with a number of RPers who aren’t even going to bother putting a character together until they’ve played the game. And I’ve also been RPing for over the past couple of years with RPers who are developing characters so that come launch they’ll have a rich history and set of experiences already in place.
And you know what – even if BW does throw a curve ball or two at us, we’ll react. That’s what RPers do really well, think on our feet.
Excellent article! Definitely going to keep an eye on “Ask a Jedi” now. I, like many players out there, have then Pen and Paper RP experience outside of MMO-RP. My MMO experiences most came from Star Wars Galaxies. I’ve had two major characters throughout. First was my bounty hunter. He was the blank slate. I started with little more than a personality and a carbine. Through time he developed a rich trove of experiences that made up for his lack of back story. I could always use the cliched move of “I don’t talk about my past”.
The second RP character was my Force user. For him I created a personality and a concept as I did with my hunter, but I also spent weeks pouring through my then extensive library of star wars books, pages and pages of woookiepedia and more in an attempt to detail a history that didn’t clash with historical events. The fellow was well into his 50’s and many many things happened within 50 yrs of the ANH era of SWG. Taking the time and effort for a back story really made him a 3 dimensional character.
The hunter was fun and everyone got along with him but he was a body with a personality. The Force user had ideals, emotional baggage, experiences prior to the first day of roleplay that fleshed him out into the closest thing to a real person. In short, I think in depth backgrounds are the way to truly give a character that spark.
Thanks for relating your experience and your feedback. You nailed my preference to be honest. There’s something (for me at least) about an indepth background that really helps lift a character for me.
Keep up the good work Sar Key. Your delving into the foibles of blank-slate RP bring back some painful memories of my earlier WoW characters, but those are experiences to learn from. I’m taking a bit of a middle ground approach with my upcoming character in TOR. He will be twenty by the time of launch, his “history” with his given faction going back to when he was 15. Before that his personality will be dictated by childhood experience.
And coming up with three or four major events in your character’s past is a great tip. I’m going to get on that!
WoW RP was an interesting experience for me. When I started playing WoW I was RPing in the real world and never really looked to the online MMO scene to get my RP on. However, what little I experience I had with RP in WoW leads me to believe I must have been on the wrong server.
I use that 3/5 major events approach as a way to pull together characters quickly. It’s also very useful as a GM to be able together NPCs with some depth quickly and be able to hold a deep dialog with players if necessary.
I tend to use a big of both. I try to have a strong enough handle on a character’s persona, surface behaviors, and long terms goals/motivators that I can adlib convincingly.
The danger to an overdeveloped background isn’t just that you paint yourself into a corner but you paint yourself into a wallflower in the corner. Nothing going on “makes sense” for your character to get involved with. Hence, you don’t roleplay or barely interact. Leaving yourself a little wiggleroom allows you to add-in details about your character’s past that might get him or her involved with real live roleplaying going on around you.
Or as I put it in the comments to an old blog entry:
“If you go too far down the path of deep internal biography instead of a rudder, which is the role it plays as it ensures internal consistancy for a character’s behavior over time, you end up with an anchor. “My character wouldn’t do this, can’t do that, never would have anything to do with this other.” You may up having more internal dialogues with yourself than with the characters right in front of you.”
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/OddjobXL/032009/3552_Fitting-Character-To-Game#comments
More thoughts on on persona creation in, the appropriately titled, “Thoughts on Persona Creation.”
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/OddjobXL/032009/3433_Thoughts-On-Persona-Creation
That’s an interesting perspective. As I consider it I can see how that might happen. At the same time though, a rebuttal comes to mind. If a player allows a detailed background to turn them into a wallflower and avoids all RP because nothing fits, then that might be more about the player than the character background. If I’ve invested enough time to have such a constraining background then surely I am motivated to find ways to RP? And if I allow myself to not RP and place the blame on the background then that speaks to something else or a lack of awareness as to what’s going on. I’m not disputing the central premise you’ve presented and I agree on the worth of thinking through it to ensure you avoid it. After these articles and ensuing comments are all about raising awareness to subtleties such as this.
That said, I can see situations where a certain character isn’t suited to certain situations. Should a Jedi Consular focusing on the mysteries of the Force and being liberated from attachment spend lots of time drinking down at the Cantina and swinging into bar brawls? It does depend on how you interpret the Jedi genre of course. But I also think that when we create a character we’re going to gain a sense of what the character would or wouldn’t like. If my character is not a big drinker then I’ll gravitate to situations and environments that are more condusive to the PC’s personality. And this discussion actually supports a future article I had in mind…
Thanks for the great insight and comment!
Good article, and definitely gives some food for thought. My own approach is probably somewhere in between. I like to develop some type of background for my character based on whatever setting that I will be role playing within. I find some development helps give me a starting point and shape what I envision the character to be.
I still also leave things open to development and growth for the future, not always wanting to encode all the details so I do not end up putting myself into sort of corner. Though, really, even with a more detailed background, I think that I can still generally make a character work for me.