Thanks to my procrastinatory tendencies, I often leave things too long and the work piles up. Case in point is creating characters for convention games.
Typically, I get two or three good ideas for characters that I get really excited about and wish I could play myself. Those ideas run around in my head for months or weeks. Catchphrases and mannerisms start forming in my conceptions of them. Usually some less exciting ideas for the other three characters -- I like to have six characters max in my games -- pop up as well.
When it finally comes time to write everything out, usually in one session because I've been procrastinating, I usually do the characters I like a lot first. Then come the ones that were "Well, I guess they'll need a sneaky type," or "That'd be kinda interesting." By the fifth or sixth character, I'm throwing almost anything on the page, just to get it over with.
Horrible, but true. In my defense, though, I haven't procrastinated nearly as long this time. I'm actually far enough in advance to get some playtesting done with my regular group. So that's awesome.
I wonder if having convention characters I'm invested in, even in a "I wish I could play this one" way, is a good idea. It creates false expectations in my head of what the character might say or how they may act. I might react adversely to how the player chooses to play, or not play, the character.
My strong idea of how the character should be played might bleed into their write-up, causing people to pass it over because it's unappealing in its narrow focus/one-note-iness. Maybe I should write all my PCs more loosely, with less strong ideas on how to play them, so as to give players more room to make the characters their own.
It's something to think about.
Tags: Rpgs Characters Gming
