The Hopeless Gamer

I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes a character tick. Oddly enough, a great source of inspiration for this musing has come from the fact that one of my favorite guilty pleasures, Deadliest Warrior, is now on Netflix Instant Watch, and I've been watching the hell out of that bloody mess of machismo, pseudo science, and anachronistic bullshit of a TV show. I like the weapons, so sue me. Anyway, I began thinking about just how ridiculous the show is when they do their final battle. You see, they basically rate the common weapons used by each type of warrior against the other warrior's weapons. I do think it's possible to say, quantitatively, that one type of sword is generally better than another, but the thing that the show really misses is that it's actually really, really hard to do so without context. The reason these weapons are known today is that they were the best weapons for the people for the place and time they lived in.

So all of that hot air brings about today's topic. As a player, I'm responsible for fleshing out my character to give my GM and fellow players something interesting to work with. If you've seen my posts from the past two weeks talking about the Three Questions, you'll know what I mean, but to sum it up quickly - I need to know what my character wants, why my character wants it, and what my character is willing to do to get it. These three things about my character will give me enough information to react to any situation that could pop up and make life difficult for him (or her, but almost always him). The answers, in a way, are a shortcut to a lot of other useful information that I am than able to make up on the fly. This allows me to develop my character through play while still have a rock-solid foundation to fall back on for the sake of consistency.

But what about the GM? What about an NPC that you may only meet twice ever? We want our NPC's and supporting cast to be colorful and memorable, rigth? How do we make this happen? Since we're talking about a lord/mayor/baron whatever of a small area, I think the easiest way to make a character like this stick out is to make sure you have a clear understanding of how the town is affected by his leadership. You may only see the character once or twice (or maybe even never in some cases), but the thing that's really going to stand out about your Baron is the people who suffer or succeed around him. Yes, like any NPC, the Baron will benefit from having the Three Questions answered for him, but like I said, the three questions are really best used for laying the ground work and developing a character over time.