need some tips on improving my character history and personality - Printable Version +- Hydaelyn Role-Players (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18) +-- Forum: Community (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=8) +--- Forum: Character Workshop (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=34) +--- Thread: need some tips on improving my character history and personality (/showthread.php?tid=14585)

need some tips on improving my character history and personality - Daias - 12-12-2015 Hi RPC community, I have been working on my character personality and history but I am not good working on that stuff. I want some tips from experts or people who knows a lot about character development so I can improve the history and the personality of my character. some help about it is appreciated too. Here is what I made so far: Name:Sannan Irvick Race: Lalafell-Plainsfolk Age: 21 Personality:  Sannan is a polite, childish, caring and innocent boy. Sannan can take some time to talk to someone and he will stare at people for a while until he feels encouraged to talk but when he does can be very sweet and verynice and if he finds you cute (especially if you are miqo'te or Au'ra) He will give you hugs and pats for no reason, if he finds an au'ra or miqo'te or any minion or animal in trouble, He would be a caring person and would want to help asmuch as possible. Sannan is very intelligent too but he only says or does something intelligent when it's necessary. Sannan rarely gets angry and he is loyal to his friends. Sannan has a serious side and somehow seems to enjoy fighting and kind of has a sadistic side but He hides that bad side of him with his childish attitude as a way to hide evidence that He is a soldier from the Garlean empire.   History:Sannan was born Ala Mhigo and raised there for a year but after that the Garlean empire invaded Ala Mhigo and Sannan parents got killed while Sannan was taken to  Garlemand to serve the empireand educated there to see the empire in a good way.   Sannandidn't have any friends in Garlemand and the only one who was his friend which at the same time was the person who educated him and a father figure to him was an Au'Ra Raen called Bauen who saw Sannan as the son he could never have. Bauen taught Sannan some arcane arts aswell as summoning skills and some black magic.  when Sannan summoned emeraldcarbuncle for first time, He loved his summon and then he started to get an interests for the summons, animals and Bauen race origins and his culture and He told to Sannan some about these stuff but He didn't told him everything because He wanted Sannan to see some of that stuff in the future but unfortunately Sannan had to go through harsh training as orders from the empire. When Sannanturned 18, He was obligated to enlist to the Garlean military but the empire assigned Sannan a reconnaissance mission to eorzea and Sannan decided to do that mission as he saw it as an opportunity to see the world even if he had to stay away from Bauen but Bauen supported Sannan since He wanted Sannan to see the world by his own eyes and to find his path on his life. During someof his time at Eorzea, Sannan got interested on the land and kind of love it but He was starting to feel troubled on deciding between turning his back to the empire or not but still he sends some important reports about his mission to the empire via a linkshell. RE: need some tips on improving my character history and personality - Valence - 12-13-2015 Hello,  I am not going in depth unless you want me to (especially on the character history part), so an the overall I think I can see where you want to go with that character, and you spend a great deal of words to describe his good qualities. He strikes me as a gentle soul that probably has a rather introverted side and may also have an obsession for auras and mi'qote, or just whatever is kawaii.  I am not sure for what kind of audience and character you are aiming to begin with: are you trying to picture an adventurous hero like in shonen mangas, with many exaggerated traits and following strong tropes, or are you aiming for something more tame, subtle, and mature? Or something else? Comedy maybe?  I think you will have to define that before everything, especially in a game like FF where it can vary tremendously in terms of tone and narrative.  Ok, now you vaguely mentioned his 'darker' side as a certain pleasure in fight. With that in mind, I think you may have troubles developping a character precisely because you maybe do not dwelve enough on the flaws and more negative sides of the character. I would say that to flesh out a 3 dimensional character with a bit of depth, you will require to spend at least 50 or even 75% of the good sides / bad sides part on the actual negative sides of the character. It is what makes characters interesting, what makes them stand out and original, and what creates drama and incentives for them to evolve above everything else.  It doesn't have necessarily to fall into the common cliché of the "dark brooding hero". Maybe you still want to pull out that trope... To draw from the same category of story and license, a character akin to Squall (FF8) pulls that cliché rather well, precisely because the dark brooding side is not there for the sake of it. It has reasons to be there, and it is developped to the point where it will make the character caustic, cynical, and overall detestable to his entourage (now also, take care with that too or you will just paint your character into a corner). A negative side can be anything really. Very mundane things, and can even participate to make your character more endearing. You say he likes to fight, and has a sadistic tendency. The big question might be, how to make that fit in the same mold than the "very sweet" side you described above? Is he going to be a pure sadist that actually hides that behind a false, honeyed attitude? Is he a pervert (seeing his obsession for some of the fair sex of other races)? Be careful with those themes, they are strong negative sides and not easy to pull without falling into the mustache twirling villain cliché or just the kind of character with no friends that nobody will ever want to play with.  If I had to deal with those though, I would try to smooth the edges a little: maybe he is a small lalafel (like all lalafels duh) that has a size complex and can show sadism in situations where he has the occasion to hurt people taller and more intimidating than him? But overall, he is a nice fellow with some flaws like everybody else? Or maybe he got bullied in his childhood and tends to take his revenge somewhat now that he knows thaumathurgy or the likes, but overall, remains a sweet fellow that just can't stand some specific individuals?  I hope that helps! RE: need some tips on improving my character history and personality - Daias - 12-13-2015 if you want to go in depth on the history part, go ahead, that part is what gave me most trouble but what i kind of want to keep so far about the history is that my character was raised in Garlemald and that he had some sort of dark past there but still had someone on his side but at some point he would leave Garlemald to escape from the empire (probably at some time betraying the empire).    as for my character i can't tell to which type of audience i want to aim to, but i want him to be the nice guy who cares a lot about animals and that he would help people in need (but not something too heroic) as well as the guy who is interested in studying stuff that is new to him and interesting to him but at the same time i want him to have some negative sides of his personality caused by his loneliness and the harsh training that he had to bear during his time on Garlemald. RE: need some tips on improving my character history and personality - Kage - 12-13-2015 Honestly, I'm not interested in a biography of good things and bad things about your character or a list of positives and negatives. I'm more interested in what makes him tick. What drives and motivates Sannan? You mentioned the Au Ra Bauen, but does all Sannan do connect to him? Why is he loyal to Garlemald? Does he just follow the orders of the army blindly? What keeps him from deciding whether or not to defect from the Garlean Empire? Perhaps it is Bauen? Or does he know people in Garlemald, such as some friends? What kind of friends does Sannan enjoy the company of? Why is he lonely and yet have friends? Why does he stay in the Empire's army when it treated him badly? What about Eorzea does he like that he considers defecting? Has he met anyone? Does he like the governments or dislike them? What drives Sannan to continue living? RE: need some tips on improving my character history and personality - Daias - 12-13-2015 this may answers all or almost most of the questions. the reason why Bauen is loyal to Garlemald is that he got saved by a soldier from the empire when he was about to get killed by a band of thieves during one of his trips to the northern lands and to pay his debt with the one who saved him, he decided to serve the empire. when he met Sannan at the beginning he was following orders from his superiors, but after some time he felt bad for sannan for the fact that he may live a lonely life and Bauen decided to stay with sannan but sometimes he was forced to leave sannan alone for a while to follow some other orders from his superiors. the reason why sannan is between defecting the empire or not is because he can't betray Bauen (which was his only friend) after all the stuff he did for him. sannan didn't like how things were in the empire and at some point he was thinking in trying to escape from Garlemald but he was scared of getting caught and receiving a possible brainwashing. what drives sannan from living was his curiosity about the things that Bauen told him about the world aswell as about animals.