(10-14-2013, 04:38 AM)K Wrote: It's a personal taste, but I usually work off a very loose concept with 'a hook' more or less.Â
Exactly. Â Some people think they need every little minutiae worked out before they even log in for the first time. Â I find this stifling and overwhelming, so I start with a "seed." Â
For Qin, when I started playing him for the first time at the launch of WoW's Burning Crusade (oh, memories), I knew I wanted a character who had taken a name that wasn't his own for the purpose of penance, exactly like like David Qin from the fabulous graphic novel series Strangers in Paradise. Â That was it. Â That was my "seed." Â I created him and logged in.
Within the first week of interacting with my husband's characters as well as other friends, Qin went from benevolent to manipulative. Â The seed was there - he put on a facade and was penitent for a horrific crime he had committed in the past - but him being a "good guy" held up for about three seconds. Â Eventually Qin grew to a con-man street-corner preacher who had the Forsaken under his thrall.
The point is I never thought he would go in that direction, but as I was RPing, he developed. Â I couldn't have fleshed him out without RPing. Â It's good to start with the basics - like where your character is from, his name, et cetera - but the minutiae will come later. Â
