Too Unique?

FalconJudge wrote:

In the meantime, let's keep making decent characters that aren't clones of each other.

/thread

I'm just going to blatantly defy Fish here and post in this thread anyway, because it's interesting.

So yeah, I'm kinda of two minds about this myself. On the one hand, it's all too easy to end up creating individuals that bear an unhealthy similarity to the your favorite characters, (A flaw I think I may a have a weakness to myself) instead of going the extra distance and writing a genuinely three-dimensional character. This usually results in terminal levels of blandness.

However, the other extreme is even uglier, in my opinion. As someone with some passing experience running a D&D campaign, the tendency of players to create half-drow, half-dragon, half-celestial characters who deliberately (and often gleefully) defy the guidelines of the setting just to prove how 'unique' they are, is something I'm all too familiar with. I have very little tolerance for someone who won't at least meet the campaign setting half-way, and those characters tended to not live very long, I'm happy to say.

Oi, now I've gone and constructed a wall of text. In short: I believe that in the process of developing a believable, nuanced character it's almost inevitable that they'll end up being unique, if you're able and willing to do the work. But if your thinking 'I need to make this character really unique' right from the start, you're on the wrong track.

timing and prinnydood, i think you two just hit the nail on the head there, thank you

There is no such thing as an idea that hasn't been thought of in this day and age (or so they say).

That being said, I think it may not be so much the uniqueness of the characters themselves, but rather the uniqueness of the situation the author/creator places them in, that sometimes causes them to seem stale and unimaginative.

Damnit, and here I was thinking this thread had died.

Language, man.

I can see where you'r ecoming from with this and I can sympathise. If we all make Crisis clones it'll get stale and boring. I think I see it a littl differantly to you though. When I make a character I think of what type of story I'm going to put them in first before designing them. I'll use Elizabeth and Ebony as my example:

- With Elizabeth I wanted to introduce her with a tragedy and then show her apadting to Felarya with her less than ideal guardian. I wanted the character to feel very out of place and unused to Felarya and so worked from there to create the character.
- With Ebony on the other hand I'm going to be playing her for laughs, it'll be a comedic series so I made the character quirky and odd.

If I do decide to inflict some sort of injury such as limb loss or a super not cliche scar I'll make sure it has a reason for the stroy development. Do you see where I'm coming form here.

It's funny, most of my characters a re spur of the moment and I just make shit up as I go along, even in the designing process. This is why it often surprises me when a lot of people like one of my chars. Like Malis, for example. I basically had been looking at Karbo's work and was like "Ya know, I like nagas, why don't I have a naga character yet?" So I pulled out my sketch pad and started drawing. I literally came up with her design and slight story right then and there. And yet, a lot of people seem to like her. Just shows that you don't have to try to hard to be unique, just come up with something that you like and others might like it too.