What Is Your Character's Pathological Maneuver?

I've talked a lot about ways to prepare and build characters. I think I've revised and redefined my 'quick templates' for making NPCs - important or otherwise - several times this year. Most recently focusing on the character's 'Core Need' versus their 'Want' and with antagonists/allies going so far as to break down their 'Grand Goal' and 'Current Scheme.'

Recently though I came across a term for another facet of a character that I think is important - especially for major antagonists and allies. That term, or aspet, is their 'Pathological Maneuver.'

Introducing A New Character As A Player

A lot of thought and advice goes into how to introduce new PCs for GMs. This is understandable, depending on the game and group you need a way to integrate the new PC that feels natural to the story and works within the confines of your plot and events that are going on. At least if you're doing a story heavy game. Sometimes the group of adventurers just runs into the last surviving member of another party that just happened to be a room ahead of them in the dungeon - even though nothing behind that other party ever showed or helped the PCs.

The thing is though, as the player of the new PC you also have a responsibility to make it go as smooth as possible. Here are a couple of the things you should be looking for as the Player.

Desire/Goal = Need/Want

Between meetings at work the other day I was thinking about the Desire and Goals system from Hillfolk, and it got me thinking about different ways I've talked about making characters narratively over the years. Before the Hillfolk/Drama System method, the last I saw was in going through a bunch of GM videos talking about how they make characters where I noticed someone included "wants" and "needs" as different ideas for their characters.

In this system, the Want was the physical/achievable goal the character was going for or aiming for. Bob wants a Promotion. Sarah wants the Soul Gem of Teralyr. Stuff like that.

I always struggled with needs. There was an emotional quotient to them, but what was the purpose of the need? How did you define the need? How could you know what the need.

It seems to me the Hillfolk "Desire" fits in for a need very well. While the want is the character goal.

What do we need? Something simple, something not physically attainable, and something tied to an emotion. We need vindication. We need love. We need forgiveness. We need to be punished. We need to punish someone. What we want is our path to achieving that need - even if we don't actually know that that is what we are doing.

Our character chases the villain all over the world. They think they need justice. They think they need to avenge their father/mother/mentor/dog. What they actually need is to come to terms with the fact that the death of their father/mother/mentor/dog was not their fault.

This may sound familiar because it is the story behind a lot of warrior stories, particularly ones from China about someone becoming a "true" warrior or "more enlightened" warrior. In pursuit of the skill/ability to be strong for what they thought was the goal, they hit the wall presented by their need. They overcome that need, fulfill it, and now they are 'complete.' In the process they no longer need the old goal to prove themselves, which is the point where the villain does something nefarious to force the confrontation.

Consider it that way, and maybe it will make more sense. The emotional reward is not something just desired, it is something needed for the character to grow and evolve. The goal? That's just a want they think will fulfill their need, but whether it does or not? Well that depends on how it goes.

Goals: Something You Can Never Have (and why!)

We talked on Monday about your character's desire. The emotional reward they seek. An emotional reward is good, but even better is a goal that is fueled by that desire. This makes for a personal connection to something in the world. It mixes together the desired emotional reward that gives the story resonance, with the tangible physical.

The best goals for dramatic tension involve other characters - whether a PC or an NPC is up to you, but if you're setting your sights on something with or from another PC make sure they're cool with it and involve them in the conversation.

Fortunately, the steps for doing this are super easy. So let's begin.

What Is Your Character's Emotional Desire?

What is the emotional desire of your character? If you're the GM, what is the emotional desire of the important NPCS? Do you know? Have you thought about it? I don't blame you if you haven't. Until recently I hadn't either. Then I watched the "Asians Read Oriental Adventures" play list, and Daniel brought up Hillfolk and the Dramatic Poles. A quick purchase to Pelgrane Press later and I'm reading about the 'Desire' mechanic.

Well, it is less a desire and more a thing to help you define the character. Though it is something you can make mechanics on or around. More importantly, knowing your character's desire will help you in role playing the character.

Who Can Say No To Who?

In a friend's game recently he made a point while presenting a group of people that they had servants, not slaves. After the session we were discussing the game, and he asked if there was anything he could have done better in presenting the people the PCs met. We talked a bit about his goals, and it sounded like his hope was to present how these people operated quickly so we could get a sense of how they were similar to what we expected, but also different from other groups with a similar background (incredible amounts of wealth, fashion, the 'elite' of society as it were.)

For this I honed in on the servants. Part of this is my own character has a background of being a slave. They know what it is like. Also, from their background, they will notice if servant is just a slightly better compensated slave or actually deemed a full on person with rights, responsibilities, and treated as such. I mentioned this, that seeing more of how the servants were servants would be a very efficient way to show the character of the people we were working with.

Another Way To Plan NPCs

I shift through different ways to prepare sessions and NPCs on the regular. I'm not sure what it is, but for some reason my brain gets stuck and I find it harder to prepare my sessions and NPCs until I go looking into how other people do it, find a way I like, copy it, and then we go that way for a while. Sometimes I modify the approach with things I was doing previously. Sometimes I don't. I'm not sure why it keeps happening, but if nothing else it keeps me always looking for new ways to approach things and maybe that helps my games stay fresh since I'm prepared to go in different directions.

Villains As Proactive Heroes

There is old advice for writing that says "A villain is the hero of their own story." I used to think this was one of those 'always true' things, but my thoughts on it have grown nuance. At the surface level essentially it just means that from the villain's perspective they are the good guy trying to do a thing, and that is fair. However, there is room for villains to be good villains that break that.

As with everything there is variance, there are exceptions, and there is wiggle room to be found - especially when it comes to how you define terms. Which means, to go forward I need to define a term and for the purpose of this the term in question is "Hero."

What Does Your Character Want Most?

"What does this character want most?" is a good question to ask yourself whenever you make a character. It isn't the end of the world if you can't answer it, but I find that when I can answer it that the character is a lot more fun to play. After all, I know what it is they want most in the world.

How to Make Interesting Hero and Villain NPCs

Over the course of your campaign your PCs are going to run into heroes and villains other than themselves. These NPCs are going to, in a lot of ways, define the game and you're going to want them to be interesting. Not so interesting they overshine the PCs impact on the story, but interesting enough that not only do your players find them interesting and like them, but that they make it easier for you to employ them in your game dynamically.

The fun part about this is that, ultimately, it is not that hard. At least, in theory. Execution can be much harder. With that said, let's dig in!

Flaws vs. Limitations

When making a character - whether as a GM or player - the recommendation is to give that character flaws. Flaws make the character more unique and more interesting. They help the character generate stories, appeal to the rest of the table, and can even make them more sympathetic in a way. There is only one problem: when it comes to RPGs a lot of what people list as flaws aren't actually flaws, they're limitations. Limitations are great to have as well, but they're not flaws, and as such they don't do the full job you really want from a flaw. Today I want to talk about that.

Random Gender & Sexuality

On Wednesday I mentioned that I do Gender, Sexuality, and Age randomly when making characters. Today I want to explain how I do this, why, and why - if you're comfortable doing it - I recommend you give it a try.

Let's Build a Character w/ Six Truths & a Player Goal

This coming weekend one of the groups I'm in will be starting a new game. The GM gave a try to the Six Truths method for presenting the world, and I figured this would be a good chance to show how you can use those truths in building a character that should fit the game.

Character Motivation: Achilles' Quest For Immortality

I've been thinking a lot about character motivations of late. Part of this is trying to find a motivation for one of my characters beyond simple survival - because let's face it, if your goal is to survive you're better off not being an adventurer. I've gone through a few different ideas, but then something popped into mind: Immortality.

Why Is Your Character Adventuring? (Goals & Motivation)

One of the things I'm really bad with when making characters is goals and motivations. I can make the stat line. I can make the character. I can make the backstory. I can put all those together. I can even probably give you a sense of who the person is. However, when it comes to what their goals are, or why they do the things they do, I struggle.

SEX! Now that I have your attention, let's talk about sex!

As a heads up, I'm not going to be going into any graphic depictions of sex in this blog post. I am, however, going to be talking about sex in your games and sexuality in characters. Also, nothing said here is meant to insult. If I make a mistake when discussing some aspect of sexuality, please let me know I am in error. 

That said, let's begin.

Sex has an interesting place at the gaming table. On the one hand, you can't go 5 steps into an internet community built around RPGs without getting some variation of "Bards seduce everything. EVERYTHING." On the other, a lot of people - with good reason - think that sex has no place at the game table or in gaming, that simply isn't the kind of content they're interested in. As always, the truth lies somewhere - generally towards the middle - in practice. Where exactly though is different from group to group. Still, done right - and maturely - sex and sexuality can add a lot to your game and your game world. So today I want to talk about it.

One on One Character Creation

A lot of games talk about making characters with the GMs. Some games specify this should be done in a group setting - all the players plus the GM - in kind of a session 0 thing. Others are less clear. One of my favorite  ways to make characters, though it takes more time, is for player creation to happen as sort of a 1 on 1 between the GM and the player. Today I want to talk about that, and some things you should look to establish when doing so.

Starting A New Game - Character Creation

On Friday my group got together and we had a chat about what we want to do next. Due to some of the real world stresses several of us are under, we decided that a game that was more morally 'black and white' than 'shades of gray' was a good idea. Not that we don't want to tell stories, but we want ones where we can blow of steam and not worry about moral complexities and whether or not it's ok to be punching that guy in the face.

After going through the options we had, it was decided that I would stay in the GMing seat, and that we're going to play D&D fifth edition. This makes 2 D&D games I'm running - something I never thought I'd say again - but I also like to think it's a testament to 5th ed's strength that my whole group is ready to go into it - sometimes while already playing in the system in another game. That's rare.

Anyhow, with the GM and game decided, we're onto Character Creation. So let's talk about that.

A Note on Historical Accuracy and Character Representation

While this happens mainstream with videogames a lot, I've also seen it around several gaming tables and I figure it is worth talking about. For some of you this may bother you - and feel free to disagree with me on it all you want. For others, you may feel the same as I do, in which case maybe this will give you some counter-arguments to make.

Let's put this simply: 'Historical Accuracy' is not a reason to deny someone playing the character sex, race, or anything else that they want.

Preparing NPCs - Personality Generators

The internet is an absolutely lovely device, and can do a lot of the prep work for you if you know where to go. There are sites that will randomly generate dungeons for you - complete with placing traps and encounters. There are sites that will do random treasure generation for you. There are dozens of sites that will give you random lists of names for anything and everything under the real world, fantasy world, and/or sci-fi world sun(s).