Remember That Characters Are Still Individuals

The human brain likes neat categories, and clear explanations of things. We like things to be neat and clean, and we have a thirst that often makes us see patterns even when they aren't there. And while this tendency can be useful in a lot of situations, it can often bite us when we're trying to make interesting, unique characters for our games.

Which is why this week I wanted to take a minute to remind folks of a very important thing that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. Namely that while our characters might be part of a larger species, a particular culture, a given religion, they are still individuals. They are shaped by the forces of the game world, but they are not under an obligation to follow tradition if we don't want them to.

There are many knights, but none like me.

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Broad Strokes and Fine Lines

Let's take a moment and think about our lives outside of gaming for a second. All of us have dozens of labels that describe the groups we're part of, and the experiences that have shaped our lives. A person will have an ethnicity, a nationality, a religion (or lack thereof), and a place in a family structure of some kind. In addition to that there's the region they grew up in, what schools they attended, what social clubs or hobbies they've joined, what fandoms they're a part of, what kind of relationship style they prefer, and dozens of other factors that make up who we are as individuals.

And while we know these things about ourselves, we sometimes forget that the people around us are just as complicated, and formed by just as many experiences and forces as we are. Instead of seeing them as complex individuals made up of thousands of different facets, we reduce them to easily observable categories. Often we resort to stereotypes, seeing individuals as indistinguishable from a greater whole that they're part (or seem to be part) of.

A lot of the time these ways of thinking worm their way into our creative processes, and we end up with characters who are all broad strokes, and no fine lines. Characters that, a lot of the time, are actually pretty close to caricatures.

So just because I dress fashionably I'm automatically a Toreador? Foolish mortals.

You see perfect examples of this in the World/Chronicles of Darkness setting. Because Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, and the other spheres all have sections in the books where we see the stereotypes of certain character options held both within their own culture, and when seen by outsiders. For example, in Vampire games the Toreador are typically seen as art snobs, concerned with fashion, appearance, and beauty above other factors. In Werewolf, the Get of Fenris are seen as warriors, but also as brutes who tend to be bull-headed and crass.

But those are just general, broad stereotypes. They're even listed as such in the book so that we know this isn't required, but it's flavor meant to inform.

These stereotypes aren't like a Nosferatu's physical and spiritual repugnancy; something that is an actual fact within the game world and which has its own mechanic to represent it. They're broadly held opinions... but opinions don't dictate how a character must act, or the experiences they've had. So if you wanted to play an ogre in a Changeling: The Lost game, the facts about your character are the ways you can spend glamour, and the contracts that come more naturally to you. You might be stereotyped as a dim-witted bruiser, but you could just as easily be a computer programmer, an investment banker, or a philosophy professor who, much like Plato, could power bomb people to win an argument if they so desired.

Separate Stereotypes From Facts

A useful exercise I've found is to wipe away everything that isn't a fact about a particular character, and to start from scratch when deciding what they must be, and what you can choose to make them. For example, it is a fact that orcs can see in the dark. It is a fact their bodies are physically more durable than humans (represented by the ferocity trait), and it might be a fact that a certain character has rending teeth because they have a bite attack.

But a lot of the other baggage that comes with playing an orc (that they're inherently violent, that they're savage, that they're evil, etc.) aren't necessarily facts because the rules don't state them as such for games like Pathfinder and more recent editions of Dungeons and Dragons. As such, these are not aspects you are beholden to, and you can often ignore, or plot around them in order to change your particular character and the path they're on. Once you know what facts must be included in their makeup (things that are often physical aspects of who and what the character is), you now need to go down that list of influences (culture, region, religion, history, profession, family, etc.) and ask how those things added to your character to make them who they are.

Whichever direction you choose to go in.

For example, you might have a royal family whose personal bodyguard is made up of orcs drawn from a particular clan as part of a political peace treaty. As such, your character has grown up with a sense of duty for their charge, but also with intense training to educate you not just on the ways of war, but the ways of the court so that you understand the ebb and flow of the rituals surrounding politics. This could lead you to hold certain prestige among the population, and even notoriety if orcs are treated like the Varangian Guard who watched over the emperors of Eastern Rome. It might also mean that you can never marry nor have children until you have left service, as there can be no divided loyalties.

And that's just scratching the surface when it comes to generating a character who seems to defy expectations. Not because they're a one-of-a-kind snowflake, but because their culture, life experience, and opportunities have shaped them into something different than what you may think of when someone says, "I'm playing an orc fighter/barbarian."

An Update: Species of Sundara Has Begun Releasing!

I had this topic on my mind because for the past few months I've been working on a new series of releases I'm calling Species of Sundara. Each of these will explore a player species in my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age setting, and attempt to break down the monolithic identities we usually assign to a given species (which happens to most, if not all, non-humans in fantasy RPGs).

The idea behind these splats is to create several different, broad cultures for each species, and to do away with things like racial languages in favor of more organic options. There will also be different varieties of each creature type, and the ability for players to customize their characters beyond simply playing the same old elf, dwarf, orc, halfling, etc.

And the first one is finally out!

The first installment in Species of Sundara talks about elves in this particular setting. There are five major cultures presented, along with their unique adaptations and changes, as well as getting to the heart of what makes elves so strange in Sundara. Not to spoil, but it's because elves are masters of altering themselves to suit their environment, meaning they can take on a huge variety of forms and evolutions in order to better suit their homes. And, since players always ask, elves in Sundara can conceive offspring with any sentient species... a byproduct of their mastery over their own forms, and the inherent magic inside of them.

For those who'd like to check this one out, this book is available both for Pathfinder Classic, as well as for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition!

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That's all for this week's Fluff post!

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