Character development


This is a guide to help players get a better idea as to how they can develop their characters. Because, a more well-developed character will lead to better Roleplay and will make the RP look better.


Now, the essentials would first be to create a character, and i don't mean just a simple name, age, height, and weight. I mean all their physical characteristics and their background as well. Why? Because if the best physical description you give of your character is "A white guy" or "A black guy" then I can assure you the RP involved with that person, is not really gonna be of top-notch quality..


Formulate the background of your character, just ask yourself some questions. The more knitty-gritty you get with the story of your character, the better. Here are a few suggestions of questions you can ask yourself:



Present:
The past should always lead to the present. You should follow through with how you act by what your past was like. Someone who was spoiled constantly isn’t going to appreciate not having things handed to them. Someone who grew up anti-social isn’t going to turn a blind eye to the past and suddenly become the most popular person in town.

Los Santos:
So, why did your character come to Los Santos? This question should be asked after you’ve developed the basic background. It is not necessarily a difficult question. People move all the time. Whether it is to start a new life, the person may be looking for someone or something, they could just be on an extended vacation and enjoying the weather.


Developing the Character Further.

So, you now have the basic background of the character. Good, now you can focus on more present tense things, such as the characters goals and personality.

Goals:
Now this is also found in Chamberlains Developing interesting characters and situations guide, so I’ll leave a link off to that, however it is a good idea to have some character goals which are simply small or just out of the way. Something from an OOC opinion could easily be achieved but from an IC standpoint could be highly difficult. Of course, just as Chamberlain points out in his guide, conflict and motivation should definitely be included with the idea of building a goal or several goals for a character to achieve.

Personality:
Your characters personality should be contemplated and thought over thoroughly. The way they act, talk, behave, express emotions, are all aided and formulated by the characters personality. Develop your characters personality closely, and be careful of ever straying too far from how they really should be acting. Some ideas of questions you can ask yourself on what your characters personality is like:
- There are many, many more ideas for you to use when developing your character. These are just some examples.

Love, Hate, Like, dislike:
Though this area should be focused on to a lesser extent, characters should have things that they like and dislike, or love, or even hate. It can be something simple such as liking blonde haired people, or maybe something odd as a love for cheese. It will add to future RP opportunities if you develop a basic idea on what your character likes/dislikes.


Character Flaws:
All people, no matter how tough, strong, well-trained, whatever they are, have flaws. No matter who you are, you are flawed in some way, shape, or form. That goes just as well for your character. Typically, people have about as many, if not more flaws then they do strengths/skills. The more flaws you add to a character, the more realistic they will seem and will improve the RP experience. Flaws come in many different forms. There are things such as physical flaws, such as scars and addictions, mental flaws which include things such as mental diseases (Schizophrenia, to name one) along with phobia’s or fears, and finally emotional flaws, such as emotional scarring, breakdowns, social anxiety, among other things.

Physical Flaws:
Physical flaws tend to be more visible things, such as scars on a characters body from past events. They help to give an idea to the story behind your character, and serve the purpose of helping to show others what your character is like or what they’ve done.
- Another physical flaw could be addictions. Characters can definitely have addictions to substances. Typically people have addictions to illegal narcotics and foreign substances, but you can also add some weird addictions too, such as maybe some addiction to twizzlers or the smell of gasoline. If you are going to Roleplay an addiction, you should look up the side-effects of the drug your taking, along with withdrawal effects among other things. Just by adding an addiction to your roleplay you give yourself many more things to do. Some ideas for addictions:
-Tobacco. One of the most common addictions in the world. Can be in the form of smoking or chewing.
-Alcohol. Another one of the most common addictions. Once enough is taken into the system, it inhibits motor skills, coordination, concentration, etc.
-Cocaine. A feel good drug. Normally snorted. Can also be cooked down and smoked or eaten as Crack-Cocaine. Generally adds a feeling of pleasure to the entire body.
-Marijuana. Normally eaten or smoked. Gives a high that typically induces sleepiness, cheeriness, or hunger.
Just a few ideas for drug addictions, there are many, many more drugs for you to try and experiment with in RPing (A drug addiction RP or simply drug experimenting RP would be great passive RP if you are ever bored).

Mental Flaws:

Fear, everyone has it to something. Your character should at least fear something, no matter how much of a mad, psycho serial-killer( <- bullshit RP if that’s what your going for, btw), you have a fear for something. It can be something not-so big like spiders, or something more deep like a fear of being alone, or a fear of dying.

http://phobialist.com/

The much less common part of mental flaws would be mental illnesses. If you find a mental illness and study all the effects, it can turn out for some great RP. It would be amazing to see someone fully-RP a legitimate schizophrenic person (No, not every schizo goes around shooting up people because a voice tells them to. It is normally lesser-things a voice could say, such as “move all the furniture around.” Or “move this cup from here-to-here.” ).

Emotional Flaws:
Last, but not least there are emotional flaws. These are generally things involving how the character acts socially and generally work with their personality. A character could have the flaw of being emotionally weak, ending with them breaking down and crying quite often from confrontation. A character who is strong and tries to force the appearance of not being weak would hardly be seen crying, but would also show signs of faulting or being less-cheerful, happy, or joyful.

Speaking of emotions..

Emotions:

Have them. There are too many people on the server who just go around without having a single emotion. People have emotions, people show them. Here, have a list of emotions:

Developing your character later on

As you RP, events may occur that could change or develop your character in a certain way. A character living around many criminals, some being his good friends could be de-sensitized to criminal activities. Someone who has had too many breakups or un-trustworthy people in their life will be less-trusting of other people they come across, and it will take longer for them to be befriended. Keep yourself fluid, always adapting to what has happened and constantly look back at what has just happened to you, and ask yourself “How has this affected my character?”


In conclusion:
-Build a story around your character
-Give them goals, and motivation to achieving those goals.
-Establish how they act, talk, think, what they like, hate, and just general things about the character.
-Include some character flaws with your character, especially if you give them a strength or skill of some sort.
-Show and express some form of emotion, if not all of them.