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Message no. 1
From: Dreamcatcher <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Character Personality
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 10:19:22 +0700
I've been thinking about character personalities lately. Specifically,
core personality traits. I'm planning (some day :) to put it all together
to help people make solid characters.

I feel that selfishness is a core trait that drives a character. Those
characters that are selfish will carry out actions that benefit them.
Those characters that are not selfish will carry out actions that benefit
others. And then of course there are varying levels of selfishness.
Selfishness does not equate with good or evil. A typical "paladin" could
be a very selfish person who wants to look good in the eyes of his god. A
psychotic killer could be very unselfish, but he's just nuts and kills
people.

Fear is another core trait. Characters will avoid what they are afraid of
either consciously (if they are aware of the fear) or unconsciousy. A
subtle example is the character that moves from lover to lover because
he is afraid of commitment.

Agree? Disagree? Anything to add?
-Dreamcatcher

"Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream."

/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\dbuehrer@carl.org/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\
http://www.geocities.org/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
Message no. 2
From: Brian W Allison <ballison@*******.WAM.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Character Personality
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 15:14:24 -0500
On Sat, 30 Nov 1996, Dreamcatcher wrote:

[snip on selfishness and fear]

> Agree? Disagree? Anything to add?


Strongly disagree.

Selfish is one end of a scale. The other end is of course selfLESSness.

As for your description of a Paladin, a Paladin (of AD&D) is LG. That
precludes selfishness, and as a GM I'd not allow them to advance very high
until they'd hammered it out of their mentality.
After all, you can't fool your God, chummer. :)


ObSR:
If a Runner isn't selfish, and it seems to work for thar character, then
so be it. Conversely, if they're selfish to the max, and it works, then so
be it.
What I try to discourage a bit is the runner being one or the other when
it doesn't seem to go along with the character.
Of course, that means that their life becomes difficult. And, that's
like RL, IMO.



Brian W. Allison

Computer Scientist Vocalist Would-be Poet Bicycler Scuba Diver
Hacker(0xca) Nerd(79) GenX(21) #include <witticism.h>
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~ballison

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Message no. 3
From: Tim Cooper <tpcooper@***.CSUPOMONA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Character Personality
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 18:39:41 -0800
On Sat, 30 Nov 1996, Dreamcatcher wrote:

> I've been thinking about character personalities lately. Specifically,
> core personality traits. I'm planning (some day :) to put it all together
> to help people make solid characters.
>
> I feel that selfishness is a core trait that drives a character. Those
> characters that are selfish will carry out actions that benefit them.
> Those characters that are not selfish will carry out actions that benefit
> others. And then of course there are varying levels of selfishness.
> Selfishness does not equate with good or evil. A typical "paladin" could
> be a very selfish person who wants to look good in the eyes of his god. A
> psychotic killer could be very unselfish, but he's just nuts and kills
> people.

That's heading toward delving into a discussion of the characters (or
people's) motives. You can have a very "good" (outwardly) person do
"good"
things for "bad" reasons, just as often as you can have the converse. They
can get very tricky...

>
> Fear is another core trait. Characters will avoid what they are afraid of
> either consciously (if they are aware of the fear) or unconsciousy. A
> subtle example is the character that moves from lover to lover because
> he is afraid of commitment.
>
> Agree? Disagree? Anything to add?
> -Dreamcatcher

Lets just say that I don't DIS-agree. I don't think the commitment thing
is a particularily 'subtle' example..but it fits.

I think personalities are really delicate and pretty complex things...ever
try to document your own personality? I tried that once and got a couple
pages of short statments before it started getting hard to...um..I guess
wrap words around some of the things, or at least get them out in an
easily understandable manner.

~Tim
Message no. 4
From: "Steven A. Tinner" <bluewizard@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Character Personality
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1996 00:24:16 -0800
If you're looking for some very simplified ideas of personality cores,
the easiest example I ever found was in a book by Margaret Weiss and
Tracy Hickman (yep. The Dragonlance guys :-O) I think the title was Rose
of the Prophet.

The short version of the idea was generally that each of the twenty gods
in this book each ruled the face of a planet shaped like a twenty sided
die.
Each god had a trait that he or she personified.
That trait was represented by a face on the die.

The edges where the traits met defined a personality.
I've used a mock up of this system a couple of times in RPG's to help
characters come up with believable stock personalities.

As a brief example, a character could beleive in the tenets of Good,
Law, and Honesty, those are three adjacent sides on this die.
Directly across from this face would be the exact opposite - Evil,
Disorder, Dishonesty, etc.

I realize this is a pretty jumbled mess I'm typing here, but trust me.
Read the prologue of book I, it explains it all much better than I can
(especially after pulling two 15 hour shifts in retail this weekend!
:-(P)

Steven A. Tinner

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