WISH 85: Character Inspirations

What inspires you to create characters? Do you have partially-developed characters in mind for use when you get into a new campaign? Do you shop characters around, or do you come up with new characters when you get into a campaign? Why? If you GM, are you bothered by receiving a solicitation for a “generic” character, or does it enthuse you to get a solid proposal even if it’s not closely tailored to your game?

I think the inspiration for new characters comes from the same sort of influences that contribute to any sort of creativity. It’s a lame-sounding answer, I know, but I don’t see character creation as somehow being essentially different. As for re-using characters, I have sometimes taken a character from a short-lived game (usually meaning a one session con game) and used it again (usually in another con game), after the appropriate tweaks to make it better fit the new setting.

I am not, however, one of those people who tries to run one or two characters in nearly every game of the appropriate genre that they play. It’s not something I really understand the motivation for, and I’ve watched GMs (mainly at Ambercons) have to struggle with shoehorning these characters into their worlds.

I actually think that the whole idea of trying to bring an existing character into a new game is, on the whole, a flawed one. If the player is willing to be exceedingly flexible, it may be possible to make the character fit into it’s new home, but, imo, it will never fit as well as a character that was specifically created for that game.