Making Characters when you’re not a “creative person”

Not everyone feels comfortable creating a whole new character with a whole personality and motivations and relationships. It is overwhelming! I hardly even know my own motivations, much less my character’s. So when I’m in a creative slump, I’ve set up a system for how I can make or play characters whenever I need them. And it all stems from my other favorite characters.

There are a LOT of characters out there in other forms of media. Find a character that inspires you from another form of media. If the media is obscure, even better. Try to stay away from characters in published TTRPGs or live play shows, because your tablemates will be more likely to notice the similarities. Grab a character from a book series, a cartoon, movie, or an anime instead.

For the example here, I’ll grab Brace Wayne from Batman.

Level 1 - Steal and Fantasy-ize the name

Write down some of your favorite character’s traits from their adventures, and consider how that might come up in your adventure. Make some notes listing what their signature move is in combat, in social situations, and while exploring a dungeon. Bruce wayne punches people in combat, intimidates people in social situations, and investigates things closely while exploring a dungeon(or an enemy base).

Change the name. Some players may not understand or may not remember how it feels to be inspired by a character, they may judge you more harshly if you dont bother to change at least the name. If you but have not built up enough confidence to make it all your own yet, make the name into a pun. It will let everyone know what you’re doing, and you’re not trying to hide it.
Name: Brute Pain

Write down facts about the character, like a short backstory, and how each may come up in gameplay.
Backstory:Grew up wealthy, but lost my parents young. This may come up in play where I have a soft spot for orphans.
Attributes: World’s greatest investigator. This could come up by playing an investigator or detective archetype in my TTRPG, or it may come in under skill selection, lots of deduction and interrogation skill.
Common Actions: Suddenly run away/hide after talking with important NPCs, defeat enemies nonlethally and leave them tied up for other to find.
NPC Ties - Very close with a local butler, Alfonse. Views him like a father.

Level 2 - File off the Serial Numbers

At a certain point in your campaign, batman won’t perfectly fit what you want to do anymore. That’s fine, you aren’t doing the comic a disservice to begin splitting your reboot off from the DC universe. DC has certainly rebooted enough times. Start taking the themes of batman, and adjusting to your own world.

An obsession with truth and justice - even if it means disobeying the town guard. A plan for every contingency, so maybe you stock up on consumable magic items to keep in your utility belt. Batman doesn’t often keep potions of invisibility, but I bet he would in fantasy-land.

The more you allow your version of the character to diverge, the more you can become comfortable adding in your own unique flair. And to do that, I like to:

Level 3 - Steal even more

Choose a second character, file off the serial numbers, and combine their backstory with the first character. Once Brute is no longer a direct batman clone, I can look to other media, maybe I’ve been enjoying the anime/manga Dungeon Meshi - and I love Chilchuck. I can combine the two.

Name: Brute Chuck

Backstory: Lost my parents young, but even still I found a family and must provide for them all.

Attributes: Great investigator, perfect at finding traps and disarming them. High intelligence, decent interrogation, and good trap disarm abilities

Common actions: Defeat traps nonlethally, rigging them to go off on enemies instead. Uses high intelligence to lure enemies into the rigged traps of the dungeon.

The moment you combine the two characters into one, no one can tell where they came from.

“Creative people” just hide their sources better

The more sources you can bring in, the better. Steal your favorite parts, glue them together, and then see what that means. You may not be able to have a perfect Bruce Wayne moment with Bruce Chuck, but also every moment you have will also be truly yours.