Creation-ism

[ladysprite]

I love roleplaying, and I love RPG's. I have since I was about 13 years old, and the Ocean County Library's Young Adult Advisory Board coaxed me into my first tabletop gaming session (Marvel Superheroes, which remains a favorite to this day). I like one-shot games and campaigns, tabletop and live action; I'll try (and enjoy) just about anything.

There's just one thing I hate and dread, though. Character creation.

I honestly don't think of myself as a very creative person, and I think that's part of the problem. I'm not good at coming up with ideas. Give me a framework and I can happily play around inside it indefinitely, but ask me to just make something up, especially out of the blue with no basic structure to build around or guidelines as to what I might want, and I am utterly, miserably, hopelessly lost. I rack my brain for anything vaguely resembling a functional concept, fail, flail around despairingly, threaten to drop out of the game, beg my husband to make up something for me, and generally stress myself into a sulking ball of nightmares and frustration.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), I also apparently have a superpower of my own. Namely, that the most absurd crap I can come up with somehow seems to catch on with other people, and refuses to go away. Invariably, at some point during the process of making up a character and a history, I will throw my arms up into the air in frustration and, fed up with the lack of ideas from myself or guidance from the outside, will just make up the most ridiculous, obnoxious, absurd concept possible. Usually, this is meant either to demonstrate to the GM that they need to give me a little more guidance to keep me from haring off into ludicrosity, or to prove that there are no good concepts available, only idiotic ones, within the space I have to work with.

And without exception, no matter how much I insist I was joking, everyone latches onto this idea, and it sticks around. In spite of me. And becomes what I wind up having to build my character around.

Which is why my last handful of characters have involved post-apocalyptic cannibal Mormon gangs, a single mother paladin of the god of Death and her dead lizard baby.... and now the FaginBot 5000 and his gang of space orphan hoodlums. (I picture him looking a bit like a cross between Bender, HedonismBot, and the Robot Devil.)

If only I could find a way to use my powers for good.....

Comments

[virtualvirtue.livejournal.com]

I adore this. :-) Wish I could come up with absurd characters. I seem to be stuck in the cleric/medic rut, because NOONE else wants to take the band-aid in our gaming group. Cleric in our homebrew game and Comms/former-Navy Cipher/Investigator/Medic in our Traveller game.

[aries-walker.livejournal.com]

Those are the kind of powers that shouldn't be used for good.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

The Ultimate Powers Book for the old Marvel Super Heroes roleplaying game seemed like it was specifically designed to help people create characters of that kind. It had a set of random tables in it on which you were expected to roll for origin, body type, stats and powers. This invariably led to the most ridiculously mismatched and incoherent character concepts a roleplayer ever had to try and fit a backstory and personality to. I remember once rolling up a cyborg humanoid-avian hybrid whose principal powers were Cosmic Awareness and water breathing.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Water Breathing: This is a wimp Power. Face it. When the great hero parties take place, and Ulterior-Motive Man asks you what you do, if you say, "I breathe water," you end up wearing a fishbowl....

-The Marvel Superheroes Players' Book.

I have a copy of the Ultimate Powers Book, signed even. I think that officially makes me a dork. :)

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

Ulterior Motive Man appeared as an NPC in a couple of our Marvel Super Heroes sessions back in the day.

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

FWIW, there's a FaginBot in Close to Critical, by Hal Clement. But maybe I shouldn't have mentioned him, lest I seem to structure your experience.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't think of myself as a very creative person, and I think that's part of the problem. I'm not good at coming up with ideas. Give me a framework and I can happily play around inside it indefinitely, but ask me to just make something up, especially out of the blue with no basic structure to build around or guidelines as to what I might want, and I am utterly, miserably, hopelessly lost. I rack my brain for anything vaguely resembling a functional concept, fail, flail around despairingly, threaten to drop out of the game, beg my husband to make up something for me, and generally stress myself into a sulking ball of nightmares and frustration.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), I also apparently have a superpower of my own. Namely, that the most absurd crap I can come up with somehow seems to catch on with other people, and refuses to go away. Invariably, at some point during the process of making up a character and a history, I will throw my arms up into the air in frustration and, fed up with the lack of ideas from myself or guidance from the outside, will just make up the most ridiculous, obnoxious, absurd concept possible....And without exception, no matter how much I insist I was joking, everyone latches onto this idea,

You know, this makes me laugh because I've found that, at times, I thought I have clearly, and obviously, communicated "I'm stressed and feeling a bit upset and I could use some help" and found that my signals have been completely misread.

And, okay, at least I finally figured out that I needed to change how I communicated, but it was impressively difficult for me to realize that!

But more importantly, if I'm ever running an RPG, I'll be sure to throw out some character creation ideas for you :-).

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I'm horrible at creating characters, too -- but if given one, can generally do a decent job of playing it. I don't have your super-power, though.

[gmkieran.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Character creation is possibly my *favorite* part of any RPG, much as I enjoy playing. which probably explains the library of characters I've created and never played. :D Otoh, I can't *create* plot to save my life, which makes having creative players like you such a joy when GMing! :D Cheers!

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

It's good to know that I'm not the only one, although I seem to be more prone to "this is a stupid rules mechanic" than "this is a silly character background."

I think you have the better superpower.