improving-character
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Storyboard: Flawed premise
If there's one major element I've been coming back to over the course of this year (which isn't quite a year of this column, but close enough for government work), it's character creation. This is not by coincidence -- a lot of roleplaying consists of just throwing the right mix of characters in a closed space to encourage interaction and then letting them play off one another. So it seems fitting to close off the year by talking about what I consider one of the most vital elements in creation: making your character an incompetent mess with severe emotional issues. Yes, I'm talking about flaws, which are one of the best ways to add definition to a character that might otherwise be lackluster. Like sculpting from marble, flaws cut away the edges of a character and help bring everything into greater definition. But it's a delicate balance between making an interestingly flawed character and making an execrable lump of flesh useful only as monster bait (or a virtual infallible deity whose flaws are all non-starters such as "well, he can't play the oboe"). You want a character just flawed enough to be interesting, but not so flawed as to drag others down.
