The One?

No, I'm not talking about Neo. I'm talking about a very fundamental part of character design. Let me explain.

I got a strange idea last night while brushing my teeth (which is usually when I get most of my ideas). I started to realise that, the way I've designed my characters, they really do fall into two different categories. I like to call those "A character" and "THE character." A character is just what it says on the tin - it's a character of some specific type, but who nevertheless belongs to a larger category. This character can always be unique, but he's unique in terms of presentation. He may have a distinctive personality or unique experiences or he may simply be very experience. By contrast, however, THE character is one whose uniqueness is the core of his character design. This is not someone that's part of a group or one of many. This is THE character who did something or saw something or experienced something that literally no-one else has. This is no mere unique snowflake. In the very selfish personal fictional universe where this character comes from, he is a person of some distinction and some importance.

I realise this is somewhat abstract, so let's try an example. Let's say you want your character to go down the route of science. So you make him A scientist. Maybe he's a very smart scientist, maybe he's a scientist with many awards and publications. Maybe he's a scientist who works with a particular type of exotic science. Whatever he may be, he is A kind of scientist. Let's say, however, that you want to make him THE scientist... Who invented faster-than-light travel. Or the scientist who first discovered the link between magic and magnetism. Or the scientist who developed the small portable food pills which solved world hunger. As you can see, I can't call this character "the scientist" without either trailing off into an ellipsis or specifying what this scientist is famous for that he is referred as "the scientist who..."

To give you a bit of background information just for the sake of context, this realisation came to me when I was trying to write for a character of mine whom I'd written as basically "a space mercenary with a heart of gold." I gave her a pretty distinctive personality, I gave her a pretty distinctive look... But I never really made her concept remarkable in anyway. She's just A space mercenary who's after A job, but usually ends up doing the right thing in the end. This character is really one of the last I have that has a story like this, and I really couldn't think of a good way to be invested in her until I realised what the problem was - that she's just A character. It dawned on me, then, that I'd had characters like these by the bucket-load over the years, and damn near all of them are now gone, deleted to make room for newer, more specific concepts. I find myself now in the uncomfortable position of having to either re-write this character's backstory, or otherwise abandon her entirely and make someone new in her place. And that's not something I want to do.

With all of that said, I do want to turn the question to you... And yes, I realise this is not a very good binary choice I'm offering, but please, try to answer as best you can:

Do you prefer to make characters who are just one of a broader category, or do you need your characters to be somehow inherently unique and specific and even perhaps famous for something?

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Humm...

Most of my characters in CoH are unique in some ways (apart from a few throw-away characters), but none of them are UNIQUE in one particular way.

From my experience in PnP RPGs, introducing a character that is "THE character" is usually not well received by the other players, so I refrain from making that sort of claim to fame.

Sam,

This is a non-issue for me. I have characters that fall into both of your categories, and I never noticed or cared or thought about it before. Thinking about it now, my opinion on my characters hasnt changed. Whether "a" or "the" ... my enjoyment level and attachment seem completely independent and unrelated.

Of course, when I think of "The One" I think of Jet Li.

Lewis

I'd say I aim to make them unique as characters, not by how they are defined. Mostly because when you try to make them THE of anything, you run the risk of serious toe treading.

I think it boils down to the concept being a vessel for the character, not the other way around. Even my most 'THE' esque character, Nightwalker, who is a Nictus Scientist determined to complete the 'evolution' of the Nictus into higher beings with all their upsides and none of the downsides, is still a character built upon that concept. To make it simpler; he is a character who is built upon a concept but not ruled and defined solely by it.

In other words, I find that characters built purely upon one THE, one immobile concept, tend to be too restrictive. For my tastes, anyway

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I think the concept of The One is used way too much in fiction, so I avoid it when creating characters. I don't think any of my characters fall under this category.

For me, I need that hook that makes me want to come back to them because I've made many a character before now that sounds cool on paper (like playing the leader of a division of Arbiters called Recluse's Fist, so named after the 501st Legion) that ultimately doesn't go anywhere.

The ones that become THE characters are the ones that are part homage or come out of a strong visual place. My first blueside character was a myth-based character coming out of Australian Aboriginal mythology, and I honestly had not and continue to not see that done anywhere by other people. I feel particularly happy about that.

I have a Praetorian that I'm levelling up who visually I think is unique and works in a real organic way with the morality choices you get playing in Praetoria; there's a built-in descent and redemption story that can carry him for thirty levels before I even get to Paragon City. And the concept flowed from the setting; there's a strong Roman overtone in Praetoria, and the character comes from there. I'll happily post pictures of him if people are interested, but I feel I just hit on that right combination of visual idea and story.

And I agree with Nova Knight; the character themselves if they're well-written are the unique part, more than anything else.



S.

Since one of my main goals is finding new people to RP with, I make it a point never to have a character who is THE anything. Within particular storylines in my RP groups, my characters occasionally become "the one to" when something notable happens as part of the story.

Many of my characters fall into the broader category, while a few I confess are of the more unique variety. Yet there is cause for both approaches, and I find myself actually gravitating towards the former for the same reason I prefer the 'natural' origin.

It comes to this: unique characters, while having the hook of having a concept that sets them apart from all others, they are also more mundane because that unique snowflake quality makes their ascent to greatness almost fated. Contrast that to a character that is more broad based: They could just as easily be an anybody, even a nobody. It's by training or trying that they find their way to distinction, and without that they'd be just another face in the crowd. Behind them is the thought that if they failed or stopped, they'd sink into mediocrity.

This is a far different narrative than the unique characters who, while special and driven and all that, could do nothing and still stand out.

Of course I wouldn't say all characters are so cut and dried. Many characters have the aspect of having a broader origin, then having something happen later to define them. One character was a vanilla street hero put under science experiments to gain new powers. Strangely enough, though, the stories I like most are about a unique character who loses what makes them so special, and have to work their way back up from being an 'anybody' now. My favorite story is of a hero who had special vision that allowed for both xray vision and visual precognition. This made him good at crime fighting...too good. So Mr. Snowflake was caught in a trap by a group of enemies and blinded. He now fights as a 'regular' blind hero. (played with gamma set to zero.)

I'm not sure any of mine can be described as "the one" anything, but I have a lot of toons, let me think here...

...

I do have one who's something like "the last queen of Mars" (who can't wait for that retro space helmet option). And I took a character from an MA arc I made who's a princess on her alternate world... then proceeded to make multiples ATs with her on different servers as I liked the costume so much, so that kind of negates the idea I guess. I also started a scrapper who was King Of Monster Isle, but he's still stuck in Praetoria. I think those are about as close as I get.

I find that the characters I enjoy playing the most are those who whose concepts I find amusing. If I can't think of a funny backstory for someone it usually means it wasn't meant to be. This is partly, perhaps even largely, due to the fact that I find it hard to reconcile the absolutely dizzying array of decidedly disparate deeds of derring do that one's dudes tend to experience during the course of their careers, as it were. At the same time the nature of the game entails that little of what they do has much of a personal hook to it, which only the most recent content is beginning to try to change. In light of that, why would my peeps bother with all of this? Probably morbid curiosity and an abiding disregard for the fact that arresting hundreds of people a day would at the very least result in prison overcrowding the likes of which has not been seen since Stalin famously converted all of Siberia into a giant subterranean jail.

It also seems hard to me to come up with non-overpowered concepts since the very act of playing the game well means your character has, depending on the context, apocalyptic levels of potency. Thus I decouple character power from character concept. Does it make sense that my hero who is ostensibly a private detective has participated in the downfall of Praetoria? It certainly doesn't, but fortunately it doesn't have to because none of this is that serious in the first place.

I think there's a distinction here that needs to be made, and thats whether the "A" or the "THE" is directly tied to the lore.

When you tie yourself to the lore with a "The" ("the" scientist that discovered Portal technology) you add two risks:
- the devs may introduce new lore data that conflicts with your story.
- other players may choose backstories that directly conflict with your story. You can't both be "THE" scientist that discovered portal technology.

Compare that to if use an "A" ("A" scientist on the team that discovered Portal technology).
- now, if the devs introduce "Dr. Jackson" as the scientist behind the lore, you can now just flesh out your story with this "team leader" added.
- if you encounter another roleplayer who is also "a" scientist on that team, you can immediately play long-separated colleagues that once worked on the team together.

You can still be a "THE"-- just create the event that you're the "THE" of. You were THE scientist that refused to evacuate during the 1999 "Portal Surge" crisis. You were THE one that realized that the danger threatened not just the city, but the whole earth, so you stayed behind and saved the world.
- In this game world, extinction-level incidents seem to be an almost an annual thing, so there's very little the devs can add that would contradict this (aside from saying that portal has a "spotless safety record" and that can be written off as good PR and/or a coverup.)
- It isn't THAT much of an imposition on other players- the incident is your creation, so its unlikely to step on their toes (unless they claim to be the Portal Corps safety officer in 1999 that was responsible for their spotless safety record.

A little more trouble would be to be THE scientist that operated the portal console for the Omega team as they left for the Rikti world. On the surface, it seems similar to the previous one (scientist during a major portal event) but you can kinda see how being THE last person to see any Omega team member before they left could have a higher risk of conflict. Its an official-lore event and you've made yourself the sole critical actor in it. Being "A" scientist in that room at that moment leaves a lot more flexibility.

I definitely make characters as part of a broader universe. For each one it is about finding their place in the world, whether it is by serving the people or ruling the people.

'The'

Not in the grand sense as you put it in the original post, but in the action sense. I like my characters to feel like the one badass who's going to go do something about the situation. I like flexibility, visibility, and never feeling helpless or useless and a solid look. Think 'the guy from Doom' he's not as unique as you put it in your original post, he was just some marine, but he becomes unique through his actions as a BAMF.

There was an awesome quote in Hagakure I can't seem to find now...
Someone requested their master let them go pray to the god of Archery or something,
The master said that if he met the god of Archery on the field of battle fighting for the other side, they should be resolved to cut the god neatly in two!

That's how I like my characters. Jump without looking because you can land on your feet, fight without thinking because it's the other guy who has to worry about losing, chase without hesitation because you can run down anyone, step in the bullet's path and save your ally because you can take any hit.

That's a 'The' not an 'A' IMHO.