Treasure Tables is on hiatus as of December 13th, 2007 -- after two years of daily posts, I needed a break. If you're looking for GMing material, I have two recommendations: the hundreds of posts in TT's archives, and my new project, the multi-author GMing blog Gnome Stew. Happy GMing! -- Martin

One Sentence Character Cores

Sat. September 2, 2006 

In The one sentence character concept maker, Chris Chinn outlines a fascinating approach to coming up with ideas for PCs.

It’s basically a Mad Lib, as Chris points out, but that’s a surprisingly powerful structure for this kind of conceptualization. Take a peek, I think you’ll like it.

More posts about: NPCs

Comments

6 Responses to “One Sentence Character Cores”

  1. Ian on September 2nd, 2006 9:52 am

    Honestly, I think it’s kind of silly. Might as well just draw up a big table with columns for personality trait, profession and goal. Hell, toss name and race and whatever else is relevant in there too.

    I think the Dragon Compendium has something similar, the 7-Sentence NPC. Basically it’s a way of fleshing out an NPC by constructing 7 sentences about it, each sentence focusing on a different aspect. I think it’s meant to end up in such a way that you could tell it to your players in game.

  2. Martin on September 4th, 2006 9:18 am

    The SSNPC article is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve used it in my D&D games for years, and it rocks. Providing a readable description for the players is secondary to giving you, the GM, a solid handle on what they’re like and how they act, though.

  3. ScottM on September 5th, 2006 9:07 am

    It seems a little simple, but as a core theme for a character (expecting lots of digressions and expansion), it’d work pretty well. In fact, for Universalis, that’s about what you’d need to make a good character anyone could play correctly.

  4. Chris on September 5th, 2006 11:58 am

    Hi Scott,

    That was pretty much my idea. A lot of times I see players get lost in putting together the various pieces of character crunch, and at the end, you don’t have a very memorable or clear idea.

    Using the core idea as something to aim for, and making it before you do the math, has helped me, personally, a lot in building fun characters and not losing the idea.

  5. Martin on September 5th, 2006 12:03 pm

    I sometimes build characters by starting out with a simple one-sentence core (although it’s never as structured as Chris’s suggestion), and sometimes end up with one.

    My most recent character went the second route (arriving at the core), my next most recent went the first (starting with it). In both cases, once I got my flow going they turned out well — but man oh man is the first approach easier!

    When I don’t start with a core/kernel concept, I flail a lot more than when I do. ;)

  6. Mischa on September 7th, 2006 1:45 pm

    Both Cartoon Action Hour and Seven Leagues require a tagline as part of character creation.

    With CAH, it’s presented as a marketing gimmick for your action figure. With 7L, it’s part of your character’s Legend.

    Either way, a good way to focus charater concept.