Story vs RPG Series
Story vs RPG Part 7:
Character Needs
Story vs RPG Part 8:
Character emotions
Story vs RPG Part 9:
Lies - Our characters darkest secrets
Story vs RPG Part 10:
Setting - cultures
Story vs RPG Part 11:
Pair Dynamics
Story and Game Structure:
Storylines
Story vs RPG Part 12:
Larger groups - conformity & deviance
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Example of an RPG to Story Conversion using Personality Theory
For more practical purposes, lets try making a story character that is based on a fantasy character. Most of this process will help to develop backstory.
Picking a name
I'll pick a popular names in the US 2015 for character names - Emma.
Gaming information
Emma a Lawful Good alchemist
Emma is e a
Lawful Good character in a game that is a alchemist - someone who works to transmute material into magical items. To move that character to a story I begin with what I know about the character. In this game maybe the alignment is the only indicator of character personality. I'll use that information to try creating a hopefully more interesting character by adding small backstory and character details.
Conversion
As mentioned yesterday, I think that
Lawful Good is similar to Jung's
Hero. Let's compare them.
Lawful Good - Crusader
Core Concepts: Duty, fairness, honor, property, responsibility, right, truth, virtue, worthiness
Jung - Hero
The Hero (Heroine, Champion) - Defender, guardian, rescuer, sacrifice, win, arrogance, confront
And then compare this information to the first enneagram.
1.
Reformer (Perfectionist) principled, purposeful, self-control, thinks they are always right
If I agree to this comparison, I begin to see character weaknesses of arrogance, confrontational, and maybe sacrifices themselves beyond what most people do.
Converting Class to Profession
And maybe I want take this character to move over to more modern terms, changing the world and setting slightly.
To me a alchemist might be some sort of scientist, maybe like a CSI type crime scene investigator. She's someone who uses technology to work with the material in crime scenes to reveal what happened by various methods. In a different fantasy world, that might by using magic powers to analyze stuff. In this modern world, rather than magic it will be technology and procedures.
Character Behavior
Emma wants to know and tell the truth about these crimes. She does her job well and tries to tell the truth, even if less desirable people accused of crimes or a bad person in general has evidence that supports their innocence. Because of this I give her Kantian Ethics.
- Kantian Ethics - right is determined by intent, reason, and type of action, not the consequence. "Tell the truth even if it causes harm."
From the Jung - Hero archetype, they also sacrifice themselves - in this case I will translate that into relationships. Emma doesn't spend time to develop romantic relationships. Instead she fills her time with activities that reaffirm her sense of truth. It might be a religion, working for a cause, or maybe trying to find new advances in crime scene investigation.
Character Needs
Because of her needs are strong in some areas and weak in others. She has strong sense of law and order for safety, yet might be threatened somewhat by helping to put away dangerous people. Here biggest relationship weakness is an issue of social love, belonging, and sexual intimacy. Along that line which might affect the balance of affiliation, autonomy, and dominance needs should be used occasionally in any story created, while the weakness is still open. If that weakness ever is filled, another weakness should also emerge.
Character Emotions
Having looked at character personality, ethics, and needs emotions will now be more predictable.
Emma will be courageous when facing the results of brutality within a laboratory. However with relationships, then may be fearful a begin to feel threatened when in casual situations dealing with relationships. The biggest surprises may come when she thinks she knows the truth but finds out later through investigation that it was all an illusion or wrong. From these basic emotions they can easily be turned into backstory of actual events - one for every major emotion.
All of these examples show that once you know your character's personality, ethics, and needs the other details flow much more smoothly out from backstory. You can just create events that would created the emotion. A list of several emotion creating events would help to round out the character, and make them more whole and less one dimensional - even if you don't actually write that information into the story.
Character Lies
Any number of lies depending on Emma's earlier experience, may be creating or maintaining her relationship weakness. Something probably happened in her childhood or adolescence.
Maybe she saw something between her parents and created a vow not to ever get herself into that situation. In her teenage years, maybe her early relationship went really bad and she was hurt in the process. Or maybe her interests kept her from forming any teenage relationship with someone else.
Whatever it may be, using lies can help create a dark secret with is great for storytelling.
Character in Society
Her job as a CSI scene investigator is going to come with many role expectations. Some conflict can occur when her relationship weakness my interfere with her social role expectations. Conflict that other characters might attribute wrongly to her own reason and cause.
Character Pair Dynamics
Interesting dynamics can occur between her and investigators that interact with her. Especially if they have very conflicting personalities, needs, and ethics. She might despise a rule breaker at first. But then when their rule breaking leads to the truth faster than her objective evaluation the dynamics of the relationship may change as she begins to respect and trust the rule breaker.
Character Group Dynamics
Emma probably begins with conformity to the CSI rules, procedures, and regulations. As she tries new methods of investigation, she may begin to have innovative goals. With her relationships and dating, she may be in rebellion or retreat at first.
Summary of Emma from the Lawfully Good Alchemist
I believe this is much more usable and better for story writing than just knowing alignment and class.
All of these details I tried to create just based on RPG alignment of
lawfully good and the class of
alchemist. I'm just showing one way that details can be found just by expanding background using tools and interpretation to expand those two descriptive data pieces.
Emma is a CSI type crime scene investigator. Here personality believes in duty, fairness, honor, property, responsibility, right, truth, virtue, worthiness, defender, guardian, rescuer, sacrifice, win, arrogance, confront, (perfectionist) principled, purposeful, self-control, thinks she is always right. She's someone who uses technology to work with the material in crime scenes to reveal what happened by various methods. In this modern world, rather than magic it will be technology and procedures.
Emma wants to know and tell the truth about these crimes. She does her job well and tries to tell the truth, even if less desirable people accused of crimes or a bad person in general has evidence that supports their innocence. Because of this I give her Kantian Ethics.
Kantian Ethics - right is determined by intent, reason, and type of action, not the consequence.
"Tell the truth even if it causes harm."
From the Jung - Hero archetype, they also sacrifice themselves - in this case I will translate that into relationships. Emma doesn't spend time to develop romantic relationships. Instead she fills her time with activities that reaffirm her sense of truth. It might be a religion, working for a cause, or maybe trying to find new advances in crime scene investigation.
Because of her needs are strong in some areas and weak in others. She has strong sense of law and order for safety, yet might be threatened somewhat by helping to put away dangerous people. Here biggest relationship weakness is an issue of social love, belonging, and sexual intimacy. Along that line which might affect the balance of affiliation, autonomy, and dominance needs should be used occasionally in any story created, while the weakness is still open.
Emma will be courageous when facing the results of brutality within a laboratory. However with relationships, then may be fearful a begin to feel threatened when in casual situations dealing with relationships. The biggest surprises may come when she thinks she knows the truth but finds out later through investigation that it was all an illusion or wrong.
Any number of lies depending on Emma's earlier experience, may be creating or maintaining her relationship weakness. Something probably happened in her childhood or adolescence.
Maybe she saw something between her parents and created a vow not to ever get herself into that situation. In her teenage years, maybe her early relationship went really bad and she was hurt in the process. Or maybe her interests kept her from forming any teenage relationship with someone else.
Her job as a CSI scene investigator is going to come with many role expectations. Some conflict can occur when her relationship weakness my interfere with her social role expectations. Conflict that other characters might attribute wrongly to her own reason and cause.
Emma probably begins with conformity to the CSI rules, procedures, and regulations. As she tries new methods of investigation, she may begin to have innovative goals. With her relationships and dating, she may be in rebellion or retreat at first.
