Character Mechanisms - creating character profile instructions (part 3)

Having added a character profile sheet to the Character Mechanisms book just after publishing the book, I never got around to making any sort of examples nor instructions.

This is the third post in the challenge to make instructions via blog for Character Mechanisms. In this post I want to try prioritizing the information on the sheet.

Source material

The source material

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/253097/Character-Mechanisms-Profile-sheets

Free profile download

Character Mechanisms

$16 sold individually worth of tools.

I put the character profile as a free download, since it might help get some more people interested in either the separate books or the full combined book.

In this post I want to create a prioritized list using the text found in my product description, since I like to reuse material to speed development up. I will list the 16 items, comment on some, then assign a letter based on importance.

Priorities

1. Relationship Generator C
2. Character Behavior Engine relies on other info B
3. Dialogue Engine relies on other info B
4. Motivation Generator - important since I use motivation in several systems A
5. Mood-Emotion Generator important to describe a character A
6. Body Language Generator - important to reveal character emotions A
7. Character Generator - important since I use personality archetypes, stat archetypes, and virtues/vices elsewhere A
8. Fact Generator although important for gaming, this doesn't play as much of a role for character profiles C
9. Modifier Generator C
10. Human Generator - important as first thing seen in a character A
11. Character Communicator relies on personality B
12. Knowledge Generator C
13. Career Generator C
14. Dream Generator C
15. Sound Generator D
16. new also includes a combined engine B

After ranking them, I will pile them into groups and then sort them once again. The end result will be the order that I will create the initial instructions for the character profile.

Group A Important

Character Generator

Human Generator

Motivation Generator

Mood-Emotion Generator

Body Language Generator

Group B Reliant

Character Behavior Engine

Character Dialogue Engine

Character combined action engine

Character Communicator

Group C Flavor

Knowledge Generator

Career Generator

Relationship Generator

Dream Generator

Fact Generator

Modifier Generator

Group D

Sound Generator

Character Mechanisms - creating character profile instructions (part 2)

In the last post, I outlined the criteria that I will try to cover for this new challenge.

Researching Content and Challenges

To review the criteria, I'll repost the summary from my first post.

So, for a few posts I hope to create instructions and examples for using the new character profile sheet for Character Mechanisms.

• for different types of characters
• covering all of the types of data
• with prioritized character information
• with a goal of completing before November 1st.

I like to reuse content wherever possible to aid in speeding up writing processes by not having to reinvent everything. So first, I'll research my content for possible suggestions.

Different types of characters 

Looking back at my generators and engines, probably a key piece of information cover the first criteria for different types of characters is found in the Human Generator. I'll color code with highlighter the four types of characters that I mentioned in that book. The actual number might differ since the profile is a much larger scope than the human character twelve descriptions.

Main, major, minor, background

The number of human characteristics rolled may be limited by the type of character. Main characters most likely are detailed with all or most of these twelve characteristics fleshed out. Major significant and important characters might have half or more of these details revealed. Minor significant, but important characters to the story may have three to half of these characteristics known. Background characters focused briefly on in a scene, however that aren’t important, may have one or two characteristics observed.

The easiest thing for me to do is to give the same sort of advice.
Amount of details for Character types: main, major, minor, background

The number of characteristics rolled may be limited by the type of character. Main characters most likely are detailed with all or most of these characteristics fleshed out. Major significant and important characters might have half or more of these details revealed. Minor significant, but important characters to the story may have three to six or so of these characteristics known. Background characters focused briefly on in a scene, however that aren’t important, may have one or two characteristics observed.

In the next post, I'll continue with the analysis of the types and priority of data.