October 2005 Drat! Here I am, writing my October column and I still haven't seen "Corpse Bride" yet. Curse you, time constraints! Oh well; maybe I'll get a chance to catch a bargain matinee this week. I'm sure, though, that you did not click over to my column to read my complaints on what movies I have not watched yet. I've commented before on the similarities between role playing games and writing stories, and this past month I had yet another chance to examine how those two activities compare. A member of a forum I visit was soliciting character ideas for a story he and a friend were working on, so I submitted a couple of short story character sketches. Another reply on the topic questioned if these were for an RPG, and that was what started me really thinking about the difference in the approach. Creating a character for a story is very similar to creating a character for an RPG, yet by necessity the two exercises are handled differently. When I create a short story sketch of a character, the primary purpose is to introduce the character to the reader and to instill an emotional response in the reader. I may not be too worried about the physical description of the character; the "stats" and skills may be implied by the situation but are not essential to the introduction. Instead, the goal is to make the character someone that the reader cares about what will happen to them, whether the final disposition is good or bad. We want the hero to triumph and the villain to fail. Even a "throw away" character, who may be the victim of a crime that the hero must solve, should instill enough empathy in the reader that it does, indeed, feel like a crime that the character has suffered. You see, if the reader does not find a character to care about within the first few paragraphs, they likely will not continue reading past that. It might be a great story with great characters all around, but if their interest isn't grabbed they'll never find out. A character for an RPG, on the other hand, is not someone you want everyone to know too much about right away. It doesn't matter, really, if the Game Master or the other players know enough about your character to care about him or her. We're assuming that the game is going to take place whether they like your character or not. Getting to know each other's characters is part of the game. If you write a "back story" for your character, it's to help you play that character in a way that is in keeping with the character's history. You don't want to pass that sketch around so that everyone in your party now knows all that there is to know about your character. The presumption is that another member of your gaming party that you've just met in the role is not going to know your character's history. Just like getting to know someone in real life, your characters will be revealed by their actions and by what they tell each other. You need a description of your character that determines what they can attempt in the game, but the overall personality is something that you are going to play into the character as the game progresses. If your character hates Kobolds because they ate her baby, let the other characters find out by how you react at the mere mention of Kobolds, not because they read it in your back story. You can certainly play a character in an RPG without a back story, just as a writer can weave a story around a character without the physical stats and skills necessary for an RPG character. In both cases, though, you have to decide what parameters are going to benefit from being established ahead of time. Maybe you need to define what your character looks like, how strong he is, and what skills he excels in before you start writing the story. Or maybe you need to create that empathy in yourself for the character by giving her a history before you start playing her. What factors in her life have influenced how she acts and reacts now? The ultimate goal in both cases is the same; we're seeking to breathe life into a fictional character. It can be difficult at times and challenging. It can also be a heckuva lot of fun.

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