(This is the text portion of “Off the Beaten Path” as heard on Hearthstone Tavern Roleplay Podcast #17)

-

Personality is a way of summarizing an individual’s essence, so that a character can enter the world  and be more than a cardboard cutout. It’s easy to look at the character that is a druid and already know that they like plants or can shape-shift into cats, and may even have cat-like traits. However, when faced with a trying friends or a personal trauma, what exactly will be your character’s response …and why?

-

In the world of advertising and marketing, knowing the personality of and the how a person derives at decisions is worth paying millions for. When they figure out the how and why, then they know exactly in what way to target their products to people. It’s not as simple as group a and b like product x or anything like that. The real treasure is trying to understand what movtivates people to make decisions, and in what ways do they allow influences to affect them. An exercise that marketing uses to understand people and their choices is actually a tool developed by authors and writers called the character diamond. This is a technique which allows for a quick snapshot of the essence of person’s personality by building a scaffold or framework. By defining a person (or in our case a character) into four simple quadrants, you can begin to fill out and understand the character, then the rest of the RP can become organic and natural.

-

The four quadrants in the character diamond should at least represent the dominant traits of your character and are as follows:

1. your  character’s  main Primary Strength(s)
2. your character’s Shadow Trait
3. your character’s Supporting Trait(s)
4. your character’s Fatal Flaw.

To use these four areas as character development exercise, the idea is to pick a character and come up with a word or two that best describes each of these categories for your character. Let’s get an idea with a character who we want to create, let’s say a roguish thief.

-

The Primary Strength is generally something that is admirable and forms the backbone of who the character is. For example, our roguish thief character’s strengths are that he is tenacious and patient. He can get himself out of a jam no matter what, even through sheer will if he needs to. He also has the required stamina to be meticulous.

-

The Shadow Trait is a secret yearning or something about the character that is hidden. In your character, it is either actively suppressed or sometimes can be something they are unaware of or simply lack the ability to see it in themselves or can admit. Going back to our roguish thief, let’s assume that this trait is Avarice –  The acquisition of items for him borders on the drive to obtain them at an almost obsession level. This includes doing just about anything if there is a potential gain to him.

-

The Supporting Trait is generally an attitude or value which blends  and supports the primary strength. Back to our roguish thief, we will make him knowledgeable and skillful. Our guy is an artisan and can make his own amazing tools and weapons. He knows how they function and how they are made which can be very handy when he needs to appraise goods. This supports and complements his primary strengths of tenacious and patience.

-

The Fatal Flaw is a virtue which borders on the extreme, and usually ends up can being a failing grace. Leadership winds up being a flaw if it becomes controlling. Another example is when nurturing becomes smothering. The fatal flaw is the one thing that almost every character needs and is the item that makes a character more believable and more real (more human as it were.) So for our roguish thief character, his flaw might be that although he is a meticulous  artisan, if taken to the extreme he is a scrupulous blathering fussy perfectionist with himself and other people.

-

Using this marketing and writing technique can help define a basic personality framework for your character. This gives your character a foundation from which they make choices or interact with others and why.

-

Hope this little exercise helps you with your characters. Have fun everyone.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website