Character Concepts

We expect that members of this community vary in levels of experience and roleplaying form preference; however, for newer members, it's our intention to provide the most clearly defined guideliens about how to create a proper character, if it is your first time roleplaying on a forum of this nature. So, the purpose of this topic is to provide a brief bit of insight into how to create a character concept that you will enjoy playing, overall, over the course of your stay here on the Spellbound forums.

Every character that one makes, including their first, should have a deeply personal concept that defines everything about them, and helps you decide how they would react in any interaction they come to face in character. There are a few ways you can decide to make a character concept, which this post will outline.

Ways That You Can Create a Character Concept


• Make Your Character Similar to Yourself
  
• Use Another Character for Inspiration for Your Own
  
• Create Your Character Based Off of a Literary Archetype
  
• Grab-Bag Character Features, Mix and Match!
  
• Look at a picture and get some ides from that!

Make a Character Similar to Yourself:

This is one of the easiest options, and generally, all characters generally incorporate some element of their owner's personality; however, be forewarned that, characters that are like you are often very easy to lose control of. You may do things with your character that you believe you would do in real life, when your character themself may not actually perform such actions. It's hard to be unbiased when it comes to yourself!

Use Another Character for Inspiration:

This is another great way of making a new character, but always be reminded that, we don't want clones of other characters on this board! No Naruto Sasuke ripoffs, or Loveless Ritsuka ripoffs-- just use the characters you see for visual and mental aspects that you may wish to extrapolate, and somehow incorporate into your new character concept. For instance, if I wanted to make a new character, I may like to take Ashitaka (from Princess Mononoke)'s calm and determined domeanor, coupled with another character's self-lessness, as well as many other features that I may enjoy roleplaying!

An additional thing to note: Don't make characters that are different from cannon characters and use cannon imagery! We don't want to use cannon material on the site, for the most part, to avoid stereotypical stupidity that happens on a lot of roleplaying boards.

Create Your Character Based Off of Literary Archetypes:

Often, characters in literature such as the Wizard of Earthsea, Harry Potter, or any other famous series you can think of have strong characteristics you may wish to include in your own character. It's good to look at widely accepted sources of literary entertainment for character traits, because often it's the traits people see in these characters that you would like to incorporate in your own. However, you are not limited to any particular form of source-- Comedy, romance, science fiction-- Any character from a story that has traits you enjoy is material for your new character here.

It's good to consider literary sources, and it's good to consider what other mediums exist outside of it for inspiration as well.


Once you gather all of the features you want to incorporate in your character together, look at our character application template and fill it in with the information you have pulled together about your character. Once you're approved, you'll be able to make your profile however detailed or complex you would like it to be. For now, stick to the basics, and keep a strong image of what type of character you want to play in mind!