HOW TO CREATE A GOOD CHARACTER
This is a basic guide of how to create a good roleplaying character. This guide can work for any roleplay forum, but is essentially for Harry Potter roleplaying.
So firstly, why is it necessary to spend so much time thinking when creating your character. Why not just create a simple character and watch them develop? Well Character development is indeed important, but you'll never have a good character if you haven't spent lots of time deciding their names, personalities, skills, weaknesses, appearance and background story. Not only does making a good application help others find out more about your character, but it helps you in understanding your character as well. It helps you to understand your characters personalities, see their weaknesses, see which people your character will get along with, who he/she won't get along with and etc. JK Rowling spent more than a year creating her characters. Characters are the most important thing in any literature work, whether it be a roleplay, a novel, etc. Your character has to be an interesting one or not many people will be roleplaying with you.
So where to start when creating your character?
Gender: The first thing to consider is of course whether your character is a male or a female. This matters a lot of course, but I won't go through what the differences of a male and female are in this guide. Just decide and go to the next step.
Name: A unique name is a powerful name, no kidding. Look back in history and you will notice that almost every influential person had a unique name, at least for that time. The Harry Potter series is an excellent example of how powerful one name can be. Voldemort's name make's people shudder from terror. If he had kept the name Tom, you can hardly imagine a table of wizards shuddering from that name. Not to say that common names aren't good, they are. But just remember how powerful a name can be, and make sure you spend some time thinking what you want to name your character - its important. If you decide to take a canon character, this part is done for you. Though you may want to think of a few nicknames.
Age: Age is something generally overlooked in many roleplays. Age matters, a lot. Remember that depending on a persons age, a person acts differently. Children aged 11-13 are open minded, innocent, fun loving etc. Teenagers are usually rash, emotional and rather close minded. Whereas an old person will be experienced and will believe their opinions are the most worthy.
Note that age also determines magical potential if you care about that sort of stuff. An 11 year old won't be very skillful but will be a quick learned, while a 60 year old will most likely be a far more skilled magic user. For more, see the Magic thread.
Last thing, Wizards and witches age slowly. Dumbledore could move fast at the age of 160, so we can say that in muggle years he would be about 65-70. Since he's Dumbledore, it is possible to say that (AFTER ADOSCELENCE) wizards age at about half the rate of a muggle.
Age also depends whether your character is a graduate or a student. If you like classes, don't go above 17, if you don't, then anything above that is OK.
Appearance: Keep the appearance realistic please. Again, try not to make your character to perfect. Its okay if your character is stunningly pretty or handsome as long as he/she has other faults to make it even. Things to consider are eye color, hair, height, skin color, build and clothing. The appearance matters as it shows how others will react to your character. After deciding your background, you can add to your appearance. A poor person will most likely be thin, ungroomed and might not be very good looking, while a richer one might be the opposite. It might not matter but it is something to consider.
Personality: You can do this after or before deciding your characters background story. The background will affect the personality of your character, and your personality will effect the background of your character. The personality determines how people will treat your charcter, how your character will treat them, which characters your character will like and etc. Write a bit about your personality as it is the most important thing. Start of with a basic understanding of his/her personality, then describe it in depth.
Background Story: Although the background story is equally important. The background effects your personality, and gives a good start to your roleplaying as your character reflects on the past and etc. It gives other people something to talk about with your character. Make this nice, long and interesting.
Skills: Your character has to be good at something, though he/she can't be good at too many stuff. Deciding the skills helps you decide what your character excels at and also helps create a personality for your character.
Weaknesses: No one likes roleplaying with a perfect character, so your weaknesses are just as important as your characters skill.
Magical Potential: Potters Army focuses quite a bit on dueling, however it is not extremely important. Still, you should have a rough idea of how skilled your character is at magic before you create them.
The bottom line of creating a character is, to make him or her interesting. Your main aim is to make your roleplays fun and if you don't have a good interesting character then the roleplay won't be fun for your or the person who's roleplaying with you. Trust me, many people on this site stopped roleplaying with one of their characters because they did not understand that character.
The Admin Team
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