My hope with these next three parts is to go over the specifics of a character sheet. There are three areas or so that are expected to be more intensive, from what I've encountered. First I'll work through physical descriptors, often simply referred to as the appearance section, then I'll tackle personalities and finally backgrounds. Unlike the other two, physical descriptors are much more straight-forward and more difficult to really mess up on, but that doesn't mean there's no line between a good and a bad one. Most of what I'll be going over ought to, like pretty much everything I've said, not be too groundbreaking or perhaps just a nice reminder. It's very important, though, that the work never be finished. There are always improvements that can be made to your work, and it's a scary place when you think, or act like you think, that you're doing the best work you can be.
The main underlying point of this process must be quality over quantity. Simply because you can write an entire page describing their armor down to the color of rust on the hinges doesn't mean you should. There are a lot of roleplayers and communities of roleplayers that will think you've not put enough effort into something because you don't get super descriptive, but usually there are some excellent ways to get a lot of good content without diving into superfluous detail. Your character description really should give the reader a deeper understanding of the character, and if you hide that amidst a lot of fluff then they may have missed an important point you intended them to see.
Like I mentioned in the previous section, your character sheet should be an attempt to build up your archetypal image. I had an English professor once who challenged his students to describe their soul in a single word. It's pretty hard, so maybe we'll expand this to a sentence. A great example of this is the first sentence of nearly any Wikipedia article. Here's an example, "Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behavior to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role." Or how about this one, "Arnold Daniel Palmer (born September 10, 1929) is an American professional golfer, who is generally regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of men's professional golf." The rest of both of those articles go on to support these first sentences and describe them in more detail. We need to cover the general basics of the topic without the need to get horribly specific, just like an article. The difference, though, is that we are trying to both portray information and provide an opinion on it at the same time.
I'm going to go into some more examples, just to be clear. Let's say we've chosen the archetype of a male hunter; let's call him James Strong. James Strong is a laconic hunter who feels more comfortable speaking through his body than his words. We know his name, profession, attitude, and a key piece to his personality now. This is not the ending depth or the detail we'll invest into the character, but it's our base we can always refer to. Everything we do should support this image we've crafted in that one sentence, because that is the soul of the character. If things go further and you decide that isn't the character you want to create, you don't need to scrap your progress, but make sure you understand that your goals have shifted before you accidently create a very disjointed person! The ultimate goal is to craft a believable person, yeah?
Okay, so general examples aside let's get back on track. Build up your character to the point where you have your own image and now convey it to your reader in the form of an appearance section. As I said before, give detail when necessary, don't give it when it's not. While having a long scar across your eye, or facial scars in general, is a favorite among many, you may be better off not having it at all unless it's tied in closely with your character's background and consequently their personality as a result. The eye is a sensitive region that is linked very closely with a person's identifying features as a whole, so a lasting mark to the area should be a pretty big deal, right? If you just shrug it off (like your character might) and say that it doesn't affect them in the long run, then I'm tempted to think you're just trying to make them more badass, or worse, increase their sex appeal. It's both cliché and a crutch, and there are a lot of things that can support a character's image more firmly and drastically than offhand referencing of specific scar locations.
If you must be scarred, refer to his or her body being scarred as a whole; it doesn't showcase your talent, creativity, or knack for building characters to understand which places can be caught in the crossfire of combat. Better yet, simply say their body is rugged, coarse, or beaten up. These things broadcast a much better insight into your character and fortify what you're trying to build as a whole, whereas scarring causes some difficulties. It seems like a lot of characters are scarred, but despite the use of the word they're only scarred on the outside. How much more effective, then, to say beaten up? Even your strongman character can be beaten up on the inside. Scarred might not be the best word, because it would imply he's haunted from a specific, lasting wound. Being beaten up suggest the reality of it just looms over him like a lifetime of injuries. I'm getting a little too specific for my liking, and that's just because I'm bad at explaining things, but I hope this is intelligible at least.
Anyway, you're trying to convey a character to your reader, not impress them with how cool the character is, or how well thought-out of a writer you are; if you are, then reconsider who you're roleplaying with. Use language that will be memorable and give your reader a good image to start off of. Like cartooning, shape is a big deal; this is why Neville Longbottom was such an easy character to understand and cooperate with while reading, and it made his eventual actions all the more impactful. Between being described as the round-faced boy and having a last name like "Longbottom", the reader could very, very easily understand the type of character they were dealing with. He wasn't an evil character, but perhaps his mind wasn't that sharp, just like his face? Take a cartooning class or watch a Disney move, it's really awesome to see what they do! Thick necks, sharp eyes, sinewy frames, slender fingers, cramped toes, hunched postures - it goes on and on. Once again, return to your other aspects of the character. Maybe they were beaten as a child, and they actually did earn a nasty scar across an eye that way? Now that is a scar, both on the outside and on the inside. The amount of depth that type of thing adds to a character is just incredible, especially if our comparison is just: "Got a scar in a sword fight before I was a master."
Try and write something that captivates your reader, I guess. I've done my share of critiquing character sheets for approval, and I cannot tell you how many I've simply skimmed over as they started telling me specifically how their brown, leather belt is frayed in sixteen different areas with all sorts of pouches that don't add anything to the character. Be relevant to your character and take quality over quantity. Regardless of what archetype you're using or which style you're taking, it should all be part of the same thing in the end.
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