AFAWN - Character Creation - Part 1

No characters, no story. So how do you create a cast of characters that give the feel that they are genuine and unique and not just clones of you, the author. For me personally, character creation is always a challenge, but there are some steps I’ve taken to improve on this and hopefully they can work for you too.

The first suggestion is to use the alignment matrix that comes from Dungeons and Dragons

As you can see, there are two axes that create this matrix. You can Google this for more in-depth explanation, but here are the basic.

Lawful characters care about law and order, even at the expense of personal freedom

Chaotic characters care more about personal freedom and less about law and order

Good characters are morally good and tend to help others, even at cost to themselves

Evil characters are morally corrupt and are ok with causing pain to others, usually for their own gain.

So, there are two ways you can use this matrix. The first is to use this when you create a new character so you can figure out where they may fit and how they may react to certain events. The second is to take your cast of characters and plot them in this matrix. Be honest with yourself. If you find that all your good characters are clumped into Lawful Good and all your bad characters are clumped into Chaotic Evil, that’s not really a good sign. You want your characters to be dispersed across this grid. But this is just a reference so don’t get too hung up on everyone being perfectly spread out.