So the last few nights we've been writing a lot. Mostly writing the 1st draft of our rules. Today, while working with our writer, Nick Brown, we realized that to do more world building (that'll be in another series of posts later), we had to get all the outlines of our characters for the first few factions written out for him to reference and add into the world story.
A sample character we're creating for the new faction, "Red Dragons" gang.
Creating characters is fun, but also very tiring. Because we believe strongly in diversity and representation in our game, especially since it's loosely based in the city of San Fran... uh, I mean San Lazaro, we put a lot of effort into creating interesting characters that come from very different backgrounds. A lot of research goes into getting their bio outline written, learning about the hobbies they like to do, coming up with the tech that they use, understanding the culture they came from, and in general, making the person as real and authentic as possible, and not some caricature of that culture.
Multiply this by 6 starting characters per faction, and our goal of at least outlining (and therefore including in the world story) 6 factions, that's a LOT of bios, physical descriptions, personality, and culture to research, learn, and come up with!
Ultimately, looking at some of the characters we created in the past and the new ones coming up, it's worth the time and effort.
Game designers? What do you do when you are character creating? Game players, what do you look for when you want to know the background of the characters you're playing? Let us know!