Words of Creation...Sort of....

[CountFalchiezVander]

When I start to think about making a new character, one of the first things I do is search my musical library for a song that will inspire me. At the moment I am listening to Over the Hills and Far Away by Nightwish while creating a dwarven barbarian bard. Down with the Sickness is being used for a barbarian bear warrior type build as well, and Mists of Avalon for a druid/fighter human build.
Does anyone else do this? What do you listen to while creating your next hero or villain?

[Barrok]

I often listen to the "voices" which they say are in my head... but I know they are all around me.. always whispering... always making me eat more cheese... I swear they are the work of the devil I tell you!!


I mostly listen to an ecclectic mix of indie/punk/rock and some fol;k when I am feeling all beardy! some songs though do help with creation

[Soolee]

I get visions. I look for pictures and develope my PC around that picture. Having problems developing a Shadow Dancer I'll be playing soon by email that is if I ever get her done.

Soolee

[Lapis Lazuli]

B) Bards write songs about me milady....not the other way around!

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<span style="font-family:Comic"> Ah,I'm just kidding,heck,I'm not that arrogant!I know they wrote afew here bout some of these characters...like for the Bandito they wrote Jail house rock and they muppet show theme,but he lost the rights in a law suite.I'm pretty sure Fiend was written about lithuse...oh this could take days,but you get the idea.

What?Me?Yes I actually have an entire musical number in these threads someplace.It's very entertaining if you can find it.I dance and sing and do a few simple magic tricks,I even flaunt my powers and blow up a few things just to impress the girl.

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[font=Comic][color="#3333ff"] Oh,and I find music to be very inspirational in all aspects of my life,especially when creating a character or adventure.

[VoidPointer]

I do this sometimes. When I first "get an idea" for a character, the idea barely deserves the title. It comes as a flash of sensory data, like a barely-remembered memory. It's usually visual, and sometimes aural, but almost always, it is accompanied by smell or tactile data. For example, once I got a character idea in the form of a desert mountain, the smell of oil, and the feeling of touching hot metal. The other bits of data I get are more sensible, but less describable. Eventually, ideas approaching things I can put in a character bio attach themselves to the idea, and I can begin working on the character.

Music seems to be especially helpful in the "snowballing" process that turns an impression into a character. I usually get a certain emotional "read" off the impression, and I can follow that best with music. For example, with the desert-y one, I listened to 10th Man Down by Nightwish and The Phantom Opera Ghost by Iced Earth until I got the idea for a crossdressing cryptologist Mecha pilot. Who was female, which made the crossdressing hard.

[Niko_Kaze]

Um... I just think "new character" and poof I have an idea on paper... usually I'll spend about an hour or three finishing the finer points of it but generally I don't think to hard on the actual character, as they just seem to be there.

[Barrok]

The problem with some character design I have encountered over the years as a GM is that some people actually over design the character and have absolutely everything planned. With such a cumbersome back history which becomes a work of fiction in itself and as a GM you know you will have to read it and try to remember bits of it, otherwise you could offend the player who has spent untold hours of their life penning all of it.

Its often why I try to leave a very small back story for other GMs so they can fill in the blanks as we go along - I will also say it has been refreshing using Cyberpunk to roll up backgrounds as it takes a lot of the hassle out of it all.