How easy is it for you to make characters?

[Aragorn]

How is that lazy? I'll spend 3-4 hours looking for the perfect picture to nail my character versus the half an hour it takes to write a general description.

Pictures and text description are just personal choice. Nothing more.

What I'll do is just find a picture that looks similar to what I want, open it up in GIMP, make the necessary changes, then add it to my character sheet. Process takes me half an hour, max.

[Rilla]

I generally find the picture first; then write around that. Powers and all, if I can.

Otherwise, I love writing sheets, my character depo can attest to that; and just lack the motivation to get them all down to paper.

[SebasChan]

I wouldn't say that it's ridiculously easy for me to make characters, but it's also not the most difficult part of a roleplay either. Like the majority of people here, it would seem that the appearance tends to get to me. I always write the history first, so that the rest of the character can fall into place. I find the appearance to be just as important as the rest of the bio, though, so I will go through some effort to find just the right picture to fit the history. I often don't like writing personalities, as I feel it traps my character to become more dynamic.

[Grif of Hearts]

I would say quite easily. I might take ages creating a character, mostly because I get distracted a little more easily than I'd like to admit, but I do love the process of creating a character. My favourite part of roleplaying is delving into the lore, and creating the character gives me an excuse to do so without annoying the GM. ^.^ Rambling on about back stories and the world the roleplay is set in is half the fun of roleplaying.

[Innue]

I used to be able to do this much easier. Lately, I've struggled significantly to make new characters. I feel I've explored so many avenues already that I don't have a lot more left to just inspire me anymore.

What I've been doing recently is going back and exploring old characters in greater depth and making a more developed back story for them, as well as enhancing and narrowing many of their abilities. A lot of the ideas I had were crude and are now becoming much, much more refined.

[GreenTyr]

Very easy to make, next to impossible to find a decent picture..

[Goldmarble]

For me, there's multiple facets to this.

Sometimes I can make a character so easy, they practically form themselves while reading a setting. Like a recent one which is actually rather outside my usual personality trope. I made the sheet with a generic history...went back about an hour later and started writing more into it, exploring the fact that my character was 60+ years old, and had to have experienced a lot. I feel like his history helps to provide an example of why he thinks the way he does. I think part of the ease, was that the character centers around a comfortable area; a superpower I have seemingly adopted as a trademark almost.

Yet on the other hand...just last week, I spent two days trying to figure out a character for a game that I wanted to jump into. I decided that I wanted to try something outside my usual 2 tropes of abilities, while using a picture I had used for a different character about 7 years ago. Kept bouncing back and forth between ability ideas and concepts that eventually settled on something I sort of felt was half-assed.

On the subject of appearances...Honestly, if it's anything but those two "power" tropes? I have two common routes:

I give exactly half a fuck about the character's appearance, like I just haven't thought of anything. Then I go hunting for an hour or two and find something the feels "right" and call it good.

Or, I'm building the character around the appearance of a picture that I have found for the sake of using that picture...this happened a lot more often several years ago however. Usually it's the first route. Last thing I think about, and find whatever feels about right and call it good.

The two power tropes are a little bit harder. The first because I have never run across anything I could consider remotely close to the character's appearance in my head...when I have money, I am commissioning a drawing of the damned character. The second....well, is usually 7-8 feet tall, and looks emaciated....not exactly a common thing to find.

[Kingdoml1]

For me as a " noob " RP. I personaly have had no problems with my characters. To be honest they are all pretty much the same. I am just starting out and havent really gotten a grip to the IC part of RP but making a CS is definately FUN. I love to see for the first time in my life how I can use a keyboard and some imagination then a real character is on a page.

As far as how I think is the best way to make a CS is by getting a good grip on " The Rp World" and then try to get a good feeling about the general idea of the RP. After that I usually start thinking what role would be most fun for me. If I get an inspiriation I start writing some basic thing on the CS like Name, age, etc. and at the same time try to find a picture ( It's so much easier when you find the right appearance for your character). If I dont find a picture I like then I will come up with one in my head ( I suck at drawing ). Then It's all about going with the flow and writing down what comes to mind.

Having the CS good to go I take a preview on how it looks. Try to find any mistakes in writing. Make sure it fits the events that already has happened. Then I usually end up making small fixes in the bio. When I feel that I made a good job . I post it

[Taerinn]

I spend so much time finding pictures of characters that I would like to roleplay as, and if I don't have one for an RP I want to join, I spend even more time trying to hunt one down. @_@ I can't draw very well at all, so it's basically either "my character looks 100% like this" or nothing at all. I'm also picky when it comes to pictures in that I won't even consider it if it looks like a recognizable character (like Hatsune Miku, for example).

Other than that, it really depends on the setting. If it's based on a video game/anime/etc. that I know a lot about, it's easy as pie. If the concept is vague and you really need to drag details out of the GM, then I have a hard time creating a character, because I'm not sure if the clothing/armor is accurate for the setting, or if I don't quite understand some of the terminology. I tried a space pirate RP once; never again. It also helps when I try to fill a gap in the cast, a character with qualities that will round out all of the different personalities. Once I know what's missing, I have a much easier time creating a character.

[Insidious Apparatus]

This is a nifty thread. To answer the question I'll just say that I can make any kind f character for any world/setting whatever. It has never been difficult. Maybe I just use ideas that other people often don't even consider thinking about. Ken you already know this though.

To further explain it I love thinking "around the box." If you can think about it, then there is a solution or way to make it work. A bit of research always helps too