In this first section, I will give a simple outline of the important aspects of an interesting character. I will then go into further detail about each point in later sections.

The first thing you need to know is who your character is in this very moment. In fact, for a simple hack-and-slash game, or a one-off quick game, that might be all you need. The big things here are of course your skills and your personality, as well as your relationships with other characters. If you're new to roleplaying, I would advise you to give your character a personality similar to your own, so that it will be easier for you to make quick decisions. As you gain experience (in real life, not in the game), you can learn to put a wider gap between who you are and who you play. The easiest thing to do to make your characters more interesting is to give them small quirks, such as a fascination for hats, or tendency to whistle while in battle. If you start with one or two things like that, and keep them going with consistency, you will make it possible for your character to take on a life of their own.

The second thing you should know is your character background. Why is your personality the way it is, how did you pick up your skills, how do you know the people you know? The more of these things you know, the easier it will be to think as your character. This is also a great opportunity for establishing your place in the group, especially if you join an already active game. Maybe the wizard used to babysit you, and still feels responsible for your safety? Maybe the warrior owes you money, and you follow him around to get it back? Just a small piece of character history like that will make the whole playgroup feel more dynamic and real.

The third thing you need to know is your goals and plans. A character who doesn't have a motivation for their actions could just as well be a robot (if you are playing a sci-fi game, you should give your characters goals and motivation even if they are robots). Having a goal outside of “Let's find this evil overlord and bring him to justice!” makes a character feel more real. Granted, your motivation could just be to bring the evil overlord to justice, but then you need to know why stopping him is so important.

As you can see, these three points are not really clearly separated. Who you are right now is a product of who you used to be and who you want to be, and you have to decide how to build from one to the other. Usually, you'd start with the first one, the “Who am I?”, and then find a history and a goal which fit. But sometimes, you could try to start at a different point. Ask a different question. Instead of “What class do I want to play?” you can ask ”If my character was an orphan who was adopted by a city guard, what kind of person would they be when they left home?” or even “The target of this campaign is to find and slay a demon. Why would my character get involved in something like that?” and build the character from there.

To be perfectly honest, the most important thing is to ask questions, and then come up with answers. And don't worry if you don't have all the answers right away. As long as your GM is okay with it, you can add more details to any of these categories at any time, as long as you don't contradict anything you've said about the character before. The most important thing is to have fun in figuring these things out, and then using the answers you have come up with. As I mentioned before, if you become consistent with using the decisions you've made, your characters will soon take on a life of their own.

The most important decisions you have to make about your character are the “here and now” details. You need to know who you are and what you do. I'll go through some of the things that can make a character unique and memorable.

Looks: I want to start with this one, because I think it is something that often gets glossed over in roleplaying. Our first impression of people is based on how they look, so a unique appearance can create good roleplaying opportunities. Is your character well-groomed? Well-dressed? Color coordinated? Do they dress mainly for comfort, function, or style? If you make sure to communicate these things, it will also give your GM something to build NPC's reactions to you on.

Attitude: How does your character treat people? Are they friendly? Suspicious? The difference between brutal honesty and nervous politeness is massive. This is a decision that has to be carefully considered, because it will greatly affect any social event the character is in. There will be times when you as the player knows that insulting the King's adviser would be foolish, but it would be consistent with your character decisions. And that's when good roleplaying means spending the night in the dungeon...

Beliefs: Every person has certain basic beliefs and values. What are your character's? In certain game systems allegiance to a deity is important, but beliefs go much further than that. If you follow a deity, are you a fervent or nominal believer? Conservative or liberal? Monarchist, republican, or anarchist? There are many aspects to a person's belief system, and each one can give you more depth.

Voice: Another under-utilized tool for character building is the character's voice. I'm not just talking about tone or accent (side note: only do an accent if you can keep it up consistently without it drawing too much attention to itself. Basically, if the other players pay more attention to your accent than to your words, it's not worth it, even if you really want your dwarf to sound Scottish.) but your choice of words. Do you prefer long or short sentences? Do you speak quickly or slowly? Do you have a large vocabulary? Are there certain slang expressions or idioms you like using? What do you say (or shout) when things go wrong? Or when they go right?

Relationships: In order to have depth to your roleplaying, you need to know what you think and feel about the other characters. You should also have some other contacts, friends, and family, because let's face it: everyone has people in their lives. I will talk more about this in part three, but the one thing that's good to keep in mind is to use your decisions about your attitude and beliefs into account when deciding how you feel about other people, both in the party and outside of it.

Personality quirks: Finally, once you have a clear picture of who you are, you can add little details to make your character more rounded out. We all have our little quirks which make us who we are, and they can be both a lot of fun, and useful from a roleplaying perspective. Having your character do odd or stupid things occasionally helps create great memories. Anything could make for an interesting quirk. I used to play with a very laid-back, fun-loving group, and there it was completely appropriate for my character to ask if he could try on people's hats. If you play a more serious game, you can add a more dramatic quirk, like constantly rubbing the scar of your old war injury, or refusing to sleep in the same place more than a single night because you don't feel safe. If you have trouble coming up with something, we have a thread with ideas you can use. I hope you'll find this useful, and keep an eye on this thread for part three: Knowing Where You Came From.