Thoughts on Personal Characteristics (Personality, Ideals, Bonds, Flaws)

I would like to know what people think about the Personal Characteristics in Character Creation. Do you see them as beneficial or a hinderance? Do you base your characters around them or typically ignore them? Do you use suggested one, make your own or forgo them entirely?

Personally I find they do have uses, but I RP better when I ignore them. However, that's me. I do actually love that 5th Edition has included them because I think they really do benefit people who may be new to roleplaying characters and I think it is one of the reasons that makes 5th edition such a huge draw for new players. It provides a good way to get a starting point on your character. Sometimes I peruse the suggested characteristics for character hooks that I think might benefit the character I am making. But when it comes to the game, I never look at them again. I play my characters as I feel them and usually the traits they have end up not fitting the character - not because they're wrong, just because they're far too simple to apply to a character. Sure, I can write out the proper traits but I cannot fit multiple page concepts into those tiny boxes. I do know this may just be me. I have never struggled with the roleplay aspect - I've been writing characters and getting in their heads since the age of 3. Yes, 3. I wrote my first fantasy story aged 4. It was shit of course because hey, I was 4 and not a prodigy or anything, it's just what I preferred to do. I was a weird kid. I learned to write a full sentence before I learned to speak one. So, I recognise I may approach roleplay and characters differently since I spend more of my life in the head of some character, for one reason or another, than in my own. I therefore find the Personal Characteristics sections rather limiting, and for some character designs rather stifling.

When making a recent character I asked the DM, who I have been playing with a while, if it would be OK to just leave them blank and roleplay as I go depending on how I feel the character progress. My DM agreed and was very enthusiastic, apparently preferring his players do this so maybe it isn't just me being weird?

So, I thought I would ask you fine peeps what your opinions are. How beneficial have you found the prompts for the Personal Characteristics for your own situation and characters?

I like to flesh out my characters, as I am almost always a DM, I have a ton of ideas, the personalities section really feels limited from that stand point. 

However, if I'm doing a one shot, which usually happens as I'm teaching fledgling DMs, I find them helpful if I don't want to bother thinking about my character's personality/back story. 

 Even when I create a character purely for the fun of some specific mechanic or build, I want them to be more than a soulless bag of statistics. The personal characteristics are the character.

Sometimes I don't use the ones suggested in the books, but even then I use them as starting points unless I have a very particular concept in mind. I even try to add them to key NPCs for social interaction or planning.

I love the addition of Backgrounds in general, but the personality traits help me think about the character as a character and less as a set of numbers. I don't always use those provided, but they are great for new players to use or as examples.

I really like them, as they help me get into character. They also help me round out the character, I have a Goblin Warlock with the Urchin background. I cannot wait to play him due to those qualities he has. One is he stuffs food and trinkets into his pockets, his name is Pacq-Rhat.

After editing them to something more in line with how I see the character they are useable.  The character creation part varies for me depending on the setup of the campaign and therefore sometimes I have very clear traits in mind and sometimes the ones provided are useful starting points to work from.

I tend to write detailed back stories for my characters that are somewhere between 3/4 of a page and a page and a half long.  After I write the back stories I go through and find the traits that match up to the character's back story and just plug them in.  Picking them is more of a formality than anything else.

I love to use ideals, bonds, personality traits etc, but i usually tend to make my own for my characters

I use them as a starting point sometimes but I've found that I've been ignoring them when actually RPing.  They're a good jog if you get stuck on how your person may react to a situation though.  :)