I would like to thank you for all your answers to my last question you have given my world-building partner and me much to consider. Still, there is something that bothers us about D&D worlds in general - what the people and races look like, and specifically their muscular structures and outward appearances. You see; whenever we see depictions of dungeons and dragons characters, the men appear to have large, powerfully built bodies complete with what seems to be natural six-pack abdomens and bulging rippling arms and chest muscles. In contrast, the women have lithe, highly athletic bodies that would put even modern Olympians to shame. Furthermore; we see many more beautiful characters than seems feasible, many of whom are beyond the standards to which we hold beauty in the modern world, as though they are all somehow supernaturally perfect. Even the bestial races receive this type of airbrushing and have their animalistic features softened and their form refined so that they conform to the same notion of fantastical beauty.
There also seems to be a consensus amongst artists creating dungeons and dragons art that those characters typically perceived as being excellent people generally possess more beauty than those characters whose goodly intentions might somehow be questionable. As an example; compare the Noble Human Paladin of Tyr, to the Tiefling, Great Old One Warlock who grew up on the streets as an urchin. Even though both characters might be Lawful Good and have everyone's best interests at heart, the Tiefling Warlock often gets depicted as being lesser, more animalistic and primal that the Human Paladin. You could make the argument that this is down to the differences in class and race, and to some extent, you would be correct in that argument, but that argument fails when we compare images of the same race and class. Compare our example of a Lawful Good, Tiefling Warlock above, to one with the same class and background, but with the Chaotic Good alignment instead, and we see the later Warlock depicted as flawed and animalistic. In contrast, the former appears as the personification of beauty by comparison.
We have looked at a lot of dungeons and dragons related art over the past few weeks; both official and fan-created, as well as professionally created art and art created by amateur artists. We have done this as a way of inspiring our creations, and despite the differences noted above, in all the art we have looked at, it appears that only the genuinely monstrous have physical flaws. Even then, there is a stark beauty in those imperfections that makes those monstrosities somehow acceptable. To be clear, I am not talking about physical flaws in terms of disabilities. However, even then, it seems that physical disabilities see their usage primarily to mark out evil NPCs, with the campaigns main villain frequently having a limp, a withered arm, a none-functional eye or some other kind of physical disability. As though the creators of that NPC are suggesting to us that it was this critical flaw in that person's physiology, that somehow drove them down the path to becoming the worlds ultimate evil.
All of the above bothers us because taking into account the distinct physical differences between various races; it seems that dungeons and dragons characters fall into four bland boxes whenever we see depictions of them. The first box being the characters possed of flawless supernatural beauty whose moral compass points them strictly in the direction of becoming the unwaveringly loyal, self-sacrificing hero who stays true to their world till the bitter end. The second box, are those less perfect, though still unfeasibly beautiful characters whose moral compass points them in a more ambiguous direction towards some kind of overarching destiny.
There is also a third box that houses the monstrous characters who primarily become NPCs and whose flaws are in and of themselves, beautiful.
The fourth, and last box, is home to those evil characters, which are riddled with terrible Shakespearian parodies of physical disabilities, as though those imperfections are somehow responsible for making the inflicted into the vilest of evils.
In consideration, I have come to realise that my characters, NPCs and worlds fit into one of these four boxes. Even looking at my latest NPC creation, I can see which box she fits into and knowing that until now, my worlds and NPCs and characters have been thus boxy, I feel somewhat disheartened. Talking to my world-building partner made me realise that she feels the same about her creations. She also thinks that all of her past work falls into one of these four boxes, although I have enjoyed playing in her worlds in the past. What is worse, looking back over the work we have done on our shared world thus far, we can place all of our work squarely into one of these boxes of bland derivativeness.
We want to create an epic world full of meaning and lore, in which our players can go on grand epic adventures that they will remember and talk about for years to come, and filling our world with boxy blandness feels like we are creating something meh, rather than epic. The whole point of us working together is because we thought it would be the greatest of adventures, and yet here we are, making all the same mistakes, together.
So; how do you do it, how do you get your A-game on and avoid the B-side, when it comes to world-building and specifically character creation?
What I'm pulling from your post is essentially you don't want thin 1 dimensional characters, and you're expressing displeasure in the prevalence of them both in game worlds and promulgated media in general.
I'll tackle the second half first.
It's a human thing. Human thought constructs are called schemas. They are a way our brains process what would otherwise be TMI. The classic example of a schema is the word "bird." you probably think of something like a robin when you hear the word, but it encompasses ostriches, penguins and the albatross- creatures very different from the image you imagine when you hear the word bird. Schemas among other things allow us to distinguish what might be edible, what constitutes a potential danger, and whom is a member of our own tribe or potential mate.
The "Halo Effect" is a secondary feature of schematic thinking. People are predisposed to think "pretty-good" and "ugly-bad." (Note that concepts of beauty are cultual, not panhuman.) As a species we attribute all kinds of attributes to others based on very little and often misleading information.
In the media we see this tendency of human thought concentrated. The inclusion of a physical flaw to represent a character flaw predates Shakespeare with roots as far back as the original Greek plays- in characters like calibas and Ajax. Modern usage of this can still be seen in the movies today- where a character is physically maimed to represent a character flaw or personality deficit.
Another reason that TV & movie characters tend to be so 1 dimensional is simply there isn't enough room in the script to flesh them out fully. (Scripts run 1 page per minute, 33 lines per page, with a half hour show running 20 pages & the average movie 90 pages.) In order to leave enough room to establish the conflict and resolution, the characters media can squeeze into the script are usually defined by a single event, unlike real people whom are defined by a long series of (often unlikely) events.
Fantasy characters in art largely originally were cover art for pulp magazines & books. The art was designed to sell the product, which it still is, with good effect. The target of the marketing is primarily the young- who don't think critically. Hardcore longtime fantasy fans aren't so swayed by the pretty pictures though, they want something they can sink their teeth into. The most popular stuff is stuff that doesn't require any thought. (Side rant-NYT best seller doesn't mean good, just popular. Ripple outsells Chateaux Neuf de Paup, that doesn't make it a better product.)
So back to the network of NPCs you're trying to put 2gether. If you want your characters to be realistic, give them both good & bad traits. Many leading Nazis were loving husbands & good fathers. Some very popular stars have been shown to have a dark side. Give them an atypical mix- instead of an Irish Catholic cop with a drinking problem, make an Irish Buddhist cop who loves lizards and tango.
Think about age related challenges each faces: age of reason, passion, caution, conviction, doubt, resolution, acceptance & apathy.
Consider characters' primary goals & how they decompress. Do the have a hobby? Do they collect something? (Obsessive people ALWAYS collect something.)
Now here's the hard part: don't overly invest in characters with whom the PCs won't interact directly. If you spend days working out the grocer or the mayor and the characters don't interact with them or only lightly interact you'll feel frustrated.
It's fantasy man. No one fantasizes that they were ugly.
I don't typically include "attractiveness" in my character descriptions. Beyond race, obvious body language, and manner of dress I don't really go into detail about how NPCs look unless they have a particularly distinctive trait that is relevant to their character or the story they are imparting. Like a townsperson who I created to tell the party how the town burned down might have a burn scar on their face. But otherwise I think it's important to leave room for players to visualize their own versions of what I'm describing, and rippling abs would fall into that space.
I also want to caution the blending of two games here. One is D&D and the other is Worldbuilding For Fun. If you're playing WFF, it's great to have nuanced, deeply thought out NPCs with rich backstory and 18 personality traits. But if you're playing D&D, that NPC is there to keep the story moving. They may be part of that story, but the folks at your table probably signed up to do some magic and overcome dramatic conflicts, if not to just crack some orc skulls and take their gold. Proudly illustrating every NPC as a realistic, multi-faceted individual who specifically has a 6/10 face and a bit of a spare tire will kill your game's momentum and relegate the players to a passive audience for your storycraft. I'd caution against it in a game of D&D.
For WFF though, knock yourself out. I've spent hours doing that myself and I don't consider that time wasted. But I doubt that all the stuff I came up with is nearly as entertaining to others as it was to me.
I'd say yes you've identified an issue, but this is hardly specific to D&D and is rather prevalent in all forms of visual media. What it boils down to is people like looking at attractive characters, and beauty=protagonist/ugly=bad guy is a convenient short-hand that a lot of creators lean on. Again, I don't particularly like it either, but i don't expect it to go away.
In regards to your campaign, I wouldn't worry too much about it. For most NPC's, you don't need an intensely detailed description, rather just a few defining traits, so they shouldn't fall into that trap. The players are free to visualize them how they want, and if they want to put them in those boxes, they can. Unless you have images for every NPC in your game world, which I would not recommend.
Thats a pretty narrow view of fantasy. All the best characters in stories are flawed.
One world I loved as a kid was the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a very ugly and flawed hero. I loved the Bloodguard in that series.
Raistlin was physically extremely weak and one of the most flawed characters.
In D&D you have stats so if you have high strength or dexterity than you need to have the muscles or athleticism to match. Charisma though as you know is not about looks.
Thats a pretty narrow view of fantasy. All the best characters in stories are flawed.
One world I loved as a kid was the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a very ugly and flawed hero. I loved the Bloodguard in that series.
Raistlin was physically extremely weak and one of the most flawed characters.
In D&D you have stats so if you have high strength or dexterity than you need to have the muscles or athleticism to match. Charisma though as you know is not about looks.
Definitely this. When writing characters for any reason, don't forget about people who are: beautiful but vapid/boring, beautiful and manipulative or cruel, ugly but moral, plain but brave/driven, weak with inner strength, strong but inwardly weak, ugly with signs of beauty, beautiful with hints of ugliness, physical flaws that someone is born with and growing with them builds character, physical features one acquires (scars, tattoos, etc) that may reveal character, men with effeminate beauty, women with masculine beauty, androgyny, people who were clearly once beautiful, people who were once plain/ugly (why? What changed? There's always something), people trying to be something they're not, people trying not to be something they are, I could probably go on and on and on. The point being that there's as many "boxes" to put your characters in as you can think of.
I'd still debate the necessity though of putting *every* NPC into such a highly developed framework, as that level of attention to NPC's can take away from the player's stories unless the NPC in question is one that advances it.
Hi, beyonders,
I would like to thank you for all your answers to my last question you have given my world-building partner and me much to consider. Still, there is something that bothers us about D&D worlds in general - what the people and races look like, and specifically their muscular structures and outward appearances. You see; whenever we see depictions of dungeons and dragons characters, the men appear to have large, powerfully built bodies complete with what seems to be natural six-pack abdomens and bulging rippling arms and chest muscles. In contrast, the women have lithe, highly athletic bodies that would put even modern Olympians to shame. Furthermore; we see many more beautiful characters than seems feasible, many of whom are beyond the standards to which we hold beauty in the modern world, as though they are all somehow supernaturally perfect. Even the bestial races receive this type of airbrushing and have their animalistic features softened and their form refined so that they conform to the same notion of fantastical beauty.
There also seems to be a consensus amongst artists creating dungeons and dragons art that those characters typically perceived as being excellent people generally possess more beauty than those characters whose goodly intentions might somehow be questionable. As an example; compare the Noble Human Paladin of Tyr, to the Tiefling, Great Old One Warlock who grew up on the streets as an urchin. Even though both characters might be Lawful Good and have everyone's best interests at heart, the Tiefling Warlock often gets depicted as being lesser, more animalistic and primal that the Human Paladin. You could make the argument that this is down to the differences in class and race, and to some extent, you would be correct in that argument, but that argument fails when we compare images of the same race and class. Compare our example of a Lawful Good, Tiefling Warlock above, to one with the same class and background, but with the Chaotic Good alignment instead, and we see the later Warlock depicted as flawed and animalistic. In contrast, the former appears as the personification of beauty by comparison.
We have looked at a lot of dungeons and dragons related art over the past few weeks; both official and fan-created, as well as professionally created art and art created by amateur artists. We have done this as a way of inspiring our creations, and despite the differences noted above, in all the art we have looked at, it appears that only the genuinely monstrous have physical flaws. Even then, there is a stark beauty in those imperfections that makes those monstrosities somehow acceptable. To be clear, I am not talking about physical flaws in terms of disabilities. However, even then, it seems that physical disabilities see their usage primarily to mark out evil NPCs, with the campaigns main villain frequently having a limp, a withered arm, a none-functional eye or some other kind of physical disability. As though the creators of that NPC are suggesting to us that it was this critical flaw in that person's physiology, that somehow drove them down the path to becoming the worlds ultimate evil.
All of the above bothers us because taking into account the distinct physical differences between various races; it seems that dungeons and dragons characters fall into four bland boxes whenever we see depictions of them. The first box being the characters possed of flawless supernatural beauty whose moral compass points them strictly in the direction of becoming the unwaveringly loyal, self-sacrificing hero who stays true to their world till the bitter end. The second box, are those less perfect, though still unfeasibly beautiful characters whose moral compass points them in a more ambiguous direction towards some kind of overarching destiny.
There is also a third box that houses the monstrous characters who primarily become NPCs and whose flaws are in and of themselves, beautiful.
The fourth, and last box, is home to those evil characters, which are riddled with terrible Shakespearian parodies of physical disabilities, as though those imperfections are somehow responsible for making the inflicted into the vilest of evils.
In consideration, I have come to realise that my characters, NPCs and worlds fit into one of these four boxes. Even looking at my latest NPC creation, I can see which box she fits into and knowing that until now, my worlds and NPCs and characters have been thus boxy, I feel somewhat disheartened. Talking to my world-building partner made me realise that she feels the same about her creations. She also thinks that all of her past work falls into one of these four boxes, although I have enjoyed playing in her worlds in the past. What is worse, looking back over the work we have done on our shared world thus far, we can place all of our work squarely into one of these boxes of bland derivativeness.
We want to create an epic world full of meaning and lore, in which our players can go on grand epic adventures that they will remember and talk about for years to come, and filling our world with boxy blandness feels like we are creating something meh, rather than epic. The whole point of us working together is because we thought it would be the greatest of adventures, and yet here we are, making all the same mistakes, together.
So; how do you do it, how do you get your A-game on and avoid the B-side, when it comes to world-building and specifically character creation?
Cheers,
Foxes XD
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Oh dats a lot o questions.
What I'm pulling from your post is essentially you don't want thin 1 dimensional characters, and you're expressing displeasure in the prevalence of them both in game worlds and promulgated media in general.
I'll tackle the second half first.
It's a human thing. Human thought constructs are called schemas. They are a way our brains process what would otherwise be TMI. The classic example of a schema is the word "bird." you probably think of something like a robin when you hear the word, but it encompasses ostriches, penguins and the albatross- creatures very different from the image you imagine when you hear the word bird. Schemas among other things allow us to distinguish what might be edible, what constitutes a potential danger, and whom is a member of our own tribe or potential mate.
The "Halo Effect" is a secondary feature of schematic thinking. People are predisposed to think "pretty-good" and "ugly-bad." (Note that concepts of beauty are cultual, not panhuman.) As a species we attribute all kinds of attributes to others based on very little and often misleading information.
In the media we see this tendency of human thought concentrated. The inclusion of a physical flaw to represent a character flaw predates Shakespeare with roots as far back as the original Greek plays- in characters like calibas and Ajax. Modern usage of this can still be seen in the movies today- where a character is physically maimed to represent a character flaw or personality deficit.
Another reason that TV & movie characters tend to be so 1 dimensional is simply there isn't enough room in the script to flesh them out fully. (Scripts run 1 page per minute, 33 lines per page, with a half hour show running 20 pages & the average movie 90 pages.) In order to leave enough room to establish the conflict and resolution, the characters media can squeeze into the script are usually defined by a single event, unlike real people whom are defined by a long series of (often unlikely) events.
Fantasy characters in art largely originally were cover art for pulp magazines & books. The art was designed to sell the product, which it still is, with good effect. The target of the marketing is primarily the young- who don't think critically. Hardcore longtime fantasy fans aren't so swayed by the pretty pictures though, they want something they can sink their teeth into. The most popular stuff is stuff that doesn't require any thought. (Side rant-NYT best seller doesn't mean good, just popular. Ripple outsells Chateaux Neuf de Paup, that doesn't make it a better product.)
So back to the network of NPCs you're trying to put 2gether. If you want your characters to be realistic, give them both good & bad traits. Many leading Nazis were loving husbands & good fathers. Some very popular stars have been shown to have a dark side. Give them an atypical mix- instead of an Irish Catholic cop with a drinking problem, make an Irish Buddhist cop who loves lizards and tango.
Think about age related challenges each faces: age of reason, passion, caution, conviction, doubt, resolution, acceptance & apathy.
Consider characters' primary goals & how they decompress. Do the have a hobby? Do they collect something? (Obsessive people ALWAYS collect something.)
Now here's the hard part: don't overly invest in characters with whom the PCs won't interact directly. If you spend days working out the grocer or the mayor and the characters don't interact with them or only lightly interact you'll feel frustrated.
Hope this helps. 😎
Edit: stupid autocorrect
It's fantasy man. No one fantasizes that they were ugly.
I don't typically include "attractiveness" in my character descriptions. Beyond race, obvious body language, and manner of dress I don't really go into detail about how NPCs look unless they have a particularly distinctive trait that is relevant to their character or the story they are imparting. Like a townsperson who I created to tell the party how the town burned down might have a burn scar on their face. But otherwise I think it's important to leave room for players to visualize their own versions of what I'm describing, and rippling abs would fall into that space.
I also want to caution the blending of two games here. One is D&D and the other is Worldbuilding For Fun. If you're playing WFF, it's great to have nuanced, deeply thought out NPCs with rich backstory and 18 personality traits. But if you're playing D&D, that NPC is there to keep the story moving. They may be part of that story, but the folks at your table probably signed up to do some magic and overcome dramatic conflicts, if not to just crack some orc skulls and take their gold. Proudly illustrating every NPC as a realistic, multi-faceted individual who specifically has a 6/10 face and a bit of a spare tire will kill your game's momentum and relegate the players to a passive audience for your storycraft. I'd caution against it in a game of D&D.
For WFF though, knock yourself out. I've spent hours doing that myself and I don't consider that time wasted. But I doubt that all the stuff I came up with is nearly as entertaining to others as it was to me.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I'd say yes you've identified an issue, but this is hardly specific to D&D and is rather prevalent in all forms of visual media. What it boils down to is people like looking at attractive characters, and beauty=protagonist/ugly=bad guy is a convenient short-hand that a lot of creators lean on. Again, I don't particularly like it either, but i don't expect it to go away.
In regards to your campaign, I wouldn't worry too much about it. For most NPC's, you don't need an intensely detailed description, rather just a few defining traits, so they shouldn't fall into that trap. The players are free to visualize them how they want, and if they want to put them in those boxes, they can. Unless you have images for every NPC in your game world, which I would not recommend.
Thats a pretty narrow view of fantasy. All the best characters in stories are flawed.
One world I loved as a kid was the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a very ugly and flawed hero. I loved the Bloodguard in that series.
Raistlin was physically extremely weak and one of the most flawed characters.
In D&D you have stats so if you have high strength or dexterity than you need to have the muscles or athleticism to match. Charisma though as you know is not about looks.
Definitely this. When writing characters for any reason, don't forget about people who are: beautiful but vapid/boring, beautiful and manipulative or cruel, ugly but moral, plain but brave/driven, weak with inner strength, strong but inwardly weak, ugly with signs of beauty, beautiful with hints of ugliness, physical flaws that someone is born with and growing with them builds character, physical features one acquires (scars, tattoos, etc) that may reveal character, men with effeminate beauty, women with masculine beauty, androgyny, people who were clearly once beautiful, people who were once plain/ugly (why? What changed? There's always something), people trying to be something they're not, people trying not to be something they are, I could probably go on and on and on. The point being that there's as many "boxes" to put your characters in as you can think of.
I'd still debate the necessity though of putting *every* NPC into such a highly developed framework, as that level of attention to NPC's can take away from the player's stories unless the NPC in question is one that advances it.