What makes a good character?

[Tech]

When you build a player character or a supervillain (or see one written up), what do you think makes a good character or even a great character? Is it the stats? Is it the power-scale of the bad guy vs. the heroes? Is it the background that you write-up? What criteria do you use?

 

For myself, it's a combination of multiple things. It could be the picture that the players like. I remember someone drawing their own version of villains and we still laugh and shudder remembering the pictures. It could be that the villain is solo and is powerful enough to handle the team but not so powerful that the heroes have no chance of defeating him. It could be the villain is funny, like how I use Foxbat. It could be the villain is a wimp and keeps trying to take on heroes that will obviously defeat him. A combination of these is what could make a villain great and fun to use. There definitely has to be a chemistry with how a character is played with the other characters, whether hero or villains. I've had villains I've made that I thought would work out wonderful and the players were like 'meh'. I've had a few surprises where I made one-shot villains and the players really liked them and wanted to see them again, to my surprise. 

 

So what about you?

[Christopher R Taylor]

One you enjoy to play.

[BoloOfEarth]

First off, I choose to define "good character" as "memorable."  One that the players remember well (either fondly or with intense hatred), and often want to make a repeat appearance.

 

That said, what makes a good character (at least, to me)?  Personality and/or motivation.  The greatest stats or the coolest powers will be completely forgotten pretty quickly if the character is not memorable in either personality or motivation.

 

Though I'll admit, a cool picture can also make a character memorable too.  But more often than not, I'll put extra work into the personality of a character whose picture is especially good, so the personality / motivation often follows suit.

 

One thing I did is adopt the GURPS "Quirks" as a Complication in Champions.  All of my villain NPCs now have 5 Quirks (worth 5 points total), and these more often than not are what stick in the players' minds.

[Cassandra]

One who is good at one thing (Parker on Leverage starts with limited interpersonal skills but is the greatest thief in the world).

 

One who can grow (Parker eventually became leader of the group because of her intelligence and skills).

 

One with interesting psychological limitations (Parker was afraid of horses, and was secretive about her past)

 

One who has interesting friends and family (Parker's adopted father was the former greatest thief and named after Cary Grant).

 

 

[dsatow]

2 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

First off, I choose to define "good character" as "memorable."  One that the players remember well (either fondly or with intense hatred), and often want to make a repeat appearance.

 

That said, what makes a good character (at least, to me)?  Personality and/or motivation.  The greatest stats or the coolest powers will be completely forgotten pretty quickly if the character is not memorable in either personality or motivation.

 

Though I'll admit, a cool picture can also make a character memorable too.  But more often than not, I'll put extra work into the personality of a character whose picture is especially good, so the personality / motivation often follows suit.

 

One thing I did is adopt the GURPS "Quirks" as a Complication in Champions.  All of my villain NPCs now have 5 Quirks (worth 5 points total), and these more often than not are what stick in the players' minds.

 

I generally agree.  An NPC is a good character if the players remember them without prodding or want to interact with them without my prodding.

 

As a player, I think a PC is a good character if the player really enjoys running them.  I've had and seen good concepts become bad characters because they don't fit the campaign or the GM style, not that they were badly designed or conceptualized.