Name: John Clyde
Gender: Male
Age: 27
These kinds of details are easy and touch and go. You don't really need to go too much into detail.
Description: John stands roughly 6'3" and weighs about 180 pounds. He has a strong, athletic frame and has a slight muscular build. He has a tan skin tone, shaggy brown hair, brown eyes, and a decent smile and good looking teeth. Meanwhile, his hands are a bit rough. He also has a tattoo of an anchor on his left upper arm.
Body details. All pure physical description, covering height, weight, body shape and size, as well as skin tone, hair and eye color, and anything else on John's skin. If it helps, this is what John looks like... naked! Nah, just kidding, but save clothing for the next paragraph.
John wears a white graphic t-shirt, covered by a gray hoodie. He also wears a rugged pair of blue jeans, a brown leather belt with a brass buckle, and a pair of black sneakers that have seen some wear and tear. He also wears a black digital watch on his left wrist.
Here we cover clothing. Cover what they're wearing on their chest in terms of shirt, coats, and so on. Then, move onto pants and if applicable, a belt. Then move onto their shoes and accessories. And yeah, you really don't need to mention what kind of socks they're wearing (never matters), and you really, really don't need to mention whether they're wearing boxers or briefs. Or... a thong with a cheetah pattern...
In terms of physical attributes, John is very agile and is a strong runner, but he is more of a sprinter and not an endurance runner. Meanwhile, John has about average intelligence, and he's not the most charismatic guy out there.
These are some of the physical traits about the character. Such as whether they're strong, perceptive, have strong endurance, charisma, are intelligent, agile, or even lucky or not. If you make them strong or intelligent, that's fine, but then maybe they're not agile, or vice versa. It's more believable if you give them both an above average trait and a below average trait.
Personality: John is a pretty friendly guy, but he does have the tendency to be hasty and he dislikes waiting around. He also has a bit of a wild side, and enjoys having fun and taking risks, even if it's just for the adventure of it all. He also doesn't really think too hard about the consequences of his actions, and just doesn't like sitting still for long periods of time.
This first paragraph basically determines how your character behaves on a regular basis and what their day-to-day attitude is like. Don't think about times where it's obvious there would be an exception, such as if John was dealing with a death of someone in his family, if he just got robbed, or any kind of scenario that doesn't happen any more than once a year, if at all.
John enjoys sports most of all, but his favorites are track and field, as well as hockey and soccer. He has quite a few friends and always tries to treat them fairly. Meanwhile, John has a good sense of humor, often enjoying practical jokes and pranks. He doesn't like formality much, and hates having to eat at fancy restaurants and any other occasion that makes him wear a business suit or tuxedo. Very often, John doesn't mind getting into trouble, and doesn't really care too much for authority.
So here we get a better picture of John's likes and dislikes. Every character should have something they like and something that reflect what kind of person or creature they are, but they should also have things they don't like and that make sense by contrasting with things they do like. No one likes or dislikes everything, of course.
The last paragraph in your character's personality should be about their feelings and reflections about the role play's storyline situation. Are they hopeful things will turn out right, or are they just trying to save their own behind?
Background: John was born in Flint, Michigan to his mother, Maria Clyde and his father, Luke Clyde. As a child, John enjoyed attention, but the birth of his younger sister Vanessa and younger brother Nathan did take away from that. As a result, John typically sought after friends rather than attention from his mother and father. In his early years of school, John was roughly an average student, getting grades around Cs and Bs. While he did like English and especially gym classes, he never cared much for math and science.
So there's John's childhood and a few details about his immediate family. Unless a major event happened to them with their family or with school that will most likely come up in the RP itself, you really don't need to go much further into detail than this.
As a teen, John was somewhat rebellious and he did get involved in underage drinking a few times, but he never did get in serious trouble with the police besides a few reprimands. In college, John stayed on campus and did let himself get carried away with the parties in the dorms. During college, he studied Sports Marketing, did relatively well with a 3.2 GPA, but he was prone to missing classes and oversleeping.
Basically, his teen and college years. Again, unless it's really important, you don't need to detail every waking day of your character's life.
As for the last paragraph in the history, you should make it a transition between the history of their past life getting connected to the events of the role play's storyline. Otherwise, it's tough to imagine your character was even made for the story, and for all anyone knows, it's a copy and pasted sign up from another role play (don't get into this habit either).
In this case, if the role play was about a war, the last paragraph should be about John possibly getting drafted into it. If it was about a natural disaster ravaging an area, John should be affected by it. If forget to include stuff like this, it does your character seem like they're not really involved in the storyline at all.
Other: John hates reality TV.
I think we all do.
Bookmarks