I’m going to spend this week examining some of the characters I’ve made to discover if there are any themes or commonalities that I might be able to draw out of them. This isn’t all of them by any means. I selected only the ones which I had played three or more sessions with. Here is the list we will be looking at:

• Solanor – started in Against the Wind and translated to Ironsworn
• Crew Swithins* – started in Ironsworn and translated to Old School Essentials
• Nest Vinter* – Ironsworn and then aged and translated to The Lighthouse at the End of the Universe
• Irvin Burns – Eldersworn and then converted to Call of Cthulhu
• Dr. Waco Goodnight – only surviving PC from numerous Mothership games
• Mirumoto Ryūnosuke – Usagi Yojimbo-based character for Legend of the Five Rings
• Solwen – Old School Essentials
• Crew of the USS Ruby – Star Trek, Captain’s Log

*Denotes characters that I have used in the past for various games.

Do these characters I’ve been playing in numerous different solo games say anything about me or my game style preferences? To answer that I’ll start by giving a quick overview of each character, their path so far, and my thoughts about their paths moving forward. Then I’ll take that information and see if there are any commonalities within. Finally, I’ll reflect on the commonalities and see if there is anything that can be glean from them.

Name. Solanor
System(s). Against the Wind and translated to Ironsworn
Personality. Eager, naïve, will give up a lot to complete his goals
History. Crossed the Shiverpeak Pass to prove his worth and then was sent to look for The Ebon Concordance.
Story. Solanor was first created using the random procedure in Against the Wind. He was a Blade Dancer, with Healing Touch, and Weapon Mastery. He was charged with retrieving The Ebon Concordance. Along his way he was conned into entering a goblin market. Where he was conned again into eating an extremely addictive fruit.
I later translated him over the Ironsworn, which was super easy to do and played him in the goblin market with the Ironsworn system for a while.

Name. Crew Swithins
System(s). Ironsworn and translated to Old School Essentials
Personality. Nonsense, direct, wants to do what is right but struggles with what that is
History. Crew originally started as an artificer in a Curse of Strahd game, but when that character was retired I rebuilt him in Ironsworn. But I went a different direction, he is now a woodsman whose village was plagued with mysterious deaths.
Story. He volunteered to investigate those murders and found out that his parents and other village elders were raising some kind of monster to kill witches. He fell in with one of the witches and started on a path to become one of them.

He was translated over the Old School Essentials, which was fairly easy. I dream of him crossing paths with Nest Vinter.

Name. Nest Vinter
System(s). Ironsworn and then aged and translated to The Lighthouse at the End of the Universe
Personality. Devote, hard, stubborn
History. Another character that was created for an old 5e game. She was retired and rebuilt as a cleric in the Ironlands. Her home and mentor was destroyed.
Story. She went on a trip to find aid in rebuilding her home. Along the way her faith was tested and at first she renounced it but by the end came out of the trip with a reaffirmed faith.
I aged her for The Lighthouse at the Edge of the Universe, where she reflected on her life, including many things which I have never and will never play out. That game ended with her leaving the lighthouse to go save an older Crew. This shows that at some point they have a relationship. I wanted her to have a strong faith and him to be very much of nature. The two come together, clash, but ultimately travel together. But that is a long term goal.

Name. Irvin Burns
System(s). Eldersworn and then converted to Call of Cthulhu
Personality. Curious, generous, intelligent, logical, methodical
History. Professor of Ancient Civilization in Arkham, he is an investigator in my Eldersworn adventures. I’ve probably run him the most
Story. At this point because he has been through three adventures, he is starting to take a more active role in dealing with occult matters in and around Arkham.
I just recently translated him to Call of Cthulhu, but he is yet to have an adventure in that system.

Name. Dr. Waco Goodnight
System(s). Mothership
Personality. Blunt, no verbal filter, dramatic, dedicated, peacemaker, smart
History. He is older and therefore takes a bit more risks than other folks. He is also extremely lucky. He also has the best name of all of these characters. The list of descriptors above gives you an idea of what he is like. He speaks his mind and can be dramatic, but is dedicated to the people he works with and wants to see them succeed.
Story. In three adventures of Mothership he is the only one to survive all three.

Name. Mirumoto Ryūnosuke
System(s). Legend of Five Rings, 5e
Personality. This is Usagi Yojimbo made into Legend of Five Rings
History. When he came of age his father asked him to travel Rokugan as a ronin to learn about the clans and the lives of people who aren’t of the ruling class.
Story. He does this and along the way his adventures are all taken directly from Usagi Yojimbo stories. He spends his time with peasants, aids those in need, and stops injustices when he finds them.

Name. Solwen
System(s). Old School Essentials
Personality. Helpful, smart, but foolhardy
History. He was a warden of the Dovedale region and won the Battle of Dovedale, but was soon after killed by an owlbear.
Story. Sent to Dovedale to deal with some goblins, which he did but then went into the Dalewold and was killed.

Name. The crew of the USS Ruby
System(s). Star Trek, Captain’s Log
The crew of the Ruby are only a few episodes into their adventures and trust is still being built between them. They are wide ranging and all of them were built using random roles. When I look at them together, I can say that all want to do what is best for themselves and Starfleet. There is a lot of desire to overcome problems peacefully, but a willingness to fight if needed. Usual Star Trek stuff.

Commonalities

So what are the commonalities? There is a desire to help others, which isn’t surprising because they are all heroes in their stories. Outside of that one big commonality is how much I used random roles to create them. So many of them were created with random roles and developed from rolling for description words and putting them together. I think this is one of the reasons why there isn’t a lot of commonality among them. They are all heroes trying to do what is right in the face of their previous baggage.

I do enjoy taking various random words and ideas and seeing what I can create with them, which is the main thrust of just about all of these characters. It was particularly fun with the life path creation of Captain’s Log.

What about you? Do your characters say anything about you and what kind of characters you like to play?