So as you may or may not know I like to play games.  All sorts really, and last year I started explore the fascinating world of tabletop role-play games.  Now I am in love.  There’s drama, there’s mental arithmetic (sometimes I have to break out a calculator), there’s all sorts of colour shiny dice (or forbidden snacks as we call them thank to one close encounter with a D20 and my friend’s daughter’s tiny grabby hands).

And what makes it better is I love creating characters.  When I play sims, I spend longer on building the character and the house then I do actually playing.  When I first started Guild Wars I took about an hour to finally decide what character I wanted to play, only to immediately scrap it and start again when I realized their hair wasn’t quite the right shade of red to express their blood lust.

So in order to balance my own need and desire to understand the characters I am creating, I have created this character sheet.  It’s 19 pages of background, personality details and writing exercises that help me flesh out a character in more detail.  You can get your own copy here.

I have tried to keep the layout simple and stick to general character information, so it can flex across multiple game systems.  I have also started using it for my own short stories and even to inform some of my drawings.  If you like cracking open a characters head and really getting to know them, then I think you’ll like this.  It might also be helpful if you struggle creating a consistent character who acts from their own motivation rather than your own.

I hope you enjoy using it.