If you never roleplayed before and you want to roleplay, where do you start? In this post an example will be given on how to build a character from nothing simply by asking yourself a few basic questions and following logic.
A who or a what? A who
A male or a female? A male
A human or something else? Something else
What race then? A dwarf
Age? Middle-aged (note: no numbers yet)
Height? A bit above dwarf average (note: once again no numbers yet)
Weight? Average dwarf weight
Chubby or muscular? Muscular
Why muscular? Because of his profession
What is his profession? He is a blacksmith
Does he dress like a blacksmith? Not anymore
Why not? Because he is an adventurer now
What does he wear then? More armour worthy of a soldier. And he is a dwarf, so chainmail!
Does he use a weapon? Yes
What kind of weapon? A hammer
What kind of hammer? A large warhammer
Any special clothing or jewellery? He wears a broad belt with a gold buckle over his armour
So, what skin type underneath all that armour? A light skin type
Any scars? None
Anything else about the skin (pocks, sweaty, rosy, whatever)? Ordinary
Colour of the hair? Red
Bald? No
Facial hair? Yes, a beard!
What kind of beard? A big one, trimmed into a point with tassels at the end
Any companion animals? None
And that should give enough information to write a description on your very first character:
A red-haired dwarf with a big beard that's neatly trimmed into a point with tassels is dressed in chainmail with large armour plating. A broad belt with golden buckle is set across his waste and on his back he carries a large warhammer. The muscular build of this above average sized dwarf allows him to carry the combined weight of his armour and hammer.
See that nothing was mentioned about him being a blacksmith? That's because you can't see that when you look at a person. Unless there was a detail to give it away. For instance:
A red-haired dwarf with a big beard that's neatly trimmed into a point
with tassels is dressed in chainmail with large armour plating. A broad
belt with golden buckle is set across his waste and on his back he
carries a large warhammer. The muscular build of this above average sized
dwarf allows him to carry the combined weight of his armour and
hammer. The callous palms of his hands have the scars of blisters on them.
Nice! Furthermore, although no scars or skin specifics were thought up when writing the description, for a reference to his period as blacksmith it was a subtle addition. This is a demonstration of how a description grows slowly along with the background of the character until it makes sense logically.
With the description done, specific traits such as actual height, weight or age can be worked out. Either by guessing the right figures or by looking the averages up online. Then again, there's nothing against keeping traits such as age, height and weight descriptive as they were in the first outline!
