Character Creation and Dungeons and Dragons

[Jonathan]

Something interesting I've heard a while back--I remember hearing about the game helping some writers create characters for their stories. Hell, I've heard Stephen Colbert played the game when he was younger, which I'm guessing is how he created the fictionalized version of himself (I'm I getting this right?). Has anybody ever heard of this?

[K.P.]

i do that occasionally and sometimes run random generators too. interesting stuff

[Ingrid, Just another writer.]

hmmm, a "game"? I'm definitely curious, but sadly I don't know what you mean. Maybe try googling it?

[Dwayne]

Jonathan wrote: "I remember hearing about the game helping some writers create characters for their stories."

I used to role-play a lot when I was young. I don't really see any advantage to using role-playing games to create characters for stories. Can you explain further?

[Roxanne]

Ingrid wrote: "hmmm, a "game"? I'm definitely curious, but sadly I don't know what you mean. Maybe try googling it?"

You mean "Dungeons and Dragons"? It's a roleplay game.

[Roxanne]

Dwayne wrote: "I used to role-play a lot when I was young. I don't really see any advantage to using role-playing games to create characters for stories. Can you explain further?"

I know I for one use roleplaying just to get to know my characters, not to create them in the first place. And don't you have to have a basic idea before you can get started creating a character anyways?

[Dwayne]

Roxanne wrote: "I know I for one use roleplaying just to get to know my characters, not to create them in the first place. "

Uh huh. I used to do that, too. I've taken characters I've used in role-playing and written stories about them. I've just never considered using games like that to create characters for stories and wondered what the advantage would be. For me, it's not that a character is an elf, a gunslinger, a super-hero, etc. that makes the character interesting, it's what he or she thinks and does. It's the way they interact with others and their personality. You don't really get that from randomly creating characters in a role-playing game.

[Roxanne]

Exactly.