The Plinkett Test for RPG characters - can yours pass? [Archive]

TheIronGolem

2014-09-06, 02:00 AM

Hyena

2014-09-06, 02:25 AM

Duh, it's pretty easy. Okay. I'll describe my favourite character - though, I got to see him being played for, like, one session, but he's forever in my heart.

He's an average guy without anything special about him, who decided to become something more - and decided to act as an evil overlord, despite not having a single quality that makes an evil overlord. He acted like a particularily bad LARPer, permamently stuck in character, but managed to become leader of the evil party just because of how likable and funny he was for them.

Beige

2014-09-06, 02:39 AM

BWR

2014-09-06, 03:01 AM

Zaydos

2014-09-06, 03:03 AM

Feanor

Known as Chaotic Alcoholic, although he was more probably Lawful Narrative, he was the crazy man with a plan, and a desire to find the best booze ever made. Always plotting something, usually something to pull everyone's bacon out of the fire. A bit of a wanna be Casanova, with a soft spot for animals, and a tendency to take them in whether dwarf giant space hamster, a cat, or a wererat. He was ultimately motivated primarily by a desire to be a hero, the gallant storybook kind which never fail, instead he was the fool with silly plans, made as he went along. Also a tendency to pretend to be drunk, so often that his own companions forgot that he was only actually drunk once while they knew him.

Laughing Tom

Insane with a tendency to talk to his imaginary friend who just happens to be real. Brilliant and with a very personal sense of justice, but with a tendency to get sidetracked easily. Born in the cold north, with a father who left him as a child, and then apprenticed to a mad man who considered a fitting punishment for a child to be locking them in a basement with the undead. After murdering his master he went on a journey of self-discovery which led to his being touched by a creature from outside of reality, and the madness caused by that brief contact to have to be excised and given physical form. After wandering with his imaginary friend thus made flesh for a time, he decided to return home. Finding it conquered by the villain of the current arc he decided to join the heroes that had arrived and overthrow the villain. He had a few berserk buttons that would make him very likely to kill you, but those fall under his powers (thou shalt not enjoy the tentacles) and equipment (thou shalt not touch the hat).

Professor Ardaylismortis

Cursed with power by a mad goddess, he chose to rebel rather than serve. While on a job, he found himself saving a city of another race and from their forming a blossoming relationship with a noblewoman of that land. Throwing himself into the protection of the land he fought against the invaders to the north, servants of the same goddess which had cursed or blessed him, and decided that because those who cannot do teach that he ought to found a school to teach wizardry. He went on to become one of the first five to successfully cleanse part of the old forest defense system and restore it from a place of twisted magic to its original function, and to discover he held the bloodline of an ancient emperor and was thus targeted by the ghost of one of his ancestors who sought to use him as a vessel on his path to become a god.

As for the test itself... it works better without the additions (like the original allows for powers/abilities) and even the examples from their review of a good character comes down to their role in the move (C-3PO the descriptions include bumbling sidekick and comedy relief).

Erik Vale

2014-09-06, 03:31 AM

Also, can your characters pass the test? Would you avoid playing characters who can't, or seek to develop them into someone who can?

Some, no/yes.
2D can be fine, 2D can also be very amusing. In a IRL game we have a blaster mage that's mostly just that, his additional features is that when he gets jumpy he fireballs/others things.
Also, the catagories look a little broad.

NichG

2014-09-06, 03:36 AM

Also, can your characters pass the test? Would you avoid playing characters who can't, or seek to develop them into someone who can?

Its an interesting experiment, though I think its a bit academic for most actual in-game situations. Maybe a better way to spin it would be to think about how to advise someone in a way that helps them make a character that will eventually pass.

This is kind of similar to a practice I've seen in some campaigns I've been in. A wiki is made for the campaign, and each character's page is listed, along side an 'impressions' page. The 'impressions' page is meant for other players to list short one or two-line descriptions of their characters' impressions of this particular character.

BeerMug Paladin

2014-09-06, 04:01 AM

DontEatRawHagis

2014-09-06, 07:03 AM

Giacomo is rather found of puns. Making fun of the other party members at their own expense. He never leaves a man behind, including the time he retrieved the rotting corpse of a lumberjack to his grieving widow... The townsfolk were not impressed.

Alent

2014-09-06, 08:04 AM

Hmm. I'll bite and describe one of my best RP characters. Those extra changes are annoying, but I can understand why you'd take away party role and class.

Anyway, the RP character, that guy was so terrible.

He was a lousy contemptible bum who'd string together a constant string of either lies or nonsense to attempt to smoothly justify whatever he wanted to do at any particular minute without a second thought. On more than one occasion he'd make up fake uncles, aunts, or cousins when he needed to make a suggestion and didn't want anyone to think it was something he'd done. He wasn't very smart, so he'd always come up with some sort of nickname for creatures, like cockatrice were "Chick'n lizzahds". He also couldn't read or write, so he hated contracts and would "read" letters/papers/signs with a friend who'd tell him what they said.

He was good at reading atmospheres and coming up with easy ways out, and would frequently try to weasel his way out of any sort of trouble without resorting to violence, frequently relying on Bavarian fire drills when simpler lies wouldn't work. He compulsively had the munchies, always having something to nibble at (usually mushrooms or weeds he hoped were hallucinogenic, sometimes he'd talk to the mushrooms instead of eating them.), and he never did his actual job unless he had absolutely no other option left.

He got caught up in the party's misadventure when a dam broke and washed him downriver, riding pieces of broken debris down to the small outpost the village took place in, where his actual career training was worthless and he had to adventure to pay enough money to get to use the public domicile. He was always trying to make a buck- never at the expense of the party per se- but rarely was anything he did above table. At one point he sold the wizard's spellbook because, in his own words, "Hey, 'e wassn't usin' it no moa! 'E died and wazzn't gonna get bettah!"

He died as he lived, trying to snow people with unbelievable lies while hallucinating that everyone else had shrunk because of the mushrooms, running away and leaving other people to deal with his problems. They died too.

He was a halfling rogue-thief Pipe Fitter named Mario with a big bushy moustashe and wore leather overalls that were actually a climbing harness, and spoke with a constant and terrible fake Brooklyn accent that ended up somewhere between that and a fake chicago mob accent because I suck at accents. :smalltongue: I deliberately rolled between the two because I'd been implying all along the accent was fake, but everyone got mad the one time I said spoke without it. I'm not even sure I can claim he had powers besides lying and pipe fitting, his stats were so bad he could barely do anything, and his go to attack was throwing darts soaked in pitch and lit against a strike plate.

When the party wizard died in the first round of the first combat of the campaign (a Warg ate his face), because of our rules on "nobody gets other people's gear", I decided rather than us just forgetting his equipment existed, I decided to use it to reveal how sleazy Mario was by trading the wizard's corpse and spellbook in for a reward and claiming to have killed him- Being an arcane caster was illegal, dead or alive type deal.

Not too long after that we TPK'd in slow motion late in our third play session while the party was split. The sequencing on this was kind of odd- Several things all went wrong at the same time outside while Mario was searching a cultist temple for an artifact he had been sent to steal, causing a door opened right in front of him, and we soon found out the reason for this was the cultists were ALL telepaths.

Mario got caught before he could hide and as an inspired plan, I had him start a bavarian firedrill on the cultists by deliberately face-planting into the door and accusing the single cultist in the hall of opening the door in Mario's face on purpose, and ALMOST managed to convince the cultist -some tall underdark telepathic race disguised as human, just like everyone else in the cult- that he was one of their members and one of their race despite being a halfling, without telepathy, nerdraging in a horrible fake accent, while wearing a cultist robe meant for someone 3 feet taller than him.

When that didn't work- because Mario wasn't telepathic- Mario adjusted the plan for the fire drill and killed the cultist with three quick fireballs (burning darts) to the chest (two crit! one crit three times!) in a surprise attack, and that's where the game ended because it was just too late at night.

Since we all understood we'd already TPK'd, the Bavarian Fire drill was part of how I'd decided Mario would die when we started things up again the next week- I'd thought I was at the room with the artifact, so I had worked up a crazy multilayered plan that started with him throwing eggshell grenades out the nearest window (actually the side of the building opposite of the party), throw caltrops and marbles down out the window into the smoke along with a few heavy weights I'd found, then yell "Dat way! Dey're runnin' dat way!" loudly. Then he'd duck back into the room, eat some of his hallucinogenic mushrooms, check for the artifact, if he found it, great, if not, he'd ask the shroom he was eating "Whaddaya mean da princess is in anotha' castle?" and drop it on the floor.

Either way he was going to light the seat of the robe on fire, and jump from the opposite side of the temple's second floor windows (preferrably onto then off of the fighter's head) and run away screaming: "E'erybody got tiny! Ahm big! Ahm big! Ah can't hea' nobody's thinkin' no moa'! Get the adventurahs! Dey did dis ta me!" in a pathetic attempt to escape the village by leaving the party to die, then run up on the city parapet and jump off hoping to roll down the mountain side and fall in the lake, then ride the river back down the mountain on the way to town.

You can see how he was pretty much an honorless opportunist and Mario from SMB1 :smallbiggrin:. If the escape plan had worked, it would have been one for the ages, but we never picked the campaign up again and in all likelihood Mario would've died in the fall if he even made it that far. *hums the game over theme from SMB1*

So, character described, I think the Plinkett test is bunk and this adaptation of it can't work because of one of the rules of optimization.

The "don't mention their appearance or job" part is terrible because as used in the Phantom Menace criticism, it's a bit of a logical fallacy used to highlight an actual problem with Lucas' writing: Because most people are bad at creating synopses on the spot and become even worse at it when you put them on a time limit and then even worse yet still when you rob them of the two things they're taught in English class to use to start a description with (appearance and identity), Episode 1's characters are bad.

Then there's the fact that a bad 2D character with a good catch phrase is actually going to pass the Plinkett test with flying colors. That catch phrase gives you something to latch on to that isn't their appearance or name, letting you begin a description.

As to optimization, optimization usually begins by taking a character's personality and concept, and picking mechanics to support that concept, linking a character's personality with their class powers. Consider the gypsy fortuneteller I played once. Her entire world revolved around harrowing, tarot, etc. She was running from a future she predicted and was desperately trying to discover a way to change it by helping a group of thieves who she'd figured out were integral to changing the future of the entire world (not just the future she was running from) so she was constantly using almost every kind of future predicting effect as part of her self-imposed mission. At the same time, she was having to go above and beyond to keep them alive because they were hell bent on killing themselves in battle. (Scrying, counterscrying, Dousing, geas contracts, harrowing, etc.) Because all of those divination powers were so integral to her identity, describing her fails the criteria of not using powers or mentioning jobs.

Many of my other characters are similarly disqualified. The RP character I describe up there is the only one I can think of that DIDN'T have any powers, because his stats were so bad he literally wasn't allowed to in 2e.:smallsigh: (he ended up having so much personality because I was actually running my own snowball operation on the DM where I was trying to make him like the character too much to kill it.)

Altair_the_Vexed

2014-09-06, 08:48 AM

NichG

2014-09-06, 09:50 AM

The Plinkett Test is hard to apply even to well-rounded characters from quality fiction - because it's not natural to describe people or characters like that.

Make it easy - let's try some literary characters, who could be played by anyone, and costumed any way - so we'll not get bogged down by appearance at least.

Describe MacBeth under Plinkett Rules. Prince Hamlet. Sherlock Holmes. Dr Frankenstein.

It's not impossible, but it is hard.

Well, I'm an uncultured boor, so I'm going to skip the Shakespeareans.

For Holmes, outside of appearance/race/etc he's defined by his brilliant but obsessive nature, his ego, his tendency to belittle those he sees as less brilliant than himself, and his constant struggle with melancholy and addiction - he's a person kept in check from self-destruction only by the eternal patience of his colleague and friend, and the tendency of the world to provide challenges he deems suitable to engage his intellect.

For Dr. Frankenstein, 'god complex' is a good place to start. Again, a being of ego - but the ego of someone who stands at the forefront of something bigger than them (in this case Science, but it could as well be many other causes or philosophies). Because, to himself, he represents the pinnacle of something that has accomplished incredible things, he thinks himself beyond the limits of other 'mere mortals' - and then proceeds to prove this to be the case. Afterwards, he finds himself dealing the consequences of hubris (in a very aesop-ey manner, mind you), which is usually where the various tellings of the story diverge - is the result of his efforts something he learns to treasure, something that horrifies him, something that he protects, or something that eventually destroys him?

Gracht Grabmaw

2014-09-06, 10:46 AM

The Plinkett test isn't meant to measure how well a character is developed or how much depth they have, just how memorable the character is to the audience.
It's easy to describe your own character because you know that character inside and out, the real test should be if the GM and the other players can describe your character to you in those rules and if you can still recognize your character from the description.

Ravens_cry

2014-09-06, 11:21 AM

Let's see. Chen is a woman on a mission, a mission to get her dead husband resurrected . . . so she can kill him herself. He left her as blithely as they met, humiliating her in the eyes of her family and former friends, a merchant family of the local China equivalent. In character, she is a sardonic and cynical woman, with an acid tongue. Morals and ethics matter little to her except how they further and hinder her goal. Her greatest fear, one that practically sends her into a panic, is being seen when she does not wish to be. She does value her new friends but she is not willing to let them get in the way of her goal.

Zaydos

2014-09-06, 12:09 PM

Bee Lord

Eridu is a mad noble exiled as an embarrassment to his family. He was obsessed with bees, to the point he even emulated their dances, and became known as Bee Lord, Lord of Bees. He was amongst the more compassionate of the group, a forward thinker at times, and a socialite. That said he tended to help with the worst ideas, to such an extent that his volunteering aid was enough to deter plans of the group.

Sartharina

2014-09-06, 12:15 PM

Your test is too strict compared to the actual Plinkett test. And even then, I can't see any value in it, given that I don't know anybody IRL who passes it.

Also - I can describe almost everyone in The Phantom Menace in a way that passes the Plinkett Test.

Kalmageddon

2014-09-06, 12:27 PM

Pretty much all my characters pass, as I design them starting from their personality and immediatly set out to make them recognizable outside of their role and race. If I ever get a character called "the elf" or "the rogue" instead of his actual name, I know I've done something wrong.

Jay R

2014-09-06, 12:28 PM

I actively disapprove of the Plinkett test as stated. If the character traits can be fully fleshed out without reference to their appearance or job or role or training, then they are divorced from that character's actual role in life.

A better test would be to see how much of character description there is beyond their race, class, appearance, powers, abilities, equipment, and party role.

For instance, my latest character grew up as a bully, and now consequently hates bullies. That is made stronger and more real when I add that he's 6 foot 6 inches tall.

His village was occasionally raided by Frost Giants, and he hates them. This is absolutely related to the fact that he is a Ranger with Frost Giants as a favored enemy.

A character should be more than the character sheet, but the character sheet is certainly part of who he is, and should relate to the rest.

Esprit15

2014-09-06, 12:29 PM

Yeah, it's pretty easy to make your own character pass the Plinkett test. Hell, I fully admit that many of the psychics I play are flat characters and for the most part even they can pass it.

Examples:

Arte
Fled home due to having no desire to live up to the expectations of her family, joined an organization that she felt would be more towards her natural skills and abilities. Ended up becoming good friends with most of the people on her recruitment team. Suffered from rather nasty bipolar II disorder, a result of abuse at home now conflicting with her newfound freedom and acceptance. Fell in love with one of the party members, who himself could pass the test despite also being a fairly simple character.

Cain
This one is rather hard because powers and such are VERY central to his character. Cain grew up in a town where torture and enslavement of the lower class wasn't just accepted, but seen as fun. While on a recruitment job for the local government, the city was attacked by every nearby city at once, since they were deemed too much of a threat. Being that he was in that upper class, he didn't see too much wrong with practices, just that they were a little inefficient for his tastes. After all, you don't get as good of work from a slave if you torture them first. So now, he's setting in motion plans to wrestle control of the local government and rebuild an empire in his home's image.

Heck, you can't even tell the system from the characters. It's not hard, but it's not really a good way to judge quality of character.

Tengu_temp

2014-09-06, 12:39 PM

I think all of the characters I made in the last few years pass, but it's more difficult for some than others - not because they have little personality beyond the sections mentioned, but because their abilities have a big impact on their personality and it's tricky to talk about it without mentioning them.

I pride myself on my ability to create characters with distinct and interesting personalities.

Sartharina

2014-09-06, 12:43 PM

Heck, you can't even tell the system from the characters. It's not hard, but it's not really a good way to judge quality of character.Especially since:1. Every Phantom Menace character can be described without referencing their appearance or their job.
and
2. It treats jobs/careers/lifepaths of a person as worthless. I don't think I know anyone who's actively in the military without referencing their service, and very few out of the military.

Kalmageddon

2014-09-06, 02:01 PM

Hyena

2014-09-06, 02:40 PM

1. Every Phantom Menace character can be described without referencing their appearance or their job.
Would you kindly do it? I'm not saying you can't, I just want to see the results.

IllogicalBlox

2014-09-06, 02:45 PM

A renegade, thrown out of his society for his obession with death, as he worships the Raven Queen. A brave, but sometimes cruel fellow, he patrols the world on the search for undeath, which he wishes to destroy in all its forms.

TandemChelipeds

2014-09-06, 03:50 PM

Haunted by nightmarish, incomprehensible visions of a past life, he left his monastic home world to seek the truth behind his memories. After 60 years of scouring the galaxy in search of forbidden tomes, he found a cult of a horror from beyond the stars and passed an initiation ritual, touching their god itself and being psychologically broken by the experience of watching it devour his fellow acolytes. Fleeing and weeping in horror, he was nearly catatonic for months, single-minded in flight from his new god. But over time, he began to cobble together a personal philosophy. The universe was as blind, cold, and uncaring as his deity, but if it had to be full of senseless cruelty, he'd balance it out with senseless kindness. If there was no real meaning to life, people had each other, and that was all the more reason to treasure each other's existence. Armed with a sharp intellect, unbreakable will, and increasingly shaky mental health, he joined a crew of bounty hunters and vowed to be the one to gaze upon the mind-shattering horrors of the universe. In part to spare everyone else the trouble, and in part to learn the details of his past life. If he had to break up a few race riots and spread the word of his faith along the way, he'd be glad to lend a hand.

Game: Pathfinder with Space Opera houserules
Name: Tchairot Worrug
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Race: Samsaran
Class: Cleric(Evangelist) 3
Deity: Azathoth
In-Universe Job: Chaplain
Role: Moral Support, Comic Relief
Tactics: Buffing, Enchanting and Summoning

TheIronGolem

2014-09-06, 03:52 PM

A few people have objected to my inclusion of "powers and abilities" on the list, on the grounds that these things are often critical parts of the character that inform the reasons that the character is the way he or she is. It's a good point that deserves to be addressed.

I agree that a character's abilities are important, and I nearly left that item off for this reason. However, it seems to me that the test should be about how distinct and articulable the character's personality is, independently of whatever external factors helped to shape that personality.

More to the point, the nature of RPG's makes it easy to rely on character abilities as shortcuts or encapsulations when considering how to describe a character. While those are highly useful in other contexts, I wanted the modified test to encourage thinking about characters' personalities in isolation from other aspects, which I believe is possible even while acknowledging that those other aspects are important (even indispensable) parts of the whole.

I would also point out that I am not suggesting that the Plinkett Test be regarded as a binary indicator of whether a character is "good" or not. No reasonable person would suggest that you're a munchkin or bad roleplayer or whatever simply because your character doesn't do well on the test. In fact, many of my own characters would faceplant on it at creation time, since I often start from a build concept rather than a fully-baked personality and it frequently takes me a few play sessions to really find that character's "voice". I find the test useful for gauging my progress in this area.

Sartharina

2014-09-06, 05:10 PM

Would you kindly do it? I'm not saying you can't, I just want to see the results.Well, it depends on how broadly one interprets 'job'. I'm having a bit of trouble with Qui-Gon because of how strongly his life is tied to being a Jedi - yet while he's dedicated his life to protecting innocent life in the galaxy, he's a maverick and bit of a scoundrel. He follows what he feels is right, while keeping a circumspect view of the situations he's thrust in. He's mindful of his apprentice's observations, but not to the detriment of whatever mission he's on. He's gotten in trouble with his superiors over his disregard for their authority, but he doesn't let it stop him.

Obi-Wan is young, and looks up to his maverick master, yet also serves as a voice of caution. He's insightful, but still a bit naive. He gets more character development in the sequels, though.

There's also Anakin - a child raised in bondage and has dreams of the Heroes of The Galaxy swooping in to save him and his mother, and train him to become one of them. Despite being a slave, his labor has helped him develop several hobbies harmonious with his forced employment, for which he has a great talent. He likes building things, and flying. When the Heroes come, though, it's not the salvation he hoped for, and his inability to bring his mother along with himself haunts him for the rest of his life.

Jar-Jar's a complete handful - a lucky clutz with a dim mind, yet enthusiastic and a bit bombastic. I had more... but I've been a bit distracted. Still need to do Watto, Boss Nas, Padme, Maul, Palpatine, and

A few people have objected to my inclusion of "powers and abilities" on the list, on the grounds that these things are often critical parts of the character that inform the reasons that the character is the way he or she is. It's a good point that deserves to be addressed.I actually object more to 'job' than "powers and abilities' (Which I consider expendable), because some people's careers define their lifestyle and outlook (Especially those with a religious bent - Monks, Paladins, Jedi, Priests, etc). I also object to 'no mention of race', because it completely cuts out racial/cultural identity as well.

Grinner

2014-09-06, 05:27 PM

I like the idea of this Plinkett Test but not so much as a rubric for assessing character depth. After all, it's simply wasteful to spend words or screentime developing every single ******* the protagonists meet. Rather, I like it as a tool for character development, because it forces you to really think about the character. It makes you pare down the character in a more essential way. It really gets you into their mind.

Beleriphon

2014-09-06, 06:03 PM

Phantom Menace here we go:

Brave and noble, disinclined to follow the specific details of his own leadership structure. Prone to acting quickly and without long introspection, this does not mean he acts impulsively. Values all life.

He's sarcastic and disdains those he feels are foolish, or otherwise stupid. Capable, brave and follows directions quickly and often without additional thought relying on the fact his superiors wont intentionally lead him astray.

Joyous and naive he has little in the way of world experience beyond is home. He finds happy thoughts and ideas in everything he sees. He's very attached to his mother.

She is brave and loyal looking to only to protect those weaker than herself and is willing to put herself into harm's way to do so.

He's a fool and buffoon. Clumsy beyond all possible reason, but has a noble heart and wants to do the best he can in life and care for others.

Dangerous, angry and full of rage he attacks those his master sends him after without question. His only objective is to destroy those who stand in his way.

There's a pretty straight forward description of six characters, can you figure out who they are.

golentan

2014-09-06, 06:15 PM

Firkin Stumbleduck

He's a hyperactive little git when he gets worked up, and incredibly lazy otherwise. He'll sit in the back of the wagon for hours perfectly happy, then freak out and do a million things at once. He's smart, but stupid. He'll make incredibly bad judgment calls and then carry out plans based on them with extreme efficiency and cleverness. He's always nervous around strangers because people keep trying to buy him for immoral purposes (seriously, I'm not even sure how that happened) so his most uttered phrase is "please don't leave me alone with him." He's tremendously sarcastic.

Frozen_Feet

2014-09-06, 06:18 PM

I submit that an RPG character passes the Plinkett Test if he can be described to a third party without referring to the character's:

Race
Class
Appearance
Powers or abilities
Equipment
Party role (such as "face" or "skillmonkey")

Uh huh.

This test seems blithely oblivious to the fact that most people, especially non-roleplayers, are heavily visual. "Picture tells a thousand words" and so forth. For the record, almost all of my characters pass this test - because their character sheets contains a bracket called personality, which is mostly about describing the things that are not about their species, work, looks, powers, equipment or role in a story. All those other things are still there right next to it, because without those other things there's no context for the personality to operate in. By strict reading of your test, I couldn't even imply a character is human (or comparable entity) - which kind of strategic information, don't you think? Or would you expect people to describe a memorable dog character without mentioning it is a dog?

russdm

2014-09-06, 06:32 PM

I think you are placing too much support on the Plinkett Test when the Test is actually deliberately set up to make Episode 1 fail. The same words used to describe the Episode 4 characters could apply to the ones from Episode 1, plus he is clearly voicing the requirements to knock Phantom Menace, while supporting 4 at the same time. No one he spoke to was able to see beyond the being job/role bit and its shown to be clearly weighted in favor towards the older star wars, with it clear that he deliberately chose the people he asked to get the results he wanted.

The entire test is inherently biased, its why most actual statistical tests are carried out with a test group as large as possible. Only 5-7 people who actually asked, from what I can remember, so its doesn't prove anything. If you had/knew 5 people who hated people, and asked them if Batman is garbage and not worth making, you all get negative answers, leading people to think that Batman is garbage. He needed at least 15 separate people involved, not the small number he went with.

Phantom Menace here we go:

1) Brave and noble, disinclined to follow the specific details of his own leadership structure. Prone to acting quickly and without long introspection, this does not mean he acts impulsively. Values all life.

2) He's sarcastic and disdains those he feels are foolish, or otherwise stupid. Capable, brave and follows directions quickly and often without additional thought relying on the fact his superiors wont intentionally lead him astray.

3) Joyous and naive he has little in the way of world experience beyond is home. He finds happy thoughts and ideas in everything he sees. He's very attached to his mother.

4) She is brave and loyal looking to only to protect those weaker than herself and is willing to put herself into harm's way to do so.

5) He's a fool and buffoon. Clumsy beyond all possible reason, but has a noble heart and wants to do the best he can in life and care for others.

6) Dangerous, angry and full of rage he attacks those his master sends him after without question. His only objective is to destroy those who stand in his way.

There's a pretty straight forward description of six characters, can you figure out who they are.

1: I am going to say Qui-gon Jinn for this one, it totally sounds like him

2: This is young Obi-wan Kenobi

3: Definitely Anakin

4: Padme, mainly because of she, and doesn't sound like how I would describe Shmi

5: Jar Jar

6: Darth Maul

tzar1990

2014-09-06, 06:37 PM

Aderyn

The only daughter of a seamstress, Aderyn was orphaned at a young age when mysterious men in masks and yellow robes invaded her home, kidnapped her, and burned the house to the ground. She escaped, but was left on the streets with no relatives to take her in. Fortunately, a local homeless man grew fond of her, and taught her how to survive, forage and so on - and also taught her his strange philosophy, a firm belief in monstrous beings between the stars that will soon descend and devour the world.

Nowadays,Aderyn is a cheerful, friendly young woman who often finds herself casually befriending those who should be, socially, far above her. However, she has no one truly close to her besides the old man she thinks of as a father, as those who grow to know her are often put out by her tendency towards occasional petty theft and calm insistence that the end of the world at the hands of inhuman horrors is an inevitable fact. While she has places she can stay - temples, taverns, abandoned warehouses and the like - she still considers nowhere to be her home. She spends most of her time wandering the city, mooching off travellers and acquaintances, and occasionally joining her adoptive father to preach about the end of all things. As he grows old and grey, she has become increasingly protective of him, working hard to keep him out of jail, well-fed, and away from danger from those his preaching annoys or disturbs. However, a since of wanderlust has recently struck her - a desire to see the world before it ends. Though she'd miss him terribly, she's considering leaving the city somehow if she can find someone trustworthy to watch over and take care of him.

While she's not a coward in a pinch, Aderyn is nonetheless aware of her own mortality, and knows that even most street thugs could seriously hurt her in a fair fight. She's learned to avoid anything resembling "honourable combat" or a fair fight, and considers running away to be the best solution to any issue that doesn't threaten anyone else she likes. Unfortunately, she honestly likes people, and considers it a point of pride to try to be kind and helpful to those around her before they are inevitably devoured by evil, leading her to be forced into quite a few scraps in the slums. She also tends towards impulsive behaviour - living day-by-day on the streets hardly inclines one to long-term planning, and a belief that eldritch horrors will descend to devour all things within a few years makes anything but living for the moment seem silly to her.

---

Also, could anyone tell me if this seems like an appropriate backstory for an adventurer - I'm going to be playing her in a game starting the 16th, but I want to make sure y'all don't see anything in the history that would make her a poor choice for your standard party (the others are Ranger, Paladin, Wizard, Bard and Cleric)

Grey Watcher

2014-09-06, 06:52 PM

Not that this isn't still something to consider, but I've played in games before where I try to give nuance and depth to a character, but in which absolutely no situation ever crops up which allows me to make an actual choice any differently from the hack and slash murder hobo.

So whether or not a character should be created to pass this test is going to matter a lot on what type of game is being played and how the players (and GM) play it.

I feel you. I had a character for a one shot whose elaborate backstory that never saw the light of day. The deal was, she was a nun from a convent dedicated to Vecna (a vengeful, mistrustful, and secretive knowledge god), but which put up a public facade of being dedicated to Ioun (a benevolent, sharing knowledge good). Her mission was to seek out and kill one of her fellow novices who'd fled. In retrospect, I dunno why I bothered, since I think I got to mention the "public" version (ie bringing the wayward Ioun-worshipper back into the fold) like once.

Sith_Happens

2014-09-06, 07:28 PM

I submit that an RPG character passes the Plinkett Test if he can be described to a third party without referring to the character's:

Race
Class
Appearance
Powers or abilities
Equipment
Party role (such as "face" or "skillmonkey")

I object to the bolded. At that point you're trying to describe a character without explaining what they do, which is not only nigh-impossible, but actually counter to the point of exercise.

TheCountAlucard

2014-09-06, 07:38 PM

Grey Watcher

2014-09-06, 07:57 PM

If Padme considered protecting others so important, why did she have a decoy for not one, but two movies? There's only so much you can say you care about other people when you have a body double there to take assassination attempts for you.

My guess is that having a body double comes with the jobs of being Queen or Senator. Much like, say, the Secret Service, it's just a thing that comes as part of the job and the people who serve in that capacity signed up for it, knowing what it involves.

TheCountAlucard

2014-09-06, 08:21 PM

We see plenty of other Senators, none of which had body doubles; admittedly, we don't see any other queens, but we do see a princess - and Leia didn't have a double, either.

russdm

2014-09-06, 08:27 PM

The only reason might have been so that Padme could chat up Anakin without it being the queen doing it. I mean, the decoy makes Padme clean up Artoo which is pretty funny. I think the decoys were entirely set up by Panaka since he was supposed to be in charge of her security. (Despite that, he botches it rather badly considering he apparently didn't think it was useful in having multiple decoy ships, at least one other would have helped to make an escape attempt.)

Plus the droids don't bother to deactivate the hyperdrive or even post a guard actually on board. Its really funny.

The only other reason I can think for Padme having decoys is that she could reveal herself to boss nass to earn points with him for some reason. Its rather dubious why she does any of that.

Grey Watcher

2014-09-06, 08:39 PM

We see plenty of other Senators, none of which had body doubles; admittedly, we don't see any other queens, but we do see a princess - and Leia didn't have a double, either.

But Leia is princess of Alderaan, not Naboo, correct? (I ask sincerely, as my Star Wars knowledge is a little rusty.) My headcanon was that body doubles are something that the Naboo government in particular provides to its dignitaries and representatives. Other planets have other customs and laws, no doubt.

Sartharina

2014-09-06, 08:41 PM

Beleriphon

2014-09-06, 09:20 PM

... I'm starting to wonder if this over-description is counter to the Plinkett Test.

I like Beleripon's description of Qui-Gon, but the others are off (I remember Obi-Wan being more reserved, and saw #2 as more referring to R2) - Padme and Anakin are almost completely off. Jar-Jar's actually one of my favorite characters, because I see him as a guy who's trying to do the right thing, but WAY out of his league - yet that doesn't stop him.

I'll admit they're a little off, largely because they are very much off the cuff and I haven't seen the movie in a few years (13 or so maybe?). None the less I think it demonstrates the Plinkett Test is a bogus since I manage to identify six characters without a physical description, name or even what their job title is, for what are supposed to be a bunch of crappy character.

The Phantom Menace is not a great movie by any means, and Liam Neeson totally phoned that one in, but its still not as horrid as most people make it out to be. Its just a bit over produced.

Sartharina

2014-09-06, 09:29 PM

The Phantom Menace is not a great movie by any means, and Liam Neeson totally phoned that one in, but its still not as horrid as most people make it out to be. Its just a bit over produced.To be fair to Star Wars, Alec Guiness also phoned in his performance as Obi Wan. I think the subdued performances actually help with the "Jedi Master" thing.

I loved the prequel movies. Especially the first one.

Grey Watcher

2014-09-06, 09:33 PM

Sartharina

2014-09-06, 09:37 PM

I think if that were Jar-Jar's only schtick he'd be a lot more popular. I think a lot of people just find the voice and the gratuitous slapstick just too annoying to bother giving the character a closer look.It's the same issue Lord Raziere had with that one guy (Oppu, or something like that) from One Piece.

Jeff the Green

2014-09-06, 09:57 PM

Lessee. Of my current characters, one is really hard to describe without reference to her job, but this is part of why I'm retiring her. Mirielle's a librarian-at-heart, but was forced to abandon the life she loved to pursue an assassin who killed not only her colleagues in an attempt to get to her, but apparently also her family and fiance. She's naive, having spent her entire adult life cloistered, and not altogether concerned with whether her ethics align with society's.

Another is easy. Rook's a scoundrel on the run from the crime syndicate he used to work for after he was set up by a rival. He's basically amoral, following his desires more than anything else. Normally glib, sarcastic, and voluble, he quickly becomes deadly calm and intensely focused when working a job. While not a scholar of magic, he was trained by an eminent one who shared his view of life and who encouraged him and shaped his view on both magic and life. His relationship with his familiar is unusual, since he frequently has to argue with him to get him to do what he wants. Of course, familiars' personalities are a reflection of their masters'.

The one I'm working on to replace Mirielle, Elidiel, is difficult to describe according to this test because she's a changeling raised by elves, and that drives her personality. She spends a lot of time trying to figure out a way to extend her lifespan and is really hesitant to be in her own form. She has a couple she prefers: a young star elf wizard (this guise she established when she was an apprentice) and a halfling adventurer with a quick mind and little else going for him. She would really like to not have to use these forms, but her race makes it a necessity. She prefers not to be too introspective—mostly because she's rather not think about what her preference for male forms (to the degree that she fathered a child with a half-elf woman) says about her. She's extremely cautious with any power she has, which mostly means her magic. She pretty much refuses to use any spell that has particularly chaotic or hard-to-control effects or which risks friendly fire or collateral damage. She loves her family and her home of Aglarond, but has distanced herself from both because she can't bear to remind her parents or close friends (or herself, quite frankly) of the fact that they will be little older when she dies than when she met them. She's also obsessed with folkmagic, and has spent a significant part of her life studying it and in some cases adopting it into her repertoire.

Of the other characters I've played, a couple have been described under this test, but some of the better ones couldn't. How do you describe a dryad without reference to her tree, a Warforged without mentioning its relationship to the Creation Forges, or a Necropolitan without describing what state of mind he had to be in to suffer the excruciating pain of Crucimigration? Can you really understand a Favored Soul without understanding her relationship with her god or a Sorcerer without his attitude toward magic?

In D&D settings, which almost universally deal with racism far more than the Star Wars movies, and where powers can affect your day-to-day life more than a Jedi's, you can't properly situate your character within the world they live in without talking about race and powers.

And saying you can't mention their job is silly regardless of the medium. Not being allowed to mentions the job the fill in the story is fine, but jobs are central to many real people's and even more fictional characters' sense of identity.

Lord Raziere

2014-09-06, 10:29 PM

Race
Class
Appearance
Powers or abilities
Equipment
Party role (such as "face" or "skillmonkey")

I shall describe perhaps one of my simplest, earliest characters I ever played your way:

The person (to say their gender is to reveal apart of their appearance) is incredibly reckless, angry and concerned with protecting their younger sister to extreme measures, because the rest of their family died and does not want the last of their family to die as well, and of course lacks much in discipline, being incredibly dismissive of their elders and with a tendency to cause collateral damage as a result of their efforts, as well as trying to find their older brother that was reported MIA years ago and thus believes their brother is still alive, wanting to reunite their family, and thus enjoy a new life with them.

Now I will describe the character, my way:

Kalectro Stelvanna, the Stormrunner.

he is basically a shonen hero without the messiah qualities and the "passionate protector of those he loves" turned up to eleven, he wields powers over lightning, wind and storms, being in many ways a rebel without a cause and being completely un-ironic about it. Authority problems? you betcha. will promise to kill you if you hurt one hair on his sisters head? hell yeah. he has super-speed, flight AND can punch you while his fists are surrounded by tornadoes and can shoot lightning, he also has anger problems, and he fights like a street brawler. in many ways he is extremely protective of his sister because his parents got killed in an attack by artificial beings and had to find ways for him and his sister to survive, his fighting style is all offensive and little defense. he has little subtlety, but a lot of snark. His brother was a super-soldier who wielded Earth-powers and gone off to fight in a war, and Kalectro wishes to find him.

now.

which one do you think is the better description? the more accurate picture? the fuller picture? the better one? how much of the character CHANGED when you heard the full story and not some abstract nonsense?

Now, let us try this with a character from fiction:

Their parents died. From then on they trained to carry out justice in their name, and use their smarts to solve all their problems, driven to right the wrong of their murder. They then go to build their own new family from the aftermath through their adventures, while leaving their adopted father behind.

The Batman.

thing, "parents died, now avenger" is a really common backstory, as well finding a new love and building a family from that is a common way to end it to show that the person overcame their vengeance. without the Batman context, you'd assume it was any fantasy hero with a doomed hometown.

And finally, another one:

They are an ordinary person, nice, polite and constantly trying to be the best person they can. They were raised on a farm, and love their mother and father dearly. They are in fact adopted, and come from a far away foreign land to fulfill a great destiny.

Superman.

In many ways here, the powers are the POINT of the character. Much of what the character does is about how powerful they really are, and how they use their power, and having to cut out all the things that are the point of the character (powers, race, and so on) actually DESTROYS the character and render them pointless. without these powers, Superman would just be another farm boy wish fulfillment fantasy hero.

this test is incredibly flawed.

Edit: also, I tried watching the Red Letter Media review. couldn't get past the weird voice and the comparing the film to his own son that happened in the first two minutes. :smallyuk:

Sith_Happens

2014-09-06, 11:58 PM

The Phantom Menace is not a great movie by any means, and Liam Neeson totally phoned that one in, but its still not as horrid as most people make it out to be. Its just a bit over produced.

For me it's in the "sorta alright I guess" category. My main issue is how little of it is relevant to the rest of the series.

TheIronGolem

2014-09-07, 12:14 AM

I shall describe perhaps one of my simplest, earliest characters I ever played your way:

The person (to say their gender is to reveal apart of their appearance) is incredibly reckless, angry and concerned with protecting their younger sister to extreme measures, because the rest of their family died and does not want the last of their family to die as well, and of course lacks much in discipline, being incredibly dismissive of their elders and with a tendency to cause collateral damage as a result of their efforts, as well as trying to find their older brother that was reported MIA years ago and thus believes their brother is still alive, wanting to reunite their family, and thus enjoy a new life with them.

Now I will describe the character, my way:

Kalectro Stelvanna, the Stormrunner.

he is basically a shonen hero without the messiah qualities and the "passionate protector of those he loves" turned up to eleven, he wields powers over lightning, wind and storms, being in many ways a rebel without a cause and being completely un-ironic about it. Authority problems? you betcha. will promise to kill you if you hurt one hair on his sisters head? hell yeah. he has super-speed, flight AND can punch you while his fists are surrounded by tornadoes and can shoot lightning, he also has anger problems, and he fights like a street brawler. in many ways he is extremely protective of his sister because his parents got killed in an attack by artificial beings and had to find ways for him and his sister to survive, his fighting style is all offensive and little defense. he has little subtlety, but a lot of snark. His brother was a super-soldier who wielded Earth-powers and gone off to fight in a war, and Kalectro wishes to find him.

now.

which one do you think is the better description? the more accurate picture? the fuller picture? the better one?

Yours, of course, but you're missing the point. The test isn't designed to produce a fully-realized picture of a character in its own right; it's to help gauge how developed certain aspects of the character are.

To use a car analogy, it's like checking your fluid levels and the air pressure of your tires. Obviously that won't determine whether your car is in good mechanical condition overall, but it does give you some pretty important pieces of that puzzle.

Alent

2014-09-07, 12:30 AM

this test is incredibly flawed.

Edit: also, I tried watching the Red Letter Media review. couldn't get past the weird voice and the comparing the film to his own son that happened in the first two minutes. :smallyuk:

Yeah, RLM is terrible. He has a few good reviews, but they are largely accidents. After the Phantom menace review, he really started hamming it up and things got... um... terrible. In a "Let's RP the BoVD" sort of way.

I was considering showing how the test was flawed by using characters that can't pass it no matter what, like Dragnet's Joe Friday. (Being a redaction of someone else keeps you from having any personality what so ever!)

There's just too many things this test excludes to be viable.

Frozen_Feet

2014-09-07, 05:59 AM

... I'm starting to wonder if this over-description is counter to the Plinkett Test.

Yeah, memorable character synopsis should be short. Like in, one sentence. Or maybe five words.

Like this:

"Cynical and pragmatic pacifist."

"Blood-thirsty zealot who likes dogs."

"Sweet heart in a bitter shell."

"Perpetually lost yet always on time."

etc.

NichG

2014-09-07, 06:33 AM

I once had a character who another player described as "the natural enemy of pattern recognition".

Kalmageddon

2014-09-07, 07:03 AM

Yeah, memorable character synopsis should be short. Like in, one sentence. Or maybe five words.

Like this:

"Cynical and pragmatic pacifist."

"Blood-thirsty zealot who likes dogs."

"Sweet heart in a bitter shell."

"Perpetually lost yet always on time."

etc.

Exactly.
If you watch the video from where this test was lifted, you see that the people being interviewed only use a few adjectives to describe the personality of Star Wars characters. The point being that with Phantom Menace character they struggle to come up with even just that.

The proper way to answer the test is just to list a few adjectives or short sentences regarding the character's personality.

TheCountAlucard

2014-09-07, 08:31 AM

But Leia is princess of Alderaan, not Naboo, correct? (I ask sincerely, as my Star Wars knowledge is a little rusty.) My headcanon was that body doubles are something that the Naboo government in particular provides to its dignitaries and representatives. Other planets have other customs and laws, no doubt.Palpatine was Senator of Naboo prior to Padme, and we didn't see a body double for him, either.

There's really no given reason for Padme having a double; it's likely just that George Lucas used the first idea that came to his head for a dramatic plot reveal and didn't spare a second to consider the ramifications of writing a supposedly-peaceful, supposedly-compassionate queen who employs body doubles and conceals lethal weapons in her throne.

Gracht Grabmaw

2014-09-07, 08:40 AM

My current Pathfinder party sans my own character.

A reckless little coward, but his heart is in the right place most of the time. He's not quite a hero but he could be.

Greedy and selfish, he walks through most of his days under a haze of heavy self-medication until something shiny catches his interest.

Easily embarassed and even more easily angered, but more passive-aggressive than openly confrontational. She needs to learn to assert herself.

Flashy, charismatic, confident, brave and a complete and utter moron.

Kurgan

2014-09-07, 11:44 AM

If Padme considered protecting others so important, why did she have a decoy for not one, but two movies? There's only so much you can say you care about other people when you have a body double there to take assassination attempts for you.

We see plenty of other Senators, none of which had body doubles; admittedly, we don't see any other queens, but we do see a princess - and Leia didn't have a double, either.

To be fair, of all the senators we do see, she is the only one who has had several attempts on her life that we know of. By Episode 2 she did have a number of powerful enemies after all. No arguments for your point on Episode 1 though.

Plus the droids don't bother to deactivate the hyperdrive or even post a guard actually on board. Its really funny.

You know, I never thought of that.

"Hey, we captured all of the enemy's pilots, what should we do with them sir?"
"Did we account for the Jedi yet?"
"No sir."
"Eh, just put a token guard with them and leave them in the hanger with their ships, nothing can go wrong."

So that we are not completely off topic here...
Corrin Trigmus - a wizard I played years ago:
Lazy, greedy, a touch arrogant, functioning alcoholic, deceitful.

Exediron

2014-09-07, 02:52 PM

'Funny' review videos and riff-like spoofs aren't really my cup of tea, so I'm not going to watch the link. I'll respond to the test as laid out in the original post.

I submit that an RPG character passes the Plinkett Test if he can be described to a third party without referring to the character's:

Race
Class
Appearance
Powers or abilities
Equipment
Party role (such as "face" or "skillmonkey")

While I fully agree that any well-developed RPG character should be able to pass that test, I also agree with other posters who have suggested earlier that it's not a very good measure of a full personality; to many (most?) characters and people, at least a few of those will be important to shaping their personality, goals, and the way they act. For example, my current reigning favorite character, in order: holds her own race to a different standard than others (might not conflict with the test if you don't name it), has a class with huge implications for her personality (Divine Emissary) which would be hard to avoid naming without missing an important part of who she is, spends hours every day on her appearance (although if I don't describe it I think that gets a pass), is the best fighter in the group by a large margin and among the best in the known multiverse and sees this as extremely important in how she thinks of herself, believes the best equipment has to be earned and has an array of the very best available including several exotic items (additionally her sub-race has a unique style of armor that is quite characteristic of how they think that would have to be omitted) and is regarded by her party as a bit hard to work with but indispensable to their struggle against the Terrorspawn. Dealing only in allowed topics and using a simple description, I'd come up with something like this:

Spoiled and arrogant because of her belief that she's better than anyone else - and earned the right to be - she is actually deeply insecure about her own personal value in the world and constantly wants others to reaffirm it for her.

Obviously that doesn't give a clear picture of the whole individual - neither do the six points above, for that matter. Of course if I described her as "A beautiful female elf covered to her neck in overlapping black plates of armor - designed to conceal and normalize her form as much as possible - and exotic equipment, including a web of brilliantly glowing energy connecting dozens of ioun stones above her head, Ilinya is the divine emissary of the demon god Xalodir and leads the Deathknights of Xalodir, an elite religious military formation dedicated to protecting the Xalodirran emperor at all costs. She is the strongest fighter of the Invictus Alliance and she knows it - and she sees to it that others around her won't forget it, either." that doesn't really get at her personality either.

The important thing for RPG characters is to really understand what it is to have a unique personality, and just saying 'describe your character without invoking anything tangible while doing so' isn't it. Certainly if you can't do so you have a problem, but I don't consider it a good measure of a well-developed character.

Traab

2014-09-07, 05:06 PM

Ettina

2014-09-07, 08:15 PM

I submit that an RPG character passes the Plinkett Test if he can be described to a third party without referring to the character's:

Race
Class
Appearance
Powers or abilities
Equipment
Party role (such as "face" or "skillmonkey")

OK, I'll try it out.

Armilla was left on the front doorstep of an orphanage when she was very young. In the orphanage, adult attention was a rare and sought-after commodity, and love was pretty much non-existent. Even as an adult, she still feels like an orphan deep inside. She craves attention, and though she doesn't understand the concept of love, deep down she craves that too. Despite her skill at lying, her neediness makes her a very poor judge of character, willing to trust a complete stranger just because they gave her a few nice words.

Snowball's true love is a relaxed and comfortable life, going out for fun when she feels like it and lazing around the rest of the time. She cares nothing for the world at large, only herself and the few people she loves. But if anyone threatens her or her loved ones, she will stop at nothing to get revenge - preferably by enslaving her enemy rather than simply killing them. She doesn't care if they know she's gotten her revenge, though. As long as she knows, that's good enough for her.

Szsthrar'kek tried to fit in, but deep down, xe's always been a bit different, with faint half-memories of another life, and a tune xe can't place often stuck in xyr head. Surrounded by people who place great stock in order and rules, Szsthrar'kek has always been a bit too impulsive and a bit too selfish to get along easily. Xe's always been willing to cut corners if xe sees a personal benefit, even if it means breaking the rules. One day, xyr took it too far, betraying xyr people to a invaders to save xyr own skin. When xyr people unexpectedly rallied and won the fight, Szsthrar'kek realized xe was in big trouble, and for once xe couldn't smooth it over with a bit of grovelling, so xe ran.

Szsthrar'kek was the hardest, because xyr race is very different from humans, but I managed to only vaguely hint at what race xe is. (Szsthrar'kek is genderless, by the way.)

And I disagree with all the criticisms here. Sure, race, class and job are important aspects of who someone is, but a fully fleshed-out character is more than a race, class and job. Two of my characters have pretty stereotypical race/class combinations (Armilla is a human rogue, Szsthrar'kek is an illithid psion), but there's still plenty to make Armilla different from other human rogues, and Szsthrar'kek different from other illithid psions.

Ettina

2014-09-07, 08:44 PM

Yeah, memorable character synopsis should be short. Like in, one sentence. Or maybe five words.

OK, so in that case:

Armilla - an orphan who craves love and looks for it in all the wrong places and all the wrong ways

Snowball - a lazy homebody who cares about little, but is absolutely vicious about defending what she does care for

Szsthrar'kek - a rebel who cares only about xyrself, just trying to skate by and fit in, until xe makes a big mistake

Still managed to describe them without mentioning race, class, or anything like that. Because they're so much more than a race/class combination.

Broken Crown

2014-09-07, 09:11 PM

We see plenty of other Senators, none of which had body doubles; admittedly, we don't see any other queens, but we do see a princess - and Leia didn't have a double, either.

Objection!

We see lots of people acting like senators. We have no evidence that they aren't all body doubles, too.

---

As for the test:

If a character can't be described without reference to its physical appearance and abilities (and equipment? They say that clothes make the man, but really...?) then it's not really a character, is it? You could make as long and detailed a description based on the six listed traits as you wanted to, and it wouldn't tell you anything about the sort of person it was that you were describing.

(Compare, for example, Batman as interpreted by Frank Miller versus Batman as interpreted by Adam West.)

If you're describing a character, the criteria of the Plinkett Test as written here are basically irrelevant. The only one that comes close is the "party role," which does not describe the character in itself, so much as its interaction with the other characters in the story. Even then, if we're talking about "party role" in the context of terms like "skillmonkey" rather than "heroic leader" or "sarcastic sidekick," then we're still not talking about characters.

TheIronGolem

2014-09-07, 09:24 PM

If you're describing a character, the criteria of the Plinkett Test as written here are basically irrelevant. The only one that comes close is the "party role," which does not describe the character in itself, so much as its interaction with the other characters in the story. Even then, if we're talking about "party role" in the context of terms like "skillmonkey" rather than "heroic leader" or "sarcastic sidekick," then we're still not talking about characters.

Yes, I want to stress that there's a reason I said "party role" and not "narrative role". I think the latter is a completely legitimate candidate for the test's purposes.

Sartharina

2014-09-08, 12:04 AM

Objection!

We see lots of people acting like senators. We have no evidence that they aren't all body doubles, too.

I'm pretty sure the other Naboo Senator (appointed when Senator Amidala was indisposed, but apparently retained his position) didn't have a body double. Then again - maybe they were trying to get Senator Binks killed.

I'm trying to think of a way to express the characters I've played without overly dwelling on their sexuality.

Frozen_Feet

2014-09-08, 12:44 AM

If a character can't be described without reference to its physical appearance and abilities (and equipment? They say that clothes make the man, but really...?) then it's not really a character, is it?

Wrong. How do you inform a person is a construction worker with no mention of their equipment or ability to construct things? Or, like I pointed out before, how do you distinquish between a human and a dog?

You could make as long and detailed a description based on the six listed traits as you wanted to, and it wouldn't tell you anything about the sort of person it was that you were describing.

Also wrong. If you think a lot can't be deduced of a person based on their appearance, you've not only failed your detective school, you're also basically ignorant of how people, including you, do such personality judgements constantly, so fast it doesn't even occur to your conscious mind.

If you give me a picture of a character, I'll probably be able to deduce more things about them than of any lenght of text description solely concerned with their personality.

Yes, I want to stress that there's a reason I said "party role" and not "narrative role". I think the latter is a completely legitimate candidate for the test's purposes.

... if you think the latter is fair game, I could just link you to TV Tropes to demonstrate any character can be given an easily-memorized personality description consisting of five or six words. And it is easier in case of simple, non-deep works like Star Wars.

veti

2014-09-08, 12:49 AM

Character - let's call him VN - thought of himself, above all, as an expert deceiver. It was a point of pride for him that no-one, looking at him, would be able to work out who or what he was, without much more information than most people would ever get to acquire. He worked hard to extend this camouflage to his companions, and would never rest easy in a new place until he was satisfied that most locals - defined as "anyone who hadn't known them before they came here" - were thoroughly misled as to who they were and why they were there, even if the team's motives were entirely innocent.

This camouflage served two purposes. One, to give the group the advantage of surprise if and when it ever did decide to start something. And two, to help them avoid the inevitable reprisals that would follow. It was VN's aim to ensure that any such "reprisals" should be directed, if possible, at an empty target, so as not to unnecessarily harm innocents, and should make the enemy feel as thoroughly humiliated as possible when they realised they'd been had. The ideal outcome is an enemy leader concluding his debriefing with the phrase "And now let us never speak of this again".

On a personal level, he was ferociously loyal to his family, and quite ruthless in dealing with anyone else. His efforts to protect innocents didn't arise from moral scruples, but from practicality - his goal was always to reduce the number of effective enemies, not increase them. As it was often impractical to kill such enemies, the next best thing was to make them expend their energy uselessly, thus rendering them ineffective.

TeChameleon

2014-09-08, 02:51 AM

Eh, the character I play in my current campaign isn't exactly hard to do this with...

Brilliant and incisive, the only thing sharper than his mind is his tongue. He's arrogant, irritable, and very much given to utterly brutal honesty, even in situations where he would be much better served by being more diplomatic, or at the very least keeping silent. He's also an extremely firm believer in protecting those who can't protect themselves, leaving the world a better place than he found it, and setting everything that annoys him on fire (although technically, he considers those last two to be largely the same thing).

Thankfully for the staggering collection of irritating imbeciles he has a tendency to meet (most of whom are probably perfectly normal, nice people when not being confronted by an insufferable genius with a short temper and social skills that could probably be best represented by a negative number), the things that really get his back up are also things that the rest of society tends to rather disapprove of, like oppression of the weak, murder of the innocent, and that kind of thing.

Oddly, and in circumstances that only reinforced his belief that the world is composed largely of morons, his unwavering dedication to venting his irritation via pyromania has resulted in him being revered as a legendary hero over half the world, becoming improbably wealthy via the inadvertent creation of the concept of fast food franchises, and his successfully altering the way his entire country thought. Oh, and creating what can best be described as an earthly paradise, although that was more of a byproduct of his search for more and better ways of setting the things that annoyed him on fire.

As is probably obvious, Gavin Fireborne, my character, is a pyromancer wizard. He grew up as the younger son of a noble family in a nation that had strong prejudices against arcane casters, courtesy of a literal royal botch job of a mage-king a few centuries back- the 'ideal of manhood' was pretty much the typical meathead warrior, something the young Gavin was most emphatically not. Thus explaining his short temper to a certain degree. And for the curious, the earthly paradise bit is mostly the result of a series of excellent Arcana checks while in control of the plot device during a campaign finale.

Broken Twin

2014-09-08, 09:23 AM

To keep a limit of a few sentences...

#1: Driven by a need for vengeance against the tyrannical queen whom he blames for his husband's death. For the moment, he goals loosely align with the group he's attached himself to, but it's uncertain how far he's willing to go to obtain his revenge. Perhaps a bit too willing to accept questionable methods of gaining power.

#2: Caught up in a conspiracy he had no wish to be a part of, he travels the world with his sister in an attempt to unravel the mysteries surrounding his mother's death. Sarcastic and sharp witted, he nevertheless attempts to be joy and merriment to the people he encounters in his journey.

#3: As the adopted daughter of a powerful interspecies diplomat, her well-meaning attitude is offset by her tendency to look down upon those she perceives to be of lesser status. Has a secret desire to prove herself worthy of her father's legacy, and an even more secret desire to one day establish a connection with another member of her species.

Ettina

2014-09-08, 09:44 AM

Wrong. How do you inform a person is a construction worker with no mention of their equipment or ability to construct things? Or, like I pointed out before, how do you distinquish between a human and a dog?

I think you're missing the point.

The point isn't to tell you they're a construction worker without outright stating it. The point is to tell you what else they are. If you look at a team on a construction site, all of them are construction workers. But they're still individuals nonetheless.

As for human vs dog, well, dogs act differently from humans. I've seen bits in a story where they don't actually tell you the species or any physical description of a character, but within the first paragraph of narration, I knew they were a dog and not a human.

Broken Crown

2014-09-08, 11:49 AM

Wrong. How do you inform a person is a construction worker with no mention of their equipment or ability to construct things? Or, like I pointed out before, how do you distinquish between a human and a dog?
Ettina covered this one, but I'd also like to point out that "construction worker" isn't a character; it's a job.

Also wrong. If you think a lot can't be deduced of a person based on their appearance, you've not only failed your detective school, you're also basically ignorant of how people, including you, do such personality judgements constantly, so fast it doesn't even occur to your conscious mind.
I'm quite aware of how people, including myself, constantly make deductions about people's personalities based on their appearance, thank you. I'm also quite aware of how those deductions are frequently completely wrong.

(Also, a lot of those judgements are based to a large extent on factors such as facial expression and body language, which are as much "behaviour" as "appearance." It's not clear how relevant this is to the test, though.)

While I see your point, and don't entirely disagree with it, I don't think a large amount of very unreliable information is significantly better than no information at all.

braveheart

2014-09-08, 12:22 PM

Orthran

He is and orphan and loves children, can appreciate a good ale, but is not a drunkard, and abhors slavery, actively seeking to stamp it out at every oportunity

TheIronGolem

2014-09-08, 01:02 PM

if you think the latter [narrative role] is fair game, I could just link you to TV Tropes to demonstrate any character can be given an easily-memorized personality description consisting of five or six words. And it is easier in case of simple, non-deep works like Star Wars.

Yes, but so what? Linking to TVTropes is a shortcut to a longer descriptive text, so the personality description you're really invoking isn't five or six words, it's closer to five or six hundred. Multiply that several times, when you account for that fact that there are several different trope names that are likely to fit any given character. If you say that your character is The Lancer, a Deadpan Snarker, and a Knight in Sour Armor, you may have personally used only a few words, but the actual verbal payload you've delivered is much, much bigger.

the OOD

2014-09-08, 04:58 PM

hmmm.
as already mentioned, I feel that some of the limits actually limit the ability to describe an interesting and real character. I would be hard-pressed to describe some of my best and most real/human characters, but my less developed ones seem to stand up much better?:smallconfused:(may hold up better as a minimum proficiency level)

perhaps a better question is "could you stat them in Fate?", while not perfect, I would like to see how it would hold up for most book/movie/rpg characters.

challenge: list the aspects (and skills?) for your favorite character, fate-style. any takers?

Traab

2014-09-08, 06:54 PM

The two characters I ever created as an exercise in roleplay Dobbin Evilsbane and Traab Fellhammer (Shut up, I was a freshman in high school)

Dobbin is harder to do that with, because his backstory revolves around his class. He was a halfling druid. His backstory was, he started life as a warrior, but found religion when the power of his future god was displayed before him rather abruptly. He was trapped during a battle and about to die, but the enemies were obliterated by a bolt of lightning. Maybe luck, maybe divine intervention, they WERE wearing metal armor in a storm after all. Either way, he decided to become a druid follower of Karana. (This is Everquest btw) I played him as an in your face front line fighter that also used his druidic magic. He mainly wore a ton of melee gear, and preferred to beat stuff to death in combat, but was fully capable of kiting or otherwise killing stuff in a druidish manner. Also had a bit of a napoleon complex. Mainly in that he LOVED picking fights with giants.

Traab was different. His character was, he was a massive flirt, he would serenade any women in sight with love songs, and had a massive overprotective streak that could get him into trouble. Seeing a woman under attack would drive him into a berserk rage, and he would dive into combat to take the monsters attention onto himself. A bit of a braggart, he didnt actually take it seriously, but he had a personal theme song he would sometimes break out into for amusements sake (It was an adaptation of Joxur the Mighty from Xena) So, less back story, more personality.

Heh, found the song. I obviously adjusted it so it fit my character a bit better, but everyone I played with knew the song so they found it amusing.

Joxer the Mighty,
Master of virility,
Every woman wants him,
He's so sexy it's a sin,

If you want a special tryst,
He's the man you can't resist,
By every measure he's a prize!
(Just check out my shoe size!)
Just check out his shoe size!
He's Joxer, Joxer the Mighty!

Joxer the Mighty,
captain of debauchery.
Never seems to get enough
of our tantalizing stuff.

If you need some company,
with Joxer there's a guarantee,
(of the highest potency!)
(Heck, I'd even work for free!)
(Take your filthy hands off me!!!)
He's Joxer, Joxer the Mighty!

Lord Haart

2014-09-08, 07:22 PM

I'll describe my friend's character, one of whom i'm very found (apparently, i'm alone in this regard).

Tormented and tortured, a casualty of war he wasn't prepared for, lost in a foreign world, he was tempted to take advantage of people who didn't care about him and run off in search of a safer place — but he chose his honor and dignity, to no good end. He didn't save his own people, he didn't save people he tried to save later, and his role in saving a whole planet later still was negligible and didn't make any difference at all. Arrogant to his enemies and valiant, he considered his attempt to save the said planet important enough to attack a superior enemy in a clearly disadvantaged (he was already beaten and bare-handed by that point) situation, despite said enemy offering him mercy and having no real intention to fight (the dude even listed all the reasons why a fight would be pointless out loud); the battle went in predictable way, with no miracles nor cavalry, thus our hero died alone and yet again accomplished nothing. That's what happens when one lives and dies by (rigid and outdated) highest moral standarts of a tiny, insignificant speck of a civilisation; they had their knight in a shining armor, and in a world of energy weapons it proved to have no value but decorative.
And so poignant and pointless was this character's tragedy that the party member who felt most compassion for him was moved to go and throw away her own life and morals as well in a bid for a diminutive chance to rid the world of at least some evil, instead of living a good life as a good person and simply doing some good (she was on a fence, but before his death she was inclined to do the latter).

I know, all of this sounds grim and negative and more than a bit derogatory, but that was the point (at least, it turned to be in the end — doubt it was all intentional on the player's part); the conflict and the tragedy were bloody lifelike and convincing, there were no deus ex machinas, no easy ways out, the character's fatal flaws were his own virtues, and the resulting story told something that won't be told by a hundred of "hero overcomes obstacles by virtue of following his virtues, chooses the right thing in the end, gets his just reward" (or "hero betrays virtues, goes to the Dark Side, should have chosen the right thing, dumbo") plots.

veti

2014-09-08, 07:47 PM

challenge: list the aspects (and skills?) for your favorite character, fate-style. any takers?

Difficult. Considering I've never played FATE, so Beware of the Newbie warnings apply, but based on skimming through the SRD version, here's what I came up with:

Character: VN

Aspects:
Raised in a Ninja Clan
A Face in the Crowd
Family Ties
Nosy
Pathologically Distrustful
Quick Witted
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
"The Best-Laid Plans..."
"Let Us Never Speak Of This Again"
"Every Moving Part is a Monkey Wrench"

VN: Skills:
Superb: Deceit
Great: Engineering, Sleight of Hand
Good: Burglary, Stealth, Athletics
Fair: Science, Academics, Art, Investigation
Average: Mysteries, Survival, Guns, Driving, Alertness

... Do you find that more 'flavourful' than my previous description?

Hyena

2014-09-08, 10:29 PM

I'll describe my friend's character, one of whom i'm very found (apparently, i'm alone in this regard).
Wait a minute, we are friends? That's a little odd, considering you not answering my messages, changing your phone number and generally disappearing from radar.

GreatWyrmGold

2014-09-09, 12:25 PM

First thing's first. If you haven't seen the Red Letter Media review of the Phantom Menace (http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/), drop everything right freakin' now and go watch it. I mean everything. This forum, work, family, any priceless and fragile antiques you may be holding, whatever. Go. Come back when you're done. You'll need a while; it's nearly as long as the movie itself, but so much more entertaining.
The first 20 seconds included an irritating, bland voice and a joke about suicide. I didn't make it to 30. I'm done.

As with many others, I'm kinda questioning the validity of this test. It implies that characters with their race, appearance, special skills (the non-RPG equivalent of "class"), powers, or special equipment as some of their defining traits aren't worth it. Folks like Tanis Half-Elven, Sergeant Detritus, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Superman, Luke Skywalker, King Arthur, and Iron Man would disagree.
Without the conflict between his human and elven heritage, Tanis Half-Elven is just another generic leader guy.
Without his trollish traits, Sergeant Detritus is just an unusually big and dumb policeman (which is basically his class).
Without his skills as a spy, what would James Bond be? Similarly, Holmes would just be a clever cocaine addict if he wasn't a high-level Detective.
Without his powers, Superman is just some alien orphan (wait, race is bad to bring up).
Without being a Jedi, Luke is just a generic farmboy who topples an Evil Empire.
Without Excalibur, Arthur is just...well, he's still King of England, but not a terribly memorable one. Pretty generic. Besides, Aristocrat is a class.
Without his eponymous iron armor, Tony Stark is just a generic billionaire playboy with technical skill. Which we can't bring up, since that's either his class or his power.

Appearance, while rarely vital or important to a character (the main exceptions that come to mind are people like Frankenstein's Monster, Quasimodo, and Sloth), is an unusual thing to add to the list, given how rarely I've seen it listed for shallow characters; you don't see any effort on it if you don't care about fleshing out the character, and if you have a detailed character description you probably have a decently-fleshed-out character.
Finally, while "character role is a bad thing" can be defended, that's only because it can be largely covered by the "narrative role" part.

Do you want more counter-examples? Do you care to counter with how such characters or others from non-gaming sources could be described with your limitations? Or are you willing to admit that the Plinkett Test might not be such a great idea?

Velaryon

2014-09-09, 12:47 PM

I was hesitant to get into this thread at first because I'm not a fan of Plinkett. First of all, a review that's nearly as long as the film sort of defeats the purpose of reviews to my way of thinking. Second, while it does bring up some valid points, those points are surrounded by gratuitous amounts of obnoxious nitpicking. And third and most importantly, all attempts at humor in the RLM videos strike me as more offensive and unfunny than the worst parts of The Phantom Menace.

That said, this still proved to be an interesting discussion. I'll admit that I skipped over most people's actual attempts to describe their characters within the bounds of the test and focused on the discussion about the legitimacy of the test itself. After reading everyone's comments on it so far, I think of it much the same as I do the Bechdel test.

By that I mean, used it as a pass/fail test it's not actually very useful. But if you regard the Bechdel test as a commentary that "these criteria are setting the bar awfully low and the fact that so many works don't even do this much is pretty sad," then it kind of has a point.

Likewise, people here have proven both that it's possible to describe characters within the guidelines of the Plinkett test (even as adapted for RPG characters in the OP), and that such descriptions often leave out valuable or even necessary parts of a character's description. The value of the Plinkett test is to point out that characters should be more fleshed out than a simple description of their appearance, job, and special powers (where applicable). Even most minor characters ought to have some personality and individual characteristics beyond what they do and what they look like. If a single character doesn't have more than that, they're usually going to be flat and kind of uninteresting. If an entire work doesn't have these things, then it's going to be awfully hard to judge it as a quality work (maybe there's some specific exception but I'm not sure I can think of one).

Hyena

2014-09-09, 01:27 PM

The first 20 seconds included an irritating, bland voice and a joke about suicide. I didn't make it to 30. I'm done.

Consider yourself lucky for ending the view early. Review gets more and more offensive later which, for me, is funny, but wouldn't go well with you.

Kalmageddon

2014-09-09, 05:03 PM

Consider yourself lucky for ending the view early. Review gets more and more offensive later which, for me, is funny, but wouldn't go well with you.

Indeed, dark humor is part of the course with Mr. Plinkett's reviews. I personally love offensive humor, expecially because in this case it comes out of nowhere when you really don't expect it, which only adds to the comedic effect, at least to me. But if someone is easily offended... Stay the hell away from those reviews.

GreatWyrmGold

2014-09-11, 10:12 AM

What, you need to be easily-offended to find people killing themselves to be unfunny?

Hyena

2014-09-11, 11:14 AM

Internet desensitized me and made me appreciate dark humour - both are important things for a medical student, by the way. So, I guess, the answer to your question is "yes".

Gracht Grabmaw

2014-09-12, 05:29 AM

The first 20 seconds included an irritating, bland voice and a joke about suicide. I didn't make it to 30. I'm done.

As with many others, I'm kinda questioning the validity of this test. It implies that characters with their race, appearance, special skills (the non-RPG equivalent of "class"), powers, or special equipment as some of their defining traits aren't worth it. Folks like Tanis Half-Elven, Sergeant Detritus, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Superman, Luke Skywalker, King Arthur, and Iron Man would disagree.
Without the conflict between his human and elven heritage, Tanis Half-Elven is just another generic leader guy.
Without his trollish traits, Sergeant Detritus is just an unusually big and dumb policeman (which is basically his class).
Without his skills as a spy, what would James Bond be? Similarly, Holmes would just be a clever cocaine addict if he wasn't a high-level Detective.
Without his powers, Superman is just some alien orphan (wait, race is bad to bring up).
Without being a Jedi, Luke is just a generic farmboy who topples an Evil Empire.
Without Excalibur, Arthur is just...well, he's still King of England, but not a terribly memorable one. Pretty generic. Besides, Aristocrat is a class.
Without his eponymous iron armor, Tony Stark is just a generic billionaire playboy with technical skill. Which we can't bring up, since that's either his class or his power.

Again, the test is not about determining how well your character is developed, it's about how MEMORABLE they are.

Even if you don't mention his powers or his role in a story, if you describe a wide-eyed, idealist boyscout who's slightly awkward around people when he's not on the job, a lot of people can probably still guess it's Superman.

"A witty rogue with a heart of gold" isn't exactly a deep character but people still remember Han Solo. Nobody remembers Liam Neeson or Samuel L. Jackson's characters in the prequels because they're not presented in a memorable way. It doesn't matter how well you flesh them out behind the scenes or in the tie-in novels and comic books, because people don't remember them. The fact that I can't even remember what they're called is a testament to that.

Jeff the Green

2014-09-12, 05:50 AM

"A witty rogue with a heart of gold" isn't exactly a deep character but people still remember Han Solo. Nobody remembers Liam Neeson or Samuel L. Jackson's characters in the prequels because they're not presented in a memorable way. It doesn't matter how well you flesh them out behind the scenes or in the tie-in novels and comic books, because people don't remember them. The fact that I can't even remember what they're called is a testament to that.

The problem with this idea is that "a witty rogue with a heart of gold" describes an enormous number of characters (seriously, it has it's own trope (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LoveableRogue)), some of which are memorable and some of which I literally can't remember anything about besides the fact that they're Lovable Rogues. (That guy from The Mummy... uh, he was played by Brendan Frazier? He was going to be hanged? That's about it. Esmeralda from Disney's Hunchback... I remember she had a good song, but that's only because I recently saw it mentioned and had to go look it up on YouTube.)

And then there are the characters who are really memorable despite being hard to give a meaningful description of under these terms. The title character in Hancock (that execrable superhero movie with Will Smith) is memorable not because he's an ******* but because he's an ******* with superpowers.

Broken Twin

2014-09-12, 07:35 AM

What exactly is the definition being used for memorable here? Because I know a ton of people remember Mace "I have a purple lightsaber" Windu. Bland character, but with a visual hook that made him memorable.

Heck, everyone knows who Edward Cullen is, and you'd be hard challenged to find a flatter character out there.

At the same time, plenty of deep, well thought out characters aren't well remembered, solely because the piece they appeared in never because popular.

prufock

2014-09-12, 11:58 AM

The first 20 seconds included an irritating, bland voice and a joke about suicide. I didn't make it to 30. I'm done.

First of all, a review that's nearly as long as the film sort of defeats the purpose of reviews to my way of thinking. Second, while it does bring up some valid points, those points are surrounded by gratuitous amounts of obnoxious nitpicking. And third and most importantly, all attempts at humor in the RLM videos strike me as more offensive and unfunny than the worst parts of The Phantom Menace.

The only thing worse than the Phantom Menace is the Red Letter Media review of the Phantom Menace.

Wardog

2014-09-13, 05:58 AM

A character from a story I'm working on (but will probably never actually come close to completing):

An old-fashioned girl with old-fashioned values. Like Boudicca. But with more guns.

To be more detailed:
Courageous(sometimes to the point of recklessness), proud (often to the point of arrogance), normally calm and controlled, but with a deep rage kept bottled up inside; determined, driven by a desire for vengeance against the forces that destroyed her civilization. Doesn't make friends easily, but is fiercely loyal to those she does; believes in the importance of honesty and keeping your word, but doesn't care much for more remote authority or power-structures.

Demon Prince

2014-10-28, 04:38 AM

I fail to see the appeal of RLM. The test itself is sort of like the Bechdel test: can give a rough idea but there is too much going on with a character to be any sort of appropriate guide to 'characterness'.
What about those characters who have some ability which ends up being an important part of how they (and others) see themselves? Say your character is malformed, like a hunchback, and has suffered abuse for it all her life? You mention appearance, but it can be a core aspect of her personality (how she acts around people, if she tries to hide it or defiantly flaunts it or just tries to lead a normal life, etc.). Or has some special power that causes her to become arrogant and callous? Or spoiled rotten because he was so cute as a child? You can't really ignore the appearance, powers or accomplishments when describing personality.

Thank you. What I was going to say, really.

But, for the sake of fun, let's see if I can fit a few characters in here...

Spider

Here we have a man who worked his way up from cringing orphan nobody to hero (though he definitely did have some help along the way), and lost it all again. He's had to do some terrible things to stay alive, but given the alternative he's faced with, terrible things seemed the better option. He is altruistic, but not too altruistic, and some might say not altruistic enough. He takes risks when he has to, but he's really a coward at heart. He is pragmatic, practically above all else, but the end result he wants to achieve is a hero's story.

Cathak Anja

This one comes from very impoverished roots, and used to be quite angry about it. And a while a lot has changed since then, she's still driven on by the memory she has of those early days. While Anja, in a position far better than she used to be in, doesn't have quite the same revolutionary fervor she used to, she's still very much a reformist when it comes to the horrid political system she lives under--and that does mean reform, not upheaval. She firmly believes that her country can do a lot of good in the world if guided in the right direction. People have called her everything from a fanatic to corrupt, but very few people are on the mark with her, not because she's deceptive, but because she doesn't draw attention to her innermost feelings all the time.

Maya Flores

She's spent her whole life yearning for the power she doesn't have, for even as she's acquired a little more lately, the people around her have grown similarly. She's also never really had huge moral standards, but what little she had have already begun to erode, as the easiest paths she's discovered, both to acquiring power and maintaining what little she has in this world (okay, really just her life) have involved such a relaxation of standards. In spite of the natural tendency to want to avoid trouble being consistently at the bottom of the food chain tends to breed, Maya has an inner fire of pride and ambition that causes her to take some risks that can get her into trouble.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've got more on the way. :smallbiggrin:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nekros

A lot like Spider, whom I mentioned earlier, in that he at one point had everything he wanted in life and later lost it. Unlike Spider, however, he was born immensely wealthy and the sense of entitlement he possessed never really went away. Once he lost his wealth and high social regard, he immediately set out to establish some kind of power over the people around him, and, well, now he's working in the underworld. Like, gangland underworld. Despite all he's lost, he can kill people just fine, and that makes it all damn worth it at the end of the day.

Twice-Sunken Lagan

Talented and more than a little arrogant about it, Lagan always has held something of a disdainful attitude towards the people around her--something akin to the feelings of the smart kid that got bullied when she was young towards people that resemble the bullies. She's got more logical reasoning for it, but on some level you have to wonder whether this complex informs her politics at all, because she's an avid supporter of bringing progress to the barbarians--at home and abroad. She's got an extreme interest in machines, how they work, and how to improve them, and she hopes to do so in a big way soon.

Ettina

2014-10-28, 02:21 PM

Heck, everyone knows who Edward Cullen is, and you'd be hard challenged to find a flatter character out there.

I disagree. Edward Cullen isn't a flat character, and neither is Bella. It's just that they're completely different characters from what they were intended to be. Edward Cullen is a controlling, overprotective ******* with violent tendencies, and Bella has dependent personality disorder. People think they're flat because they were supposed to be 'ideal mate' and 'normal girl', and fall well short of actually being like that.

Amphetryon

2014-10-28, 03:17 PM

Again, the test is not about determining how well your character is developed, it's about how MEMORABLE they are.

Even if you don't mention his powers or his role in a story, if you describe a wide-eyed, idealist boyscout who's slightly awkward around people when he's not on the job, a lot of people can probably still guess it's Superman.

"A witty rogue with a heart of gold" isn't exactly a deep character but people still remember Han Solo. Nobody remembers Liam Neeson or Samuel L. Jackson's characters in the prequels because they're not presented in a memorable way. It doesn't matter how well you flesh them out behind the scenes or in the tie-in novels and comic books, because people don't remember them. The fact that I can't even remember what they're called is a testament to that.

1. When you say 'a wide-eyed, idealistic Boy Scout who's slightly awkward around people when he's not on the job,' the first person I think of is Andrew Steyn from The Gods Must Be Crazy, followed by Dr. Raymond Stantz in Ghostbusters and Abel Nightroad in Trinity Blood; we'd have to work quite a way down the list before I wound up at Clark 'Superman' Kent. The fact that this description fits enough characters to make their own trope [link not included; you're welcome] tells me that either the description is lacking, or the test isn't revealing what you may think it is.

2. You may not remember Qi-Gong Jin or Mace Windu, but I did, immediately, and I'm not a Star Wars fanatic by any stretch. The fact that you can't even remember what they're called is a testament to what you, personally, find memorable, not whether they are inherently memorable themselves.

3. If 'memorable' is the defining characteristic of the Plinkett Test, then - sticking with Star Wars - R2-D2 should easily pass, as he's immediately memorable to the vast majority of folks I know. Can you describe him using Plinkett Test rules?

Milodiah

2014-10-28, 03:35 PM

Honestly, a more important test for a player character or (especially) an NPC to pass would be this (http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm).

Exediron

2014-10-28, 07:05 PM

Honestly, a more important test for a player character or (especially) an NPC to pass would be this (http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm).

A standard player character - not one played by the DM - is literally incapable of being a true Mary Sue. At worst, they can be a Mary Sue wannabe. This is because a critical element of the Mary Sue trope is how others react (or don't, as the case may be) to the character, and your fellow players are unlikely to worship the ground your character walks upon, forgive her for all her terrible flaws and take her insults like they deserve them.

As a side note, I find that test questionable, although I haven't run enough characters through it yet to develop a fleshed out opinion on it.

EDIT: All but one of my characters that I put through tested clean; apparently Divine Emissaries are highly prone to being Marys Sue :smallcool:

Telwar

2014-10-28, 07:31 PM

Difficult. Considering I've never played FATE, so Beware of the Newbie warnings apply, but based on skimming through the SRD version, here's what I came up with:

Character: VN

Aspects:
Raised in a Ninja Clan
A Face in the Crowd
Family Ties
Nosy
Pathologically Distrustful
Quick Witted
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
"The Best-Laid Plans..."
"Let Us Never Speak Of This Again"
"Every Moving Part is a Monkey Wrench"

VN: Skills:
Superb: Deceit
Great: Engineering, Sleight of Hand
Good: Burglary, Stealth, Athletics
Fair: Science, Academics, Art, Investigation
Average: Mysteries, Survival, Guns, Driving, Alertness

... Do you find that more 'flavourful' than my previous description?

Oooo, let's see...

Mikael ibn Jafar al-Khelyej, my 4e tiefling fire elementalist sorcerer, would have the below aspects:

Loves the Ladies
Fire! Fire! Fire!
The Soft Underbelly of the Party
Vindictive as F***
University-Trained Sorcerer
I'm Sure We Can Come to an Arrangement
All I Have Is A Hammer, But Everything Is A Nail

GrayGriffin

2014-10-29, 11:17 AM

A standard player character - not one played by the DM - is literally incapable of being a true Mary Sue. At worst, they can be a Mary Sue wannabe. This is because a critical element of the Mary Sue trope is how others react (or don't, as the case may be) to the character, and your fellow players are unlikely to worship the ground your character walks upon, forgive her for all her terrible flaws and take her insults like they deserve them.

As a side note, I find that test questionable, although I haven't run enough characters through it yet to develop a fleshed out opinion on it.

EDIT: All but one of my characters that I put through tested clean; apparently Divine Emissaries are highly prone to being Marys Sue :smallcool:

Which is why the test has a section for RP-specific questions as well.

Razanir

2014-10-29, 04:02 PM

See, the problem for mine is that his race is a major part of his story. Divorced from anything like that, his story is just that he seeks to improve the reputation of Usually Evil races, because of events in his childhood. But if I'm allowed to mention that he's a half-orc who was abandoned by his tribe and brought up by paladins, now he's a much more interesting character.

Exediron

2014-10-30, 12:10 AM

Which is why the test has a section for RP-specific questions as well.

... all four of them? One of which doesn't even apply for most games?

Esprit15

2014-10-30, 01:09 AM

Which is why the test has a section for RP-specific questions as well.

That portion is 4 questions long.

EDIT: Ninja'd by an hour

The Oni

2014-10-30, 09:50 AM

Wanzen Greatfield is a crotchety old lawman afflicted with an awful wasting sickness for the later half of his life. His premature age disguises that he's the younger of two brothers, the older being a dishonest templar with a sadistic streak a mile wide and the command of an entire order of corrupt crusaders, and the last person alive he can call family. Wanzen was killed and given the choice to pass on to his much-deserved afterlife, but was talked into joining the party by a simple cleric's selflessness, and resurrected to slay a necromancer. He enjoys liquor, herbal cigars, jaunty music and anything else that eases the pain of his persistent, hacking cough.

His well-meaning paternalism, grim humor and devotion to his mission eventually took a darker turn, as his adopted daughter was killed when the entire Pathfinder Society headquarters sank into the sea along with his hometown. He is now a creature of purpose alone, his patience for fools and scoundrels quickly withering away with his body, skirting open defiance of his once-beloved patron goddess who failed to prevent the war in the heavens that led to this disaster and even now lets his wicked brother escape his just punishment.

Roxxy

2014-10-30, 11:03 AM

I dunno. I guess a probably could, but would I want to? My favorite PC, Trinh Hue Pham, PF, and Alchemist is both her character class and title she would be referred to as in world. That title is a big omission. Also dunno if it's good to ignore her appearance (small, slender, bespectacled) or job (former navy surgeon's mate who works as a monster hunter). It would seem flat.

GrayGriffin

2014-10-30, 12:12 PM

I'm pretty sure it's so short for that very reason-there's only a few things you can do to be a Mary Sue in an RP, but they do exist. Not to mention the character description and background part is pretty valid for any situation.

VincentTakeda

2014-11-20, 04:41 PM

While it may, as written, not abjectly succeed at its goal, I like what the test is 'reaching for'.
Its very hard to override the natural inclinations of the programming your neurons have undergone simply by existing in this world.
The brain 'builds itself' to interact with the world as it finds it, and the world as it finds it is much more accustomed to answering the question of 'who you are' by instead answering the question of 'what you are'.
So its much more facile... more natural... more instinctive... to say 'i'm an orcish fighter' or 'i'm a loligoth pixie' than it is to say...

My character was a shy antisocial, unpopular kid who, over time has found that what once was his greatest challenge is now his greatest joy, as he roves the world, delighting in even the most trivial interactions with total strangers in order to improve their lives and perhaps one day... to save the world"

To paraphrase Richard Bach from Jonathan Livingston Seagull. You dont want answers. You want questions. Questions are like diamonds. Every time you examine one they look different, but look perfect for the moment they're being examined. This exercise provides an opportunity to ask the question:

What is my character when it isn't what it is... Sure it is an orcish fighter... But what is it when its not busy doing its day job of orcing and fightering... What else is it?

Thats never a bad thing.

Zalphon

2014-11-21, 08:53 AM

Description of Aspexia Wintrish

Aspexia is a woman of remarkable intelligence and an air of sophistication, which is one of the many things that make her to be one of the strangest people in Sigil. Why? Because few people with refined tastes and sophistication (e.g. She has a love of Infernal Opera and her favorite wine, Arborean Paradise, is made from the finest grapes in Arborea with the purest water from the Elemental Plane of Water. Unsurprisingly, it comes with a price that could buy a city of notable size) are willing to stand beside the poor and downtrodden. However, Aspexia has always done just that.

As a practicing lawyer trained extensively in Infernal Law (with a specialization in Pacts), Wintrish has been offered several positions with remarkable benefits and resources to fight her trials before the Pit Fiends who typically adjudicate. Once so far as being offered a place in the Hells as one of their prosecutors (surprising--you figured they'd have more than their fair share of attorneys), as well as at the side of a Golarion family known as House Thrune.

She has always declined such positions in favor of something she cares more about. Aspexia chose a life of constantly struggling for a lucky break and wishing that her clientele could scrounge up just a few more precious gold pieces so that she would have maybe a couple more days before her coffers run dry. However, she chose what she loves. Helping the poor and downtrodden, asking only for what they can give in return.

However, Wintrish could not do that forever. Between the piling bills that simply come from practicing in Sigil and the 'accidents' that would be arranged for her clients trying to unravel their pacts, she came to realize that she wouldn't be able to afford it. Down and out, her back against the wall as she struggled to plan out her next move--it came to her. It being something that the very thought of made her sick to her stomach, but with no other options? She became a sellsword--a mercenary--an adventurer.

Using the abilities she gathered during her time practicing in Sigil (e.g. investigative talents, after all--she could never afford one for her), she took up a new life. Not particularly fond of it, but she would do what she had to. After all, this was a setback. Nothing permanent. Not even a thing. She'd just get enough money and go back to practicing... Yeah.