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Terminology
These are some of my own ways of explaining how I make characters. I use a lot of allusions to software development since it makes sense to me. If this section comes off as confusing to you - it's not super important to be able to RP or interact with me. This is just a little 'under the hood' look at how I RP.
Character Codebase
A character codebase is, generally speaking, the overall fully encompassing profile for a given RP charcter.
Character Core
A character core is a more specific configuration of a character stored within a character codebase. These are generally genre or setting specific configurations of the codebase's main character core. Character cores can vary significantly from the original and even fork off into entirely new codebases. A character core consists of three main core components - Personality Core, Story Core, and Attribution Core
Personality Core
The personality core of a character is what gives the character their life. They are a summary of personality trait probabilities that will manifest organically depending on a character's story and attribution. This is one of the oldest of my writing techniques, which I developed initially in 2008 and have honed ever since. Personality cores will often be expressed as generalized sentences on a character profile, but inside my mind there is separate cognition for each personality core. Character codebases originally only contained one personality core, but with the implementation of robust character cores I gained the ability to track multiple character cores in a codebase and still retain one identity.
Components:
- Core Motivations: The driving force of the character overall. Correlative to character's direction.
- Alignment: The Dungeons and Dragons style alignment system, used to show where ethics and morality generally lay.
- Personality Traits: A list of traits and probabilities that highlight the key components of the character's personality. It isn't an exhaustive nor all inclusive list.
Story Core
This contains the character's narrative direction, vision, theming, flavor, backstory, canon, and other literary variables. Story core is unique for every character version.
- Backstory - Anything in the character's past that didn't expressly happen in RP or prose. Most of this is generated during the character brainstorming phase and
- Canon - Anything in the character's past that happened in RP with another player, or was specifically written out solo in prose (not summarization).
Attribution Core
This contains the characters physical description, summary of capabilities, attributes and skills, and other similar things. Attribution cores are unique for every character version.
Character Version
A character version is a specific and individual character compiled and written into a setting. This is what most people think of when they think of a 'character'. Some character versions have specific backstories and canon, others are more generalized and use character instances for backstory and canon.
Character Instance
Character versions may have multiple instances for different branching timelines and such but for the most part I really don't keep track of those. These are generally unique to each individual RP or RP group the character is dropped into.
Character Fork
Another software development term, a character fork is when I take a character core from one codebase, and start a new codebase with it. The forked character will then go through redesign and compile into the new character.
Compiling
A term borrowed from programming, a compiled character is one that blends a Character core, Personality Core, Story Core, Attribution Core, Backstory, and Canon into a specific Character Version. I also use the term for a Character Codebase that contains at least one Character Core that is fully compiled. The way I actually compile characters has changed over the years, and I employ multiple strategies. But it is, in short, a process where I take ideas and turn them into a living, breathing character. In the same way that source code becomes an executable after compilation.
Fully-Compiled
Part of my old process. Fully-compiled characters were more or less characters that completely fused all the various cores into a specific character. Fully-compiled characters were not able to be ported into other settings, however, and required specific compiles for each individual version. The only fully-compiled characters I still have are older ones that have not been played in a long time.
Partially-Compiled
Part of my old process, partially-compiled characters were characters that were more or less not fully compiled at creation, and were figured out more after the fact. I have not used partially-compiled characters in years.
Fast-code
Example: Ellania
Part of my current process. Fast-code characters are effectively fully-compiled characters that are able to be generated on demand by using any established character codebase, rather than specifics in the character core alone. This allows me to port any character into any setting very efficiently and borrow from other character codebases to make a new character very fast. Fully-compiled characters are not difficult to port into the new fast-code format. New character forks that are generated out of a robust character will generally compile as fast-coded characters.
New-code
Example: Norixtle
Part of my current process. Whereas fast-code allows me to pull from code of any character I've already created, new-code is my method of creating entirely new characters from scratch. It works in the same manner as the older fully-compiled system, but given how broad my codebase is I am able to also pull in fast-code variables as well to aid in character creation.
Robust-Compiled
Example: Korine
Part of my current process. A Robust Compiled character is a character that is compiled into multiple character cores - thus becoming a true codebase. Robust characters are able to be reconfigured, ported, forked, and adjusted on a per-character basis. Generally any fast-code character will eventually become a robust-compiled character. Robust characters can, for the most part, port into any setting and can wildly reconfigure into new cores. Robust characters can contain multiple personality cores.