Numina
Menu

Lore

Characters

On this page

Creating a Character

The Numina III rulebook covers the nuts and bolts of how to create a character. This chapter isn’t intended to duplicate that step-by-step process. Instead, it provides some insight on what makes an interesting and appropriate character concept.

Character History

Why Submit a Character History?

A character history can be a helpful tool for both the player and the staff. It is a shared point of contact on a collaborative story, and those can be invaluable in a smaller, narrative LARP like Numina. When it comes to telling more personalized stories, a character history is similar to documents like culture packets that help establish important things about the world which staff and players can build on.

A character history can help staff understand two broad strokes of important character information: your characterization, such as motivations, fears, and goals; and your character’s sense of place, such as where they have been, and who they may count as important. Both characterization and sense of place are excellent starting points for telling a collaborative story. Additionally, it can provide the player with some points to fall back on when they need to make decisions or need some inspiration to role-play a scene.

There is no one right way to create a character history. Some people prefer narratives, while others prefer dossiers or bullet lists. Regardless of format, we hope that we can inspire you to create a character history, provide you with some good things to include, and suggest details for those who wish to add more.

Below, we have provided an in-depth guide with helpful tips and guiding questions for creating a character history. Covered in the guide are some good things to have in a character history, including:

Happy reading, and happy writing!

Helpful Tips and Guiding Points

Is it time to write/build a history for your character? Well, here are a few ideas and guiding points to help you along the way. None of this is required; it is just a good place to review to see if you have things fleshed out enough to portray the character when it comes time for “Game On.” While you may have a feel for how the character will behave in a given situation, you might not have the history that led to that behavior yet. It is a fine line between character and history, so hopefully these tips and questions help.

When making a character, we like to think of three distinct areas: Major goals, Significant people, and Quirks.

Major Goals

When you think upon the past and present of your character, what were/are some major goals they had that have shaped them? How did those goals come about as goals? Are they still working towards those goals, or have they moved on to something else? If they moved on, what spurred that change? If they are still working on them, what are those goals, how might they work on them? If they completed them, how did they do it? There will probably be a mix of completed goals and in progress goals.

An example of a completed goal could be that they already learned how to be a spell caster. A working-on goal is that they want to expand what spells they know. A passed on goal could be they thought they wanted to be a healer but realized they didn’t like it so they moved on to throwing fire.

Significant People

There are people that shape any life, be it a character or a real person. Think about who those people might be for your character. Are they still alive? How old are they now? When did they enter your character’s life? Are they still around to influence it, or has there been a parting of ways? Was the influence something that has negative connotations or positive connotations? What link, if any, do these people have to your major goals? Significant people can be both friend and enemy, maybe even filling both roles.

It is a good idea to name at least one family member, one friend and one mentor type person. For example: my sister Jane and my best friend Frank learned how to cast magic from Mistress Formila at the same school, but I am pretty sure the Mistress held Jane as a favorite pupil and we haven’t spoken in years because of the Mistress’ obvious partiality.

Quirks

Quirks, oddities, exceptions tend to be what help distinguish a character as well as help with the characterization and presentation. They make them seem more real than just the “knight in shining armor.” If the knight’s armor has a random heart shaped dent in it, people will talk about it. So what is something small but impactful that would be easy for you to role play? It doesn’t have to be obvious to the world, just something to make your character more real in your own head. Then think back to how these quirks might link back to the previous two categories.

Do you always need to have gloves on your hand before you will shake hands because someone once burned you with a poisoned ring? Do you try to collect every lonely plush animal and “give it a good home” because you once lost your favorite plush and were convinced that it was sad because it didn’t have a home with you anymore? Do you have to go pet every cat you see because the one time you didn’t you took an arrow to the arm? Do you wave at every passing procession because you once caught a Reel after waving at one as a child?

Other Stuff

Outside of these things, you can flesh out a lot or a little about your history. You could know your lineage back 10 generations or you could just know you have one sibling. Some other good questions to ask yourself about your character are the below:

Final Notes

Remember that this is the start of your adventures in this vast world; maybe the middle, but definitely not the end. You are an entry level character with the skills to match. While you may have aspirations to be a mighty hero known throughout the world, you aren’t quite there yet. Leave room for that in your history. Also, leave loose ends. Things that you could work on or things that staff can use to help build your character into the hero you want them to be. You never know what path the story will take and leaving loose ends in your history helps open up more paths for the story to take. Overcoming a few things in the past is fine, but your character shouldn’t be a fully formed hero with no room to grow.

In regards to people named in your history keep a few things in mind. First, are any of these people going to be portrayed by another PC? If so, please let us know as soon as you do. Second, are there any that you would love to see or not love to see show up in the game itself? While we don’t guarantee specific NPC appearances, it is nice to have an idea of which would be welcome and not.

Should you like the idea of having someone from your history portrayed by an NPC, it is best to have a way to recognize them should they come into the game. Something easily represented. Vague descriptions with one firm piece of identification that is easily representable.

“Mistress Formilla had long hair, but I remember her timepiece that always hung from her shoulder on a chain. What most didn’t know was that the other end of the chain held a small dagger.”

Finally, remember that the story is just beginning. Saying that you know all the rulers of the world is not going to be accepted. If you wish to have a personal connection with anyone named in the information given out by staff before your first event, please contact staff about that before you settle your history.

Your history should allow you to have fun with your character in the game and add depth beyond what happens during events. Because we as a staff and community want you to have fun with both the character and the game, don’t write anything that won’t be or lead to fun for you.

Thank you for reading through this guide, I hope that it has helped spark some kind of inspiration to help you get to know your character a little better. While character histories and characterizations are not required, they are a great tool for staff and players alike. If you choose to share your history with a friend, they may have a better understanding of how to interact with your character in game just as you get to know a character in a story when you learn more about them. We as a staff can’t wait to meet your character!

A “Heroic Game”

Numina III is designed to be a heroic game, which is an easy thing to say, but not as easy a thing to define when someone asks what that means. The staff of N3 would like to take this opportunity to express in more detail what sort of game we are hoping to run and more specifically what we mean when we say “heroic game.”

Character Choice and Players in a Heroic Game

Not every character in Numina III will be the classic ideal of a hero, and we hope to delineate a difference between a heroic game, and a game in which all the characters must be heroes. It is definitely not our goal to severely limit our players’ creativity and choice of character traits. Some characters will be flawed, and in the course of the stories we tell together, they will grow and change. Some characters may be heroes at times, but at other times their resolve will fail them. Our goal in the running of a heroic game is to give every character the opportunity to make heroic choices.

Sometimes these heroic choices will be explicitly presented as part of an ongoing plot or story, and sometimes they may be an inspiration that comes to you and the other two people awake at 5am. These opportunities for heroic choice, whether they come from the minds of staff or the minds of players, will have the power to drive the stories, and change big and small parts of the game world.

We would like our game to be a place where being a hero isn’t about always doing the right thing, it’s about the desire to do the right thing being a guiding force in the choices that drive the story. And while characters may not always succeed, and in some circumstances may even fail to let “doing the right thing” guide them, there is no place in a heroic game for characters that try to do the more harmful thing. Player characters in a heroic game don’t try to make the world a worse place, and players avoid creating a situation that is not fun for other players.

Shared Responsibility and Storytelling in a Heroic Game

We believe that creating a heroic game is a shared responsibility. Some of the contributions of staff toward this common goal is providing heroic choices, and to avoid passively forcing a certain choice. In our view, a heroic game does not mean that making the most noble choice will result in good outcomes, and making any other choice will result in bad outcomes. Numina staff is not interested in creating a game where you just have to click the right option to get the “good ending.” We equally appreciate players with stories about imperfect characters who do not always succeed at their personal and external goals. Heroic choices will ultimately have heroic outcomes, but your character not being ready to make that choice will become a different story of its own, with more opportunities for heroic choice.

There may also be times when your character makes that most noble choice, and in-world bad things still occur. It may sometimes appear that your character’s heroic choice has failed or even backfired. Staff is often in the business of making bad things happen to empower an even more heroic conclusion, so we hope that you will stick with us through these more fraught collaborative storytelling moments.

Community Culture in a Heroic Game

Finally, we also want to touch upon the out-of-game element of a heroic story. It is the fabric that allows for a wide variety of characters to make a wide variety of choices and still maintain a fun play environment for everyone. We like the phrasing adopted by several other games out there, and that is “Play to Lift.”

Playing to lift means that there is a behind-the-scenes focus from both players and staff on the impact of our actions and choices on other folks in the game. Playing to lift encompasses a wide variety of things but generally boils down to trying to make our impact on other’s games, if we choose to have one, a positive impact.

Playing to lift encourages a conscientious community culture that allows for things like the “Redeemed” foundation, where a player may choose to embody a morally imperfect character and yet also make the game and the community a better experience by when and how they choose to display that imperfection. When not every character has to be a classic save-the-puppies hero, this kind of consideration for others will be the bedrock of running a heroic game.

We’d also like to cover a few questions we have gotten in the past, with those answers intended to reveal even more about what a heroic game looks like to us.

FAQ

Q: Can I play a villain?

A: No. Our PvE antagonists may see you as villains, but they’re the real bad guys. We love playing villains and if you absolutely need to play one, come NPC for us! While playing the game as a PC though, we ask that any nefarious activities have a good intent at their heart, and that some out-of-game consideration has been taken to avoid a negative impact on other players.

Numina III is explicitly designed as a PvE game because we feel that players targeting other players for villainous activities such as theft, assassination, gaslighting, and deceit does not serve our goal of a positive community culture or of a heroic game. We welcome characters with an edge to them, but ask that you design your character so that those edges are always pointed in a PvE direction.

Q: Does that mean PvP is not allowed?

A: Correct. This seems like a great time to try to delineate the difference between character conflict and PvP. Character conflict is certain to come up at times when characters in the game have different ideas about how to resolve something or have conflicting desires. Character conflict can be a part of a good story and a good community culture when underneath the conflict, the players who choose to be involved are still conscientious about not letting the conflict make the game less fun for others.

Character conflict becomes PvP when it gets violent (this has never failed to negatively impact player fun at a game like Numina which is not built to support physical character conflict), or when the character conflict becomes a player conflict in which the people involved do not prioritize keeping the game fun for others. It’s the responsibility of players to discontinue their character conflict if it starts to turn toward PvP, and the responsibility of staff to help find a solution if asked by the players involved in the conflict.

Q: Can I play a criminal?

A: Yes, so long as the above goals are kept in mind. Your character should be a criminal if that is the best way to accomplish their good-at-heart goals, and as a player you should design them so that their chosen criminal activity is not intended to negatively impact the fun of other players. As with playing a villain, please make sure criminal activities are pointed in a PvE direction, and give out-of-game consideration to the impact of your criminal actions on the fun of other players.

As a singular example, it may be possible to be an assassin if you work for a guild whose goal is to better the world by removing awful people from it. Part of our shared responsibility on staff will be to include these sorts of organizations in the world.

Q: Can I play a former villain?

A: Indeed! There is even a foundation for it. Just be sure to write your redemption arc into your character history and, if your villain pulls a few tricks out of their past self’s toolbox, to make sure that they are pointing them at NPCs.

Q: … What is a villain?

We mean someone who does harmful things for selfish or malevolent reasons. Some of our NPC antagonists will be villains, and some may not be. We feel that this type of character would make a poor PC for our game due to their negative impact on plot options and the fun of other players. Additionally, we on staff have more fun and enjoy the game more when we feel that we are supporting stories about making things better.