Over the weekend I had the opportunity to playtest a GM-less RPG dealing with Transhumanism.

Characters had 4 attributes, which is what the 4 questions are, and it was the easiest and most well rounded character I had ever created.

I never had luck with the 20 question questionair, with questions like "What emotion best describes your character?" because it kind of assumes you've already got an idea in mind, and the questions are just helping you better define them.

Instead, I offer these 4 traits:
Mind, I'm summarizing from the session early Saturday morning, and do not have the rules the guy had printed off. So I might not be as eloquent as his rules document was.

Vision: What does your character wish to accomplish in his life or change about himself? What would they give up everything to have?
Identity: What attribute about your character are they least willing to give up? What is it that makes them say "I wouldn't be me if I lost this."?
Frailty: What weakness is your character plagued by? What holds them back and hinders their ability to achieve their goals?
Ritual: What is it that your character does on a regular basis? What would they miss if it were to suddenly not be there or not be possible to do?

Mind, this was in the context of a game that was to explore what it means to be transhuman, but it took me about 15 minutes to do this (normally it takes me months to have the same level of concept):



Bam. I had a more well defined character in 15 minutes than I'd ever had at any point ever, and this was just some random guy. Not a hero or a villian, just a guy living a normal life, but I had enough information to decide whether or not he would be willing to have brain surgery and get cybernetic implants if it meant he wouldn't have memory problems any more. It was hugely entertaining when my character had his Hard Choice come up (the game's role play mechanic: overcome a frailty or achieve your vision, but at some other price). He was offered the opportunity to join the collective hivemind so he would no longer be forgetting things (like the sunrise: the sun hasn't been visible behind the clouds of smog in days or more), because the hive would remember everything, but at the cost of his individuality. I turned to the player who stated the hard choice and gaped at him for a moment before saying, "You a$$hole" because he'd pulled off what I think the game designer had intended: a truly difficult proposition. I was all, "holy cow, really? god damn..."

Anyway, thought I'd share a fun experience and hopefully a set of character design thoughts.

... I'm totally using that. If nothing else, it's a great way to come up with memorable characters on the fly, and I'd imagine you can take a lot of pretty complex characters and summarize them halfway well in these terms, which can make keeping a persistent idea of the character easier... I mean, I've got one character whose vision would basically be to find a purpose, but still.

And that's why I shared.
It's like "damn, I just created a three dimensional character in minutes." These things are things that the character IS rather than some subjective viewpoint.