You read that right. Look, sex is great, I love sex, but there are a million other prompts today celebrating that sin. Shout outs to the rest.
Send me one of the following to learn about my muse:
💪 - PRIDE - What is my muse proud of about themselves? In particular what do they lord over others, intentionally or unintentionally?
đź’° - GREED - What does my muse hoard, what do they need all of, what will they stop at nothing to get?
💚 - ENVY - What is my muse jealous of? Is it someone else’s power or privilege? Is it something about their relationship?
🍖 - GLUTTONY - What are my muses Vices? What do they indulge in to the point of self harm or health risk? What do they not know when to stop?
🛏️ - SLOTH - What responsibilities does my muse shy away from? What do they put off, what are the tasks in their life they procrastinate or abdicate entirely?
🤬 - WRATH - What are some things that will cause my muse to wreak havoc on and seek vengeance toward when provoked? Are they a "don't get mad, get even" kind of person, do they do it all out of pettiness, or do they do it for the fun of it?
⏪ - REVERSE - Send this with any of the above to have my Muse tell you what they think your characters Pride, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, or Sloth is.
For any of the above, if the emoji isn’t available feel free to just send the word! Enjoy, and get your six sins on!
NOTE: While the OG post is still up, I noticed there was no WRATH prompt which triggered my OCD and needed to fix this.
A recurring theme I hear from people struggling to “figure out” roleplaying is that they feel their characters are flat, uninteresting, or that they’re otherwise bad at character creation because their characters don’t have “goals.” Or, as the flip side of that coin, that they themselves are bad roleplayers because they either can’t remember their characters’ goals, or can’t/don’t enjoy actually roleplaying those goals.
(A short break for shameless self-promotion: If you want some one-on-one assistance with character creation or are struggling to roleplay, I do one-hour consult sessions to give you specific help in tapping into your RPG character. You get tailored guidance with no attempts to tell you what you “should” do, and I get to ethically keep my therapeutic interviewing skills from getting rusty while in grad school limbo. Everyone wins!)
This is getting a bit esoteric. Let’s use some concrete examples.
Some common “goals” might be: A wizard whose goal is to become more powerful or gain a certain form of knowledge, a noble-born character whose goal is to restore their family’s name or wealth, or the evergreen goal of avenging a great wrong like the death of a loved one.
These are all great character goals! There is nothing wrong with having a character with a clear goal they work toward over the course of the game, and making a character with a clear goal is a great way to get started with roleplaying!Â
But it is only one method. And it’s not always appropriate.
I’m about to blow your damn mind: Characters don’t need goals.Â
The idea that a well-rounded character should always have a “goal” is pervasive, and honestly harmful to good character creation and roleplaying! And it’s even more difficult to overcome because if you look for roleplaying or character-building advice, “give them a goal” is generally one of the first bullet points. This is well-meaning, and it’s not bad advice. But if it leaves you feeling like your character is incomplete because they don’t have A Goal—or worse, feeling obligated to tack on a “goal” and struggle to prioritize it in roleplay—then it’s not helpful.
Characters do not need “goals”.
But all characters need motivations.
As usual, I’m going to use my own characters as an example so you don’t feel like I’m lecturing you. I think I only have one major D&D character who could be stated to have a “goal”--my halfling druid/fighter, who wants to repay her debt to the Circle so that she can make a clean and respectful break and live her own life without guilt.Â
But the others? Benny (Benevolence, but only her mom calls her that), my tiefling bard, doesn’t have a “goal” she works toward; in all honesty, her goal was her pre-campaign life. She likes being a travelling musician, she wants to perform and meet people across the continent! Rinda, my dwarven paladin, has five kids at home--her nieces and nephews, who she adopted after her sister’s tragic death in a mine collapse. She’s got no career ambition because she feels that chasing rank or prestige is inappropriate in a paladin, whose priority should be ordinary people and who needs to be accessible and grounded in the reality of the common folk. Her “goal” is to just keep being an honorable, mid-rank paladin and providing for her family.
That’s not remotely helpful in a tabletop RPG! Those are terrible “goals” for a character in a team-based game! If I followed general beginner RP advice and leaned into those goals, I’d end up that dreaded monstrosity, the player who says things like “but why would my character get involved? She would just let the town guard handle it”.
However, these characters’ motivations are a different story.
Benny doesn’t set out with the goal of becoming a hero; it’s not something she consciously works toward or considers a major aspiration. But she is responsible for what she allows, and at her core, Benevolence was well-named. She was raised by loving parents who taught her how to raise working animals and livestock ethically and with compassion, and who taught her the regret that comes of making selfish decisions. Helping others and minimizing suffering isn’t her life goal. She didn’t set out from home with a dream of being better than her parents, of putting good into the world instead of just mitigating the bad...but sometimes people really do just help others because it’s the right thing to do.Â
Rinda? Her driving purpose will always be her family. Caring for them is her goal, the thing she intentionally prioritizes, the thing she actively works for. But her motivations are not the same thing. Yes, she wants to stay close to take care of her kids...but her responsibilities as a paladin are important to. She’s a protector who swore an oath, and her children are not more important than children in the next city over who will suffer without her intervention. Her motivation is to make people feel safe, but that’s not really a traditional “goal”. And she’s a stronger character for that!
So: Motivations > Goals.Â
Which does NOT mean that your character shouldn’t have a concrete goal! That’s not what I’m saying at all. Rather...if your character has a concrete goal, arising naturally from their backstory, and you struggle to roleplay that goal, it may be because you’re not tapping into why your character has that goal in the first place. Are they seeking power because they’re terrified of a specific enemy? To prove a detractor or an abuser wrong? In order to accomplish a specific task--and in that case, who or what made them believe that task was important? Why is your rogue trying to avenge the death of his sister--and you can’t say “love” or “grief”. Many people have lose loved ones; what made this specific person decide that the only way forward was murder, and that his target(s) were responsible, and that he personally had to dedicate his life to killing them?
(This course of questioning may lead you to realize that you don’t have an answer. If that happens, ask yourself--is this a realization that your CHARACTER might have? That they don’t know why they’re doing this? Follow that thread! If not, it’s possible that you’ve tacked on an artificial “goal” for the sake of having one, and your character would be stronger without that anchor weighing them down.)
Sedge, that druid/fighter from earlier--her goal is to repay a massive debt so that she can be free of the Circle’s influence and live her own life. But her motivation? A mixture of shame and honor. The Circle saved her from a lot of predatory loans from bad people, rescued her, saved her life. She’s embarrassed at ending up so deep in debt and too proud to not repay that kind of kindness, but also feels a genuine gratitude for their kindness toward a total stranger. She wants to do right by them--but hates being a druid--but has always wanted to be the kind of hero who helps others exactly as selflessly as they did.Â
It creates a lot of in-depth roleplay possibilities that wouldn’t exist if I’d just left that goal as simple as “acquire X amount of gold to pay off her student loans” and proceeded to play Sedge as simply money-obsessed.
Even if your character does have a clear goal, their motivations can change and come into conflict with it! A heroic character with debts to repay might easily refuse a huge payday if it requires them to do something shady...but they might not. How desperate are they? A wizard whose goal is to unlock the power to cast Wish might see a path to that goal...but pursuing it would mean abandoning a helpless village in the path of an orc army, and if she stays to defend that village, she loses her opportunity.
What wins out, in the end? And what effect will that choice have on her psyche?
Suddenly it really, really matters why she’s so dead-set on learning Wish. Whether it’s out of pride or fear (which might be easier for her to set aside in the face of innocent lives) or out of a deep-rooted belief that something absolutely essential rests on her learning this spell—something a lot harder to turn her back on.
These conflicts can occur with or without a “goal”. But, whether a character has a “goal” or not, these conflicts and intimate, pivotal character moments absolutely cannot exist in a character without motivations.
You read that right. Look, sex is great, I love sex, but there are a million other prompts today celebrating that sin. Shout outs to the rest.
Send me one of the following to learn about my muse:
💪 - PRIDE - What is my muse proud of about themselves? In particular what do they lord over others, intentionally or unintentionally?
đź’° - GREED - What does my muse hoard, what do they need all of, what will they stop at nothing to get?
💚 - ENVY - What is my muse jealous of? Is it someone else’s power or privilege? Is it something about their relationship?
🍖 - GLUTTONY - What are my muses Vices? What do they indulge in to the point of self harm or health risk? What do they not know when to stop?
🛏️ - SLOTH - What responsibilities does my muse shy away from? What do they put off, what are the tasks in their life they procrastinate or abdicate entirely?
⏪ - REVERSE - Send this with any of the above to have my Muse tell you what they think your characters Pride, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, or Sloth is.
For any of the above, if the emoji isn’t available feel free to just send the word! Enjoy, and get your six sins on!
💚 - ENVY - What is my muse jealous of?  Is it someone else’s power or privilege?  Is it something about their relationship?
Lilith doesn’t tend to get jealous, at least not easily, but she does have a lot of envy towards her brothers. They’re very strong and capable, while she often feels like she can’t pull her own weight.
I probably need to ask anyone experienced with RP for some help. And I would greatly appreciate it if you can and want.
For starters, Koji’ra had a background story that involved amnesia. Though I kinda wanna redo his whole character. The reason is an in-game issue drama. Where my previous RP partner and I had an IC fight and my character would suffer amnesia after going on a mission and being gravely injured. Unfortunately, the problems with my previous RP partner were not only IC but OOC as well. We had a fight OOC wise then we patched things up and after a while, things went downhill between us again. Since then I actually killed off that particular character and then created Koji’ra instead, however, he is suffering amnesia too. Now I actually want to get rid of this amnesia based background and move to something more original. Since every time if I think about amnesia I think back to my times with my previous RP partner, which I don’t want. I want to move on.Â
So that’s actually the case in a nutshell.Â
I still wanna make perfectly clear that I will always remain a Sunseeker miqo’te around 32 years old. But other ideas I can’t really come up with. Also, my current in-game name is still Koji’ra which is slightly strange for a Sunseeker is it not? So I also kinda want to get rid of this name as well. Though I tried using a name generator for my character I just can’t think of some original names anymore. That’s why I want to reach out to you all to help me out. To give me some pointers in the right directions. With background story and name.Â
For example @tiergan-vashir I admire how you came up with your name for your character if I read your profile correctly. I actually wanna do something similar. The same applies to @bekizine in the aspect of name giving to your characters. So my kudos to you both.Â
I hope someone can give me and is willing to help me out here.Â
Nacelia is bonded to her husband|mate Ciaran Hollowstone. From a creative story line that has developed a growing relationship between the two and with the new customizations that had arrived. After some thought and little bit of research that this concept was created.Â
Touch of Elune is a ingame nightelf race buff that really doesn’t do much but can be used for IC. Day hours starts at 8:30am server time and Night starts at 8:30pm. Only thing that changes with her is her coloration. Just some developing plans and ideas that I’m working on with my best friend and RP partner Ciaran(Aka @ciaranhollowstone​ and @minstrelofmyths​). :DÂ
So I’m gonna have to change her colorations in the barber shop from now on which really is not that expensive. Hope Blizz sells a barbershop mount one day OR a engineer made but usable to all portable barbershop item. (Like the portalable stables) xD That would be neat!
🍖 - GLUTTONY - What are my muses Vices?  What do they indulge in to the point of self harm or health risk?  What do they not know when to stop?
Lilith is loyal to a fault. It often makes her get in trouble, for blindingly following what and who she believes is in the right. Which, unfortunately, makes her easily manipulated mentally wise.Â
She’s not self-harmed from such a thing, but it’s definitely not healthy of a mindset to have!
She sees the good in everyone, or tries too, very hard. For her, it’s become second nature, and trying to stop it, is not easy! Her brothers try to help, but it’s touch and go.
⏪  - REVERSE - Send this with any of the above to have my Muse tell you what they think your characters Pride, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, or Sloth is.
