Character Skeleton Guide

What is a Character Skeleton?

Exactly that! The skeleton of any character is what holds them upright and gives them vague structure. There’s usually not any places names or explicit details but there’s enough to understand the core of WHO your character is so that a) I can actually ask interesting questions to flesh them out and address any worldbuilding concern and b) so YOU know WHO they are and can actually functionally roleplay as them in various types of scenes.

This skeleton; like a real one, can grow and change overtime but will always have some resemblance to the one that it started as - so don’t be too worried about locking yourself into a corner. This exercise will just help lay some ground works. For my campaigns; I like to keep character skeletons very loose and not directly tied to specific world concepts, locations, or entities - this way I can more easily blend world elements with full knowledge first to avoid narrative conflicts.

The less details you hardcode into your backstory, the more surprises I can throw your way during the campaign to keep you engaged and guessing.

Basic Details

If it helps you make sense of the character, then you could fill out the following details to start to get a basic idea of WHAT your character actually is. I ask that you keep this vague as locking certain details of your backstory to these characteristics might cause a conflict with world lore. We can always cement things later; so let’s not do that too early in this process.

Working Name: This doesn’t have to be their final name, just one between you and I to start with.
Race:
Age:
Class:
Height:
Skin tone:
Hair Colour:
Eye colour:
Voice: i.e bright, sombre, monotone, etc
Accent: british, southern american, european, new zealander, etc

The Three Keys!

To start a character skeleton I ask of you for three things:

1. A Catylyst Event:

An event in their past that started their journey up until present day. It could have been a highly impactful moment that altered them as a person OR just a practical reason for them to have left home and sought something else.

2. The Familiar Face:

A single NPC character of your design; loosely, that is a) alive and b) present in your characters’ life. I want you to start this campaign knowing you have someone out there in the world. It also gives me a basis for the kinds of other people that need fleshing out.

3. An Initial Goal:

This isn’t your final end goal, but instead just the first step in a series of goals towards that final endpoint. This exercise should make you think about what your player is actually trying to achieve and its feasibility. If you’re finding you can’t think of a solid initial goal, you’re either setting your character up to fail or haven’t really understood what they’re trying to achieve.

Take some time to flesh this out and determine where you want their story to go and where you can see it going from there.

Questions, Questions, Questions?

Once you’re happy with the skeleton; send me a copy of it via google drive and I’ll review it and send back any questions I have about what you’ve put down. We’ll go back and forth at this stage with answers and follow up questions - I might ask to talk on Discord or keep it async if that’s what works for the overlap of our schedules.

The Meat and the Potatoes

Once the questions are answered for all the players; I’ll begin to weave the core narrative and flesh out the details of the narrative locations required to give you all details about where your characters have been and who knows what about the world.

At this point, your character has a skeleton and they have flesh. We’ll review the details as much as we need to make sure you actually like the character.