{"id":60,"date":"2009-05-13T10:11:44","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T17:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/?p=60"},"modified":"2011-08-03T18:20:54","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T22:20:54","slug":"character-questionnaires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/13\/character-questionnaires\/","title":{"rendered":"Character Questionnaires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve mentioned how useful character questionnaires are to me as a GM. I can draw reams of campaign ideas just from the questionnaires I receive. My questions run the gambit from &#8220;What does your character look like?&#8221; to &#8220;What gives your character&#8217;s life meaning?&#8221; I ask players to answer the questions in character, except for those specifically stated &#8220;as a player&#8221;. It&#8217;s a long list, but I require players to answer only what I call &#8220;The Basic Six&#8221; questions. These questions are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What do you look like?<\/li>\n<li>Everyone has a few mannerisms unique to them. Describe three of yours.<\/li>\n<li>If you could accomplish one thing before you die, what would it be?<\/li>\n<li>Name five things about you that would drive a college roommate nuts.<\/li>\n<li>What do you, as a player, like best about your character?<\/li>\n<li>What do you, as a player, like least about your characer?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I encourage players to answer as many questions as possible and, for the most part, my players seem to enjoy doing it. I do give player contributions (see my post <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/27\/player-contributions\/\">Player Contributions<\/a> for more info on that) for finished questionnaires. If a player&#8217;s answers are really detailed, I&#8217;ll often give extra contribution points.<\/p>\n<p>Also, I allow player to go back and change their answers, as long as they don&#8217;t change anything already known to be true in the game. It sometimes takes several game sessions for a player to find their character&#8217;s &#8220;voice&#8221; and I don&#8217;t want a player stuck with an answer that no longer seems true for their character.<\/p>\n<p>My questionnaires have changed over the years; I&#8217;ve added some questions, dropped or reworded others. I have one &#8220;master list&#8221; of questions that serves as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/character-questionnaire\/\" target=\"_blank\">base questionnaire<\/a>, but I usually rephrase the questions to fit the game system I&#8217;m currently running.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve mentioned how useful character questionnaires are to me as a GM. I can draw reams of campaign ideas just from the questionnaires I receive. My questions run the gambit from &#8220;What does your character look like?&#8221; to &#8220;What gives &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/13\/character-questionnaires\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[14,12,17,19],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-characters","tag-backgrounds","tag-character-contributions","tag-character-creation","tag-questionnaires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpggm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}