Forums » RP Discussion » Character motivations & aspirations

What are some of your characters motivations and aspirations? I'm struggling to come up with them for some reason. Any tips on coming up with ideas for these particular aspects of a character?

Something that really helps with forming a character's aspirations and motivations is to fully flesh out their history and their surroundings. Just like in real life, history helps form and drive a person, be it personal, environmental or both.

If I struggle with coming up for motivations and aspirations, I try to generate a random bunch and pick some that are unfamiliar to me or sound like they'll work with the character.

I use these sometimes for ideas:

Motivations: https://springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/character-motivation.htm

Interests: https://springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/interests.htm

You can also help build a character with some random questions that are meant to help you expand on your character's traits: https://springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/character-development-question.htm

I like to give my characters motivations that are always applicable as well as motivations that are RP specific.
Neil basically wants to get his ass out of the crosshairs of the gangsters he's pissed off, so his need for survival is a driving force for him as a person. Even when (temporarily) safe, that'll influence him. It's a long term goal, of course, so whatever plot he's in will likely give him a more short term goal and aspiration.

I think, for me, at it's core it's like I go down two fundamental route for lasting motivations:
a) I'm feeling like a black hole, I'm empty - what can I do to fill fulfilled? How can I attain this? Love could be an answer; to see warmth is the animal thing, no more explanation needed than that.

b) I'm so full of life and love AND I WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE WORLD - how can give this? How can I spear head change for the better? Who can I love the whole breadth of and make see things for the better?

Usually I border on agent provocateur motivations for my characters -- they need an incentive to keep the ball rolling in a role-play, something that isn't easily fulfilled or veered off course: like self-actualisation and/or fulfilment, revenge, to make protagonist and antagonists of other people's characters, to watch the world burn, to save the world...

If the character's an antagonist this could be fulfilled and pave the way for a redemption arc too which is always an amazing narrative.

and as morbid as it sounds sometimes I'll write how a character dies first and work backwards to uncover the sequence of events. If you know their ending you only have to discover the beginning and what led them there.

I usually give my characters a few hurdles to overcome which are best done with other people in their lives. This keeps things interesting because the character themself may improve or decline in lifestyle based on their influences. I like allowing a character room for growth, both positive and negative. I made a little-mermaid-esque wolf for example who wound up being turned into a human and her navigation through the human world is partly through her excitement for it all, but a LOT of who she is today had come from interactions with humams both good and bad who have taught her values and morals she didn't before have.

I work on my character's goals from scene-to-scene. I take my character's general personality in mind, which usually stems from their "alignment". I use Easydamus for my ideas on alignment, though ideas can differ from person to person.

For every scene, I ask myself, “What does my character want in this scene? What are the actions that they should take to get what they want? What furthers their goal by talking to this person, or performing this action over another?”

There are large goals and small goals. The small goals are my scene-to-scene goals, that build up large goals. Large goals are like carving out a section of the city for your personal use, or purging corruption in a certain populace.

Back to “alignment”, alignment is how a character does something. Good characters don’t necessarily do good things. They do normal things in good ways, generally speaking. But they can also do normal things in normal ways, but to serve a large, good goal. If your good character is doing evil things, for a good purpose, then they will be both a hero and a villain, when seen from either side of the opposing force.

It’s a lot of nuance. If everything else fails, write! Write and experiment on your characters to derive their goals. Put your characters into scenarios and watch what they do, learn what they value, and separate them from yourself.

For me a lot of my character motivations comes from OOC wants and desires for RP. I have created multiple OCs for the purpose of exploring something that I have OOC interests in. Do I want to find an RP that is a gushy Romcom type Romance? My OC might be motivated by finding a love like that and than, through basic character interactions they might develop more motivations and aspirations. I try not to be too specific on topics I want to explore; because I also want my OCs to have room to grow and to let my RP partners have a significant impact on their development. This can be something as basic as an idea of "I want to play a Holy Paladin who tries to rid the world of all evil doers!" (Or whatever is suitable for the setting you want to play in!)

I think ultimately; RP is something that is enjoyable for the player/writer, so characters should be created with your own OOC intentions in mind. If you don't want to RP gory/horror for example; I wouldn't create a serial killer type OC I know this sounds incredibly basic and simple; because in the end it really is that easy! At least for me. If I know what sort of RP I am hoping to find, I can create an OC that will help me find it and their motivations and aspirations develop naturally. Though; they don't always stay the same as RP goes on I have had OCs start with one goal and end in doing something completely unexpected! Its the great thing about RP; you can also allow other writers to help build your character and their are a ton of creative minds out there!

a good question. To be honest, I don't tend to start a new character knowing much about them beyond a real thumbnail sketch and let them "tell me" stuff as I learn more about them. I can't build a character from scratch without rping them for a bit first, it just never works for me and I end up with a very skewed and half baked idea.

I like to flesh characters out organically, it helps me get a feel for how they talk, how they move, how the respond to things which often I find is quite different to my original concept (oops?). My characters "talk" to me as I play them, allowing me to realise certain things I had believed to be false or not the whole truth. I can't really explain it but from talking to other writers, this is REALLY common. Characters sort of take on a life of their own, trying to force them to do anything they don't want to is an uphill struggle.

motivations and aspirations will of course vary depending on the environment they're in, the setting, the plot. What's important to a character when they have people they care about around them will be different to what's important to them when they're a lone wolf for example, when there's crisis their priorities will be different to times of rest and so on.

to be honest, I sort of rationalise my character's motivations on the fly, for every scenario they encounter rather than having some sort of list because generally speaking, people are complex like that. I mean, what are YOUR motivations and aspirations? can you answer that question for yourself even? it's a really difficult thing to answer right?

For me it's more "okay, why is this guy, who's usually a total jerk, being nice? What's his angle here?" or "why does he care about this person when he always says he cares about nobody?" "Why is he doing this?" "why is he doing that?" "why doesn't he like this person?" and so on.

I find I can usually justify my character's actions IC, if I can't, they probably are acting OOC you know?

I always LIKE to have a justification for something that seems uncharacteristic or hypocritical particularly, like my demon character who really really really hates slavers despite being absolutely unspeakably evil and awful. Autonomy is important to him, which seems weird for a demon right? But he grew up a slave and grew resentful, plus he's of the opinion that allowing people to make terrible decisions and do terrible things of their own volition is FAR more of a successful application of evil than forcing it. A king who does horrible things to save his daughter who's being held hostage is far more sympathetic than a king who does horrible things because he's rationalised it to himself as being RIGHT and JUST and actually has no excuse beyond a skewed world view. And so this demon encourages people toward their own downfall, never forcing them, always letting them make their own decisions, just... encouraging. Forced evil is just lazy, a real master convinces a man to walk into hell with their own two feet.

And sometimes his dislike for people being stripped of their autonomy means his objectives align with the "good guys". So he'll team up with them. But make no mistake, he's no hero and he's no good guy, he just really really really likes murdering slavers.
In the rp right now he's being paid to do just this, rescue slaves and kill slavers. The "good guys" have hired a mercenary to murder people for them, rationalising that they're "bad people" and "deserve to die". The good guys are on a slippery slope here, though noble, their actions are not those of pure innocent people. They want revenge, they've decided "some people deserve death" and this demon is oh too happy to oblige. Ahem.

Some settings/plots are easier to come up with motivations for. "I want to not get killed" for example "I want to get out of this bad environment/situation", "I am just trying to survive".

Before I start any rp I think "okay, so why would this character talk to this other one? Why would they care? Why are they even here?"
Sometimes that gives you a plot thread (Oli is searching for his father, Thanasios is trying to find his way in a world he doesn't understand, Mitchell is trying to keep the order and maintain a veil of secrecy etc etc) and sometimes that just gives you an idea of how they feel about it all (Aydin is here because his boss told him to, and he doesn't really like or trust his boss. Someone doesn't want to be alone, someone else really just needs the money and so on...)

Character motivations and aspirations I kinda feel should come from their personality and as a result be something you just KNOW and understand, rather than needing some sort of list of arbitrary terms that may or may not be accurate or relivant.

Does that make sense? I dunno man. it's hard to explain.

This is a very good point, one I hadn't considered. Not applicable in every circumstance as sometimes you're making a character more for fun than for a specific type of RP, but still a good thing to consider when you are making the character for certain specific purposes.

Yeah that makes sense, but sometimes writing it down helps me quantify it--I tend to have a more nebulous view of the character's motivations if I don't write down at least a bare bones idea first. Without that concrete skeleton, I wander all over the place over the course of an RP, sometimes to two differing extremes that don't make sense in a single character.

Lots of good stuff here, thanks guys. Springhole is an interesting site, I find it both helpful and amusing. Just for kicks I tried out the interests one and it gave me:

"Your character's interests include mittens and drama serials."

Which honestly makes me want a character that is very passionate about mittens.

It does, and I'm relieved to hear that I'm not the only one who develops characters organically. I find that when I start playing a character for the first time, I start changing them and forming new ideas for them. It's a weird but helpful process. It also helps me realize when something about my character just doesn't work, like when I accidentally make a character who never has a reason to talk to anyone.

I often feel a lot of pressure to give my characters a really concrete justification for everything that they do. Why does my crazy doll girl run a magical shop that changes its theme and location every week? I don't know, I just wanted her to be weird and whimsical, and maybe she doesn't really need a reason beyond just that: she's weird! I don't always know why I do things so maybe the same concept can apply to my characters.

It's a delicate line to walk though, because it's still important to assure that my character is in fact "in character".

I find often, my characters just tell me stuff like "hey by the way, I really like stamps" or something and i'm like "what? WHY???" lol.
Sometimes they won't tell me stuff i genuinely NEED to know but will tell me other totally random stuff.
It's annoying.

and others who I create as a certain type of character who I then play and rapidly realise everything I thought I knew about them was wrong. *sigh*

lol Mittens, that is funny.



This is how I usually create characters lol. Yes, I start with a random doodle of an idea. In this case my concept was "Modern setting ghoul", from there comes a drawing and ideas just kinda... scattered about and then things slowly come together.

Everyone has a different method of course, but that's how I do it. Or i'll fill out what bits of a character sheet I CAN (name, age, a very vague description, some adjectives for personality thrown in there) and flesh it out as and when stuff comes to me.

Here's another one.

I write random words and associations and so on and it all slowly comes together.

Motivations and aspirations would come about as a result of that sort of.. coalescence?

as for things that seem contradictory, hey, sometimes that works. people are complicated after all, sometimes it's kinda interesting to explore how two apparently contradictory things can apply to one person. one of my characters is a bit like that, he hates being in the spotlight but he's a daredevil and never shuts up. He's a weirdo. He likes the adrenaline rush, not the attention, he never shuts up because he's a moron who can't control himself. But it does seem contradictory at first glance to say "he's very private" while he's yelling across the room at someone. Heh.