Heyo, I don’t typically build characters this way, but I just started D&D and I’m finding that I absolutely love creating character sheets so I want to indulge a bit. Does anyone know of similar character profile sheets (maybe a little more in-depth) that can be used for characters in a story? So far I’ve only found a lot of basic questionnaires that focus on eye color and nicknames and birth date and such.
I don't know anything about D&D profile sheets, but I have developed a sheet of my own. Biggest part of my sheet (I call it character paper) is about motivation and it's base. When a sheet is ready, it is 6-7 pages long. Backstory takes maybe 1/3 pages. Some social psychological things take maybe a page. Things around motivation can take 3-5 pages. If you get "why" right, then "how" and "what" are easy.
There's an open source software you might like called yWriter6 by Spacejock. It allows something like that. It's perfect for new projects (not good for projects where you've already gotten a great deal into.) What I really like about it is that the character page has one thing I have never seen in a character page: a goal. What does a character even want? If you want to get into trivial things like eye color, you can. Personally, I don't recommend a big, long character bio when just starting. I keep mine very basic, because I found half the stuff I planned right at the beginning, ends up getting thrown away anyway. I don't even think about what my characters look like until maybe the 4th or 5th draft.
I think the basic Pathfinder character sheet could prove pretty useful for story characters. You'll have to fudge certain things, but it's pretty inclusive and I'd bet you can get a darn fleshed out character from it. But I agree with @Kallisto : slap a big ole' "What does this character want" on that sheet somewhere. https://i2.wp.com/www.dicegeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/FNU3KXDH8FOFT02.jpg?fit=1465%2C922&ssl=1
I've used character sheets before, but at the moment I'm not using them. Details about the characters that aren't related to the story are things that I'm leaving to the reader. And if those things become relevant, I work them into the book, as part of my process of discovering my characters and my story. It's a way of letting the story unearth itself naturally, rather than forcing it. I could define a lot of these things, but unless it's naturally something that I uncover when writing, it feels forced. I do write notes for myself though when I think of something really awesome that I don't want to forget.
I fiddle with my character profile regularly, I've attached one to this post which you can look at/ignore/bin/use as you wish, it's restricted editing, (so I don't accidentally mess it up, the password is 'poo' (because the letters are close together on the keyboard and I'm lazy.)) Describing what the character has in his her pockets/purse is a fun and revealing exercise too.
Not only do I love creating Character Profiles™, but one of my favorite components is actually D&D Alignment Yeah, I don't like those either. I like personality profiles that let you keep track of how any character is similar to and different from any other character, and I especially like personality profiles that give you nice and easy labels to cram all the information into something really small. My personal favorites are D&D Alignment (2 parts with 3 options each = 9 types) and MyersBriggs (4 parts with 2 options each = 16 types) because you get 144 different combinations that you can instantly tell apart in 6 different ways Spoiler: Two of my main characters For example, The lead protagonist of my WIP is a Neutral Evil ISTJ: she's neither extremely authoritarian nor extremely antiauthoritarian, extremely sociopathic, asocial, practical, insensitive, and organized The first-person narrator of my WIP is a Lawful Evil ESFP: he's extremely authoritarian, extremely sociopathic, social, practical, sensitive, and disorganized Neither of these people is particularly bothered by having to play by The Rules™, both of these people are homicidal sociopaths, and both of them care more about the down-to-Earth than about philosophical flights of fancy. However, he's more bothered by blatantly going against The Rules™ than she is, and he's a people-person who's flexible and spontaneous, whereas she's a cold loner who's more meticulous and step-by-step. And depending on what you care the most about knowing about a character, there are a bunch of different personality systems that measure different things – some have scientific backing (MyersBriggs, DISC, OCEAN...) while others do not (Alignment, Hogwarts House, Enneagram, Chinese and Western Zodiacs...) – and there are also some common complaints about personality profiling, but I've found it pretty easy to work around them If you decide you like a particular system, then you might decide you want to take a personality test as your character to build them from scratch, then see what the test says is the label for the character you've built, or you might decide that you want to start by picking a label outright (I always start by choosing a label I like instead of taking the test).
Why not create your own? Simply start up your word processor, write down a list of all the things you find relevant for your characters, and there you go. I don't really bother with character sheets, so I simply have a list of all the characters, with a quick, basic description, their age and their relationships. It's just for reference, if I need it.
It's the simplest answer. Attached is a simple thing I made, I fiddle with it a bit and usually nick a portrait off the internet of someone who looks 'something like' the character in question. The form is locked for editing so the formatting doesn't get messed up, if you want to use it or abuse it or ignore it, whatever - feel free, the edit protection password is 'poo'. If you want to add a picture, you need to unlock editing in the Review tab of word or the equivalent in your own word processor.
I build my own, with categories for: Physical traits Personality Strengths/Talents/Skills Flaws/Weaknesses/Limitations Motivation Goal It's not quite a formal sheet--really just a list in a Word document--but it's worked well enough for my needs so far.
I tend to walk through town with my notebook , sit in Costa and indulge in coffee, sat by the window making up back stories for the people that stand out, Terry Pratchet came up with the idea of the luggage in colour of magic by seeing someone walking down the street fighting their trolley down a cobblestone path
