Making your Characters feel real...

[natehale1971]

Hello everyone,

You guys know my situation, and how much i love my boys. And how they are always in my thoughts and prayers. And I started to think about the kinds of things that can be incorporated into your characters to make the more than just fictional characters that are based on notes written down on some peices of paper.

What do you do to make your characters more real, believeable and memorable?

Have any of you had your Player Characters carrying around pictures of their family back home? or the last letter they had received from their family, that they read over and over again so much, that they can recite it from memory during those pitch-black nights they can't even see the page?

My longest running Twilight 2000 RPG character that i have played is US Army Ranger CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight III, he had two sets of dog tags that he always wore. One set of Dogtags where the standard US Army issue that had his information, while the other set of dogtags had the information for his two sons and his wife (a single tag for each of the three most important people in his life that would be carried pressed next to his heart). That personal set of dogtags also had an additional smaller chain that held a Star of David, an Eastern Orthodox Cross, and a Star & Crescent pendenet to represent all of the children of the God of Abraham. Also on this chain is two titanium wedding rings, and a titanium engagement ring that are made to look like their wedding rings that they normally wear when together.

His Roman Catholic mother-in-law gave him an extra long Rosary necklace w/black hematite beans & a silver crucifix, a 6mm men’s titanium wedding band w/‘Forever and always yours’ inscribed inside, a 3mm women’s titanium wedding band w/’I will love you forever and always‘ inscribed, and a 3mm women’s titanium diamond engagement ring w/ ’When two hearts come together to beat as one is proof that their love will always endure’, a St. Christopher’s medal, a St. Michaels medal, and a St. George's medal that had been given to him by his Step Father-in-law who is a British Army senior non-commissioned officer who was the 'batman' for the Commanding General of the British Army in Europe. And had used this position to get the Spaight family assigned to the headquarters in Northern Germany prior to the nuclear exchanges. Thankfully action had saved their lives. The boys would spend the war getting to know the Field Marshal and his wife, who saw them as being replacements for his own grandchildren who had been lost in the food riots when his daughter and her family was trying to get out of the city to one of the many relocation camps.

In his right breast pocket was the same pocket bible that his grandfather had carried with him throughout World War II (from the Normandy landings at D-Day right up until he was demoblized along with the rest of Patton's 3rd Army). The sonogram of his youngest son is kept in the bible as a bookmark, as is the photo of his wife and eldest son that was taken just moments after his birth as the first child born in Basingstoke.

The only photo of the wedding day of Nathaniel Hale Spaight III and Emma Louise Collette Jones Spaight is kept as a book mark in one of his battered copies of Harold Coyle novels, 'The Ten Thousand.' He has a battered copy of the Larry Bond novel 'Cauldron' in paperback that has several more sonogram pictures of their oldest son.

CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight III also carried a rosery that had been given to him by his Roman Catholic mother-in-law. Inside of his combat helmet he kept photos of him and his family prior to his being deployed to the field, kept inside zippy bags to keep them protected from the elements.

Of course he had several notebooks that he would use to write them letters, and sketchbooks to draw pictures of the people around him, and a ruggedized Panasonic Toughbook laptop that he was always writing his journal in the format as being very long detailed letters to his wife and sons. He also used his digital cameras and would transfer all of the photos he would have taken throughout the day onto the toughbook where he could give them a distinctive name, and a page worth of data describing what the photos where of and why the photo was taken. He also has close to a gig of photos of his family, along with audio and video messages to him form his wife and children. If anyone is around while he is looking at the pictures or videos, they are quickly drawn into a conversation all about how much he misses his little family.

Nathaniel also carries a remarkably clean stuffed white lamb (named Lämmchen: German for "little lamb"), and a very clean stuffed monkey (named little baby monkey) that he carries with him everywhere he goes stuffed down in his sleeping bag. In fact he isn't able to get any kind of restful sleep without having them with him. before he falls asleep he has to watch the video of him and his wife giving the boys their nightly bath, and the two of them getting the boys ready for bed, and getting the two precocious boys to sleep. The video ends when he gets up in the middle of the night to give the youngest a bottle for his midnight feeding, and then getting him back to sleep before returning to bed and curls up behind his wife to give her a sweat gentle kiss between her shoulderblades.

He then listens to an audio recording of him telling his wife, 'Good night beautiful, have wonderfully beautiful dreams... Because I know I will be. Because I will be dreaming of you.' To which she responds with 'good night gorgeous, you are such a wonderful husband and father. And I will love you now, forever and always.' It is after this Nathaniel Hale Spaight III finally cries himself to sleep.

CW3 Nathaniel Hale Spaight III, still carries his challenge coins in a soft leather satchel pouch that he wears around his neck. The satchel pouch also has some small little trinkets that his sons gave him the last time they saw each other.