Guide: Character Principles

[MonMarty]

Character Principles can better be understood as "Hard Lines" of a character's morality, beliefs, or opinions. What things will a Character absolutely refuse to do? What things will a Character always insist on doing? These Principles make a Character predictable, and predictability is very good for event hosting because it means content can reliably be tailored to produce a good experience. I should preface this Guide by saying that having a Character without any Principles isn't strictly speaking a bad thing. Characters can be devoid of Principles if they are egotistical and self-centered. Characters can be devoid of Principles if they only look at the world through the lens of how to maximize their own profit and disregard others. A Principle free Character is not a bad Character, just a Character for who it is hard to host events, as a DM/Staff. This is because predictable Principles can be used to tailor moral dilemma's that cause an event to have meaning for Character development. Simplified: If I make a Character choose between A and B, and B is the clearly better option but goes against a Character's Principles, this dilemma forces longer roleplay where that Character has to make that pained decision, discuss it with their friends, maybe even sleep on it for a while, before finally making an informed decision. Principle-free Characters don't need that time, and will decide on something instantly to the benefit of their Character or for instant resolution, thus bringing an event or storyline to a premature close.

Where do I begin?
Beginning to establish principles for a Character can be hard, but they may already have Principles that you just aren't aware of. For the sake of this guide, we're going to ignore self-centered Principles like "I will never let myself get poor", or "I will never do something that would sabotage my ambitions or dreams". These are all obvious, but also rather meaningless because they connect to the issue above. Principles are useful to Dm's when they reflect on the world beyond the Character. So, let's examine how to split up various sectors. The easiest way, is to create a list of things that have value in the Roleplay World:

• State Tiers
  • The Emperor
  • The Royals
  • The State
  • Law Enforcement
  • Regalia
• Social Tiers
  • My Friends
  • My Allies
  • My Enemies
  • My Lovers
  • Strangers
• Design Tiers
  • Religions
  • Races
  • Occult
  • Combat
  • Magic
• Persona Tiers
  • Projection
  • Class
  • Ego
  • Philosphy
  • Ideology

This list gives us a nice 4x5 format, but it's important to note that Principles can exist for niche subjects like Maquixtl-Teledden relations too, and don't necessarily have to get lumped in with Races. This is purely a list for the purposes of this Guide, it is nowhere near exhaustive, and you are encouraged to think deeper (like, Aelrrigans could add Artifacts and Knight's Code as aspects to the list too).

How do I form a Principle on a Subject?
So above we have a list of subjects, now lets try and create a very simple approach on how to create Principles out of them. Generally speaking, all subjects can have a positive and negative Principles associated. Do I like this thing, or do I dislike this thing? This is the most basic assumption, and from that flows the thoughts: I will always support this thing, or I will always reject this thing. To put this into example, lets examine the State Tiers in the above listing:

• The Emperor

The Emperor is an intangible entity, but an influential one in the minds of many Characters. The Emperor invokes a particular image, or expectation, or perhaps he is a symbol. This can mean one of the following principles:

• I will always defend the Emperor's name and Honor, and attack those who blaspheme him.
• I will always reject the Emperor, and proclaim my hate for his rule and his illegitimacy.
• I will always try to question others around me for their love in the Emperor, for it is false.
• I will always try to question blind loyalty of others around me, because I hate blind obedience.
• I will always defame any statue or painting of the Emperor I come across, for I am Jacobin.
• I will always become timid and shy or speechless around/concerning the Emperor in conversation.

As you can see, not all Principles are black-and-white "I hate this, I love this". Principles attach a strict rule to a specific topic that will always cause a character to do X, or to never do X. This doesn't mean it's a rule you cannot break, it's a rule you will in most cases not break, or only break in difficult circumstances and with good reason/roleplay to back it up. Lets try another one:

• Occult

This one is a lot more broad, so it allows for far more flexibility. Especially because you will have to deal with Occult stuff every day. In this topic, it is highly important to note that you should pick Principles that can be stress-tested, not Principles that are true by default. For example, a Character that only roleplays in New Town will not interact pretty much ever with Ordial Characters. having an Occult Theme Principles "I will always attack on sight Ordial Characters", is a meaningless Principle. It is meaningless, because it cannot or likely will not ever become true, so as far as a Principle goes, it cannot be stress-tested during events or day to day roleplay, and there is no Character development to be derived from it in the event that a Principle does break, and how that affects a Character's self-view.

• I will fight until the ends of the earth to avoid being infected with an Affliction.
• I will refuse under any circumstance to be healed with Magic, or attack a Healing Mage if they try.
• I will always treat Marken Characters extremely well, because my Character is into them.
• I will always treat unrepentant Sinistral Mages poorly, because they destroy the world.
• I will never speak fondly of Archon, because I hate their politics and centrist views.

Closing thoughts

• It might be useful to take the bullet point list above, and try to come up with at least one principle for each subtheme. I strong discourage you from doing this publicly however, because principles are meant to be discovered by other people, or assumed/speculated on, not just read off a piece of paper. However, at the same time, doing a little character study with your friends may be a good way to discuss how to interpret this guide, but also to stress-test Principles as you write them. Maybe for example you've written down that you will never Romance-Rp an Affliction, and then your friend reminds you that your Character already broke that by Romancing an Undead. Who knows. It happens.
• Stressing again, Principles are designed to be stress-tested. If a Principle is never tested by having it friction against a roleplay situation, it's not a good Principle (or you're not getting good roleplay). Agonizing over a decision is good, because you can get so much good roleplay talking to other characters and getting their point of view and opinion, which also validates their characters and shows the player you care about their little OC. I would estimate that 30% of your Principles will fail as you roleplay, and that is working as intended. Some principles must die, but others must remain, and that way you get a well-balanced Character that both has a stable foundation of Principles, but is also wavering on some of them to have Character Development.
• The OOC angle to Principles is difficult, and you need to know beforehand if you're going to get into trouble with your friends over certain Principles. There are two types of Roleplayers: those who love conflict IC with their friends, and those who want to live out their OOC friendships with people through RP and become hostile to the idea of IC conflict with their OOC friends. You need to evaluate if some Principles cause you to have friction with your friends, but I should also mention that this friction can be extremely good roleplay value if you know how to handle it. For example, I always play some kind of hyper-critical character of Birdsfoot_violet's mutant shapeshifter Character, providing an angle of anti-Occult that is more nuanced than the usual "I hate Magic", but also far more desired than the usual infantilization of Anathema's predicament. Basically, I design Principles on my Characters to get into conflict with my friends on purpose (god knows some of them hate it), but I believe this leads to more things to roleplay about other than exchanging friendship letters and non-sequiturs. Just be aware of your social surroundings before committing to in-house conflict.
• You can also expand on these principles to make them easier to stress test and that is strongly recommended. I gave only the simplest of guide breakdown for people who have no experience with Principled Roleplay at all. But usually these Principles are a lot deeper than just "I will do X". For example, the Principle "I will refuse under any circumstance to be healed with Magic, and attack the healer if they try", is based on the idea that some Characters are so deeply afraid of Magic that Magic will cause their body to form cancers and kill them if it touches them. They refuse to touch anything based on Magic. This Principle won't be tested by the Character being forced to be healed. That's too simple and crude. This Principle will be tested in an entirely different circumstance where the Character is forced to accept some Magic to affect them (or take a different harder path in refusing). This in turn removes the reasoning for the Principle, and so you get a circumstance where the Character might abandon that Principle and cautiously try out being healed with Magic. It's important I think, that after you've finished your simple setup, that you can also reason with the Principles and explain why they are in place, and what potential factors could lead to them being removed if the situation is right. Just try not to make it too easy, Principles that fold at the nearest convenient trigger are not real Principles.
• Principles can also be really fun struggle points for other Characters to work up against. A lot of people complain to me that they feel powerless to affect other Characters in a meaningful way. For example, player X sees player Y act out the role of a Vampire, and want to get them cured, but player Y resists OOC because their whole Character Aesthetic is Vampire. So, if Player Y had a semi-open Principle list available like "This character is deathly afraid of drowning and will under all circumstances refuse to cross bodies of water", and then indicates that they are open to this changing, that means player X can start thinking about how to solve that. Do we do swimming lessons RP? Does my Character just start pushing them over the edge into the water? Does my Character pretend to drown, forcing them to make a difficult decision? If you have Principles that you are willing to break down, and you communicate that to your friends, you can empower them to have played a role into your character's development in a literal way, and also get the catharsis of having done something meaningful, which is great for OOC friendships (and definitely get rid of some of the resentment people feel when their attempts to "fix him" get ignored or walked on because it was a losing race from the start).

 

[BeetrootSalad]

This is a highly unorganized addendum based on a rant (or well, copy and pasted) about the same topic I posted a few months prior.

1. If your character loves or hates something, they shouldn't just love or hate it. i see a lot of people playing purists that just hate occult but don't really look into why, and it's less that you should run around dropping your backstory on random people and more like if i love/hate/value xyz, why, and what is that also tangentibly connected to? for example: wirtem hate slavery
2. • why do wirtem hate slavery?
     because it takes away the ability for people to act dignified on their own free will
     • okay, if that's the reason, wirtem should also
       >also disdain people that have the choice and ability to be dignified but don't act that way (crass nobility)
       >also hate prison torture/unnecessarily sadistic prison torture (strips dignity)
       >noble prisoners being treated as badly as common street thieves (strips dignity from blueblood/lowers their "dignity" to that of a pursecutter)
   
   so a character can end up having all of these values stemming from one core value (value of dignity) instead of just a "i hate xyz" it also makes for good conundrums of "i hate occult because most occult are incredibly irresponsible with their magic"
   exception: anathema (who is responsible with their magic)
   
   "i love wirtem knights because i'm biased and jingoistic/they behave with a level of class that most people don't"
   exception: serephina (who behaves like a stereotypical roughhousing blackmark mercenary)
   
   so it becomes a weird case of being civil with anathema (at least some times) and being extremely uncivil with serephina, which can occasionally make people go "wait, but isn't serephina a mundane calemberger" without really understanding the nuance of what values are taking the forefront
   
   Having a coherent ideology is important to character motivations because otherwise you just kind of have this one statement that you're working on, and the important question is if you're doing things because you just should do them (they're on the wiki page) or if you're doing things because you're reading behind the lines/the actual nuance of the wiki page and drawing your own conclusion in a reasonable way (Wirtem on the wiki hate occult. Why is this? Why would your character just mindlessly follow this? note: mindlessly following an ideology, if you are aware on a meta level, that you are mindlessly following an ideology, can be very fun and valid rp done well)
   
   A principle, like religion rp, does not necessarily need to be stated. I think Oka as Signe does an excellent job at portraying Soldi in her character without ever once using the word Soldi, solely by action alone (seeking honor, submitting to knight code, taking arrests > religious repression, etc). You do not have to preach about something to believe in it and it comes off as more convincing if what's done is backed up by actions, not words.