Building Characters: Definitive Edition

This book was where it all began. In May 2016, Building Characters became the first title I published that wasn’t third-party content. That shift, from contributor to creator, marked the start of Lightspress. As we enter our tenth year, it felt right to return to this book and bring it into alignment with everything I’ve learned. The foundation still holds. What’s changed is my ability to say things clearly, to write with intention, and to structure the ideas in a way that serves the work.

This Book Helps You Create Characters Who Feel Real

You won’t find templates that begin with numbers or formulas that tell you what to do. You’ll start with questions and build from meaning. Each chapter focuses on one part of a person’s identity, experience, or behavior. You’ll shape traits, assign ratings, and answer prompts that reveal how someone moves through the world and why their story matters. You can use this book with any roleplaying system, in any genre, for any kind of story. You don’t need permission or special tools. You only need time to think and a reason to care.

This Book Is for Anyone Who Tells Stories Through People

Players who want characters worth remembering. Storytellers who want supporting roles to feel lived-in. Writers and teachers who use roleplaying as reflection. You don’t need experience to begin. You only need a willingness to wonder who this person might be and what their story asks of them. Every section gives you something to use. Every page invites you to make decisions. You aren’t filling in blanks. You’re building someone who could change what happens next.

This Book Contains

This section gives you a clear overview of what the book covers and how each chapter supports the creation of story-first characters. Each part builds on the last, offering tools, prompts, and guidance you can use in any order, for any genre, using The Simple Approach.

Creating Characters with Purpose: This chapter explains how to begin the process of character creation by focusing on meaning and story. It introduces the Why Chain, defines the one to five rating system, and presents a step-by-step method for moving from concept to fully playable character using questions instead of formulas.

Archetypes and Narrative Roles: This chapter explores the functions characters serve in stories, from leads and foils to background presences and structural supports. It explains how to use narrative roles as creative tools rather than restrictions, helping you clarify how a character fits into a story without limiting how they evolve.

Foundational Frameworks: This chapter presents optional tags, labels, and categories that can be used to organize a character’s role, genre, or focus. These frameworks provide shorthand ways to describe expectations, tone, or function without reducing the complexity of the character.

Identity: This chapter focuses on how a character sees themselves and how that self-image shapes behavior. It includes exercises for exploring internal contradictions, personal ideals, and defining beliefs that affect decision-making, dialogue, and emotional presence.

Stages of Life: This chapter examines how different phases of a character’s life influence the way they approach challenges. You'll reflect on age, generational perspective, and critical life periods that shaped who they’ve become, whether those moments were celebrated or buried.

Experiences: This chapter explores the events, choices, and consequences that created lasting impact. It helps you trace memories, rituals, and trauma that inform the character’s present while providing emotional depth to their relationships and reactions.

Strengths: This chapter defines what the character excels at and how those strengths interact with the story. You'll explore sources of confidence, expressions of skill, and how excellence can lead to success, pride, alienation, or pressure.

Weaknesses: This chapter reveals limitations and vulnerabilities that complicate the character’s journey. You'll choose flaws that are emotional, physical, social, or psychological, and consider how these traits can create turning points, tension, or transformation.

Resources: This chapter addresses external advantages the character has access to, including wealth, knowledge, power, and influence. You'll consider what they can use, what they control, and how those assets shape opportunity, status, and potential complications.

Relationships and Group Dynamics: This chapter helps define the character’s connections to others. It maps out meaningful bonds, social patterns, family structures, rivalries, and shared histories that shape how the character interacts with groups or individuals.

Genre Adaptation Guidelines: This chapter shows how to adjust characters for different genres without losing their core identity. You'll adapt tone, logic, and narrative emphasis while staying true to what matters about the character and the role they play.

Tone, Voice, and Perspective: This chapter helps shape how the character communicates, acts, and carries themselves. You'll develop narrative style, personal cadence, and storytelling presence, refining how the character appears within the world and how others perceive them.

Character Growth and Advancement: This chapter supports long-term play and narrative evolution. You'll track changes in traits, shifts in goals, and updates to relationships, focusing on development that emerges from story rather than leveling mechanics or planned upgrades.

Narrative Triggers: This chapter identifies situations, emotions, or events that activate specific responses. You'll define what pressures your character, what pushes them into action, and how those triggers reveal deeper patterns of thought and feeling.

Solo Journaling and Writing Prompts: This chapter provides material for character exploration outside of play. You'll find prompts, reflection questions, and exercises that help you stay grounded in the character’s mindset between sessions or during solo storytelling.

Rewriting History in Character: This chapter offers tools for changing, reframing, or revealing new truths about the past. You'll examine memory as a storytelling device, showing how origin stories evolve as the character grows, forgets, forgives, or redefines who they are.