Character Motivation

[RogerD]

That's where coming up with a motivation comes in. Why would you leave your flock? Maybe you were disgraced, or maybe you betrayed your flock in some way, and now you seek repentance.
You were playing a one-shot so you have to play a character that fits the adventure, but you could spend a minute or two to give some backstory to the character. As rlmercad069 points out, even Shepherd Book had his reasons (and his story in the Pilot episode surely didn't explain ALL of his reasons).

In the event, I made it work but character motivation best comes from the player and if you write a one shot for specific characters, you should probably think about the character motivation and maybe give suggestions when it might not be obvious.

I would bet writers of Firefly spent a lot of time sketching out character backgrounds before the pilot filmed. Not everyone could go from “village priest” to “Shepherd Book” in the first minutes of a 4 hour one shot adventure at a convention.

 

[nats]

Watch this:

Perfect example of how to create character motivations in an RPG game. In this case the character wants to find his long lost dad which creates massive long term motivation to travel and explore. Times that by the number of characters in the game and you have lots and lots of motivation to play, and lots of hooks for future adventures. Mind you it helps if you ahve a lot of imagation like this bloke has. Its genuine fun watching him come up with ideas lol.

Also read a book called Gamemastering by Brian Jamison

New book: Gamemastering, free pdf | The Glamorous Unrestrained Hype Machine

Hello, I'm Brian Jamison, the author of a book called Gamemastering, which as you might gather from the title is all about the art of being a Gamemaster. I invite you to download a free copy of the book at http://www.gamemastering.info/get-the-book A paper version is also for sale at...

forum.rpg.net

- Perfect guide to how to create character motivations as well as allies, contacts, enemies, and rivals - superb book, well worth buying a hardcopy on Amazon

 

[Timerover51]

Watch this:

Perfect example of how to create character motivations in an RPG game. In this case the character wants to find his long lost dad which creates massive long term motivation to travel and explore. Times that by the number of characters in the game and you have lots and lots of motivation to play, and lots of hooks for future adventures. Mind you it helps if you ahve a lot of imagation like this bloke has. Its genuine fun watching him come up with ideas lol.

Also read a book called Gamemastering by Brian Jamison

New book: Gamemastering, free pdf | The Glamorous Unrestrained Hype Machine

Hello, I'm Brian Jamison, the author of a book called Gamemastering, which as you might gather from the title is all about the art of being a Gamemaster. I invite you to download a free copy of the book at http://www.gamemastering.info/get-the-book A paper version is also for sale at...

forum.rpg.net

- Perfect guide to how to create character motivations as well as allies, contacts, enemies, and rivals - superb book, well worth buying a hardcopy on Amazon

I cannot get to the book on that link.

 

[DrGoon]

I cannot get to the book on that link.

Seems to be gone. However, according to the license it can be redistributed elsewhere, so this may help:

Gamemastering - Brian Jamison PDF - PDFCOFFEE.COM

Gamemastering By Brian Jamison This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0...

pdfcoffee.com