What Is Conceptualization?

Simply put, conceptualization is creating the details about a character's life and history. The concept is usually the first thing that GMs will ask for from a player. The most common form of a concept is the background, which details the past events of a character (sometimes in great length) but anything that places the character into the setting qualifies as a concept. This could include guild memberships, special abilities, favors, money or even their tax status.

The challenge of creating the concept is to making sure that the character fits into the setting. Building a concept is very akin to taking the character and weaving the pieces of the character with the setting so that they become intertwined. Information about the character and how it interacts with the setting is created during this phase of creation, giving the GM a solid idea of where the character fits into the campaign and the story.

In fact, the GM almost has as much work during conceptualization as the player. Each thread that weaves into the setting becomes plot for the GM to use later. The more intertwined the characters are with the setting (the more complete the concept) the more of the story that has already been built for the GM. Entire campaigns can easily be run just using character concepts as fuel to feed the story.

Skills, attributes and abilities, while often seeming the province of mechanization are really part of concept. What a character is capable of doing should really a matter of setting, not system. The GM has defined what sort of characters the setting needs and the concepts need to fit that. If the setting is about beginning adventurers, the concept had better not include a master assassin or it is only going to lead to trouble down the line.

Character Creations Focused on Concepts

Another way to think of character creations focusing on concept is to think of character creations that are constrained by the GM or campaign for some reason. Usually this is setting. (no, you cannot play a walking suit of battle armor, we are playing cavemen. Repeat: Cavemen.) But it can also include mood, or whatever else the GM dreams up.

• You are all sisters
• Everyone starts in a prison cell
• We are all pirates
• We are using the characters from the Firefly series. Pick one.

Right away you can see that there can be a direct correlation between role-playing system- and concept-focused character creation. Most systems include a definite setting, of course, which is only a constraint without being a focus, but many go even further to define how your character will be interacting with the setting. In Shadowrun, you are supposed to play a shadow runner. If you don't, you may have some problems working with your fellow characters. "Sorry guys, I don't do that for money" is likely to only get blank looks, if not open hostility, when they try and recruit you for a job. White Wolf's Vampire RPG is probably one of the clearest examples of a concept focused character creation. You will play a vampire. Of course, they later expanded the world to allow for player inspiration, but kept the option open for the GM to use concept focus when building a campaign.

The GM may decide to use a concept focus in another manner – and that is to spend a lot of time building backgrounds and setting around those backgrounds before even delving into the campaign. A campaign that is totally "character driven" is also trying to focus on concepts. This is often viewed as letting the players do the work for the GM, even though getting all of the characters concepts corraled and coordinated can be a huge task by itself. (And often requires a different set of GMing skills then running a traditional campaign.) These campaigns usually spend a lot of time defining characters, maybe even a pre-session to discuss character, a bunch of notes from the player and then a second session before moving on to the other steps such as mechanization.

This format can be very rewarding for the player, as they get to be very involved in their character as well as the world, and have the feeling that their work will directly correlate into having an impact on the campaign itself. (This is another place the GM can gain player emotional investment in the campaign!) Clever GMs can also use an extensive concept based character creation process as a learning tool to teach players the setting.

Changing Concept in Play?

Concept is one of the hardest and easiest things to change in play. The GM needs to make sure that the details that were agreed upon during character creation do not mysteriously change or disappear during the game. Doing so is a direct violation of consistency which will destroy a players emotional involvement. The things that you agreed upon have to be true or you have shattered the player's trust in the GM. This is bad.

On the other hand, changing the details of a concept through in-game events is not only easy to do, but it is even encouraged by players. They want to see the threads of their character that they built twist and change as the story has its way with them. That is part of character development and of story development. They want their dependent to be kidnapped, they want their wife to be killed by evil geniuses so that they can start a path of revenge. As long as the GM does not violate the character's inspiration, they have free reign to mess with concept however much they want.

What If Concept Is Missing?

A character without concept has no connections to the world. They have no place for the player to put them within the world, and have no basis for interaction with the world. The character must rely solely upon the other characters and the in-game GM descriptions to have anything to interact with. This may seem hard to do, and even fatal to a campaign, but experience shows otherwise. Almost everyones' first game of D&D (especially if it came out of the old red box or earlier!) was this way. You made a "fighter". You did not know anything about the world (there isn't even really a world anywhere in the rulebook) and your character has no connections outside itself. It wasn't until you played and interacted with the other players that you started to even understand what was going on.

But in many cases the character not only survived in the campaign without concept, but the campaign survived, grew, flourished, and became something grand. And along the way you character developed connections to the world, created their own history with each adventure and became a power in the kingdom, known to nobles, artifacts, priests and wizards. You just decided to build your concept in play.

Conclusion

The only complicated thing about concept is making sure to separate it from mechanization and inspiration. Otherwise it is what most players know best and are capable of doing the best. There is no doubt that conceptualization is a huge part of the character creation process, but it also one that tends to create itself naturally, even if it is ignored during creation.

Concept does usually make playing easier for less experienced role-players, and focusing on a concept based character creation among new players is almost a must. Once they have the concept, they understand more easily how to interact with the world, which is the key to role-playing.