Passion, Foible, Virtue

Creating dynamic characters in three short steps

What can you do when your roleplaying character seems to lack energy and drive? There are times when a character falls flat, even one you’ve played for a long time, as if it’s run out of fuel. How do you revive such a character? How do you create a dynamic character in the first place?

A simple set of considerations are passion, foible, virtue. These are three essential components that drive the character’s actions and can even drive an entire character arc or story, as originating in Gary Izzo’s The Art of Play. A worksheet covering these and more can be found here, and may be of use for character creation or even with a character you’ve played for a while.

Passion

This is the character’s driving motivation. What does your character want more than anything else in the world? What makes her do what she does? What single thing would bring her to final happiness and fulfillment?

The passion is, ideally, something she cannot attain without extraordinary difficulty. Once the passion is accomplished, the character is without a solid drive or motivation, creating that lackluster “out of gas” feeling in the player. The passion should be something big, a bold choice; smaller passions are for smaller characters (such as many NPCs).

In street theater, where the goal is to entertain bystanders with your character and acting and where the character “resets” each day, the passion should be unattainable. For many NPCs, this might also be the case. For long-running PCs, the player may want to make the passion’s attainment difficult but not impossible; there is always the consideration, however, that the passion’s attainment may mean that the character is now without motivation, or needs to re-define their passion, or they need to find a new passion in order to continue to be a dynamic character.

Sometimes this transition period between passions can be very powerful to explore in roleplay, like the “what comes after ‘happily ever after’, and was it what you thought you really wanted” stories in modern faerie tale fiction. (The musical “Into the Woods” is a fantastic depiction of characters seeking their passion, attaining it, and then discovering that it wasn’t what they thought they wanted after all.) Other players may choose to retire their character upon the attainment of the character’s passion, feeling they’ve reached the end of the character’s arc.

It is also possible that you may choose a passion for the character, and discover that it doesn’t quite work. Or, alternatively, the character redefines their passion over time as they have new experiences, or they experience a massively significant event that changes their passion.

The other question around the passion is why? Where did the passion originate? How did they form the passion? Why is this their motivating drive? Did it happen in an event, or over the course of childhood, or through a series of experiences?

Examples:

• In The Little Mermaid, Ariel’s passion is to join Prince Eric and his world of humans, originating in her fascination with the human world and her infatuation with Prince Eric upon seeing him in one of her trips to the surface. She sacrifices her voice for this passion, and endures many trials and challenges in the pursuit of her goal.
• In some versions of Arthurian legend, Arthur’s passion is to uplift mankind and create the perfect kingdom. This drives him to the creation of the Round Table, uniting and securing his kingdom, and the vanquishing of various foes.
• My character Shani has a passion to discover a way to be immune to Command effects, originating in her upbringing. Since this is not actually possible within the Alliance LARP rules as a human, it’s not one she can ever attain, though of course she doesn’t know that. It means that she will always have this driving passion.
• Other possible passions: Map the whole world, discover a cure for a disease that has never been cured before, find true love, get rich beyond measure.

Foible

What prevents your character from attaining her passion? This can be a personality flaw, an environmental problem, or some other issue, althoughthe most powerful foibles are internal rather than external ones. This is the challenge (or sometimes challenges) that the character must overcome in order to achieve her passion. It should be something pretty big; this is, after all, what forms the core of the character’s story arc, and without conflict, you don’t have a story. It should be proportional to the character’s passion; a big passion should have a big foible, and a small passion should have a smaller foible.

The foible should not directly contradict the passion; you shouldn’t have someone whose passion is to swim across the ocean but whose foible is that they hate swimming, unless they have a very good reason to still hold that passion. Why would you want with all your being to do something you hate?

Again, figure out the origin of the foible. What led to this character trait or environmental constraint?

Examples

• Ariel’s foible is her impulsivity, the way she doesn’t tend to think things through, originating probably in the simple fact of her age and possibly the indulgence of her father. This leads to giving up her voice to Ursula in exchange for a human form, with the quest of getting a kiss of true love from Prince Eric, but then the lack of voice and Ursula’s following interference becomes a foible in and of itself.
• Arthur’s foible is his trusting nature and less-than-astute judge of character. This leads him to surround himself with people who undermine his goals or distract from his aims, and who ultimately cause his death, the dissolution of the Round Table, and the end of the Arthurian dream.
• Shani’s primary foible is her volatile mood and reactivity (also originating in her upbringing), which can get in the way of rigorous academic study or the ability to network in the way she needs for furthering her studies. There are a number of lesser factors too, as well as environmental ones (such as the aforementioned out-of-game barrier of no existing mechanism for immunity to Command effects).
• Other possible foibles: The mapmaker has a severe problem with absentmindedness and no direction sense; the healer contracts the disease and it impairs his concentration and ability to think clearly; the would-be lover looks for love in all the wrong places and doesn’t notice the one with whom he could have true love; the would-be rich person has a gambling addiction and tends to lose money as fast as they make it.

Virtue

The virtue is the character’s redeeming quality. It’s related to the foible; it’s a possible way the character can overcome the foible (or win the observer’s heart despite the foible). It redeems the character from the fault of the foible and helps set them back on the road to the passion’s fulfillment. It’s the character’s strength.

Examples:

• Ariel’s virtue is her good-hearted charm. She is likable and attracts true friends who help her move towards her passion, and her charm is attractive to Prince Eric as well.
• Arthur’s virtue is his charisma and vision. He is able to attract followers to him and inspire them with belief in his dream of a perfect kingdom. He is depicted in most of the myths as an excellent leader.
• Shani’s virtue is her persistent determination. She will not be dissuaded from her goal no matter how impossible it may seem. She experiments in many different areas and attacks the problem from many different angles, and she takes each failure as further data for progress rather than indication of impossibility.
• Other possible virtues: The mapmaker is an incredible artist and very likable; the healer is caring and intelligent; the would-be lover is good-hearted and lovable; the would-be rich person has a sharp business mind (but their addiction is too strong to resist with logic).

There you have it: passion, virtue, and foible. See if you can find the passion, virtue, and foible of your favorite character, either in someone else’s writings or your own roleplaying. Enjoy!