(Roleplaying) I Crave Structure

As a roleplayer, I try to make characters that fit their settings. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I feel rather lost when I'm making a new character and feel I have insufficient framework. That wasn't always the case. There was a time my characters and their backgrounds were created "whole cloth" and sometimes required a shoe horn to fit in a setting.


I'm not sure whether to say I "grew up" as a roleplayer, or I lost creativity along the way. I do feel it's a definite result of my experiences along the way. I feel characters that fit in a setting work better, even if it means more effort at the beginning to explain and define that setting. And I've had some... bad experiences here and there stemming from character creation independent of world building. My first real experience with Exalted bordered on miserable because the background I submitted wasn't looked at until the last minute and then was deemed largely impossible based on setting information I didn't have. It's a little bit of a tangent, but I've also seen plenty of awkward groups of PCs that shouldn't work together due to differences in background, the only bonds holding the groups together being purely OOC - which doesn't sit well with me from a narrative point of view.

This mostly comes to mind due to my (still limited) involvement in the Nimby plotline. While the most potentially-awesome part of the whole campaign is allowing players to craft whole civilizations, my character is a mortal "chosen," rather than a deity. That means I want to know just what they're supposed to do and teach. The problem being, getting answers has been a little like pulling teeth. My "patron" has ideas for what's cool, but little or no practical sense of how to get there. And somehow, I'm being expected to roleplay passing along his word to the mortal people - only I don't know what his "word" is, and have to ask every step of the way.

Okay, so you're the God of Desire for the world. The people you create are probably go-getters who respect individuals who know what they want and strive for it. But do you take that to the extreme of a people who will do anything to reach those goals? That seems rather destructive to me. It would probably lead to expansionism and hostilities, quite possibly even infighting.

And how do you pitch your co-deities when they represent things like Subterfuge, War, and Disease? Do you teach your people to follow their tenets as well, or to respect them from afar? Do you expect tribute and sacrifice, or paint yourself as a benevolent deity who will watch out for them regardless?

Rawrgh! I don't know. Throw me a bone and give me something to work with. My character should be the one passing along theology, not making it from scratch.