Character creation through Rorscach test

[Groffa]

Do you think it's possible in a RPG to use some sort of in the character creation process? Has it already been done?

And why do they all look like naked women to me??

[BubbaBrown]

Fallout New Vegas uses a series of questions and a ink blot test to "aid" in choosing skills during character creation.

The trouble with the classic ink blot test is that you aren't suppose to see that much in the pictures. The more creative or the more you see... the crazier you are.

[maledictus]

Roleplayers are very imaginative, so I bet you'll get crazy stuff. But what If what I see is a gigant squid attacking a whale? How would you translate that into the game?

And most important, for what reason?

[Groffa]

The reason would obviously be: to get a feeling for your character, as with any other character creation process. Translating a player's interpretation into stats would of course be highly dependant of what kind of game it is; a giant squid attack a whale could in a fantasy game mean your parents were merpeople, while in a modern game it could mean you're allergic to seafood

How about taking the players' interpretations of a series of abstract images, and using those for later events in the game? Or even as a method for generate a complete setting?

[Evil Scientist]

[Groffa]

It was a mistake to mention the word "Rorscach", when I meant: showing pictures to your players, let them interpret them, and then draw any kinds of conclusion of that (alone as the GM, or together as a group) to make up a character (or future events).

I was interested to see if this could be used as an alternative to the standard "roll xd6, one stat at a time", or the standard use of adventure hooks. I found a blog post that sums up my thoughts:

But yeah, as you said, for what reason.

[Rob Lang]

This would work nicely in Icar. In Icar, every character has a Deviant, which is a wheel of personality traits. It's used as a guide to help the player deal with situations coherently. If you've played Pendragon, it's a lot like that.

Setting this wheel at the start can be hard. I normally say to choose a few important ones, make them strong and fill all the rest in as medium. Having pictures with multiple choice answers could be used to fill this in.

For example, if the picture was:

How does this make you feel?
A. Happy
B. Angry
C. Sad
D. Indifferent

Then from that, you can build up a graph of what the answers do to the Deviant wheel. If they chose A, put +1 into Loving. If they chose B, put +1 into Firey. etc. I wouldn't put it into the main rules but it would be good for a module.

[SheikhJahbooty]

OMG it would be an awesome supplement for Icar!

You should make it as in character as possible, like maybe one image is of a scary murder-droid, that might not inspire anything in a player, but would frighten the bejezez out of someone from Icar world.

Icar has such a wealth of cool artwork, it would just be really cool to have a collection that also serves a game purpose.