Introducing 'The Markus Project'

(first published 25/08/2024 in its original form here.)

There's something magical about character-building in a role-playing game. Whether I'm spending hours in the character creator in a video game like Mass Effect or Baldur's Gate 3, investing in character choices in a text-based interactive fiction like the Choice of Games games, or poring over character options in a TTRPG like D&D or Call of Cthulhu, I've always loved immersing myself in a new character, and fussing over all the character building options in the process.

I also love the ways process teaches you about the game. What do ability scores mean in this game? What powers or features are available to you to choose from, and what do they tell you to expect from the gameplay? Which traits or actions does the game connect to mechanics, and which does it leave to flavour - and how firm or fluid is that mechanic/flavour binary? How much control do you have over your character's backstory, and how much depth are you encouraged to explore it going in, versus discovering it in-game? How does the game's genre and tone affect the choices you make as you build your character?

(And that's outside of the questions of: are you looking to build a character that's optimized for gameplay, for immersion, or both – and what effects does that goal have on the process?)

I've played so many video games with deep character builders, and while I'll be the first to admit my practical experience playing different TTRPGs is weaker than I'd like, I love exploring their systems and learning to understand them. Especially as I dive into designing my own TTRPGs, with their own character creation systems.

Plus, without having a group to play with, oftentimes building your character in a game is the closest you can get to playing it alone.

This project is about doing that a whole bunch, and hopefully learning some things along the way.

Oftentimes when I play a new role-playing game, at least one of my playthroughs is with an archetype I go back to, again and again. (He may offer a particular power fantasy of mine, but that's part of why we love immersive games, right?) We'll call this archetype Markus - a name I use for this guy more often than not. Many characters I've loved playing have come from this archetype, particularly in video games - a lot of my Choice of Games protagonists, my protags in Dragon Age 2 and in the Mass Effect franchise, and plenty of others.

Markus' key traits are:

• Gay or bi male
• An outsider with no desire to belong, except maybe to a tight crew or family
• Beefy and charismatic bruiser with a chip on his shoulder
• Expects the world to be hard and is determined to be harder
• Likes to talk himself into problems and fight his way out of them
• Not keen on making friends, but intensely protective of the ones who get past his guard
• Has a predilection for solving his problems up close, often with fists or melee weapons

This handful of traits give me an anchor POV to work from, while being pretty adaptable system-to-system. On its own, this list makes for a pretty stock character, but it gives me a foundation that I'm already invested in, and enables the type of playing I like while also leaving plenty of room for the system to shape him to its needs.

In the fantasy genre, Markus often ends up as a bastard of a warrior or a muscled-up rogue. In sci-fi, a hardscrabble criminal on the edge of civilization. In a 'realistic' setting, he's often a silver-tongued bruiser. He's fairly background-agnostic; he can work as a former street urchin turned survivor, or as a pissed off noble trapped in a system he despises. He can be sixteen or sixty-six, as needed. He can be human or orc, vampire or alien. Over the years he's had a military background, a criminal background, and a myriad of others depending on the game. No two Markuses will be identical, and some of them turn out pretty damn different from one another... but there's a shared heart that I love to play.

For ages I've thought it would be a fun personal project to build a Markus in all of the game systems I own, as long as the system allows it... and blog about each one, complete with filled out character sheet. I've got a few ideas for where to start - my backyard of D&D 5e, of course, and then a smattering of games with very different genres and worlds like Blades in the Dark, Stars Without Number, Vampire: The Masquerade and even Kids on Bikes. I'll blog my way through the character creation process, talking through my thought process and maybe what the process is teaching me about each system... and maybe, myself.

Wanna join me on this silly, fun quest? Let's stumble out way into the Markusverse together, and see what comes out of it.