Tropedia

  • Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
  • All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
  • All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO SelfCloak. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.

READ MORE

Tropedia
WikEd fancyquotesQuotesBug-silkHeadscratchersIcons-mini-icon extensionPlaying WithUseful NotesMagnifierAnalysisPhoto linkImage LinksHaiku-wide-iconHaikuLaconic
Char creation 6938

It all starts somewhere...

No, not a character who happens to be "a player."

This concept represents the in-game character controlled by the player--as opposed to Non Player Characters who aren't. Typically the game puts you in charge of at least one entity, but the extent to which that entity is an actual character, as opposed to being a Featureless Protagonist or Non-Entity General, depends on the genre, the game, the game's developers, and even (if Character Customization is available) the player him- or herself.

Sometimes, the term PC only refers to The Protagonist, particularly if they are created by the player, while NPC is used even for other party members who the player still controls but are preexisting characters within the game world, rather than a personal avatar.

It's a curious thing, but most PCs in tabletop RPGs have a sort of personality archetype that applies regardless of the genre of the game the PCs are in or the personalities of the people playing them. They tend to be:

This largely stems from the PCs being the main characters in their story and, more importantly, knowing it.

Finally, a wise word to all tropers: don't conflate Player Characters with players. Ryu punches Ken, Ryu does not punch the player. Unless something has gone horribly wrong. Or something has gone horribly wrong.