The Requiem for Roleplaying :: Quirks and Psychosis

In RP, as in real life, most people would have fears, hopes, dreams, and various other things that other people would think are small bits of insanity. These are called quirks and psychoses.

Your character has a huge scar over his eye... did he lose the eye to a giant bird? If so, is he/she now scared of birds? If your character lost his/her entire family to a bunch of drow, would they not have an intense hatred of dark elves? If your dwarf was kicked out of his mountain kingdom, don't you think he would have a problem with other dwarves? Maybe your character never bathes because once as a child they fell off the ship to Rocksport and are deathly afraid of water. Maybe your elf will wear nothing but silver equipment, because all of the other types of metal are 'impure'.

All of these things help make your character a living, breathing person. And feel free to add to the list of quirks and psychosis as the game goes on. If you lose a friend to a vampire or zombie, would it not make sense to have a hatred for any person that animates a dead body? Quirks etc can be a MAJOR part of character development. Once you add a few quirks to your character, you'll see what I mean.