Give your characters flaws
Most of us want the character that we roleplay to be badass. It’s our childhood fantasy to be the hero of the story, to be the person who helps rescue everyone else from danger, to defeat the badguys, and for everyone else to look up to. But be careful you’re not making your character too perfect, or they might turn into a Mary Sue.
I’ve been creating a Rolemaster character recently, and they have a great system that allows you to pick special abilities for your character (they call them ‘talents’), and you have a limited number of points to spend on these talents. To gain more talents you need more points, and to get these you have to choose the equal number of points worth in ‘flaws’. You can choose these talents and flaws from the book, and there’s many of each, and it’s the flaws which really inspired me.
When I first started creating the 
Central to any roleplaying experience is designing a character to play. Essentially, in play-by-email groups there are two main types of roleplaying: roleplaying with games mechanics, or roleplaying without game mechanics (known as ‘freeform’ style). But irrespective of if you have to build your character to rules, or simply so that she fits in the world, it’s important to know a bit about making a character that’s fun for you and everyone who plays with you.
