Do you ever analyze your character list?

As in, analyzing the statistics of it! What kinds of characters take up the majority of your PCs, what personality characteristics you tend to match with each other, what percentage does your favorite archetype take up?

I love doing this kind of thing with my projects and I was craving some good analyzing yesterday, which resulted in a chart for my GP PCs! Here it is, if you're curious. :PAnd it actually gave me some interesting insights I didn't realize before! Like how most of my loners share the qualities of being taciturn and self-sufficient, or how all but one of my team players are reliable and confident.
Also how many of these folk have an animal motif. Mamushi, Rabbit, Wolf, Egret, Lark, Starfish, Moth... Salvador is a half-bird, Wiso is a cat, Sandwire is a worm, Binary is a mouse, Elderberry is a fish and a cat, Straj is a squid, Nova is a tiger, Skipper is a raccoon. Yeah, I certainly like animals.

Curiously, two characters I constantly misspell as each other ended up almost in the same spot (it's not two Felixes or Spark and Lark, though these are funny; it's actually Firafnir and Egret, I keep accidentally mistaking them for each other when I write their posts).

Almost every dynamic duo I have are two characters being in adjancent quadrants. :0 Is that what makes a good foil in my eyes? Maybe I should use this chart to get some of these people interacting.

...And I love how masked characters are in every single quadrant. Just proves how much I don't like to draw faces regardless of expression on them.


Anyway, do you ever do something like this? Not the chart, but just looking back at characters as a list and thinking about how they compare to each other in personalities, roles and quirks? I adore this stuff, so please do tell me all about your characters and what analytics you do with them. :D

I do reconise a clear pattern of my own characters

Now I need to do an analysis like this as well!

Also, how did Frost Opal end up in the walking disaster category if it can't even walk? 😄

Even if I count IRL one-shots, and PbP that lasted at least twenty posts... I still have played no more than half your Characters in my 15 years of roleplaying.

I went through all the characters I can remember, No masks on any of my characters...
however I used two other non Graph related Indicators both of which's results surprised meI'm sure I'm missing some characters and this is also only limited to GP characters but still, here it is.

I've made more than 200 PCs on GP alone. Can I afford the time and energy to do this? No. Will I do it anyway? Definitely!

I sometimes think about my characters and how to create one that feels different. Most of mine end up feeling sort of same-y. Maybe I should ask someone else to write a very basic personality and that's what I'll play?

I struggle with the same thing but I have found that if I roll on a table for character traits I can get away from that same-ynis. I have to think about how to incorporate those traits that I would have otherwise never picked for my character. It helps me deviate from my norm.

Is there a table online that you prefer to use?

Sometimes I lift a table from another RPG and sometimes I use a bunch of these.

Never mind the PC introspection, that's a purdy chart.

Okay, so I used the three axes from Flying's original post (disregarding the mask one) and went through the list of my characters on GP, using only PCs and only ones I've played in games that lasted long enough to really leave an impression.

He is here in spirit! :0 Together with Straj, who is a giant squid and technically can't walk too. Unless what squids do is still called walking?..
Hey, we both have the least characters in Quiet+Clueless category!
Also I like your character names. :0
Thank you, I tried. :D
I have too much free time, haha. If I count all of my RPs over the years, the number will look even worse - I used to be on a lot of forums in my teens, and tend to have multiple characters per game. Admittedly not many of them had long games though! And I don't even want to think of how many NPCs there are... XD
Honestly, same! I often fear playing characters out of my comfort zone, and thus most of my PCs can be summarized by either being a brooding loner or a friendly chatterbox.
When I try to spice up things, I sometimes try to first think of an interesting background or a profession/hobby I never used, and then try to come up with a personality on top of it. Amusing results of this approach included a ghost of a sniper mercenary, an eccentric dwarf engineer with pyromaniac tendencies and a winged teacher superhero.
It's kind of like Windyridge said, except I act as my own random roller. :P
I'm intrigued by The Sisters because of the name. XD Also wow, two walking disaster villains? And most of evil and neutral ones on the lower side, that's interesting. (Whoever Tanya is, what an outlier!)

(...there is something funny about seeing a Braineater nect to a Brain Bryan.)

Braineater Bryan was one person zombie.

The Sisters were a human fused with an alien. They spoke in plural of themselves (as 'we'). They were pretty fun while the game lasted

Ah the sister! that's why it looked familiar! To be fair, I barely recognize any of those names anymore ... Nice to see Grala and opal at the exact same spot :D

You're right. That's funny

I'll try to challange myself with certen perematers like, a non-core rase or a class I havend tryed before. But time and again I find that I make the same kind of character. One who is clever, a jack-of-all-trade with mystical and martial abilities. Its always those I enjoy playing mechanically.
Personality-wise, I have tried different sorts of outgoing and active types. But that is mostly as a passive character doesn't push the story forward.

I found a character portrait that got me very excited to play this D&D 5e Swordmage/bladesinger. When I saw another image that the artist had made of the same character, but in a "lustful" embrace with another, I realised that I seldom play a passioned character. I'm looking forward to play her - hopefully soon

I enjoyed White Rabbit very much, FlyingSucculent, your list brought back memories of the game! Sorry it didn't last.

I tend to create characters by mashing up two pop culture references I like. My favorite PC probably ever was Scrooge McDuck meets Saul Goodman. Another I liked was Luke Cage meets Jim Stark from Rebel without a Cause. Or Claire Temple (the nurse from the Marvel Netflix shows) meets Ripley. This tactic gives me enough to run with, keeps the characters from being exact copies of fictional tropes, and evades the sameness issue.

Another tactic I use is to first find a character portrait that speaks to me, usually on Pinterest. Once I have that portrait, a character personality may emerge organically from it.

I also try to do as Rune, trying classes or specializations or niches I haven't tried before.

I didn't even notice this! Huh. Guess that explains why they got along. XD
Thank you, I'm glad that you liked him! He is one of my all-time favorites here, and I can express how much I appreciate you giving me a chance to play him more! :D Even if didn't last, it was still fun - and it also gave me an interesting hook for making him a part-time gang informant. XD
You know, you're making me realize that most of my outgoing characters never push the plot forward and prefer to either be a follower, or search for trouble somewhere away from the group. I guess having a social butterfly being also the most proactive character feels like taking up too much spotlight...? Anyway, good luck with playing your new character! :D
That's an interesting approach! :0 I can't appreciate it fully since of each of your examples I only know half of a pair, but it sounds like a great method.