Character Growth: You Gotta Have a Goal

Do you have a goal? You can't be a hooker forever.

Character motivations are a rare and beautiful beast, done well you'll never see them at all, done poorly you'll see them all over the place, and if a character has no motivation beyond "go there, kill thing, XP, ???, Profit" then it will be the most visible thing ever.

They also happen to one of the most divisive thing ever in my group, possible many more groups, and when a DM attempts to force a motivation onto players it can ruin that player's enjoyment of a game.

So what's the point of character motivation where if you do it well it won't be noticed, and a bad character motivation takes away from the game? Simple, it's your character, your dudes, your world, why would you not want to have them go through challenges, achieve personal victories, and make their mark on the world?

"No, it's a game, all that matters is getting sweet loot, and being powerful", I hear none of you say, mostly because I'm secure behind the internet, and also I trust most of you guys to be smart, decent, emotionally invested, and awesome players, and while I may be entirely wrong, I want to be right on that count.

So how about a player's who's character motivation acts against the party? They're fine. I mean I don't like them, but people disagree, and character motivations are not exempt to this rule, PC's are going to disagree, and having 2 characters argue about how to proceed is as natural as breathing, interfere if it comes to blows, in game or out of game, mostly because it's a game.

So how about characters that are made to get revenge on a PC, and make it their sole reason to continue existing, maybe because that PC killed that player's previous character, or because the PC wants to play a CE prick who does things because reasons? I call these spite characters, and occasionally spite players, what do you do with them? I dunno.

Some people like to fuck with them, constantly killing each new spite character as it comes along, some people try to talk to them and get them to stop it for the sake of the group, some people just kick them out, never to return, leaving other gaming groups to deal with their spite. I haven't had to deal any spite players yet, besides the occasional "Let's keep a secret from Chris and only Chris" but that's fair enough, it was the sort of secret I would rage over, and did rage over when it was revealed (As an aside, leadership is bullshit).

As it stands Character motivations are one of those nebulous areas of RPG's where no-one is right and no-one is wrong.

But regardless shoot for the moon, it'll be awesome, and you'll have a story to tell.