At Last, the Astrology Table

At last and hallelulia!

It will be easiest if I just post a link.

Yes, the table is set up to be used for Dungeons and Dragons character creation.  If you're using a different game system or using the table for characters to write stories about, you'll have to make adjustments.

You can't make changes to the online spreadsheet, but you're free to copy it and make whatever adjustments you like.  I'd appreciate links back, if you post a changed table, so that I can see how the little thing is getting on in the world.  

7/17/14

Son of the Son of Comments to 50th Beginning

How to Use Astrology to Create RPG Character Personalities

Do you want to play RPG or LARP characters with definite personalities but don't quite know how to develop them? Do you try to develop personalities but end up playing the same character over and over? Do you tend to develop one-dimensional, single-trait characters? Then take a try at rolling up a natal horoscope for your character. It is not necessary to believe in astrology to use the system to produce complex characters - characters with their own motivation and contradictions. All it takes is a twelve-sided die.

BASIC CHARACTER
The basic personality of a character can be found by rolling a rising sign, a sun sign and a moon sign. If you're feeling Freudian, you can think of them as the ego, the superego, and the id. Astrologically, however, the rising sign is the image a character projects; the sun sign is her (or his) sense of identity, her rational goals; and the moon sign is his (or her) unconscious urges, his unknown resources.

These three signs form the core personality. Additional planetary influences can modify the personality, but not change it radically.

PLANETARY INFLUENCES

In medieval times, only seven planets were known. When rolling a horoscope for a character, it is best to use the medieval system. Not only is this usually more authentic, depending on the gaming system you are using, but it is less complicated as well. Complex characters are all very well and good, but there's such a thing as going too far. Also, since the outer planets move so slowly, age cohorts all have them in the same sign. This lends a commonality to age groups that would be missing if all characters rolled their outer planets individually.

Inner Planets: MERCURY and VENUS are not free be in any sign. Since their orbits are inside of earth's, they can never be far from the sign that the sun is in. As a rule of thumb, Mercury can only move within one sign to either side of the sun sign and Venus can only move within two. That means that Mercury can only be in one of three signs, once the sun sign is known, and Venus con only be in one of five.

Influences:

MERCURY is the planet of communication and intellectual ability. Mercury's sign indicates the sort of thing that the character is likely to talk about. Recurring conversational gambits begin here.  It may also affect a character’s voice or style of speaking.

VENUS is the planet of comfort. The sort of things that the character finds familiar or beautiful are determined by the sign that Venus is in. Purchases, especially of clothes or homes, may be influenced by Venus.

MARS is the planet of action. It is easy to find the energy to begin to do the things that pertain to the sign of Mars. If there is no support for the activity elsewhere in the chart, though, it will be difficult to find the motivation necessary to finish these activities. Many impulsive acts begin here.

JUPITER is the grand benefic. It influences the character's religion and generosity. It may indicate the sort of things that the character does well and easily.

SATURN brings limits. This is the area where the character will struggle and make mistakes. It is a recurring lesson. Recurring nightmares may begin here, if the character is subject to portents.

SIGNIFICANCE OF SIGNS:

Now roll up a sign for each planet and assign the traits to the categories. Here are some of the personality traits traditionally associated with the signs of the zodiac. If you don't like mine, try checking out a book from the library or making up your own.

ARIES: Enthusiastic and assertive. Good at beginning, but impatient. Self-assured and blunt. An independent, ardent competitor.

TAURUS: Persistent and hard-working, but stubborn and slow to change an opinion. Comfort seeking, rather than ambitious. Cautious but courageous. Not talkative - calm and sure.

GEMINI: Restless, tending to chatter, gossip, and fidget. Cool and decisive in a crisis. Charming, but uninvolved.

CANCER: Protective/possessive of people, places, and possessions. Would rather stay at home, but will make sacrifices for friends and family. Moody - fears ridicule. Some cancers fall apart over little things but handle true crises with calm.

LEO: Proud, outgoing, dramatic, and self-centered. Wants all of the attention. May sulk if ignored. May cause a crisis just to liven things up and get a chance to take the spotlight.

VIRGO: Seeks purity, perfection, and wholeness. Urges others to seek same. Can turn into a nag. Disciplined and over-organized. Sometimes misses the forest for the trees. Sometimes uses sardonic wit for the "betterment" of others.

LIBRA: Amiable, peace loving. A good arbitrator if uninvolved, but a little wishy-washy otherwise. Can see seventeen sides to any argument and sometimes has trouble deciding things. Seeks harmony but can get fussy.

SCORPIO: Passionately intense but intensely controlled. Can be cruelly blunt. May have a brooding, self-destructive side. Can look at you as if he knows exactly how you'd cook down in a compost pile. Likes to take things apart. A seeking intellect, uninterested in surface appearances.

SAGITTARIUS: A cheerful, enthusiastic extrovert. Generous and helpful but oblivious to social nuances. Can be blithely blunt. Idealistic, energetic, and often inspired to quests.

CAPRICORN: Industrious, unobtrusive, and ambitious. Can be bossy or strait-laced. Understated sense of humor. Determined to rise slowly to the top. Any wild risks must be analyzed first and found to have a good probability of advancement.

AQUARIUS: Adaptable, inventive, and gregarious. Creative and rational, intuitive and eccentric, may be rebellious when confronted with rules. May be devoted to, but detached from a group.

PISCES: Secretive and nebulous. May be forgetful and absentminded. May be blissfully mystical. Decides by the feel of things rather than by analysis. Sometimes vain. Occasionally treacherous.

 [I keep saying that I might post the planet/sign/character trait table and I keep finding stuff that should possibly be posted first.  This set of instructions can either be used instead of the table or in addition to the table.]

Son of Comments of the 50th Beginning: The Astrology Table

If anyone was wondering, you can see the horoscopes of the characters in The Game below.

Planet	Character 1: White	Character 2: Purple	Character 3: Brown
Ascendant	Aquarius	Scorpio	Taurus
Sun	Leo	Sagittarius	Pisces
Moon	Gemini	Taurus	Gemini
Mercury	Cancer	Capricorn	Aquarius
Venus	Virgo	Capricorn	Aquarius
Mars	Gemini	Cancer	Sagittarius
Jupiter	Virgo	Virgo	Gemini
Saturn	Sagittarius	Scorpio	Leo

At least this was in the same file and most of it lines up with the story.  I may have tweaked something.  Let me pull out the manuscript and check their attributes.

But first, here are the color associations that I used for the story.

Element	Sign	Color
Fire	Aries	Yellow
Earth	Taurus	Brown
Air	Gemini	Silver
Water	Cancer	Green
Fire	Leo	Orange
Earth	Virgo	Dark Blue
Air	Libra	Grey
Water	Scorpio	Purple
Fire	Sagittarius	Red
Earth	Capricorn	Black
Air	Aquarius	White
Water	Pisces	Light Blue

Now, back to the characters and whether the table at the top of this post contains  the actual horoscopes used for the story.

The first roll was for the ascendant, and the colors match.  The second roll was for the sun sign, and it’s reasonable to shift orange to actual gold for Character 1’s Leo sun sign.  Leo would prefer the prestige of the bling.

For behavior, White looks affable, but is prouder than he looks.  Purple looks aloof and powerful, but has more of a need to be generous and helpful to others that most realize.  Brown looks placid, but his mind spins with possibilities.

The third roll was for the moon sign, which in the story determined eye color.  That fits.  White and Brown have a divided sort of outlook, which unsettles White a bit.  He will work to master it and develop a single worldview.  Brown’s mind is wandering enough that he doesn’t notice the division.  It just lets him think of more angles to see things from.  Purple’s outlook is a steady, calm search for achievement.

The fourth roll was for Mercury.  Cancer – Capricorn – Aquarius.    It would have been appropriate for that roll to change their voices, but their voices were set before the roll and are obviously either controlled by their ascendant or by an ascendant/sun sign mix.

So, instead of changing their physical voices, Mercury changes what they think about, and therefore might talk about more often.  In the story, that's home – success – and Brown dithers prettily.

The fifth roll is Venus. Venus is Virgo – Capricorn – Aquarius and it controls what the characters are drawn to, which shows in the story as a shift in things that they have in their homes.  White gains order, Purple gains an awareness of impressing others, and Brown gets a bit more chaotic, but in a deep and significant way.

The sixth roll is Mars.  Mars is Gemini – Cancer – Sagittarius.  Mars is energy and the urge to do.  It is represented in the story by their hands and what their hands feel pulled to do. 

The seventh roll is Jupiter, the Great Benefic.  This is what will come easily to the character.  They rolled Virgo, Virgo, and Gemini.  So order comes easily to White and Purple, though Purple, getting a strong wish to control her own life from the Scorpio and Capricorn influence, sees it as interference.  Brown gets a little flakier, but since it’s Jupiter, that’s going to work for him. 

The eighth roll is Saturn, the limiter.  If I had extended the story into the game world, Saturn would have provided the conflict, because it’s supposed to be the lesson that the characters need to learn.  Let’s see.  Saturn is Sagittarius, Scorpio, and Leo. 

I’d guess that White will have difficulty getting over himself and being generous and thoughtful to allies and friends.  If Brown’s having Leo troubles, either he needs to develop self assertion, or he’s having trouble with White, or both.  Since Scorpio is also her ascendant, I’m going to say that she has trouble with others seeing her as power-hungry and driven by ambition.  She may get depressed by their fear and distance, especially if White becomes self-absorbed and he and Brown start bickering. 

Not that I’m going to continue the story.  I have trouble completing stories, and this one is complete.  It ends where I planned it to end.  The speculation is just to show what a roll for Saturn could do.

I’ve gone on to write out a table for all of the planet/sign combinations, and how that might influence a character.  As mentioned in the previous post, it’s a table that I’ve lost and re-written more than once.  I may post it, but don’t expect it to match the story in more than a general way.  

Comments on the Fiftieth Beginning

[It seems like I ought to make some comments about the fact that I've reached the 50th Beginning.  It does seem like a milestone.  But I found come comments on The Game in my files and if I post them here, I get to throw them away.  That's irresistible.  So I'm going to post them first and see if I have anything to add after.

Fifty beginnings.  And the old files are still looking full. That's 1/20th of a thousand.  I'll get there.  Oh, and both The Game and the comments are from the eighties or early nineties.]

The Game was an experiment in rolling up characters, characters with definite personalities, without using the background of an given game system.  [Yes, I was referring to games like Dungeons and Dragons.]  I decided to use a personality description system with which many people are at least vaguely familiar, one from which a personality could be generated using a twelve-sided die.  In other words, I used astrology to roll up horoscopes for my characters to match.

It's not that odd an idea, when dealing with magical game systems.  In fact I've been trying to imagine what a world in which astrology worked as palpably as divine/arcane spells, a world on which the stars actually compel, would be like. [Among other things, I assume that there would be government control of astrologers and a black market in at least false or incomplete predictions.]

Using this system to generate personalities does not require a belief in astrology, nor is it only useful in fantasy systems.  This method is useful for players who enjoy getting into a role and being someone different while gaming, but who have difficulty creating a complex character.

The characters in The Game were generated by rolling signs for the following 'planets':  ascendant, sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter (the ascendant is the sign "rising" on the horizon). There are many different ways to interpret the effect of the planets.  If you check out three different books from the library, you'll get three different interpretations.

If you don't want to wade through the literature, or even dabble in it, I'll provide a quick list.  It doesn't exactly match any system I've ever read about, but then it's meant to create characters rather than to reveal them.  Also, in the story each planet had to be represented by some immediately noticeable change in the characters.  The effect of the planets is therefore different in the story (and is listed in parentheses).  

Ascendant:  impression given to people meeting the character (color of robe).

Sun:  main need, goal, or personal ideal (decoration on the robe).

Moon:  unconscious motivation, what pulls at the character without being noticed rather than the goal the character pushes for - the filter that colors the character's perception (eyes)

[There is either a missing page or I didn't finish the comments.  I'll get back to this.  But let's complete the list.

Mercury:  mode of communication (type of voice)

Venus:  what you delight in and surround yourself with (basics of house)

Mars:  drive (I'll have to re-read and reverse engineer)

Jupiter:     (changes in house details)]

[The file also had a list of the Characters and their traits.]

Character 1 - Outgoing, romantically fickle, charming.
White robe with rich, gold trim; silver eyes 
Drives divided but perceptive enough to know this, restless, cheerful but aggressive.
Home has courtyard garden with fountain and pool and fruit trees.  House full of plants and soft pillows.  Thinks of home often.  Self-playing harp.  Hearty voice, almost a growl.

Character 2 - Blunt, intelligent, tightly controlled.
Purple robe with red trim; brown eyes
Slow to move, stubborn, but quick thinking
House of clouds, difficult to reach, galleries of art and curiosities, mystic laboratory.  Voice is a powerful whisper.

Character 3 - Brown robes with light blue applique.
Adaptable and eccentric.
Home is an apartment in a city with lavish tapestries and a continuous, changing stream of friendly visitors.  Has a big fireplace in a hot, sunny climate and big, bare windows.
Plumpish.  Melodious voice.

[Then there's a table of the planets vs the signs for the three characters.  I'll post that later, possible along with the table of traits for rolling up characters, which I've lost and re-written several times over the years.]

[No further comments on The Game being the 50th Beginning posted.  Maybe later.]