forum What are a characters "Politics?"

Started January 17, 2018 by @KitTheSniper

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I cannot for the life of me figure out what politics on the character sheet means.

Ooh, politics are fun~~ think, is a character more liberal, more conservative, do they care more about the environment, are they impartial, etc. Even just putting down 'Republican' or 'Democrat' can help you get a grip on your character's politics. If it's fantasy and politics aren't a big deal, you could just put 'unknown' or 'unnecessary,' but I find putting down how liberally minded my characters are to be very helpful.

Hope this helps!! :DD

Ohh! Thank you very much!

i assume it means what is their political stance? (here are some terms that i don't know the meaning of because i suck at politics): are they liberal? are they conservative? democratic? republican? would they vote for trump or clinton or the other guy? (i'm not american, i just know where i stand on that particular issue.)

if you're talking about fictional settings, obviously you can't use those terms, but you can describe them a little i think. "they would put their support behind the guy who has a plan for helping the city's homeless." if there is a monarchy, then are they loyal to the crown, or are they rebels?

i hate politics, sorry if this doesn't answer your question.

haha @CinnamonRoll beat me :P

(heads up i'm from the US so I'm not sure if everything I'm saying applies to everywhere else in the world)
Basically it means the political views of your characters. What political party are they apart of? (Idk if your characters live in a different world or reality or anything so some might not apply) Do they like the current leader of their country? Are they more conservative or liberal? Do they not care about politics?
(Also if your story takes place in a fictional world, its fun to make up the government systems. You can make all sorts of crazy political parties and decide if the government is a dictatorship or a democracy etc…This of course would affect your characters political opinions.)
Political views are influenced by location, the people you are around, and the time period. Here is an example: my story takes place in the south, in a rural town, and in an older time period, so my characters are more on the conservative side.

Oof I forgot one more thing. Politics don't have to be important to a story. Even though a lot of my characters live in a conservative setting, I have no plans to incorporate actual politics into my story. But, some of their views on certain things relates to politics.
For example: Lets just say a story has zero politics in it, but Character A is super open to change and different sexualities and stuff. Character A is mostly likely a liberal. Character B is more traditional, and is slower to understand the stuff Character A supports. Character B is mostly likely a conservative.
So yeah a story doesn't have to be politically centered, but political views do shape a characters beliefs :)
(also sorry if my descriptions of conservative vs liberal offend anyone, I'm trying to be as simple as possible with my definitions lol And I'm not trying to say one is better than the other)