Personalities Are Interpersonal

With the nine basic Personalities covered, feel free to mix them with the nine basic Alignments and go nuts with the sheer number of options for characterization. That said, I want to give a caveat on Personalities.

People generally do have a disposition that is their default. Some people have a general "fuck you" attitude, for example, which is their default when dealing with people. They may be Chaotic Unhappy in general, but they may act completely differently when they go into work or get pulled over by a cop or have lunch with their mothers.

Personalities are interpersonal. Because every person is unique, we can treat each person differently. This means that our own personalities can be malleable. Many things can change our feelings and how we regard others. Sometimes our mood can naturally change throughout the course of the day, and how we act and perceive others depends on when they happen to catch us.

Although I feel personalities are an important grid to have, they have similar issues that Alignment does. First of all, they are more of a description than they are an enforcement. At least Alignment is more based on personal philosophy/belief; Personality is so variable that some people can hit all the points in a single day just by hanging around enough people.

The importance of it is having a concept of the spectrum where people can be. It allows you to see their general disposition by how they treat the different people in their lives, as well as complete strangers. You can see which personality types they do and don't work well with.

Even if you as an author don't want to dive that deeply into the analysis of your own characters, it can give you another tool to play with. What kinds of personality types do you want to work with? What happens when you put various combinations together? The Personality grid allows you a different kind of sandbox to play in, and if you find yourself unsure what to do or where to go, try this