>>172563
>Do you come up with a character and then do some stories, or do you do stories until you have a finished character?
You won't have a finished character until you do the stories; you might think you do, but you'll quickly find out that, unless it's a character you're used to playing, you'll have trouble thinking like they do, and, in turn, roleplaying as them.
Generally, it's easiest to start with a short character concept: it may be a list of traits, a couple small sentences about them, or even a particularly interesting situation they might be finding themselves in. This is important because the essence of the exercise is to keep consistent, until the consistency becomes second nature. From that point on, you can start writing situations. It's a very bootstrapped process, where, once you have a starting point, you just kind of go with the flow and things develop naturally. The first couple stories might feel a bit awkward, and you might have to take some time to think of what they'd do, but it gets easier and easier, and after a while you'll be left with an actual unique character with an actual unique personality; a character that truly has experience, given to them by the stories and scenes you just wrote; a character that has lived.
It's like painting: you start with broad strokes and big spots of color, and then, from that, you detail it as much or as little as you want.
>>172561
>I find myself stuck playing the same personality types a lot because they're simply the ones that work.
Yes, but if everyone thought like that, art would go nowhere. There are plenty of things which work; I'd go as far as to say any well crafted personality works. But maybe you don't feel the pressure for trying out and experiencing different things (which is fine, I guess), or maybe saying that is how you cope with being afraid to get out of your comfort zone.
