Motivations are what make Characters interesting and as such, each character must have at least one. This can be anything you like that gets a character out of bed in the morning.
When I was speaking with Ethan about character progression, the concept of terminal motivations came up. Most characters have a reason to begin adventuring, and it might be a good idea to mandate that all characters have a goal which, once reached, signals the end of their time as an adventurer. This will likely tie into hooks and the storybuilding framework.
Perhaps (at least) one long term and one short term goal?
ideals are the compliment to motivations. motivations are the things a character likes while ideals are things a character dislikes. perhaps fears? ikd, maybe just un-abstract this to “likes” and “dislikes”
Some motivations are complicated goals. Wants revenge on a list of people would be an example. Cannot tell the truth would be another. Wants the love and respect of her ex husband.
Simple motivations. money/greed, pride/ego, fame and glory, etc.
I think either can be a background. neither of these does the character goals system I want to introduce
I want there to be some way to track major and minor character motivations. the major motivation is really a goal that when met means you retire the character. perhaps this is straying too far into the realm of storytelling tips. lets ignore motivations for now.
Big character goals would be meant as a signal for retiring the character if their path diverges from that of the party or story. This is effectively a storyteller tip to the effect of it is okay to say “your character lives happily ever after; make a new one.”
Small character goals are intended to give players a personality for their character that they can use to make roleplaying decisions. This is directly inferior to roundtable character creation.