I decided to scrap all of the characters for a story I'm conceptualizing in favor of deciding many of their traits with dice rolls based on realistic population figures. Coin flip for male/female, 1d6 for masculine (1, 2)/feminine (3, 4)/non-binary (5, 6) (placeholder, will change when I find out the actual figures), and 1d1000 for cis/transgender (1, 2, or 3 = trans). Gay/straight/bi will directly correlate with the male/female coin flip based on which characters develop in such a way that they might make for interesting romantic arcs. All characters are to be assumed asexual until otherwise developed. Similarly, things like gender (which is ternary for now just for simplicity's sake; I may expand non-binary to make it more inclusive later) and cis/trans won't be rolled until they actually come up. This is to ensure that I don't write characters around those traits and instead apply those traits in ways that fit the characters. The only thing I can think of that I'm having trouble with is race. For one thing, how many races are there? Specifically, I need to know about North America/the Middle East and how prevalent each race is in those areas. I'd look it up myself but I'm not sure if I know what exactly counts as a race anymore. Should I flip a coin for white/dark and then roll a die for different dark races if it lands that way or are there lots of races that could be considered white that I need to account for as well, rendering the coin flip pointless? Why am I doing this? I had a lesbian character who seemed like she made for good QuILTBAG representation, but then I realized that I was only making her gay as a literary mechanism. The audience first meets her in the middle of her character development without seeing what her status quo was like. Making her gay was just a convenient way of getting to her backstory by means of a lighthearted flashback to her coming out. I realized that would probably be considered problematic in some circles, so I decided to rethink my representation and after a few weeks of thinking about it off and on I finally said, "**** it, I'll just do like god does and leave everything up to chance so nobody can complain." Anyway, that's pretty much it. Am I missing any personality traits that would be feasible to roll for? Their actual personalities will be based on my doing a Myers Briggs test in character for each of them and basing their behaviors on those results. (Also, please let me know if this can fit elsewhere. I thought about posting in the Writing Workshop, but it seemed like a more involved thing than that's meant for. Discussion seemed okay, but it's a question that I need an answer to, not a discussion that I would be participating in.)
