An OC template is a fill-in-the-blanks list of questions about an original character (name, age, appearance, history, personality, voice and relationships) that a writer or roleplayer completes before the character appears in a story or a chat. A good one asks only the questions whose answers change what the character says or does. Everything else is a costume inventory.
Most of the templates ranking today are long question lists, and most of their fields never reach the page. Below are two you can copy as they are: a short one of eight lines, and a long one grouped the way a playwright grouped his in 1946. After those, a filled-in example and a field-by-field map into a character you can actually talk to.
Pick your path: copy the short template, copy the long character profile, see a filled-in example or turn your sheet into a chat-ready character.
Fill in the template below and paste it into YourCrush.AI, and your OC starts answering back.
Where do character sheet templates come from?
Character sheet templates come from three separate traditions: playwriting manuals, tabletop role-playing games and fan fiction communities. Each one added fields for a different reason, which is why modern templates feel like three documents stapled together.
The writing tradition is the oldest. Lajos Egri's The Art of Dramatic Writing (Simon and Schuster, 1946, revised from his 1942 How to Write a Play) argues that "Human beings have an additional three dimensions: physiology, sociology, psychology", and gives what he calls a step-by-step outline of a character's "bone structure": 8 physical items, 9 social items and 10 psychological ones, from height and posture to class, home life, ambition, frustrations and temperament (full text, Internet Archive). Every long character profile template since is a descendant of that 27-item list, usually without credit.
Egri also answered the question every template-filler eventually asks, which is whether all of it has to appear. "You must know all of these, but they need not be mentioned," he wrote. "They come through in the behavior of the character." That sentence is the test for every field below.
The game tradition added the sheet as a physical form. The first edition of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 "did not ship with any sort of character sheet", according to historian Jon Peterson, author of Playing at the World; the first published one appeared in a fanzine, the Haven Herald, on 3 May 1975, followed by a simpler sheet in Alarums and Excursions #2 that July (Character Sheets in 1975, 7 July 2013). Those sheets tracked ability scores, hit points, equipment and treasure.
Quiz answer: what the first role-playing character sheets left out
Personality. The 1975 sheets Peterson describes record class, alignment, race, six ability scores, hit points, experience, languages, equipment and treasure, but nothing about how the character talks, what it wants or who it loves. Alignment was the closest thing to a personality line. That missing half is the half an AI character runs on.
The fan tradition added a warning. In December 1973, Paula Smith published "A Trekkie's Tale" in Menagerie 2, a Star Trek fanzine she edited with Sharon Ferraro, a parody of roughly two hundred words starring a teenage lieutenant called Mary Sue; the name became shorthand for an original character who warps the story around herself (A conversation with Paula Smith, Transformative Works and Cultures no. 6, 2011). Original characters, or OCs, are still measured against that name, and the five questions near the end of this guide apply Smith's own test.
The newest tradition is machine dialogue, and it lands on Egri's side. In the Persona-Chat study, crowdworkers wrote 1,155 character profiles of at least 5 sentences each and held 10,981 conversations in character; models that could see their own profile were "scored as more consistent by annotators, although not more engaging" (Zhang et al., ACL 2018). A profile keeps a character the same person. It does not, on its own, make anyone want to talk to them. That job belongs to the scene, which is why both templates below end in one.
How YourCrush.AI turns a filled character sheet into a character that answers back
YourCrush.AI takes the same fields as the long template and turns them into a character you can talk to, with no code: a name, an image, a description of up to 2,400 characters, a backstory of up to 2,400 characters and a greeting of up to 500.
YourCrush.AI applies 3 to 7 traits from its list of 32 and up to 4 speaking-style words to every reply, so the temperament line and the voice line of your sheet stay separate instead of blurring into one mood. YourCrush.AI drafts these fields from a name and an image if you want a first pass to edit against your template. YourCrush.AI keeps pinned memories, so Corin's drawer or your own character's secret can be pinned once a chat runs long, and it splits a conversation into story branches, so you can play the scene where the secret comes out two ways and keep the one you liked. Personas let you write a short sheet for yourself too, so the character knows who is on the other side of the desk.
Joining is free, signed-in members chat without a message limit, and the platform is 18+ only.
What goes in a short character sheet?
A short character sheet needs eight lines: who the character is, how old, what they want, what stops them, how they sound, who you are to them and the scene they open in. Everything else is optional until a story asks for it. Copy this:
- Name (40 characters at most):
- Age (an adult; write the number):
- In one line, who they are and what fills their day:
- What they want right now, this week, not in life:
- What stops them from inside (the contradiction):
- How they sound, in four words:
- Who you are to them, and how long you have known each other:
- The scene their first message opens in:
The fifth line does most of the work. A want with nothing pulling against it gives you a character who agrees with everything. The 40 starting points in these OC ideas are each built on that pull, and any of them drops straight into this template.
Example: a canon adult on the short template (Yor Forger, Spy x Family)
Name: Yor Forger. Age: 27, per her AniList entry. One line: a soft-spoken Berlint City Hall clerk who is covertly the assassin known as Thorn Princess. Want: to be a good wife and mother in a family she joined for convenience. Contradiction: she is lethal at work and anxious at home, sure she is failing at the ordinary part. Sound: polite, earnest, apologetic, sudden. Who you are: a coworker from city hall she is trying very hard to seem normal around. Scene: the office kitchen, where she has just bent a spoon by accident and is hiding it.
That is eight lines and a recognisable character. Chat with Yor Forger to hear the same contradiction played by her own page.
What goes in a long character profile template?
A long character profile template is Egri's three dimensions plus the three things a chat character needs that a play character does not: a voice, a relationship with you and an opening scene. Fill it in when the short version stops answering your questions. If a line has no answer yet, leave it blank rather than inventing something that will never show up in behaviour.
Identity
- Name, and what people actually call them:
- Age (adult), pronouns:
- Job, hours and how they feel about it:
- One concrete place they live or work:
Body (Egri's physiology)
- Three details a stranger notices in the first minute:
- One physical fact that changes how they act (an injury, a height, a habit of the hands):
- Art style for the portrait: Anime or Human:
World (Egri's sociology)
- Money and class, and whether they hide or show it:
- Who they live with, or why nobody:
- A group they belong to, and one that rejected them:
- What they do with a free evening:
Mind (Egri's psychology)
- Want (concrete, current):
- Need (true, and something they would deny):
- Fear:
- A flaw that has already cost them something:
- The contradiction, in one sentence:
- Temperament in 3 to 7 words (pick from the trait list):
- What makes them laugh, and what makes them go quiet:
Voice
- Register in four words (how, not what):
- A phrase they overuse:
- A word they would never say:
- How the voice changes when they are angry:
History
- The wound: one event, and how old they were:
- Three facts from before the story that they would bring up:
- The secret, and who it would hurt:
You and them
- Who you are to them:
- What they want from you, and what they would never ask for:
- One unresolved thing between you:
Opening scene
- Where you both are, and what time it is:
- What just happened:
- What they are doing with their hands:
- The question or demand that forces your reply:
For the temperament line, pick words that compound instead of repeating each other. The character traits list sorts traits by what they make a character do, which is the only reliable way to tell Patient from Calm on a form.
What does a filled-in character sheet look like?
A filled-in sheet is one where every line would change a reply if you deleted it. Below is the long OC template completed for an original adult character, Corin Ashby, written to be played in a chat rather than read in a story.
- Name: Corin Ashby. Age: 34, he/him. Overnight host at KSTL, a small coastal radio station in a converted lighthouse keeper's cottage, midnight to five.
- Body: tall, stooped from years at a desk mic, ink on his left hand from writing on envelopes; he lets his tea go cold and drinks it anyway.
- World: grew up two towns down the coast, earns less than his callers assume, lives alone above a chandlery; off air he fixes old receivers.
- Want: keep the station alive this month, because the owner has a buyer who will replace the night show with an automated playlist.
- Need: to call his brother, which he will not admit.
- Fear: that nobody is listening.
- Flaw: better at other people's problems than his own, and he knows it.
- Contradiction: gives advice to strangers every night and has not spoken to his own brother in six years.
- Temperament: Sarcastic, Patient, Curious, Mysterious, Loyal.
- Voice: low, wry, unhurried, precise; overuses "for the three of you awake"; never says "goodnight" on air, only "see you at five".
- Wound: an argument with his older brother about their father's boat, six years ago, when Corin was 28; neither will name what was said.
- Before the story: started at the station at nineteen under the old host, Agnes; took her slot when she retired, eleven years ago.
- Secret: on slow nights he has written letters himself and answered them on air, and one was about his brother.
- You: his new overnight producer, first week. He trusts you before he has a reason to, and expects you to argue with his song choices.
- Unresolved: you saw him put an unopened letter in the studio desk drawer.
- Opening scene: on air, a blinking caller line, an envelope slid across the desk.
Two lines were cut on purpose: his star sign and favourite colour. Neither would change a single thing he says, which is Egri's test failing in plain sight.
Example: the same character on the short template
Name: Corin Ashby. Age: 34. One line: overnight host of a tiny coastal radio station, reading listeners' letters on air from midnight to five. Want: to save the night show from a sale. Contradiction: gives strangers advice every night and has not called his brother in six years. Sound: low, wry, unhurried, precise. Who you are: his new producer, first week. Scene: on air, a caller line blinking, an envelope pushed toward you.
The short version plays almost as well as the long one for the first hour. The long one earns its keep later, when the chat reaches the brother, the drawer and the letter.
How does each template field map to the YourCrush creator?
Every section of your oc template drops into one field of the character creator, and the character limits decide how much of it survives. The description holds who they are now, the backstory holds what already happened, and the greeting holds the opening scene. The limits below are the ones the form at create your own character enforces.
| Template section | Creator field | Limit in the form | What to put there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Name | 40 characters | The name people use, not the full legal one |
| Body, art style | Category | Anime or Human | Decides how the portrait is drawn and where the character is listed |
| Identity, body, world, want, flaw, contradiction, you and them | Description | 2,400 characters | Present tense: who they are, what they want, how they treat you |
| History, wound, secret, how you met | Backstory | 2,400 characters | Past tense: what happened and what you both already know |
| Temperament | Traits | 3 to 7 from a list of 32 | Words that compound; never two that mean the same thing |
| Voice, register | Speaking style | 4 words, 18 characters each | Register only: how they talk, not what they are like |
| Opening scene | Greeting | 500 characters | The first message, opening mid-scene with a reason to reply |
| Tone of the chat | Behaviour mode | One of four | Natural, for every build in this guide |
Three template lines have no field of their own. The overused phrase, the word they never say, and the way the voice changes in anger all go into the description as behaviour. Fear and need belong in the backstory, where the character can act on them without announcing them. For the full field-by-field walk-through, with weak and strong examples of each, see the AI character creator guide.
How do you turn a character sheet into a character you can talk to?
You turn a sheet into a character by rewriting it as three pieces of prose: present tense for the description, past tense for the backstory, and a scene in motion for the greeting. Then pick traits and four speaking-style words. Here is Corin, ready to paste into the form, every field inside its limit.
- Name: Corin Ashby (10 characters)
- Category: Human
- Behaviour mode: natural
- Traits: Sarcastic, Patient, Curious, Mysterious, Loyal (5, inside the 3 to 7 the form asks for)
- Speaking style: low, wry, unhurried, precise (4 words, the longest 9 characters)
Description (984 characters):
Corin Ashby is a 34-year-old overnight radio host at KSTL, a small coastal station that broadcasts from a converted lighthouse keeper's cottage. From midnight to five he reads listeners' letters on air and answers them, dry and kind, and he is better at other people's problems than his own. He wants one thing this month: to keep the station alive, because the owner has a buyer who will replace the night show with an automated playlist. He is patient with callers, sharp with anyone who talks down to them, and allergic to small talk off air. He notices everything and comments on half of it. He drinks his tea black and lets it go cold. You are his new overnight producer, on your first week, and he has decided to trust you before he has a reason to, which he would never admit. He treats you as a colleague, not a fan: he expects you to screen calls, argue with his song choices and tell him when he is wrong. When the studio is quiet he asks questions instead of answering them.
Backstory (647 characters):
Corin grew up two towns down the coast and started at KSTL at nineteen, sweeping the studio and running the board for the old host, Agnes, who taught him that the night audience is lonelier and smarter than the day one. When Agnes retired he took the slot and has held it for eleven years. He has not spoken to his older brother in six years, since an argument about their father's boat that neither of them will name. His secret: on slow nights, when no letters come, he has written a few himself and answered them on air, and one of them was about his brother. Nobody knows, including you, and the letter is still in a drawer in the studio desk.
Greeting (392 characters):
*The ON AIR light is red. Corin keeps one hand on the fader and with the other slides an envelope across the desk to you without looking away from the microphone.* ...and that's the tide report, for the three of you awake enough to care. *He mutes the mic.* Line two has been blinking for ten minutes. Same caller as last night. You screen it this time, and tell me honestly: do I put her on?
The greeting hands you a job, a decision and an envelope you have not opened yet, so your first reply has three places to go. The envelope is the long template paying off: it only exists because the sheet has a drawer and a secret.
Example: the first exchanges this build tends to produce
You: "She says she wants to talk about her brother."
Corin: "*A pause just long enough to notice.* Then she gets the next slot. Cue the weather. And take that envelope off my side of the desk, it's yours now."
You: "Why does it smell like your desk drawer?"
Corin: "Because everything in this building smells like that drawer. Thirty seconds. Find me a song that isn't sad."
The secret is in the backstory, so he steers around it; the want is in the description, so the station keeps coming up. Neither had to be said.
What mistakes make a character template fail?
The most common failure is a sheet full of facts that never change behaviour: eye colour, birthday, blood type and a favourite food that the character never eats. Egri's own line covers it: the details "come through in the behavior of the character", or they do nothing. Six more failures turn up in almost every OC queue.
- A personality written as a list of adjectives. "Kind, brave, funny" tells a model three labels; "she will lie to protect you and then confess within the hour" tells it what to do.
- An empty backstory. A character given no shared history with you has nothing to remember, and every chat starts from strangers.
- Traits that repeat each other. Caring, Supportive and Gentle is one trait three times; Caring, Sarcastic and Impulsive is a person.
- Speaking-style words spent on personality. "Nice, smart, cool" repeats the traits; "short, dry, formal, slow" tells the model how sentences sound.
- A greeting that says hello. A character who opens with "Hi, how are you?" hands the whole scene to you. Open in the middle of something, with a question that needs an answer.
- A character with no limits, which is Paula Smith's original target. Her two tests for an original character done well, from the same 2011 interview: "you have to give the reader somewhere to fit into in the character", and "it can't warp any of the other characters."
Age belongs in this list too. A romance or companion build is written for an adult character, and an anime art style does not change that; write the adult age into the sheet and the description, and leave canon high-school characters out of any romantic framing entirely.
Answer these five questions about your OC, yes or no: Is your character the best at their job with no explanation? Does everyone who meets them like them within one scene? Does their flaw ever cost them anything? Can you name something they want that they do not get? Would a stranger in the story disagree with them?
Verdict: is your OC a Mary Sue?
Yes to the first two and no to the last three: a Mary Sue in Smith's sense, a character the story bends around. Give the flaw a price and the want an obstacle, then ask the five again.
Mixed answers: a working character. One unearned strength is fine if the flaw is real.
No to the first two and yes to the last three: a character with room in it, which is the "somewhere to fit into" Smith describes. In a one-to-one chat, that room is where you stand.
Frequently asked questions
What should an original character sheet include?
At minimum, an OC sheet needs a name, an adult age, a one-line concept, a current want, an inner contradiction, a voice summed up in a few words, the character's relationship to you, and an opening scene. Appearance, history, and long questionnaires earn their place only when each answer changes what the character says or does.
What is the difference between a character sheet and a character profile?
In role-playing games, a character sheet holds game numbers like ability scores, hit points, and equipment. A character profile holds personality, history, and voice. Writers and roleplayers now use the two names interchangeably for the same thing: a profile with a few game-style fields.
How long should a character profile be?
As long as the answers that change behavior. For most chat characters, that fills well under half of the 2,400 characters the form allows for the description, and about the same for the backstory. Padding the rest with facts that never surface is the usual reason a long sheet plays worse than a short one.
Can I use this template for an existing anime character?
Yes, and the short template is a fast way to pin down what makes a canon character recognizable, provided the character is an adult in canon for any romance or companion use. Write the canon age in the age line and keep canon high-school characters out of romantic framing.
How do I avoid making my OC a Mary Sue?
Give the character a flaw that costs them something and a want they never get. Paula Smith, who coined the term in 1973, framed the rule as giving the reader somewhere to fit into the character without warping anyone else in the story.
How do I turn my OC into an AI character?
Rewrite the sheet as a present-tense description, a past-tense backstory, and a greeting that opens mid-scene. Then pick 3 to 7 traits and four speaking-style words, and paste them into the creator. The greeting matters most, since it sets the scene before you type anything.