User blog comment:TheRedScorpion/Depth, Complexity and The Adeptus Astartes/@comment-4206721-20110729073133

I couldn't agree more, myopic focus on any one aspect of a character or organisation to the exclusion of all else is the easiest trap to fall into. "We don't follow the codex" can become a mania just as much as "we follow the codex" and while it is possible to play those concepts "streight" it's an order of magnitude more difficult than choosing more "human" themes as a means of adding depth. As above, ideas the reader can relate to are the easiest one's to exploit to generate depth. "I follow no rules but my own" is good, but it's also a dead horse that get's beaten alot.

As a rule of thumb for every "cool" factor I write into a character I like to throw in something that makes them flawed, not something deliberately genre blind but something that is genuinely detremental. So a great general for example will suffer from a downfall like "over confidence", this guy has won a thousand battles and his aides and subbordinates heap praise on him and never gainsay his ideas. But as a result he's a prideful overconfident tyrant who won't tolerate anyone who dosen't share his "vision". Or, to take the alexander the great example, the general is so competant, so extrodinarily skilled that his reach exceeds his grasp, and while he can win every battle he fights, he is blind to the suffering of his army and eventualy, they just can't fight any more. It's the old "self destructive" flaw, the artisan who works night and day for a month to produce a masterpiece, but on the dawn of the last day his chisel breaks and the statue is now forever imperfect.

Little poigniant details like that, (in my as ever, most humble of opinions -RS) realy make a character stand out from the crowd.