User blog comment:Njalm2/Nanja's Classroom: Designing RP Characters/@comment-2089817-20161210041136/@comment-2089817-20161210061601

Sure, why not. Now, this is a crude rendering of a concept map, one I made for Ichigo. So forgive me for it being rather sloppily made but its just meant to give you guys an idea of one way of putting them to use.

The general idea is, you start with the character name. Bring a single line down to the next circle or box. In that second section, make a concise bullet point list of your character's attributes; the general idea of what you want them to be. Ichigo is a basic swordsman. He learns from experience, not studying or practice. He has an advanced growth rate so advanced things come easy to him.

From there, you bring a line down to one or more boxes which list out either the races your character belongs to, or the abilities of which you want to give them and the race they are associated with. So even if your character isn't a Shinigami and still uses Hakuda or Kido or a Zanpakuto, you'd still put down a "Shinigami" box because those abilities are associated with Shinigami primarily. Sounds roundabout but it helps you to keep your ideas organized, so who cares if it feels roundabout? Ichigo is an example of a character you really want to AVOID making, but he serves as a good example for a concept map so you can see how to work with multiple races.

An example would be a classic Visored. A Visored character would have two racial boxes. "Shinigami" and "Hollow". An Arrancar would have the same two boxes. And from there, you draw lines down to abilities and powers associated with that race. So for the Shinigami, you'd make four separate boxes for the Zankensoki. For Hollow, you'd either make a general listing like I did for Ichigo, which I'll explain why in a bit, or perhaps you separate them into "Cero", "Bala", "Sonido", et cetera. Depends on your tastes.

The thing to remember when doing these abilities and traits sections is that they MUST abide by the second box you wrote up. You go by the bullet list you made earlier, the one connected directly to the character's name, and any ability added to further branches in the concept map MUST abide by that list. That's why, for Hollow for Ichigo, I made it very general, because Ichigo is someone who learns as he goes, he doesn't take the time to train any of his individual abilities. There'd be no point in making detailed depictions of each Hollow power because Ichigo only makes use of the Hollow mask's empowerment. The key to using the concept map, therefore, is to follow the bullet list you wrote up and keep to that without violating your own established rules. In doing so, you ensure consistency is being followed.