Greetings Traveler, 

 I find that in writing character development goes beyond the necessity for the role playing you are aiming to partake in. I have compiled a rather lengthy character sheet which I use to develop characters that may or may not be used for any particular role play. I will then subsequently alter the information to fit in to the creator required character sheet. However, I write out my own character sheet not because I abscond from chaos but because everything that is produced goes beyond merely creating a character but towards creating a life. There may be a multitude of things that we do not use that may be present on our character sheets - a long lost relationship, a hidden power, or even some tiny trinket that might mean absolutely nothing to the role play. These things aid in bringing life to a character even if you only use it to prefect your writing of that particular character. From the boots that they wear to the reason they won't walk into a particular store, these are pieces of a new personality we as writers are trying to build. Many times when we write character, while they are all different their personalities are not truly unique as we instill bits and pieces of ourselves into every character (typically the same bits and pieces) which creates the same character but with a different paint job. In providing those seemingly useless facts, items, powers, bits of history we are slowly closing the gaps exploited by our own personality to seep into characters that need to arise on their own to prove fruitful to a story. 

As always concerns, criticism, and questions are welcome.