characters as hammers

"Too many games create characters without thought to what they are. Characters are not really people; they are functional components of a game world which are manipulated by players to achieve goals. They are, in a word, tools. It is [during character creation] that you are attempting to guide the players into designing the right tools.

. . . If you guide the players into designing hammers, they're going to wind up with tools that are very good for hitting things; if you want them instead to write stories, you need to have them design pens. You need the right tool for the job; if you don't have it, there will be a tendency to try to make the job fit the tool."

-M. Joseph Young, in "Applied Theory"