A characteristic is a quality which allows to identify something or someone, distinguishing it from their peers. These may be issues related to temperament, the personality or the symbolic, but also to the physical aspect. For example: "The police spread the characteristics of the attacker to alert the population", “I have already asked the supplier to inform me about the characteristics of the new machine”, “This device includes a special feature: it turns off with heat”.
The characteristics, therefore, make the own and specific character of a living being or a thing. To say that a man is tall, dark, talkative, friendly and respectful is to make an enumeration of his personal characteristics.
It should be noted that certain characteristics are subjective. In the previous example, the sympathy of the subject may not be such for a certain person. The height, on the other hand, is a relative fact: if we set aside the metric value, each judges the height of the others based on their own, so that the same individual It can be considered high and low, depending on who observes it.
While we humans share traits with the rest of the animals, if we talk about the characteristics that identify a dog, for example, it is correct to point out that they walk on their four legs, that they have the body covered with hairs (in such a way that they do not need artificial shelter to support cold) and that their smell allows them to identify odors over great distances and with great precision.
Seen from the perspective of today's human being, the rest of the animals are usually characterized by having better senses, more physical strength (and will, in most cases), more dexterity and great compassion. Throughout our evolution, we have become less and less able to survive in the midst of nature without artificial tools and accessories; Although an extreme situation may force us to draw forces that we thought we did not have, at first glance we do not have what it takes to face everyday life in the jungle or in a forest.
For each athlete who dazzles us with his somersaults, for each figure skater who turns four times in the air after being driven from the ice with boots whose base is a blade, for each footballer capable of standing and making a Intense use of his musculature for tens of minutes, there are thousands, millions of people who drag their briefcase from the house to the office and who cannot with their backaches, who cannot handle freely without their glasses and who eat so badly who suffer from overweight or are below their weight recommended.
In summary, a characteristic that distinguishes us from other species is that we do not usually take advantage of our potential, physical or mental; Based on the examples in the previous paragraph, it is not normal for all of us to be athletes, but to admire the few who exploit their skills at that level
In some Latin American countries, the characteristic is the prefix of a phone : "I'm trying to call Carlos but a recording informs me that the feature is incorrect", “If the number that happened to you has feature 238, it is in the Loma Verde neighborhood”.
In a role playing game Finally, the characteristics are the properties that define the characters that participate in the game , whether physical or psychological. Some of the most common are strength, speed, intelligence, size and willpower. It should be mentioned that both the characters controlled by the players and the others must be described by these properties, so that from their interaction with the environment and with the other characters, a phenomenon that affects the flow of the story can emerge.
