We give an analogue of Brauer?s characterisation of characters of finite groups for the trace functions defined by modular representations. We then ¡°lift¡± this result to get a p-adic analogue for the Brauer characters. Similar analogues hold for Brauer?s induction theorem, and Artin?s induction theorem is then a special case. We also establish an analogue of Green?s ¡°necessity¡± theorem.