On the Subject of Characters (Full Version)

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TJByrum -> On the Subject of Characters (12/25/2013 11:54:11)

Characters are, quite simply, the single-most important thing in standard roleplaying. They represent your role in the world, they drive the story, and they're the conduit of interaction between not only the host but the other players.

Whether they take on your own morals, personality, and mentality, or whether they're entirely different from you - each character has the possibility of being extremely unique and different. It can be a refreshing way to step into the shoes of someone you've never met and see the world through their eyes. They can take on their own personality, their own distinction, sometimes to the point you simply write while the character takes charge of the action and dialogue.

1. So what exactly makes a character interesting to you? Is it a good background? Potential for a good IC story? Personality? A combination of everything?
2. What kind of characters do you dislike and why?
3. What is your typical character (unless you're atypical)? What is a standard 'trademark' amongst your characters? Do you feel more 'comfortable' with certain equipment or motivations?
4. Do you base characters somewhat off yourself, purely on yourself, or not at all? Do you find it easier to RP as someone identical you?
5. (Please, ask more questions for others to answer!)



1. I for one like characters who are out of their element. Like a warrior amongst mages, or a veteran amongst new-age heroes, or just someone completely different than everyone else.
2. I greatly dislike characters who are... unreasonable. By that, I mean children and tweens (anyone from the age of 17 and younger) who seem to be 'great heroes'. I dislike RP's with 14 year old girls piloting huge mechs, or with 8 year old mages, or anything of that nature. It's... not very believable. I know, we deal with a lot of fantasy in RP's, but there's gotta be a line somewhere. Some 'youngsters' can be done right with the correct background, personality, and motivation (take Ellie from The Last of Us for example).
3. A typical character of mine is a warrior armed with a basic weapon and a round shield. Outside of fantasy/medieval, I simply like generally good, noble, honorable, skilled, 'veteran-type' characters. As long as I have a shield and my character has had enough experience to be reasonably good at combat, then I am fine.
4. A lot of my decisions, actions, and personality in RP's are directly affected by my own self. I say what I'd say, I do what I'd do, and I think what I'd think. It makes me feel... comfortable, and I like portraying my self in a RP because it feels easier to RP.



Starstruck -> RE: On the Subject of Characters (12/26/2013 0:51:39)

1. A good character needs to have some reason for you to care about what they do and how they think or feel. Usually, this is accomplished through flaws. A good flaw will make you look at the character and go "He/She/It is PERFECT," even though the character is not literally perfect. I, for instance, consider Kai to be "perfect" even though...well. You'll see. You'll all see!

A good backstory can turn a horrible character into an amazing character. If you read a backstory and then NEVER LOOK AT THE CHARACTER THE SAME WAY EVER AGAIN, the backstory has done its job. See: Up's Carl and Ellie, and Russell's simple "Phyllis isn't my mom," that changes the tone of the entire movie.

2. Characters who are unreasonable are just half the fun, you goof. Now, it's boring characters who are insufferable. Little Charlie shoots explosions whenever he sneeze and giggles about fire-boogers. Susie decides to pilot the Mechawing Deathtron 3000 and finds that she doesn't want to leave. Ever. Those characters are just so much better than pretty-boy perfection that I see more often than I'd care to admit. Remember, flaws make characters interesting, and youth/immaturity is a major flaw. Same with old age and senility. If you think that Susie in her annihilation machine is any worse than a crazy old grandpa who as a child prodigy "back in the day," you clearly haven't met Ms. Mary Sue. Flowers grow where she walks, and she never gets mad. She's beautiful, and all women hate her unjustly because she's so pretty and popular with the boys, but she just doesn't hate them. Booooooooooooooooooring.

3. My trademark is overdesign, even though I do try to tone down the level of excess fluff I add to my characters now. By the end of every bio, I end up asking people to proofread and ask me specifically the question "Why does X need Y?" (where X is a character, weapon, or ability, and Y is anything.) And if I can't answer it satisfactorily enough, it gets snipped.

I try very hard to remove myself from my RP comfort zone and play characters I don't understand or that force me to face something about myself that I was avoiding or ignoring. More on that in the next question.

4. Here's the most interesting answer I'll give tonight, and I summon the Powers of Seriousness to aid me in my explanation.

My life is far from empty. In these last few years alone, I've had to grow up very quickly and make some tough decisions; I've come of age, took a look at the world around me, and realized things about myself I never knew. I have fought through family illness, boredom, addiction, pain, fear, protective fear, loss, and disillusionment, which so far has been the worst of all. I've come out of it better and stronger and before, but forged in fire. My characters, including several nobody has seen yet, are based on aspects of myself, my body, my personality, my mind, my ideas, my questions...everything has been personified into writing. My creative juices are fueled by my blood, sweat, and tears.

I'll just name a few you've seen:

Tiure represents my piano playing and my "reserve" of innocence. I look to emulate Tiure's actions and work hard to accomplish mastery in whatever I decide to follow, preferably everything.
Miss Kai represents my secret shame and my hatred of my love of secrets. By playing Miss Kai, I allow myself to embrace but also to control this tendency to lie and cheat, protecting myself and others from harm and using it only when necessary.
Cyquen (No Deeper Earth - it's gone now) represents my manipulative tendencies. I haven't played him yet, so he has not had much chance to develop.
Yuxe represents my feelings of not fitting in and my desires for immortality, power, and knowledge. In later incarnations, he also represents my social chameleoning and my Aspergerian inability to fully understand my emotions.

It's deep stuff, and it's why I RP so many different characters. As I grow as a person, my character repertoire grows and expands with me. It's a little dorky, I know, and probably deeper than most of you take RPing. I think everyone does this on some level, though.



TJByrum -> RE: On the Subject of Characters (12/26/2013 13:02:14)

@Starstruck: Perhaps some people do like those youngsters piloting huge mechs or throwing fire around... but not me. I can't stand it. I hate being in roleplays with 9 year old prodigies who can out-pilot 30 year old veterans or something. It's... it takes all the realism and 'actuality' out of the roleplay... if you know what I mean. I'm also not saying I like an old guy who is better than everyone... most of my characters are 25-40 years old, which I think is normal.

I'm not going to lie, I like young'ns in other media. Take Ellie from TLoU for example: I love Ellie. Or Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass... well, I think Chloe Moretz is super-awesome anyway, but you get my meaning. It's just... I can't stand to see an anime picture of a 9 year old girl piloting some mech. It's just not me. Assuming she was around 18 or a bit older, I wouldn't mind.



Master K -> RE: On the Subject of Characters (12/26/2013 16:06:20)

I'm similar to Starstruck as that I play characters I can put myself into...usually. I usually play younger characters, or youthful characters. By younger, I mean teenager young. By youthful, I mean someone who looks like a teenager and such, but by age really isn't. I have a horrible habit of pouring tragedy into all my characters because, well, I want to give them a reason to feel pain sometimes. They have something to be sad about at times, or talk about, or try to resolve internally during the story. To me, unless it's good enough, I can't have a character who just grew up in a normal life. They have to feel some sort of pain. The loss of a friend, the loss of family, trauma, etc...

For example of my characters, I split myself between two characters, Brendan and Brandon. They're meant to be two halves of myself. Brendan (from the Dark Descent) was younger, more innocent in a sense, struggling with the memory (or lack thereof) of losing his parents. He did, however, have friends who cared for him, and he wanted to be an adventurer. He is pretty much most of my good qualities. His personality is quiet, ambitious, and impulsive. His crystal was the dragon he met, and it follows and watches him, desperately wanting to be back in the world of the living. Brendan is a lot more sensitive to the people around him, and is upset more easily in the sense of sadness.

Brandon represents...well, my "darker" side. He's the older one, and he's fiery, angry, and he's out for blood. He's fully aware of his tragic past and is still furious. He lost his parents, got adopted, then lost that family, and had to hit the road. He bears grudges easily, is temperamental, and ready to explode at the slightest spark of provocation. Because of the Elemental Championships, he hates Griffin's with a passion. He's impulsive, and wants to do his own thing without being held down by anyone else. He's the opposite of Brendan basically.

Referring to TJByrum's prodigies thing, that trait of my characters stems from my own vicious pride. I want to be better...so I pour that into my characters, meta wise and personality wise.
My characters are also usually based on a theme or overdesign in appearance. I feel the need to define a character's appearance. That correlates to my drawing, in which I define characters through hairstyles and outfits.



Chaosweaver Amon -> RE: On the Subject of Characters (1/7/2014 17:55:59)

1) I like characters who I can learn about slowly over time, people who have multiple different backstories, ones who become less of a mystery over the time we get to know them. I feel like we get more connected with them than someone we instantly know everything about all at once.

2) I can't stand cliche characters. Like 'noble and mighty warriors who slay dragons and rescue princesses' type thing. I find them entirely predictable, and when 'goody two shoes' methods get in the way of certain things, it just gets boring.

3) Well usually, for most stories I stick for someone who is entirely neutral. Usually I like people who are dark, intimidating, yet good. Someone who you don't expect to do certain things. Like, someone who you would instantly assume to be a ruthless killer who doesn't let anything get in his way, but with 'Morales'. Someone who you wouldn't really want to question, but it would be your own loss if you didn't.

4) I tend to base multiple characters off of either different aspects of me, as in one character may share the same fears as I, or someone may have the same opinions and whatnot, other times I make a background character as close to myself as possible, but you wouldn't notice them really, they wouldn't stick out in your mind much, and base the main characters on the people I know in real life.


5) What do you think of cliches? As in cliche 'heroes' or a 'They all lived happily ever after' type ending. Do you like them? Dislike them? Or are you just indifferent to them?



TJByrum -> RE: On the Subject of Characters (1/7/2014 18:24:56)

@Chaosweaver Amon: Sometimes it can be hard to make something without cliches. I try my best to come up with something unique, and I love it when I see other unique characters. But one of my biggest problems is using so many cliches. Take Torik Valgard, my staple character, for example. Torik is the typical hero-warrior; he does what he thinks is right, and he's a natural leader/warrior. He's cliche alright, but I feel comfortable with him.



black knight 1234567 -> RE: On the Subject of Characters (1/8/2014 10:41:16)

I've grew attached to my character model of that sarcastic chap who never takes thing seriously, which is often his biggest flaw. I just like a character with a certain charm of cold wit to him, sometimes I play around with the idea of a really run down person/character, with nothing to lose who have that characteristic about them.
Also, cliches aren't necessarily a bad thing, it's just how they're used. There is a reason why a cliche becomes a cliche, it's effective. When you find a way to nit the cliche well and blend it with the story, that's using them to their potential.



TJByrum -> RE: On the Subject of Characters (1/8/2014 13:03:46)

Good thinking BK, about the cliches.

Also, our two character models seem to be opposites. A serious, stoic, and lawful-neutral warrior is my type of character, who seems to be opposite of your sarcastic, cold-witted character. It'd be fun to use them more closely one day. It's like Captain America and Iron Man; Cap is old-fashioned, serious, and righteous, while Iron Man is 'hip', sarcastic, and playful.



Draycos777 -> RE: On the Subject of Characters (1/8/2014 15:12:15)

Hmm, looks like alot of people tend to base they characters on theirselves. Well I'm no different: Since Alice, Lumiel and other without names and storys(as of yet) are also different parts of me. I tend to lean towards mysterious characters or those that are closly conneted with the darkness element(Alice; not to mention her tiny bit of being anti-social in exchange for being self-efficient). Also I enjoy mages as I've played one in almost every game I play that has one.



Starstruck -> RE: On the Subject of Characters (1/14/2014 18:55:22)

Real talk. Real talk, guys.

A power that I (used to) love to randomly stick onto any character was something akin to Fireball and Telekinesis. The thinking goes that any good mage (or warrior or rogue or whatever) should be able to cast spells and lift things with his mind.

As I developed as a writer, I realized that not every character can be supernatural. More importantly, no supernatural character needs to cover all of the basics. Tiure doesn't need to cast a fireball. He has his sound bursts and if he needs to light something on fire well THAT'S JUST TOO BAD SWEETHEART. Find some fire.

THAT'S JUST TOO BAD SWEETHEART is my guiding philosophy during character creation. Never add something to your character "just in case." Add it because the character requires it. Want something that doesn't fit? Well THAT'S JUST TOO BAD SWEETHEART.



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