More suggestion, including a Essay of sorts on characters My friend had originally written for a Forum RP, but it doesn't have too many references to the RP, yso its mostly understandable except for references like "Cathay-Raht" or "Void Ranger." But context can give some clue.
Allerleirauh wrote:
Forum Roleplay Characters: what every newbie should know before creating one
After over a year of watching new people join and leave Loranna's roleplay, I've started to sort new arrivals in the roleplay into categories. I could write an essay on the subject of what NOT to do when you join a forum roleplay - and it occured to me, such an essay might be helpful to new people trying to join. If you think you resemble any of the following remarks, well, you probably do. Everyone was a newbie once.
First of all, before creating a character, read some of the past threads. If reading several pages written by the other posters is too much for you, you aren't going to be able to keep up anyway, so you might as well quit before you start. You want other people to be interested in what you write, correct? That means it's only polite to pretend to be interested in what the others write.
Besides, you need this information. You need to know what the other characters are like and which niches remain to be filled. If you don't know this, you will create a unique and interesting character - maybe a Cathay-Raht, or a Tongue - just like the other unique and interesting Cathay-Raht and Tongue who are already participants in the roleplay. No one wants that. You don't want that, and the guy whose schtick you are stealing really doesn't want that. Sometimes major participants take a break for a long time, so you also need to talk to others in the chat before finalizing your character. Make sure you are talking to an old-timer, like Loranna herself, and not to a group of 4 people who all joined a month ago.
Second: think about why your character is here, and what reasons he has to interact with the group. Probably the most common newbie mistake is to create a taciturn character who doesn't like to interact with other people and has a past full of secrets too painful to talk about. The newbie quickly figures out that not talking to anyone in a forum roleplay where the action is defined solely by the interactions between players makes for a boring time. Within the day, the "silent loner" starts following the other players around like a neglected kid brother, blurting out his "unshareable secrets" to anyone he can persuade to stand still long enough to listen.
This is embarrassing for everyone. Don't let this be you. Instead, create a character who likes to talk to people, or at least has a plot-related motivation to talk to the other characters.
I would say that you should also create a character who wants to tell others his backstory, but I'm not going to say that. Why? Because no one wants to hear your backstory.
But - but - you spent hours and poured creative energy into your backstory! And now I'm telling you not to tell anyone?
Yes, that's what I'm telling you.
Your character's backstory is for YOUR benefit, not the benefit of the other players. YOU need to know where your character comes from and what he cares about so you know what he would do NOW, in the present, in his interactions with the other players. As a rule of thumb, never tell anyone your history unless it comes up in conversation, either because someone asks or because it gives your character a unique insight into the current situation.
Think a moment. You have probably met people in real life who told you their whole life histories on the first date. And there probably wasn't a second date, because someone who will talk endlessly about himself without listening in return is self-centered and boring. But - you say again. But, but... my character's past isn't boring! It's dramatic and unique and full of traumatic experiences which shaped him into the person he is today! Yeah, yeah, okay. I hate to be the one to break it to you. It's still boring, unless we know and care about the people involved. Parents, children, significant other, brutally slaughtered? Seen it. Abused, sold into slavery, humiliated as a child? Join the club. Cursed, half-breed, unique and fascinating artifacts? Oh, please, not another one.
Face it. If you want a unique and interesting backstory, your best bet is to play a well-adjusted character with a happy, uneventful childhood.
Or - you can wait until people know and care about your character before revealing details of your history. The problems of our friends and enemies are interesting problems. If my best friend reveals that she was molested as a child, had a traumatic abortion, and is now contemplating suicide, I am going to feel strongly about the situation. If someone I never saw before strolls into a chat room and says the same thing, I will wonder why some people feel such a desperate need for attention. If a stranger in a face-to-face situation - say, a woman standing next to me at the grocery store - says the same thing, I will assume she went off her meds today and wonder why the security guard is never around when you need him. That's me. And I like hearing about other people's problems.
So, three rules so far: be aware of the characters who already exist in the roleplay before you create your character, don't create a loner with no reason for interacting with the other players, and don't talk about your backstory before the other players get to know you enough to care about you. Let's move on to a discussion of the special problems facing evil characters, and uber characters.
A well-played villain is a joy to everyone in the roleplay. Playing an evil character well is an advanced skill. If you just joined the group today, I don't trust you that much, and neither does anyone else. So don't try it.
Join the group with a character who is, if not exactly on the same page as the other group members, at least capable of sharing a room with them without bloodshed. Let us get to know you. Later, after you demonstrate to the other players that you understand the balance of the roleplay, and are trustworthy, you can try playing a villain.
Actually, evil characters and uber characters have closely related problems: this is a forum roleplay, and there are no dice here. That means that your character cannot make anything happen to another character without trust and agreement. You may say you are an assassin, but your poison and your dagger will have no effect unless the player roleplaying your target agrees to be assassinated. And none of the other people playing joined the roleplay in order to feel ineffectual, weak, or stupid. This is heroic fantasy. The player characters are all heroes. The job of the villain in heroic fantasy is to give the heroes a chance to show off their skills, and then to lose.
If this sounds fun to you - losing, entertainingly, and showing the other players a good time - by all means, play a villain. After you have proven to the other players that you have the wit, lack of ego, and responsiveness to other players' feelings to do the job right.
Which brings us to uber characters.
If the job of the villain is to lose, the job of the uber character is to provide convenient deus ex machina solutions that move the plot forward when it gets stuck, without standing in the other players' light. I play, arguably, the most uber characters in Loranna's roleplay: the guild of Void Rangers, people who have discovered the limits of the game world and how to escape them and manipulate them for their own benefit.
This isn't easy. For starters, there's the suspension of disbelief factor. Allie's character has been established, step by step, gradually revealing more of her nature and abilities until people were willing to accept her, over hundreds of threads and thousands of posts. I took a sabbatical of two months and found when I returned that I had to start all over again with the new players who had joined in my absence, because they didn't know the history of the roleplay, and this all seemed a little far-fetched to them.
It's very simple: if you walk into a bar on your first day with a 4,000 year old supermage who knows what happened to the Dwemer, you will not impress anyone. Some players will laugh at you, and have fun mocking your character in the roleplay. Other players will simply leave the room whenever your character arrives, to avoid conflicts. The kindest players will make a "hmmm" noise like Marge Simpson and suggest you start with something more basic, and allow your character to evolve during the roleplay.
Remember, your character cannot do anything, either to help or harm, without the agreement of the other players. If you make a post about nuking Balmora, all I have to do to make you look like a fool is post, "My character sees your guy waving his hands around to no effect and thinks, wow, who left the gates of the insane asylum open?"
If you play a very powerful character, you must first justify your character's abilities in lore to the point that other players are willing to accept them. Then you will spend the rest of your life trying to figure out reasons for your character not to use his abilities to solve the plot problems of the group instantly without getting the other players involved.
It's really easier just to make a more ordinary character.
Remember, what makes forum roleplay characters unique, what makes them good, isn't uber abilities, or powerful artifacts, or belonging to a race that can only be played using a mod. It's you. Your perspective, your insight, your unique gifts as a writer and player, as you react to the other participants in the roleplay. That's what we're all here for. There are an infinite number of different ways to be a hero. We want to see yours.
Its pretty good advice, even if it’s a bit harsh at parts.
And some of my own:
- Realistic character action: Think things through from your character's point of view before doing something. If you've got a handgun leveled at your head, do not try to do anything grossly stupid, like walk away to take a piss. I have to force myself not to simply post "Aki blows stupid nub’s head off" or something simply in real life that would have happened. Your lack of thought would leave you lacking the back half of your head. Pretty soon, I will be doing that. Maybe people will learn when they have to bury a character before he could grow and expand himself.
Another part to this is; don't suddenly walk from one conversation to another because the guy you're talking with went offline. Yes, you may want to RP, but why would your character suddenly stop a conversation with his best bud when two strangers are talking some distance away?
- Random Encounters: Something Newbies seem to like to do. Enemies will simply pop out of absolutely nowhere. Like the RP suddenly turned in a Japanese RPG and now we got random encounters every 5 or so steps. Don't get me wrong; a reasonable random encounter is great, like bandits on the road. But timing, and the reason behind the encounter is key. If you want Werewolf hunters to storm the house, kindly wait for the two WW lovebirds upstairs to finish sorting out their problems before doing so.
Do you ever see a point in movies where two characters are making up after a bad argument in their relationship and shock troopers suddenly burst through the windows out of the blue?
- Wounding: I know, we deal with werewolves here, but some of the s*** I've seen you shouldn't be getting up from so fast. I've seen people get their throats ripped out and miraculously, not die, despite that being a fatal wound. Unless you've got magic, I'm fairly certain if you manage to get your throat ripped out you die. Now, f the other player was simply powerpalying far too much, I can let it slide and yell at the other guy, but if you're the reason you're throats getting ripped out, and there’s nothing to save you well, sorry, Rest In Piece, and make yourself a new guy.
And other non-lethal wounds, unless the Werewolves are uber on the scale of regenerating broken bones in a matter of seconds, please don't get up from having your legs crushed by a car. And if you get shot, and the Werewolves aren't the kind that takes anything that isn't silver without being injured, act like you've been shot. Bleed; possibly collapse, because bullet wounds are usually fatal. If you want to get shot, make it somewhere non-vital, but remember that if you get shot in the shoulder that'll still impair use of that arm regardless. You don't need to get injured, in the RP that big essay up there posted I play a Werewolf myself, and its a Morrowind RP, the Werewolves there can't regen fast unless they killed (and presumably eaten) someone, then its one HP per second, but they're vulnerable to everything, like normal folk. Silver just does a hell of allot more damage, almost equal to the finest quality weapons you'd use on normal guys.
I simply survive in that by not getting hit, as the Werewolves there are like that, super agile and strong. Shouldn't be much different here right? Don't need to take that hit somewhere vital, or get hit at all.
Instantaneous Shifting: I know, Werewolves shape shift, allot, but I see people shapeshifting like its a 2 second process. It’s kinda...unrealistic. In the RP I've mentioned earlier my werewolf once ran afoul of mercenary Werewolves, the only reason they didn't kick his a** was because they politely let him shift so he could fight them at his maximum. And it was a nonlethal fight. Had they wished to kill him, a claw to the throat would have been it. If you're gonna shift, be aware it takes time, and it gives a great opportunity for your opponent to cut your head off. I don't think you want your corpse to look like some Werewolf in mid-shift right? Mid-shift weres look fugly.
Crazy NPCs: Okay, this isn't about NPCs who are mentally insane, but more NPCs who act funny. As in, weird, unrealistic. No offense, but dude, don't steal a tank and expect enemy soldiers to not go "The hell?" and board your tank and kill you Halo 2 style. Or at least, blow it up.
And, NPCs who seem to be total morons, yes, I know the werewolves are the heroes, but don't make the enemies idiots. Who's your favorite bad guys? The moron gangsters who shot the hero and die miserably, or the ones who put up a decent fight before dying so the hero can reach the Boss-enemy? Thought so. I can understand making untrained gangsters morons, but don't make a military force idiots. Whether it be in fighting, or organization. People don't leave ID cards lying around to open that door. If your character isn't a hacker, and can't beat the door down, go somewhere else or find a character that is. Failing that, reasonably find something that might be nearby to assist you, like heading to the armory and grabbing a RPG to blow down the door. And the NPCs will try to halt this.
Etc.
Lore: Stay within it. For another reference to that RP from the Essay, my guy is the only Werewolf, And in there, Werewolves are killers, but mindless ones, but precise killers, they lack control, but dammed dif they aren't cunning as hell. Now, my Guy, Reichi, managed to control his Lycanthropy with a book, a ring, and lots of training, which is a reasonable excuse to break lore.
Well, eventually, I got the chance to make another player into a Werewolf, and you know what he did? He somehow was instantly *controlled* and managed to do something Reichi can't even do - shift back and forth from human to gestalt on a whim, Reichi shifts to Gestalt and night and has to ride it out unless he's got his ring, which prevents the nightly shifts so long as worn (once remove he shifts if its night.). That was just. Well. I'll just say he had argument over something completely different with the other RPer's and left.
Moral of the story; stick to lore, its more fun to have to RP with the guy who turned you to learn control than it is to be insta-controlled when Werewolves are typically monsters.
Character strengths and weaknesses: Know these, know them well. If you a foot soldier, you expertise is killing things, not flying planes or driving tanks. If you're a civilian, no sniper-shot accuracy please, and if you've never wielded a sword in your life, don't put up anything resembling a good fight to a swordsman. If your character is a
fanastic warrior, make him crappy somewhere else. Maybe he's piss-poor with anything electronic. If you're a skilled hacker, do something like being a total wuss in a fight.
Quirks: Character quirks rule. Simply put. They can be something simple, like a obsession for the taste of a freshly baked sweet roll, to being an Attention-w****. Or maybe you're crazy. Not killer-crazy, maybe you've got a split personality. Each side constantly bickering with the others, meaning you walk through the street talking to and yelling at yourself.
Great fun, that.
Entrances: Dramatic entrances are fun, to a point. Sometimes, when people are in a conversation or such, they suck so much a**. Because it immediately kills the focus on the player who was explaining why he became a assassin, and to you, who just stumbled into the bar, bloodied, broken, and naked. Do it when relatively nothing is going on.
Last one, I promise.
Going offline: A common RP beginner’s mistake is when they're offline, their character needs to be put somewhere safe, and say, go to sleep, this isn't the case, its reasonable to assume your character was with everyone else.
Especially if the group went somewhere far away or otherwise impossible to get to. Its insulting to the player if your character suddenly wakes up where they left off rather than where the group was as if the group callously left you behind. That basically saying the group is composed of prick that'd leave a friend behind. Don't do it, ya know?
Well, that’s it. /Rant over. Sorry f I came off offensive or harsh, that’s probably frustration, and such. No offense to anyone, just, try to RP slowly, taking your character's thoughts, actions situation and such in mind. And if its realistic for them to survive these things.