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Post by Tonks on Jan 15, 2014 18:22:18 GMT
Seen as only admins can post on the RPG tutorials section on the forum, I'm posting this on here. An analysis of my own characters throughout the RP: Suggestions on what makes a good and a bad characterAs we have recently had two new members to the forum it has made me think back to when I was new on the forum in May 2012. It made me think of the first characters I created and what I have learned since then. This has led me to write this as an aid to new members on character creation and also to get all members thinking about their characters, what’s good about them and whether they could be improved. Be Original: probably the most difficult part of making a character, especially when you have never done it before. How can I make my character different from the ones the RP is based on, or different to characters from other films, TV shows and books that I’ve watched recently? This is what led me to make my first character on the forum on the original Firefly RP (Out in the black), Dagan. Dagan wasn’t similar to any current firefly characters, so that must mean that he’s a good character to use, right? The problem with Dagan is that he was too good. He was too good looking, too friendly and too loveable. He was the ‘nice guy’ who never did anything wrong but lots of wrong had happened to him. He was drop dead gorgeous but didn’t think he was, and basically if it was on TV he would be the one they’d make calendars of and 13 year-old girls would write slash fiction about. Let’s look at the first post I describe him in: " Dagan was a very handsome man; tall, well-built, dark hair and a strong jaw. He saw this as a burden; all it had led him to was relationships with women who only cared about his looks and his body. Exercise was a kind of meditation to him; he always had a lot of anger built up in him and it was his way of controlling it. He was generally a pleasant man; polite and extremely modest. He'd only lost his anger significantly twice in his life.
The first time he was 11-years old; his father had passed away after being shot by a man that was never found. Dagan was the only witness. He froze as he watched the man flee the scene; leaving Dagan's father with a bullet through his skull. Later on, he was so angry at himself for not chasing the man that he punched the beams of his house until his knuckles were raw to the bone.
The second time was after Lin's death had been announced; he'd just heard the news and was walking home when he heard 2 men sat outside a pub laughing;
"What'd they expect; she were a woman fe' Christ's sake; o' course she were gonna get 'erself shot!"
Every laugh hit Dagan like bullets. Before he knew what he was doing he was beating the man to the ground; he would have killed him if he wasn't dragged away. He very nearly did.
Seeing Lin had reminded him of all these things that he'd put behind him. He'd built up a strong exterior over the years and she'd broken through it just by existing. He's been in many fights; he had quite a reputation in a few places; something he knew Lin wouldn't admire. He wasn't proud of it; he hates fighting; he's probably cried more times than he's punched. He also knew Lin wouldn't like the reason he was travelling; but he had to find him. He'd never forget his face. And when he finds him; he'll kill him.
Dagan sat up; he could feel his anger building up; so he dropped to the floor and began his press-ups.
"1, 2, 3...."" Aww look, he even has a soft and emotional side! Blugh! This was my error; my character was too ‘good’. Why did I make him like this? Well, because I wanted him to be liked! I wanted other characters to admire him and fall in love with him. Psychologists would probably say that making this kind of character was a reflection of my own longing for admiration and low self-esteem. They would have probably been right because hey, I’m human, and we all want affection. So, yeah, making a character based of what you would want to be like if you lived in a fantasy universe isn’t the way to do it (hint: making them the opposite gender doesn’t avoid this). Funnily enough, other characters really didn’t like Dagan and I didn’t understand why at first and was quite disappointed. It wasn’t until I made him into a complete nutcase (he got slightly ignored once so he trashed his room and punched a mirror and some other shit) that he was getting talked about and people started to be interested in him as a character. After realising this I was quite relieved when the RP had to be restarted because I wanted a new character, a character with flaws. Give them flaws: My second key recommendation. Flaws make characters interesting, memorable and give them and the story depth. After all, no one wants to hear about how Mr Shagsalot and Mrs Incredibly Fantastic defeated all of the evil creatures in some amazingly flawless combat where Mr Shagsalot beheaded 3 monsters with one swift sword swipe and Mrs incredibly fantastic shot an arrow from her bow whilst doing a backflip and shot a monster between the eyes and landed doing the splits with a rose between her teeth. BOOORRRIIIIINNNGGGGG. This leads me on to my next characters; Sarah and Miller in the original Melting Endeavours. Let’s look at my first post on this RP: " It was 0704 and Terry Miller was walking into training late, again.
"SOLDIER, YOU ARE 4 MINUTES LATE THEREFORE YOU WILL RUN 4 MILES AFTER TODAY'S TRAINING. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
Miller jumped back at the sound of his commanding officer's voice; "SIRYESSIR."
As soon as his back was turned Miller walked casually towards his fellow soldiers. "Late again, Terry?" A woman's voice mocked. "Sarah...I broke my watch, plus I was having a really good dream." Sarah shook her head, "Oh yeah?" "Yeah babe, me and you were sharing some quality time!" As he said this he thrust his hips, much to the amusement of his peers. "Call me babe one more time and I'll rip your balls off." There was a laddish "oooooooh" from Terry and his friends. "You're awful cocky for someone who just shat themselves in front of a senior officer" "I was just giving him what he wants, in fact, you were doing the same for me last night." Terry's friends laughed again. Sarah kept a stern, unimpressed face. "Strange, I thought this place was meant for the finest minds and greatest soldiers." "Oh I can handle a gun, babe." "If you manage to beat my time today, Miller, then I'll let you off. But if you fail to do so like you do every week, say goodbye to your balls." Sarah walked off towards the door. Everyone once again erupted in laughter, Terry just smirked to himself. "Oh she's mine boys, she's mine" "Are you sure?" Wayne asked, "'Cause ripping your balls off don't sound like much of an innuendo to me"" I think we can spot the obvious flaws with Miller; he’s a complete and utter cock. He doesn’t get better either; he doesn’t turn out to have a secret ‘nice guy’ side. He does have a slightly less show-off side but he’s still incredibly moronic and has an awful opinion of women. He really likes Sarah, but is too stupid to realise that being a cock, calling her ‘babe’ and thinking she has nice tits isn’t the way to win her over. He is, however, very good with a gun. For that reason, I can call Miller my first successful character. Sarah; badass feminist soldier who’s really good at her job and would never go near Miller (no, they do not ever end up together and nor will they). So what are her flaws? Well she’s good at putting a face on in front of Miller to come up with badass responses and put him down but he does actually really upset her and she feels like she’ll crumble when she’s around him and just start crying. She hasn’t, but she’s not aware that she’s strong in that sense. She’s also really panicky in emergency situations; she isn’t great at thinking on her feet. She hates being in leadership positions and can’t deal with the stress, but at the same time she’s getting quite good at it (though she doesn’t think she is). She isn’t as flawed as Miller and I’m not sure I’ve given her enough depth yet, but I tried hard to make these characters not like me, not like other characters I could think of (even though I did worry they were a bit of an American teenage cliché at first) and flawed. I think that’s what made them interesting to read as they clashed with each other, and this is how I believe you can avoid having posts that people skim read. It’s not easy though, and right now I’m struggling on the Firefly RP to not make the Captain the same as Mal; which is really difficult! Mal is my favourite character and as leaders tend to have similar characteristics to each other because, well, they need to, it’s hard to make Sam (my character) original. I think he will develop over time though and I will find a way to make him unique as the RP goes on. Below is a list of actual Firefly characters and what I see as their positive and negative attributes. Hopefully this will give you a further idea of what I’m explaining. Character | Positive | Negative | Mal | Attractive, level-headed, quick-thinker, loyal, good shot, stern | Stubborn, never opens up, no time for personal feelings | Zoe | Loyal, good shot, knows how to talk to the Captain, protective and loving to Wash | Very military focused mind – personal life comes second, tends to value Mal’s opinion above all others | Wash | Funny, very skilled pilot, loyal, protective and loving to Zoe | Awful in combat, doesn’t use weapons (usually hides) | Kaylee | Very skilled engineer, cute, loveable, enjoys simple things (strawberries, pretty dresses) | Awful in combat, doesn’t use weapons (usually hides), very scared in confrontation, not good at lying, hopelessly in love with Simon | Inara | Attractive, good friend to Kaylee, very professional, friendly | Doesn’t open up, no time for personal life, doesn’t speak her mind | Jayne | Strong, good with guns, ‘doesn’t take crap’ | Only cares about money and his own safety, disloyal, rude, untrustworthy, quite stupid | Simon | Amazing doctor, attractive, protective and loving to River, willing to sacrifice self for her | Too focused on River, doesn’t think about his own wants and needs, completely oblivious to Kaylee’s love for him, pretentious | River | Reads minds, tells the future, complete genius, incredibly gymnastic and athletic, great in combat, loves Simon | Fucking crazy, might save the world or might just stab everyone | Shepherd Book | Forgiving, peaceful, surprisingly good in combat, the ‘diplomat’ | WE NEVER GET TO FUCKING FIND OUT. |
As you can see, it’s the flaws of these characters that make them so interesting! It’s wanting to know Shepherd Book’s dark history of flaws that makes me annoyed there were no more episodes! Another interesting thing to point out is River. River is clearly the best character in terms of ability, but she also has the biggest flaws. This balances the characters out nicely and gives you something to keep in mind when making well-abled characters. If you want to try and figure out whether your character is too similar to you and whether he/she has flaws, ask yourself how they would cope in these situations: • Realising they were gay or finding out a sibling was gay • Having someone close to them die • Being bullied at school • Winning the lottery How would you react in these situations? Is it basically the same or how you wish you would react? If so then your character probably needs changing. Do they act really well and diplomatically to all situations? If so, they probably aren’t flawed enough. I hope this proves useful to everyone and gets y’all thinking about your own characters, how they’re good and how you might make them better! P.s. don’t make the mistake of only giving them flaws either, they need some good points or someone will just kill them
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Andaru
Goody-Two Shoes
I...like...cats...cos...they're...fluffy... The End
Posts: 337
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Post by Andaru on Jan 15, 2014 19:15:33 GMT
TLDR
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Post by PenguinNinja on Jan 15, 2014 19:24:36 GMT
I did not know dis.
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Post by Tonks on Jan 15, 2014 19:34:50 GMT
wut
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Playle
Talking In Your Sleep
Posts: 441
Deadly Sin: Sloth
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
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Post by Playle on Jan 15, 2014 19:58:28 GMT
I’ll be the first to admit that when I first began on the forum I had very poorly written and thought out characters. I wrote on here as well as another RP forum website to the point where I think I was involved in about fifteen or so different roleplays at the same time! I swiftly lost track of who was who, what character had what traits, why this character acted in such a way… well, I cut down on the number of threads I was in after that. I’ve stuck to this forum alone as well, just because I know the community and I know people’s writing styles. Because of this, I’ve begun to develop characters who mesh better into stories and plotlines than I did when I first began writing.
Example 1: Dilaynis Feathermoore, from the original “Rise of the Sorcerer”, early 2010
This character’s origins actually came from how I played The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion at the time. I didn’t have a focus in magic or melee, I just kind of combined both into a class of my own. With a pinch of backstory and lore here and there, I made a fellow who I thought would work relatively well with the rest of the party.
As a spellsword, he was a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. He wasn’t going to be flinging lightning bolts out of his fingers or slicing through ogre’s necks willy-nilly, but he had a little bit of skill in both fields. It probably wasn’t his skills in both fields which made this character what he was. It was his alcoholism to the point of dysfunctional behaviour. Even meeting the group, he tried his flirting out on elf with a series of vulgar thrusts (and vomit in his beard). It took him a hop, skip and a stumble to complete basic tasks, but his loyalties did lie with the group (apart from promising to stay on the wagon). He was somewhat sweet and bright when sober, vulgar and absent-minded with a bit of spirit in him – two sides of the same coin.
I really liked this character, but he was an entertainer rather than a person. His flaws had a purely comedic effect, and in reality an alcoholic in control of conjuring fireballs would have had more serious problems than simply making bad first impressions. I chose to abandon Dilaynis, well for now at least – he was fun, and I’m sure he would be If I wrote as him again, but he wasn’t a fully three-dimensional character.
Example 2: Doth’fon, from “Blue Twilight”, early 2012
This Warcraft-themed story drew me back to when I was an avid WoW player. I chose to make a character different from the one I played as in some respects, but similar in a number of other respects. I made a Troll Hunter (hunter’s in WoW are folks who control beasts, shoot arrows, set traps, track things) who had a pet raptor. He was a bit of a lone-wolf and a pariah, but he enjoyed solitude and life on the road. Well, a story about a troll walking through Azeroth on his own would be boring, and he would have to meet some folks along the way (i.e. other characters controlled by people). His encounter was awkward and clunky, especially because he spoke in a thick Jamaican accent (as most trolls do), but he tried his best not to scare folks off.
This thread didn’t truly take off if you asked me, so Doth’fon had little time to come into full bloom. Straight away, I noticed a problem. This character was written for humour value, not as much as Dilaynis, but partially. This character had no close ties other than his pet, and had those who would see him dead – he wasn’t safeguarded from negative opinions just because he was my character! He was flawed, but flawed in terms of social interaction and his language barrier. I would write as this character again, but I don’t think he developed fully. Certain situations would bring out his true colours maybe, and I guess that can be hard in an RP. You can’t always have every aspect of your character, good or bad, highlighted in one single event or episode.
Example 3: Mei Xing, from “Flying Fupai”, late 2013
Mei is the pilot of the spaceship in this story. Of course, the criteria of “good pilot” was necessary when drafting this character, but I didn’t want to rip off Wash from Firefly. Wash had this zen-like approach towards flying; in the most chaotic of events he could drift through it without panic. I made sure to make Mei more stoic in her duties, but also she treated flying as a job rather than as something to be enjoyed. Reason; Mei was once in cahoots with a gang of cutthroats and slavers who did all sorts of things she had to just live with. Feigning happiness and steering the ship was the best way to put those awful memories to rest.
In her interactions with Sam she is like a little sister who doesn’t quite understand the gravity of Sam’s emotions but still tries to help. With Fayth, she is even warier of what to say but she cannot help with her positive demeanour even in grim times. Mei tries to share her positivity, but knows it will work on some and will not on others. So far, she hasn’t been seen flying the ship (y’know, her actual job) so she’s moving between the rooms to just interact in a friendly way.
I’m happy with this character. She’s quirky, but not in a Sheldon Cooper way to get laughs. She’s caring, but not patronising. She’s got her own issues, and bottling them is unhealthy, but it’s not like she’ll let her smiley face down. She isn’t exactly combat-ready either; she used to be surrounded by gun-toting pirates who would do the shooting when necessary. This is also why she’s a little nervous around Fayth – Fayth could probably blow her brains out if she felt inclined to do so. Mei is a nervous little lamb who tries to be happier than necessary to compensate for her insecurities – for me she’s a well-rounded character who will shine in some situations and be a bit of a hindrance in others, just like most people are.
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