Post by Karaeless on Jul 9, 2016 14:35:02 GMT -7
--- Character Personalities ---
Okay, now you've got your character. Here are a few things to consider when you're playing them.
You need to keep in mind how the character acts, speaks, and thinks, their personality, their quirks, strengths and weaknesses. You need to be consistent with your character; if you wrote your character to be cool and aloof, then don't have them buddy buddying up with a complete stranger. Find some other way for your character to get to know another person. Also keep in mind, if you are using prewritten rules, what the book has described for the type of character you've chosen to take on. Your character doesn’t need to follow every example given for their race/class/etc. but these are general examples for a reason.
Think about pushing yourself. You can choose to create a character that easily could've been another person you met on the street, or to simply type words on a screen and not really expand yourself. This approach often makes for generic characters that aren’t very interesting to play, or to play with.
Okay. Once you've gotten your character set up: name, history, personality, abilities, strengths and faults. It's time to play!
When playing your character, you need to keep in mind the qualities that your character possesses. Try to keep consistent with your character, if your character changes personalities from time to time, like in a specific situation, then that's fine. What I'm saying is that you do not have to keep just one personality for one character, but you do have to keep it constant. Don't write up one way then suddenly change to another simply because it suits -your- mood at the moment.
What about character evolution. That happens, yes. Personality can change but rarely will it bounce around from 'a' to 'j' back to 'b' to 'd' and then back to 'a' not unless your character has multiple personalities, that usually doesn't happen in real life. But, like I said, personality can change; say if your character was a happy-go-lucky, laid back guy who worried about nothing and then one day suddenly saw their best friend killed in front of them. I would imagine they'd become a bit more paranoid, scared and withdrawn.
If this is a lot to remember, especially if you are just starting out, write it down somewhere and you can refer to it when you find yourself slipping.
--- Character Abilities---
I know some of you might be asking 'what about character evolution for abilities?' There's nothing stopping you from evolving your character as you play. However, change doesn't always happen in an instant. It's hardly possible that a once powerless creature would, suddenly, the next day achieve super abilities that would allow them to do this or that. Like in real life, you cannot learn to play the piano beautifully without first going through at least a few years of practice. You would need to play your character practicing and attempting to gain this new ability you want before you can actually call it your own. And I'm not saying practice for a few days either.
'And what about dormant abilities?' you might ask. Sure, they'll appear, seemingly, out of nowhere; that doesn't simply mean that your character has already mastered it. Dormant means the abilities haven't been used, either ever or not for a long while. This means that if your character has learned to use the abilities at one time, they should be rusty when it appears again. Of course, this doesn't mean you have to start from the bottom rung again; your character might just have to do a bit of tweaking and fine tuning to regain their skills completely. It's like playing a sport - you learn and you become great at it but then you don't play for several years and when you finally do try again, you aren't as good as you used to be.
The main thing here is to keep things realistic; don't try to do things too fast or too much at once, like you wouldn't in real life. Nothing is impossible in the world of roleplay, that's true but on the whole...to get from point 'a' to point 'd' you have to go through the logical steps that precede point 'd'.
--- Character Limitations ---
I found that sometimes people do not realize and keep in mind the limitations of their characters in a real world setting.
Say, for example, a disrespectful thief sneaks into a party.
It is understandable that, were someone looking right at the entrance at that time and happened to know the guests invited to the party they would notice that the thief wasn’t on the guest list and to alert a guard or the host/hostess. However, if there isn’t anyone looking at the doorway or everyone is engaged in their own conversations, it wouldn’t be realistic for everyone to suddenly notice that an uninvited guest had entered.
Or for the entrance of the thief to be ignored but as soon as the thief makes any act of disrespect towards the host, etc. the whole room turns upon the offender as if they had their attention on this one person the entire time.
I’ve seen characters having conversations with five or six people at once, and on top of that suddenly noticing that a stranger has entered the room. I’ve seen characters doing something on one side of the room and being able to spot another’s character show some sort of disrespect for another member and immediately responding despite the distance between them. I’ve seen characters that have abilities that they shouldn’t have.
Granted that some creatures will have great abilities that would allow them to do all of the above, but what I am trying to say here is that people do not seem to be able to keep in mind the limitations of their character.
For example, even having five or six conversations at once is a momentous task. While you can easily type the conversations to people on the screen, you should keep in mind that the character is ‘real’ and you need to think realistically what that character is able to do or not.
Just play your character as it is. Don't give it abilities suddenly just because you want to be superior. Don't do what you can't do, excluding abilities, in real life.
Okay, now you've got your character. Here are a few things to consider when you're playing them.
You need to keep in mind how the character acts, speaks, and thinks, their personality, their quirks, strengths and weaknesses. You need to be consistent with your character; if you wrote your character to be cool and aloof, then don't have them buddy buddying up with a complete stranger. Find some other way for your character to get to know another person. Also keep in mind, if you are using prewritten rules, what the book has described for the type of character you've chosen to take on. Your character doesn’t need to follow every example given for their race/class/etc. but these are general examples for a reason.
Think about pushing yourself. You can choose to create a character that easily could've been another person you met on the street, or to simply type words on a screen and not really expand yourself. This approach often makes for generic characters that aren’t very interesting to play, or to play with.
Okay. Once you've gotten your character set up: name, history, personality, abilities, strengths and faults. It's time to play!
When playing your character, you need to keep in mind the qualities that your character possesses. Try to keep consistent with your character, if your character changes personalities from time to time, like in a specific situation, then that's fine. What I'm saying is that you do not have to keep just one personality for one character, but you do have to keep it constant. Don't write up one way then suddenly change to another simply because it suits -your- mood at the moment.
What about character evolution. That happens, yes. Personality can change but rarely will it bounce around from 'a' to 'j' back to 'b' to 'd' and then back to 'a' not unless your character has multiple personalities, that usually doesn't happen in real life. But, like I said, personality can change; say if your character was a happy-go-lucky, laid back guy who worried about nothing and then one day suddenly saw their best friend killed in front of them. I would imagine they'd become a bit more paranoid, scared and withdrawn.
If this is a lot to remember, especially if you are just starting out, write it down somewhere and you can refer to it when you find yourself slipping.
--- Character Abilities---
I know some of you might be asking 'what about character evolution for abilities?' There's nothing stopping you from evolving your character as you play. However, change doesn't always happen in an instant. It's hardly possible that a once powerless creature would, suddenly, the next day achieve super abilities that would allow them to do this or that. Like in real life, you cannot learn to play the piano beautifully without first going through at least a few years of practice. You would need to play your character practicing and attempting to gain this new ability you want before you can actually call it your own. And I'm not saying practice for a few days either.
'And what about dormant abilities?' you might ask. Sure, they'll appear, seemingly, out of nowhere; that doesn't simply mean that your character has already mastered it. Dormant means the abilities haven't been used, either ever or not for a long while. This means that if your character has learned to use the abilities at one time, they should be rusty when it appears again. Of course, this doesn't mean you have to start from the bottom rung again; your character might just have to do a bit of tweaking and fine tuning to regain their skills completely. It's like playing a sport - you learn and you become great at it but then you don't play for several years and when you finally do try again, you aren't as good as you used to be.
The main thing here is to keep things realistic; don't try to do things too fast or too much at once, like you wouldn't in real life. Nothing is impossible in the world of roleplay, that's true but on the whole...to get from point 'a' to point 'd' you have to go through the logical steps that precede point 'd'.
--- Character Limitations ---
I found that sometimes people do not realize and keep in mind the limitations of their characters in a real world setting.
Say, for example, a disrespectful thief sneaks into a party.
It is understandable that, were someone looking right at the entrance at that time and happened to know the guests invited to the party they would notice that the thief wasn’t on the guest list and to alert a guard or the host/hostess. However, if there isn’t anyone looking at the doorway or everyone is engaged in their own conversations, it wouldn’t be realistic for everyone to suddenly notice that an uninvited guest had entered.
Or for the entrance of the thief to be ignored but as soon as the thief makes any act of disrespect towards the host, etc. the whole room turns upon the offender as if they had their attention on this one person the entire time.
I’ve seen characters having conversations with five or six people at once, and on top of that suddenly noticing that a stranger has entered the room. I’ve seen characters doing something on one side of the room and being able to spot another’s character show some sort of disrespect for another member and immediately responding despite the distance between them. I’ve seen characters that have abilities that they shouldn’t have.
Granted that some creatures will have great abilities that would allow them to do all of the above, but what I am trying to say here is that people do not seem to be able to keep in mind the limitations of their character.
For example, even having five or six conversations at once is a momentous task. While you can easily type the conversations to people on the screen, you should keep in mind that the character is ‘real’ and you need to think realistically what that character is able to do or not.
Just play your character as it is. Don't give it abilities suddenly just because you want to be superior. Don't do what you can't do, excluding abilities, in real life.