Familiar’s Slightly Sardonic Guide to Making a Character that Doesn't Suck!
Familiar’s Slightly Sardonic Guide to Making a Character that Doesn't Suck!
(Alright everyone, I’m going to be completely honest here and say that I might need a bit of mentoring on how to make a mentoring post. This is the first time I’ve tried to do something like this, so if there are things that you disagree with or feel like could be made stronger, just let me know! Hardly fair to offer help but not accept it, after all… This is still just the first part, with going through a fictional CS step by step being something that I’ll write up if this seems to get a positive response.)
Hello! I’m Familiar. I’ve been writing on and off in RPA for a few years now, as well as on numerous other sites on various pseudonyms. I’d like to think that I’m pretty good at it, after all this time, but there is one thing that I always seem to receive compliments on: Characters! At the same time, what is one of my biggest problems with the people that I play with? Characters!
So, I’ve decided to write up this, possibly pretentious, guide for how to avoid some of the pitfalls that I’ve seen players repeatedly falling into, as well as share a few tips and tricks for what I think helps allow my characters to make the grade. Before any details, however, there are three very simple questions that I consider golden when it comes to making a character.
Does the character have at least one attribute that could be considered unique out of character?
There is a very important distinction between being unique in character and unique out of character, and this is something that I’ll be coming back to over and over again over the course of this guide. Unique ‘in character’ is a trait that could be considered odd or unusual within the setting of the universe that the roleplay is set in, and there is certainly nothing wrong with having a character that is unique in character. Hell, unless you’re doing a slice of life RP, chances are that something will need to be unique about your character to even get them involved in the plot. The problem arises when people begin to confuse something that is unique within the scale of the universe itself with things that are actually inventive and original to the people behind the screen. For some examples, being the ‘last’ of a certain race, carrying a rare and ancient weapon, a dark and haunting backstory that has fueled a decades long quest for vengeance, et al infin. Not all examples are quite that obvious, but if you’ve RPed for a while, you should have an idea of whether or not you’ve seen your particular IC uniquenesses before.
Does that mean that you should get rid of some of the things that you think made your character interesting? Well… MAYBE! I’ll talk more about that sort of thing later, but what you do need to do is certainly insert something to make it more interesting for the people that you’re actually playing with. How? Well, this is where my ability to help is somewhat minimal. I do have a few general tips that might help spark something in you, however.
First and foremost, look at the RP you’re playing, especially for any details in the setting or mythology. Often a little detail that you otherwise would have passed over can give an idea for an interesting way to interact with the world as it was already laid out, even before the RP begins. With the changes that they have from our universe, what sort of new jobs would need to be created for the world to function as it does? Even menial jobs can evolve into unique characters and unique situations. Never assume that a job is too small for a character, especially with a little bit of creativity. So, play scribes! Play goblins! Play the little things that make the world that you’re playing in unique, and your character will be more interesting as a result.
Second, and this is (sadly) a very, very, simple way of making your character unique… Focus them around a fault, and don’t be afraid of playing a loser. Not the sort of fault that is ‘loner’ or ‘flies into a bezerker rage at convenient times’ sort of fault, but something that has actually been a recurring problem in your character’s life and has played a significant role in shaping who they are today. How many times have you seen a character that was missing a limb, that didn’t gain some sort of advantage from it? (People that have the limb replaced with ‘better than the original’ machine arms don’t count.) How did he lose it? How has it changed his life since then? Perhaps he was originally a warrior who lost his arm to a wasting disease, his days of battle ended by the loss of his dominant arm. What sort of effect could that have on him? How about a character that is, legitimately, ugly? Someone that’s been mocked her entire life based on nothing more than physical appearance? Even heavily overplayed things (again, later in this text) can be turned into interesting characters if treated with an eye that takes those events seriously and wants to explore the possibilities that such a character offers. The orphaned child/childhood abuse trope is hideously overplayed, often to make a character withdrawn or overly self-reliant. I’ll even confess that I’ve wiped out my PC’s family when I needed a way to get another interesting point in on one or two occasions. But, while a character that’s been abused in his past might be cliché, I’ve never seen a character that wound up with, say, a phobia of being touched by another human being. I’ve never seen a character that winds up having daddy or mommy issues to the point that it starts to affect how they go about day to day life. I’ve never seen a character that’s been so scarred by their experiences that they’re unable to physically have sex due to fear, regardless of how much they love the person they were with. These last three examples are all people that I have met in REAL life, and yet, I’ve not once seen anything close to them portrayed in most RPs.
Thirdly, and lastly, a good way to make a character unique is, ironically, to use an archetype. All that you need to do is use it in a way that it usually isn’t intended. How many female berserker style characters have you seen on RPA? How many males? How many gossipy ‘queen bee’ type females have you seen? How many males? Make the muscle-bound giant a staunch pacifist, who refuses to kill no matter what. Make the distant, workaholic a mother for once, or a stay at home male.
Will this character interact well with the other ones in the thread?
This is, unlike the previous and next questions, a fairly simple one to answer. Does your character seem almost exactly like another one that’s already there? Is your character adding a third sniper to the six man commando squad? Are you adding a character with a quiet, loner or meek personality when there are no strong personalities to work off of? Will there be some sort of common connection or conflict between any characters, or is it all ‘blah’? Is your character a vampire, werewolf or kitsune in an RP where those species have not once been mentioned? I think you get the idea. Be different from the people around you, but not so much so that you seem like you’re from a completely different universe… Unless that’s actually the point of the RP.
Have I put things into the character to just make them seem more ‘cool’?
Aaaah… Here I have something that I need to apologize for in advance, because I will be coming back to this over and over again, I am sure. Hell, it even ties into what I was talking about earlier with OOC unique and IC unique. But it needs to be said, and it needs to be focused on. I can take a bland character, I can even take a character that I’ve seen before, but the ‘Cool’ characters are the ones that make me want to drop RPs. For most of these example, I’ll be using the ‘swordsman’ character, simply because I have seen this character done so many times and so poorly, mostly due to following this very rule, that I can’t think of anything more appropriate to look at.
First, let’s get something out of the way. There is a rather large difference between what is actually, legitimately, cool in real life, and what is really, legitimately, cool in written fiction. This is due to one very simple reason: effort. To do something like becoming a master of a martial arts or sword form in real life takes years, decades, of dedicated work and practice. To say that your character is a master swordsman in three different styles takes about a half a second worth of typing. We cannot respect the character, because we have not seen the effort. We cannot respect the character because we have not seen the effect that it has had on his life. Attempting to add ‘cool’ things to your character for no other reason that you feel he needs cool things to make other people respect him will only serve, with any decent RPers, to make us roll our eyes and hope that it doesn’t get any worse.
So, does that mean that you shouldn’t write a cool character? HELL NO! This is escapism! We’re all here for fun, and there isn’t anything really fun about just playing normal people all the time. No… We want a little bit of spice, and having it is more than fine! But, if you want to do it right, you need two things: restraint and weight. Restraint is just what it sounds like, hold yourself back when you’re thinking about how cool your character should be. Limit it to one thing, or two things that are linked to each other. (He’s a great swordsman BECAUSE he was trained by the great lord dyingmentorfigure works. He’s a great swordsman AND he can summon Fireydeathdragon from the pits of hell does not.) If you start to go over the top, it stops being cool and it starts to be silly; adding on unrelated weapons, powers or feats that your character has attained just makes it seem like you’re trying too hard. Similarly, don’t create your character specifically to be the most ‘powerful’ member of a group. That’s the sort of thing that kills RPs and earns you a spot on people’s ignore lists. Collaborative writing like this doesn’t and shouldn’t have one real star, trying to take the limelight through fictional power and bodycount is not a good way to make yourself one.
As for ‘weight’, think back to what I said about real swordsmen seeming really cool in part because you know exactly how much time and effort was put into the training to become that skilled. The only way that you can mimic that effect is to show exactly how much time and effort was put into training by your character. Unfortunately, this is not as easy as simply typing “he trained for 20 years under Lord Dyingmentorfigure,” though I dearly wish it was. No, the only way to actually make the ‘cool’ things cool is by giving them weight. By making it effect the character beyond being merely a facet of their awesomeness and showing exactly how much the struggle to learn that skill took from them.
Compare:
Darkness McAwesomesauce uses a katana in battle, and can often be seen cutting a bloody swath through his enemies.
Vs.
Commander Derpy trained in the art of spork combat, going into seclusion with one of the few sects that still practiced the ancient form of self-defence, disappearing one day into the mountain range east of his small village and emerging six years later a changed man. His hair, once long and flowing, had been cut down into an intricate pattern of cornrows and twirls, the rest of his scalp appearing badly scarred, the ugly red wounds still kept fresh from their reopening with each morning ritual that the man had performed. He had slimmed, since he left, face growing gaunt even while his eyes burned with the fire instilled in him by his trials. Even the way he moved was different from before, his strides longer and prouder, yet still wary, never extending fully, weight never fully on one leg… It was a walk that the villagers knew all too well… He had sought the monk’s wisdom, and he had received it. He now walked the path of a warrior, even something as small as the way he walked carefully tailored to protect against enemy attack.
I’ll freely admit that I put more effort into Commander Derpy’s paragraph, but that’s because that was what was needed to partially illustrate just what an effect his training had had on him. Now, look back at those two and imagine that they were both on character sheets. Which would you say was the cooler character? Obviously, in real life, being able to beat someone with a spork is hardly as impressive as mastering the katana, but here, because of the weight that was given to it, I think that I can safely say that Derpy emerges as the stronger looking character, despite his ridiculous name and weapon.
So, what was the objective of this post? Well, to introduce you to my three basic questions that you should be asking during character creation.
Does my character have anything that can be considered unique OUT of character?
Will this character interact well with the other ones in the thread?
Have I put things into the character to just make them seem more ‘cool’?
If nothing else, remember these three questions, because if you are able to ask them and answer them successfully, you’ll have a character that you can at least flesh out and make interesting in the IC portion of the roleplay.
Coming up next, specifics!
All the best,
Familiar
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