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Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Printable Version

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Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Tahla'ra Molkot - 06-06-2017

I am not new to roleplay in general, but this is the first Final Fantasy game I have ever played, and I have made quite a grievous mistake with my main character.

When I first designed this character, I envisioned him as someone who was polite but honest, unafraid to speak his opinions on subjects with tact and grace, and was the sort of man who could pick up a variety of different skills without mastering any of them, sort of able to change his combat style as the situation demanded without overshadowing anyone with large amounts of time and dedication to a particular skill. His Echo power was suited to this sort of aesthetic- temporarily 'borrowing' other characters' abilities (With OOC permission) and then losing them again after a very short amount of time.


Unfortunately, what this concept has translated into is much less pleasant for everyone involved than I'd first intended. The character has sort of taken on a life of his own, due in no small part to my inconsiderate writing, and has gone from outspoken to preachy, egotistical, selfish, uninterested and extremely unpleasant to be around by the reports of my FC mates. "We're all just secondary characters to the Tahla'ra show," was how one friend put it.

Many people also find him difficult to roleplay with because the pace of his in-character progression has been quick and diverse, and it makes them feel as though he as a character is trying to one-up theirs, even though this wasn't my intention as a writer.

It has gotten to the point where officer intervention has been necessary not once, but twice, in regards to how alienating a character he is OOCly, without me having realized what sort of damage I was doing through him until it was far too late. I thought that the changes I had made after the first incident were enough to fix the problem, but I have been proven woefully incorrect.

 I've just accepted the fact that I'm not going to be able to turn him around without outside perspective, as the things I've tried to do to fix his issues (including dialing down his echo power and rewriting it completely) have not worked because of how I've written his personality, but I'm at a loss as to how to fix this without completely destroying who he is as a character.


I have spent nearly a year playing this character, and I'm not ready to put him down for good and start fresh. The question I pose to you is this: what can I do to turn this character around and make him more generally palatable without it coming off as a cheap ploy for him to get attention or just being fake after gaining a reputation for unpleasantness?

Thank you in advance for any replies and advice you have. I look forward to reading them.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Nebbs - 06-06-2017

First I would suggest stepping back and considering your own way of RPing. The cause is probably there and I would do some reflection on how you can improve. We have all done this, it is part of growth (if we take the time to reflect).

Remember you control the character and make the choices. 

Some things I would suggest:
  • Look for RP in the interactions not the Action
  • Try to enable and support others RP story, don't try to "fix it"
  • Focus on your flaws rather than abilities
  • Do have the character out of their deapth rather than the auto-win hero
  • Progress slowly, savour the RP in the moments, it is not a race and there is no win
As for your character, I feel he needs a breakdown and almost a reboot. Be the hero who lost his power and had to realise the hero is inside. 

Hope that helps, what is good is wanting to improve. I know I have bad habits I still fall back on from time to time.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Oyuu - 06-06-2017

(06-06-2017, 04:10 AM)Nebbs Wrote: First I would suggest stepping back and considering your own way of RPing. The cause is probably there and I would do some reflection on how you can improve. We have all done this, it is part of growth (if we take the time to reflect).

Remember you control the character and make the choices. 

Some things I would suggest:
  • Look for RP in the interactions not the Action
  • Try to enable and support others RP story, don't try to "fix it"
  • Focus on your flaws rather than abilities
  • Do have the character out of their deapth rather than the auto-win hero
  • Progress slowly, savour the RP in the moments, it is not a race and there is no win
As for your character, I feel he needs a breakdown and almost a reboot. Be the hero who lost his power and had to realise the hero is inside. 

Hope that helps, what is good is wanting to improve. I know I have bad habits I still fall back on from time to time.

Bolded some of Nebbs' great points! I think a key point is remembering that RP is a two-way street. It's a balance making sure your RP partners and yourself are having a good time. Being a one-man show obviously isn't working out for you, but I also don't recommend writing a character that is molded by someone else and not your own writing. 

Losing some battles could make your character more relatable, but you need to make sure it's not a total pity party or something that he easily solves overnight, there's no fun in that. Make him suffer, make him be humbled, make him ask for help. And remember to let those that want to help... help and feel like they accomplished something for a change. It's okay to let him be cared for, for him to lose or require assistance. Even the strongest of people have someone they can turn to in times of need. 

I think there is also issue with the echo ability that copies other people's abilities. Even if you're putting limitations on it, I'm getting the impression it is stealing a lot of the limelight from those who had those original abilities. Why can't those characters solve the problem instead of your character? There's a lot of various versions of the echo, maybe something that isn't so problematic as this one that you could experiment with. I know there's always going to be that strong desire to stay in character, but when your character's ego/power is causing this much of an issue, something needs to be dialled back. 

Try and get feedback from friends/people you RP with regularly. They will know best. But good on you for trying to fix it, not a lot people take time to reflect and try and make things more fun for others.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Mordred Lyloche - 06-06-2017

This is not something that is commonly accepted as an answer, but you also have to remember that strong writers, imaginative personalities, and the people who actually speak up and go out of their way to either initiate or keep RP going are going to be viewed - sometimes - with a stigma. It is exceedingly hard to hold a candle to the person who goes out of their way to make sure the book has another page rather than RP turning into that awkward, "we're just standing here staring at each other," thing.

The only real advice that I can offer, from my own experiences, is to take the time to put yourself in the shoes of a Dungeon Master. Rather than continually playing up your own character, put yourself into circumstances or what have you where you can pump up your friends and allies.

I did this, for example, by using my old Monk character by having him throw himself in the way of danger, thus giving the healers something to do. So on and so forth. That's just one example. The issue isn't inherently within the character itself or the character's aforementioned Echo powers.

Also, this often has very little to do with the power scaling of the character itself. I can't say that I agree with the terms that the other people are spouting. You don't have to turn your character into an anime protagonist who finds out that his friends were his greatest strength to have a good time and ensure that everyone walks away from the story fulfilled.

Throughout RP there are going to be times where your character is the main character and times where they are the deurotagonist. It's just the burden of the beast. (Little secret here: if you're a strong writer who often takes charge of the situation and keeps the story flowing, you're going to end up the protagonist more often than not and that breeds a bit of animosity.)

TL;DR: Strong writers run into this issue in groups of other writers because everyone wants to be cool and take charge but not everyone can. Either handicap yourself or just accept the fact that you're going to be running the show more often than not. Don't discredit or stomp on people when they try to take the limelight, but don't feel bad when you command that limelight because you're the only one who carries the story.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Ellmida - 06-06-2017

Honestly without actually seeing your character and how he rps it's difficult to offer any help with this, from the way you have described the situation it could genuinely be a problem with the character itself or it may just be an issue of how you could be pulling him off, it may be both. 

Depending on what the problem actually is there are some wildly different solutions to addressing it and without actually seeing how your character plays I'm afraid there's not much I can give you beyond(if you can) stepping back and using a different character to see if you get the same complaints. If you do it might be just a situation of stepping back and letting someone else take the wheel. If it's a character issue you may be better served finding some rp reason to adjust his echo so others don't feel he can just mimic their ability and make their contribution seem less.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Maia - 06-06-2017

As a LS leader, people have come to me with this type of complaint before about a character or two. I highly agree with everyone who has suggested to be cognizant of the other characters in the scene, and to share the spotlight whenever possible. To give some more specific examples of what has put others off to interacting with a character, though-

1.) Don't "force" people into RPing with your character. What I mean by this is, don't create a scenario that has such a high degree of emergency that characters MUST drop what they're doing and intervene.

A specific example might be a character getting so drunk during a social outing/event that they have to be constantly babysat in order to prevent them from falling off a cliff, drinking poison, etc. Another example might be that someone orchestrates a scenario over a linkshell where a baby is alone and in a room that's on fire, and the guardian (e.g., the character) is not able to save the baby themselves. This creates a situation where people have to drop whatever scene they're in, or whatever OoC thing they're doing, lest they be ICly labeled as baby murders. It is a very uncomfortable situation for others, even if the writer innocently believes they're just throwing out an exciting series of prompts.

If you want to go the "emergency danger" route in writing, it's best to do so in a formal event of your own creation, OR you can also talk to a friend OoC beforehand to ensure that they're on board with [emergency scenario] prior to casting out "if no one helps I/someone will die" hook. With the latter, it ensures that at least one person will answer the call to facilitate the RP, without pressuring anyone else to RP when they might not feel like it (although with the open invitation that they're welcome, if they're interested.)

2.) Be aware of the posts going on around you, and play off those posts/characters sometimes instead of generating your own independently. This usually works out very nicely, as it includes others instead of saying "look at me and what I'm saying!"

For example, instead of this:

DM: There is an orb. It glows ominously and such.
Mimimi Mimi: Um... I'm not sure we should touch that.
/em reaches out and grabs the orb, "We haven't got time to squabble!"

Try this:

DM: There is an orb. It glows ominously and such.
Mimimi Mimi: Um... I'm not sure we should touch that.
/em reaches toward the orb, but stops. His ears flicker irritably at the chatter around him before he remarks, pointing at [random character who hasn't said much so far]. "And what? You think [said character] should be the one to test it, instead?"

This not only pulls a potential wallflower into the scene, but it gives a moment of pause for other people to jump in and interact. Wait for what is said, and then respond. Sure, if literally no one is saying anything or trying to address the situation, then it's okay to take action -- but wait first, and see if anyone else wants a piece of the fun.

I actually have a couple of more suggestions, but I'm running late to work. I hope these help out some, regardless!

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Firefly - 06-06-2017

Brutal honesty inbound:

Kill the character off.

I know, I get it -- you don't want to get rid of him; in fact, that's why you made this thread, hoping to find some way to salvage the character.

Sadly, this isn't going to be possible.

The fact is, is that it wasn't you who identified the flaws of this character, but your FC-mates. The fact is, is that this character has warranted two Officer interventions.

Yes, you could analyse and reflect all you want on what went wrong -- and you can read the above posts (as well as my advice later on in this one) for that; but the sad truth is that the stigma of your character being who he was will never go away.

Furthermore, it's clear that you're incredibly attached to this character (not that I blame you; we all are attached to our characters to some degree), and that means that if you continue to RP him; no matter how much you change, there's a chance that you'll relapse into RPing your character in his old, aggravating ways.

Reworking a character like that takes a lot of retconning, a lot of redesigning; all of which confuse the other people you RP with, make your own RP un-enjoyable, and worst of all; rarely affects how others view the characters, especially because he's so established in your circle's narrative.

Your FC-mates feel as if he's been built up and up and up to be a big, huge badass (maybe an asshole, too, from what you wrote), as well as the center of attention.

The laws of character development and good pacing dictate that you kill him off.

He's at his peak, isn't he? How much more could he possibly develop; relevant to the rest of the cast?

Your FC-mates feel as if he's bloated with features; as if he can do everything, and constantly steals the spotlight -- hell, you probably feel that too, now. That's the problem.

And that problem isn't going to be fixed by reworking or adding on more layers to this character -- it's going to make it worse. People are going to roll their eyes as you go through another 'your character'-focused storyline as he handles life without his abilities; people are going to roll their eyes as you change and tweak and add things to make him more compelling, etc.

Not that stealing the spotlight is a bad thing, mind you. All RP will have someone stealing a spotlight -- that's just unavoidable. In fact, a lot of the best narrative moments are when a character takes the spotlight.

The problem isn't that your character steals the spotlight, it's that the others you RP with feel he does. This means that either you're stealing the spotlight when you have no reason to; or you're doing it in a very bland, uninspired way; or you're doing it in a way that stops others from having any fun.

As much as it sucks, and as much as it pains me to tell you this, but... Just kill him off, and start over with a fresh, new character -- one that you apply all that you've learned from this one to.

You can kill him off however you like -- but I suggest staying away from any melodrama. Give him a simple death -- one that will remind everyone else's characters of their mortality; one that reinforces the idea that even the best must die. Have his closing thoughts be of fond memories, his dying words ones of encouragement, apology, or love. End the character on a muted note to bring his bombastic story to a melancholic, bittersweet end.

In closing, here are some tips for your new character:
  • 'Stealing the spotlight' is a symptom of solution-focused Roleplay. Try to remember that encounters in text-based RP like MMORP are not puzzles to solve, or battles to win -- but stories to write together. In an encounter, think: 'what can I do to advance the plot/develop character/enable others to do so?'
  • Multi-talented characters are not bad. You can write strong/powerful characters in a very compelling way, but it requires a very reserved and skillful writer to pull off.
  • Special powers (like the Echo) are not bad, either. They are, however, great temptresses for engaging in solution-focused RP. In the hands of someone who has a very ego/me-centric RP-style, they get on everyone's nerves incredibly quickly, so again, you need to be a very reserved and skillful writer to pull special powers off.
  • Ensure that you remember that your character is a person. They will have flaws; some they probably don't even know or understand. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to focus on them. Focusing on them brings the exact same problem as focusing on the character's strengths if you're a sucky writer. Instead, make sure you know how your character was raised -- how they lived, and how they got where they are. Analyse their decisions. Why did they do what they did? Why are they here? How do they feel? Once you ask yourselves these questions, you'll ask yourself a thousand more, and once you answer those, then the flaws of your character will naturally appear.

Hope this helps, and my future self apologises for my drunk self's brutal honesty.

tl;dr kill ur character faster than a director can kill sean bean

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - QalliFlower - 06-06-2017

I've painted myself into a corner moer than once myself.  A few thoughts:

1) It helps to set a central point, theme, or other kind of guiding star.  Try pinning down what aspect made this character the most enjoyable to you, and get as specific as you can.  Once you know what you absolutely must keep, finding ways to change the rest is a lot easier.

2) Needing IC help from others helps to keep you with others, not above them.  He can (and probably should, from your description) be reluctant and unhappy about it, but seeking aid from others is a real and relatable lesson in humility.  The more open-ended your character's problem, the better - you want other players to decide what they'll contribute.

3) Downsides, mistakes, and losses are all cool.  They add to the story.  I don't mean to suggest that you have to dump a fresh list of flaws onto your character, but rather that you can think about the sorts of situations where your character would end up not in the right, and portray them honestly.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Kismet - 06-06-2017

I somewhat agree with Firefly in perhaps rerolling as a new concept, but my addendum to their suggestion is that instead of specifically killing the character (which I know is too harsh for some), you could just send them off on a never-ending adventure or w/e. Come up with a reason for them to go away and not need to be mentioned again, basically. That's what I did with my character Astrid once I felt I couldn't develop her anymore.

I won't go so far as to say you have/need to do this, but since I did something similar (albeit for different reasons), I just figured I'd offer my two cents. I do actually admire you for owning up to these faults at all, since I've met people in the past who had almost the exact same issues with their characters, but refused to acknowledge all constructive criticism given from multiple parties. Sometimes mere acceptance is the first step on the road to success.

I wish you luck no matter what you choose!

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Kilieit - 06-06-2017

(06-06-2017, 02:20 PM)Kismet Wrote: I somewhat agree with Firefly in perhaps rerolling as a new concept, but my addendum to their suggestion is that instead of specifically killing the character (which I know is too harsh for some), you could just send them off on a never-ending adventure or w/e. Come up with a reason for them to go away and not need to be mentioned again, basically. That's what I did with my character Astrid once I felt I couldn't develop her anymore.

I'd actually recommend this as well, simply because killing a character is also quite a high-drama, (borrowing from Maia's excellent write-up) "baby-killer" inducing thing to do. When you're trying to reduce your character's time in the spotlight, terminating their role in a way where characters will look like bad people if they don't mourn (i.e. spend more time thinking about and talking about your character) isn't a good solution.

You want to put them on a bus. That way other characters have a reason for not being overly concerned with yours' absence - "oh yes he said he was travelling to Sharlayan to study doowhatsits, of course he's not here" or what have you.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Firefly - 06-06-2017

The problem with not killing him off is that there's no closure for the player. And it keeps him open for a return.

Plus, killing him off in a mundane way will give much catharsis to the players who don't like him.

idk, putting him on a bus works too, i guess

kinda think putting him under it would be a better idea tho...

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Iteza - 06-06-2017

The death doesn't have to be dramatic. Just say he was allergic to peanuts, afterall...

But yes, I agree with the above. I'd start clean with a new character.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Erah'sae - 06-06-2017

Just to throw in a few non "get rid of the character" two bits....

If you don't want to write off the character, you can orchestrate something to cause change.   This can even be done in the background instead of making other people privy to it directly.  (And it gives RP opportunities when they figure it out.)

If the echo ability is at its core, and it's part of what makes him the 'centerpiece' of all the stories easily, orchestrate a way to lose it.  Again, do this off screen.  Have him deal with the initial blacklash of it offscreen as these are scene stealing style moments, and you're trying to get him away from being the center of the spotlight.

Losing his 'special' echo power would be a rather humbling thing.  With this being the centerpoint of everything combat wise, if I'm reading right, removing this means you've effectively crippled him and he's got to learn to deal with being 'normal' (whatever that is).

Aetheric burnout is a 'thing' that we've seen discussed in the MSQ and certain class quests, so you can use that as to why it's gone.

Having him effectively knocked down a few pegs might be satisfying to the others.  You can probably expect them to take out their frustrations a bit on him as the shoe is now on the other foot.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Arcian - 06-06-2017

I don't really have firsthand experience with you or your character, so please keep that caveat in mind.

That being said, while I'm less than eager to suggest that you kill him off (I don't like ganking my characters and not a lot of people that I know do either), I have to agree with Firefly on this one since she basically nailed it.

Your character's interactions and developments have created a considerable degree of OOC conflict and resentment, and have also required officer intervention not once, but twice? To me, that's a pretty big indicator that he's worn out his welcome past the point of feasible repair. I understand your reluctance to go all GRRM on him (you've played him for a year and put in a lot of literary and personal investment), but speaking from an outside perspective, I don't think there are many options left if the situation has gotten to this point.

tl;dr - You kinda gotta kill him, dude. Quietly, prosaically, and not in a way that might demand that he becomes the focus of attention, however temporarily. I'm glad that you've accepted that people are viewing him as a problem and that you're asking for help instead of just telling everyone with complaints to take a flying leap (it speaks to your maturity, because hoo boy have I known people who take the latter approach), but...you kinda gotta kill him, or at the very least permanently put him on a bus.

Then start over. Keep the feedback you've gotten here and from your FC in mind, and I think you'll avoid the pitfalls that you say you've fallen into with Tahla'ra.

Best of luck, whatever you end up deciding, and for what it's worth I'm sorry you're in this position.

RE: Fixing a character that's hard to swallow - Y'raya - 06-06-2017

I gotta agree that a lot of negative attention seems to have been drawn to the character, and it might be time to let the character go. BUT! Never think you can't come back to that character some day. When I started on WoW 12 years ago, I was ATROCIOUS. My characters were all kinds of bad. I mean. Really bad. Next level sue bad. But, over time, I grew as a roleplayer and developed characters further and began to find the things that not only made me feel confident and happy with my writing, but seemed to blend well with others too. Remember, people don't develop overnight. You might have epiphanies, but it takes time to actually act on them. Let your character be the same.

And then, down the road, if you want to unretire the character and ease them back in after you feel more confident you have a handle on it, go for it. Not every character has to die. People travel, right?

Also, no one can kill a character as fast as a director can kill Sean Bean. That's just not possible. That man is practically dead before he's even cast.