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When creating your character, how do you balance between being too boring and too snowflake?
In my opinion, there is not a boring soul out there, yep, even those trainspotters wearing anoraks. Okay, I personally found a trainspotter I knew boring, because our interests didn't match, but he found himself interesting and as did his friends.
I think it's a question of finding something interesting about your character and bringing out that quality, something you're interested by, be it certain characteristics or traits, you can bring about depth. Even if you're simply a merchant's son who collects coins and likes to go out fishing on a friday, you might not be an exciting adventurer, but there are probably interesting life experiences and stories to tell. Perhaps with a bit of alcohol down your throat you might lighten up and be a bit of an animal. There can be interesting secrets or interesting things to have happened in your life or even interesting things that are to happen.
If you can make connections you find interesting, then I guess it makes it easier. Though I see no point playing a character you're not interested in, because it's harder to sustain and harder to get something out of it.
I know I am saying this as somebody who jumped right in an said "I'm gonna be a pirate captain", but I've added some depth to his character and thought about what kind of person he'll be. I picked captain because I've gone in the intention of starting a shell & FC.
I think to avoid Mary-Sues it's a question of trying to understand what people are like. You could take a Mary-Sue and completely descontruct her, on the surface she may be perfect, but deep down she has her own flaws, like the rest of us. She might be judgmental of others, she may cover her own mistakes and always put herself in the positive light, little miss perfect, living to an image, hiding her true flaws.
When role-playing with others, what character traits, personalities or actions have you found to be interesting and enjoyable to RP with and/or what have you seen just not work or appear too boring to engage your character?
I've barely roleplayed to be fair. A bit of an RP flair on WoW, SW:TOR and a friend's forum. I've always felt those trying to engage their character as though they were human (so to speak) have been more interesting. I remember in WoW, I encountered a bar maid, she was just like a normal barmaid, she wasn't doing anything over the top or bigging herself up. She was doing her shift, she engaged with her patrons as the patrons told their stories. In a way she was a catalyst for discussion, which is true of a good bar-person and in this sense helps a roleplay.
In another roleplay I encountered a discussion with a drunk who was a bit of a conspiracy theorist. I don't know who he was or what his background was, but I have met conspiracy theorists at bars, generally the alcohol will get that out of you. Sometimes it can be the little things that can leave an impression.
On another occasion, as a Night Elf Death Knight in Stormwind, I met a bigot. He didn't take too kindly to have my sort in the bar. Whilst the Death Knights were allied with the Horde and Alliance, but in this world there were individuals not comfortable with it and the guy played his part as the bigot. He was clearly prejudice. I on the other hand was having an identity crisis, Night Elves don't take kindly to the unholy, so becoming a Death Knight is a fate worse than death for a Night Elf. So rather than doing the whole, "you're a bigot" and sticking up for myself, I just downed my drink and accepted his insults. Somebody else stuck up for my character though.
For me, it's a turn off once people start going over the top, breaking the fluidity of roleplay, like a badly dubbed movie. Of course not everybody is an expert creative writer and I wouldn't expect them to be. I think it helps to take on the identity of who you're playing, whilst that may seem agiven, I think sometimes there can be a distance between the roleplayer and the character. You are the character, you're not playing a character. Perhaps this is why people say creativity is a mental illness?![Wink Wink](https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/images/smilies/wink.gif)
Where do you find the line and when do you think it can be easily crossed while still being within the lore? What kind of advice would you give given your past experience.
I think lore is important, but I'm not anal about it. I think it's acceptable for people to make mistakes. I also think just because a certain culture in lore exists for different characters backgrounds, I don't think it should dictact how a character should be. Not everybody is a paragon of their own cultural virtues, some go completely against tradition. If people can do that in the real world, why not a fictional one? For instance, the name principles of my characters I mentioned in another thread. The principles break lore so to speak, yet lore is broken with reason. I think people need to work within the realistic confines of the world your character is based. So, you're not going to be Sephiroth with a jetpack weilding a lightsaber (as badass as that would be) and I don't think anybody's going to be knighted by the Queen of England either.
I think it's also worth bearing in mind some of the other restrictions - I don't think you could become Sultana just as you wouldn't become the Emperor in SW:TOR, because if you were able to (if you choose to ignore cutscenes and the game's story), there's probably about 5 other people trying to fill that spot.
In my opinion, there is not a boring soul out there, yep, even those trainspotters wearing anoraks. Okay, I personally found a trainspotter I knew boring, because our interests didn't match, but he found himself interesting and as did his friends.
I think it's a question of finding something interesting about your character and bringing out that quality, something you're interested by, be it certain characteristics or traits, you can bring about depth. Even if you're simply a merchant's son who collects coins and likes to go out fishing on a friday, you might not be an exciting adventurer, but there are probably interesting life experiences and stories to tell. Perhaps with a bit of alcohol down your throat you might lighten up and be a bit of an animal. There can be interesting secrets or interesting things to have happened in your life or even interesting things that are to happen.
If you can make connections you find interesting, then I guess it makes it easier. Though I see no point playing a character you're not interested in, because it's harder to sustain and harder to get something out of it.
I know I am saying this as somebody who jumped right in an said "I'm gonna be a pirate captain", but I've added some depth to his character and thought about what kind of person he'll be. I picked captain because I've gone in the intention of starting a shell & FC.
I think to avoid Mary-Sues it's a question of trying to understand what people are like. You could take a Mary-Sue and completely descontruct her, on the surface she may be perfect, but deep down she has her own flaws, like the rest of us. She might be judgmental of others, she may cover her own mistakes and always put herself in the positive light, little miss perfect, living to an image, hiding her true flaws.
When role-playing with others, what character traits, personalities or actions have you found to be interesting and enjoyable to RP with and/or what have you seen just not work or appear too boring to engage your character?
I've barely roleplayed to be fair. A bit of an RP flair on WoW, SW:TOR and a friend's forum. I've always felt those trying to engage their character as though they were human (so to speak) have been more interesting. I remember in WoW, I encountered a bar maid, she was just like a normal barmaid, she wasn't doing anything over the top or bigging herself up. She was doing her shift, she engaged with her patrons as the patrons told their stories. In a way she was a catalyst for discussion, which is true of a good bar-person and in this sense helps a roleplay.
In another roleplay I encountered a discussion with a drunk who was a bit of a conspiracy theorist. I don't know who he was or what his background was, but I have met conspiracy theorists at bars, generally the alcohol will get that out of you. Sometimes it can be the little things that can leave an impression.
On another occasion, as a Night Elf Death Knight in Stormwind, I met a bigot. He didn't take too kindly to have my sort in the bar. Whilst the Death Knights were allied with the Horde and Alliance, but in this world there were individuals not comfortable with it and the guy played his part as the bigot. He was clearly prejudice. I on the other hand was having an identity crisis, Night Elves don't take kindly to the unholy, so becoming a Death Knight is a fate worse than death for a Night Elf. So rather than doing the whole, "you're a bigot" and sticking up for myself, I just downed my drink and accepted his insults. Somebody else stuck up for my character though.
For me, it's a turn off once people start going over the top, breaking the fluidity of roleplay, like a badly dubbed movie. Of course not everybody is an expert creative writer and I wouldn't expect them to be. I think it helps to take on the identity of who you're playing, whilst that may seem agiven, I think sometimes there can be a distance between the roleplayer and the character. You are the character, you're not playing a character. Perhaps this is why people say creativity is a mental illness?
![Wink Wink](https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/images/smilies/wink.gif)
Where do you find the line and when do you think it can be easily crossed while still being within the lore? What kind of advice would you give given your past experience.
I think lore is important, but I'm not anal about it. I think it's acceptable for people to make mistakes. I also think just because a certain culture in lore exists for different characters backgrounds, I don't think it should dictact how a character should be. Not everybody is a paragon of their own cultural virtues, some go completely against tradition. If people can do that in the real world, why not a fictional one? For instance, the name principles of my characters I mentioned in another thread. The principles break lore so to speak, yet lore is broken with reason. I think people need to work within the realistic confines of the world your character is based. So, you're not going to be Sephiroth with a jetpack weilding a lightsaber (as badass as that would be) and I don't think anybody's going to be knighted by the Queen of England either.
I think it's also worth bearing in mind some of the other restrictions - I don't think you could become Sultana just as you wouldn't become the Emperor in SW:TOR, because if you were able to (if you choose to ignore cutscenes and the game's story), there's probably about 5 other people trying to fill that spot.
![[Image: enjin-480381-1364062850526494969-green.png]](http://sigs.enjin.com/sig/enjin-480381-1364062850526494969-green.png)
The Scholar Captain