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Vysce the Lad · **12-16-2013, 12:01 AM**

Hi guys! I'm new to the site and FFXIV, but I'm a big fan of the series and I've been RPing for a few moons, and lemme tell ya, I'm not getting sick of it anytime soon.

One thing I've noticed, as I'm sure you all have... is there is ALOT of characters that are written and played to be all dark and anti-social. But of course that's no bad thing! Characters usually turn out this way due to traumatic events in their past, and are now haunted by it. One recalls Lightning, Cloud Strife, Squall Leonheart, Cecil Harvey, and Terra Branford... to name a just few! All great characters... but If Rinoa hadn't pulled Squall into dancing with her... he would've sat near the edge of the dance room, brooding to himself... just an example... if you get the reference Tongue

!

I'd like to urge rp'ers to not be so discouraged while rping such characters! But it does take a bit of a nudge sometimes. It's okay to be a bit creative to jump in when you see a lonely person sitting in taverns. Like for instance, your character could simply be so tired that he or she grabs the nearest seat by a person sitting alone, and then see if theres a spark of rp there!

I direct this doubly so for our out-going characters out there! Pull that brooding elezen into conversation... just to see why he's got that sour look on his face!

I personally wrote my first character to be out-going, caring rather little for pleasantries and leaving strangers alone. He's always bugging adventurers he sees about the wonders he's never seen, having never left Thanalan all his life. In this way... I almost force the rp out of those lonely adventurers!

That being said, there is a big difference with being cute and nosey and talkative... and bugging the crap out of a character. You can't expect people to just go along with your prodding if their character is firmly against it, of course.. and the same applies mostly to real life. And this goes without saying, but if you'd want to pull one into rp in a dramatic fashion, it never hurts to send them a tell, asking if it okay. I once had a character who tried to cleanse me of poison... by slitting his own arm and dripping his blood into my wound.Â Not something I'll condone, eh?

I hope you guys find more rp out there... I've seen a few threads on here with lonely people seeking more connections and friends. And I hope I don't come across too presumptuous. Although I'd be lying if I didn't think myself kind of a genius~ Moogle

But feel free to add your thoughts on how to rp with those big brooding types here too! Considering I posted this right :/ Â ~See you in-game!

Knight Kat · **12-16-2013, 12:30 AM**

I've played broody characters before. I can't take it; I get too lonely Sad

Because of this, I have absolutely great appreciation for those people that can RP and stick with playing a broody character.

My current character may not be an extroverted social butterfly, but she is not what I would define as broody.

I always make an attempt to at least ICly acknowledge broody characters. I have made a mental note to try to be inquisitive about broody characters. Theirs is a strong burden to bear of wanting to get involved, but not being ICly prone to it.

Sophia_Grave · **12-16-2013, 12:54 AM**

When making a brooding character, I find it best to have a plan beforehand. The cynical loner PCs can be great for diversity, but without others to force them into being social, they usually just end up in the corner twiddling their thumbs.

DimmerMeerkat · **12-16-2013, 01:14 AM**

I mained an anti-social broody-type character in Aion. It was a little difficult at first, but I acknowledged that I needed to do something OOCly to initiate some sort of interaction with other characters. I think a lot of people, regardless of the type of characters they play, aren't usually very willing to go up and start to talk to someone.

So, I have some advice for anti-social types: Manipulate your environment to force your character to react, if nothing else is going on. Glower at people. Be in the way of people so they bump you when they pass. Put yourself somewhere that people are going to not have to go terribly out of their way to acknowledge you--don't stuff yourself in a corner.

Vysce the Lad · **12-16-2013, 01:32 AM**

(12-16-2013, 01:14 AM)DimmerMeerkat Wrote: So, I have some advice for anti-social types: Manipulate your environment to force your character to react, if nothing else is going on. Glower at people. Be in the way of people so they bump you when they pass. Put yourself somewhere that people are going to not have to go terribly out of their way to acknowledge you--don't stuff yourself in a corner.

THIS is excellent advice!!!!Â Cactuar

Tiergan · **12-16-2013, 01:45 AM**

Basically here to second/third what others have said.Â If you're going to roleplay a dark, brooding, mysterious, anti-social loner-type guy/gal, then you have to have a plan to get some interaction going.Â Otherwise you're just cutting yourself off from a ton of RP.

Kieron Lohengrin · **12-16-2013, 02:16 AM**

The interesting thing about Final Fantasy, taken on the whole as a franchise with decades' worth of history and fandom behind it, is that you can find precedent for almost any character archetype. Bad emo haircuts? Squall et al. Boisterous, upbeat troublemakers? Zidane, Locke, Yuffie. Hypercompetent professionals? Basch, Auron, Cidolfas Orlandeau. Improbably talented children? Eiko, Relm, Rydia.

It's nothing we haven't seen before, so broody and tragic-past people just need to remember two things: have something that makes you relevant (i.e. a hook) to others, and don't overdo your "I'm so emotionally scarred and tragik hurrdurr" bit to the point that others start rolling their eyes. The most badly-written backstory I was recently subjected to involved a toon murdering their whole family by accident, whipping themselves repeatedly for it, and being raised/sold an imperial slave, and being possessed by IMMENSE UNTOLD EVUL BEING.

At some point you simply have to step back and go, "I've crammed this character with so much toxicity, maybe I should stop to check if other parts of my home life aren't making me toxic or spiteful, and affecting me as a writer and person, too." Then adjust accordingly and rebalance. There's always that fine line between catharsis and cruelty.

little-patchy · **12-16-2013, 04:03 AM**

I get the feeling that playing a brooding character requires a lot of narration, perhaps through custom emotes, since brooding is all about being -- you know -- subtle? Though, there are great writers out there who are masters of dialogue who can convey such a personality through what a character says.

Darkfae · **12-16-2013, 05:36 AM**

I play two different kinds of anti-social characters, though it never really occurred to me until stopping at this thread. I'm not sure what that says about me...

So, first we have Kym'a. He's very shy, perhaps to the point of it being painful for everyone around him. He generally won't initiate contact with other people, so I have a few different ways of initiating it for him. The first and foremost way is that he is a total klutz, so I'll literally just have him fall into RP situations -tripping, accidentally hitting someone with his tail, dropping things in the way of himself and others, etc.

He's a SCH, and I actively role play both the ACN aspects and more recently the SCH aspects. I also actively use the pets in role play, something I've done since table top games with my necromancers and their summoned pets, and such.

His Emerald Carbuncle is more of an active hook, as she's a bit of a bitch and will sometimes be the cause of aforementioned falls or will outright push him towards people, or she'llÂ go initiate contact with people, because she's very vain and a bit of an attention whore. Macha's a lot like a cat, really...if cats were mafia bosses, because she's a bit more cunning than your average cat - she's put Kym'a into some awfully strange situations to get him to do what she wants, or get her what she wants.

The faeries are a bit more of a passive hook. He mostly brings Althea, his Eos fae, to events. Even though she can't talk, she does use a lot of body language, and has a very clear personality (based on the fact the SCH quest faerie had a clear personality in the cut scenes). People usually start talking to Ky just because the faerie is there, and their curious, or they'll see Althea actively instructing Ky on healing and watch them work and get curious. This forces him to talk and interact.

Needless to say, all three methods take a lot of emoting, because I do all of my pet interactions via emotes. Even after the talking gets rolling, the pet actions are still done via emote so that they're clearly not part of the talking conversation.

Anti-Social number two is Claire, and her brand of anti-social is the more classic brooding anti-hero kind. I think. She's just not one for using energy for excessive amounts of words or actions. She doesn't really show much in the way of emotions in public, and her humour is generally dead panned in presentation if she bothers with it at all. She's seen a lot of combat, and thinks like someone who focuses on fighting more than anything else, and she has a very clear cut set of goals in life.

There are, however, a number of things about her that do draw attention that I emote as RP hooks; not all of them are things people notice, so I do put sort of clauses on the ones that need them. She rarely keeps her back to the open, usually keeping it to a wall or some form of solid structure. Something people familiar with combatants will notice - when she enters a room, she always takes a moment to analyse all of the room's occupants, gauging their combat strengths and weaknesses based on their body language; she also tends to keep track of where people are in a room in relation to herself. If she ends up not immediately engaging with people, I will continue to emote what she's doing from time to time to let people know that I am an RP, and hint that she might be approachable. Like if she's reading her book, she'll glance up and look around, take a drink or eat something, look at specific people, etc, before looking back down at the book.

There are hooks that will draw her attention, though. Having reverse hooks for anti-social characters kinda does help too. (Like Kym'a's reverse hook is languages!) If people start talking about combat, or mention the front lines, or talk about the Maelstrom, or aetheric creatures, she'll usually find a way to draw herself into the conversation; she immediately finds a way to join the conversation or will become a super-active eavesdropper if someone mentions specific monsters or persons (but that would be telling).

So...yes, high levels of narration like Azalea noted, and like Sae said, manipulate your environment into responding to you, along with having some sort of reverse hooks that always draw your character in are pretty solid ways to make RP work as an anti-social character

Vysce the Lad · **12-16-2013, 08:03 AM**

(12-16-2013, 05:36 AM)Darkfae Wrote: .....

So...yes, high levels of narration like Azalea noted, and like Sae said, manipulate your environment into responding to you, along with having some sort of reverse hooks that always draw your character in are pretty solid ways to make RP work as an anti-social character

First off... I love your characters. I think Kym'a sounds like all kinds of adorable! Moogle

Also you brought up some great ideas to bring people into rp. By creating a custom emote to show you are idle not only gives the tiniest intro on what your character is like, but also invites others to see that you do, in fact, rp. Thus people are more likely to wander over. It's also good to have an emote admiring/studying another character's armor, as almost a subtle invitation to invite them over. If anything, it makes the world more alive.

That being said, new players should know that the range of things in /say is rather small, and I think the /emote ... might be smaller still (Or vice versa). From the railings of the Quicksand, for example, I can't hear the /say or /emote from characters sitting in chairs at the other end of the room. Keep that in mind if you get the feeling you're being ignored... they might just not be close enough to see your text!

Tla · **12-16-2013, 09:29 AM**

I admire people who can play such characters with success. T'lamila, and so other chars of mine in the past, was supposed to be one, but my nature forced me to change her at some point of rp. I like making others feel welcome, involve everybody in rp, especially newcomers.
Â I could just go on with my antisocial character and wait for someone else to achieve that, but the truth is between anti-social characters and characters who just don't care about strangers/not friends in general (or perhaps the person behind doesn't too) I always felt pretty much forced to turn my character into more interactive. Though, instead of making her someone who really cares about others/is friendly, which would be not fitting for her, I just made her suspicious enough about everybody to feel the need to inquire about them personally.Â

But yes I wish antisocial characters would always find a way of being involved themselves without the need for someone to drag them! So many times I've seen people complaining that if they rp everybody ignores them etc...and even if you try to drag them in, give them all the attention, etc..they'll do no effort themselves and end up going away because they feel (ooc) Â lonely in that rp. Nice suggestions all over this thread!

Aurelie Eleveur · **12-16-2013, 10:27 AM**

(12-16-2013, 01:14 AM)DimmerMeerkat Wrote: I mained an anti-social broody-type character in Aion. It was a little difficult at first, but I acknowledged that I needed to do something OOCly to initiate some sort of interaction with other characters. I think a lot of people, regardless of the type of characters they play, aren't usually very willing to go up and start to talk to someone.

So, I have some advice for anti-social types: Manipulate your environment to force your character to react, if nothing else is going on. Glower at people. Be in the way of people so they bump you when they pass. Put yourself somewhere that people are going to not have to go terribly out of their way to acknowledge you--don't stuff yourself in a corner.

He did a really good job with it, too. Was interesting to watch how he'd interact with some of the more 'bubbly' and 'playful' people RP'ing around him!

Darkfae · **12-16-2013, 11:50 AM**

(12-16-2013, 08:03 AM)Vysce the Lad Wrote:
First off... I love your characters. I think Kym'a sounds like all kinds of adorable!

[sic]

That being said, new players should know that the range of things in /say is rather small, and I think the /emote ... might be smaller still (Or vice versa). From the railings of the Quicksand, for example, I can't hear the /say or /emote from characters sitting in chairs at the other end of the room. Keep that in mind if you get the feeling you're being ignored... they might just not be close enough to see your text!

The point of Kym'a's existence is to be adorable. >.>

And yeah. I had no idea how short the range was till I tried to RP with Merri one night, and discovered he couldn't see the emotes I was making at him at what I thought was a decent distance. In every other MMO I've played, that would have been more than close enough for him to see. Since discovering this, I've sort of had Claire in particular prowl around a room before ever sitting down so I can see who all is RPing and what all is being RP'd when I enter an area.

And yeah, I totally just made that text huge so people just skimming caught that. It is so vastly different from other MMOs, especially if you're coming here from GW2, where you could hear the /emote from the other side of the god damn map...

***Maril*** · **12-16-2013, 12:13 PM**

Playing an anti-social character, like everything else RP requires a lot of thought and planning. I have seen, and experienced myself, the negative effects of playing a character that is brilliant in a lot of other aspects, but not in the one where 40-50% of the RP is gonna happen. One of the big ways that one can go wrong, I find is when you set too many limits upon your character, many times I've heard from players that they can not find RP, because their character would never visit a tavern, because they are anti-social. I would encourage anyone stuck in that situation to give an attempt at a different approach - Bring your character to that tavern. Is he/she going to like it and sit about smiling? No! They'll likely be grumpy (Or scared, depending), they might not even say thanks for that drink they couldn't do without - Make them act like a guest you'd never invite home. Sitting alone in the farthest away corner makes it difficult for people to interact with you, because they need a reason to do so - So instead of doing that, walk up to the bar and claim that someone took your favorite spot and they have to move. Dare to sit right in the spotlight and emit so much grumpy that people'll feel compelled to ask why.Â When you catch people's attention in an interesting way, you might even find yourself getting followed outside by a curious soul - providing an opportunity for your character to ease up the grump cause they're not in a social setting anymore - and that's where real friendships are forged, slowly but surely you can find your character develop new tendencies over time which might make him/her feel less anti-social in familiar social situations, but where the full onset of say, grumpiness, is still felt if anything new happens.Â
Oh and, if other characters try to help your character "get over" something, such as scared and shy-ness, please follow along - I am not saying you need to change into a bedazzling fancypants charmer over night, but when people keep on trying and never see any improvements despite their very best attempts, it's going to discourage them from trying eventually, or maybe even kill the relation completely. Most people I've met who have social characters will feel some kind of need to help or fix whatever is (appearing to be) broken in a person.Â

Having had a few characters being on the other side of the fence, so to speak, I really do not blame people for not interacting with people who are sitting in a corner being quiet. Unless you, like my current char Sastra have a reason for going to a person like that (To offer a drink, waitress and all) I have a hard time seeing why anyone would. There of course are a few reasons that could work, but it'd depend on having a character that carries traits that'd proc them, and those might be rare to meet on a random chance encounter.Â

Sorry for the novel, I hope some of it made sense Smile

C'kayah Polaali · **12-16-2013, 12:39 PM**

I want to echo the excellent advice Sastra gave and add this point: if you want to get RP with a broody anti-social character, it's best to not be a broody anti-social player. What I mean is I've seen people create that sort of character and then just stand around looking gloomy while wondering why no one's RPing with them. There are dark, broody anti-social people in the world, and if you want to play one, then fine! But talk to people OOCly and try to set up RP that way. Be cheerful with them. Be constructive. Try to work out ways that your dark and broody anti-social character can add to other people's RP. Join one of the linkshells that are set up for OOCly organizing and discussing RP. And when you're talking about what your character would do, try not to focus on the "no's". Instead of saying "No, sorry, my character wouldn't be caught dead in that tavern, I can't be part of that RP", say "Well, my character doesn't hang out in taverns, but we can say he just arrived in town after a long journey and he's in there just to get a meal". Instead of just being that guy sitting in a corner, arrange to have pick-pocketed some other character in the RP (or they pick-pocketed you), with the victim recognizing the thief.

In short, be out there as a player and help enable other people's RP. That's the best thing you can do, really.

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