What's Your Weakness?

[shdwsng]

Rheya has a crippling level of low self-esteem, as well as a bit of a martyr complex. She's done horrible things in the past and feels she needs to atone for them. Which blends nicely with some prickly trust issues to leave her pushing away any sort of close relationship. However, she deeply, deeply craves that sort of close bond. She just doesn't believe she's worthy of it.

 

Also, she's managed to divide the world into "Users", "Losers", and "Us". If you manage to get past her prickliness, you're a friend for life. Otherwise, you're either someone to kill, use, or run away from. And may the Twelve help you if she thinks you've betrayed her once she lets you in close... Because she will make you beg her for death, and she won't let you stop suffering.

[Moondoggie]

I'm still fleshing this character out especially now i've hit lvl 50 and got the white mage robe i wanted for RP purposes so i can relax and work on a character more. But let's see...

 

Because of Konan's lack of contact with people outside her tribal group until recently she is still scared of the other races and finds it incredibly difficult to talk to people. She's also somewhat immature and very naive which makes her easy to lie to and manipulate. She's a magic user but physically very weak and pretty much useless in weapon combat. 

 

 

She has a fear of very crowded places and anybody who is much taller than her and since she is very short and scrawny that is nearly everyone who isn't a Lalafell not that she trusts them much either...They could sneak up on you and before you know it they have ripped your toes out and....Yeah. She also dislikes physical confrontation. Hunting fauna for food is one thing but a confrontation with one of the many races of Eorzea can send her into a panic of running and random healing spells.

[Grott]

Uther is proud, he's morally stubborn, and he's very reluctant to change his methods to adapt to a modern world. He's used to the "old ways" of Ishgard, and doesn't understand that war against the Empire is a completely different situation than war against dragons.

 

He sees the world in black and white, and isn't comfortable dealing with gray areas, but he's slowly starting to open his eyes to a world that isn't separated into simply "good" and "evil".

 

Physically, he's a grand specimen of the sophisticated warrior archetype, though he's a bit short by Elezen standards. He stands at only 6'6, where as most seem to be 6'8-7'0.

[Raccoon]

Seth's got an obsessive drive toward gaining power, which gives him tunnel vision of a sort, often causing him to take paths that are more difficult than others and blinding him to the consequences of his actions until they are put right in front of him. He's also cruel, suggesting things that others would be reluctant to, and generally ostracizing him from company he'd prefer to keep. He's the first to suggest throwing the frequent crazy Lalafell over the side of Limsa Lominsa, for instance. He's also got that creepy Black Mage vibe going on, with the black hooded cowl and the evil goatee thing.

 

But he's also kind to women, children, and anyone with a reasonable sob story -- less so if he knows them well enough to have gotten a feel for them. So, unless he's in the pursuit of possible artifact of power number nine million and fifteen, he will drop what he's doing to help someone if they run up to him and plead their case -- like nearly every quest giver ever.

[Zyrusticae]

So what are the things that make your character imperfect?

T'rahnu has no talent with magic, can be remarkably lazy, and has a serious disdain for "hard work" (basically anything that can be classed as hard labor, like mining). She's a skilled warrior and trains hard, but that's only because she doesn't consider it "work". She's also highly amoral, which can cause her to clash considerably with more righteous types (ESPECIALLY paladins).

 

By that same token, she has a difficult time understanding the concept of romantic love, and tends to see sex as an activity in and of itself rather than as part of a longstanding relationship. Part of this is likely due to the fact that, as a traveler, she rarely gets the chance to get close to anyone...

I just wanted to share something for everyone's benefit. I told a friend of mine this and he was surprised to hear it, so I wanted to pass the knowledge on.

 

 

Keep in mind that while neglecting weaknesses and having too many strengths hinders your characters' depth, the opposite is equally true.

 

My friend was initially going to make it so that his character had a paragraph's worth of weaknesses and only a single strength (if any at all). Contrary to what one may think, this makes for just as flat of a character as an overpowered/nearly perfect one would. If bad things keep happening to your character again and again, at some point it stops being tragedy and turns into a comedy (that or just a plain bore). 

 

Drama is good. I love it myself. But having a good radar as to how much is too much or how long is too long (I know, giggity) is a good skill.

 

To be clear, this is general advice and was not aimed at anyone in particular. It's just something good to keep in mind, I felt.

 

These are good points.

 

In many ways, creating an interesting character is a balancing act. Too much of one thing or another makes them unbelievable. Too much emphasis on a specific trait makes them one-dimensional. In the end, you want your character to seem like a person that could exist, given the right circumstances and the right environment.

 

However, while I say this, I should also mention that there ARE people who are thrown into absolutely terrible circumstances and whose lives are nothing but day-to-day misery... fortunately, Eorzea isn't really a place where that sort of thing happens. At least to my knowledge.

 

(And the whole point of roleplaying like this is escapism, so...)

[Naunet]

However, while I say this, I should also mention that there ARE people who are thrown into absolutely terrible circumstances and whose lives are nothing but day-to-day misery... fortunately, Eorzea isn't really a place where that sort of thing happens. At least to my knowledge.

 

(And the whole point of roleplaying like this is escapism, so...)

 

It's a society of people, and people breed misery, so I can guarantee you there is more than enough misery to go around in Eorzea, and there are certain to be those who get the shaft every single time.

 

(And I'm not sure I'd say escapism is the "whole point" of roleplaying. There's no fun in just telling a happy, hunky-dory story, in my opinion! Hell, even happy endings tend to be... not really all that happy in a lot of the plots I've been involved in. It's all just an individual thing.)

[Zyrusticae]

It's a society of people, and people breed misery, so I can guarantee you there is more than enough misery to go around in Eorzea, and there are certain to be those who get the shaft every single time.

Indeed, but would you really want to play with someone like that?

 

(And I'm not sure I'd say escapism is the "whole point" of roleplaying. There's no fun in just telling a happy, hunky-dory story, in my opinion! Hell, even happy endings tend to be... not really all that happy in a lot of the plots I've been involved in. It's all just an individual thing.)

Oh, but a grey-and-grey story can still be escapism. Now, a story that's nothing but misery and sadness all the way through? Weeeellll....

 

Edit: To put it another way, that's not to say that exploring the side of someone who's just waaay down-on-their luck couldn't be interesting, I just don't see the point of doing so in a video game that's presumably played for entertainment. There's more than enough misery and suffering in our day-to-day lives, so why would you ever want to visit such a thing upon yourself in a virtual reality? Doesn't make sense to me.

[Ari Kagon]

Morelle has a plethora of weaknesses. She is completely reckless, has no filter from the brain to the mouth and at times racist...to name a few. Probably her biggest flaw is her inability to resist a good pinch (stealing) which sometimes gets her into huge trouble (she almost got her face burned off by Togy when she stole his soul crystal).

[Naunet]

Edit: To put it another way, that's not to say that exploring the side of someone who's just waaay down-on-their luck couldn't be interesting, I just don't see the point of doing so in a video game that's presumably played for entertainment. There's more than enough misery and suffering in our day-to-day lives, so why would you ever want to visit such a thing upon yourself in a virtual reality? Doesn't make sense to me.

 

I'd do it, if the story went that way. Twinflame and I have gone down some very dark paths in our past roleplay. It's less escapism and more just having fun telling stories driven by people who OOCly have a tendency to write unhappy things.

 

[edit] To quote Twinflame, who put it much more perfectly than I but who is working on an essay so I am not allowing him to bother with forums right now:

 

"Because exploring these kinds of characters is one of the major points of escapism. I don't want to get my arm chopped off irl just so that I can explore what comes of getting one's arm chopped off. Also, maybe it entertains me to tell a more dramatic story. That's nobody's business but my own, and those who agree, and who are okay with chopping off my arm or having their arms chopped off by my characters"

[Zyrusticae]

I don't think we're talking about the same things here.

 

I'm talking about something that starts at the bottom and stays there, not a story that has ups AND downs.

 

Even a tragedy starts at the top and works its way down from there. They don't just start from the bottom and go even further down (if that's even possible).

 

It's one thing to tell a story about someone who loses something they once had. It's another to tell a story about someone who has nothing, and loses even more. Get what I'm sayin'?

 

The whole reason this topic came up is because, as Kismet mentions, you don't want a character who's nothing but a bag of weaknesses and no strengths, because it just comes off as flat. There's not very many directions for such a character to go but further down, if they're not already at rock-bottom. I'm talking about characters who are homeless, penniless, have to forage for food, are malnourished, and have no connections and no hope for the future. I get the feeling that you don't play characters that are anything close to this.

[Natya Rudh]

Nat's greatest weakness I think is that she's too well balanced. Her skill is in my mind, second to none. But her strength, speed, and vitality/stamina all lose out to someone who is specialized in the respective attributes. A typical jack of all trades.

[Val]

Val has a very large social weakness in that he has little in the way of social grace. He's been known to tell someone they're ignorant for grieving a loved one's death because "it happens," along with many other things.

 

He also has a huge ego which, unfortunately, is coupled with a large sense of pride for who and what he is. This means that he thinks of himself as invincible and has landed him in trouble on more than one occasion. When he fails, his pride is greatly wounded and that can be more devastating for him than anything else.

[Clover]

Um, my characters' weakness...

 

-Clover: She's been too focused on magic and helping her family's business that she didn't make many friends. Her magic isn't very powerful either, but hopefully she'll keep learning and improve.

 

-K'mih: She's quite naive and impressionable, so I imagine that fooling her would be easy. She's also not the strongest Miqo'te around. Not the weakest either, but anyone with serious training and/or a brain would likely defeat her.

 

 

That's what I know so far!

 

===========

 

As for the debate of characters having too many weaknesses or too many strengths or being too happy or too sad, I personally don't care. Each character is a completely different world, and not everyone is going to be a perfect mix of everything. That doesn't happen irl, why should it happen in the RP?

 

Also, I love tragic, sad stories. FFXIV just doesn't inspire me for them because I find it too happy and innocent (yes), but other games like Mabinogi:Heroes do. It's so depressing, deep, and plain beautiful that it remains unrivalled in my mind.

[JadeEclypse]

My main character, Ahrista is very bubbly and energetic, which sometimes is a downfall because people don't realize she's capable of being serious. Her main problem though is that she's horribly oblivious to a lot of things and easily distracted. She uses that outward personality to hide a lot of things she's really feeling.

[BlessedSilence]

I think it is more fun when people do not tell their weaknesses.  In an RP stance, once that is found out, well they'd have something to hold over your character's head ....

[Rosekitten]

Heh I think my character has more flaws then he has strengths at times. As far as this point in his story anyway. Currently the phobia of water is very much still there (funny as his home is in Limsa). There is also a dislike towards Lalafell's for reasons somewhere along the lines of being knocked out and shoved in a shipping crate seemed to justify this. Not fond of tight spaces, though not really a said weakness as he can deal with that one better then the water fear. It takes a little bit for him to open up to others depending on the situation. Can be a bit cruel without meaning to, beating around the bush isn't a strong point. Hrm.. there was something else. Oh, he's a workaholic, not really a weakness or bad thing but once he's on a task or has set his mind to one that is where his mind will be till it is seen through. This sort of adds the difficulty that some might have at getting close to him. He's really not anti-social ^^; just distracted.

 

Seeing as someone brought up it being more fun to not know such information. I can see this but at the same time it is fun to read about characters weaknesses or flaws. Odds are most characters may never run into one another anyway let alone someone remembering every rp characters weaknesses or strengths. ^^;

[Kyral Rilann]

Other females, sometimes she can be calm and collected around them, but other times she can stop herself, and she can get very.. interesting.

 

She also has this fear of Tonberries. An extreme hate for Ixali, and a slightly above average need for alcohol.

[LandStander]

nvm2pVrirBQ

[Faye]

I honestly have more fun with my characters' flaws than their strengths. Too many people just want to be good at everything, but I think having a "perfect" character is terribly boring. But then, I really like making characters whose strengths are also their weaknesses, if that makes any sense (for example, Faye's being confident and over-ambitious gets her ahead in life for a while... until she takes it a step too far and lands herself in trouble). That being said, I suppose Faye has several flaws/fears/weaknesses. I'll try to keep it short and sweet!

 

- Prideful/Snobby

- Self-Righteous

- Has a bit of a god complex

- Manipulates others

- Dishonest

- Power hungry

- Looks down upon most other races

- Terrified of and paranoid about the Garlean Empire

[Kismet]

As for the debate of characters having too many weaknesses or too many strengths or being too happy or too sad, I personally don't care. Each character is a completely different world, and not everyone is going to be a perfect mix of everything. That doesn't happen irl, why should it happen in the RP?

 

Putting this in a spoiler for neatness.

 

 

While I cannot speak for others, I know that the point I was trying to make was not that people's characters have to be a perfect mix. I said what I did so that people would just be aware of what it is they're trying to create, and how to better bring that vision to life. 

 

No one meant to suggest that actual people never have mostly strengths or mostly weaknesses. How much one possesses of one or the other varies greatly from one person to the next. But does RP have to be 100% realistic with 100% realistic characters? Of course not. Does it have to be as close to it as possible? Not if you and your partner(s) dont't want it to be. Do as you like.

 

But if someone is aiming to make a well-rounded character, tossing all of their traits into the negativity basket (or vice versa) will make it less likely to achieve that. Will it make it impossible for that character to not be one-dimensional? No. That's what character development is for.

 

In short, it's all about what the player decides to do with it.

 

[erosskye]

The White :dazed:

[T'salmaveth]

T'sal has buko weaknesses but at the same time, they CAN be a strength depending on the situation and how it is applied. His single-minded hatred of Garleans is bad... but it also drives him forward to greater heights power and knowledge-wise as he does his research.

 

I think his GREATEST weakness, however, is his inability to emotionally connect to people... that he really just doesn't 'understand' emotions and has gotten to a point where he finds it a bother and a waste to try most of the time. A lack of natural empathy can be EXTREMELY off-putting to others and doesn't really make him the life of any party.

 

That and the whole 'don't touch me' thing.

 

Poor T'sal. He's so screwed up. But I love him anyway, because he doesn't give a flying flip that he is.

[Momoji Momochi]

Mine would be best conveyed with a snippet of my character's backstory.

 

In Orrin Morin's effort to uncover whether Dunesfolk in Ul'dah treat plainsfolk any differently than they treat one another, he hurriedly chose what he believed to be a suitable Dunesfolk name before donning a magical disguise. Unfortunately, "Momoji Momochi" is actually two dunesfolk female names put together, as he soon realized to his embarrassment. Even worse, he failed to read the warning that the removal potion for the magical disguise was highly sensitive to aetheric disturbances, which due to a series of events rendered his only method of removing the disguise worthless!

 

So Orrin Morin, now Momoji Momochi, set out on a quest to acquire another removal potion. Through feats of daring, such as constructing a giant sand castle for suitably giant ants, and entertaining a giant buffalo, he finally removed the magical disguise. How that removed a magical disguise is an entirely different story.

 

Unfortunately, his acts of daring had galvanized his name in the public eye, and now people can't stop calling him Momoji Momochi! His plan to solve this predicament? Make himself so famous that by merely announcing that his real name is Orrin Morin, everyone will begin calling him that instead! And so he continues with his adventurers, saving kittens and pouring laxatives into imperial water supplies, the later being a very time consuming effort. Take that, you damn imperials! When you reach the steaming hell known as "the lavatory," tell them Momoji Momochi sent you!

 

Edit: If that isn't the weakness you are looking for, then his kryptonite is chocolate pudding. Delicious, delicious chocolate pudding. He'd call down a meteor for the stuff.

[Ildur]

I think my characters don't have many weaknesses but, on the other side, they don't have many strengths either.

 

Thiereia Elentre is an alcoholic who is a complete pushover in combat unless she's drunk. When drunk, she has a terrible tendency of being overly mean and jump into fights. When not drunk, she'll look for the fastest way of becoming so even if it is to the detriment of everyone, including herself.

 

Ulanan Ulan has no martial ability whatsoever, and she has a strange tendency to yell at random times.

 

K'airos Thalen is prone to being distracted and act with a general lack of seriousness until she runs away in shame.

 

Ildur Vaernian is just and old man.

[Poe]

Mmm - I try to put my character's weakness front and center in her rp arcs and interactions with others.

 

Lack of confidence in herself would be the biggest (can only be told you are a disappointment so many times before you start to believe it!)