RPing with the Anti-Social! ~A Humble Guide

[Vysce the Lad]

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 !

 

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. 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   ~See you in-game!

[Knight Kat]

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

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]

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.

[Gone4everbye]

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]

 

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!!!! :cactuar:

[Tiergan]

Basically here to second/third what others have said.  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.  Otherwise you're just cutting yourself off from a ton of RP.

[Kieron Lohengrin]

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]

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.

[Fulcrum]

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'll 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]

.....

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

 

[align=center]First off... I love your characters. I think Kym'a sounds like all kinds of adorable!:moogle:[/align]

 

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]

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.

 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. 

 

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)  lonely in that rp. Nice suggestions all over this thread!

[esperkitty]

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!

[Fulcrum]

 

 

[align=center]First off... I love your characters. I think Kym'a sounds like all kinds of adorable!:moogle:[/align]

 

[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]

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. 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. 

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. 

 

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. 

 

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

[C'kayah Polaali]

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.

[Magellan]

While I agree broody characters can be a treasure trove of quality rp, there are any number of things that can go wrong:

 

#1 - they can be TOO good at playing broody.

 

If my character tries to interact with them for a half hour, and its like pulling teeth just to get a simple yes or no answer out of them, both I and my character will fail to get emotionally invested, will get bored, and move on. People can create too much of a barrier on their characters, severely limiting who will interact with them.

 

To use a single player game character like Cloud Strife is a poor example. That story was written specifically to tell Cloud's emotional journey. The other characters in FF7 did not have a choice whether or not they would interact with Cloud, their roles were written specifically that way. In essence, he could be as broidy as he wanted to be without losing friends.

 

#2 - they can be too dark/dramatic.

 

Traumatic backstories can lead to very compelling, intimate, emotional rp. But consider this; lets say my main character has 20 friends with traumatic pasts (its very prevalent in rp). And in one way or other, these backstories come to light by them acting out, breaking down, or creating very

dramatic stories. At some point, my character becomes a damn social worker completely flooded by constant drama.

 

It reaches a point where in order to stay sane she just doesn't give a crap. She can only harbor so much compassion for so many people. Its only natural she should seek out sunny, cheerful dispositions to alleviate the constant broodiness/drama/darkness.

 

#3 - broody characters can severly limit themselves.

 

Someone else touched upon this. A lot of broody characters get caught up in 'my character wouldn't fit here'. 'My character wouldn't fit there'. Essentially, you are left needing a very specific type of rp that requires a perfect storm of the right people, and the right scene, for your character to progress at all. Which isn't fair to you, or to other rpers.

 

Hope some of that helps! Broody chars can be a lot of fun to rp with, but it definitely requires a eeft touch!

[Tiergan]

#3 - broody characters can severly limit themselves.

 

Someone else touched upon this. A lot of broody characters get caught up in 'my character wouldn't fit here'. 'My character wouldn't fit there'. Essentially, you are left needing a very specific type of rp that requires a perfect storm of the right people, and the right scene, for your character to progress at all. Which isn't fair to you, or to other rpers.

 

Hope some of that helps! Broody chars can be a lot of fun to rp with, but it definitely requires a eeft touch!

 

This is kind of an important thing to touch upon.  Just like real life anti-social folks kind of cut themselves out of a lot of really great experiences with other people by avoiding others - anti-social characters can cut you out of RP if you're not careful.

 

Sometimes its just a matter of knowing the kind of RP you enjoy and don't enjoy, and making sure that your character's anti-social-ness limits only the sort of RP you wouldn't really be into in the first place.

 

For example, tavern RP generally isn't my thing.  I know it's a lot of fun for others, and I don't hold it against others if they do enjoy tavern RP, but on a personal level, I just don't find it interesting to sit at a bar, drinking, and talking about my day.  Because of this, I'm okay with both of my characters just not having the personality for bar-hopping. 

 

Other times, it's about finding creative ways to do that 'reverse-hook' that everyone's been talking about and RP around your character's limits.

 

So if I randomly felt the itch to tavern it up?  Or there was an RP event that was tavern-related that fits my schedule and I wanted to show support for the community by going anyway?  I could send my character in with a cluster of friends and have him get hilariously tanked.  Maybe he's even a lightweight and it doesn't really take him all that long to get drunk and lose his "amg, i hates poeple, getawayfromme" exterior.  Or maybe something great happened and he's feeling oddly celebratory.  Or maybe the opposite happened and he wants to dunk his head in a vat of booze and forget. 

 

There's lots of methods I could cook up to get my character in the action.  Just like with a lot of things in RP - it takes you actually thinking stuff up and going with it instead of just parking your character somewhere and wondering why no one wants to talk with the socially-cripple, anti-social, dark broody loner-person sitting quietly in a corner in a tavern full of happy drunk people.

[Cemi Epocan]

Cemi is so out-going, loud and inquisitive she randomly approaches said brooding folk and practically forces conversation onto them!

I salute those who can stick to such characters, but I personally could not play such a one! I like my toons to be up-beat!

 

But I agree, don't be afraid to approach them! Most of the time they're just too shy or approach others or it just isn't in their nature. But if they -really- wanted to be alone, they wouldn't be standing there in brooding silence!

 

You could just end up getting told to sod off but hey! At least you tried to brighten up their day!

[Seriphyn]

I'm not a fan of dark, brooding characters purely because...well, how many people in real-life do we know that go through traumatic experiences but nonetheless remain pretty normal 99% of the time? 

 

People go through cancer, loss of family members, rape, and such other tragic things, and yet you can still take them to the pub or club and they'll party the night away like any other normal person would.

 

(Above is mixture of personal opinion and non-hostile provocation to get people's counter-thoughts to build on my own!)

[Xiaoli Vorgan]

These types of characters can be interesting if done in a way that doesn't run those who try to engage away. I've often seen this type of character RPed and it just goes so deep that many times you will find other characters trying to avoid RP with said person. 

 

This in turn, begins to bleed into OOC and sometimes people wonder "why doesn't anyway want to engage with my character?" I'm not saying anything is wrong with the RP style, I just think that if you start to ask yourself that question, you may want to make some adjustments. 

 

Any "personality type" can get over-used extremely quickly, not just the brooding type. Examples would be the "genius bookworm whose powers know no bounds", the "i've been abused by way of (fill in the blank) and its a million times obvious that I have been every time I RP. Moderation is the key to all mary-sue personalities as well as non-mary sue personalities.

[Fulcrum]

I'm not a fan of dark, brooding characters purely because...well, how many people in real-life do we know that go through traumatic experiences but nonetheless remain pretty normal 99% of the time? 

 

People go through cancer, loss of family members, rape, and such other tragic things, and yet you can still take them to the pub or club and they'll party the night away like any other normal person would.

 

(Above is mixture of personal opinion and non-hostile provocation to get people's counter-thoughts to build on my own!)

That's not actually true. There are plenty of people who go through those things and can't just up and go to a pub or club or large social situation and just party the night away like normal people, and it's definitely NOT 99% of the people out there who go through the above. If that were the case, we wouldn't have such a huge number of mental health clinics and they wouldn't be so hugely booked all the time helping people get back to the point where they can hang out with a moderate sized group of friends, let alone a huge group of strangers.

[Vysce the Lad]

 

 

To use a single player game character like Cloud Strife is a poor example. That story was written specifically to tell Cloud's emotional journey. The other characters in FF7 did not have a choice whether or not they would interact with Cloud, their roles were written specifically that way. In essence, he could be as broidy as he wanted to be without losing friends.

 

Aha~ But are not the characters we create written specifically according to their emotional journey? Sure it's a little different since the other characters we see are each controlled by a different person, but each could be as well defined by dark pasts and the like. Characters we create have just as much right to be as broody as he is, and we have to act as a certain flower girl did and approach them~! 

[Maril]

I'm not a fan of dark, brooding characters purely because...well, how many people in real-life do we know that go through traumatic experiences but nonetheless remain pretty normal 99% of the time? 

 

People go through cancer, loss of family members, rape, and such other tragic things, and yet you can still take them to the pub or club and they'll party the night away like any other normal person would.

 

(Above is mixture of personal opinion and non-hostile provocation to get people's counter-thoughts to build on my own!)

 

This is not really the case. There may be people who can function after experiencing something traumatic, but you have to remember that the way the western society tends to work, there is an extreme pressure on these people to "walk it off", and pretend nothing had happened. Mental illnesses is a taboo, something you don't talk about to a lot of people, and families. They simply will not accept what's happened to their loved ones, because it puts them in a damaged and dysfunctional light. So maybe you can take these people to a club, and maybe they'll look like they're having fun, but what you see can be far away from the actual truth. Many feel ashamed over their experiences, or feel that they need to seem to be strong for the sake of others, and fear that if they are not then the people around you will hurt more than you are. I would encourage you to look a little closer, next time you see something like what you describe happen.

 

Furthermore, an anti-social character does not need to have a traumatic experience that makes them grumpy, being anti-social can just be a part of who they are as a person and how they have always been - Just like some people irl have always been introverts for as long as they can remember. However seeing as most MMORPG settings are plagued by disasters, and FFXIV ARR especially, I imagine it would be pretty common to see people who's somehow had to deal with traumatic events.

[No Longer Exists]

Being the broody one in my troupe, I think it has to be said that two things must occur.

 

1> Brood -with- people. I joined an RP FC, then let the grumpy ensue. My character eased into the group and has now made himself known through actions rather than words. He hasn't made great personal connections yet, but he's made his mark. He's polite, rigid, and quiet, tends to frown at people but never say why, and never stuck around for annoying social situations. As of late, things are evolving in him and he's leaning toward certain people rather than away from everyone. He even said a cussword and admitted to one that he actually has -feelings-, although that's all he said. Literally. To play brooding well, one needs a group. It's like casting for a story. Plot elements.

 

2> Be sociable OOC. I talk about my character openly, without revealing things. Some folks see broody characters and get the impression that the player is just as standoffish. So I call my character "Grumpy" regularly, make jokes about his "legendary frown" and his ability to "suck all the fun out of the room" but I also make it clear that I'm approachable as a player and open to RP. I've watched the inns and these forums, folks say they look for RP and most don't actually connect out of social worry. Don't be worried, reach out. Some of the funniest RP I've played in any MMOs is when two broody loners stand next to each other and "think things" then look at each other say "....yep". No conversation necessary. 

Toss a tell, ask to RP, get on the grid a bit then unleash the dark mystery of the wrinkled broodyface. 

 

P.S. - I'm serious. If you want to have broody RP, send me a tell on Lukas Valenwood. I will happily have him stand next to your character and think surly things, frown, grunt, and most importantly brood.

[Tiergan]

I'm not a fan of dark, brooding characters purely because...well, how many people in real-life do we know that go through traumatic experiences but nonetheless remain pretty normal 99% of the time? 

 

People go through cancer, loss of family members, rape, and such other tragic things, and yet you can still take them to the pub or club and they'll party the night away like any other normal person would.

 

(Above is mixture of personal opinion and non-hostile provocation to get people's counter-thoughts to build on my own!)

 

I think it depends on the degree of broodiness, how bad [insert traumatic experience here] was, and how well the player pulls it off.

 

Fantasy worlds can set up some pretty devastating scenarios that we can't really relate to in real life, and it hits a point where it actually comes off a little weird if your character is super well adjusted and happy afterwards. Hell, there are a lot of real life scenarios where it's a little weird if that person is super well adjusted and happy afterwards.

 

That said, I think there is something to be said about being *too* anti-social like Magellan mentioned.  Far be it for me to say someone's RPing wrong, but if trying to RP with a broodtastic character is like pulling teeth to get decent responses, they're just screwing themselves over.  It just becomes annoying trying to RP with them and that's not too fun for anybody.