30 Day Writing (RP!) Meme: Day Nine

[thistlechaser]

9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.

Used to be, back in PokeMUSH days, I was a big believer in applications (and thus getting a complex personality and full background down on paper before you start) for RP... and, in some respects, I still am. However, character creation is no longer one of those reasons. (Quality control? Still a big yes on that one. Nothing like applications to weed out the sucky people.) Nowadays, I like the process to be... some word I can't think of at the moment. Natural. Evolving. Abstract? Loose. Just starting with the vaguest idea ("grumpy death knight", "light-hearted rogue", "druid stuck in bear form"), and let the character grow and develop through RPing with others.

Though, thinking back... I wonder if I was really a believer in apps in PokeMUSH days or if I just wanted them for quality control. (Or, perhaps, was a believer in them for everyone but me.) Sly started as an NPC, I played him for a week or two before applying to turn him into a PC. It worked really well learning his character through RP before writing his app.

One of the big things that stops me from returning to MU*s is the application process. It seems like too much work to write one (I know I can RP! I know I can make good characters! Why should I have to prove it to others? I just want to RP!), but more than that, it seems too hard to come up with the background and full personality until I've RPed the character enough to learn it. (However, that being said, I know just how important applications are to keep up quality. It's one of the big, big, big issues with WoW RP. I'd never argue for games to stop requiring them.)

List of all 30 questions here.

Comments

[socksofjello.livejournal.com]

I'm exactly the same way. I'm not even sure how I managed the PokeMUSH app back then, considering how difficult it is to motivate myself to write one now.

I wish more MU*s (and heck, all RPs period) would adopt a simple ingame chargen that required a 'concept' rather than the whole mess of background and personality. Large applications will never deter those terrible RPers that're determined to get something (and they sure can fake being decent until they're IC!), but they do put off good RPers who just want to jump in and have fun.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Large applications will never deter those terrible RPers that're determined to get something (and they sure can fake being decent until they're IC!)

Yeah. More than once, we had appers on PokeMUSH outright admit that they had their parents write out the app. ("How can it have typos? Grammar issues? My mother wrote it!" ...just in worse typing than that.)

[socksofjello.livejournal.com]

Wow. ...Wow. And I was just thinking of those people who hide their crazy until they're on-grid.

Gonna reply to what you said in the next thread down:

Maybe instead of an app have a RP test. Seems like that would be a better judge of things; not only would you see typing and spelling abilities, but you'd see them "on the fly" instead of with time, prewriting, and spellcheckers.

This, exactly. You'll never know how good a player is until you see them in action. Writing applications and roleplaying are two entirely different monsters--some are terrible at the former and excel in the latter, and some are good at the whole story-writing thing (proofing and rewrites help!) but suck when they have to type four-five lines in as many minutes.

Case in point: somehow I got a character on PokeMUSH. What was Peppy on when he approved that?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Case in point: somehow I got a character on PokeMUSH. What was Peppy on when he approved that?

Ha! You're silly. :D

Writing applications and roleplaying are two entirely different monsters

Surprisingly, I run into something just like that in WoW RP. A lot of characters keep IC blogs, and in some cases people write outstanding blogs, but they suck so amazingly badly at RP. I just don't get it. Basic things like typing/grammar. (One person writes good blogs but poses like "ha ha.........and i said this...................and he said that....".)

[bouteillebleu.livejournal.com]

I've found myself settling into a habit with LARP and tabletop characters - defining enough of their personality to be able to play them, and just enough of their background to have an answer to awkward questions like "where do you come from" and "why have you come to this city / continent / adventurers' pub", but not too much more.

The problem I've found in defining too much about a character before playing them is then I worry that I'm playing them wrong, especially if their background paints them as more serious, more weird or more generally nasty than I'm good at playing.

On the other hand... I agree that the applications process on PokeMUSH did seem to help weed out people who couldn't spell or write coherently, which was good - keeping up the standard there encourages the existing players to not slip too. And having an entry writing test in the form of an application also lets you know whether someone is an original writer or not, which is a good sign as well.

Maybe a similar application with a slightly lower filesize limit (it was 10kb, wasn't it?) could have worked a bit better, but I think it did what it needed to do.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was 10K (I think!). Maybe instead of an app have a RP test. Seems like that would be a better judge of things; not only would you see typing and spelling abilities, but you'd see them "on the fly" instead of with time, prewriting, and spellcheckers.

It really is fun making up new characters, fleshing them out, having their backgrounds grow more complex as you play them.

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

I would enjoy:

A robust ingame chargen (run me through the setup right there, don't make me look up a possibly nonexistent forum post or something).

Followed by a series of rooms (what would be the newbie school if it were a stock MUD) in which you are able to have full access to helpfiles and a variety of helpful tips and resources to do things like descs and finger bios and whatnot.

Let me out on the grid on a probationary basis at this point, but for full and final approval, follow this with an IC interview with a plot/character staffer, in which many of the things one might normally put on an application are sorted out in an interactive fashion, and one gets a better idea for their character with direct input from the staff.

Heck, maybe give players that are the heads of ingame factions a limited capability to interview newbies interested in their faction and help them fit in.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that'd totally work for me. Year or so back I looked for a new MU*, and I did find a few with a setup like that... but none of them had any players. Seems like a lot of RP has moved to IM/LJ. I've been tempted to try RP on LJ, but most of the groups I've found require a long app, so that's back to square one.

[deathchibi.livejournal.com]

Yup. It's very odd that I really can't write a background longer than maybe a couple of pages. I have a hard time plotting out a character so much. Maybe I'm spoiled or I just play on games with minimal CharGen. I get my RP fix alright though, and I've learned to ignore the mongs.

I am still not sure how I got Sophia's app through. Did I leave money in the briefcase on the step?

Generally, I know I can stick to theme reasonably well. I'm not a psycho hosebeast, just let me on the game!

Alas. ;P I guess this is why my attempt to app on a Star Trek game failed. They LOVE having a timeline, loads of details... and I'm like 'merp. She's on a boat. She likes rocks...'

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

'merp. She's on a boat. She likes rocks...'

Heh! That's about what I'd come up with, likely with similar results!

[deathchibi.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's just because I don't have the free time I did before, because I've seen games have shoddy RPers despite an intensive app process (This seems to be a bigger problem on World of Darkness games where pvp can and will be an issue), or even that tabletop gaming has spoiled me, to be truthful. It's just hard to predict if her behavior in game will line up with her background because I've found events can be a huge shaper on a character (Especially the traumatic variety. For better or worse, death and injury tend to be excellent teachers). Sophia did a pretty radical turnaround and she's not the only character do that.