Character Species, Lul, whut?

Saken · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Saken** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:40 pm

Okay, as a roleplayer who has had to switch sites one or more time, I've found myself coming a crossed a problem-- what character to play?

As always, characters are difficult to create, simply because of some of the more 'popular' sorts that can come into play, that have many different sub-classes.

For Example;

Vampires!
-- Twilight Vampires.

-- Ann Rice Vampires.

-- Physic Vampires.

-- Anime Vampires.

-- Medical vampires..

The list can go on and on.

Now, this thread is where I'd like to gather feedback, what character species do people have problems with creating because of all the 'hype' of the different sub-species/controversy?

My hope is that, with the information that I get here, I can create a help thread of some common 'variable's' between species so that people who are wondering what kinda popular species, with their popular sub classes, they can play-- and what are a few constants?!

Please, put what characters you have had trouble making, want to make, or seen people have difficulties playing because of themselves/others who do not agree with him. This could be a helpful guide, don't?

Terrus · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Terrus** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:42 pm

I always notice that demons can be hard to play. Not because people have a problem with it but because people overpower them and don't know how to balance it. I know I have that problem myself sometimes.

Tæfarós · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Tæfarós** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:57 pm

Werecreatures! Definitely werecreatures. On the subject of Twilight and even True Blood, they've been tampered with; they're not weres--they're shapeshifters. So now what we have is common misconception of how to define their species. Werecreatures generally: (a) transform during the full moon; (b) endure a very painful form change (shifting bones and growing parts'll do that to you); (c) don't fucking keep their clothes on. Fabric should be lost or ripped to shreds! At least Sookie Stackhouse got it right.

And even if you weren't following the traditional roles, you'd still need to consider how to portray them properly. Do you condense the were aspect into something believable, or do you go all out for emphasis? They would also have this underlying primal instinct about them, given their nature.

Mmkay, I'll stop. Rant get.

Aeris Strife · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Aeris Strife** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 3:26 pm

Fairy/elven creatures.... They're hard to do unless you specify which book/movie you based them off of.

There are too many to list here, but when i do come up with some good examples, I'll post them.

Akita · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Akita** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 3:37 pm

A mystery creature. You know, a character that doesn't necessarily have a "physical body" but can obtain one, or take the shape as one? Sometimes, people like to call these creatures "shadow creatures" or something of the sort.

I've noticed that it can be an interesting character to play, all the while being a difficult one to play without giving away the creature's true self. People tend to try and be vague when explaining this creature, which is generally what you're supposed to do. However, I've been noticing that since people are being encouraged to give specifics in their roleplay post, they give away a little too much information about their character.

Some characters are meant to have some kind of "mysterious essence" about them. My question to you is: How would you portray a mystery creature? How would you PLAY it? What are some techniques and examples you can give for other roleplayers who enjoy playing these kinds of creatures? Should people use specifics?

Prose · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Prose** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 3:59 pm

Awesome Example of Bram Stoker Style Vampire

UnderINK · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **UnderINK** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:24 pm

I honestly think the hardest character for anybody to play is a plain old, powerless human. Maybe that's just me or from what I've experienced, though.

Akita · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Akita** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:24 pm

I agree with that, UnderINK.

Prose · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Prose** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:25 pm

I have them/had them lol. They don't last very long in the MV.

Akita · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Akita** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:26 pm

I wouldn't imagine that they would, Sko. It seems like in the multiverse, people with little to no powers die very quick.

UnderINK · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **UnderINK** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:31 pm

You need to attach some sort of leverage to a plain, powerless human to give the human the upper hand among power characters; that is, a reason for them to keep him/her alive. It's all a part of character development, which also encompasses the personality, given that without powers one must concentrate much more heavily on evolving a human's personality and psychological traits and struggles to make them more interesting to the reader. I prefer making humans or low powered characters to anything else, personally; I simply frequently see even those attempting to make humans not make them very well, in such a fashion they get mailed, gored, killed, man-handled, beaten up, or other such abuses from power characters in any realm.

Entity of Sin · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Entity of Sin** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:34 pm

I don't see any difficulty in playing a human with absolutely no extraordinary power than what an every day human can do.

Though I believe the less powerful your character is the better. The more believable it is for that character to actually exist in some real way. I guess I'm use to playing really weak characters when I did actually roleplay.

What I've found to be a rather disappointing aspect of someone's character claimed to be evil, cut-throat, or murderous in nature is that they actually don't play the character out as an evil, cut-throat, or murderous character. It goes along with the notion that someone 'hates' the idea of their character being killed in the story, however, a character's death in a story will breed more story and progress things forward along different avenues that weren't originally intended.

I guess I rarely see someone consistently play their character or play it correctly at all. Doesn't help when people decide to not collaborate and simply 'go with the flow' in a roleplay.

Akita · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Akita** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:38 pm

I can see your point there, Entity. It goes without saying that a lot of people create these great, powerful characters, or regular weak characters and they don't know how to play them the slightest bit. Either that, or they're having difficulties playing the character because they're afraid it might die or something.

One thing that bothers me about people who play weak characters, is that they somehow always get revived by some really, awesome, powerful being....for like, no charge at all. Usually a resurrection calls for like what, your soul?

In any case, people should learn to accept a character's death regardless if it's weak or O.P. It should be able to die some how. And if it does, it should be more motivation to help keep the storyline going by creating another character.

Entity of Sin · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Entity of Sin** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:52 pm

Reviving a character generally is a bad idea. Roleplays aren't games. Revival should be prevented unless it breeds more story, such as an evil sorcerer raising that person's character from the dead as a minion or something. Everything the writers of a roleplay should be doing should be pushing the story forward, unfolding new content, etc. so that everyone's interest is kept intact.

It's so easy for someone to play a character that's righteous, holy, and noble. A really good character is a character that is challenged morally and ethically from time to time. It also helps if the person that created the roleplay incorporates those kind of design aspects to their story and their story's world. An adventurer's companion is held captive by some orc barbarians that are large, brutish warriors who would easily crush the adventurer. That adventurer's companion broke a rule within their territory and must pay for their crime. This situation gives the person in charge of that adventurer some options. Fight for the freedom of that companion (which would probably result in death), plead with the leaders of the orc barbarians with logic and reasoning, or possibly just up and abandon the companion with guilt weighing heavy over that person's conscience for the rest of their life.

If story incorporates and interlocks a character's death to breed more story it becomes a good idea rather than a bad one. In that example I gave, that evil sorcerer could have plans to raise a powerful army of undead soldiers or use the souls of the orc and their prisoners to summon and control a horde of demons and fiends to then ravage the country side.

The point I'm making is, if someone wants to do something, they need to make sure it breeds more story and make that really exciting and thrilling story that everyone involved with can enjoy greatly from.

Text-based roleplaying is very similar concept to running a Dungeons and Dragons game. It's virtually the same thing.

Sibylline Oracle · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Sibylline Oracle** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 6:06 pm

From what I've seen, it seems to be difficult for some to play the part of a medieval princess. Obviously, if you're going by the history books, you would find very little to do with her, since women generally had few rights in most places back then. Nonetheless, princesses and queens often had more power than people these days give them. They were often needed for diplomacy, not just political marriages. This, keyed with the fact that many princesses and queens had to deal with quite a lot of romantic drama, should be plenty to do some roleplays on with a princess character.

I believe I've also noted that roleplaying a doctor can always be a bit different. Perhaps you're expected to know a great deal of medical terminology from whatever time period you're roleplaying in, or perhaps there's just not that much to do at times... Medics always have to find something else to do. I found that this can be the case for most large roleplays, where there are so many characters, it's nearly impossible to focus on any one individual or group; each player might try to strive to make their characters and situations more important than others in order to compensate for this lack of being included, and I see how difficult it is when everyone else is eagerly following a larger plot. My advice is to try and fit your character in to any situation, and maybe ask the GM... Who knows? He/she might be more than happy to help find a way to make your character an integral part to the plot.

There are so many different character types that are /easy/ to play. Unfortunately, almost all of these consist of Mary/Gary Sues. A super-powerful android, a master spy/assassin that rarely makes mistakes, a witch/demon with uber-powers over legions of dark forces, etc. etc. I've probably seen it all by now. Take away all your character's super-powers and abilities and try to build a character from the ground up. THAT would be difficult.

I tried to roleplay a character that had extreme amnesia. He couldn't remember anything, quite literally. He retained two of his skills: musical talent, and proficiency with daggers at long-range. Everything else, gone. His entire personality changed from his 'old' self: no longer strong and confident, he's much more weak and feeble. More likely to run at the sight of danger, although his heart tells him to stand his ground and fight when it comes to protecting others. I thought I was doing a rather good job, but eventually college took over, and I haven't managed to come up with any good ideas for him. Trying to roleplay him without giving his background away... Tough. As mentioned in one of the above posts, MYSTERY CHARACTERS are probably /most/ difficult.

The best way to overcome the likelihood that you'll give something about the character away too soon is to 'show, not tell'. Focus on action in your post more than words. Let other characters gauge what your character is thinking by your character's actions. You might even surprise them /and/ their players!

Kronos · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Kronos** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 10:54 pm

Baseline humans. We rock. The majority fail in a powered setting because people don't realize what humans can do. They don't take advantage of their surroundings.

Also, my favorite other race, octo-things. Land-squids. They don't have to be Illithids but they always win.

Sammich · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Sammich** on Tue Aug 03, 2010 11:29 pm

Regarding pirates, there are normal pirates, sky pirates (awesome), space pirates, and...I don't know what else. Someone needs to help me.

Kestrel · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Kestrel** on Wed Aug 04, 2010 10:57 am

Everything that does not exist is largely up to imagination. I don't like twilight vampires, for example, but what gives me the right to tell someone they play the vampire incorrectly if there are no specifications listed by the GM that indicate a vampire should be played otherwise?

Humans in high-powered settings are often not fully explored, correct, but the far-out worst I see are... Well, animals. That's for a very simple reason; animals don't think like human beings. Look at wolf-roleplays, you seen them before, aight? There's probably a couple of small elements of their behaviour integrated into the roleplay, but the majority is still a human mind. I don't really think this needs to be changed though, as most players in these RP's won't really care about that.

Tigeress · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Tigeress** on Wed Aug 04, 2010 2:13 pm

Im prepared to take a few stone throws and say fur characters are one that often lacks creativity, causing many of them to become Mary/Gary Sues. Mostly its the "I have ears/tail" way of thinking, which is neat as a physical appearance, as humanity is often obsessed with anthropomorphic images in its history. (even a werewolf is a mix between human and wolf, and would classify as a furry)

However, that being said that there is great ideas of furry chars, some of them hugely successful. A good example is the Guin Saga novels, in which one of the main characters head is that of a leopard due to some strange mask that is stuck to him. It causes him to revert to more feral instincts at times, making the character a interesting complexity between man and beast. I find this area to be the strength of "furry" chars.

Sterotypes exist in large droves, however, such as the "'Happy go Lucky" cat girl, the tricky fox person, ect. That is not to say that the sterotype cannot invoke very fun and interesting characters, but they are the norm. Most particularly, I love "Meracle" from Star Ocean 4 because of her cat-like features tend to make up a lot of her personality. A good example is that in the Star Ocean series, people ride bunnies to get around (unique?). She sees it and remembers it as being "Big... Fluffy... Delicous and round" while licking her lips and raising her arms up almost in a dramatic praying manner, or later when your supposed to capture one she's running after it with a fork, knife, and bib, which creates humor in the stereotype and makes it enjoyable.

Mostly I find that people close their minds to the idea of furry characters, which I find ironic that they love werewolves when some African cultures have "werecats", and both are in all technicality fur characters mixed with shape shifting, (or human characters mixed with shape shifting, depending on how you look at it) Furry characters can be well written, and should be judged as any other character is judged, but it is not always so.

Now as to Elves, I enjoy it when people do different things with our concepts of elves. In Final Fantasy 11, elves are huge, lanky looking beings that live behind stone walls. They took away the stereotype of elves in the woods+magic and made them a military kingdom with knighthoods and honor, which was a pleasant change from the usual. In a roleplay im working on, my version of elves have darkened skin, live in a volcanic wasteland and ride giant moths. Strange? Yes. Unique? Hopefully so :)

Random, I played a surgeon and I know what you mean. The role seems almost lacking because your interaction is almost limited to your duty. It becomes difficult to jump into the story, and stand out from the rest. Look at war as a whole, we often say "Support Our Troops" but do little to mention the skilled medical performers that help keep them alive, or the people who provide them with weapons, ect. I suppose its lack of glory is what makes it a more difficult role.

Kestrel, you raise a good point that animals don't think like people, but in a known universe they might :). Mostly its a entertainment medium I think. Much like how Indian tribes give spirit and human personification of animals according to their traits or appearance. "Wise as a owl" or "Clever as a fox" comes to mind.

Saken · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Saken** on Fri Aug 06, 2010 6:25 pm

Okay, so I have decided to start this Guide, in a different thing. My first creature, to 'show' will be animalstic.

Anthro-Furry-Nekomimi creature, or a human with animal appendages.

Character Species, Lul, whut?

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Character Species, Lul, whut?

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