makes ur butt happy

[socksuke_uchiha]

Rundown: rpanons is an anonymous community for role-play related topics. This place serves as a forum for game discussions, canon discussions, RP solicitations (ATP, game ads, open memes), and advice. The occasional off topic comment is inevitable, but please keep heated social and political topics to their respective communities. Posting them here will only get them frozen. Subsequent threads made to bypass a freeze will then be deleted.

Rules:

Do not post pornographic or shocking images.
Do not share private entries, plurks, chat logs, etc.
Do not use this community as your social/political/hatespeech soapbox.
Do not be redundant. One page does not need three or more threads on one topic/theme. Your unfunny, forced memes also fall under this rule.
Do not treat this comm like your personal therapist. Threads about nonfictional suicide, self injury, rape, and abuse will be deleted. There are better resources out there for you.
Do not treat this comm like your personal Plurk or Twitter. Off-topic happens, but it should be open for discussion and not just a play-by-play of your life. No one cares.
Shut up about Tumblr. If it's not a discussion about Tumblr RP it will be deleted.


CONCERNS | RESOURCES


Navigate:

Political topics are still banned. Report threads and they will be deleted.

LATEST PAGE | LATEST FLATVIEW PAGE

GAME DISCUSSIONS | CANON DISCUSSIONS | HTML/GRAPHIC HELP

ATP/ENABLE ME | GAME ADVERTISEMENTS | PB SUGGESTIONS | USERNAME SUGGESTIONS

GAME IDEAS | CHARACTER ADVICE | RP WITH ME | TEST DRIVES

KINKS YOU WANT TO PLAY | PAIRINGS YOU WANT TO PLAY | RECOMMEND A CANON/CHARACTER

Comments

OCs

[(Anonymous)]

When developing OCs, I've realized I tend to figure out their history first and only then think about their personality, which means that often I only have a loose idea of who they are and nothing about their personalities is as fixed as their histories, which often leaves me with vaguely bland characters.

I'd like to be better about developing interesting characters who aren't quite as reliant on their backstory/history to prop them up. So for those who do write OCs, how do you develop their personalities? What do you start with, how do you fully flesh it out, etc?

[(Anonymous)]

I've had that issue before and what helped me was this: I start with creating a group and then in the end pick the members of the group that have developed to be the most vibrant. So I can still start with the history, but don't end up with people who aren't much *more* than their history.

This obviously doesn't work for hardcore loners, but for OCs in groups (friend groups, family groups, work groups...) it's worked quite well for me. Essentially, since there is a group of people that I develop at once, I don't just develop their history but also their relationships, their opinions on one another, their dynamics, their strengths and weaknesses as something that is balanced out by or clashes with other members of the group. Their personalities grow because they need to be different from each other, and so on. And all of that happens fairly organically while the history is developed.

And then it tends to happen naturally that some members of the group are more colourful and vibrant and call out to me more to pick them up as individuals to play in DWRP. Sometimes only one, sometimes two or more. The advantage is that there's a fleshed out background (and the disadvantage is that I keep wanting to talk about those other character, but that's where self restraint comes in).

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks anon, that's very helpful! And actually helps with an issue I have right now - the character I am working on is part of a large family with a number of connections and thus has a lot of people around her usually, and I have been neglecting developing them in favor of her. So while I can't use the entire idea, it does give me a starting point.

(Also will remember it for future OCs.)

Re: OCs

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking as someone who plays OCs and also published a novel (self-pubbed, but hey, I had to create all the characters in it) ... I tend to come up with a character's primary interest, and then think of what might conflict with that interest.

Some examples: My current tabletop character is a centaur who dreams of being a famous actress, but keeps getting cast as the horse. I thought, "Okay, what centaur wants to be an actress? What's her beauty routine like? Does she have a wish list of dream roles she's been denied? Is she angry at her director? Angry enough to frame him for murrrrderrr?"

My novel's main character is a teenage girl who's a good student and varsity athlete, but also loves trashy romance novels and wants to be taken seriously as a sexual being. Those two traits conflict when she dates a vampire who wants her to derail her life for him.

I feel like I'm not explaining very well, but that's my formula. 1) Give the character an interest or a drive. 2) Are they free to pursue it? What obstacles do they run into (internal obstacles count)? 3) What does a person in those circumstances act like?

World-building comes ...... close to last for me. Not saying that's good, but I do think nailing down what propels a character internally makes it easier to find hooks for them to interact with others.

Re: OCs

[(Anonymous)]

Congrats on publishing anon, even self! That's awesome.

The interest/drive is a really good idea. One of the characters I am conflicted on has a drive - to protect people, as that is her life's purpose, but also to find love - so I need to work a little more on developing the whys and wherefores and answer some of those questions of obstacles and considering what people would do.

The other one I am working on has no drive yet, so I will have to figure that out. She's a fairly shallow character, which is unusual for me, both in terms of her temperament and development, so. We'll see what happens.

Again, thanks! That helps so much.

Re: OCs

[(Anonymous)]

if you like starting with the history, try thinking of how the characters reacted to those various events and build off that. say someone close to them died, did they get depressed? did they get angry and start acting out? did they try their best to stay positive because they didn't want others to worry about them? different reactions imply a lot about personality, so you can take those traits and expand on them.

i think it also helps to just pick a few interests and hobbies to really flesh them out. pick some things that seem obviously suitable (maybe a budding actress is really into makeup or watching movies or has a background in theater) and some that are less intuitive (the budding actress also happens to like gardening, or does roller derby on weekends). then think about why they like those things and their general thoughts on the subjects and how different aspects of their life relate and what that implies about their personality (does the actress that's into roller derby enjoy the thrill but quietly worry about getting hurt in a way that might hurt her chances at getting a role, or does she not think about that kind of stuff and screw herself over later as a result of her recklessness or lack of foresight?)