When in Doubt: The Unofficial Guide

[Yolanda Riona]

BD I was working on this the other day and figured to share it with you guys. Still incomplete, but I don't think I'll end up finishing it anyway (I can be so lazy with things like this.)

Roleplaying has become a commonplace phenomenon among internet culture. This remains especially true within large fandoms that advocate the praise of cartoon legends, master games, epic television series or movies, and superb novels. People want to act out these roles, taking their favorite characters and leaving the rest to their imagination to develop more screen time in their head that would otherwise probably not exist for that character. In a lot of cases though, especially in the Sonic Fandom, they want to take place in the story themselves even, bringing a fancharacter into the vicinity of the setting.

But what does someone have to consider when creating a character? And how does one go about roleplaying in such a vast and unpredictable culture?

When In Doubt: The Unofficial Guide to Character Creation

The Character

The first step to taking on the roleplay world starts with either deciding on or creating a character. While many people have a tendency not to think twice in this area since they usually have someone or something in mind, this remains as an important thing to consider, especially if someone is joining a large roleplay where they may be playing this character consistently for a year or longer.

This character should be very likable to the roleplayer but they might not necessarily know everything there is to know about them. A character can easily grow and change just as any human being would. If all the cards are on the table at the beginning, there will be little more to bank on in the future and the character might become stale and boring.

|A| The Background

There are several important aspects that a roleplayer should consider when building their character. Background has always come first as one of the most important features of a profile. It is both the longest and toughest piece of profile writing, but if it's written well, it actually really helps the roleplayer develop all the other areas they also have to consider such as personality, appearance, and skills.

Backgrounds are summaries that pinpoint important events in a character's life. Some good examples are their birth, their relationship with their parents and what they do for a living, their relationship with their siblings if they have any, their educational background, their friends and how they met, and any other mile stone events that have vastly shaped them as individuals. These events don't necessarily have to be dark and painful all the time. After all, life is full of ups and downs. A character may lose a dear grandparent they loved or they may accidentally discover a previously unknown civilization. Those would both be mile stones.

A background generally should mesh together and make sense from point A to point B. For instance, a character who has a fear of being caught in small spaces due to an event from eight years ago is likely going to react in a fearful way given the situation happens to them again unless they have overcome that fear in some manner. If that is the case, the player should make note in the background as to how they did. Consistency should also be found in skills. A character who becomes a master of martial arts cannot do this without the proper training. While they do not have to get excessively detailed, they should note when they trained (from say eleven to present) and how they trained (at a martial arts school). Simple enough, right?

Another major thing with backgrounds consists of relationships. People influence our lives in real life and it can be just as true with a character. This may lead to good or bad things. Characters can grow happy, sad, angry, or frightened. Relationships aren't just love-based. There are friends, teachers, rivals, enemies, and so on. There might even be people that characters have just met once, but the words they heard from that person were so powerful, it caused them to act a certain way where they wouldn't have otherwise. [This also ties into the personality section.]

Setting is yet another thing to consider while writing out a profile. It has far more influence than many players often recognize although they may find themselves unconsciously following along with it. A character who grew up in a gang would mostly likely live in the slums of a city instead of out on farmland where there is generally no place to hide and no one to fight with anyway. On the other side of the coin, someone who works out on the sea would probably live at the edge of the water instead of the middle of the desert.

Backgrounds don't have to be as long as some might think, despite some of the stricter roleplays out there. Remember, it's a summary of the character's history and should remain as such. Long backgrounds written in story format are excerpts. Not backgrounds. While it's not a bad thing to write that much (it often shows dedication and hard work as the creator), people who roleplay might not always want to read page after page of a profile just to get the idea of a character. In general, as long as the player follows the how/why ruling, they will usually be well off to a good start. The background is the perfect place to explain why they are who they are, why they have the abilities that they have, and how they managed to obtain that knowledge in the first place. More detailed information about abilities and relationships can come in later sections.

|B| The Personality

Interestingly enough, once the background becomes solid, the personality section ends up being a whole lot easier to write. Personality develops heavily from past incidents that people have dealt with in their lives. Their long term reaction to the situations they have faced essentially becomes a piece of this complex and often under appreciated section. A most commonly used instance would be the revenge scheme. While particularly frowned upon in many roleplays, it is no less a great example of a character's certain tendency to act irrationally. This is especially true if the event happened in recent.
More coming soon? Maybe? Never?