Stupid things people do with characters

 

 

1) Give them swords in a modern or futuristic setting while being unable to justify the use of the use of them

Whenever you are put in a setting, you have to make sure you can work around it. The reason why I highlight "modern or futuristic setting" is because there is literally no reason why your character is going to make any use out of some ancient sword passed along in the bloodline for 321 generations. You want to know why? It's primitive. When you have guns, something much more precise in a short range or a long range, just defeats the purpose. Let's say your character is some sort of LUL NINJAA XDDD character. Having a stylish weapon that just draws attention to yourself (seeing as it is hard to conceal) is going to make your character a prime target. Also note: ineffective. Where are you even supposed to get one in the first place? Some guys yard sell?

 

2) If your character uses a weapon expertly, not mentioning their training.

Self explanatory. Your character is either full of bullshit and or full on Gary Stu if you decide to have them LUL MASTERSSS and not give even a notion towards any professional training. Not to mention if they're incredibly young, and are somehow experts at what they do. The general rule is 10,000 hours to master a skill, and if your character is off and living in the streets, (which is a favorite of yours, players) where are they going to get the time and money to even to begin to master a skill?

 

3) Using the light/darkness as a literal power/element.

Listen, I know this is a Kingdom Hearts forum. It's just that it's really stupid. I'm mostly talking about the whole SUMMON BEINGS OUT OF SHADOWS / LIGHT HEALING kind of thing. Look, when you're out in the sun and you start being superpowered, you might as well just make your character a plant. I mean, how are shadows supposed to suddenly come to life? What, can you make The Blob out of a pitch dark room, too?

Also, when they have a priest use a light-based power to heal, it's generally holy power. Not solar power.

 

4) Describe your character as "handsome"

You may be asking me: "Protoman, what do you have against beautiful people!" Well, nothing. When you describe your character as handsome, it just means you're a lazy writer. Not to mention that when someone think's "handsome" they think of different things entirely. For me, it's a young Clint Eastwood. For someone else, it might be Benedict Cumberbatch. So unless your character is some sort of crazy psychic who keeps their face different for each person they encounter, you should probably stop taking shortcuts in describing facial features.

 

5) One line personalities.

"Cold, but with a heart," doesn't say much about the character. For example, it doesn't tell us what relation the character has with his family or anyone he interacts with. It doesn't tell us what the characters alignment is, or anything about what he believes in. It doesn't tell us if the guy has a heart for the supervillans, or orphans. The only thing you can assume from that personality is that he is a douche most of the time unless you bring him a puppy calendar.

 

6) Making a personality that is practically a carbon copy of your other character / someone else's character.

On the subject of personalities, I have a story for you. The other day, I waltzed onto a thread and read a personality that boiled down to "Sometimes sarcastic, loyal, and caring" around 3 different times in the same exact thread. I wouldn't mind nearly as much if there was a larger playerbase, but when everyone wants to play their character as a good guy Greg, then that just ruins the surprise. Not to mention that their personality was a pretty big chunk of their very small and vague character sheet. Someone might think you're stealing!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

7) An unknown back story.

You are the most unoriginal and the laziest writer on the board. Here's your prize.

Your character being a lad suffering with amnesia while their parents dead, making them live on the street (and somehow surviving) is bad enough. When you make that the back story for almost every single one of your characters, you have a problem. Of course, this happens to each and every chosen one, right? Points for if it's a modern setting and nobody bothers to put the character through any sort of therapy to help them remember something. Even more if 2+ people on the same board have the same back story as you. It's an infestation of lazy writing.

 

 

Bring up rebuttals plz, I didn't make this thread for no reason, gotta strengthen my reasoning.

Agree with everything except number one. Swords in a futuristic setting make everything better.

 

 

 

 

 

have to say, it looks a whole lot better than how most roleplays end up being executed

A+

Playing Evil Characters

 

Personally, I love playing villains. There are a lot of benefits from doing so. Being the object of everyone's hatred, you get to have a greater interaction with other characters, and there's something to be said about being front and center in focus as a result of people trying to get you. Also, being the villain seems to give you access to a certain level of powers not available to those playing the heroes. In order to be a villain worth beating, of course you're going to try and up your level of antagonistic ability, whether it be having physical or magical offense, or having some kind of mental one-up over the heroes. You want to come off as a legitimate threat, and so certain liberties are going to be taken.

 

The problem is, however, when people playing an evil character give their character these power ups to become a greater obstacle... and then forget that they're an obstacle. That is, these power ups either keep getting abused, or they keep growing and evolving so that the villain remains unbeatable.The idea of being evil becomes an excuse to essentially god-mode and have your character plow through the RP. This has more than a few negative side effects. First, the other people in the RP become frustrated with this evil character. If they're playing the hero, it stands to reason that they want to overcome the villain, but it becomes a matter of too much take and not enough give. The villain wants to keep getting the upper hand on the heroes in order to demonstrate how eeeeevil he or she is, but does not return the favor by letting the heroes actually accomplish something that makes it feel like their story is worthwhile. Thus the heroes more or less have to sit and spin their wheels while having to react to the villains' plots, and stay in this passive reactive state. It's boring for the players, and boring for the characters.

 

Second, this overpowering leads the evil character into heavy cliche territory. The moment the evil character yawns about how boring things are, or starts giving vague hints laced with "you fools," warning lights start to go off. The reason why these villains start to resort to tropes is because they've already got the world in their hands and all they can really do is sit and talk about how great they are. What people don't realize is that every character needs some kind of conflict in order to shape a personality or to move their story forward. This includes the villain. If they have no conflict, because they have been empowered so much that they've already won, then their character stagnates. The evil character's side of the story becomes laden with cliches because they have no opportunity to do anything different.

 

In closing, when playing an evil character, remember that you have a responsibilty to the other players and to yourself. You can't keep screwing over the heroes, and you shouldn't allow yourself to create a stagnant character with no arc.

ah Dave, you're great at this.

I also gotta say that don't just beat the villain no-sweat-mode all the time either, that's no fun.

Oh goodness... it hurts... even if most of this isn't directed towards me... it hurts to read. Especially when I start to compare it to myself. Like I need to improve on my personalities, work on character growth instead of regarding powers and perspective, and make them tad less op. And longer posts. Much longer.

Oh goodness... it hurts... even if most of this isn't directed towards me... it hurts to read. Especially when I start to compare it to myself. Like I need to improve on my personalities, work on character growth instead of regarding powers and perspective, and make them tad less op. And longer posts. Much longer.

ehto be honest, it's really quality>quantityyou can make something nice and brief but still get your point across descriptivelysometimes it is hard to write something in reply, and sometime's you're just doing something casualYou don't need to make your posts into some long, purple prose pile of shit, but make it easy to respond to. make it have the information it needs in it, all that jazz

... i just started trying to be an rper, after reading all of these things, I'm even more afraid that Im going to mess up, i dont know what to do. protoman seems to have it all together as well as the rest of you but, in all honesty, i probably made every mistake for starting a rp that you listed. i really dont know what to do now

I have to admit i just have a huge bias towards katanasfiretruck them

 

Might be late but those people who are like this:"Ha ha ha ha, Your so clever, while I have random bomb taped on your back that you never noticed and was never mentioned in the total RP at all"

 

parents are dead, so a flabbergasted and vengeful proto goes out to haphazardly wreck havoc on all of humanity?then some asshole with a katana cut me in half, firetrucking cheap piece of shit

 

So this is your nightmare character?Name:Age: 10Weapon: SwordSkills: Master Swordsman, Shadow ManipulationAppearance: HandsomeBio: He is an enigma. Nobody knows his name or his past.Personality: He's a lover, and a fighter (Like Sora!).

 

name: Sora Hikari

Oh god help me I'm dying

Here's a tip, if you don't like what other people are doing with their RPs.....Don't rp with them 

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This thread is less of a guide on RPing here, than it is just plain elitism. 

This is such an old topic

 

Here's a tip, if you don't like what other people are doing with their RPs.....Don't rp with them 

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This thread is less of a guide on RPing here, than it is just plain elitism. 

 

If we followed that advice we wouldn't RP at all on here now would we?

This guide hits hard at the problems the RP section has.

In fact, the reason I quit RP earlier on was because of what this guide is trying to help fix.

It ain't elitism if its true.

This is such an old topic

 

 

If we followed that advice we wouldn't RP at all on here now would we?

This guide hits hard at the problems the RP section has.

In fact, the reason I quit RP earlier on was because of what this guide is trying to help fix.

It ain't elitism if its true.

 

The OP is basically trying to say if you don't rp a certain way, then you're obviously a bad rper.

 

It is very much elitism, and shame on all the people who agreed with it People have different styles of RPing, to say that one way is good and one way is bad...that's not very fair.

The OP is basically trying to say if you don't rp a certain way, then you're obviously a bad rper.It is very much elitism, and shame on all the people who agreed with it People have different styles of RPing, to say that one way is good and one way is bad...that's not very fair.

Hold on there buddy.This isn't the actual guide. The guide starts at page 3. I'm trying to get this fixed right now

Hold on there buddy.This isn't the actual guide. The guide starts at page 3. I'm trying to get this fixed right now

 

Oh my bad, lol

The OP is basically trying to say if you don't rp a certain way, then you're obviously a bad rper.

 

It is very much elitism, and shame on all the people who agreed with it People have different styles of RPing, to say that one way is good and one way is bad...that's not very fair.

 

Proto is saying that if you make these faults (which are a HUGE problem with RPs) then it makes you a bad rper. Sure everyone has some faults, making you needing to work on them since no one is perfect. But its still an issue in RPs.

Its not elitism, the RPing is just that bad if you do multiple of these constantly. Its not about styles of RPing but just the fundamental basics of "my character is super awesome no matter what" which makes a lot of RPs fail since everyone is so super duper pooper awesome by the creators mind that they defy logic. For example, katana for a student for lets say Boston in 2100s because that person felt like having a katana and made up an excuse to justify it rather than to really relate the character and his items to the setting. That's not style, that's just, things that only makes sense during certain settings.

Welllll

im not gonna stop roleplaying the way that I roleplay

And if anyone has a problem with the way someone roleplays , they are gonna have to suck it up and deal with it.

I have my own style and will continue this style.

I don't believe that roleplays should be...made to have a certain style.

Welllllim not gonna stop roleplaying the way that I roleplayAnd if anyone has a problem with the way someone roleplays , they are gonna have to suck it up and deal with it.I have my own style and will continue this style.I don't believe that roleplays should be...made to have a certain style.

Agreed!

Might be late but those people who are like this:"Ha ha ha ha, Your so clever, while I have random bomb taped on your back that you never noticed and was never mentioned in the total RP at all"

Well good writing can disable that cheap move, like "hahaha I knew that and disarmed it and never bothered to remove it."

 

What really irks me are the people who RP as villains who cannot be defeated except by another OC that they created. "lol nope my character iz teh chozen one who can stop meh." Being involved with that made me want to punch out my computer screen on how bad it was

 

btw guys my guide has been unpinned. You can find it in Shana's post.

Edited February 6, 201510 yr by Javelin434