Role Playing for Dummies 2.0

Character creation:

i know the idea of having a character who is out for vengeance for his/her parents killers sounds like a good idea, but its an over played story "this man killed my parents/family/partner, so i'm gonna kill them". So when trying to create a character purely for RP purposes, don't rush it..sit down for awhile and think about his/her motives for being freed... what their life was like..like neo's, stuck in an apartment....maybe a teacher...a doctor..scientist...hell even a policeman if you really wanted.

simple tips and questions to ask yourself-

age?

height?

sexuality? ((for the guys who obviously may wanna play homosexual-characters...it happens...sometimes heh))

strenghts?

weaknesses?

do they smoke? and if they do, what brand? whats caused them to smoke?

do they drink alcohol? and if they do, what is their favourite drink? and if they are alcoholics, what started it?

do they have a sense of humour? if so, is it just natural? or a defense mechanism?

are they witty?

are they sarcastic?

where were they born?

their first love?

are they married/divorced/seperated/widowed? if widowed, what happen? were they murdered? run over? plane crash? car crash? train crash? did they die of cancer or any other illness? was it suicide?

Are they religious? if so, have they always been religious or was it a life changing experience that made them be religious?

their favourite music?

will he/she be passive/aggressive?  ((i.e MA/gunman and always want a fight... or healers and always shy away...or somewhere in the middle))

noticable features? ((i.e scars..tatoos..birthmarks..the like))

if your looking for RP, don't stand about and wait for it to come to you... because you may be waiting a long time...go out there and make your own RP, nothing more admirable then when two people can RP using no given situation and not having to wait for a crowd of people to even start to RP. If your having trouble finding RP, look on these forums and get the names of the leaders from the RP guilds, add them to your buddy list and when they come online ask if you can be included in any RP..or go to tabor west and/or the sphinx night club.

as posted in the above post, do not god mode.... no "i shoot you in the head and you die" .... if you wish to emote fight ((which are sometimes cool =) )) you have to make it fair and reasonable and let the other character decided his/her characters fate i.e "Mr.x quickly draws his pistols and sends a volley of bullets towards Mr.Y" now its up to mr.y what happens "Mr.Y instinctively rolls out of danger with minor cuts and bruises" or "Mr.Y tries to escape but gets cut down whilst trying to roll for cover" obviously you more experienced roleplayers out there already know this.. but i do see alot of roleplayers doing this kind of thing

Message Edited by Dhegon on 11-09-2005 01:46 AM

Message Edited by Dhegon on 11-09-2005 01:47 AM

thanks for the great work ffor the community gamisb...and dhegon =p

I must admit that I, too, have problems with a lot of the characters people have created for themsevles. Angels from previous versions of the Matrix, powerful Exiles... I'm sure I've heard of someone pretending to be a bear! It all sounds terribly silly to me.

However, this is not because it's unfeasible as far as the game goes. On the contrary: the game doesn't allow us to fly hovercraft, does not let us visit the Real, has no scope for anything outside of the Matrix - but we all RP about the Real and so forth. Unless I want to appear a hypocrite, I will have to accept anything that is possible within the Matrix universe (as opposed to just MxO). As long as we can imagine it, and it makes some sort of sense, it's acceptable.

I suppose my problem with all these characters that deviate from the norm (i.e. newly awakened Redpill human), isn't so much that they're strange, but that there are too many of them! It may well seem like they're trying to be creative by doing something a bit different, but in many cases it seems more likely they're using some crazy ideas because they can't be creative enough with what they've been given. Hey ho.

As for who decides what's 'silly' or not: that's a difficult question. RP is influenced and guided through co-operation (at least on MxO and h2g2, where I originally played a character). There are no rules, only guidelines. It is up to the people collectively to just go with the flow and do what seems right. People who make idiots of themselves are invariably shunned in the end.

*swoops in from above*

i'm back baby