I'm not my character!

When I play kind, soothing characters, people start to treat me like their best friend and openly enter conversations with me. They start to think I'm an angel that can do no harm, even though I don't agree with some of my character's values or motives. When I play selfish assholes and all too realistic villains, people avoid me, spread gossip, and don't invite me to anything. ;_; Hey guys! I'm not my character!


Characters are a Frankenstein of ourselves, made of parts taken from our values, our aspirations, our experiences, or our personality. While we draw inspiration from ourselves, that doesn't necessarily mean our characters ARE ourselves. If your character is supposed to be a self-insert, then that's all fine and dandy, but sometimes people start conflating a character's actions and motives with the creator's. Then comes the drama all around, because people disagree with your character and then decide they disagree with you.


Has anyone been in a situation where someone has told you they couldn't tell a character apart from you, or started treating you differently because of your character? How about you? Do you think people are their characters?


Mostly curious about people's thoughts here. I'm not the only one experiencing this, right? Maybe I'm doing something wrong with my RPing (or maybe something right since I'm so convincing, haha).

Hm, that's an interesting point you bring forth. I, however, have never experienced that sort of inclusion/exclusion based upon my character, and I have played every character type on the rainbow. That said, I always take the initiative to start an out of character conversation with my roleplay partner(s), even if it's just a simple: Hey! How are you today? While conversation with my partner(s) is an awesome way to discuss a plot, it's also a way to break the ice, so to speak. In your case, it may help open up people to understanding the differences between you and your character and may avoid them from getting the wrong idea.


Honestly, I catch myself thinking that way sometimes. If someone else's character is being rude to my character, my knee-jerk reaction is to think how impolite that person must be. Of course, I have to remind myself that it's just a roleplay. It's usually at that point when I drop a friendly line to my partner to get to know them better as a roleplayer. It's been helpful for several reasons. First, I'm not automatically assuming something about somebody else, and I've made a whole slue of friends because I'm willing to reach out and chat with people.


If I am able to open up an out of character conversation with my partner(s) and show I am a happy, go-lucky, easy-going gal, I don't usually run into problems and it makes me more understanding of other people's characters, too.

Ohhh, that's right! OOC conversations! I've never done forum style RPs except with some close friends of mine a billion years ago, so I've never had to plan things out with people. We usually just write up a scenario or apply with some character sheets, then just RP in it and see where it goes. I never realized how important it is to communicate with your RP partner(s) until you've mentioned it. I'll definitely have to try it out!


It's interesting that you get a knee-jerk reaction to impolite characters. I don't feel offended when RPing with them unless my character gets offended. Could personal attachment with characters be an issue, too? I know when I was younger I'd be super attached to my characters and feel sad when people attacked them, haha. It'd probably explain why people might take things a bit personally.

Actually, when I write, I try and get in the mind of my character. Thus, when something happens to my character, my brain tricks me into, momentarily, believe it's happening to me. I think that's where my knee-jerk reaction stems from. Of course, I always step by and look at the situation more logically after a second. I'm not overly attached to be characters honestly, since I don't recycle characters.


That said, I'd really suggest chatting with people out of character. That will probably help you avoid 99.9% of any drama and troubles. Plus, I think it's a nice gesture when people reach out and try and be friendly with me.

Oh, okay, okay. I totally understand that feeling, then! You're just in-tune with your character. That's a very good thing. uvu


Haha, definitely a good idea that I'll be trying out! Thanks!

I find myself becoming overwhelmed sometimes by my characters experiences especially if its a rp well into development. Those feels. Ive been told im alot like dapps or she to me. But as a writer, it aint surprising if we throw part of ourselves into a character?

Well, whether we like or not, we are a part of our characters. It's just a matter of to what extent we are the same.


I totally agree that it shouldn't be surprising that we put a part of ourselves into them; I'm just not too convinced that being confused for my character is a good thing. We're our own person, you know? Unless, like I said, your character is supposed to be you. Then that's fine, haha.

Oh, man, I'm not all too sure? I mean for the most part I just derp around in the OOC threads when it comes to me being in RPs, and because of that, I think that people have a fairly solid understanding of my personality and then the personality of my character. And the differences between the two. Or, at least, I hope so! I've never had anything like that before; though now that you've brought it up, I kind of want to put some extremes in differences between my characters more and see how people reply to that. I RP on a site called "Gaiaonline" for the most part (for now, at least), and it seems like people know that I'm pretty different than my character there. So idk. Maybe I'll try to experiment a bit more; Barton Town is always short on villains, and I need some serious practice.

It hasn't happened here, to my knowledge, because I don't really RP here anymore. Elsewhere, I have absolutely seen people's OOC view of me colored by who I'm playing, and vice versa, treating a character differently once they know who it's played by.


It's not actively malicious. Humans are creatures of bias. Simple-minded, we make associations unfairly.

There's always a very, very clear line between character and player the way I do it. I've done a lot of roleplaying over the years, from tabletop to MUSH to forum to be... not finishing that sentence. The differentiation between in character and out of character is important, partially because it keeps the stories believable, and partially because it's an extra challenge.


My characters will often make mistakes or assumptions. They will mis-name people. They will charge in recklessly when I know very clearly that it's a one way ticket to hell. They do things very, very differently to how I would do them. That's what makes it interesting.


If you're going to play your character as though they're a clone of you, why not just get up from your desk and go outside?

I tend to make characters that, to at least some extent, reflect my personality. I can never play the arrogant, rude type, because.........well, I just can't. I don't know how to pretend to be rude. I don't rack my brain for rude responses.


A lot of my characters tend to be a little more laid back, and if a battle starts, they're more the support type, reflecting my supportive preference in literally every game ever (that allows it), and my own personality of not wanting to be upfront in the center of attention. I don't make clones of myself though


Mad respect for those who can do a completely contrasting personality

As has already been said, most (if not all) players draw at least something from themselves or their environments into the characters they write. For me, the question isn't whether or not they're me - of course they're not. But they take a part of my personality or interest and make use of it in a way that's exceptionally different from how I'd go about using it.


For example, imagine you've got this love of psychology and you want to become a therapist some day. You're a very calm and attentive individual who likes listening to people's problems. What if your character shared that interest, but was prone to emotional outbursts and lack of attention? Conversely, what if the character lacked your interest, but used your personality to pursue another?


The only rule of thumb I go after is knowledge-based. I couldn't play a character who knows fluent Klingonese because I, the player, don't know it. I could learn, but the question then is whether the roleplay moves at a slow enough pace for me to learn, or moves at a fast pace with me slowing it down. And then there's calculus and trigonometry... yeah, let's not go there.

Not in online roleplay (yet) since I haven't done a great deal of it. In face-to-face not usually because I do talk with most of the same people out of character a fair bit also.


Contrariwise though, when I create characters I do recognize that they're mostly coming from the baseline of my life and experiences. As such I try to come up with 2-3 mannerisms or personality shifts that I consciously try to do differently even aside from the backstory and traits from whichever system we were using. In one particular case a long-running White Wolf character I played had some distinctive body language I got so used to doing that it bled across into mine and it's still something I find myself doing today.


So, you know, I think our characters can overlap with us a little more than we intend them to.

Oh yes, I've had experience with this, and I could not agree more with what you're saying.


I think the danger mostly derives when people start referring to their characters in the first person.


I don't think this has been brought up on this thread yet, but there ARE people who base their characters off of themselves.


In recent history, I have met a person who has openly admitted this.


That's fine and all for people to do that, if done properly, but the pattern I've noticed is that them creating characters that intentionally reflect themselves, they then will put that same assumption that YOU are doing this.


Social cues are really obvious, because the person will straight up say "I'm going to teach these bandits a lesson" and "you could always just wambo combo them" (don't ask me where I pulled that examples from because I don't know either haha).


The problem with this is that my characters exist entirely as their own entities.


YES I did come up with them, YES I have pulled in references from my own experiences, but my characters are never meant to represent me.


My characters tend to be the insensitive jerks that stir things up and have a cruel disregard for others... but for me as a person, all I ever do is try to look at things from other people's perspectives.


Doesn't really match up, does it?


So whenever people start to associate my own characters with myself... I've quickly diffused any drama that may have arisen from it, but it's never good for me.


I'm going to be blunt and say the majority of the time I've had to deal with this, the role plays had a largely male demographic.


More specifically, a Naruto forum I joined once upon a time.


Brilliant writers, but it was one of those forums where you made an account for each individual character, and I think from there they kind of stemmed the belief that everyone was role playing themselves, and they would use that first/second person when discussing their characters in the cbox.


Another time one of my characters was giving someone else's character a rating (you know, the whole on a scale from one to ten how hot is she kind of deal) and my character gave her about a seven, I think, and this was because she was supposed to be fairly popular and a real beauty in the school, but my character was completely turned off by the fact that she had braces.


After the other role player read that, their reply was "The braces thing? Really? " and I had to explain that I have nothing against braces because... well... I used to have braces.


I don't think I've had to really deal with that on RpN again, but it's definitely thing in other role play communities.


Like Mordecai said, communication can be crucial.


My role plays always have an active ooc chat, because personally I'm just uncomfortable role playing with someone if I don't know what they're thinking, and honestly I'll get paranoid about somehow displeasing them with the way that the story is going if they don't talk to me.


I never really thought about how I myself talk makes me seem more human and helps to define myself from my character, but I think it's a very good point.


If I'm always blabbing on about things and asking people about their days, it's probably a little more difficult to associate myself with my characters whose sole purpose in life is to bring other characters's self-confidence down with them.

Pine said:

I'm going to be blunt and say the majority of the time I've had to deal with this, the role plays had a largely male demographic.

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I've also noticed this, but more in relation to the nature of the roleplay itself. In competitive roleplays, I've seen more people associate their characters with themselves, whereas in cooperative roleplays (where the characters themselves may be competing, but the players are cooperating in planning and coordinating the story), it seems less of an issue.

Pine said:

If I'm always blabbing on about things and asking people about their days, it's probably a little more difficult to associate myself with my characters whose sole purpose in life is to bring other characters's self-confidence down with them.

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This, most definitely. People tend to know me as being willing to listen and negotiate, and I have a goofy sense of humor. I'm also surprisingly calm. But when they see my characters, they're surprised to find them very different. Some of my characters are non-compromising, others either have a dark sense of humor or none at all, and a few are emotionally volatile. I always have to explain that an important part of roleplay, for me, is to experiment with different mindsets and personalities that aren't my own.

Randomosity said:

I've also noticed this, but more in relation to the nature of the roleplay itself. In competitive roleplays, I've seen more people associate their characters with themselves, whereas in cooperative roleplays (where the characters themselves may be competing, but the players are cooperating in planning and coordinating the story), it seems less of an issue.

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!! Yeah, competitive role plays is a MUCH better way to put that, thank you.


My experience with role plays like that is limited to Naruto role plays, I haven't tried dice or anything.


Any other competitive role play I may have tried would have been on Neopets and... well... obviously that's a little bit of a different atmosphere. xD