Character Theory Broken and Tragic Characters

[StoneWolf18]

As the title states, I want to discuss the tragic and broken characters.

What do I mean by this? Well, it should be simple. I mean characters that have any of these aspects/traits such as:

• Tragic past (such as drugs, abuse, and other such horrible things.)
• Mental Instability (Mental disorders that severely impair them such as depression)

Now, I want to preface this by explaining that YES. I do recognize that these things exist and can/will happen within the world. It ain’t good but this earth isn’t perfect, now is it?

Anyway onto the rant wall of text.

First off, there is nothing wrong with these characters persay. They can add quite a bit to a story, roleplay, what have you, if portrayed realistically and correctly. But that is where part of the fault lies. Before I get to it, however, let me begin with why people are drawn to them as it is rather common for those new to writing to take one on, or even someone to have their full roster of OCs have this aspect of them in common.

For me the appeal is getting to partially experience something I never would get to in such a mundane life that I current live. Others it might be a way to express themselves, cure boredom, or even thinking that this is how characters are supposed to be created.

Once again, all good reasons.

What I don't see an acceptable reason is to give them shit to deal with because you need a reason for their edgy personality and or that's literally all there is to the character. Just a depressing, broken mass. No one likes reading or playing alongside those characters, trust me.

Then you get to how these characters are written. Most, from what I’ve seen, are thrown into a life that is quite literally a living hell with an addiction to drugs or alcohol while trying to forget killing their parents/spouse/loved one or some other worse act either they or someone else had committed that had affected them in some way. But this is done out of the blue with little to no justification as to why. The character could be brand new with little thought put in or the writer could be new to the topic, but it doesn’t change the fact that there was really no reason to have them abused by an older brother. That abuse could lead to a whole host of other problems with that being the leading cause, it seeming like enough explanation when in reality, you have a giant hole in your character’s story. Justification is HUGE in making them more believable, so why not put the extra bit of effort in to have it make sense?

Another thing I wanted to bring up was mental disorders. I’m pretty sure most of you reading right now know where this is going to go, but the act of blindly giving your character 15 different disorders and not only ignoring to research them individually but how they interact with each other… seriously? Don’t trust the media to tell you what OCD or depression is. Look it up and find some credible sources.

There. That is my opinion on the matter. I’m going to say that, yes, I accept that I have done this before (the tragic things as I rarely mess around with mental disorders) but upon realising that I now make sure to keep everything logical and making sense, so I don’t have something happen for shits and giggles.

 

[Windsock]

When I used to GM I almost never accepted characters with mental disorders because it's always just an excuse to be 'lolrandumb' and do stupid shit. Every time I did accept it, I regretted it within hours.

They're not bad because of the writing, although the writing related to the character is always fucking horrible. They're bad because of the end result and the creators who fetishize it and use it an excuse to do stupid shit.
Oh, plus, they're always the 'harley quinn' kind of fucking insane who're so, like, perkyy n magicall hahaha!!! totally kewwwl!!!

 

[Cross]

I feel like tragedy is used as a cheap way to give characters a more interesting backstory. It's a shortcut to depth and it usually backfires. I think I've seen two really good CSs with an excessively broken and/or mentally ill character. One was a parody and the other was by an insanely talented writer.

I think with tragic pasts, less is more. You're right about having no justification. I think it's just easier for people to kill off relatives in rps than incorporate them somehow. Murdering family members to give the MC character motivation is one of my pet peeves honestly. There is no reason Gary's parents had to be brutally murdered just so he could learn martial arts and find his destiny.

Like. --face palms- Those things aren't related.

 

[salvia palth]

I'm currently working on a character that is a drug abuser, and I had thought of this as well. I believe broken characters can be a good addition to some stories but within reason. Overly-dramatic backstories annoy me, though. The ones where they're like: At the age of 8, his parents were brutally murdered. At 9, his sister and brother followed. One year later, he found out it was him all along. Then his grandma died too. And his close friends. And their friends as well. Everyone is dead.

Those crack me up. Mentally unstable/drug addicted characters are excellent when they are written the right way. I have read many books where the author has portrayed them in such a way you felt as if you were them, too. It's all about context, and experience. Those with less experience, tend to make far reaches for something interesting. Those with more... well... you know.

 

[Destiny7]

I actively do not role play with people who create these over-exaggerated "broken" characters. Teenagers and young adults, especially (though obviously not all), romanticise mental health disorders. Is your character sad because someone died? Depression. Is your character easily distracted? ADD. Is your character artsy with little grasp of the world around them? 50 other things.

I think a lot of it comes from wanting attention through a character as well as wanting to feel supported. Most people, more or less, live through their characters, so creating these overly broken characters allows for young people to feel cared for when they ask to be paired with a prince charming or whatever. It's that desire for attention and affection, which is why we're also seeing a lot of YouTuber role plays and such now since that's an "attainable" type of fame, affection, attraction, and attention.

Unfortunately, this does lead to a lot of misconceptions, self-diagnoses, and genuine mistakes. Go ahead and get invested in role plays and make characters based off of you, but when it comes to characters with specific problems, try to understand the problem first or else you're not actually presenting the problem but rather what you want the problem to be. Romanticisation can be very dangerous.

Edit: I shouldn't say I never do, but it's usually very clear that someone doesn't understand what they're writing about just from their starter. If the mental illnesses are 99% of the character's identity, I actively avoid it. Also, I fall into the "young adult" category, so I'm not saying that out of prejudice, just experience.

 

[MISTER UN. 0W3N]

I think the biggest challenge for a "tragic/broken" character is the progression. Where do you go with your character at rock bottom? Do they continue to spiral until they're no more? Do they finally get some pull to seek help/finally start to stand up and start over? Yeah, you get the "derherher I'm tragic" thang going on, but there's never really any development after that. I'm alright with the usual generic and cliched tragedy background as long as I see a progression from there. That, these characters are seriously consumed by their demons and are negatively impacting themselves and, possibly, the rest of the cast before a crossroads for them appears. Just a thought really to work with a tragic character. That or twist around the "tragic character background" to where a character does have a shitty past, but they're trying their best not to be defined by it/do bum fuck something about it.

... and that's it. :U That's all I have.

As for mental illness, to me, that's a whole other set of problems for character design and all that jazz.

 

[Umbrie]

i actually played a character who otherwise had a positive life with the exception of being pursued by a crazy stalker. the stalker was obsessive and sent her flowers and dead rabbits, the rabbits even had arrows through their necks, representing how he successfully shot them with precision. because male Yandere Woodsman. imagine Elven Gaston with a Bow.

the Barmaid, a rather humble but famous Barmaid in the local Area, couldn't deal with the stalker, so she took to adventuring to vent her frustration. she had no real disorders, and she wasn't broken, just frustrated that a certain Woodsman would not give her the space she repeatedly asked him for. Think of Elven Belle, except she is also a barmaid to afford her library card.

then around level 3, the Group got to deal with the level 5 Woodsman as an Antagonist in the start of a new arc for the Story, where they let the barmaid get the finishing blow and liberate herself from frustration. she got the lucky backstab and claimed the Woodsman's bow for herself. as well as his self replenishing quiver.

 

[Borkus Lazorus]

For me the appeal is getting to partially experience something I never would get to in such a mundane life that I current live. Others it might be a way to express themselves, cure boredom, or even thinking that this is how characters are supposed to be created.

Isn't this the appeal of role-playing in general? I generally thought roleplay was one of the most purest forms of escapism.

I do agree with you that tragic backstories for characters can be done correctly. It's not that it's a complete anathema to any 'good' role-players (Good being a relative term here). I will admit that I'm attracted to the concept of the rock bottom man or the tragic hero with the fatal flaws and I was a frequent user of mental disorders in the past (Which I am terribly, terribly ashamed of). I now never do mental health disorders for my characters unless it can be backed up by their past experience and actually reasonably fits them.

With the whole ' I am a scientific marvel of psychological disorders' thing, I can agree with that. Too many times on RPforums, I encounter people who write people with severe mental disorders and so forth. Instead of making your character tragic and creating pathos, you are flanderising the very concept of mentally disabled people which is disgusting. If your character concept as a whole is based on these mental disorders, then, it's repulsive.

(On the other hand, a person with 200 mental diseases sounds like a dream plan for a supervillian. )

What I prefer are characters who are not one-dimensionally based around their tragedy and work around it and acknowledge their tragedies and move around it. Because, hey, that's character development. And if you don't know what character development is, then, there is something seriously wrong with you.

 

[Communist]

When I used to GM I almost never accepted characters with mental disorders because it's always just an excuse to be 'lolrandumb' and do stupid shit. Every time I did accept it, I regretted it within hours.

They're not bad because of the writing, although the writing related to the character is always fucking horrible. They're bad because of the end result and the creators who fetishize it and use it an excuse to do stupid shit.
Oh, plus, they're always the 'harley quinn' kind of fucking insane who're so, like, perkyy n magicall hahaha!!! totally kewwwl!!!

At least they're not Hannibal Lecter level of random and weird.

 

[Umbrie]

to a character whom was frequently forced through tragedy, they would eventually become more desensitized to future tragedies due to a flood of the tragedy market. if you take an otherwise happy, upbeat and positive character and give them one tragedy during play that has a significant impact. that one tragedy would impact them more than the person who was frequently exposed to it. in fact, try giving the character a tragedy that doesn't have to do with their childhood, their disabilities, their parents or their family in general. how about a completely positive, well read, and easygoing high elven barmaid who got frustrated from dealing with a wood elven woodsman that kept stalking her like a male Yandere would? it would make those instances with the Yandere Woodsman Stand out rather than drowning him under a pile of other problems.

in that particular dice RP, the Barmaid was a Hackmaster Thief/Mage whose highest attributes were Charisma and Appearance followed by Honor, Intelligence and Dexterity, and her only really bad Attribute was her Strength score. but she was a lucky character who had a lot of build points and crazy high attributes due to sheer luck with every dice roll that could impact her statistics.

i literally turned her local popularity into a tool to create a flaw, and genned a stalker NPC for her. for the GM to harass the group with. funny thing with hackmaster and my own luck. i generally roll the worst attributes the group has ever seen, or i roll the best set in the group by a large margin, usually with no middle ground. which is why i literally end up with game breaking characters in Hackmaster and similar old school RPGs. because either i am completely violating the innkeeper rule due to such poor rolls, or ending up with a kryptonian under a yellow sun for lack of a better term.

please, don't pile tragedies onto a character to give them a reason to angst. tragedies are a decent complication when they are a complication that effects play, not 2 paragraphs added to your novella backstory.

 

[Lordvader59]

At least they're not Hannibal Lecter level of random and weird.

If I ever found someone on this site who could accurately RP Hannibal Lecter I would invite them to all of my roleplays. Unfortunately everyone who tries is frankly shit at it.

 

[Smol Birb]

I actually generally make my characters have 'tragic backstories' tbh. However, I research a frick ton out of mental illness and such (plus I'm a sociologist in the making ^o^), and contemplate on backstories for weeks, months at a time. To be honest, I don't know why I started doing this, but I think it's because that 1. who doesn't like character sufferings haha up top, 2. it's almost like a coping mechanism for me, and 3. it's interesting. Sure, a character that grew up in a nice house with a nice family is fine and all...but a character who went through literal hell and back probably has more interesting thoughts.
Plus, there are actual real life people who did have their parents die, then they got tossed around from house hold to house hold, then they got addicted to drugs or alcohol when they got older. But I think the important thing is making things realistic.
Like if you say 'Okay so her parents died then her siblings then her cat then her teacher and then her crush, and then she got addicted to all the drugs and now has 50 mental illnesses' like that's obviously not realistic, and honestly kinda shitty.

 

[WaffleWamego]

I completely agree with all of this, it's somewhat depressing to see how many characters are based on such ideas when they haven't been researched or are incorrectly displayed. Mental disorders should never be used to 'glam' things up, they're a serious issue. There are some characters I can appreciate that do have mental disorders, but they aren't displayed as being murderers or absolutely wacko. I understand wanting to make your character unique and all, but I don't think giving them a bunch of psychological issues that don't make sense is gonna work. Especially if they're going to give them mental disorders that are completely separate from each other. Not to mention lack of research, I don't understand why some people think giving their characters schizophrenia is cool. It's not something you want to live through at all, schizophrenics don't murder people or act insane most of the time. Schizophrenia is a disease that mostly alters the way you perceive things, some hallucinate for most of their lives that their perception of reality is different from ours. Sorry about the rant, I pray for forgiveness. ;-; This stuff just makes me really mad.

 

[Smol Birb]

I hate it when people use mental illnesses to glam up characters too. I actually have mental illnesses and lemme tell you, it's not 'cool' or anything >.<

 

[WaffleWamego]

I feel you, it's almost kinda makes me more ashamed. The stigma that comes with those sorts of things really do hurt people, and it makes it worse when people think it's cool or cute to have. ;-;

 

[Smol Birb]

I have massive anxiety, to the point where I sometimes can't leave my house, where it makes me physically I'll, or where I can't even move out of fear. It's not a cute quirk, it's an illness ;-;

 

[WaffleWamego]

I'm sorry for that, I truly am. I hope one day you'll be able to do something to help with it. It's a very hard subject, and not many like to speak of it the way it truly is.

 

[Smol Birb]

It's fine ^^ I'm slowly getting better!

 

[Bacon is fluffy]

I only write tragic or normal characters because none of my roleplay experiences have ever really panned out in a meaningful manner. As for crazy,taking some psych classes and reading up actual academic articles on research for this stuff...really makes me regret a few of my first attempts at making a character who's crazy. xD

 

[Kylesar1]

I honestly can't stand that shit 90% of the time.

If something happened to my character, it only happens to one relative and I almost never include it in the CS. I include it in the story as a part of character development. Most of my characters live normal lives, since it seems like every one else has to have this insanely tragic backstory. My most notable character is one with 2 kids who's mother (his wife) died from a curse. Due to falling on bad times, he became an assassin to provide a very privileged lifestyle to his kids. The daughter (who became a very important part of the RP) was very opposed to his assassin job and that became the basis of many serious and sometimes comedic arguments when he just killed some poor chap in a bar fight


I hate that whole every single loved one dies and they get sold into slavery where any friends they make are sexually abused and all that shit. That last 10% do it fine. They don't overdo it.

Mental illness are even worse. I've RPed with exactly 1 person who could pull off a brain damage/mental illness well

 

[Umbrie]

Underage Sex Slaves really bother me. using an eternally young species to get around the age of consent makes things even worse. most of the time, said characters are involved in Erotic Roleplay as masturbation material for the writer, and usually seek an older male character to dominate their small forms. this ruins the chances of actual childish characters actually being able to form platonic sibling bonds because of the little slave girl who wants to be plowed by a big brother figure.

 

[Isaedras Cleditre]

Pardon my intrusion but I relate to so many of the comments on this thread x.x

 

[WaffleWamego]

That's incredibly disturbing, and isn't that type of material banned from being roleplayed on here? I don't understand how people still get away with that stuff, I'm pretty sure having a character under the age of consent getting raped by another character can be considered child pornography, especially if the sicko is getting off to it. ;-;

 

[CJAlex]

Okay, found a good thread, started to read through it, got to the bottom of it... Wow! Although what was recently discussed would technically fall into the realm of unspecified paraphilia (not pedophilia, because I can practically hear the ghost beneath everyone's keyboard) disorder and might be relative to this conversation, I can see that the track it started on would make for one hell of a bumpy ride laced with misunderstandings. SO, I'm just gonna yank this bad boy (no pun intended) back on track. Wee!

---

Don’t trust the media to tell you what OCD or depression is.

I'm glad you mentioned OCD. We often joke about people that are slightly anal retentive (like me) as having "OCD". In reality, most of us could not fathom what true obsessive compulsive disorder entails. So, I would echo the OP's suggestion here: research every psychosis you aim to introduce with sincerity in your story.

Case in point: I have a character in the book series I'm working on that is responsible for assisting in a breakthrough in theoretical physics. He's a seventeen year-old prodigy that has savant syndrome. A bit of research and circumstance would have it then that he is also on the autism spectrum. Obsessive compulsion fits neatly into his psychological profile. To reflect these distinctive traits, I portray him as a character that cannot stand chaos when discipline and order can otherwise be imposed. He detests the phrase "organized chaos", and argued that "anything chaotic has no place among orderly structure."

On the other hand, his favorite weather conditions involve any kind of precipitation: showers, drizzles, pouring thunder storms, snow, and even hail. As long as the sky is falling, he is completely comfortable. His therapist found this both fascinating and puzzling, due to Ezra's distaste for chaos; however, the prodigy claims that there is, in fact, an inspiring, melodic pattern (visual and audible) to be found in "the pitter patter of rain drops, the soft whispers of leaves in the wind, or the harsh plodding of hail." Of course, this is actually him simply projecting that idea onto a stimuli (namely, sound) that can quell his anxiety.

Negative impacts of his ASD primarily arise in a social setting. Messages conveyed through sarcasm, idioms, and colloquy are often lost on him and he needs help understanding the meaning of what was said, lest he feel frustration and unable to focus on a greater task.

At least they're not Hannibal Lecter level of random and weird.

Funny thing: writers interested in conveying the criminal mind on a psychopathic or sociopathic level could learn a thing or two from Thomas Harris' character and the gleaned inspiration from "Dr. Salazar".

Well, this has been fun.

 

[Lappi]

I rarely use mental disorders but when I do (in a serious RP) I do em right