Advice/Help Help wanted

[Destructive_demigod]

So basically i want to improve by post length from a few sentences to maybe a few paragraphs. Im aware that isnt a change that happens over time but i feel week and underwhelming woth my length and quality of post.

Other things id like help with:
Formatting
Character creation
Sticking to a characters personality in roleplay
Creating a balanced/not too OP charachter or weapon

 

[Idea]

Well, this is .... quite a lot.

So basically i want to improve by post length from a few sentences to maybe a few paragraphs. Im aware that isnt a change that happens over time but i feel week and underwhelming woth my length and quality of post.

First I'll say what I'm sure everyone else will say anyway, but regardless: Posting less does not make you a worse roleplayer or a worse writer. In fact some would argue posting less makes the writing better, and others like myself would argue that the general case is the opposite. In the end of the day, it depends mostly on your ability to fill out the detail and on your goals when you write. If you want to create a more dynamic and organic experience, one might advise you to go shorter. If you're goal is to make a full, expansive and immersive experience, then it would be wise to go for bigger and more detailed.

With that out of the way, assuming you want to stick to trying out detailed, I would begin by targeting the things that generally block a casual player from shifting to detail, and those are not a lack of skill or effort, but one of mentality. The way someone approaches a detailed post is completely different from the approach to a casual post. For instance, a casual poster will tend to think more of the character's actions and their immediate impact on the plot or other characters. However, a detailed roleplayer will be thinking of what the character is thinking and feeling, what impact everything is causing on their surroundings, what the current actions will do for the character's development and arc etc... Details a casual roleplayer might find superfluous are the key to making detail work.

A good long post, a good detailed post, has an answered why for every word and mastering it is making those whys play like a symphony.

So here are a few GENERAL principles on how to shift this approach:

1. Not all detail is action, not every description is a painting. A common mistake is to think that if you want to make a post bigger, you should be adding more actions, however this will result in a cacacophonic mess. On the other hand, you can't fall into the idea that you should stop and describe something visually or it's entire history every two seconds. Understand WHY you are putting what you are putting in and WHY things work the way they do. A reader needs to understand why things happen and what effects it is having on the surroundings. Use your descriptions in a dynamic way and use your actions as a process not a moment.

2. Do some research on writing. Understanding of writing concepts will pretty much help in all of your goals, but this one especially, because it will give you a better awareness of the ways to structure a story.

3.Tell us things from the character's perspective, or at least "Show don't tell". Rather than saying it's cloudy, show us the character's perspective about the clouds, how they form and cover the sky. Instead of just straight up having the character make a decision, make us understand the thinking that led to it. This will also help you deal with the "sticking to the character" problem- if you do not write in the narratively convenient way, but instead show things from the character's perspective from the start, it's easier not to slip out of said perspective.

4.Don't rely on the muse. The muse, those bursts of inspiration or feeling of "wanting to write" are great for writing, but they are also too shortlived for reliable use in long writing. The only way to keep it up is to develop good writing habits and methods to make yourself write.


Now I understand I was quite vague here, a combination of the subject matter (the general approach differences wouldn't be so linearly specific), and the fact there is a bunch of other questions to answer. Either way, if you have any questions or need more precise assistance, let me know.

Formatting

Meaning?

Character creation

This one is a bit too vague for me to answer. I'll take it that the specifics of this are in your next questions, and if they aren't then you'll have to clarify OR you could just put your actual characters up for feedback.

Sticking to a characters personality in roleplay

Alright, now this one is a more doable one. So...

1.Start by making sure the character's personality is competently designed.
A competently designed character personality will feature:
*complexity without contradiction - People are not contradictory, they are just so complex that small variables can switch enough gears to change their behavior. You should be clearly defining what the character's real tendencies are and establishing concrete boundaries between shifts of behavior, but without negleting that a character should generally not be a monolyth by any means.
*traits that work with the plot and other characters- if you need to interact then making it so your character is someone who just doesn't interact on their own is shooting yourself in the foot.
*real flaws- "A universal major negative tendency of character behavior that is likely to lead to failure during an important moment". If something only applies sometimes it's not a real flaw. If it's so minor it's barely noticeable, or just an expanded virtue it's not a real flaw. If it won't lead to failure it's not a real flaw. If it's not character behavior it's not a flaw at all, at best it's a handicap. Fail at having real flaws and you just lost your opportunity to develop your character.
*humanizing layers- while kind of part of the whole "complexity matter" I feel these deserve their own point. Don't forget to add little things and different sides to your character than just whatever is their main outlook. It doesn't even have to deviate much. Knowing that the war veteran is also a super competitive hunter who prides himself on the number of deers he headshotted may not make much of a difference in the otulook, but it helps humanize the character, felshing them out and gives you a better idea of how they would fair in situations that aren't just the one specific you build them for at first.
*make a character you can actually play- Is it wise to make a strategist if you yourself can't come up with a plan to save your life? Is it wise to make a character that broods all the time if you don't know how to get them motivated for the plot? Should you include a sentence or word whose pratical application you don't know?

If you make competent character design from the start, then you are less likely to come face to face with a situation where your character design prevents you from properly participating in the RP, thus forcing your hand to change them just so you can work the character into the story.

A strategy I also use is that I often come up with character traits by imagining scenes with the character, the constructing the personality around what would be needed to make those scenes happen.

2.Read the Sheet a few times over before the first few posts- know your character inside and out
The better you understand the character you wrote down, and the more you remind yourself of the traits you laid out for them the better are the odds that you remember that your character actually wouldn't try to investigate the dark room because they are actually a coward, but would hesitantly open the door if they heard their friend screaming from within.

3.Danger, problems, consequences are what plots are all about
What's the best way to stick to the character personality? Don't break character. It may seem circular, but the important part here is that this isn't just meant in general, but on a moment to moment basis.

Forgive me for using the bible here but as Jesus once said, the sinners also cherish their friends and do good to those that did good to them. Likewise, everyone can stick to character when it's convenient. The moments that you have to stick to your guns the most though, are those when the character would make a bad decision. A mistake. Sorry for harping on this example so much, but if your character is a brooding loner, then yeah he shouldn't be able to be encouraging people, he shouldn't go to a group of strangers and ask to join in, he SHOULD come off as an antisocial a**hole. If your character is trying to come off as intimidating but have a heart of gold, and they see a weakling getting picked on, then don't necessarily jump to resuce the weakling, see what other traits the character may have- are they cautious or reckless, are they competent enough actors, what considerations go into what people will think, if your character worries about that at all...

Creating a balanced/not too OP charachter or weapon

Does a complete stranger with no awareness about you stand a chance of defeating you if they are a below-average version of whatever the characters in general are, without resorting to a specific weakness or circumstancial disadvantages?
Does your ability potentially intercept important plot points?
If I spammed your ability would that grant me victory or effectively make me invencible? (example: teleporting is typically OP because you can't effectively hit them, they'll just teleport away)
Does the ability have very clearly defined reasonable limitations?
Is my power based on an arbitrary power source defined so vaguely I could always excuse having more or less as convenient?

If the answers are respectively yes no no yes no, then your character is almsot certainly balanced. Of course, those are not absolutely necessary, there are cases when you can devate a bit from them, but the power level depends too much on RP to give a proper answer.


Anyways, I hope this helps. Best of luck and happy RPing!

 

[Destructive_demigod]

Well, this is .... quite a lot.


First I'll say what I'm sure everyone else will say anyway, but regardless: Posting less does not make you a worse roleplayer or a worse writer. In fact some would argue posting less makes the writing better, and others like myself would argue that the general case is the opposite. In the end of the day, it depends mostly on your ability to fill out the detail and on your goals when you write. If you want to create a more dynamic and organic experience, one might advise you to go shorter. If you're goal is to make a full, expansive and immersive experience, then it would be wise to go for bigger and more detailed.

With that out of the way, assuming you want to stick to trying out detailed, I would begin by targeting the things that generally block a casual player from shifting to detail, and those are not a lack of skill or effort, but one of mentality. The way someone approaches a detailed post is completely different from the approach to a casual post. For instance, a casual poster will tend to think more of the character's actions and their immediate impact on the plot or other characters. However, a detailed roleplayer will be thinking of what the character is thinking and feeling, what impact everything is causing on their surroundings, what the current actions will do for the character's development and arc etc... Details a casual roleplayer might find superfluous are the key to making detail work.

A good long post, a good detailed post, has an answered why for every word and mastering it is making those whys play like a symphony.

So here are a few GENERAL principles on how to shift this approach:

1. Not all detail is action, not every description is a painting. A common mistake is to think that if you want to make a post bigger, you should be adding more actions, however this will result in a cacacophonic mess. On the other hand, you can't fall into the idea that you should stop and describe something visually or it's entire history every two seconds. Understand WHY you are putting what you are putting in and WHY things work the way they do. A reader needs to understand why things happen and what effects it is having on the surroundings. Use your descriptions in a dynamic way and use your actions as a process not a moment.

2. Do some research on writing. Understanding of writing concepts will pretty much help in all of your goals, but this one especially, because it will give you a better awareness of the ways to structure a story.

3.Tell us things from the character's perspective, or at least "Show don't tell". Rather than saying it's cloudy, show us the character's perspective about the clouds, how they form and cover the sky. Instead of just straight up having the character make a decision, make us understand the thinking that led to it. This will also help you deal with the "sticking to the character" problem- if you do not write in the narratively convenient way, but instead show things from the character's perspective from the start, it's easier not to slip out of said perspective.

4.Don't rely on the muse. The muse, those bursts of inspiration or feeling of "wanting to write" are great for writing, but they are also too shortlived for reliable use in long writing. The only way to keep it up is to develop good writing habits and methods to make yourself write.


Now I understand I was quite vague here, a combination of the subject matter (the general approach differences wouldn't be so linearly specific), and the fact there is a bunch of other questions to answer. Either way, if you have any questions or need more precise assistance, let me know.



Meaning?


This one is a bit too vague for me to answer. I'll take it that the specifics of this are in your next questions, and if they aren't then you'll have to clarify OR you could just put your actual characters up for feedback.


Alright, now this one is a more doable one. So...

1.Start by making sure the character's personality is competently designed.
A competently designed character personality will feature:
*complexity without contradiction - People are not contradictory, they are just so complex that small variables can switch enough gears to change their behavior. You should be clearly defining what the character's real tendencies are and establishing concrete boundaries between shifts of behavior, but without negleting that a character should generally not be a monolyth by any means.
*traits that work with the plot and other characters- if you need to interact then making it so your character is someone who just doesn't interact on their own is shooting yourself in the foot.
*real flaws- "A universal major negative tendency of character behavior that is likely to lead to failure during an important moment". If something only applies sometimes it's not a real flaw. If it's so minor it's barely noticeable, or just an expanded virtue it's not a real flaw. If it won't lead to failure it's not a real flaw. If it's not character behavior it's not a flaw at all, at best it's a handicap. Fail at having real flaws and you just lost your opportunity to develop your character.
*humanizing layers- while kind of part of the whole "complexity matter" I feel these deserve their own point. Don't forget to add little things and different sides to your character than just whatever is their main outlook. It doesn't even have to deviate much. Knowing that the war veteran is also a super competitive hunter who prides himself on the number of deers he headshotted may not make much of a difference in the otulook, but it helps humanize the character, felshing them out and gives you a better idea of how they would fair in situations that aren't just the one specific you build them for at first.
*make a character you can actually play- Is it wise to make a strategist if you yourself can't come up with a plan to save your life? Is it wise to make a character that broods all the time if you don't know how to get them motivated for the plot? Should you include a sentence or word whose pratical application you don't know?

If you make competent character design from the start, then you are less likely to come face to face with a situation where your character design prevents you from properly participating in the RP, thus forcing your hand to change them just so you can work the character into the story.

A strategy I also use is that I often come up with character traits by imagining scenes with the character, the constructing the personality around what would be needed to make those scenes happen.

2.Read the Sheet a few times over before the first few posts- know your character inside and out
The better you understand the character you wrote down, and the more you remind yourself of the traits you laid out for them the better are the odds that you remember that your character actually wouldn't try to investigate the dark room because they are actually a coward, but would hesitantly open the door if they heard their friend screaming from within.

3.Danger, problems, consequences are what plots are all about
What's the best way to stick to the character personality? Don't break character. It may seem circular, but the important part here is that this isn't just meant in general, but on a moment to moment basis.

Forgive me for using the bible here but as Jesus once said, the sinners also cherish their friends and do good to those that did good to them. Likewise, everyone can stick to character when it's convenient. The moments that you have to stick to your guns the most though, are those when the character would make a bad decision. A mistake. Sorry for harping on this example so much, but if your character is a brooding loner, then yeah he shouldn't be able to be encouraging people, he shouldn't go to a group of strangers and ask to join in, he SHOULD come off as an antisocial a**hole. If your character is trying to come off as intimidating but have a heart of gold, and they see a weakling getting picked on, then don't necessarily jump to resuce the weakling, see what other traits the character may have- are they cautious or reckless, are they competent enough actors, what considerations go into what people will think, if your character worries about that at all...



Does a complete stranger with no awareness about you stand a chance of defeating you if they are a below-average version of whatever the characters in general are, without resorting to a specific weakness or circumstancial disadvantages?
Does your ability potentially intercept important plot points?
If I spammed your ability would that grant me victory or effectively make me invencible? (example: teleporting is typically OP because you can't effectively hit them, they'll just teleport away)
Does the ability have very clearly defined reasonable limitations?
Is my power based on an arbitrary power source defined so vaguely I could always excuse having more or less as convenient?

If the answers are respectively yes no no yes no, then your character is almsot certainly balanced. Of course, those are not absolutely necessary, there are cases when you can devate a bit from them, but the power level depends too much on RP to give a proper answer.


Anyways, I hope this helps. Best of luck and happy RPing!

Thank you so much, i will probably reread this a few times since this is a lot of information.

By formatting, i honestly dont know what i meant by that, but ill say something different. How do i know when to end a paragraph, or also a post?

I think i can create a character with these things in mind and it would be at least competent.

Thank you so much, this really helps alot

 

[Idea]

Thank you so much, i will probably reread this a few times since this is a lot of information.

Take your time. You said it yourself, this isn't exactly an overnight process, and the part that I somewhat purposefully left out but I believe is kind of self-evident is that it will of course take lots of pratice and effort on your part, as any change in habits would.

By formatting, i honestly dont know what i meant by that, but ill say something different. How do i know when to end a paragraph, or also a post?

I see. Well, regarding paragraphs there is also a bit of debate about this subject, but the general consensus you end a paragph when you've completed the paragraph's central idea. A paragraph will tend to center on a specific idea, be it a more focused description of something, or a moment of the action, a character's internal struggle, etc... Your paragraph should start by transitioning into it's central idea and exit at the conclusion of the idea, or as soon as you introduce a particular consequence, which leads me to...

Just as important as when to start and end a pagraph is how to start and end a paragraph. An important trick to make your writing smoother to read, is to try as much as possible connect your paragraphs. Whatever you end a pragraph with has to be related to how the next one starts, though this relation doesn't always have to be a direct lead. Sometimes a contraposition or just somehting like "meanwhile" might do the trick.

In regards to posts, it's a lot harder a question, however I don't think you will need to face it for a while. You are trying to learn to write more, so you will seldom find yourself in a situation where you've actually written too much, and much more often will find yourself writing too little. I believe a good criteria for when you have written enough for a post, is when you'e properly responded to your partners own content, when you've described any transitions that happened in your post (temporal, spacial or narrative), had your character take actions independent from your partner's post (AKA something not directly prompted by a reaction), had that character take remarkable action (any action that your partner has an easy time getting to respond to. Over the top or very visible or significant actions, asking questions etc... ) and described your character's thoughts and feelings throughout.

In doing that, you meet what I call the "content minimum" for a post. At that point, you may or may not have met the size needs. In fact, you will find that as you grow as a writer, you will often find yourself giving your scenes and actions more and more double or even triple purposes, so you'll more easily meet this requirement in less space. That said, in regards to how big a post, that depends on your parnter. I for one set the bar at 15 full PC lines, but that is from my experience quite on the high end of size requirements.

I think i can create a character with these things in mind and it would be at least competent.

Well, I'll give you one more tip. The single most important factor, I find, for both characters and worldbuilding is consistency. Consistency of internal logic and consistency of consequence. Your character needs to make sense within it's own internal logic, and furthermore, using that internal logic every aspect must result in actual consequences.

Maybe the color of the hair won't have much of an impact in their personality, but if they have a certain personality, then it would be wise to think of how their upgbringing led to such a personality. If you kill the character's parents, you need to both think of the impact it has on the character as whole, and in whether the loss of potential (two extremely important for interaction and development NPCs being dead) is worth the action you are taking.

Thank you so much, this really helps alot

Glad to hear it

 

[Birdsie]

Formatting, Paragraphing & Storytelling

First of all, an important thing to remember is that paragraphs aren't consecutive five-line blocks of text. A lot of writers think that, mistakenly, and they think it makes their writing look impressive when they shit out a dozen of those.

Again, that's wrong. A paragraph is a single shelf of text regarding a single idea or topic. Just that. One idea per paragraph.

Now that I'm done explaining what paragraphs are, I've started my third paragraph. I might talk about alcoholic beverages in here. You ever tried Jack Daniels? That's some good stuff.

But I'm done with alcohol, so this is the fourth paragraph, and the next one will explain how to write more easily by breaking down the subject into a logical frame.

Let's begin with this - what is writing? Writing - the act of creating written works - is a complex form of communication that uses fancy symbols for expression, but in the context we're in, it's actually much closer to storytelling.

What is roleplay, if not a collaborative experience between one or more writers who are creating a story together? Even at its basest, most degraded forms, roleplay is just that: collaborative storytelling. And to tell a story, the best way to frame it is with your own words.

Here's how I do it: First, I imagine the particular scene or situation. It doesn't matter how I picture it; a movie, a real event, a fucking Isekai anime. What matters is that I have a good picture of what was there, what happened, why, and what the most important elements of the scene are.

The second step is to put it into words, literally. As if telling it by a warm campfire, I tell the story of what happened in the scene to myself.

The third, last, and easily the least difficult step is to convert the words from speech to text. You write down the story, and bam.

It might not seem like a hard process to follow, and more so, it might not seem like it brings results - but trust me. This thing works, and it works really well. Before you know it, the story you're telling is ten paragraphs long and you're only waiting to write down more.

So, those were the basics of Formatting, Paragraphing & Storytelling. As a reminder: the general unspoken rule is one idea per paragraph, AND you're basically telling a story, but in text rather than speech.

Character Creation

This is a way more abstract and complicated topic. There is no hard logic to creating a character, only the flow of what you feel.

I believe that each writer has different methods when it comes to creating characters. Some probably get inspired by fictional or real people, others put together a jury-rigged mountain of ideas and see what sticks, and others yet might just get an idea for a character while doozing off and make it a reality. For me, it's a bit of all three; sometimes one more than the other two. There is no foolproof way to describe or explain the process to someone, since it's all subjective.

So, that all in mind, take what I'm about to say with a big grain of salt.

The process of creating characters is long and arduous. You should begin with a general concept. A rough-around-the-edges idea of what you want to tell, and then work off of that. Say, you want a badass mercenary. Start with that - what's he like, what's his name, appearance, why is he a mercenary instead of a baker down the street? Ask yourself questions like these, and build the backstory of what built him to be who he is as you do that. The personality you want him to have should surface somewhere by the halfway mark or a bit later, and by that time, you should be able to describe it with your own words and in fair detail.

Sticking To A Character's Personality In Roleplay

This is a fun question to answer because I regularly have to remind myself to do this, too.

Personally, I find that the best way to do it is to constantly remind yourself of the character you created, and the kind of person they are. Think of what they experienced thus far, and how those experiences affect their perceptions and behaviors. If you can do that, I think you'll be able to handle the rest. Speech is also important, and getting it into text form with precision can be really difficult sometimes.

Creating A Balanced Character Or Weapon

No advice to give here, mate.

Everything about that idea is subjective. You should carefully gauge the power-level of whatever other characters and weapons are in the RP and ask yourself how your own character should compare to them - weaker, stronger, average? And then, you should create the power, weapon, or character, based on that.

There we go.

Hope I contributed.

 

[Destructive_demigod]

Take your time. You said it yourself, this isn't exactly an overnight process, and the part that I somewhat purposefully left out but I believe is kind of self-evident is that it will of course take lots of pratice and effort on your part, as any change in habits would.


I see. Well, regarding paragraphs there is also a bit of debate about this subject, but the general consensus you end a paragph when you've completed the paragraph's central idea. A paragraph will tend to center on a specific idea, be it a more focused description of something, or a moment of the action, a character's internal struggle, etc... Your paragraph should start by transitioning into it's central idea and exit at the conclusion of the idea, or as soon as you introduce a particular consequence, which leads me to...

Just as important as when to start and end a pagraph is how to start and end a paragraph. An important trick to make your writing smoother to read, is to try as much as possible connect your paragraphs. Whatever you end a pragraph with has to be related to how the next one starts, though this relation doesn't always have to be a direct lead. Sometimes a contraposition or just somehting like "meanwhile" might do the trick.

In regards to posts, it's a lot harder a question, however I don't think you will need to face it for a while. You are trying to learn to write more, so you will seldom find yourself in a situation where you've actually written too much, and much more often will find yourself writing too little. I believe a good criteria for when you have written enough for a post, is when you'e properly responded to your partners own content, when you've described any transitions that happened in your post (temporal, spacial or narrative), had your character take actions independent from your partner's post (AKA something not directly prompted by a reaction), had that character take remarkable action (any action that your partner has an easy time getting to respond to. Over the top or very visible or significant actions, asking questions etc... ) and described your character's thoughts and feelings throughout.

In doing that, you meet what I call the "content minimum" for a post. At that point, you may or may not have met the size needs. In fact, you will find that as you grow as a writer, you will often find yourself giving your scenes and actions more and more double or even triple purposes, so you'll more easily meet this requirement in less space. That said, in regards to how big a post, that depends on your parnter. I for one set the bar at 15 full PC lines, but that is from my experience quite on the high end of size requirements.


Well, I'll give you one more tip. The single most important factor, I find, for both characters and worldbuilding is consistency. Consistency of internal logic and consistency of consequence. Your character needs to make sense within it's own internal logic, and furthermore, using that internal logic every aspect must result in actual consequences.

Maybe the color of the hair won't have much of an impact in their personality, but if they have a certain personality, then it would be wise to think of how their upgbringing led to such a personality. If you kill the character's parents, you need to both think of the impact it has on the character as whole, and in whether the loss of potential (two extremely important for interaction and development NPCs being dead) is worth the action you are taking.



Glad to hear it

Formatting, Paragraphing & Storytelling

First of all, an important thing to remember is that paragraphs aren't consecutive five-line blocks of text. A lot of writers think that, mistakenly, and they think it makes their writing look impressive when they shit out a dozen of those.

Again, that's wrong. A paragraph is a single shelf of text regarding a single idea or topic. Just that. One idea per paragraph.

Now that I'm done explaining what paragraphs are, I've started my third paragraph. I might talk about alcoholic beverages in here. You ever tried Jack Daniels? That's some good stuff.

But I'm done with alcohol, so this is the fourth paragraph, and the next one will explain how to write more easily by breaking down the subject into a logical frame.

Let's begin with this - what is writing? Writing - the act of creating written works - is a complex form of communication that uses fancy symbols for expression, but in the context we're in, it's actually much closer to storytelling.

What is roleplay, if not a collaborative experience between one or more writers who are creating a story together? Even at its basest, most degraded forms, roleplay is just that: collaborative storytelling. And to tell a story, the best way to frame it is with your own words.

Here's how I do it: First, I imagine the particular scene or situation. It doesn't matter how I picture it; a movie, a real event, a fucking Isekai anime. What matters is that I have a good picture of what was there, what happened, why, and what the most important elements of the scene are.

The second step is to put it into words, literally. As if telling it by a warm campfire, I tell the story of what happened in the scene to myself.

The third, last, and easily the least difficult step is to convert the words from speech to text. You write down the story, and bam.

It might not seem like a hard process to follow, and more so, it might not seem like it brings results - but trust me. This thing works, and it works really well. Before you know it, the story you're telling is ten paragraphs long and you're only waiting to write down more.

So, those were the basics of Formatting, Paragraphing & Storytelling. As a reminder: the general unspoken rule is one idea per paragraph, AND you're basically telling a story, but in text rather than speech.

Character Creation

This is a way more abstract and complicated topic. There is no hard logic to creating a character, only the flow of what you feel.

I believe that each writer has different methods when it comes to creating characters. Some probably get inspired by fictional or real people, others put together a jury-rigged mountain of ideas and see what sticks, and others yet might just get an idea for a character while doozing off and make it a reality. For me, it's a bit of all three; sometimes one more than the other two. There is no foolproof way to describe or explain the process to someone, since it's all subjective.

So, that all in mind, take what I'm about to say with a big grain of salt.

The process of creating characters is long and arduous. You should begin with a general concept. A rough-around-the-edges idea of what you want to tell, and then work off of that. Say, you want a badass mercenary. Start with that - what's he like, what's his name, appearance, why is he a mercenary instead of a baker down the street? Ask yourself questions like these, and build the backstory of what built him to be who he is as you do that. The personality you want him to have should surface somewhere by the halfway mark or a bit later, and by that time, you should be able to describe it with your own words and in fair detail.

Sticking To A Character's Personality In Roleplay

This is a fun question to answer because I regularly have to remind myself to do this, too.

Personally, I find that the best way to do it is to constantly remind yourself of the character you created, and the kind of person they are. Think of what they experienced thus far, and how those experiences affect their perceptions and behaviors. If you can do that, I think you'll be able to handle the rest. Speech is also important, and getting it into text form with precision can be really difficult sometimes.

Creating A Balanced Character Or Weapon

No advice to give here, mate.

Everything about that idea is subjective. You should carefully gauge the power-level of whatever other characters and weapons are in the RP and ask yourself how your own character should compare to them - weaker, stronger, average? And then, you should create the power, weapon, or character, based on that.

There we go.

Hope I contributed.

Thanks again, you guys are so much help, im actually excited to try all this out <insert fitting text emote>

 

[pfpfpfpf]

https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca8...d_terran_reptoid_by_mystery79_d9z29p3-pre.jpg

A question to ask. If I wanted to create a profile for my OC, any thoughts? Not like I want to do it but I had a tough time trying to create a profile for him. I was never good of creating a backstory for him.

 

[Idea]

https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca8...d_terran_reptoid_by_mystery79_d9z29p3-pre.jpg

A question to ask. If I wanted to create a profile for my OC, any thoughts? Not like I want to do it but I had a tough time trying to create a profile for him. I was never good of creating a backstory for him.

I mean I'm not sure quite what you're asking my thoughts about the picture? It looks a little weird, but well drawn. How to make a character sheet? There isn't a specific rule that one HAS to follow as to what to include. I also certainly won't be filling your OC's character sheet for you.

So I'm not sure what you want me to answer.

 

[pfpfpfpf]

Well I didn't expect anyone to answer it for me. I was never good explaining certain details.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Well I didn't expect anyone to answer it for me. I was never good explaining certain details.

Well that might be your first step. You need to do the work to figure out exactly what you want other people to help you with. Do you need a personality? A name? A species? A personal history? Do you need help formatting a CS? etc.

Also ask yourself why you need these things? Is it for a roleplay? What's the roleplay about? Is it for your own original work? What's that about? Or is it because you think it will help you play the character?

 

[pfpfpfpf]

Everything you said middleagegeek. A bit of both. Some for a roleplay and the other just to give some identity to it.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Everything you said middleagegeek. A bit of both. Some for a roleplay and the other just to give some identity to it.

Yeah right now you're basically asking people to read your mind and write a character for you. So if you are serious about wanting help than what you need to do is look at the characters that have already been submitted for your roleplay. They should have their own character sheet. S

Simply copy that sheet and fill in all the information you already have for your OC. What you don't have leave blank. Then post that sheet Character Feedback and ask people to help you fill in the blank parts.

 

[pfpfpfpf]

Well the drawing of the OC I have is the only OC I have made for me. All other characters I seen in television and/or movies. Honestly I didn't think it over I just wrote what the first thing that came to my mind.

And copy what sheet?

 

[rae2nerdy]

Well the drawing of the OC I have is the only OC I have made for me. All other characters I seen in television and/or movies. Honestly I didn't think it over I just wrote what the first thing that came to my mind.

And copy what sheet?

Alright so your kinda hijaking another persons thread.

I would say first things first is make your own thread. (Character Feedback) I will not respond to you on this one again.

Second give people actual information.

- Link the roleplay you want to put the OC in.
- Give us all the information you currently have for this OC. Does it have a name, a gender, a species, a personality?