Viewpoint Roleplaying the same or similar characters—yes or no?

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

Pretty much just the title.

Do you roleplay different versions of the same character? What do you like about it?

Do you not? Why don't you like it.

Try to keep it civil, yeah?

 

[nerdy tangents]

In fairness I recycle the same few plots over and over again so I tend to have a cast of character concepts that I likewise recycle depending on which role I end up.

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

In fairness I recycle the same few plots over and over again so I tend to have a cast of character concepts that I likewise recycle depending on which role I end up.

That is very fair, lmao.

I'm really bad at playing a new character right out of the gate, tbh.

Like...

Their characterization ends up very bipolar at some places, and it's annoying to look back on IMO, so I feel that.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I find basing new characters on people I know IRL helps. If nothing else it keeps the personality consistent even if you have to remake the backstory a lot.

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

I find basing new characters on people I know IRL helps. If nothing else it keeps the personality consistent even if you have to remake the backstory a lot.

I know no one IRL, lmao

I do kinda get the concept tho, lol, although, I, personally tend to work from backstory up

 

[nerdy tangents]

I know no one IRL, lmao

I do kinda get the concept tho, lol, although, I, personally tend to work from backstory up

I feel like outside of traumatic backstories OR restrictive cultures (ie women must act X way and men must act Y way) the personality doesn’t really get influenced by the backstory.

Case in point I have five siblings, all with their distinct personalities. And for obvious reasons they the same backstory as me.

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

I feel like outside of traumatic backstories OR restrictive cultures (ie women must act X way and men must act Y way) the personality doesn’t really get influenced by the backstory.

Case in point I have five siblings, all with their distinct personalities. And for obvious reasons they the same backstory as me.

Well, yeah, you have the base personality traits that stay the same, but you also have the little things that influence it.

I have 3 siblings and while we all have different personalities at the base, we also all have very similar mannerisms, habits, and reactions to certain things: IE; we all have some form of paranoia.

Or even if you changed the fact that I have siblings, I would have a major shift in personality because that's just how I work; I adjust to fit my circumstance. Some of those habits get held over (such as speaking very formally when sleep deprived).

Tho, lol, this may just be me

 

[nerdy tangents]

Well yeah but if your problem is keeping a personality consistent basing it on a real person would help.

Unless you and I mean very different things by backstory the mannerisms your talking about are more in personality than backstory.

Backstory is usually just explaining how the character came to be a part of the plot.

So it doesn’t really have any relevance to personality unless it is traumatic or controlled.

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

Well yeah but if your problem is keeping a personality consistent basing it on a real person would help.

Unless you and I mean very different things by backstory the mannerisms your talking about are more in personality than backstory.

Backstory is usually just explaining how the character came to be a part of the plot.

So it doesn’t really have any relevance to personality unless it is traumatic or controlled.

I tend to do backstory as... "What the shit happened to this person to make how they are" 'cause a lot of things in my life influence me heavily for... some weird reason. I grew up around birds, therefore I grew sensitive to tonal variations.

I grew up in a marshy area and therefore became wary of rivers being too close to the house.

Bigoted area? Hypersensitive to any kind of prejudice.

That kind of thing. I revel in details.

 

[Jules8008]

Most of the characters I play are OCs I actually own and developed. So, no. I do not like changing my OCs for roleplays. If none fit, I just make a throwaway.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I tend to do backstory as... "What the shit happened to this person to make how they are" 'cause a lot of things in my life influence me heavily for... some weird reason. I grew up around birds, therefore I grew sensitive to tonal variations.

I grew up in a marshy area and therefore became wary of rivers being too close to the house.

Bigoted area? Hypersensitive to any kind of prejudice.

That kind of thing. I revel in details.

That might be the issue then. You focus on the fiddly details and not enough on the big picture (I do the same thing just with setting not characters).

I have found that constraining myself to an elevator pitch helps me with that. So give yourself about 200 words to describe your character.

Even read it out loud to someone if it helps.

When you limit what you write it forces you to prioritize and makes you better at coming up with concise concepts.

 

[diracdelta]

In public group RPs, there's no collaborative planning prior to the RP that I could build a character in response to, so I end up cobbling a character together from traits I think are fun to write in general, that might be interesting slotted into this pre-existing world with its pre-existing characters, rather than what would be fun to write in a specific dynamic or plot a collaborator and I came up with. Naturally, this leads to a lot of characteristics being shared between the OCs I've played, though I'd like to think they're still distinguishable as different people.

But yeah, if somebody had access to the entirety of my roleplaying history, they could probably break down all my OCs into maybe two or four distinct archetypes with their own little subcategories. I don't know why anybody would want to do that, though.

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

That might be the issue then. You focus on the fiddly details and not enough on the big picture (I do the same thing just with setting not characters).

I have found that constraining myself to an elevator pitch helps me with that. So give yourself about 200 words to describe your character.

Even read it out loud to someone if it helps.

When you limit what you write it forces you to prioritize and makes you better at coming up with concise concepts.

Possibly, though, I guess I don't really see the... point?? in not having a fleshed out, vibrant character.

'Cause if they don't act human, then what's the point, I guess is my whole take on it.

That's probably just me tho, lol

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

Most of the characters I play are OCs I actually own and developed. So, no. I do not like changing my OCs for roleplays. If none fit, I just make a throwaway.

That is a mood.

And one I share.

Constantly

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

In public group RPs, there's no collaborative planning prior to the RP that I could build a character in response to, so I end up cobbling a character together from traits I think are fun to write in general, that might be interesting slotted into this pre-existing world with its pre-existing characters, rather than what would be fun to write in a specific dynamic or plot a collaborator and I came up with. Naturally, this leads to a lot of characteristics being shared between the OCs I've played, though I'd like to think they're still distinguishable as different people.

But yeah, if somebody had access to the entirety of my roleplaying history, they could probably break down all my OCs into maybe two or four distinct archetypes with their own little subcategories. I don't know why anybody would want to do that, though.

I mean... most people can be broken down into archetypes, lol. That's just how it works... and also what an archetype is.

Because character organization is fun to some people ^^

 

[diracdelta]

Possibly, though, I guess I don't really see the... point?? in not having a fleshed out, vibrant character.

'Cause if they don't act human, then what's the point, I guess is my whole take on it.

That's probably just me tho, lol

I think it's possible to have a fleshed out character while simultaneously focusing more on the big picture as nerdy tangents recommended; if you struggle with playing your character consistently, maybe it would help to pick out the most defining aspects of your character and just remind yourself of what those things are. Even if a character might respond erratically to various stimuli, you can still identify patterns consistent to how they act and the reasoning behind those patterns, right? That's what the elevator pitch is for. You don't have to boil your character down to a list of descriptive words—I would advise against doing so, actually—but it can be useful to have that overview of their personality that you can easily refer to, instead of having to reinterpret their backstory to infer how they'd behave every time you want a refresher.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Possibly, though, I guess I don't really see the... point?? in not having a fleshed out, vibrant character.

'Cause if they don't act human, then what's the point, I guess is my whole take on it.

That's probably just me tho, lol

So let me ask you this, can you describe your sibling in 200 words or less? (You don’t have to literally do this in the thread but try it as a writing prompt.)

Then go through the rest of your family (or your friends or people you spend a lot of time with IRL)

The point being obviously these are literal human beings with their own vibrant personalities. But are you going to go on a long tangent about their back story when introducing them to strangers? Or are you going to give essentially the tl:dr of their personalities so people get a base idea that is fleshed out as they interact with your family members?

That is exactly the purpose of a CS, you are giving a quick introduction to your character that is fleshed out within the roleplay.

So you can still have that elaborate backstory it’s just revealed over time rather than stressing about it in the early stages.

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

So let me ask you this, can you describe your sibling in 200 words or less? (You don’t have to literally do this in the thread but try it as a writing prompt.)

Then go through the rest of your family (or your friends or people you spend a lot of time with IRL)

The point being obviously these are literal human beings with their own vibrant personalities. But when describing them are you going to go on a long tangent about their back story when introducing them to strangers? Or are you going to give essentially the tl:dr of their personalities so people get a base idea that is fleshed out as they interact with your family members?

That is exactly the purpose of a CS, you are giving a quick introduction to your character that is fleshed out within the roleplay.

So you can still have that elaborate backstory it’s just revealed over time rather than stressing about it in the early stages.

It's not that I have a problem with describing the personality, it's just the personality itself, lol. I have a lot of trouble... like... I guess making a new headspace. And sometimes, I'll realize something I didn't earlier, such as "Oh, this character would actually probably get really stressed out over this thing because of this", I guess. I don't at all have trouble describing the personality (well, I do, but that's just a procrastination issue), I have trouble with keeping the character consistent as they turn around and take off in the exact opposite direction I need them to go what the fuc—

But no, lol, I cannot describe any of my family members in 200 words or less.

I've tried.

Many times.

Lowest I've gotten is 350

 

[nerdy tangents]

Gotcha I would recommend just rolling with it. People evolve as they experience new things. As long as you aren’t saying something like ;

Character A is a very determined person who always commits to a course of action.

Then playing them as some scatterbrained manic pixie dream girl

Then having a character behave contradictory manner occasionally makes them MORE human not less.

Cuz we can’t all honestly say we know how we’re going to interact in all situations. Sometimes your having a bad day or feel like doing something new or any number of things.

As long as you explain in the roleplay why the character is taking a certain course of action it’s fine.

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

I think it's possible to have a fleshed out character while simultaneously focusing more on the big picture as recommended; if you struggle with playing your character consistently, maybe it would help to pick out the most defining aspects of your character and just remind yourself of what those things are. Even if a character might respond erratically to various stimuli, you can still identify patterns consistent to how they act and the reasoning behind those patterns, right? That's what the elevator pitch is for. You don't have to boil your character down to a list of descriptive words—I would advise against doing so, actually—but it can be useful to have that overview of their personality that you can easily refer to, instead of having to reinterpret their backstory to infer how they'd behave every time you want a refresher.

But then when I rp, they get unintentionally flattened because I'm writing the character traits and not the characters?

Gonna nab an example.

Example-kun's name is now Alabaster (who is one of the least fleshed out OCs there is).

He's gruff to stamp down how shy he really is, he's very cautious in nature, and a bit emotionally stunted.

Base character traits.

So let's say he was raised in a very calm household and he's used to the quiet. He pays about half a mind to what's going on around him, and due to being brought up in the middle class, he has good book smarts, but not very good street smarts.

I could just keep going on this, but this is the general standard for personality descs.

That may sound good on paper, but put into play, it's like... 1/12 of literally any of my other characters.

He's got... 3 minor character traits, no ticks, and 4 major personality traits.

This is what I define as a caricature

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

Gotcha I would recommend just rolling with it. People evolve as they experience new things. As long as you aren’t saying something like ;

Character A is a very determined person who always commits to a course of action.

Then playing them as some scatterbrained manic pixie dream girl

Then having a character behave contradictory manner occasionally makes them MORE human not less.

Cuz we can’t all honestly say we know how we’re going to interact in all situations. Sometimes your having a bad day or feel like doing something new or any number of things.

As long as you explain in the roleplay why the character is taking a certain course of action it’s fine.

That is fair.

I guess having a certain amount of unknown in my characters wigs me out, lol

But there is nothing more embarrassing than your preppy girl deciding to go through a poorly-executed psycho phase, lmao.


Seriously, tho, lol. Props for being able to rp a charrie right out of the gate

 

[nerdy tangents]

If you need help writing a character with mental illness at any point my PMs are open. My mom has a lot of mental disorders that make her very erratic and contradictory (which is probably why it doesn’t bother me in characters tbh)

I don’t roleplay characters too close to her personally but I am happy to offer tips on mannerisms and what not to others.

 

[saniachan]

As for myself, the most likely way of me fully reusing my OCs is via time-skips. So let's say I have character A in this RP. When I apply in another RP with the very same character A, I tend to make them several years older than the first RP's version. Even so, I have to make sure both RPs' premises canonically make sense beforehand.

 

[Idea]

Up until recently I was pretty much against pre-made OCs in general, but I've recently changed my mind and have even been making some myself, as I have been updating some of my old characters into new sheets more reflective of my current style. I'd still need some convincing to agree to play with someone using a pre-made OC, namely if they suggest it before anything else that's a big red flag for me, but it's an option I would actually consider "on the table" now.

That said I never did have a problem with re-using an OC on pretty much identical roleplays, especially fandoms.

 

[Owlbear]

Yeah, I reuse characters constantly.

I have, at most, three different characters I just use in every rp I join. Mostly because I can't be arsed to write a new and unique character for every roleplay only to threw them in the trash in like a week when the rp inevitably dies.