Viewpoint What are some character concepts you've always wanted to try out but never got the opportunity?

[MattS]

Question says it all, whether it was due to not having a good rp to fit it in or a character you had for an rp that fizzled out pretty early on.

 

[JadeGreen17]

I remember creating this character who had the power to create copies of herself. However each copy was half her original size/weight, since the mechanic was based on alchemy etc. Dividing herself into quarters or half was pretty normal, though as the clones got into smaller divisions (8ths,16ths) they would take on very childlike qualities acting like little kids or toddlers.

I liked the idea of memory retention being shared when the clones recombined, both the positive and negative aspects of it. She was a fantastic multitasker as long as the multiple tasks didn't require significant physical strength or her full height, but when she split herself into a lot of small divisions her memories could get all jumbled up.

And having the idea that when she sneezed, she'd explode into a bunch of tiny duplicates.

Honestly its something that would work fantastically in a visual medium, like a comic or animated series but in a text based RP it's impossible to keep track of identical duplicates and their antics.

 

[Jannah]

A character who starts out normal, but then gradually turns insane as the story progresses. I suppose I'm kind of playing around with that concept on another site, but it doesn't count since the character has some events in his backstory already that set a precedence for him being a bit unhinged.

Like, for what I'm thinking here the character would have events happen over the course of the story that gradually unhinge them. It's an interesting concept to me but I know a lot of people are uncomfortable with mental illness being portrayed in RP(and understandably so), for a variety of reasons. I'm mentally ill myself, though, so I think I could pull something like it off. Plus I enjoy researching all these little details that make a story realistic.

 

[Delinquent]

Man, I've had this fun idea of a character that suffers from dementia for a while now. But 90% of roleplays I join are too upbeat for that kind of character so she'll probably never be used.

 

[ashwynne]

Oh boy, I have tons of them.
Here are three random ones I've been toying with...

1. Dwarf (or human, I flip-flop) that became obsessed with elves as a child to the point that they wanted to become one. Got to be "too weird" for their own people to handle and they descended down a staircase of madness unchecked that ended in homicidal tendencies. Think sort of like Buffalo Bill only killing elves, cutting off their ear points, and attaching them to his/her own. Relative normalcy in between, even befriends some elves with his/her soft-spoken interest in their culture, but occasionally the mania takes over and they end up going "elf-hunting" to try and be them. I'm thinking also cannibalistic with the rest of the elf parts. Trying to consume them to "be" them.

2. Scrawny, shrimpy, beanpole who inherited his father's detective agency. He's got a huge phobia of weapons and violence, but zero skills that could transfer to a different career. He also happens to be a crack-shot.... though you'd need to try and get him to touch a weapon first to see that.

3. A female knight character based loosely off of Brienne of Tarth. Big, hulking, not conventionally attractive at all who managed to make a name for herself as a knight despite being a woman.

 

[Jet]

A true, honest, 100% disrespectful asshole & even a bigot to an extent. No, not to play out a personal fantasy but because these characters are engaging as a writer and reader because they're so contemptuous. Anyone remember this guy?



Tell me it wouldn't be fun to write a character like Merle?

Or how about



And



Or



Unfortunately these characters lead to problems on RPN. The issue is that it'll cause friction OOC. I bet some people reading this right now are thinking something like "oh look at this guy wanting to be a mean fucker IC, must be a shit person without an outlet IRL", and to those people I thank you for proving my point.

This issue is even worse if you introduce character traits like mysoginy or disliking members of a race. Yes, he's a piece of dogshit, that's the whole point
The character =/= the writer and people feel attacked OOC by things said/done IC which is a huge issue. I'm sorry that this mean SOB villain thrust into the plot through circumstance isn't a paragon of manners and prog thinking. This character type is a mean fuck, that's the fun of it and all mean fuck characters on this site are watered down because people catch feelings OOC. I want to make a real anti-hero scumbag once and a while and those characters have unsavory traits, it's not an attack towards users. If people could get over that maybe we could get some actually bad mfers on this site which is >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


....


>>>>>>>>>> the typical "tsundere" or emo edgelord eyeline advertisement that passes as "bad guy/girl" in most RPs

 

[Jannah]

A true, honest, 100% disrespectful asshole & even a bigot to an extent. No, not to play out a personal fantasy but because these characters are engaging as a writer and reader because they're so contemptuous.

Coming from someone who has actually written bigoted characters it is doable. You just have to find the right audience, ideally someone who can separate fiction from reality. Some people are a bit more sensitive about scenarios occurring IC, usually because they have personally experienced it. However, there's others such as myself who are willing to write pretty much anything as long as it's strictly in character. Like, I despise racism in real life, but I'd be lying if I denied having written racist characters in the past. I've also written homophobes and misogynists. I don't even try to present them as good people either because usually they aren't. At best, they'll be conflicted individuals who happen to cling to less than savoury viewpoints either because of life experiences or simply how they were raised. One I currently write is strongly homophobic, but it's because he was raised to be that way. He's from a strict traditionalist Catholic family; sex outside of marriage is sinful and sex outside of heterosexual marriage is especially sinful.

 

[Jet]

Jannah

Its probably an audience thing then. I respect the cajones for making characters like that. In most of the RPs I've been in it'd be an issue. Maybe you stick to more dark material? Who knows...

The only time I've had anything like this was in a fantasy setting with a northern mountain man but that was fantasy so it was more "Skyrim nord hating dark elf" than something connected to reality.

 

[Jannah]

Jannah

Its probably an audience thing then. I respect the cajones for making characters like that. In most of the RPs I've been in it'd be an issue. Maybe you stick to more dark material? Who knows...

The only time I've had anything like this was in a fantasy setting with a northern mountain man but that was fantasy so it was more "Skyrim nord hating dark elf" than something connected to reality.

I do usually cover some pretty dark material when I RP, yes. Wars, genocide, torture, death, etc.

 

[Delinquent]

This character type is a mean fuck, that's the fun of it and all mean fuck characters on this site are watered down because people catch feelings OOC.

I don't know if I like the tone of this post. I think that (to an extent at least) it's fairly reasonable to, as you put it, "catch feelings OOC" when dealing with topics like these and I never really liked that people always get so dismissive of it.

 

[Jannah]

I don't know if I like the tone of this post. I think that (to an extent at least) it's fairly reasonable to, as you put it, "catch feelings OOC" when dealing with topics like these and I never really liked that people always get so dismissive of it.

Like I said it's all about finding the right partners. Some people are okay with playing those sorts of things out.

 

[Jet]

I don't know if I like the tone of this post. I think that (to an extent at least) it's fairly reasonable to, as you put it, "catch feelings OOC" when dealing with topics like these and I never really liked that people always get so dismissive of it.

 

[Jet]

Sorry for hijacking the thread I'll stop after this one. Didn't think it'd lead to a debate to be 100%.

Delinquent its not dismissive. It's a character. There are people and therefore characters of all types. You can have characters who have terrible ideas, and you can feel free to hate the character but carrying that dislike to the user is wrong. Looking for a safe space from bad characters seems like a bad joke to me. You either get what you want and have shitty, watered down anti-heroes & villains or don't get what you want and end up mad. Seems like a bad time.

& the point of the clip is to bring up one of the best characters in this mold to come out in recent years. Fitzgerald from Revanent is a scene stealer and without him the movie would be diminished greatly. You take out the evil he represents and what's left is hollow in comparison.

 

[still watching fma]

Jet i respect your style. Ive personally always wanted to play an asshole, but rp is too rigid sometimes.

 

[ashwynne]

Jet I tend to save those characters for my personal projects (as they don't work super well in most 1x1 formats unless they're side/peripheral antagonists--where I do regularly use them) but they suuuuure are a blast to write! There's also no better way to learn how to undermine or argue against an immoral/controversial opinion than getting to examine it through the lens of a character who shares those beliefs.

All I'll say is that if the GM/partner says they're fine with controversial topics ahead of time and then throw a fit OOC when you go for it... that's on them. I do think that shoving it in without forewarning the other people you're writing with is a bit in bad taste (and it's reasonable for someone to be perturbed if they didn't expect that in the RP) but I'm in full agreement that there should be more of those characters out there in general.

Definitely comes down to finding the right partner(s), but being able to pull off an antagonist/unsavoury protagonist like that undeniably makes for an amazing story.

 

[Delinquent]

Should probably have clarified that I'm specifically talking about your post as regarding bigoted characters, my bad.

Though I might add that I don't think that people mind complete asshole characters that much (at least judging from the amount of them I see reading through various CS threads).

You can have characters who have terrible ideas, and you can feel free to hate the character but carrying that dislike to the issue is wrong.

I don't really agree. A lot of people have dealt and/or are dealing with bigots in real life and as such those topics can be a bit sensitive to them. Like, what might be a fun character trope for you, might just be a reminder of the shit they had to deal with in High School for others. And when that's the case I feel it's understandable to, as you put it, "catch feelings OOC".

Am I saying that bigoted characters can't be interesting or well-written? Or that people shouldn't play them? No, just that it's understandable for people to get, with lack of a better term, upset about it.

 

[Tove]

In all the time I've been roleplaying, I've come across a lot of characters written by a lot of people. I have yet to see anyone write well a racist, homophobic, asshole type of character that didn't make me, what's that popular term? catch feelings ooc that didn't mean I carried hate to the user but when you have to actual deal with that bullshit in real life you really don't want to have to deal with it doing something you love but hey that's just me.

 

[Jet]

But ya'll aren't dealing with it. It's a fictional story. A character you're writing might be dealing with it maybe, but you're not. Much of what's going on with these characters is veiled behind thought anyway. Like a Don Draper from Mad Men would be unacceptable to a lot of people on this website because of how he views women, but that's a decent percentage of men for better or worse. Yall want to cherry pick character types and whitewash what people are. Can't agree with that.

I just see this as wires getting crossed. Agree to disagree with the opposition I guess, don't want to hijack the thread further but I do want to reiterate that one thing.

 

[Jannah]

In all the time I've been roleplaying, I've come across a lot of characters written by a lot of people. I have yet to see anyone write well a racist, homophobic, asshole type of character that didn't make me, what's that popular term? catch feelings ooc that didn't mean I carried hate to the user but when you have to actual deal with that bullshit in real life you really don't want to have to deal with it doing something you love but hey that's just me.

Well, see. This is the sort of stuff RPers need to be upfront about. Just from this post alone I can tell we possibly wouldn't be compatible since I tend to touch on a lot of heavy topics in my storylines that will contain content that is potentially triggering.

 

[Tove]

Well, see. This is the sort of stuff RPers need to be upfront about. Just from this post alone I can tell we possibly wouldn't be compatible since I tend to touch on a lot of heavy topics in my storylines that will contain content that is potentially triggering.

I am up front with people when it concerns issues such as racism, homophobia, asshole behavior just for the hell of it. And that's perfectly fine with me since I'm not looking for partners at all.

 

[Jannah]

I am up front with people when it concerns issues such as racism, homophobia, asshole behavior just for the hell of it. And that's perfectly fine with me since I'm not looking for partners at all.

It's not usually "just for the hell of it", though. Often there's a reason for the character being a bigoted asshole.

 

[Tove]

It's not usually "just for the hell of it", though. Often there's a reason for the character being a bigoted asshole.

Okay.

 

[Tove]

But ya'll aren't dealing with it. It's a fictional story. A character you're writing might be dealing with it maybe, but you're not. Much of what's going on with these characters is veiled behind thought anyway. Like a Don Draper from Mad Men would be unacceptable to a lot of people on this website because of how he views women, but that's a decent percentage of men for better or worse. Yall want to cherry pick character types and whitewash what people are. Can't agree with that.

I just see this as wires getting crossed. Agree to disagree with the opposition I guess, don't want to hijack the thread further but I do want to reiterate that one thing.

Yup.

 

[Delinquent]

But ya'll aren't dealing with it. It's a fictional story.

Eh, I think it's a tad unfair to hide behind the old "it's all fictional" excuse.

Fictional or not, it just stirs up to many old issues for some people. I can tell you from experience that watching people's characters say, telling another character to kill themselves because of their sexuality feels kind of shitty after having the same thing happening to you in real life.

 

[ashwynne]

This all comes back to needing to communicate with your writing partners and be aware of what you're signing up for. There's nothing inherently wrong with sexist, bigoted, racist, homophobic, etc. characters. There's also nothing wrong with wanting to write them, or not wanting to deal with them.

BUT. If you're signing up for a group/1x1 roleplay that makes it clear that mature/dark themes are a possibility then there's no grounds to complain OOC. Conversely, if the GM/partner is not consulted ahead of time about the type of character you want to make then there's no grounds to be upset when they react negatively OOC.

No one is forced to write with anyone else, so when it comes to things like this I feel it's a bit of a silly, circular, argument. Those who like lighthearted RP that don't deal with gritty/realistic/controversial characters should write with people who enjoy the same thing. Those who like exploring those controversial/taboo/dark themes should write with people who also want to write those things. Plenty of both exist. If something shows up in an RP that you don't like... you're not obligated to stay. Whether that means OOC accusations or characters that make you feel uncomfortable.