Share your RP inspiration sources

[Cryer Pharmaceuticals!]

Then there come things like background and such. Not only to explain why the character is how he/she is, but also to have more guidelines for more specific situations. "Oh my character was born on Manhatten, so he/she probably is used to the corruption of the LPI and won't be surprised about paying a bribe, unlike maybe someone with a gallic background who just arrived in Liberty the first time."
One other major point for me are weaknesses, I don't like my characters having no weaknesses - they make them way more interesting. Usually those come, when my mind has made up at least the frame of the characters background. Characters for instance can be dumb, easy to panic, forgetful, struggle with their job, cocky and whatnot which all can turn against the character itself and may influence the character in doing or saying things which everyone involved may have a laugh at or maybe a good enjoyable facepalm.

Fantastic post imo. The two bits above are ones I think everyone should bear in mind - not having all/any of your characters know the full extent of what you know is great and so insanely rare. Think about rl. A huge percentage of people in sirius will just not care at all about 90% of the stuff in the game, little jonny from honshu is not going to have a finessed understanding of the various unlawful groups in Rheinland, and he isn't going to feel guilty about that either.

And yeah, weaknesses. Characters without weaknesses just aren't compelling. Think about any film or tv show or book and any character you care about in it. And not just character weaknesses, but also things that can make it a little more difficult for yourself while fleshing yourself out. Who has ever met, for example, a trader who just wants to keep his head down and doesn't actually sympathise at all with any of the myriad unlawfuls trying to pirate him. Maybe he likes to eat paste because it's cheap and doesn't spoil on long space journeys. Maybe he really wanted to go on a safari on Gaia, maybe he thinks you should get real jobs instead of moaning about how you all got fired like 130 years ago.

Slightly related, but I wish more people played their character instead of their faction/ID. Remember that Outcast and Corsair who made out on Yanagi? Never met a Corsair or Outcast in game who seemed like they'd be open to that. The faction is your boss or your parents or whatever, they don't own you. You can work for a faction you hate (don't tell me none of you have ever done this irl), you can be corrupt or lazy and let things go that you "shouldn't" as a member of your faction.
There was some guy years ago who had an RFP character in the official faction. He got messed over in a powerplay or something, was head or 2ic I think, but then got sidelined in rp. So his RFP character quits in a rage and joins the Bundschuh. I thought that was awesome, not some guy thinking about 'my RFP guy' or 'I want a bundschuh guy,' but just rolling with the character and seeing where that goes. Even better for me since I had a Bundschuh that met him when he was on both teams, which was some quality roleplaying times.

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