The Soul of RP

[Char Aznable]

It's wrong to assume that we don't put anything hailing from our past experiences in our characters. We all do that. Doesn't matter if it's a distorted image of what we experienced (like you portrayed) or an idealized version of ourselves. Even the people who accuses others of being 'edgy' or 'fanfic' or whatever do that - It's just done in a different way (they take a more 'detached' look on the life of their characters, idealize them far more or even reduce them to one or two character traits.).

It is, however, just as wrong to just categorically assume that you know what a person has experienced based on what their character is like or has had happen in the past. A common example is the 'classic' trope of the orphan character. It's not only a thing within the environment of Discovery, it's a very common thing for a roleplaying character to be an orphan. That doesn't mean that everyone RPing those has experienced this, or something similar. The only thing that it really tells us is that the player doesn't feel comfortable playing this character with the knowledge of his/her parents being around the corner.
If you want to know what's behind a character, on the mind of the player, you should ask him/her. Assuming things won't get you any further, but it is certainly good to keep in mind that every desire or feeling a character exhibits might very well be the feeling of the player itself - even if it's just the escapism behind wanting to be someone else.

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#notmyfrankfurt