Squabbles are just a part of everyday life around here. It seems there isn't a day that goes by where someone hasn't offended someone else, and the guns come out along with the memes. But in the midst of all the rage-threads and feedback-spats, I recently found myself pondering something rather profound that I would like to share with those who care to read.
When you are a child, you play make-believe. Now, it isn't very good, because you don't have much life experience to base it on. So you make do with the limited knowledge you have while your parents looked on a smiled at your childish attempts to be something else.
Around here, we call it Role Play. But it's really just make-believe for adults. However, one thing has not changed.
When a player creates a character, they base said character off of their own experiences. Now, this can be a very accurate depiction of their experiences or a distorted caricature. But one thing remains the same: The RP is most convincing if the person behind the character has had relevant life-experiences.
Think about that for a moment.
These aren't just characters. These are fragments of real people.
Regret. Death. Loneliness. Pain. Hope. Courage. Longing. Defiance.
And the more lifelike they appear, the more believable these characters are, the greater the likelihood that the player behind the character has experienced something very similar to what they are portraying.
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Oh no. I've found out that putting any emotion into a character only ends up being called
"edgy"
"fanfic"
"bad"
Or something dumb along those lines.
Either way, getting into the role of certain characters like 'gangsters' or something require some form of background or experience from it. It's my weakest point because I have no idea how gangster slang works or how 'dumbened' down speech works, which usually means I end up with some gimmicky Rogue characters.
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.
(10-24-2016, 03:07 AM)Soldiers.Fortune Wrote: Squabbles are just a part of everyday life around here. It seems there isn't a day that goes by where someone hasn't offended someone else, and the guns come out along with the memes. But in the midst of all the rage-threads and feedback-spats, I recently found myself pondering something rather profound that I would like to share with those who care to read.
When you are a child, you play make-believe. Now, it isn't very good, because you don't have much life experience to base it on. So you make do with the limited knowledge you have while your parents looked on a smiled at your childish attempts to be something else.
Around here, we call it Role Play. But it's really just make-believe for adults. However, one thing has not changed.
When a player creates a character, they base said character off of their own experiences. Now, this can be a very accurate depiction of their experiences or a distorted caricature. But one thing remains the same: The RP is most convincing if the person behind the character has had relevant life-experiences.
Think about that for a moment.
These aren't just characters. These are fragments of real people.
Regret. Death. Loneliness. Pain. Hope. Courage. Longing. Defiance.
And the more lifelike they appear, the more believable these characters are, the greater the likelihood that the player behind the character has experienced something very similar to what they are portraying.
Just a thought I wanted to share...
I agree with but not all characters are a reflection of some kind of real experience.
Still some characters comes from imagination and nothing related to RL experience.
These are nice thoughts, and thanks for sharing.
(10-24-2016, 03:07 AM)Soldiers.Fortune Wrote: Squabbles are just a part of everyday life around here. It seems there isn't a day that goes by where someone hasn't offended someone else, and the guns come out along with the memes. But in the midst of all the rage-threads and feedback-spats, I recently found myself pondering something rather profound that I would like to share with those who care to read.
When you are a child, you play make-believe. Now, it isn't very good, because you don't have much life experience to base it on. So you make do with the limited knowledge you have while your parents looked on a smiled at your childish attempts to be something else.
Around here, we call it Role Play. But it's really just make-believe for adults. However, one thing has not changed.
When a player creates a character, they base said character off of their own experiences. Now, this can be a very accurate depiction of their experiences or a distorted caricature. But one thing remains the same: The RP is most convincing if the person behind the character has had relevant life-experiences.
Think about that for a moment.
These aren't just characters. These are fragments of real people.
Regret. Death. Loneliness. Pain. Hope. Courage. Longing. Defiance.
And the more lifelike they appear, the more believable these characters are, the greater the likelihood that the player behind the character has experienced something very similar to what they are portraying.
Just a thought I wanted to share...
Pretty much the foundation for almost all my main characters chief. Well spoken.
I just thought about it, thinking about the people I RP'd recently with. I always knew Foxglove is too charming and clever to be just a young student, and Seafalcon is dutch, so it's likely he has no soul. Very fitting: Shiki behaves ooRP pretty much like Enma Loyola. ;3
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