RP styles

[Veriya]

No real purpose here, I was just wondering who falls where in their general RP style, alongside wanting to stir up a little conversation on the subject.

As far as Ive noticed, there's three general styles most people fall under.

Responsive Characters - Generally tend to start out completely ignorant, and develop based mostly on their interactions and experiences. This is my personal favourite for a game with an engaging environment like Geas. They tend to wander head first into a valley, die to a giant, then spend their next ten years of IC life training to be the best Giant castrater EVER.

Determined Characters - These tend to be most common, also easily referred to as concept characters. The player knows what they want for their own entertainment from the get-go. Your zealous priests and psychopaths often start this way. I tend to feel they are the back bone of any good mud, as they tend to mesh into the intended setting the best and add greatly to its richness and depth.

Random Characters - They do whatever they, or their player feels like at the moment. Asralite one week, Tanielite the next. Wear pink on Tuesdays and kill babies on Wednesdays. You know the type. I tend to find them frustrating to RP with unless its a halfling, in which case, it's expected.

Granted, most players will fall into two or all of these at different times, so I'm more curious about your intended preference and opinions on the subject.

Also, sorry if this belongs in the OOC area? Not sure, but its mud-related...

[Skragna]

Hrm. Skragna falls into the second category. Until I found out about the Crusade, I was all geared up to be either a Tanielite or an Asralite who only fought the evil. Once I found out about the Crusade, it was like a sappy clichéd movie scene with the flowers and the slow-mo.

[Damanta]

Damanta is definitely the first. You can blame a certain darkelf for Damanta's rangering. *shakes fist at ganon*

[caelia]

Once I found out about the Crusade, it was like a sappy clichéd movie scene with the flowers and the slow-mo.

I'm going to take every possible opportunity to quote this out of context.


Caelia was more the first - I started playing (and she was my first character) with no real idea of what to do with her. She drifted around for a little while before mostly being adopted by a few Crusaders and Clerics, at which point her role became pretty well solidified.


Very colorful descriptions, poVeriya.

[lanyara]

[...] Wear pink on Tuesdays and kill babies on Wednesdays. You know the type. I tend to find them frustrating to RP with unless its a halfling, in which case, it's expected.

Rumours!

Halflings can't kill babies - unless it was a very very weak and small baby already injured heavily. Then chances are about ... 50:50 :>

(Except for halflings with missile. These are indeed scary, though sometimes they miss their target ... which is even scarier)

What one should not forget are the available guilds. Some guilds (or guild concepts) are more interesting than others IMHO. Guilds - and their hopefully active members - inevitably will have a huge impact on the character in question.

[ganandorf]

I would put myself into the third category - Random characters. And then after a while of doing very stupid things, i became a sathonite, and ended up being decent at it.

And damanta, is it a bad thing that i dont know what i did?

[Olrane]

This topic makes me smile.

My favorite way to play is the "responsive" type, and I try to play my characters more or less like this. Olrane would fit in the random/responsive profile.

Unfortunately, I tend to create/play characters with semi-determined goals so that I can fulfill a personal goal or a game niche. I've often created characters in this game and others just to play an underplayed role.

The most fun I've had roleplaying was with the responsive type, but my biggest problem is that I get fully immersed when I do this. When bad things happen to my character I can get pretty depressed.

[Damanta]

And damanta, is it a bad thing that i dont know what i did?

How many times have I sent this look in your direction?

ಠ_ಠ

Edit; Wait no, Its luminier I give the look of disaproval.

But no not really. Just a random newbie abduction/torturing

[ganandorf]

Oh okay, no wonder i dont remember, there's been too many of those.

[luminier]

Luminier ehhh tough to say. Im the first I think. But after a while i morphed hardcore into the second.

Im glad to know I helped forged Caelia though. =D

[Delia]

Definitely the first. While I had some plans and goals(while knowing nothing of Geas)I was quite happy with just being influenced. Eventually the game took my character towards quite interesting directions with the Legion destroyed and joining the Shaos(which I had almost vowed I would not do)and after stumbling upon a certain book even more doors opened.

[Delmon]

Delmon falls into the third category

Though I more think of fun things to do and respond to the consequences.

but there's time before he shifts and there's a general connection between all he does.

Of course I have alts...

[Desiderea]

Hm, let's see... I'd say in general I play concept characters. Of course, sometimes my character doesn't turn out according to the concept I intended. Like Desi, for example. She actually became more of a responsive character, mostly because I was unfamiliar with the mud and what sort of rp choices were available. I think when I am more familiar with a mud, I can create a character according to what I know is possible in the game, and so my path is more determined.

[lanyara]

I wonder if it can ever be so clear-cut. There are many examples of when concepts just changed for various reasons (i mean character concepts here, not guild concept, but even guild concepts change heavily depending on the active players of a guild). Many of these had other characters influence these concepts heavily.

[Sairina]

Well, the fact that a responsive character develops a concept or that a player's concept for a concept char may change, doesn't necessarily mean that your roleplay might not generally lean into one of these directions.

Sairina is definitely a responsive char, she had to be since I didn't know much about the game world when I started playing her. I started out in Elvandar, got killed by the guards, left the town for Arborea, met some Asrals, and well...

I generally like the idea of responsive chars best, real people tend to develop and grow as well. And the characters don't exist in a vacuum either. I may not always be able to pull it off, though *shrugs*

[Cuetlachtli]

neat topic

I think my character started off determined, but quickly became the responsive type, if I'm interpreting that right.

Actually pretty much starting very early (comparatively) my character has been completely steered by what has happened to him rather than what he has made happen for himself.

I'm playing him now pretty determinedly I suppose, but he's nowhere near what I originally had planned. Of course it's my first/only character and I knew nothing about this mud starting out (except for info on the site).

I like the playing style of letting things happen to him and respond method though, that's most likely the way forward for him.

[rafael]

I play a responsive, determined character.

He is responsive in that he had a minimal character concept and background. He's grown up, studied and achieved some prominence in his nearly 40 years.
His personality has changed, some traits have become less and more dominant as the years have gone by and while I did not envision a particular role for him, I did mainly hope to play a non-combat oriented scholarly type.

Other long term plays can judge if I have been successful. But I think he also is of the determined sort, but of a particular breed. His long-time/term goals are mostly social in nature. They're not so much directed to cement a particular pre-determined role for him in the game; there's been times were he might have come out a very different characters, but circumstances and the characters which he interacts with have taken him down his current path.

R