INDEX Introduction Getting Started Your First Character Behavior/Alignment Backstory Appearance Profession/Skills Alts Conclusion Introduction Note: This guide is heavily biased towards my preferred style of roleplay. Please take it with open minded consideration. Hey there. If you're reading this guide, it probably means that you're looking for some insight to better yourself and your roleplay. I commend you for that, and will waste no time getting down to business. This guide is designed so that you can jump to the sections you need rather than having to read through the entire thing from start to finish. The rest of this introduction will mostly be talking about why this guide was written, so feel free to skip ahead if you'd like. I originally had the idea for this guide after addressing a banned player on the account of his roleplay negatively impacting others. It felt to me that it was becoming more and more common that players were roleplaying for themselves and not for others, which is the wrong way to go about it. Whenever you roleplay for the sake of others, and others roleplay for others as well, you'll find that not only will you have a good time, but so will they. They will be trying to better your experience, and vice-versa (meaning, yours theirs). This essentially means that instead of trying to be something great and exciting, you get to be a part of something great and exciting as a whole. It is a particularly beautiful thing when a group of individuals manage to come together to tell a story, and interact with one another in a way that compliments each other's character designs. The objective of roleplay isn't to assume the spotlight, have your way, and make a name for yourself and your character. The objective is to create a cohesive story, a living, breathing, environment, of which all can partake in and enjoy. Once you recognize this, and accept it if you haven't already, you can start moving on towards better roleplay that makes the overall experience more enjoyable for both yourself and others. Getting Started Even if you're experienced with roleplaying, or completely new to it, at some point you're going to find yourself creating a new character. When you reach this step, you may find yourself focusing on it to the point of worry. What will your character look like, who will (s)he be, where did they come from, what sorts of hobbies do they have, what do they like, dislike, hate, or love? You may find yourself asking these and more, trying to create as detailed a character as possible. Of course, you may not. You might find yourself able to settle with a basic backstory, a geniune appearance, and let the character develop themselves over time through their actions. I will say that this latter approach is the preferred method of character creation (in my opinion), however by no means does that make the former any worse, or wrong. It doesn't. When you create your character, you need to take in careful consideration of how they're going to behave around others. You cannot create a character based on a principle that puts others into a position that they won't like to be in. If you do, you need to be prepared to be disliked, and be prepared to manage your character's story and actions carefully as well. There is nothing wrong with playing these types of characters, however, and it is a perfectly valid form of roleplay. I'll cover this more in the Alignments section of the guide. Once you've figured out how your character is going to behave, you need to think about the world they're in. You may find that when you create a character who's backstory is all spelled out for them in a very specific way, that your story won't make sense when put into the context of other player's story arcs or the overall setting of the world. You should focus on making a character backstory vague enough so that it can fit in no matter where it is. A "one size fits all" sort of tale. Check out the backstory section for more information. After that, you'll need to design an appearance. This is mostly aesthetic, and can be tailored how you see fit. However, you need to take into consideration that this is purely aesthetic, and that you shouldn't expect to receive any additional bonuses or abilities based on your characters looks. A human with a mechanical right arm will have, for roleplaying purposes, the exact same amount of strength as a human with a biological arm. You might be thinking that this doesn't make sense, that a character with this modification is entitled to their abilities, but that's simply not the case. It is your responsibility as a roleplayer to create a fair and balanced character. If you're going to give your character a seemingly powerful modification, you need to come up with a reason to balance it out. For example, that human's mechanical arm has an inherent design flaw that keeps it from obtaining levels of super strength. Read more in the Appearance section for further detail. So now you have your backstory, behavior, and appearance. What's next? Profession. Every character should be good at something, whether it be a career or just a hobby. If someone spent their entire lives doing nothing, they'd be bored, so surely they've done something. Remember, your character should be really good at one thing only. If you want to diversify your skills, you're going to have to compensate for the time spent in their lives up to this point. Let's say Joe spent all his life on computers, and is a fantastic hacker. Well, I want him to also be good at cooking. Cooking is an entirely separate skill, and takes time away from practicing hacking, so I need to account for that. Now Joe is only proficient (not fantastic) with computers, and proficient at cooking. If we gave him another skill, all his proficiencies would drop even further. I should state now, that even if you have multiple skills, they don't have to be linearly distributed. You can be great at hacking, decent at cooking, and terrible at the third skill, or any combination of such, so long as they balance out to take into account the time and effort it takes to learn and becoming good at that skill. I state again that it is your responsibility to create a fair and balanced character, and it is definitely in your best interest as it will increase the quality of roleplay for everyone. Great, so now that we've covered these topics, let's look at an example character.
Your First Character It's time to develop your first character. You've read about creating a fair and balanced character, you know that you need to create a vague enough backstory to integrate with other stories, and you also know that you need to decide what kind of behavior your character will partake in and what sort of appearance they will have along with their profession or skillset. Let's do just that. We'll start with a name, John Smith. Now your character name might not be so generic, but it suits the purposes of this guide. Now we need to decide his backstory. Let's say John is 27 years old, originally born on Earth. Wait, what's wrong? Oh? Being born on earth is an objective statement that may conflict with the context of the setting? Alright, let's change it. John is 27 years old, originally born on a colony somewhere in the galaxy. He doesn't remember the name of it, as his colony was ravage by a tribe of barbaric florans as they went... huh? What now? I'm imposing a stereotypical view on the floran species by specifically stating they attacked John's colony, and caused him to hate them for the rest of his life? Very well, let's fix it. John is 27 years old, originally born on a colony somewhere in the galaxy. He had a rather bland life and doesn't remember much, biding his time and saving enough money to buy himself a ship to explore the galaxy. How's that for nice, simple, and logical given the context of any setting? It's a good backstory, and sets the stage for the character to develop themselves through roleplay. Now that that's out of the way, let's focus on appearance. John Smith is an average looking human, with brown hair, brown eyes, and approximately six feet tall weighing in at 200 pounds. So far so good, right? Well, as it happens, John also has cybernetic implants that let him jump really high, see through walls, and hack at lightning speeds, and... wait, that's terribly unbalanced. As a roleplayer, it's my responsibility to put the fun of others first and focus on fair roleplay. So let's balance this out a little. I want John to have cybernetics, so can he? Sure, but they have to be balanced and permitted by the setting and the administration of the server. If you're unsure, always ask for permission first. Just for the sake of an example, however, let's continue. I said John can jump really high, right? However, due to a flaw in the architecture of the cybernetic implant, John absorbs fluids far too quickly. He finds himself drinking water constantly, and can't do without a drink every hour or so and as a result, is almost always in need of a restroom. Yeesh! The price of technology these days, am I right? Let's continue further. We said John can see through walls, right? Well, this simply cannot be balanced, along with hacking at lightning speed. These two attributes are likely to be unbalanced no matter how you spin them, and will simply need to be removed. Just because it is your responsibility to create a fair and balanced character, doesn't mean that you can try and balance out every single possible combination of attributes. Some things simply won't work and are unbalanced by nature. Try coming up with something else, I'm sure there's something in that imagination in yours that is more original than whatever super power you'd be trying to give yourself. Now, not by any means am I calling anyone out over this, only that I am saying that everyone should remain mindful of maintaining balance and fairness. So, John is a regular human who has a leg implant that lets him jump about 1.5x as high as normal. This isn't a large boost, and it's further balanced by high consumption of liquids. Oh, you thought he could jump 300ft in the air? Oh no! Of course not, that would be terrible. If you do try to find a way to balance an attribute, please ensure that the attribute itself is sensible and realistic given the setting. Sure, roleplay doesn't have to be perfect, but there are limits. Now let's focus on his skills. John grew up on a colony, so he had plenty of spare time. Let's say he spent a lot of his time building things out of the scrap metal he found around the station. Sometimes he would even be given bits and pieces of excess metal from the foundry on station. Wait, isn't metal working a bit of a tough challenge? Yes it is. He wasn't doing this from age 5, obviously, and we never stated when he left the colony. As far as we know, he could have started when he was 16 and left the station at 25. This gives him a solid 9 years of experience in this field, plenty to hone the craft. However, I don't want him to just be good at metalworking, he should be more diverse than that, right? Not necessarily. It's okay for a character to only be good at just one thing. This opens up the other skills to other characters, so that each character is valuable in certain circumstances. This opens up a more enjoyable experience for all. However, for the sake of the example, let's add on another skill. Instead of just metalworking, John also dabbled a little bit in reading. He read a lot, so he's really good at it. Hold the phones, reading? Isn't that a basic skill that all characters should have? Perhaps, but it doesn't have to be that way. Just because a skill is basic doesn't mean that everyone is good at it, nor does it mean that it can't be specialized. What could take Tom 5 seconds to read could take John only two, and his comprehension could also be higher given that he's read more books. However, just reading books doesn't make anyone a genius, so we're not going to abuse his comprehension for literature and words by saying he knows how to decipher a foreign and long lost alien language that not even the auto-translators can figure out. Reading, being what it is, is a skill that can be started from an age as early as 10, or 11. So we can divvy up this time a little unevenly, because it makes sense. He's decent at reading, but experienced at metalworking. He's nowhere near the expert he would've been had he devoted all his time, but he's still good at it. This distribution of skills might seem a little simplistic, and it is, but roleplay needn't be overly complex and this distribution allows for fairness. So now we have John Smith, an average human, aged 27, saved up his money and got a ship, spent his youth reading and practicing metalworking. Now he's off to discover himself and define a personality shaped by the encounters he finds himself in. We're ready to roleplay fairly!
Behavior/Alignment Let's talk in depth about behavior or alignment. Essentially, your character's alignment represents their moral standings, how they perceive themselves and others, and the way in which they conduct themselves in society. This guide won't be breaking down the specific alignments, but it will be briefly covering them in broad strokes. When you think about a good aligned character, or someone who behaves well with others, you think about a hero, a knight, a savior, or more humbly, a decent person who upholds their morals. Ignoring the more romantically poetic side of things, we can simply put down good aligned individuals as those who would seek no harm against others, and help to prevent it in most casts. Good aligned players want to assist others, get along, have a good time, and make friends. Now let's look at neutrality. Some might confuse pure neutrality (a trait that is very rare) as cynicism or carelessness. Depending on the nature of the person, it could be, but these things are still separate. Someone who is neutral typically is just getting by, and they take joy in the things that they personally like rather than what is best or worst for others. They do what they do because they want to, and they really don't evaluate the circumstances on the morality scale. A neutral individual is just as likely to give you a helping hand as stab you in the back, it all depends on who they are, how they're feeling, and what they want. It's just business, nothing personal. Now that's not to say that neutral folks don't make friends, or enemies, or are completely unpredictable. That topic leads into law and chaos, which we will cover later in this section. Here it is, evil characters. Evil characters usually take pleasure from the pain and suffering from others, but some are purely motivated by greed. Sometimes easy to confuse with a neutral character, evil characters may pretend to be friendly until they have an opportunity to strike. Characters of evil, however, typically do not last in the end and are eventually defeated by the other two alignments, only to sprout up again later. Evil characters are more responsibility to play than the other two, as you, the roleplayer, must take careful consideration of how your characters actions will be affecting others. You still need to balance everything out, and make sure that you're not just doing senseless evil for the sake of evil. Your character, being evil, needs to help tell a tale and bring to the table a story with conflict and resolution. You must recognize that your character is destined to lose in the end. In a world where good outnumbers the bad consistently, that is to be expected. Certainly, you may have a few victories, but these will need to be permitted by the administration or agreed upon with those involved. You should talk about these plotlines and actions before you commit any of them - you can't just perform and evil act and then ask for permission to continue, that's not how it works and if you're caught doing that, you could get in trouble depending on where you're roleplaying. Being evil is a responsibility, and if you don't feel like you can handle that, it is highly recommended that you change alignments. Law and Chaos, the other paradigm of the alignment scale. There's only really two sections for this, as the neutrality mostly follows the above paragraph, but it will still be covered nonetheless. First up to bat, Lawful characters. Lawful characters will be the ones who typically encourage others to follow the local laws, and follow them themselves. They may not stop others who break the laws, but they definitely won't be friends with them. Some lawful characters take their alignment to the extreme, and become law enforcers. These people are your police, guards, and other enforcement positions. Lawful characters generally keep the friends they make, regardless of their good/evil nature, and won't betray comrades when it matters. Lawful people typically also keep to a schedule and are more mechanical in nature, although this doesn't necessarily damage their social capacity. Neutral characters on the law/chaos scale are generally just like neutral characters on the good/evil scale. They don't really give any consideration to law, nor do they consider any breakage of law to be an endorsement of chaos. They behave how they like, doing whatever it is they want to do without thinking about what they might be doing would be illegal or not. Neutrality on the law/chaos scale is fairly common. Chaotic characters are the brusque of the bunch. They hate the law and they'll do anything they can to bring down the system. They don't care if it's illegal or not, in fact, they'll do it because it's illegal. They might not be evil, they could even be good, but for whatever reason they don't appreciate the law and the law certainly doesn't appreciate them. An example could be that a good aligned character might steal from the rich and give to the poor. However, stealing, of course, isn't easy to do and could hurt another player's RP experience. If one is to partake in theft, they need to ensure that it won't be unfair by nature. Steal something that contributes to the story, rather than detracts from it. Backstory Backstory can be the most critical component of any character if you let it, but it doesn't have to be. A backstory does not define your character, you do. Your character can develop who they are over time, they don't have to already be defined before you start. Give this a try, and you might find it oddly satisfying. I've known a lot of roleplayers to focus on making an exaggerated backstory full of great stories, thick plots, and a whole lot of character design. This isn't a bad thing, but more often than not it can be. Whenever you're designing your backstory, you need to make sure that it's realistic and makes sense. Just because it's your character that you're talking about, doesn't mean that they're anymore special than any other character. All characters must earn the right to be considered special by others, because of circumstance, or a truly special act. Roleplay is wonderful in that it is extremely dynamic and heavily influenced by those who partake, and it has much more meaning when your character actually does something within the context of the story than you simply saying they've done it. Always try and design a backstory that can fit with any setting, or if you know the setting, the setting you're going into. Try not to define specific locations, or say that any one species or character did anything in particular to define them. Remember, this is about your character, not anything else. Your character's backstory shouldn't define the lore, setting, or anything of that nature. It should be vague enough so that their background can easily mesh with the setting, while still giving you the creative freedom to make them unique. A backstory doesn't make a character. Appearance Sometimes appearance can be a very important factor in what makes your character who they are. Do they have any prominent scars, or tattoos? Do they have artificial limbs, or a birth defect? All of these things, and more, can define your character and make them different from the rest of the bunch. However, you don't have to give your character a spectacular appearance just to make them different. Whenever you give your character a unique appearance, it should be because that's how you want them to look, or what was done to them according to their backstory (within reason), not because of any particular attribute or skill you're looking to give them. Sure, appearance can supplement a skill, but it shouldn't be the source of it. If you give a character a cybernetic implant or a fake limb, you need to make sure that you account for it. Your character needs to remain balanced so that you can provide fair roleplay to the rest of the players. A character should never be invulnerable, have super strength, be immune to anything, or have absurdly high resistances because of who they are, what they've done, or what they look like. These things, by nature, are unbalanced, unfair, and do not contribute positively to roleplay. More often than not, these things end up stomping on another player's RP and results in a negative experience for them. Whenever you're designing your characters appearance, take very careful consideration of what attributes you apply to them. It's okay to stand out from others, but not okay to stand on them.
Profession/Skills Characters naturally will have some sort of skill, since it's very rare that someone spends their entire life doing nothing. It could be as simple as reading, writing, or as complex as professional cooking, hardware repair, or programming, and anywhere in between. It might seem difficult at first to come up with a unique skill, but you just have to keep thinking about it. It'll click. While common skills are okay, try to give your character something unique. Hacking, for example, is not unique, and is also a very controversial skill that often leads to worsening the roleplay experience for others. It's for these reasons that hacking would not be a good choice. A little bit of thought into your character's skills will go a long way into determining how enjoyable they are to roleplay with. One character should also not be extremely proficient with multiple skills. You need to take into account the time your character would have spent acquiring and training these skills, and divide up that time by the amount of skills you've chosen to give them. Someone who is okay at 5 different things won't be as good as someone who's decent at 4 of those things, just like they won't be as good as someone who's experienced with 3 of them, and so on so forth. In general, the less quantity of skills your character has, the more proficient they are with the skills they do have. Of course this skill amount can be divided unevenly if you so choose, but it still must stay within the constraints of logical reason. A good example would be that a 16 year old is not going to be a doctor, and at best, could probably just stitch someone up if they had to. More sensibly, they might be good at art, or sports, or something within their age range. An older individual would have more matured set of skills. Always, always, always think of the other players you're going to be roleplaying with when giving your character skills. You need to consider that other player's characters also have skills, and that they're roleplaying to have fun just like you. Even if you happen to both have the same skill, if you've already used yours once, then it's time that you let the other player have their moment. Caring is sharing, and in roleplay, it's all about caring. If you care for others, they'll care for you. Assigning and using skills is a responsibility and a privilege, not a right. Alts Alts are the name for characters that are separate from your "main". You may not have a main character, and that's alright. If that's the case, then for all intents and purposes, your first character will be considered your main, and your others, alts. Whenever you play an alt character, you have to take care that you don't get identities or information confused. Something your other characters might know, but this one doesn't, for example, should not be taken into consideration when partaking in any roleplay with this character. Keeping yourself from not mixing information is difficult, and if you can't manage it, it is highly recommended that you reduce the number of alts you play or pick a particular character to play most of the time. Roleplay quickly falls apart when things are sourced from another identity. Try not to play too many alts. Three is party, four is a crowd. There's no need to become larger than a crowd, unless you're really unsatisfied with the characters you currently play. If that's the case, try mixing it up a little, bending their personality or getting into situations where they might better suite your desires. Characters are fairly malleable, and they can (within reason) get into different activities or interests. Remember that the setting is usually your shared oyster, and so long as you take care of it and the others that share it with you, you'll have a good time. There's nothing wrong with alts, just know that it is an extra responsibility. Conclusion I sincerely hope this guide has been of some use, and that any, if any, insight that you have gleamed from it will help you become a better roleplayer. This guide represents my thoughts and is not tailored to any specific community, and can be applied almost to any scenario or setting. I wrote it because I'm passionate about roleplaying and want to see the roleplaying community become of a higher quality than it usually is. I know that there's some great roleplayers out there, and I know some of you are really trying. I appreciate all of you, I do. Roleplaying is fantastic because it lets us create dynamic stories that we can be a part of. It is a unique and different opportunity unlike anything else that lets us forget ourselves for awhile and become immersed in alternate identities. Sometimes we take these identities too far, and it hurts us, and one another. I think with a little exposure and some consideration, these kinds of issues can be reduced. I can't do it alone, however. It's as much your responsibility as any other roleplayer to provide the best experience you can for others, and yourself. If everyone focused on the overall experience rather than their own personal one, then everyone's personal experience would benefit. Now I just want to say thank you for time, and thank you for reading. If there are any typos or grammatical errors in the guide, please let me know. As well, feel free to leave your own comments below. Cheers.
