Character Developing Tips to Make You an A+ RPer!
Quick Introduction
Ah yes... character development. Some people may cringe at the thought of typing page after page of back story and personality traits; but it really isn't that bad and if you can follow these helpful tips I'm sure it will become quite good fun!
ALWAYS REMEMBER! Character Development is an On-going Process!!!
Character development is just like exercise or teaching yourself MPI: you will always be working at it.
Its good to know that when you create a character you don't need five pages of a description and ten pages of back-story. You should start small and allow your character room to grow with other characters ICly, especially if you are new to Redwall MUCK.
Start Small and Build from There!
When I make a character I usually have an initial idea what I want to make:
A woodlander squirrel that frequents Mossflower!
A dibbun hare that lives at Redwall!
A Long Patrol hare!
A corsair stoat!
Once you get this basic concept, start asking yourself some questions:
Are they young or old?
What is a good color scheme? Brown fur, black boots, green tunic?
Once you are satisfied, just set yourself up with a basic description that covers what needs to be covered. We can always add on to it later!
Example:
Barto is a dibbun hare. Before you stands a rapscallion if there ever was one! This runty little dibbun is covered in black fur save for his left ear which has gray splotches. His brown eyes twinkle with mischief but the ruffian is quite adorable. He wears what used to be a white linen tunic with the sleeves rolled over the elbows and his dark blue knickers are held up by blue suspenders; he's far too scrawny to wear a belt. A wooden sword is tucked in his suspenders.
Feats and Flaws
This is what separates the real characters from the cookie cutters.
As a quick definition, Feats are things that your character are very good at:
you may be a talented musician, an intellectual with a knack for engineering, a muscle-bound warrior, or a nimble assassin.
But Flaws are things that hurt or challenge your character. They can be physical, emotional, mental, etc: maybe your character is missing a major limb, has a phobia of heights, or maybe your character is insane.
The key to fleshing these things out is not to overload your character with just Feats or just Flaws. If you do, the character will be as dry as cardboard my friend. This usually ends up being bad for you and your experience because people will get tired having to RP with the typical superman character or the super clutz.
A general rule of thumb I go by is for every Feat that I identify with my character I also pick a Flaw that I identify with. And also be realistic, don't create a Sparrow that has a phobia of heights, although it would be fun to see someone pull it off, lol!
Example:
Feats - Barto is courageous and hard-headed, he is also very nimble and fast.
Flaws - Barto is very small for a dibbun and is physically weak, he also has a phobia of birds and cats.
Personality
For me, the easiest way to flesh out a character's personality is to RP!!!
When I first rolled Barto I had no idea how I was going to play him. The only thing that I had to go on was that I knew he was a dibbun therefore he talks like a dibbun!
I walked into my first RP cold with no grand idea how I was going to present myself. After I made my first pose, and played off the poses from other characters in the room I ended up finding out quite a bit about Barto:
-- Barto wages a personal war with the scullery maids of Redwall Abbey. He often causes mischief in the kitchen and loves to have a good game of hide and seek!
-- Barto's favorite color is red.
-- Barto has a phobia of birds.
Just know that amazing little tidbits of personality will come out from every RP session...
IF YOU LET THEM!!!!
Do not be afraid to try something creative or unconventional with your personality. The character might even take a path you never thought it would. But there is one thing that you should still keep in mind and that is..........
Consistency
BE CONSISTENT!!!!
Yes-- characters do change over time, but do try to be consistent with your character's personality. A couple slips here and there doesn't really matter, but if you make an attempt to be consistent you will substantially increase the quality of your RP sessions. People will learn to like your character and will want to RP with you more.
Example:
Dialects / Dibbun-talk / Molespeech: Barto is a dibbun and certainly speaks like one. Whenever he says certain words I always have to keep this in mind; his dibbun-like lisp, instead of "sir" he says "sirrah", hares love the word "wot", etc.
The easiest way to monitor your consistency is to do the following...
Keep Logs
Yes! Yes! Yes! Most MU* clients have a way to log your sessions! (I use SimpleMU which works well)
Logged sessions are great to have! They are a fantastic reference point for your character!
For instance, if you haven't logged on your character in a month and started to forget how they are played-- Load up your last couple of RP logs and read em! You'll be back into the character in no time!
And also, load the logs onto the Redwall MUCK site! People love to read RP logs! If people see that you post a lot of RP logs on the forum they will recognize this and be more willing to seek you out and RP with you in-game and even seek you out to help make Tiny Plots!
History Class 101
Personally, I like to flesh out my character's history last and the reason is simple:
If you are new to the game, or haven't played in a while, then you haven't met many characters, you don't know all the areas in the game (there are some areas in the MUCK that are not included on the Redwall maps in the novels) and you also don't know all the major events (Tiny Plots) that the MUCK has gone through the past few seasons.
If you have an idea of how you like the history to be, that is not a problem! But as you make friends that you RP with regularly, you may want to consider joining a settlement or being a part of a family.
Example:
Barto is a dibbun that lives at Redwall abbey. My initial idea was to make Barto an orphan. I also started to prepare a back-story where Barto's parents were Long Patrol hares from Salamandastron who died in combat. And because of his frailness, Barto would never be able to join the Long Patrol. So he was sent to live at Redwall Abbey.
But like I said, its just an idea. After RPing for several weeks at Redwall, I may want to adopt a family and change the whole history around! Who knows?!
There are several resources out there to look into historical happenings in the world of Redwall. Many RP logs of major TP events can be found on the forums here, and if you peruse a few of them you may just find a perfect history basis for your character!
Of course, if you HAVE been around on the MUCK for a while, you know the events, and you have lots of friends then feel free to flesh out your history whenever you want!
So what have we learned?
Bottomline is that all MU* players love to RP with well-rounded characters. If you follow the lucky seven strategies I presented above you are well on your way to becoming an 'A+' player!
