Where The Wind Takes You

[Maeve Malone]

As I'm getting close to my 1 year mark with this character I've been reflecting a bit on how she's developed over time. When I originally imagined her up I had thought she would be...I guess harsher? than she is now. She can be serious of course but when I started taking her out into live action to play somehow along the way her love of learning mutated into this insatiable thirst for knowing everything about the world around her. She's much more playful and curious rather than cynical as I had originally expected her to be.

Now writing that out and thinking that way trips me out a little - didn't I make her up? And yet somehow she's taken on a life of her own and suddenly things I never thought of before pop up and turn into natural steps in shaping who she is today and who she will be tomorrow.

This made me want to throw the question out there for you all to answer: how much do you control when it comes to your character and how much do you let yourself be guided by your character him/herself?

I hope this doesn't earn me time in the loony bin for asking because it looks crazy when I read it back.

[Keaton]

Keaton has been pretty predictable for me at Dragon's Mark... but I think that's because I'd had a good handle on him for a few years before that. But I like to think he's still taken on a life of his own, and a lot of my other characters have gone in directions I did not intend them to.

Silas, my poor, confused, clumsy little mageling, was supposed to be more of a thief. Even more reserved than he is already, and scraping by on his own. But RhyDin can be both a very frightening and generous place, so one moment he's terrified by everything, and the next someone sees he's terrified and coddles him. And his character quickly adapted to that.

Alain and I... hehe... well, if he could actually speak to me, we would argue all the time. In any emotionally-charged social context, he frequently makes decisions that baffle me.

Now I'm not going to say whether or not you belong in the loony bin... =) But you're not alone.

[Natolii]

I learned along time ago to let the story shape the character. Beyond their personal history, my characters are shaped in play and pictures.

Natolii has been close to 10 years in the making. From AOL to Ultima Online to here, she has a wealth of experiences that has shaped her into what she is today.

The Twins are in the process of starting their own stories.

Soem of my others are either new or about 2 to 3 yrs old. Cerise, who I am just bringing over, was created in a New Orleans setting just prior to Katrina.
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Mama keep the faith it's alright
Your boy's a mercenary man
A soldier made of steel
A shotgun rings; the wind is calling my name
Fields of gold beneath a blood red sky
~ Mercenary Man, Firewind

[Wyheree]

Wyheree has been writing herself for a very long time. She's my oldest character, one that I know very well. She's not the pure defender she once was, having mellowed on that front - marriage can do that.

Eddie was the first character I ever played that wasn't Wyh. When I first got her, she was harder-edged, I think. Now, she's more light-hearted and silly - not at all like I first imagined her to be.

And Maeve, if you're going to the loony bin, make sure there's a spot for me too! I mean, Wyh lingered in the back of my head for 10 years - how loony is that?
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"Come, comfort me in you - young love must live twice only for us."

[JewellRavenlock]

Jewell totally controls herself a good portion of the time; this has been infuriating me, as of late, because she's not letting me in on what's she thinking and planning.

I know that probably sounds even crazier than my character writing herself, but it's true.

I gave Jewell a basic personality and traits about ten years ago, and she took it from there. I've tweaked her (sometimes majorly) now and then, but for the most part I just let her roam free. Of course, this allows her to get into all sorts of trouble I never planned and then sometimes I have to go clean up the messes. It's not that I play her in ways that I don't want to, but a lot of times it's not like me saying, "This is what my character is going to do whether it's in line with her personality or not"; she kind of guides me somehow.

Sometimes she surprises me. For instance, I never knew how truly silly she could be until she met one Tara Rynieyn; all of a sudden, this whole new side to her personality, that I didn't even know was there, opened up.

Also, I think I was speaking with Wyh's player about this a while back, Jewell has a definite "type" of guy she likes. I never sat down and thought, "Okay, she's going to be into tall dark and handsome that have trouble written all over them." That just happened. In fact, I didn't even notice that there was a trend until she fell for Stephen and I started to connect the dots. Obviously, I have control over who she is with, but I think a lot of times she tells me what she's going to do even if it isn't exactly what I thought I wanted her to do.

Make sense?
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You've got your pretty face. You've got disarming eyes.
You've got such social grace. I've got my pretty spies.
I found you lost, misplaced. I loved that lovely guise.
-AFI, We've Got the Knife

[SylviaNightshade]

If I may take this a step further, in this forum your character creation is not yours alone. The other characters around you, the experiences granted you, shape the destiny of the character and who they become over time.

On the other hand, if you fight against any changes or avenues of play brought to your doorstep by other characters in order to maintain some rigid sense of "this is who my character is and you won't change her (or him)" then that is not really involving in the atmosphere or play offered here.

I think for the most part we build our characters backstories, but their futures, what they will become, what their interests will be, is as unknown to us as our own in real life. Trust me, when I was twenty I did not think I would be spending portions of my time in a text based role playing environment. Our characters are alive and adapt to the world around them. I also never thought of Sylvia as being who she is today with her past what it was, but the activities around her, the world she encountered and interacted with opened up possibilities.

You aren't crazy, you're creative, and in being so you let your character live which means change and adapt, not just let your character be.

[Dean Santiago]

I let my characters guide me fully.

Dean Santiago for one, when I started was the tattooed, "bad guy". Didn't want to do what his parents set out for him. Wanted to go against the blood in his veins, the Aasimar blood. And then the funniest things started to happen, he let me know, you know what? I don't drink alcohol. And if anyone had seen him on his first week of being played in the chatroom, he was very much a drinker. Then as time went on he became very much what I thought he wouldn't of wanted, the "good" guy. Caring, loving compassionate. He went the polar opposite of what I set him out to be, that I had wanted him edgy and rough and tough, silly? Well it was my first time RPing, Haha. Which goes to show, that I won't assume what my character will be like, I mean really, he took on a life of his own and it's been very much an adventure. It is like I am meeting and getting to know this character. I'm not sure if that sounds crazy or not.

Then I have Cole Hayes. I struggled with Cole because as a straight guy, it was very different for me to play a very openly bisexual character. Not only is he open about it but he writes about it, and lives it on a daily basis. And I will admit here that it took me a very long time to let him "come out" on the forum and even more in the chatroom, which a very good friend of mine assured me and helped me "out" him and the character he was involved with also, many thanks to her for the time and patience on that. I was a little worried of how he would be reacted to, and treated in the chat. The board not so much because if someone doesn't like it, they don't have to read it. But this is who he is and I didn't try to stop it, or try and keep him from being who he is.

(Let me add that he was not at all, bashed, looked down upon, by anyone in the chat or forum, it has been nothing but open arms to how he is, and I thank everyone for that, that has been there through it, or just saw it.)

That right there has shown me that despite what I say or do, my character takes the lead and says, you know, I want to be this way and I want to live like that.

And that's just fine with me. It's been a great adventure to let my characters lead me and show me how they want to be, act, love, and live.

Also I will add it's very true that interactions, other characters and players have helped me in many ways with it all.

Every little thing can help and mold the character, I say let them live.
If that makes me crazy, so be it. At least I'm having a great time.

[Lord Ayreg]

Ahh. My pet topic.

Ahem.

My characters guide me fully, wholly, and completely. I do not attempt to interfere with them from an OOC standpoint in any way, shape, form, or fashion. To do so would be blending, after all.

I have done so before in the past, a few times, and every time I usually end up feeling bad about it and kicking myself later.

I've been outright told that this is considerably rude to other people, and that I should warn them. For example, I have a character that's dying. The only problem is-- he's the only one who knows it. There will come a time right smack in the middle of the SL that his heart gives out on him and he'll die. Is it wrong not to tell people about it? I don't think so.

I think in not telling them, I help preserve the purity of the play. The surprise is honest and real, not feigned and structured. The reaction is honest and real, not scripted and mulled-over.

By the same token of allowing the character to guide my fingers across the keyboard and not try to interfere comes with player notification. People these days seem to think that they should be informed before your character even so much as walks up and starts chatting with theirs. I don't feel this way. For the reaction, for the shock, for the ending to be perfect and raw and unscripted and real and honest and true, there can be no OOC interaction in the least between the players outside of third-person observation.

And, sometimes, this works out. Recently had an elf named Talaleryn Nil-Gador looking for someone, anyone, who knew Suliss'urn. The people that I knew knew her all lied about having known her, and Talaleryn was just left to keep looking. I was expecting him to have to be looking for a good bit of while, too.

Then, in the middle of conversation with one of those guys that had just lied a few minutes earlier about having known Suliss', a random question came from the other person. Talaleryn gave an answer for it, and the answer made the character decide to contact Suliss'urn.

I didn't know he was going to ask that specific question to receive that specific answer. I had no idea at all that Suliss' had told him about Ayreg at any point in their lives. But the fact remains that it happened and that it worked out beautifully -- and that is pure, beautiful, serendipitous role-play.

In the case of Natalia... I still stand by this non-interference position. It's more problematic given that Natalia is not a nice little girl all full of sunshine and puppies, but it's been rewarding. I never approach people and ask them, specifically, if it's okay for Natalia to bite and chew on 'em. I just do it, and let the quality of my play and the flow of the scene decide if she sinks or swims with it. Charna Lyndria - swim, and gracefully so. Rosie O'Dell - sink. Like a big giant freakin' rock.

That's just the way it is, though. Doesn't mean that playing with Rosie wasn't fun as hell. And, heh, the start of the deal with Charna was four hours of nerve-wracking hair-pulling suspense as I waited to see what would happen between the two, not talking to Charna's player for fear of tarnishing the purity of the scene. I hadn't worked out with her ahead of time that Natalia was going to nail her to the wall, and I wouldn't work out something like that.

I think the one time I did specifically ask something regarding the interaction of another character was with Katarina.

And, uh, yes. This view of the purity of play, of "play is consent" so to speak, it does get people upset with me from time to time. I can only imagine the gut-wrenching that Jewell went through when Skyler suddenly and abruptly died, but y'know what? Her reaction was real. Shock, really, based in part on the shock the player no doubt felt. But Skyler doing it that way, not giving her any ounce of warning, was lambasted by some but I could really appreciate it for the purity of the reaction the community as a whole had.

On the other side of the coin -- when Amthy died, we went to great pains to keep it a secret so that the reaction from the community would be perfect and unstaged. While I got off with a few scathing screams from people in IMs, I understand Amthy got a lot worse. It wasn't quite the reaction, IC, we were hoping for, though there was a good bit of that. It seems the community reacted violently and vehemently OOC to the death of one of RP history's most popular characters ever.

But, heh, I guess that's the risk you take when you play for purity in an involved emotional setting.

[Lydia Loran]

I'm all for the whole IC thing. Letting characters drive themselves, etc etc. I play by this theory that.. hm. I don't know how to explain it.

Say you're playing a video game. And the main character is posed a question and there are three possible answers. Or there are two things to be done and there's a choice to be made there. There's many different paths to take, many different choices, but they're all equally 'IC'. I think of RP like that sometimes. There's so much to do sometimes, but they're in character. Lydia could go out and do A, B, D, or F. Not G though, since G involves killing someone just to lol at them. And that's really not IC at all. That probably made no sense, but... eh.

But?

I subscribe to the theory that... the PLAYER... the PEOPLE... the REAL people behind the characters? That they are far, far, far more important than the characters. Sometimes, ICly, a person can end up in a place that drives them, as the player, absolutely insane. I've seen it happen to others. I've seen people absolutely *miserable* about things that go down IC, because of their own actions or other people's. But they don't do anything about it because that's breaking the purity of the game or whatever.

I just can't understand why someone would be willing to be miserable, to not have any enjoyment *at all* over the fact they want it to be character driven, and that they don't want to interfere. There should be a time when it's okay for a player to either say "Okay, I'm changing this." or to tell other people they need to back off.

Usually such only needs to happen in extreme cases, but there are other more.. minor cases it can happen in. For example, with me? There are certain types of.. play that goes on, that holds no interest for me as a player. So even if IC it'd make sense or be a good story or whatever, I'd probably do everything in my power as the player to stop it from happening. (Even so far as a 'Nexus poof' but that's so so very rare) I shouldn't have to subscribe to something that makes me miserable for the sake of good story telling.

[Glenn Woodwright]

Some general thoughts on the issue, and then some specifics.

Glenn was very, very carefully planned out when I first started to seriously play him. I created a fairly intricate back story of important personal events in his life, and spent a lot of time with his personal biography (why he has his name, his family situation, what things were like where he was from originally, etc.). In addition, I have some definite storylines in mind for him for the future. Most of these are reflective of personal goals that he has for himself (getting a shop, being more open about who he is, learning how to use magic) but there are a couple that I plan to bring up sometime in the future, that tie into specific actions he's taken and will take. I freely admit that I tend to overplan, and maybe that removes some of the spontaneity of Glenn's actions, but I've put a lot of effort into developing Glenn into (what I hope is) an interesting, realistic character. In the past, I've failed to fully plan out characters, and this has had a negative result on them.

For me, the two characters I play primarily kind of operate on the two main sides of the RP coin available here. I tend to use Glenn to play out my more writerly tendencies, with forum posts and the like. Locke, on the other hand, I see as a "plug-and-play" character who can jump into the inn and interact more freely than Glenn does. But even Locke has some backstory, and I have some idea of where he's going to go. That isn't to say I'm completely opposed to my characters' wants and needs changing based on interactions with others; it's more that I see these ideas I have as useful for developing my characters.

As for specifics? Well, the way Glenn achieves his goals isn't set in stone. It took motivation from a scene played out (unplanned) in live RP for Glenn to start working the job he wanted to work in RhyDin. And another character, in live RP, recently solved the problem of how Glenn could own a furniture store and make furniture (a loud process, I'd imagine) in the middle of the Marketplace without irritating customers. I had one answer in mind, but another character (thanks Rena's player!) came up with a solution I hadn't thought of. I'm perfectly fine with players who pull surprises on me like that. Makes things more interesting.

But, when it comes to big, huge, important SLs? I believe OOC communication is crucial. I trust that the players I play with can separate OOC information and IC information, that they are capable of writing about a character's surprise even if they themselves are not surprised by the action. For instance, one of the SLs I'd planned since I introduced Glenn was him revealing himself as an elf. This, of course, required some live RP and forum posting to develop some of his friendships, but at some point, no matter who his friends were, Glenn was going to crack. It took a lot of planning between me, Lydia Loran and Erinalle Dunbridge's players, but I believe the end result was just as emotionally touching and well-written as it would have been if I had never told those players what I was going to do. I trusted they could play out their characters' surprise, and they did. They played it out well.

I won't speak for others, but for me personally, I feel it is only fair to give other players a heads up if I'm planning on something earth-shattering happening to my character (death, dismemberment, etc.). Again, I trust that IC, they can play off these sudden events realistically, but OOC, I realize that this knowledge may be necessary for them in planning out storylines, live roleplaying, or whatever.

Bottom line, I don't want to leave players in the lurch, if I can help it at all.
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" A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive. "
-Pearl Bailey

[Dirk Stevens]

Ok, I'm going to throw my two cents in. Mind you, I log onto this name and my IQ drops about ten points and I start drooling thinking of fried chicken meals and cute guys with olive colored eyes and auburn hair. But I digress.

When I played on AOL, many moons ago, I believed in the planning out of storylines and even a bit of the live play interaction. I ran a room that was pretty significant to me, probably not much in the grander scheme of Rhydin on AOL, but important to me. We had our own message group, for those of you who remember those. My partner, IC husband, and eventually real life husband ran the room with me and we would spend hours coming up with stories that we would like to be told through the posts to the message board and the real play in the room. All of the "regulars" in the room knew of the board and we shared our ideas with the group often. However. even with this kind of communication, the stories never panned out as we had planned. Other players had their own ideas of what and how their own characters would act and react to the stories that we had never even thought of. It had proved disappointing and more than daunting. And a few people stopped coming because we had such high expectations and tried to keep it so structured.

Then it hit me. Life isn't structured like that. People react and act in different ways for a myriad of different reasons. For me to expect people to play their characters according to what they were seeing as a script was just, in my opinion, unrealistic and unfair. So, when I came to the Dragon's Mark and RDI, I went the polar opposite of how I played on AOL. No more scripting, no more hours on end of planning story lines. I let my characters act and react to the different settings, people, places.

For example: When I first created Dirk, he was a loud, smart mouthed, crass and quite the jerk. Now Dirk hasn't strayed far from that at all. But that's who he told me he was. He whispered into my ear each time somebody typed something that was said to him or about him. He let me know, in no uncertain terms, just what he wanted said and done. And I've yet to stray from that. The only time that I did, he bugged me about it for weeks. Cole's player, bless his heart, knew that I wasn't being true to Dirk. I can remember, vividly, the conversations. "You sure he's not." "Yes, I'm sure." "Yeah, ok. I still say he is." "He's not!" Guess what, he was. I was wrong and I didn't listen to him. Now I do and even though I don't agree with his thoughts, words and actions, I still type that out for him.

My partner and I do communicate about our characters, don't get me wrong. But each time we've tried to plan out anything, the characters let us know, under no uncertain terms, this is the way it's going to be. Sometimes they like it, sometimes they don't. But rarely does things ever go according to plan.

I think that's not only in RP, but in real life.
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And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

-Mumford & Sons

[Kairee]

My characters have free will.

In creating a character, I try to make them as whole and as real as I can and then I set them on the story path. From that point on, their expierences shape them.

Kairee started out in a table top game. She was created to play as a part of an evil character in an evil party. It soon became evident that she wasn't so much "evil" as amoral. She does what she wants for her own reasons and purposes. Over time, she's matured as a character. Age and expierence will do that to anyone.

The challange I have with working with Kairee is finding reasons for her to do things with and for other characters. i may be willing but she may not.

Whatever she does MUST be in context to her nature and her story. Whatever it is must fit the internal logic of Kai's life and world view. If it doestn't it feels forced and contrived and thereful unsatisfactory to me as her Player and as a Creative.
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-Kairee
The Splendiferous One and Mage-Babe Supreme

"With Great Power comes Great Boredom."

[Natolii]

Keep in mind that while the events shape the character, it is your reactions that make them stick.

I created Nat as a slaver. I was playing a character so Anti-slavery that it got her into more trouble than not. So I started a new character and started RPing with the Slavers Association. I did not initially plan to make her a demon, but when it came up I said go for it.

I did not intend for her to fall for her enemy, but it happened and I wouldn't change that ever.

Sometimes the unexpected yields the best results. Planning isn't bad, so long as you remain flexible.

"The best laid plans fall apart with the first volley."
_________________
Mama keep the faith it's alright
Your boy's a mercenary man
A soldier made of steel
A shotgun rings; the wind is calling my name
Fields of gold beneath a blood red sky
~ Mercenary Man, Firewind

[SulissurnXukuth]

Balance.

Everything I have ever tried to express in role play, all topics for me, tend to lead to the single word: Balance.

Some times when the role play is good it's almost instinctual the response. The fingers are flying and I'm just typing what my gut says my character will do.

Other times I've got to settle down and realllly think about it, picture it in my head. The first, I would say is almost like the character writing herself, the second I would say is still the character but mun driven to figure things out.

It's always a balance between the two.

There are some other really good topics being touched upon in this post too, but I'm gonna stick with the original topic or I'll be rambling in sentence fragments all day
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2PG |GR | ME | SULISS'URN
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[The Poetess]

I'm a roll this afternoon.

When I created this character I envisioned her as a woman in her late thirties, distressed with her life and a brilliant writer, the sole aspect of her dreary life that kept her aloft.

It was only in bringing her out of my mind and into the room that she evolved on her own as a succinct, direct, pragmatic, brash, bold, indolent, aloof, rogueish, YOUNG woman.

I think the reason I envisioned her as older is because of her interests, her maturity. She is an old soul in my mind, as I've mentioned in another thread, which is where that feeling stemmed from I suppose.

As for roleplay shaping our characters? To that I say absolutely!

She is her own person, but it is in the presence of her boyfriend that she has grown so much more quickly than she would have alone. He being a good twenty years older and having lived a lot of *** physically, when she is so much younger and only cultured and sophisticated intellectually, is quite a mesh, and my character has learnt much, in myriad ways, due to this relationship.

No doubt other characters will come to influence her life, though at the end of the day what she does, and why, is all of her own volition. Yes, there are certain things I've written and had her do out of live chat off-the-hat spontaneity, but generally, what comes out is the work of the character alone.