I think that there isn’t a rant about this, I read a few, but I didn’t find it, so…

Have you ever accepted a character that looks quite good and then when they start rping, they suddenly forget all their flaws?

It annoys me so much. I had this girl in a site that I made lond ago, she was a ballet dancer, played guitar, but at the same time was bad at cooking and was too naïve. Well, she had a few more things in both strengths and weaknesses, but those were the main ones.

So after she got sorted she asked to rp with me, I was like fine, but I had no idea the monster that I accepted in my site. Suddenly she was the best ballet dancer in the UK, was making a band that was going to release a cd in a year (please note that she hadn’t picked the members of the band yet) used the fact of being naïve to be, well, how can I say it? Charming and innocent? (Well, at least she tried to be charming, in my opinion it was a bit stupid, but that is just me) and suddenly forgot how bad her character can cook.

I was so upset! The thing is those characters are always showing up and they look quite good in their applications, but when the member starts to describe how s/he looked amazing everytime that the wind blow her hair out of her/his face, it just makes me want to pull my own hair out! Seriously, I don’t think many people would to rp with someone that is always telling us how amazing their character is.

I have no idea if this happened to other people or not, but I guess it did. I saw it happen in other sites that weren’t mine, on the other hand it made me feel quite relieved because I wasn’t alone anymore, but on the other hand… poor of them.

End.

Yes, actually I have a good friend that I've had to have several talks with on this very subject. The worst is turning flaws into strengths once they start RPing. His characters could never do anything bad once he got accepted. It took almost a year for me to make him see this problem, and he really had a hard time with it, but he wants to be a writer and I wanted to convince him that if he really wants to be published, editors aren't going to be as nice as me on this issue.

Ugh, it’s happening on my site. There is this one girl who has a great application for a Slytherin and then all the sudden she is friendly to Muggle born and nice all around. I want to poke her with a stick and remind her of what her application is.

I don’t get why people want to play characters without flaws, I love flaws. In fact I think flaws make people love characters.

eep! Yeah I know how that is. But in defense of all slytherin characters having a difficult time playing, I will say that I play a slytherin character and while I stick to being a jerk to people who aren't slytherin, i find it seriously confining--I can only rp with other slytherins, really, to be a decent human being! And then, and this is a topic I rant about to myself when it happens, if I'm a jerk to everyone else, people start getting seriously offended by it.

People, it's just pretend!! I don't really hate you!

I usually stick to playing one character because more than one and I start falling behind and stuff. I dunno, I would just prefer to play one character and play it well than play many so-so characters.

Another problem it brings up, is cliquish behavior. Since I can't really rp very much with other players who aren't slytherin, people also will start thinking I only RP with certain players! Well duh, of course I do--other slytherins! The few times I play with other houses, I have to be rude, and let's be honest--rude threads don't last very long, because you run out of things to be mean about quick.

meh.

I have a Slytherin character who is nice to everyone, but it's because he wants to be a politician and thinks that will get him more votes in the long run. So he's nice to people, but only because it serves his own purpose.

Oh, I know the type. It's awful, really, when someone does that. I used to RP on a few X-Men sites and the most common version of this was when people 'forgot' about their weaknesses. Or, better yet, their weaknesses suddenly worked to their advantage in the most annoying and stupid way, like you said, Roswenth. You're lucky though. You got your friend to see what he was doing wrong, whenever anyone tried to tell these people to stop doing it and patiently explained why they weren't supposed to do that, why it wasn't fair and all, they started complaining about how people don't understand them, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.

My favourite hobby is poking fun at my characters' flaws. It's the best way to RP, if you ask me. Not only is it fun for you to write but for other people to read too.

Well, like I said, it took a year to convince him. He was like you describe for months...until he started to realize that nobody wanted to RP with him.

I’m quite sorry about it, Ra. It reminds of a girl that I had on a HP site, she was my character’s best friend, even thought she was a seventh year and mine was a sixth year. She kept telling in her posts that she was the Slytherin Queen, and that my character would be the next Slytherin Queen (I was playing one of the canons) I was like wth… Who said that my character wanted to be treated like royalty? Actually, she did want, but what’s the point of telling me that on your posts? To make me feel better? Or just to say that my character would only be the ‘Slytherin Queen’ after your character leaves?

That’s why I also hate when people call themselves ‘Slytherin Princess’ or ‘Slytherin Queen’. You need to be Voldy’s daughter to be that, and he didn’t have any children, deal with it. (No offence to people who do this, it just… annoys me.)

See I am okay with a Slytherin being somewhat nice to maybe a pureblooded Ravenclaw or being nice in order to get their way. But to be best friends with a Muggle born Gryffindor, it seems a bit much when her application says that she loathes them.

I see that trend too! This one girl calls herself the queen of a group called the cupcakes. I don’t get it, but it seems to be along the same lines as being the Slytherin Queen. Ugh.

On another note, I have seen the Black family call themselves Slytherin Royalty, which I am okay with.

Yeah but if you're character's built out to be a jerk or antisocial you've got a problem. I've never shied out of these types yet though, they're still fun to play with, just (IMO) harder.

Oh yeah! Now that's a line I've written before. When people do that I get so frustrated I feel like banging my head against the desk. It's just a GAME, they're just CHARACTERS, it's not like I'm ME insulting YOU, for Pete's sake!!!

I know what you mean about cliquish behaviour. It does tend to happen on any site which has two or more opposing groups but it can be resolved quite easily, especially if the mods care to give people a hand. That's why I like RPs with a solid plot - one which is both unpredictable and more complex than the everyday 'make friends & talk' one: it sometimes gives characters other reasons to thread together and unites them under a common goal. But players as individuals can do something about that too. For example, if a Slytherin and a Gryffindor had to work together to survive a cave-in or some other threat, they would and a new type of relationship might emerge as a result.

Flaws are wonderful. :) All of my characters have flaws, though some are much more subtle than others because I don't like being a drama llama like that.

There's something about having a lot of characters to control: I need to go back and reread my applications to remember exactly what their personalities are supposed to be. Sometimes I slip up and do out of character stuff, but nothing that noticeable (such as the Slytherine girl Ra was talking about).

What I usually do to avoid that is join RPs gradually. I join one today, another in a couple of weeks or even months, then another in about the same time, so on, so forth. That way not only do I find some sort of rhythm to playing and know if I can handle more characters, but I get familiarized with their personalities too. I'm a real slacker and won't reread my bios unless I REALLY have to (esp. the long ones) so I thought this up instead. Works for me... Of course, no matter how many times you reread your application you're still not going to abide by it to the letter, I think that's impossible.

Only slightly related - my Slytherin boy is only in Slytherin for his massive ambitions. He knows what he wants to be and he's going to give it everything. Other than that, he's not particularly "Slytherin" - but then again, who said a character needs to have all the house traits to be in said house?

I tend to keep to my character's faults and weaknesses because I've spent a lot of time on the characters I use, tweaking them to make them exactly how I want them. Their flaws usually give me more to RP with than their strengths, for the most part.

We all have come across those! Argh, they're so damn annoying and there's just no polite way of telling them to put keep their characters in check. I was on a site where the main admin of the board had...4 characters, all girls. And every time a member would join, roleplaying as a male, she would instantly attack them for "love interests."

One of her characters was dubbed by her as "Helen of Troy" because she had the main male characters lusting for her. There was a time where she had five men for one girl character. And people would not say anything, including me, because one...she was extremely sensitive -- as anyone would be when it comes to their creations -- and two, she was admin.

But all of her characters were....sluts, so to speak. Somehow, someway, the males just had to be connected to her.

I really do wish there was a way to kindly tell them something...

Oh I know what you mean =] I had one member who created like five characters.... But instead of her characters becoming monsters, she became the monster lol and deleted all her characters and posts ruining a lot of important threads, not only that but she also deleted two of my characters.


This was a member that I thought I could trust with admin powers and was a close friend to me and she turned around and back stabbed me by doing this.


After I banned her she came back and threatened me through the advertising forum so eventually I had to ban her IP address.

I know this isn't entirely relevant to the previous rant, but thought be an amusing twist of things. lol

Ooooooooh, that is indeed annoying! But hey, I remember doing it myself... cause once upon a time, I thought that was what people wanted me to do so they'd play with me. And yes, in the RP I was on at the time, that was what was expected.

I grew up, and out of it. Now I very muchly love playing out my character's flaws and awkwardnesses... everything from talking with their mouths full, to a dangerously quick temper, to the inability to see danger in anything... all a lot of fun.

If I were you, I'd just send a nice polite PM, explaining the joys of playing flaws - and how although the character isn't expected to forever remain true to the application (things change, let's face it) - perfection isn't always the greatest.

Maybe include some ideas of where she could go, plotness for her character that plays on the flaws listed in her profile?

Man, half the fun for me is planning out how character flaws are going to influence their role in a plot. XD

It's so, so, so fun to put characters in a situation where they have to swallow their pride, or admit weakness, or just -change- in some elemental way. It's also fun to have characters who refuse to change even if it would be to their benefit to do so. People who hide things and people who say too much.

I love people. All kinds of people. Best thing ever because I know I'll never get to write them all.

... oh, wait, this was supposed to be a rant. >_>

I agree with you there, I enjoy plotting out all sorts of ideas for my characters, especially their situations, whether it be something traumatic, romance, horror, anything that is possible in whatever RPG you are in.

But I always make sure to keep my characters to the character sheet, and if they start to stray from it, its when I know that I need to make changes to the sheet itself, I've had that happen to me before, especially with one of my old old characters that I have been playing for a year. Straight up, I thought she'd be this happy go person, when the more I played her, the more I realized she is more mellow and depressed lol But that happens when you are developing a character, especially if they are going through a dramatic change.

And yes I know this was suppose to be a rant! DuH! *bonks her forehead* lol

But yeah I think that is indeed a problem when people create these characters and they go to play them.. I think they sorta forget how that character is suppose to be... and they just don't bother to stick by what they typed out. And we are the ones going "Uh Hello! He/she isn't suppose to be so retarded! You made he/she more smart!" You just want to smack em >.< But I think too that if you PM the person and kindly tell them that they are straying away from their own character, they'd most likely appreciate it.. And if they don't THEN I guess they don't really like to improve!

Personally, flaws rock. I often use my character's flaws against them. Or else have their positive traits also be flaws at the same time (example: being honest to where they are mean; confident so much that they are overconfident and can often be foolish). The worst flaw I've given a character is that he was deaf, though, seeing as that was a large flaw, I only had smaller flaws next to it (like being very territorial).

I think the only excuse for the character being different from the application is, say, if the character went through dramatic changes - like China Doll mentioned, actually.

Oh gosh, China Doll. I totally agree with you on almost all of that!

People portraying themselves to be happy, just so they can steal your characters? Wrooong. XD

But characters develop from character sheets. If you wanted your character to be a stupid slut for the entire time of its existence, then whatever, kudos to you. But most of the time characters develop to either be something better, or something worse than what they were originally mapped out to be. New characters especially, unless you were one of those people that went "I want my character to be JUST LIKE THAT ONE" Then that's technically stealing *LOL*

Wait, none of what I said really replied did it? Hmm.

I don't know who you are honey, but this has no relevance to the topic o.O' and stealing characters? What does that have to do with character flaws? lol I'm so lost! ^^

*lol* well some of it had some relevance. Everyone's opinion matters in the rant section! So.... I love tacos XD

You know... what really annoys me is when people give their characters traits they can't possibly uphold. This is a bit mean to say, but for example, writing a character as very witty or intelligent and then being completely unable to uphold that yourself. Or, say, claiming your character speaks 20 languages, when you yourself barely know English.

Yes, it's tangential.... I love the rants section, though. It's so... liberating.

As for flaws: flaws aren't all that make a character. I mean, if you do anything woodenly, it's going to come out silly. But if you make a character with psychological depth, you don't even need to think of it as 'strengths' and 'weaknesses'. Just--who they are! I don't like the mechanical way of looking at characters whereby it's a formula to avoid Mary Sueism or whatever. It is--what it is--what it is!

On another note, I am a huge fan of giving characters really weird maladies that aren't the romantic kind. Like missing fingers... or prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces)... or epilepsy... don't know if that's a flaw, but it sure is fun to try to RP it.

I agree Robsepierre! They give their characters these superfluous traits that look marvelous on paper but once they're put to play, it's....well it's disappointing and a little irritating. It's the typical Mary-Sue, Gary-Sue ideal. They become monsters, just....pitiful monsters? lol I don't know.

Waaaaah! I am bad RPer. I never think about my characters' flaws. I don't even know what they are, mostly. I just play. I guess that makes me a bad RPer.

It is very sucky when people turn around and play their characters very badly when you thought they were okay in the application. That's where roleplay application rather than character application comes in - no one has worked out that they can post with people other than their character so they always post with their characters how the character is, so I can see pretty easily if they are going to try make them perfect.

See for me, dodgy characters I can cope with easier than I can cope with dodgy members. Atleast when someones plays a character badly you can PM them, mention where they are going wrong, mention how it is off putting to other members and they can change for the better.

When the problem is with the member themself it is farfar more...off-putting, and uncomfortable, and just generally intolerable.

I remember all of this happening and in someways was the catalyst. In my introduction post on a particular board, several members seemed to go out of their way to be rude to me, unwelcoming, and make me feel as unwanted as they could. If it hadn't been for Jade (China Doll) I would simply have turned around and left it all behind, simply not able/wanting to deal with it.

It was only because of the two main admins (one of which is Jade) contacting me on MSN and apologising and doing their best to explain, and also mentioning that they were adressing their issues with the members who had made me feel so crap that I stayed around. I'm glad I do, the site is fantastic, and so original, the characters are indepth and smartly RPed that I love it.

I think dodgy RPer's can be...changed, educated, taught a better way to do it. Crappy members won't/can't change, it's who they are, and leave a much more bitter taste in the mouth. Slightly dodgy RP characters don't make people turn around and want to walk away, rude members do.

Oh man *lol*, that's gotta suck, Whisper! Never directly happened with me, but I guess some members are just problems to the end *Shrug* XD

Ah, I agree with Emma too. Character's take lots of time to develop and sometimes a character application isn't enough XD

How about claiming that your character is from country X and then supposedly having him/her go there and then actually utter words from that language which were supposed to make up sentences but you used an online translator and what your character said doesn't make ANY sense? :rawr: That just pisses me off. I have NOTHING against claiming that your character speaks a certain language even though you don't as long as you refrain from posting idiotic messages on forums.

Sorry, I know that's a little harsh but I recently had the displeasure of seeing just that. I had two very different reactions. ONE: I laughed so hard my belly hurt afterwards. TWO: After I finished laughing and read the posts and threads (plural, mind you) I got a bit angry and felt insulted. Ignorance really gets on my nerves. It may be bliss, but only for yourself and at others' expense.