Why is it that most RPs (that I've come across) only allow models or celebs as play-bys? (Reps for your character)

When done correctly, cartoons/anime graphics can look just as professional as ones with real people.

And, it's not really a copyright issue... We don't have permission to use the pics of EITHER.

So, what's up RPG-D?

Why is it that most RPs are switching to ONLY real-people play-bys?

Would you ever turn away an RP because they allowed non-real?

I personally only use real actors because ... well I guess mainly because I don't watch anime so it'd be kind of silly for me to use a character from it. lol :D

But anywho, I really don't know why so many sites have an aversion to simply allowing others to have an anime claim if they want to. I mean, it's their choice. If it was up to me nobody would use models as their claims - like seriously, who the flip looks like a model? And half the time the pictures are in their bra and undies - okay, nice, so I know what your character looks like practically nice, real helpful bucko. But I'm not about to go and tell anyone on my boards they can't use models. I kind of feel like that's not my place and by putting a rule like that in place your infringing on other's creative license or something.

I don't know. I think people have gone too gung-ho on the whole claim thing. Like seriously, it should just be this fun thing on the side to help people get a more ready-made picture of that character in their head when you are rping with them not this political fandago it's become.


I'm talking really oddly tonight? :/ So um, I think you get my drift.

Anti-anime-whatever-face-claim-nazis = bad!!!!!!

Owh I wouldn't be stopped if I had to use an anime-character for my RP character. But with me it depends on what kind of RPG I run really. I can't really see anime characters be used in a real life RPG. However, when I had a vampire RPG, it didn't really matter if you used an actor/model or an anime/manga character or drawing of any sorts.

I do have a thing against models, like OnlyHappy said, most it's in bathing suit or underwear, that isn't really how your character would walk around all day right? I prefer face claims who actually represent the character too. Why pick a blonde haired long model if your character has brown hair and is quite short? I always find a face claim who could look like my character in real life. I also like to use actors who aren't like world-wide known, like Orlando Bloom or Emma Watson. I'd rather pick an actor from a series who isn't watched by loads of people all around the world.

But yeh, I don't have anything against anime-claims, as long as it suits the RPG, I'm fine with it ^_^.

I prefer to use non-well known faces as well. Only one of my PBs is well-known at all (Cillian Murphy), the rest are largely unknowns and one is a local celebrity. What gets me is how people use positively gorgeous faces/bodies for normal everyday people (I am sorry, drug-addicts are not airbrushed and beautiful!!). Only one of my PBs is stupid gorgeous and that's because she is a prima donna and I make no excuses for her.

When I go searching for a PB, I always try to look for one that I don't see too often. What I hate the most is when I read a character application and I can just tell that the person who created the character based their appearance from the celebrity! Are PB's really that important? What happened to reading an appearance and imagining the rest from there?

Recently, I only use an avatar of the character, instead of a set. I really don't think the biggest deal about a character should be who their playby is, especially when the character was created around that particular celebrity as a core.

Bleah. . .

The whole model claim thing is actually new to me.

Previous boards I had been on hadn't had given us, the Rpers, an option to use a model claim. I mean, I'm not against it or anything, but it's still kinda new to me.

I understand that you want others to be able to know what your character looks like, but shouldn't your Rping skills be able to detail just what your character looks like? Sure, a picture might clear up a couple of details, but the way you describe your character while posting should be good enough, right?

*tips head to the right*

And if anything, I think with the model claims, it should stick to only Avatars that are 100 x 100 instead of some huge sig that's on the board.

Anyway, that's my two cent.

I'm always a little skeptical of people who request RPGs based on what avatar claim in available. I'm guessing they carry their one character around from site to site, and the character is based on the celebrity and not the other way around. That seems very unoriginal to me, and I wonder if these people just stay around until the next 'big thing' hits, and they switch to that site.

Using a major celebrity or model shouts "Mary Sue!" to me, and I generally find this to be true. Personally, I do not like using celebrities as avatars for pretty much any site that is not about...models or celebrities. I also will not join a site that has required avatar claims or requires premade characters with preselected avatars. I always allow drawn characters as long as the person drew the character themselves.

I usually pic stock photos or I currently use some model guy for one of my characters but I really don't think people would recognize him. I have never been a big fan of having real and animae images mixed on one site. I don't know why. I feel ike I have a cartoon talking to real person and my brain short circuits. No real good protest for it. Just an asthetic one. Lame, I admit.

I like just real people images on my boards. Some use celebs and some use stock photos. No one ever plays anyone fat. I would like a fat character so I might make one.

I guess if it's a humanoid type character, it should be allowed since it's hard to find real-people PBs dressed up like those? But I agree wirth RyanA, it's not aesthetically pleasing to have a mix of anime and real images mixed on one site. Besides, there are a lot of real-people who do the job well for PBs.

Well, if it's an anime RPG, anime PBs it is but if it's something like Harry Potter or something that was originally real people then, real people PBs.

I allow any form of character representation but I personally don't like using pictures of people found on myspace or dating sites because I would freak out if I saw my own picture used as an rpg character. I think it is rude. Celebs at least are used to being in the limelight but I am sure they find it a little odd themselves if they happen to surf the internet and come across one of our rpgs. Its just a tiny courtosey.

As far as 'aesthetically pleasing', I would much rather see something hand-drawn than the same 5 celebrities over and over. Please, please..save me from Sophia Bush....?

I rarely use any big-time celebrities, and when I do, I steer clear of celebutantes and the WB/CW set- which I'd say are amongst the most overdone PBs. I swear, is the CW the only channel people watch these days? Oh, that and Disney. I see a ton of Disney Kid PBs.

I really didn't have a problem with it at first, but now I really wish people would expand their horizons.

I definately agree with you Mariko. I think that's why I don't really have a preference if people use anime or not - like, I guess I'd PREFER that they didn't, but it's a heck of a lot better than Rachel Bilson or Sophia Bush - like seriously, I'm going to detonate if I ever see one of their faces again! Which will probably be the next site I click on, so probably not, but you know.

Now I don't go out of my way to find obscure people through stock photos or anything because 1) I don't have the patience for something like that - especially when I don't really give a flying duck about pbs that much in the first place and 2) I don't really even know how to go about such things.

Anywho, I actually use well known celebrities I guess, but not really anyone that other people use? My favorites are George Clooney, Claire Danes, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, and Will Smith. Those are pretty much the ones I use mostly I guess and best represent the kind of people I go for.

I use famous faces, I admit it. Well, mostly. Out of the 8 or chars I have, 2 have random people I found on Getty. The other 6 though aren't ALL that famous (and one died three years ago). I try to use lesser known celebs who like having their picture taken. The reason? I am a Photoshop whore and love changing my char avvies and sigs a lot. A real lot. Though, on the board I and Angel-Girl admin, there's no requirement that a player's avvie be a celeb. We don't care if it's a drawing. All we ask is that it look like their char. And the trend it seems from the people we've gotten is along the same lines of using lower key people. Heck, we've been open over a year and just now someone used Orlando Bloom. Thought that would have happened ages ago.

The only thing that irritates me quite honestly (besides the whole models-either-in-their-underwear-or-wearing-ridiculous-couture-items-that-normal-people-wouldn't-wear trend) is this whole new trend of using people from myspace.

That's kinda ... I don't even know. Creepy kinda? It's different to use celebrities or anime people because they readily put their face out there - their face is their moneymaker. But for random people on myspace - um... yikes. I would not appreciate that.

I do realize it's different to use Audrey Kitching or whatever rather than some random myspace person, but that just brings me to my next point ;; emo queen PBs. There's even more of those than there are of the Sophia Bush and Rachel Bilson variety. And a lot of the times it's like a HP rpg set in the seventies - are you kidding????? I guess I wouldn't mind it if they were used in moderation, but everywhere I turn my males are confronted by size-negative-seven purple-haired metal-faced mary sues gone terribly terribly wrong. :/

Actually, unless EVERYBODY is using anime PBs, I'd prefer that they didn't. For some reason I don't like them mixing. I'm lucky to not have come across everyone and their mother using Rachel Bilson, but Sophia Bush is another story.

I don't do stock photos either- I'm too lazy. I just happen to watch stuff with less known actors.

When I do go for bigger celebs, I also usually pick ones that are rarely used, like Norah Jones or America Ferrera. I don't pick them BECAUSE they're rarely used, though, either, just because they fit the characters well. In fact, I didn't notice until recently that people rarely used them.

I occasionally use more popular ones like Alexis Bledel, though. Just not 24/7.

I'm sorry, but really I don't like the way people insist that they must have an avatar and sig that match their character at all. Describe your character in words as best you can. It's your character, your creation. He/she looks how you imagine him/her, and there is next to no chance you're going to find a RL person or a character in any artwork who looks exactly like your character.

But I really really don't like the use of celeb pics. If everyone's characters really look like some celebrity or other...what a freaky messed up world they're RPing in.

Artwork (anime or otherwise) gives you more to...well, work with. People aren't all hiding under 5 inches of makeup, there's a better chance they haven't dyed their hair, etc...

Basically, I'm with Roswenth. I don't want to see any more 'pretty' celebrity faces, male or female. x_x

And hey, that's the other thing - you know, real people pics or anime aren't your only choices...or does all artwork fall under anime in the PBP RPing world?

But my God, using people's myspace pictures? That just screams that it should be...illegal. Creepy as hell... >_>

If an rp says I have to use celeb pictures to show what my character looks like and such I won't join at all.

I will admit, I use celeps as play bys, and popular ones at that Kiera Knightly and Holly Marie-combs are two people that I'm using on a board I have right now. However, I base my choices off of what I think my character looks like, or is more apt to look like. My Headmistress doesn't walk around looking exactly the freak like Kiera Knightly, but she has some of the same features. I won't say that I completely disagree with using celep PBs because they tend to help people who aren't that good at describing facial features... I wouldn't be able to describe my way out of a paper bag when it comes to facial features. The words simply aren't paired up eough with photos for me, and I therefore don't have them in my vocabulary. It's hard to always see that when someone is using description alone.

as far as mixing Real lifer's with anime or drawings...well if they are drawings of real people, then by all means, they should be put into a real life game...but anime characters just don't ....mix. I'd never put a cartoon drawing of a player I wanted to play on a site that had all other RL PBs because it just doesn't seem right for some reason...as someone put it so aptly before me, my brain short circuts.

On my rp site I don't have any restrictions from any anime people or cartoons, but when I always refer to them as Reserved Celebrities so that may have an influence on the people on my site. It's just that they never reserve an anime character or anything.

I prefer to use celebrities, because whilst I know they won't necessarily be put in the same situations as my character, they're quite easy to get images to use for signatures/avatars, and I just don't watch a lot of Anime.Thing is, I sometimes end up changing my character slightly, so that they may look different from their set model, so that the model is more of a base image, rather than the character being a carbon copy.

I definitely wouldn't just turn down a site because it only allowed Anime characters, though.

I know a lot of people don't like the use of celeb images or even images at all for chars because it decreases creativity but how many times in a book do they go over the entire description of a character? I likely do it once or twice in my first few threads with a character but after that I get bored describing the same character. Obviously I will point out little things over time but I don't want to write a complete physical description every time I rp a character.

Also a lot of people are visual thinkers and many writers that use online rpgs are also graphic artists who get muse boosts from making av/sig sets. A new set is like reinventing the character and reinventing your muse for them. They serve more purpose than just being a pretty picture (though that is enough of a reason for me sometimes (happy) )

Isn't one of the main points of a bio so that you don't have to re-introduce anything about your character? You cover the description there, and then no one should expect you to tell them even just your character's hair colour in a thread...

I agree. You shouldn't have to describe your character in every post. I was simply saying that many people use a model/celeb/drawn image so other members don't always have to refer to your bio. It is just one pro to having an image depending on wether you see it as a pro or not.

Shim, most of my opinion is already up there.

Yes, I use celebrity pictures, but that's because they are the easiest to find, and because I'm a bit lost in the world of anime. When was the last time I watched that kind of stuff? Yeah, and I'm not totally into the tv world, so I'm not really aware of many of those small time celebrities who look a little more... human.

Also, I think the picture gives the general idea of a character's appearance. So if you have a picutre of a pretty girl, then just assume she was trying to look her best that day. But yeah, using models and the extra-hot celebrities is borderline craziness.

Yes, it is pretty darn freaky using "normal" people for pbs, and stupid if people use themselves to portray their character. Maybe it makes a little more realistic, but it is also edging towards Mary-Sueness, and they are putting themselves at risk. Have they never heard of bad people on the net?

If I don't have a picture, or anything at all, then it all feels a little empty. Yes, one day I might fill my avatar and signature spot with something. I just don't like being hassled about it, and a deadline to get a picture on there is just the way to do it.

I'm not into the picture thing AT ALL. We're using our imaginations to do the rpg..so why not use it to "picture" the character too? say we're doing a school or harry potter rpg..since when did students at hogwarts or high school look like celebrities?

unfortunately I haven't found any rpgs that don't require a picture so I use whatever I can swipe (while grumbling about it beneath my breath)

I've RPed with a couple people without pictures and yeah, I know they're not the best pictures, but in your case, unless you're Harry or Hermione, or some really well-known canon, I find it verrrrry difficult to reply honestly to certain things if I don't have a visual on what the character looks like. Ie one of my characters is, as I said above, a glamour queen prima donna, and, when confronted with a girl crying about how she's not pretty enough, I needed something visual to go on to know how to react to that. Sadly, she still hasn't put up an avatar, though she has made a face claim. I had to go look up the face to know what to say, appearance-wise. A pic woulda been mighty helpful right around then :)

<sub>To be completely honest, I feel slightly compelled to say that I probably would.

Only because every animated signature and play-by that I've seen looks pretty atrocious nine out of ten times. It's also just annoying because features are a bit hard to look at.

I sort of prefer no signatures and only an avatar of your character though. Sometimes I think the writing is more about imagining yourself through the play-by rather than the character your play-by is supposed to simply portray. But yeah, I can't stand animated play-bys.</sub>

I agree with Happy Camper. The site my friends and I run doesn't allow anime/drawn face claims because we don't want people going overboard and putting out pasty-looking guys with neon hair and spikes growing out of god-knows-where. Makes the game more down to earth imo.

I just want to point out that you can allow hand-drawn face claims without allowing anime characters. They don't have to be the same thing. There are a lot of artists out there who would rather represent their character themselves.

And I've seen a lot of girls 'crying because they thought they were ugly' who had avatars of famous models. I would think that's a lot more incongruous than not having an avatar at all.

Sorai doesn't use an avatar claim at all, and so far I've had little problem with knowing what characters look like. On a smaller site, I don't see that is really a problem.

I actually have a friend who is a model and truly thinks she's ugly, by the way. Most women, at one time or another, have issues with themselves, no? Not that it doesn't annoy the crap out of me when a character who is supposed to be fat, or unattractive or hell, just an average person uses Giselle for their pb. And what's up with using faces that are in their 30's or higher (J Lo comes to mind) to play someone in their very early 20's or, worse, teens? That drives me crazy. But that's not the topic. Getting back to that....

It depends on the person, really, whether they need to see a 'face'. I am a hugely visual person, and sometimes no matter how much detail a person gives, I still need a picture. I have always been that way. I am an avid reader and can never picture character faces well, they're always fuzzy to me. I know I can't be the only person out there like that. For that reason, unless a drawn pb is very realistic, it doesn't much help me. But I'm still ok with their use, if only because it seems to me most people change out their avvies every now and again.

My question, though, really, is why does it matter that much what a person's av/sig is? Either way? If someone wants to use an overused, cliche pb, so be it. If they want to use a pic of a sunflower? So be it. If someone uses J Lo for a 15 year old, it'll make me grit my teeth, but I won't say anything as long as they write a good 15 year old. If they don't use a pic that represents their char, it makes it harder on me and my visual brain, but I can deal. I'd rather it be a pic of their char, but unless it's my board where that's a rule, it's not a dealbreaker for me when it comes to other boards, even if they require celeb use. I can adapt. Because isn't it really about the rp?

*is stunned* myspace pictures ?! (x.x) (x.x) (x.x)

i don't mind using celebrities or anime characters, but i think celebrities is more popular (?) on the very few roleplay sites that I have been on. I would probably draw my character, but I can't draw at all (blush)

I don't like celebrity play-bys or even most models because (besides copyright) it can limit the kind of character I can play. I can find plenty of beautiful young girls and handsome younger and older men, but try finding a fat girl or woman or an older woman? What if you want to play a fat character?

I like to draw my own characters for that reason. The closest photo I could find to what Vashti looked like was just not much of a picture. My drawing of her looks like her.



I do use photos on occasion. This is an elderly college professor character. The man in the picture is the late Wolfgang Fuchs who actually was my calculus professor in 1982.



I wish the RP he was on would get up off the ground.

In all honesty, I don't really care one way or another what people use to represent their characters. As long as the avatar has some resemblance to the features described in the bio, it's all good.

In the end, it comes down to personal preference. Judging an RP or a character or Roleplayer on the basis of how they choose to represent their character (or not represent their character) is just another form of elitism, IMHO. It falls just below the type of elitism that drives some people to call themselves (or their RPs) advanced and just above the elitism that demands super long (read 'fluffy') posts as a demonstration of skill and worth.

Let people use whatever they want (subject to Terms of Service agreements and such) and get on with the RP.

i dont like it when RPs forbid people from using anime/manga/other stuff to represent their characters. my boyfriend is an artist and he uses his own drawings to represent his characters, which i think is awesome cos its such a perfect way of representing them.

i personally use models alla time, like high fashion models such as sasha pivovarova, gemma ward, jessica stam, lisa cant etc. i never use celebrities for some reason, and i find it too difficult to find normal people. also, i focus less on a perfect representation of my character and more on what looks awesome for graphics XD i also base my character's appearance off the person playing them, so it all fits.