Help me fix my characters

[Tami]

Alright, so there are two things that've seriously been bothering me lately. Not technical things but things regarding my roleplay and my characters, and I'd like to fix them because if I do then everyone who roleplays with me and my characters would generally have a better experience - and that's the goal. So, the first problem isn't really the main problem but something that's definitely been noted and bothering me. Men. I can't roleplay them. Sif says it's because I'm a woman at heart and Howard says it's because I'm strongly set that men are expected to be emotionless while women are expected to be emotional. Any other suggestions as to why, and how I can get past this? Because I'd like to roleplay a male character without any trouble for once. (The characters typically end up being absolutely awful and horribly roleplayed and I find myself having a lack of interest in being on them.)

And now for the main problem - according to what I've been told, my character's backstories are awful. For those that aren't aware of my character's backstories, let me sum a few up quickly for some already gone characters. Skip to the next paragraph if you already know/don't care. Zoya always struggled with anger (primary character flaw) and had killed a relative of hers after an argument then left to the zone to avoid Police attention. Kateryna's story I didn't make up so it's not really relevent, but she was in the zone because her sister had killed their parents in a house-fire and she couldn't take trying to live on her own anymore so she followed her sister into the zone. (Evelina was around for about six months before Kateryna was made.) Cyrillus (a barely successful male character) was in the zone because he was in Prip'yat during the original meltdown and he wanted to return to Prip'yat one last time to revisit his old home. But Prip'yat wasn't released in time, Dave. >:( I honestly don't remember Gleb Yakiv's reasoning for being in the zone, the character's like a year old and he was barely used. Klarysa Shevchenko used to be an Ecologist and she didn't quite want to leave - the zone's wonders pulled her in after she got her glimpse.

So now that that's all out there, I'd like to politely ask the community for help. What can I do to solve the first problem, and as for the second, what's considered a quality backstory? What am I lacking? I've always felt like I put a considerable amount of effort into making new characters, but people are telling me that I'm not doing enough obviously since my character's are often labeled as shit. Rather than just keep on going with shit characters, I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong before I launch my next character into the server, and before I start planning any characters that I'll be using at TRP. Thanks for the read and the response, and I'd like to ask that people stay on a relatively serious side while in this thread. It's not a fast thread for a reason, I'd actually like help. I'm debating going with a full and complete wipe of all my current characters and starting fresh if by the end of this thread I feel like they're not good enough, and that's quite a bit of time and development I'd be pushing aside. So there's kind of a lot invested in this for me, so just stay kind of serious.

~Clavier​

 

[Phantasma]

Add tricky830 well do it live

e; sean wants in too. the tag team is back together!

 

[Altairp]

For the men part, I find impossible to roleplay female characters too. I tought about it, about why I can't just make female characters, the reason that came up in my mind was that I simply can't find interesting roleplaying a female, not to write about the fact that almost every male character will hit on her, something I find annoying.

You shouldn't curse yourself about the lack of interest in roleplaying men. Think about why you can't do it, or simply move on and use female characters.


The second thing, about your character's story, is a question. Who are the people who consider your characters shit? Assholes and dicks or people who can be considered intelligent, who have actual reasons to consider what you create bad, without feeling the need to mock?

If the answer is the first, then you shouldn't mind those people. Unless they provide good reasons to think what they say, they are just telling you that to mock you over nothing. To insult. Ignoring them is the best thing to do.

If it's the second, ask them why and what they find in your characters that makes them look bad. Speak with them, see if you can find a solution. Hear their advices if they have any, but don't let them drive your actions too much, because, it's YOUR character, not theirs.


Personally, I find your characters normal human beings. They are not magic protagonists who can do anything and everything, they are unique too, with their own personality and behaviour, story too. So, I don't see where is the shit, have them point out where your characters "suck", then enlighten us, Clavier.

 

[Bailol]

All of your character backstories seem fine other than Kateryna and you said it was made by someone else?

Any way, if you can't roleplay men then don't roleplay men? I have troubles roleplaying a plethora of character archetypes including females. If you really want to start roleplaying men I would suggest reading books or watching movies and studying the male characters to get some ideas on how to play them.

For the most part it's all up to you and your creativity to do what you want and all that and there'll always be downers making fun of you for putting effort into your characters.

 

[Helios]

Add tricky830 well do it live

e; sean wants in too. the tag team is back together!

Don't listen to them, they didn't do any wonders for me at all.

Anyway. Interest is one of the main gripes I think a lot of people suffer from when they have more than 1 character or - in my case - have had one of their characters PK'd. I think the only thing i can really say is that you should just go on the server and on whatever character you want so long as you feel you have the drive and the mindset to roleplay the character how they're meant to be played.

As for the men part-- really that isn't much of a big deal since genders don't really differ much, it's more of the character's personality (see; most of my male characters have a personality and are easily intimidated while my female characters are the polar opposite) that you've given them that matters.

What I can really say is that with characters, having a backstory doesn't matter at all in the long run. The only times it should matter are for auths or forum applications that need it. Most of my characters are made first, roleplayed by me and have their stories fleshed out overtime. If I think it's developed enough I either write a backstory or tell it to a character IC. I think you should settle with a personality and then think of a rough outline, a background, of a character. The story tells itself in the server.

If you ever wrote a backstory, ideally it should have a nice touch to it. Instead of listing it in a factual fashion just make it like an actual story. Use language techniques and w/e else they teach you in english classes to make people actually want to continue reading, rather than have to. I've written stories before and trust me, I know it's hard.

They are not magic protagonists who can do anything and everything, they are unique too, with their own personality and behaviour, story too.

This too. Just because they aren't a protagonist doesn't mean they -have- to be a plain joe/jane. They can be unique in their own way from the beginning, ranging from a simple scar or something like hetechromia iridum (???) or a lazy eye or something along those lines, or have twists that develop during their existence on-server (one of my character's parents died recently ic, so theres an example).

 

[Phantasma]

Don't listen to them, they didn't do any wonders for me at all.

pearls before swine

 

[Krinkles]

Just like men can be feminine, women can absolutely be masculine. Some of the 'manliest' people I've met were women, with extreme careers or hobbies or personalities that come across as not just masculine, but also beyond the norm even for actual dudes. The whole hippie trippie social expectaions/gender roles are a lie thing has a few grains of truth in it. While typical examples will always exist, there are always plentiful exceptions. Play a man how you would play a woman. Play a woman how you would play a man. Play what you want to play, how you normally play or vice versa.

Just omit any references to genetalia and you needn't even change anything but your "he/she/his/hers"s in your posts. The idea that your gender absolutely dominates your personality is ridiculous - Your experiences, your likes, your interests, your upbringing defines how classically feminine or masculine you are.

 

[K33f3!]

I'm the only one who's allowed to make a protagonist character.

 

[pilotfish]

They're all horribly cliche. Think of people instead of characters and you'll do better.

 

[BraveBoats]

One tip I have is never, ever, ever refer to a woman's breast size unless you're absolutely sure you know what you're doing. From a writer's perspective, it is a massive faux-pas and instantly discredits the character's worth. That includes "flat chested". I have seen this once on TnB, and it is pathologically common on OA servers.

Don't give your character heterochromia.
Don't make your female character tall as a quirk or "flaw". Flaws do not make good characters.
Similarly, don't make your male characters short to achieve the same ends.

One mistake I see a lot is people sprinkling their character with peculiarities and doing nothing beyond that; as if a good character would inexorably spawn from the original concept. The most extreme example of this was on a Fallout RP server: there was a woman with all kinds of metal splints, extremely disabled, clearly psychologically a wreck. She was, nonetheless, a boring character.