1. Tafari is a genre-savy *******. He purposely changed his own personality into something his past self would idolize. He enjoys calling people out, beating them up, mocking and humiliating them, etcetera. He has a very blunt and stand-offish personality designed to maximize social conflict. The entire premise of his mind is: "What happens when you give a ******** with a huge ego god-like power?" It's cliche, but when utilized correctly it becomes simultaneously hilarious and classic.
2. Pffft, no. While I do put a small bit of myself into every character I make, (As we all do, I think) I make a concious effort to make them distinguishable from myself. Nobody should be able to look at one of my characters and say, "Oh, that's -------." Giving a character components and pieces of your personality and self just turns them into an author avatar.
3. Sadly, no. His character doesn't meld well with a lot of settings. I used to roll dice when picking characters for RPs. Now I just toss in the one with the best suited mentality.
4. Isn't that the point? The author is only a narrator. The characters are their own self. That's the point. As members of the RP forum, we exist to form a relay between separate characters. We are a form of forum posting for our characters, ironically enough.
5. A little of column A, a little of column B. I usually start with a backstory, and once it's fleshed out, the rest of the character just suddenly materializes.
6. Depends on the character. Tafari personally refrains from killing. He feels it is beneath him, and he'd prefer to keep you alive so he can mock you and your weaknesses, kick you around like a dog and generally just bask in his own ego. However, when somebody manages to actually penetrate the armor around said ego, he'll snap and just kill them. The whole "killing or defeating" principle is entirely situational. Every character, in a standard career as a villain or hero, is expected to have killed at some point or another for whatever reason. Somebody was just to big a threat to leave alive, by accident, whatever. Stuff happens. It's situational.
1) Ah, Doomtastic. She's all sugar and sweetness with corny jokes and a happy go lucky attitude that cannot be penetrated. Even moments of rage have a silly aspect to them. Only problem is that she loves fighting. Its never about the score, or ruling the world, or killing the heretics for Doom. "Was the fight totally awesome, and did I look good doing it?" are her only qualifications for a successful job. She's an over the top proverbial mustache twirling villain and I love her dearly.
2) I cannot ever maintain a good mood as long as Doom has. The closest character I've ever come to relating to is Sam Varden, my first scrapper. Her paperwork was misfiled by the city and now everyone thinks she's a superhero. She secretly loves doing it, but on the surface is very frustrated with how hard it is to make people understand that she's just a mechanic.
3) I've only used Doom twice in RP. In game, its easy as she's the one who says 'Lets just jump him' and laughs when Manticore's Teleport Arrow one shots her. Her entire attitude keeps her from getting involved in the large dastardly plots of most villains. She wants to have fun by fighting with Superheroes, but superheroes are so stodgy and villains are so...mean.
4) If its a story I'm telling, The characters serve the story I'm telling. I wouldn't put a character who would derail it in, because that detracts from the story I'm trying to tell. Characters are victims of the plot. If the opposite happens, then the plot wasn't really strong enough to carry the story anyway and I shouldn't bother finishing it. In RP and more free form stuff, since its usually not my scenario I can let the characters react as I can best guess they would.
5) Powers, Origin, Costume. Origin is important to costume for me, as certain origins usually have certain looks. Then, once all that is done I struggle with a name for forty minutes or so, then write a bio. I used to use proper names for characters, but I fell out of that habit when I realized it wasn't very super hero-y. A few times I had the name first, as it was with Doomtastic, or with Kasoh, who was a literal transfer of a character from a different MMO.
6) The heroes don't do it usually excepting the odd AR blaster or two. The villains are more widespread. Doomtastic used to kill willy-nilly, but decided that wasn't as much fun because people dying makes most people sad. Other villains will or will not depending on their mood and estimated threat of the person they are defeating.
Infinity
Sam Varden 50 MA/Reg Scrap
Doomtastic 50 SS/Inv Brute
Ceus 50 Eng/Kin Corr
Cinderstorm 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
1.) Kipland Durj is my favorite Hero. He's brutal, indomitable, and... Surprising. He's not necessarily uncompromising, but when things start to cross his lines, he tends to get vocal about his agitation.
2.) I don't relate well to Kip at all. He's pessimistic almost to a fault. He's half expecting fecal matter to fall from the skies at any moment (sometimes literally). I can't identify with somebody easily who's such a staunch curmudgeon. However, his propensity to make sure everything is right on his side of things is something I relate to.
3.) No. I don't roleplay much with any of my characters, though I sometimes "channel" them, which causes me to think and talk like them. Kip makes me itching to fight, Cory Simmons makes me extremely polite, Ryat99 makes me feel like everything I'm doing is somewhat new yet familiar at the same time. Some of the strangest sensations I've had came from Eisenherz ("I'm doing this to make up for the mistakes of my ancestors...") and Mark Shadow ("Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! I'm going to die!").
4.) My characters tend to focus on the task at hand and leave their personal stuff to their personal lives (Grey's Army, Brutal Warriors Order, etc.). When in a thread, they usually try to stick to completing the situation as rapidly as possible.
5.) A bit of a mix of both. Sometimes I'm making a character who played a "Beta Role" in one of my stories (Ashen Roast, Blizzard Front, Agent Wild, Martin Sanders), so their concept and backstory are already known to me. Sometimes, I'm tickled with an idea and I start making the character based on the powers I gave them. I have two characters, however, who are completely unusual to me. They were created by my nephew, and I've been developing their story ever since.
6.) Some enemies wind up dead. Usually mooks. Signature characters, however, do not wind up killed. They are either arrested or make dramatic escapes. There are a few missions and arcs that specifically state that you kill your opponent, and I follow those unless my character has a predilection against killing (which isn't often).
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
So, I was talking to a friend about some characters of mine and of his today, and it got me thinking. This is just an opinion type thing, so feel free to answer however you want, buuuuuut...
1.) What is your favorite hero/villain like, personality-wise?
2.) Is this the character you relate to the best? If not, what is that character like?
3.) Is the character from number one the one you roleplay as the most?
4.) Do your characters ever seem to wander off with a storyline or turn events in a manner you hadn't planned on?
5.) When you create a new character, do they spring fully created from your brain Athena-style, or do you come up with one aspect first and base the rest around that? If the latter is true for you, what's the first part od a character you normally come up with? (Name, costume, powersets, background, etc.)
6.) The CoH/CoV game mechanics say that we don't kill our enemies, we "defeat" them and presumably arrest them. What do you think about this? Do your characters kill?
Because it's not fair to ask questions without answering them yourself...
1.) Snap can be very sweet and kind, but she has a bad temper and not a whole lot of control over her emotions. She has a tendency to panic over little things but handle big things very calmly, and is extremely organized. She prefers to live a very laid-back life, but is constantly redecorating the Teamsters supergroup base where she and her family live. She can be rather gung-ho when people need her help and is pivotal when it comes to motivating the Teamsters to get things done. She is also very insecure about her powers, because she is not able to dish out as much damage as most of the heroes she knows, and she worries almost constantly about various things. She used to be very uptight, but has relaxed a lot.
2.) Probably; I feel most comfortable when playing Snap, and I rarely have to question if anything she does is in character or not.
3.) She used to be, but lately I've been playing other toons just as frequently, especially her daughter Tam.
4.) Constantly, especially the ones I'm really comfortable with. I'm more likely to let them do something that makes no sense but is in character for them than I am to let them do something that's out of character but would advance a plot.
5.) Usually they show up pretty much ready-made, but usually without a name or background. Their backgrounds tend to evolve as I play them. However, they usually have a pretty developed personality.
6.) My favorite scrapper, a claws/willpower, does kill Rikti, but she tries to stop just shy of maiming everything else. Of course, sometimes she fails and they die anyhow. >.>
So, how about you?