Character RP Failure

Has anyone else ever made what they think will be a good and fun character, and then had it totally bomb at any and all RP? I'm not talking about an overly strange or annoying character, either.

It's been happening with a character I made recently, and it's too the point that I'm finding it hard to imagine him bothering to talk to anyone any more. If he doesn't stick his foot in his mouth, normal conversations end when he's suddenly dismissed, insulted, or mocked.

I like the character and intend to keep playing him, but it got me to wondering if something like that has happened to anyone else. So I ask, have any of you ever made a solid character, only to have the RP Gods give them a swift kick in the squishy bits?

I've found that most sorts of darkity-dark loner brooding darkness type characters kinda look cool from a distance but really suck for actual roleplaying.




-np

Yes, but not in CoH.

I've had the experience in F2F RPG runs, when some aspect or incident about the character gets inflated to a ridiculous level and then used as the butt of continual jokes.

Those games usually don't last long.

When I make a character, I have a rough idea of who they are and how they'll be...but they grow and change. Sometimes the personality that comes out turns into something not fun to play...so yep. Has happened to me, and probably will again.

Yup.

Made up this great (to me, anyway) backstory, costume, and powers concept. Then I finally get a chance to RP him, and... yeah... his personality didn't fit with anything I have going on Blueside. I decided he's best served as a martyr and had him killed off for reelz. Just need to clean out his inventory one of these days. >.>

good luck D.B.B.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one.

He's not a dark character at all, but I guess I can slowly move him in that direction a bit to explain him not talking to people as openly any more. Or, maybe I'll just shift him to a non-RP server.

I second the keep trying. Sometimes RP missfires happen.

Just don't forget that if you rp'd your way into it you can rp your way out of it.

This happened to me too. I made a character with a really twisted and detailed back story, personality, and purpose. In fact, I think it was my deepest character in terms of story behind her.

But then I took her out for a test drive. In the end, I realized that she really has no reason to talk to anyone. She turned out to be incredibly anti-social, and for that, I just couldn't RP her...

So now she's just sitting on my character selection screen as far as RP goes. I still really enjoy doing missions with her every now and then, though.

I so rarely come up with a concept that I can get fired up over that this just hasn't happened yet. I have a grand total of one CoX character that I've developed a proper personality for and who I was excited about from the beginning (Unstar) - I have a couple others, but they're either surreptitiously based on existing characters, so new that I haven't been able to develop anything for them yet, or so far only roleplayed via having a funny accent. My real problem is not getting kicked in the pants so much as it's realizing a little too late that I only have half a character.

I've been playing the same character for a long time. You just have to get out there and keep trying. I've been trying to get some more interaction with Belle since I have some time off, but I find that I'll still make mis-steps while trying to initiate or retain attention.

My main, Belle, started off life as more or less a blank character inspired by a mix of anime and video game designs and lore.

I've found that just taking a simple concept, and fleshing it out over time has worked the best for me. It seems like each time I try to craft an entire world around the character at the beginning, that I suddenly find that I'm not doing so well.

Just like everything else, it takes practice.

Just like real life, not everyone will like you or desire to interact with you.

@Kyuu

How do you role play and how do others react to your roleplaying? IC are you arrogant? I don't talk to most arrogant people IRL, so that could be 1 reason. Or, are you the class clown? By the end of high school, these types just stop being funny anyway, so others may just think you're being juvenile, I don't talk to these people either IRL. Also, I've discovered that most of the roleplaying in this game is transient at best, unless you are in an SG, then you may actually develop some meaningful RP. But if you are just RPing in PuGs or in zones, unless it is to people know you, they will act like you're a loudmouth weirdo, and IRL I would avoid loudmouth weirdos.

I've suffered many times from "Asocial Character Syndrome" where I've come up with what I think is a fantastic RP hook and background, finally been satisfied with the look and stormed to the nearest RP hotspot for a test-drive...

... Only to discover that the character has no reason to broadcast themselves because of their personality, or because it doesn't make sense for the character to blurt out their hook to every passing stranger. Its an oversight that doesn't work with transient RP. A character might have their hook and story teased out of them over a period of RP sessions, but it doesn't have IMMEDIATE impact. And people are too busy with their own stuff to run after MY character and woo their story out of them.

Sometimes, I rework the character a bit and it works... sometimes you just have to consign them to the great Alt Junk Pile in the sky.

Oddly, my actively antisocial character gets a fair amount of transient RP. She's caustic, arrogant and snide. And for that to work, I have to make sure she's either a) regularly funny, b) actually quite insightful (definitely not easy to pull off on a regular basis with complete strangers) or c) I-the-player am willing to lose arguments, because the people with the biggest egos are always fun to deflate. Somehow I seem to scrape by on a combination of all three.

My character's a socially functional-To a certain extent- and therefore RP-capable irritating curmudgeon. Surprisingly, I haven't met many other irritating curmudgeons who aren't just Angsty Broody Angstypants McBroodyfaces.. This pleases me to an irrational degree.

Until I try talking to them, anyway.

Hmm... you may have a point there.

Of course, technically "she" is really an "it." An asexual conflation of several different personalities, male and female, crushed together in an interdimensional singularity and spat out into Virtue as an amorphous pile of matter that holds itself in human shape through sheer force of will...

... but then, that shape has boobs.

Oddly, this is a character that makes me really wish you could have ugly female characters. Not disfigured or scarred or rotting, just... ugly. Heck, even just plain would do.

The chest slider hurt this (female) player. Physically.

On a different note, I don't think my character - very much female - gets talked to because she is female. Rather, she gets talked to because she is ever the only dressed female in a room.