by Carly Kade

Created on: February 13, 2011   Last Updated: June 23, 2011

Most roleplayers have encountered characters who they’d describe as boring, too over-the-top even for the genre of the roleplay, or generally overdone. These errors generally stem from a common theme - a writer wants their character to be interesting and memorable, but goes about this entirely the wrong way.

Generally speaking, the basic guidelines to character creation are simple. You need to create a character who fits in with the genre you want to roleplay. Said character needs to have traits you can relate to or find interesting, so you don’t have difficulty writing them consistently, or don’t get bored. However, it takes more than just the basics to write a truly memorable character.

In order to make a character who’s memorable, rather than infamous, be careful to avoid the most common mistakes. The easiest mistake of inexperienced roleplayers is to create a character who is essentially a clone of themselves, but "cooler." Cooler can mean richer, stronger, gifted in the arts or a fighting ability, surrounded by a harem, or even something as drastic as having telekinesis. Regardless, the character doesn’t function as a character should. There’s often no character growth, or no place in the plot. The character is the author’s wishful thinking. Not only is this uninteresting for the other players, but it also can interfere with other plots, as the author wants his character to be the center of attention. This can be memorable - but not in a desirable way.

The second biggest mistake is assuming that "rare" is always a good thing. Characters who have the only one of an important object, are the only remaining one from their kind/family, or otherwise have something that others can’t have, are common among such writers. These characters will, again, not be memorable to anyone but the author. They may also cause discontent among the other players, who dislike that someone else has chosen to exclude them. Having a nice car can make a person popular. However, if your character has a nice car, especially if no one else can afford that car in the game, it won’t make them popular. It will simply make other players envious or annoyed. A memorable character is not based on "having" or being unique, but on being interesting in how he or she interacts with other players.

Now that you know the basic "don’ts,' it’s time for the things you should do. A memorable character often comes from a memorable writer.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>