Forums » RP Discussion » Hard to Play topics

I'm curious as to who out there RP's hard to play topics? And what are they/ are you successful?

I've RPed a psychokinetic, planeswalking, angel-demon, spritual manipulator and mage types for a while now.
For those of you Psychokinesis is the telepathy, teleportation, telekinesis spectrum of the psychic magics.

For psychokinetic characters: I tend to play them as what they are- Telelia who's an extremely powerful telepath yet I don't aggressively play her- IE I need a reason to actually bring that side of her out. I also play with all my psychokinetic characters that the supernatural have natural defenses because their aura's will naturally be defensive against certain types of magic/invasion of any sorts.

For planeswalking characters: I tend to play this ability sparingly- its hard to break the barrier and thus one wouldn't do it every day.

Do I find it difficult to RP sometimes? yes. Not all the time- my characters don't flaunt their abilities, and if they do its to serve a purpose most of the time or just to prove a point- and mostly its small scale. I find this is the easiest way to prevent people as labeling me as some sort of godmodder when in reality my characters have crippling weaknesses as yours, just different strengths and different limits.
Have I ever had nasty comments? Ya. This is human nature. But its very, very few. Most people are decent and I don't play aggressive characters- or if I do they hardly are magical.

EDIT: Speaking of which- do some of you find it hard to play aggressive magical sort?

I can't say that I have really found any characters difficult to role-play, but, some of them are difficult to find consistent storylines with.

I created a species a couple of years ago; shadow-creatures that look like Thestrals but without wings and more canid features, that were thought to be the tainted offspring of Erebus, with a little 'help' from Eris. Concept behind them was that decades and centuries later, they have begun to evolve the ability to possess individuals. This would allow them to hunt better and to blend it, but it requires more or less 'breaking' the mind of the victim - literally tearing the soul apart from the inside, or reducing the psyche to a quivering mess to manipulate as they please. Often this is done to better drawn on the individuals' memories. That was not the difficult part however.

The difficult part, was role-playing them afterwards. While it was fun to get them to interact with different people, after a while it got 'old'. There is not much they think about beyond feeding. They do not have any motivations much beyond that. No need for romance, no desire or thought patterns for creativity outside of hunting tactics and so on. The last time I role-played one was at least 2012, if not early 2013. They are awesome for NPCs or the occasional enemy but, beyond that? Better left as the creature in the shadows.

Does that count as a hard-to-play topic?

Are we talking RP topics or types of characters here? Seems to be a bit of both.

I found it difficult to play a character much more intellient than myself, because though he wasn't quick and clever, intelligence was his weapon of choice and he could wield it so well that it was hard to sense a trap coming. He was a planner, unlike me, so it was a constant challenge to think as he would, over the long term rather than quick on-the-spot thinking.

I don't play any sort of "aggressive magical" character or heavy-magic RP because magic and physical combat aren't my strong points, especially when combined. I'd rather command the army than fight in the army, if that makes sense.

to me it does- and I apologize for not being clear. What I'm trying to say is if anybody out there has found something hard to RP- if it be a specific character, species, topic, ability. Just anything that would render a character taboo or unplayable to most people- and if it was successful or not. I ask this because of future character creation- if people want to create a more taboo critter what would be road blocks- so a plan ahead of time deal.

I think one of the hardest topics to really play well is one of the hardest, supernatural RPs. Demons, vampires, werewolves, angels, etc, are all pretty cool in RPs, but are so easy to overpower to the point of damaging the rp. Often times the power they have is imessurable and we are too greedy with it, so we do a little overpowering and god modding.

I think it's really smart that you use it sparingly. When caps are put on their powers it is pretty awesome. My guy Hunter Archill is kind of like a hunter (we will go with that for now, an extremely high tech hunter) and has a high tech suit of armor. One modification I gave it waste ability to manipulate energy (energy walls, spikes, etc). Obviously it is an over powered tool, so I made it have to regenerate power (it's like a shield in Halo).

Now my supernatural character Miri (aka the desert mirage) is actually hard for me to play. I sort of created a mirage of all mirages, a being who is a mirage but controls the rest (although he doesn't control all of them really, but he can conjure them at any time, and any around him he knows of are able to be controlled by him). He also reincarnates. See the areas I overpowered him in?

Miri is a sort of trial by fire character. I've been put in place with him before, and I make him sort of care free and childish in order to semi nerf him. I think he is pretty fun to use, but I have to be careful to not over do it.

I think my most difficult rp scenarios are anything that happens after the initial meeting - I always have a hard time figuring out where to go after my character has met someone elses.

Character wise - I actually love playing my aggressive magic user Shita. She is a little challenging though, since I have her unable to control some of her elements. I use her inexperience to counter act the power she possesses, the result usually ends up with something accidentally on fire.

I agree with Gamers though on the supernatural bit. Honestly any "fictional" character race with a lot of history and lore behind it would be the most difficult to play. What rules do you choose? Do you merge different ones together? Do you throw all rules out the window and create your own? With successful rule breakers and alters out there (Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling) and not so successful ones, (Meyer with Vampires, though her werewolves...not so much) I find it difficult to choose.

This post reminds me of the ones Kim had set up for discussions. But, that being said, I wanna add my two-cents worth here.

I think really any 'successful' RP boils down to how well the players can effectively match up their characters to progress a plot or story-line or action sequence. Even if it's just a matter of growing a character personality-wise, if the two characters can't interact or don't interact well (ie: stiffly), then there is going to be an issue.

Personally, for me, "hard to play" topics include those without a story-line or plot. I need a reason for my character to get involved--and it helps if they have a way to counter whatever is coming at them. If I shoved my Supernatural-fearing, trigger-happy character at an incorporeal fallen angel bent on possessing him, I'd like him to have the means to be able to protect himself: aka, the Legion. Although the Legion can be considered overly powerful, it has its drawbacks too.

Really, for me, it comes down to balance. Is the character's strength offset by a weakness? Is that weakness ever going to crop up in the RP? Or will you take advantage of every slight "problem" by using the master move to slay it?

Just food for thought.

Obligatory pre-ramble-ramble disclaimer: All opinions are my own, my tastes and preferences are just that, without denigrating anyone else's tastes and preferences. Blah-de-blah-de-blah, just because I like this and dislike that, that doesn't mean either is "good" or "bad".

Whoo, okay, now that that's out of the way...

I tend to play almost nothing but "hard-to-play" sorts of characters/topics. I'm--a bit mental like that, I think.

I'd like to agree with everything PenGryphon2007 said, but also add to it by saying that I come at it from a slightly different perspective. Most of my characters can be considered either "over-powered" or just, plain too "out there" for the general "modern, real-ish, look-outside-your-window" sort of setting I tend to aim for. What I think helps keep the characters from being too over-powered or out-there is that I aim for the underlying humanity in the story, even if the character(s) is/aren't "human".

I find the actual curb-stomp rather--boring, in honesty. Technically, I guess, a character or two could curb-stomp--but so what? I want to try and find out how it feels, from both sides, for this character to be wherever they are. What is it like to be the man out of time and in a world he doesn't understand? What is it like to be the one who lucked out in becoming his de facto guide? Or a ginormous, alien robot--what does it mean to be in the midst of an age-old civil war? How does it feel to bring that war to an innocent planet as the outcome of a difficult decision?

That's why I actually don't play much with "fantastical" characters; in my experience, the fact that someone is an elf, a time lord, a fifty-bazillion-year-old godling, whatever--what the character "is" overshadows who they "are". That's actually relevant because that very issue is something I come across quite often. One thing I often remind myself: How can I keep what the man-out'a-time or giant-alien-robot are from becoming who they are? That's also partly what makes them difficult characters to play, sometimes. It's a frequent balancing act (but, for the record, one I really enjoy--I'm the sort of player who likes those kinds of challenges ).

Another challenge that makes my characters sometimes difficult is that I strive for believability--for interesting, rational, and good-sounding (if, ultimately, horse-pucky) reasons why this or that element exists. Sometimes--that ain't so easy.

I like the age-old tropes of viewing humanity through alien eyes and edging toward xenofiction. Those very same preferences, though, can make my stories hard to go through--but as the Gryph said, it ultimately comes down to how well players can work together. It's not even an issue of some objective measure of "skill"--players can simply desire different things, have different thoughts on something, or whatever else, and they don't find that balance. Every story is different, just like every player is different.

Annnnd I think I'll stop this near-mindless rambling there.

I don't think I've found any topic that I'd want to bother with to begin with that I've found difficult... Typically, most of my troubles stem from other, immature players I've come across.

I do have a few characters that I consider unplayable except in very particular circumstances; a particular group that I made a series of bad decisions with, and they came out as complete messes. The lot of them are shapeshifters that can take any physical form, even if it's just air, though only one fully understands how to use that ability. That one is also an emotional wreck, and her two competing "sides" (mother and father were basically physiological opposites) are essentially perpetually eating each other (luckily, she has no pain receptors; or organs for that matter). The one that has the least control over her form is telepathic to the point that it takes effort for her to not hear conscious, focused thoughts, which seem to her to be broadcast; she's also a bit mentally unstable, because she has a biological urge to protect things - being of a line of guardian dragons - but she has nothing to protect, and that's compounded by having lost her husband and one of her two daughters while the other runs around being broken and rebellious. So yeah... I don't play them.

I've also had troubles with combat-oriented characters, because I have fully zero combat training myself, and trouble with characters that are supposed to be highly seductive, because I don't really want to detail sexual situations (I'm a fade-to-black kinda person, and a bit reserved even with that).

I do sometimes worry about the gruesome details and situations I sometimes have (when it makes sense to the circumstance), but that's mostly a concern about what point something is too much and will really bother people. For example, I once had a a child who, when attacked by a huge sandworm kinda thing, ended up possessed by an ancestor who was an excellent fighter; she got the thing to eat her, and I detailed both how she ripped it apart from the inside and the injuries she suffered from its teeth. Once it was dead, the child then had to immediately deal with both having those injuries (and all the ick on her) and having still been aware of everything happening while her ancestor was in control.

I'm not sure where the line is on stuff like that. I'm... not even sure if my quicky overview there might be a problem.