Forums » RP Discussion » RPers on Trial?

So I've been thinking, in our RPs we often put our poor characters through trials, tests and downright horror. Whether it's tragic backstories, RPs set in war, or haunted houses or anything else traumatic, our characters get put through the wringer by us in the name of fun and drama!

So... what would happen if our characters put us on trial? Would you, or would you not, be found guilty of crimes against your characters? What would your characters think of you if they realised you're behind the way they are, what's happened to them and whatnot?

For my part, I'm GUILTY with a capital guilty. I have over a dozen counts of genocide, four counts of orphaning people, three counts of mid-to-severe psychological damage and trauma, one count of making an actual cat person into a crazy old cat woman, and one count of extreme psychological damage, resulting in partial memory erasure and several tens of thousands of years of isolation xD

So...um... yeah... thinking about it a lot of my characters would want me dead...

I'm just going to...um.. hide now

I think most players are guilty a a lot just from the background part of character creation. Skipping past that... I've broken a family, killed one and later had her traumatize a little girl (also mine) as a ghost, left a few to make complete idiots of themselves (including a cold-blooded killer), ruined a relationship that had already overcome being separated by complete realities, and various other forms of trauma.

But... a lot of the stuff that's happened to them has been the product of their own choices, and I fully maintain that those were, indeed, their choices.

Thank you, Novalyyn, for giving me a way to "Plead the 5th".

A lot of my characters would be unhappy with me--although that's putting it mildly. I have a few who would be downright happy to make me miserable--should they ever come to life. But, I'd also have to add that without me, they wouldn't have a life to be lived...regardless of how good or bad it is.

The whole point is that someone can learn from them. Their challenges, their mistakes, their hard times and their good times, they are universal and while not necessarily everyone will identify with everything they've gone through, they still get sympathy from the reader and, yes, even from me at times.

I really am a sympathetic person. Just not to my characters. So as far as trials go, they came to me first. I am merely the scribe writing down their story.

Every writer throughout time would be convicted of being a cruel god, as their job is to create and propel a good narrative. A good narrative is necessarily supported by meaningful conflict, which starts at unpleasant and ranges up to genocide and beyond.

My characters background is cruel, but it made her into who she is today.
During RP, I do not put her into cruel situations, ...

I think, she would say that the past can't be changed, and that in the end, everything worked out. Haha.

That ceases to matter when the character doesn't want to live. In fact, the one you've been talking to has attempted to die, and only doesn't usually actively pursue it because she's pretty sure she can't.
This is a thing that is true.

Well, there are occasions when stories have no serious problems. Minor stress, a little learning. Not something for long stories, of course. Just some short stories, relatively modern children's books, and a number of poorly-written fanfics. (Not saying all fanfics are bad. Just a lot of them.)

To some of my characters, yes. I have put them in bad situations through no fault of their own.

For others, I tend to think as Neil Gaiman does. Neil once said something about when he was writing Anansi Boys. "I had this part where one character goes up an elevator to see another, and at the end, this first character kills the other. I didn't intend for that to happen, but it just was what the character would do when put in the situation they were in". So several of my characters dug themselves deeper by their own actions, rather than the situations they were put in.

Some very interesting answers here, and actually I agree quite a bit with what you guys say about them making their own choices, and the fact that the fun of a story is often born of tragedy and conflict. After all if we gave our characters a paradise to live in it'd be kinda boring wouldn't it?

But despite it being party their own actions and choice, I still think my characters might hate my guts for what I've done to them over the years. Maybe not all of them - Her-Uben, Erren, Lyra and others haven't really suffered much and actually have had a pretty good time of it, others might forgive me out of either sympathy like Oracle or because their stories turn out relatively happy in the end, like Nathaniel and Nariel or Irah.

A couple of the others though... well if I suddenly vanish off RPR looks like they got me

Numerous counts of 'mind-rape', lost limbs etc. if it's terrible, I've used it at least twice either in back story or during rp, including a case of 'Eye scream'...well, twice if you count that one characters replacement eye ending up the same way, but the same person no less x.x

I'm sure i would not even Get a trail xD

Do I want to know what "eye scream" is?

Probably not. But if you ever do just look on TV Tropes, it'll explain the horror perfectly.

*WARNING* Not exactly graphic, but if you're squeamish, be cautious in clicking. It's what happens when you get something jammed in your eye. :C

Eye Scream

On topic though, I'm fairly certain I'd get plenty of glares and some slugs to the shoulders for the stuff I put my characters through. Disbelieving stares too--some gears trying to turn in their heads as they process the root cause of their life's pitfalls and tailwinds.

...or their minds melt from the mind-boggle that is their entire existence not really 'existing', but that's a weird topic for another time!

Yeah, I looked it up. Luckily, I have a poor imagination, especially when it comes to visualizing things.

I actually think that the most uncomfortable/disturbing things that happen with my characters (excluding the gory child-killing-a-beast-from-inside incident) aren't problems they experience so much as some of the crazy stuff Nashyll does. She doesn't have any real mental problems (except maybe an extreme case of bipolar disorder and/or other anxiety issues), she just has/had (in the process of changing) a really weird body. She's contorted herself in ways impossible to do with a skeletal structure (without immense pain, at least), melts/dissolves fairly regularly, occasionally becomes a horrible distorted monster that may or may not be anything more than an all-devouring blob on any given occasion (okay, so that one's a problem), receives all forms of sensory input all over her entire body, has used parts of her own body to literally create various items (actually, one of PenGryphon's characters slept under a cloak without realizing it was made of Nashyll's own flesh drained of life), etc.

That... is... quite disturbing actually.

Thanks for the nightmare fuel Novalyn

On a brighter note, she also sounds like a pretty awesome character.

No problem.

She's actually in the process of becoming less of a total freak. I'm just not sure how "normal" she's going to end up yet. Should help make up for some of the things she's had to deal with, though.