Forums » RP Discussion » Making characters for RPs and the impact it has

I decided to post this topic because it's something I keep running into. People who offer roleplay but still have to make a character (profile) for it and mention "I can make their profile if you like". I was curious what everyone's stance on this is, and what motivates you to do this or accept this when it's offered.

As of recently, I've stopped accepting this offer from individuals who approach me for roleplay. I can be picky, and if I agree to RPing with a character I haven't even seen yet I'm bound to set myself and my partner up for disappointment if I feel they're not a match. Sometimes people go through quite a lot of trouble to set up a profile and I feel horrible for declining the offer after viewing it. I will not force myself to play with a character I don't like either, so there's no win for anyone here.

I think I understand the reasons people offer roleplay this way. Sometimes you have no room for a profile of a character you seldom use, sometimes you just have a character idea in the back of your mind that has yet to come to fruition. There is nothing inherently wrong with this method of managing characters of course. It seems to be quite popular because it keeps happening to me and I feel dread when trying to respond. I risk being seen as rude or snobby because I don't want to disappoint the other, and I don't want their efforts to be wasted, so I decline by default. When explaining why I did so (if they inquire), it may be difficult for them to understand and they take it personal when it's anything but that.

So, what's your take on this? If you receive these kind of offers, what do you do? If you make these offers to other players, is this an implication you'd considered? How frequently does this work out for you?

P.S. I want to clarify nobody is wrong in any of these scenarios. It's all perfectly reasonable because it's a preference, and preferences are just that! I only wish to open the discussion because this phenomenon is causing me distress, and I like exploring the how's and why's in hopes of better understanding one another.

I usually tell them "Nah, man, don't you have any characters already on the site or something that'll fit?" or something along those lines. Unless, of course, I've already had past experiences with said character.

I have done this for a while, but usually people insist "It's no problem!" and proceed to create the character anyway. I suppose if they insist, it's not on me if I end up not liking the character, but it's difficult not to feel like a meanie when you decline after all.

And yes, if I've already played with the character the situation is of course very different. I already know them!

As someone who has been on both sides, it honestly depends. If I have roleplayed with you before and had a good time, then I generally have no problem with this. After all, I obviously know that they know what they are doing and sometimes already established characters are just not a good fit for the plot in mind.

That being said, I am also willing to take a gamble with someone I don't know if they look worth the risk. By that I mean, they have very well done profiles of other characters or maybe the idea in question sounds especially tempting.

As for myself, I occasionally offer to make a character for a specific roleplay or group. However while these characters are almost always temporary, I still put a great deal of thought into them. Occasionally I'll even reuse them. Of course I don't take any offense if the other player says no, but it never hurts to ask.

Mhm. Though then again, why don't they just have the character made in the first place? Like, they have room, don't they? Or else, how will they make the character? For me, yes, I get rid of characters often but I never have room on my account for more characters 'cuz I've filled 'em with characters already. It's not really hard, is it?

I have set characters, but my advantage is that there can always be AUs and I will still have that character as is, only with a few differences

I can see how this might be weird for online RPers. But there's another lens for this situation!

In the LARP/Tabletop world, you make a new character for every game you join. That character will be tailored to the exact world the game will be set in, and usually to what the other players are going to be playing to prevent overlap. It is largely unheard of to start with a character and work backward from there. Online RP is unusual in that people tend to design their characters first, then go looking for worlds/other characters that match. It's hugely confusing to people who try to transition to freeform online RP from one of the other styles (and vice versa).

In some ways, it's a real lost opportunity. Yes, you get unlimited freedom to create whatever kind of character you want, but you also hear way more stories about characters that just don't seem to fit in wherever they go, or that never quite seem to balance with the rest of a group, and you don't get worlds/continuities that are quite as consistent as those where the world was created first and all the characters were made to match (rather than sort of squished in, with parts of their background altered or snipped to make it work).

I think the reason designing the character for the RP doesn't work out in freeform online RP as often as it does for tabletop is that 1) we have way less practice with the concept of making characters to fit a story rather than our own tastes, and 2) often, tabletop/LARP games will have a literal book - sometimes several books! - of world building information that defines the breadth and scope of the world and the possibilities there, and also what is totally unheard of or restricted from being played by the average player. In online freeform, there might be a few pages of world building info, but more often than not, there's either none or a few sentences or maybe just the "flavor" of another character.

But I see where you're coming from - a character profile can work like a resume, to tell you if someone is suited to the "job". Without it, you can't really know what you're getting, and if you have something specific in mind that could be really challenging.

Well it's often because theyjust thought up the character so they couldn't have made it before.

Definitely agree with Kim here. It depends on your focus. You can write a story "character first" or "world first", and I'm almost always the latter.

There's nothing more grating for me than someone trying to shoehorn their OC into a world that only somewhat accommodates them.

I like to think about events in the world's timeline:
"Where were you when the attack happened?"
"How did the civil rights movement 10 years ago affect you?"
"What happened to your family's job stability when robot labor was introduced?", etc.

It would feel really inorganic for me to have a pre-written character and have to retcon those answers into their story. I'd either end up with an inconsistent story or a character who no longer matches their original concept.

It's not that I think one way is better than the other, but for me, having a readymade character just flat-out would not work.

If I see an idea for a story that I'm fond of but I don't quite have the right character for the job, I'm all for writing a new one. It's not a matter of me being too lazy to have sat down and written a character for every possible situation.

I'm not one to have a dozen characters on deck at all times, and come to think of it back in what qualifies as my "good old days" of RPing, we wrote new characters for every single RP. I guess it doesn't seem like that big a deal to whip up a new one for a story I like to me.