Forums » Smalltalk » The Great Character Purge of '17

Well, after my several-months-long absence, I have returned. And with my return, I took the ax to several characters (and old RPs). I purged through from roughly 30ish character slots to 17, and I even cut down on the characters in my 'various characters' and 'more characters' pages. Which means, all the characters that remain are ones I'm still interested in RPing as or I have an RP currently going with them! (and that I can make new characters! Eeee yay!)

THAT BEING SAID;
Have you ever done a character purge? How hard do you find it to just let go? If you haven't used the character in forever, do you still hold onto them in hopes of having the awesome RPs you once had, or do you accept that their time has passed?

I purge them all the time, every two months or so. I'm like an executioner, I've barely got any remorse left inside me. Usually what I do is this: when I notice no-one has true interest in roleplaying with a certain character that I particularly spent lots of effort creating, I try to transform it into something more syncretic, or rather something more attractive overall. That way I don't feel like I wasted my time creating it.

However, what I learned as well is that spending hours after hours on a character might as well lead you towards huge disappointments. I prefer to create characters with basic ideas in mind, short texts, a little profile with a few traits. If nobody shows any interest in them, off it goes. If someone does, however, I start developing that character further. This way I don't waste too much time with unfruitful characters.

Congrats on all of your newfound free space!

I'm not sure if I purge characters so much as I remake them and cobble together past traits from characters I know I'll never be able to use again. Making random OCs is something I like to do even if they have no roleplay or story to go into, lmao.

I tend to do this a lot with my characters; I don't really develop them too thoroughly pre-RP. Usually my characters get developed as the RP happens. It gives more opportunities for interesting plot twists! I think that's good though, your technique definitely helps keep from big disappointments!
Ooooo I haven't actually thought of that! I have some characters that I'm just soooo attached to, but they don't get used anymore. I hadn't thought of putting together some traits from them into a new character!

I haven't used my characters in a while because of school. Since I only RP in spring/summer, my characters go unused for large periods of time, during which I still develop them in my head but lack the time to update their pages.

I'm currently attempting to revamp my characters' profiles and add new ones, but I haven't been able to find roleplays for any of them as of yet, so I've been slacking.

I had that problem when I started working full-time! But I think it's good that you keep developing them in your head, that gives you a chance to 'keep them alive', instead of letting them stagnate
Finding time, or motivation, to revamp/edit profiles is pretty difficult sometimes lol

I'm constantly doing a character purge. I think I have brilliant ideas all the time, and because I have limited slots, I delete one or two that I'm either not using or have lost interest in, to make room for new ones. Three weeks later I do the same, possibly deleting that very character I created last time... In a sense I think it's good that I have only 14 character slots? It keeps me from cluttering up my character list with characters I'm not using... In total I must have created +50 characters by now since I joined about a year ago?


That being said... My characters come and go but Morgan, Sinde, Nazli, Kaspar and Kyanos will always be around. Either out of nostalgia, roleplaying purposes, or because I just really like them and want them around.