Forums » RP Discussion » Revamping your OC's

So hey guys! I know this is gonna be weird...Lanx actually is being sociable.. World must be ending...Ahem anyway! So I just finished revamping all my guys on here and it dawned on me...Have you ever felt you need to revamp your characters to see if you could get them into a rp? More so Did you enjoy doing the revamp and improving the character? I know its odd but hey I'm curious cause I had to do that with three of my guys. Finn O'Hara, Cid Myers, and Lawrence Hastings mostly because I felt they were not offering what players we're looking for and or needed more of a story to go by. More so I felt if their revamp didn't go great I would have to delete them just so I could enjoy some Roleplaying.

Yeppers! I’ve done it with Red. And I definitely need to do it to Crystal and Scarlett. It at least improves my mindset of them

I always edit evolve emblessish my characters. And I try to come up with characters that would play off other characters well.

Oh, definitely. My characters are constantly being iterated on. Neil's backstory when he started (I probably first wrote him five years ago) made very little sense. It started as 'oh this sounds cool I want to use it' without too much regard for how logical it was and over the years it slowly morphed into something more believable.

Same with personalities. As you write them, they always deviate a little and that's alright. Whenever I read a character sheet back and realize it's not quite up to par with the character anymore, I update it.

My characters usually take a long time to be 100% complete. (I think ray is the only character I’m semi done with still minor edits for him) but each of my characters starts with an idea like “Oh I want a detective type character. Or a time traveler. Or even Oh I want a villain for my hero” Then I start think of some more small ideas to make my characters juicy.. and as of lately I have added a longer more in detail backstory to characters so other people you know can actually care about them

I actually am planning on a change to Asami, as the Odyssey Bolts are--lore-wise--no longer available to her.
The Odyssey Bolt system allowed her to become other charas, but when I launched Cyan, she had other charas appear alongside her, rendering a redundancy I need to eliminate. As such, Asami's Odyssey Bolts will be removed from the system as well as the failed Arms system, and replaced with Styles.

The current Asami will be retrofitted as the Inaba Style.

Oh goodness, yes. Of the characters I've posted on RPR, the one I've revamped the most is Ghaurug gro-Khazgur. He started out as a 10-second redshirt for a fanfic about another character entirely, and died the moment he was introduced, but I decided that I liked him enough to make him into a proper character in his own right, and now he's surpassed all my other Elder Scrolls fan characters. He's now my favorite RP character for that universe by far.

I've also revamped Mia a couple times, the most recent being the creation of an older, less magical AU version of her to use in a superpowers-based RP. Still keeping her original incarnation, though, since I'm writing a story about her.

My most revamped characters of all, though, are the main cast of my novel-in-progress. Said novel started out as a poorly thought-out fanfiction for something completely different, and its cast was shallow and resembled the original work far too much. In the seven or eight years since then, I've taken the story in a completely different, completely original direction, and the characters are now properly unique and resemble their original incarnations very little (they even have different names).

As for my enjoyment of the process, it varies. Sometimes I come up with alternate versions of my characters just for fun. Other times I do it out of necessity, which is a bit less enjoyable. But as another poster here said, my characters are always evolving as I write them, and that I believe is a good thing, and it's something I enjoy playing out.

I'm honestly waiting until I have a better grasp of the character creation possibilities here (so many...) before I get to doing that with my current characters, as I simply used the basic template at first. I'll keep you posted, if you'd like.

Well, Kyra was originally a first generation half-elf, her parents were a generic elf dude and a black woman, and she was turned into a vampire. Now she's a second-generation Sand Elf who got mutated by magic to have some beastly tendencies. And I'm kinda reworking the world this redo got worked into, which means further change in the near future.

Nashyll here was a bloody mess right from the start and only got worse. I reset her to be more stable and... honestly, less depressing. But I'm considering redoing her again to try to find a playable balance with the mess she had become, because honestly, I don't know what to do with her right now.

Chasu Maru probably needs to be reworked. I've got some clashing info, and I either need to adjust how I play him to better fit the profile, or adjust the profile to better fit how I play him. The little playtime he's had so far, he's been kinda spastic, much more than he was meant to be.

Jackson was sort of redone simply by me deciding more clearly what he is. Originally, I wasn't really sure myself, just that he was something fae-ish, and I had intended to keep that ambiguity. I think defining him has made him a richer character though.

This kid was only meant for one specific RP that he was designed for. I redid him to have potential to fit into other games, but have yet to really get to do much with him. The games I try keep dying before they start.

So yes. But more to fit my own shifting preferences.

Do I change vital parts of them just to fit more roleplays? Unless something in an ongoing roleplay or a thought process fits them perfectly, then no. My muses are vivid, and I feel like changing key things about them messes up the essence of who they are as a character in general. I'm not willing to take things out or put things in to fit the roleplay status quo if it means my muses are no longer how I originally envisioned them to be and end up feeling hollow and lifeless as a result, you know?

But when it comes to overall updating them and changing things as they grow and find more stories for themselves? I do that often, usually as I gain more ideas and plot points for my characters! I haven't felt the need to revamp them for a while, but I do streamline the profile layouts so content is much easier for people to skim over or avoid depending on their preferences. I also add more information for my own reference so I don't forget vital details. In fact, I need to update Lexi and everyone else again, now that I think about it.

I like to think that my characters evolve and change their personalities during the different roleplay that they’re a part of. And sometimes if I think that fits them, I’ll add it to their background or personality.
The only thing I’ve adjusted several times has been their age, so the age gap between them and my partners character wouldn’t be too big or small ^^

Wow guys. It makes me smile to read all of your responses. I am really honored to know how you all think on this subject and honestly it’s helped me as a role player and character designer. You guys are awesome and I look forward to reading more on here as well as discussing this further ^^