Forums » RP Discussion » Changing your character (drastically) to fit an RP

This is something I've been seeing a lot and I'm curious to know why.

People make characters with specific details - age, gender, personality, species, background and genre/setting (modern, fantasy, sci-fi, medieval, futuristic etc.). Sometimes when engaging in roleplay with other people, they change these attributes so dramatically that the original character, essentially, no longer exists.

They create a completely new character that looks like the old one, but isn't the old one.

This really confuses me. I'm not saying it's awful, bad or otherwise wrong. If this makes you happy, please keep on doing it!

I just don't get the appeal. If you have an entirely new character who doesn't have a lot of information yet, changing some things to get started in a new roleplay isn't a big deal. You're still in the creation process. But the characters I talk of are characters who were engaged in stories before, who did things and affected a storyline. Why change such important aspects like the time they're being played in?

Is this because you don't have enough slots on RPR? Or do you not put much value into consistent storylines for your characters? (Which is fine!)

I too find it curious! I've changed a character in the past as well however they were not in any rp or they just didn't seem to work right the way they were before (if you know what mean.)

I do know! Changing a character who's fallen out of a storyline, who no longer works in any RP etc. is a logical step if you're not willing to retire them fully.

To clarify, I'm talking about a character who was RPed half a dozen times as a medieval farm girl, who gets turned into a modern time gunslinger demon hunter vampiress out of the blue to fit her into a roleplay without IC reasons.

I've kinda done that with nick in the past, although I believe I've kinda stuck with a rough outline of him to keep him himself, somewhat (I didn't want dark ol' nick to get all happy cheery on me). Now he's evolved into a pretty cool character and he's at a happy constant- no more evolving.
Sometimes it's important, I would think, to stick a character in different settings to see if they would work- like nick is a sort of genre-hopper, since I can throw him in just about anything modern and he goes.
Evolving is good in the start, but you'd think it'd settle down a bit once you get to know your character completely, right?
And I structured this post horribly, didn't I? (Sorry folks, I'm tired)

It could just be me, but it's not unusual for me to have a couple of 'alternate universe' versions of the same character running around in my head. Most of them I'd never put on RPR, while others are more fleshed out.

I think that when you're writing the part of a same character for months or years, it's hard to get them out of your head. Even if your mind is in a different place, the character still persists.

Another reason is that some characters are too specialised. They're only good for one setting, but you want to continue RPing them even when the old RP is slow or dead. By changing a few small details you can seamlessly slide them into another RP without while keeping their 'true' version alive and open for RP.

My goodness, that is a huge change. To each their own I guess, but I'm with you I don't really understand it either.

Well, personally I dont change too many details, but many of my characters can be played in more then one time period. (If she was a farm girl in medieval times, she is in modern times too.)

The appeal, and reasoning behind doing this for myself, (particularly for the ones that have been in use for a long time) is that I find it difficult to find new, original story lines that can last a while, with a variety of different characters, without branching out into different settings and genres.

I'm alright with changing years the character exists in as long as the technology is similar-ish. I ever change their backstory, personality, or goals though, but I may alter them to fit the setting better. Like with this post apocalyptic roleplay I'm in. It seems pretty casual right now, so it's good practice to get used to the character's personality. The character's backstory hasn't really changed nor has her goals or purpose in life.

I don't think I could bring myself to change a character drastically without making it a complete rewrite of the character to replace the old one. Just... name recycling essentially.

I think the biggest answer to this is storylines. Some people have a character with just one storyline; the character is in one setting, one place, and is constantly affected by just the things going on there. However, I personally prefer to have multiple storylines for most of my characters. I will have multiple RPs with one character of mine, for example; I have a few RPs with Tressa. In one RP she's adopted by Dandy and his family, and in another RP she is adopted by Dmitri. Therefore, I have two different storylines. In the storyline with Dandy, Tressa has a family, is getting ready for school, and is making friends, in modern times. In the storyline with Dmitri, she is in more fantasy-medieval times, and is learning to use magic and protect herself.

Multiple storylines is my favorite, because it opens up immense possibilities. If I have someone interested in RPing with a character in modern times but she was more for medieval, that's fine! A few tweaks and there you have it. I have Fial, who is mainly for modern times, but he can also work in a medieval setting if I wish to.

This may not completely answer your question about drastic changes, but hopefully it helps you understand a bit more.

I do that with Isamu once in a while. It all really depends on the kind of RP I wan't to join at the time. There have been ones where he has trained dragons and then there have been some where he is a student in high school. I generally keep the same history for him though (but not always the adoptive prince status).

In general, he is my favorite character to use.

Even though I do this he still has his own original story in my head.

I've done this quite a few times by essentially reimagining a character in a new universe. Sort of like alternate universes? I primarily do it for two reasons (and often make another RPR profile just for that specific version) :

1) I rather do like the character in question and want to keep playing them elsewhere in other waters, which leads to...
2) I'd like to see how they function in those new waters.

Sometimes the core traits that made me love the original so much transfer over to the other version(s), and other times they end up evolving into their own separate entity but still somehow work. I can't quite explain it--it's a hit-and-miss, but I usually don't do it unless I'm pretty serious about whatever new waters I'm remaking a character for in the first place. I've got at least three different versions of Draconus, three of Johann, two of Lauren, one maybe of Typhus (his is more of a divergent timeline than an outright parallel universe). It's a sign I really like those characters, yo.

For me, most of the time if I dramatically change a character, they're either a character I didn't have set story for, I just thought that story A would look good and get me some RP (rarely works like that) or that the character is one of my "multiverse" characters. When Krieg_005 and I ran out of story line for a bunch of our characters, I looked at him and said "Well, what if this happened and then we ended up with multiverse characters. They have rules and certain expectations. They still have the same personality they had before. They still have some (if not all) of the same family members (for example, Mattie is either the child of Bradiccus or of Logan, but usually of both). For me, it's a way for us to play out different timelines.

Though, a good chuck of the characters here are solid story-line.

I have changed character's to fit an rp, but the original always remains and the altered version is used as a temporary character.

Normally this alteration means rewriting the history and only making small if any changes to their personality which is key as it would make them a bit easier to use then a completely new character.

This is something I do only, if I see a very interesting plot and I think one of my character would work great with some alterations.

I never really understood this myself! I see a lot of people here have their own reasons for doing so, but I don't think I could ever do it personally. As a player from the other side of the coin, when I find out someone has done this with a character that we were currently RPing with, it hurts my feelings a little bit.

I'm sure that this is not what the people who practice this intend, but to me it feels as if the story we were working on and the growth your character has had through RP didn't really matter and so you tossed him/her/it into something new.

All of my characters age in real time, so every time I use them in role play it effects them. When I find an interesting character that I would like to RP with, I try to find a way to make it work in the continuity I'm using already. I do a lot of fantasy type RPs, so usually some magical mishap or another does the trick.

I'm really glad you posted this Sanne! It's something I've been wondering about myself and it seems as if you're getting a lot of interesting replies

I've been known to do tweaks all the time to fit different settings -- mostly a matter of time period, though sometimes it can be a matter of species! (Pony versions of certain chars; making furre characters fit in in a human world or vice versa, etc). However some of my characters are so rigidly defined by their setting (Celhart, Penthea) that there's no wiggle room pretty much at all. Others I can change a bit to fit time periods and such, while keeping their defining elements. Balzen is an odd case because I can play him in any universe with a magic level sufficient for a living gargoyle to exist, purely because he's pretty flexible like that -- but I have no intentions of really changing him save maybe to improve his design.

I don't really change my characters at all in terms of fitting a setting. If the character doesn't fit the setting, however nice it may be, then I'm gone :p However I do usually build my characters to fit a span of time periods.

For example Merrick could fit a regular Medieval styled RP, but also a fantasy world RP. Both Alain and Kenneth could fit a modern as well as sci-fi RP style.

Universe based characters such as Aldyne (Aion), Ssihaku (Aion) and Veera (Star Wars) are built to function out of setting as well, without betraying their original worlds. This is slightly harder for Veera though, the universe would have to be close to hers. Ssihaku and Aldyne are easier on that point

Other than the real life changes, like who is available for roleplay and making compromises with your writing partners, I'm not entirely sure why either. I do know that some people don't actually like starting new characters all the time, ones that fit different stories with their own unique backgrounds; and I get that, it's time consuming and can be disorienting for those who like to totally immerse themselves in their characters. I also know some people that will insist on playing the same character no matter what, and I have noticed it becomes an alternate persona for them. All of the games they play then, from D&D to WoW to LARPing, accumulate various experiences for the singular character. Not only does it tend to be easier to keep track of, but more interesting for that character to have such a colorful back story. So I do totally get that, keeping a main character that dips its toe in many waters.

That said...I usually insist that those people keep their realms in some logical order, or that certain aspects would need to be made "time appropriate." It pretty much depends on the worlds you build with other writers and what is deemed possible/likely/acceptable. If the farm hand becomes a futuristic demon hunter, she's not going to be able to come back into the medieval setting with a laser weapon or biomechanical arm (not without being a social outcast for leprosy and witchcraft).

So I guess it's really just another face of the art of roleplay - we all have our habits and comfort zones and the things that make sense to us.

I've done it a handful of times. There's times where I grow to like a character, but the roleplay that I use them in closes, or disappears, or what have you.. and generally the next opportunity I have to find even a vaguely similar roleplay group will require me to alter the character accordingly.

I've been tempted at times to create alternate reality versions of characters for seperate continuities sometimes, mostly with just the appearance being the same rather than the background. I've not done it yet but, it's an option that's always been a subtle 'maybe', as I'd have the strict rule of the alternate reality versions of the character never meeting one another, no crossing of IC knowledge and no crossing of IC people known.