Forums » RP Discussion » Anyone else ever feel like a "different" RPer?

I see a lot of people who have really nice character pages. Like, really nice. Their pages become a sort-of art project for them and that's pretty cool to me.

I don't really do that though. My character pages use minimalist themes with colors I like because they're readable. My descriptions are usually basic or just barely there. Most of my characters don't even really have avatars because I don't have a lot of motivation to draw any. It took me months to make an avatar for the first character I created.

I feel like most people come into RPing on-site with characters they already had. I actually didn't though. I made Jade up on-the-spot back when I found the site. I spent a couple days lurking on it before making an account at all, looking for a group to join. I created her originally to be a part of a specific group, but it turned out the group was dead. I mostly just kept her because she was the only character I had, and I altered her backstory a little to better fit a general setting.

It's not that I don't have OCs. I have a few that I've had for years and sometimes they even get a redesign, but most characters I make are either for something specific like a tabletop game or a story/world I'm building, or some kind of meme created on-the-spot.

I didn't really think anything of this at first. To me, a character is just a vessel for me to interact with a world, using a persona that I like. I've never thought about 'arcs' much, or progressing characters, or even a whole lot about backstories beyond what's necessary to justify their presence in a game. I think the most descriptive I've ever gotten was probably this guy, and I'm still spending more time explaining his actual species than who he is as a character just because that's the information that came easier to me. I also felt like it was more necessary, given there really is no standard way people understand dragons beyond a few common tropes.

And that was all I really thought I needed. So far, that's been the case. I've had some good interactions with my characters and it's been fun. But sometimes, I lurk LFRP and see people advertising specifically to develop their characters. Sometimes, I click a profile to get some basic info about newcomers to a thread and it'll be some really elaborate and carefully constructed page. Actually that's more often the case than not, and it certainly has made me wonder if I come off as though I'm not putting in effort.

I've started to wonder if my priorities are less common than I originally assumed they were, so I thought I would ask if there are others who feel like I do, or if anyone has other thoughts about this? I do wonder how others see their characters, and if they're just avatars to inhabit for a bit or if they mean something else to others?

I understand where you're coming from and have approached stories both ways. Before I joined RP Repository, I RPed mostly in-person TTRPGs (a ton of one-shots or short tales) and did text based RP over on roleplayerguild. The norm there was/is to tailor a character specifically for the story at hand. Sometimes those characters would get recycled into another story, but often not.

I think that the nature of RP Repository having such great tools to build cool character sheets has led to difference in the culture here - tending toward what you've described where stories tend to originate from a character rather than a setting/plot, especially with 1x1 games.

I've had mixed luck recruiting for ideas where players would have had to make a new character to play. Still do-able, of course.

I have found myself shifting focus the longer I've been here - taking more enjoyment from building upon my characters' stories in something of a continuum (only where it makes sense to do so, of course.)

I have noted the same things Aardbei. Having done a lot of chat/text rp back when I was heavy into the hobby in my teenage years, I usually just filled out a text template for a character, with maybe one visual reference linked. In my 2021 Roleplaying Renaissance I really didn’t have any set characters in mind and thought I would ‘create as I go’. Dabbled with a couple character ideas via the text sheet but didn’t have a real grip on what I wanted them to be. Then I stepped into RP Repository and have to say I was blown away by the depth and resources offered by the site! I’m still learning the intricacies of the character pages here, and I have browsed the character list and saw some really amazing characters presented. Like you say, some approach ‘art’ and some have complete stories and worlds built around them, or they are built into a wider world. I have been in awe of some of them, and it has led me to want to develop more and better characters!

Yes, I agree! I’m still getting my head around this. So far I’ve been a bit scattergunny with characters, having initially created one for the introductory prompt without much idea about her at all, and she remains still a bit of a shell that I may use for some future development. I created another one tailored to the rp prompt I responded to but she was rejected right away in OOC. I then made a couple from their proposed/preferred facecredits, but it became clear that we weren’t going to start an rp due to some ‘OOC differences’ that came up.

Ironically, the original character (Nina) I created for that RP prompt has become my most successful as she got into an awesome RP with an awesome writer, and I’ve kind of gone overboard ‘growing’ her story as the rp is written. I’ve also created a male character based on an RP prompt and that rp is going really well too.

So I guess from all my rambling here, it seems I’ve been more of a ‘create the character for the story’ person, but have caught the bug since coming to RP Repository and am now exploring deeper character development and started ‘creating story around the character’ from the inspiration I’ve gotten here!

I have no art skills. I commissioned pieces based on roleplays I enjoyed afterward. I started back in the early internet days when face claims were popular and there wasn't digital art available everywhere. My human characters literally have no art. I have made a good deal of effort and still feel as though I'm not what people are looking for? So, it's not just you. I see you. I feel you on many levels. We are all different role players!

You just answered your own doubt. Look where making a character for a specific setting has led you, now they're a full blown OC with their own development independent of the RP you ought to participate when you made them. You'd be surprised how many memorable characters are stories are made solely to fill in a spot in a specific roleplay or tabletop only for them to develop into something greater than they were designed to be in the first place. If you think you're somehow, in a negative way, different because that's how your creative process work, trust me, you're not. A good chunk of us have been there and I dare to say the majority of roleplayers had developed/created their OCs with the same thought train as you.

And if you need art for your character, it doesn't hurt to look up pictures to host them on your profile, given you have the artists' permission to do so, above all.

Personally, a few of my characters started off as fills for a pre-existing, while I made others off my own. I end up having a bit of both.

Don't punish yourself with that, you're fooling yourself. Look up for the profiles as inspiration and it's not like all profiles on RPR are excellent top-tier quality anyway. Besides, profile-building is entirely different from being a good roleplaying partner, a good writer or both.

Don't let it get you down. A profile with a picture and some very basic info on it is just as good as an ornate one. A lot of that extra stuff is just eye candy. Which is nice! It can serve as bait to attract partners. But being fun to play with is waaaay more important in the grand scheme of things.

To be honest, that has also been my perspective. In the time since I made this thread, I thought about why I felt like this and I think it's more that I actually prefer basic profiles to a lot of the elaborate ones people make. Mostly because if someone's profile is too long, I end up skimming it. If I'm on a user profile, it's because they're in one of my games and I need to know who I'm replying to so I can adequately include them.

I suppose, to me, the basic profile template is nice because it puts all the important information up-front. Full art as a reference is also nice. I think, even when someone is working hard on their profile, making it concise and readable so I can quickly find what I need and get back to playing is my preference.

I also partly made the initial thread because I realized having to sift through someone's long and elaborate profile actually burned me out on a game...
It wasn't that I didn't care, but I definitely just wanted to know some very basic things so I could get back to playing, and having to read all that made me feel like I was doing homework instead. I suppose that is not a problem of elaborate profiles though, since I think I've seen some very well-made ones that aren't like that either, heh.

I could probably stand to clean some of mine up a bit...

The other thing is that I often don't bother to fill out a profile entirely unless I know I'm going to use a character for a while. Otherwise, it's a lot of wasted effort for a character I will just delete if the game they're in dies after 3 sessions. I've already done it twice, and my character list could use some pruning.
I only get 10 slots anyway so this saves on space neatly.