Forums » Smalltalk » Number of Playable Characters

Alright! So, I've had this question bouncing around my brain recently. Would you be more attracted to roleplay with someone with a lot of characters that are very vague and can be twisted to fit any roleplay? Or would you be more attracted to roleplay with someone that has a handful or less of characters, but the characters are thought out and actually has had time put into them. (Not talking about Commissioned art, since not everyone has the money or resources to commission art. But more so the background/Information/Relationships to other characters <If they're in the same universe.> ect.)

There's no right or wrong answers. Just curious what others think! I personally enjoy when someone uses my roleplay as a way to develop their character(s). Since I personally do the same; it's better to have someone that you can ask something like. "Hey, do you think X would suit this life style or another one?" But on occasion I also do enjoy a thought out character that is pretty straight forward that I can go. "Oh, (X) would work well with (Y) but not with (Z)"

Personally, it strongly depends on how invested I am in the roleplay partner and/or the storyline.

If I'm looking for a casual paragraph roleplay with a general theme/idea and a new roleplay partner then I usually choose raw characters of my own to mix with raw characters of theirs. This tends to work well.

If I however wish for a person to become my long term roleplay partner or have played with them before or I have a specific scenario for which I seek a character/the wish to multi-para-roleplay I'll be far more tempted to go for fleshed out characters.

In my personal opinion both can be enjoyable but if I'm put on the spot and actually have to choose then I do prefer the fleshed out characters because they allow me to dig deeper. I don't have enough patience for a long term slice of life or a long term smalltalk scene, so having plenty to work with from the start is perfect for me.

ETA: in an ideal world, people would have quite a bit of characters to choose between and possibly even offer both. Some fully fleshed out ones and some fresh shells that need filled up.

I strongly prefer characters with a single static setting and a storyline that is consistent throughout their role-plays, both in terms of the characters that I play and the characters I interact with. As in, what happens in one role-play carries over to another in terms of experience, scarring, injuries etc. This is a preface of sorts to provide the context for the rest of my answer.

I have a handful of characters who can go between settings but there is always an IC reason for it rather than it being an OOC mechanic to allow for multiple completely separate continuities.

Having characters that fit a particular setting is the main core part of my preference rather than how developed or not they are. I'll happily play with characters who have been around for years or brand new characters so long as they fit the setting and storyline. So it is a little difficult to answer your question easily as you can have a lot of characters that fit a given setting and are well-developed, or on the opposite side of that, very few characters with a lot of flexibility in terms of time period, continuity etc.

Shorter answer - how many characters someone has is not important to me, how they play them is more of a deciding factor.

I don't really pay much attention to how many characters a person has. I've seen people with tons of fantastic, well-developed characters. I've seen people with only a small few, or even just one or two, but that at least outwardly seemed a bit under-developed or incomplete to me. I'm just concerned with:

• Does the character seem neat?
• Do I have characters that might play well with that character?
• Does the person seem neat/like a good fit?