Roleplaying Essay

Written by Laulile, February 2006

For the purpose of this essay, the character will be referred to as a "he" for simplicity.

What is role-playing?

OLE-PLAYING is about creating a completely new persona and acting out that part: when put into a situation, you act and react as a character rather than as yourself. To role-play effectively, you need to put a lot of thought into your character at the creation stage. While your initial concept will change over time as your character develops through his experiences, without a strong grounding it will be very difficult to interact effectively with other people.

Character Creation

REATING a role-playing character is not about 'What skills do I want to GM?'; it is about 'Who is this person I will be playing?'. You need to consider your character concept carefully in order to create a character that is convincing, interesting, and above all, fun to play!

HERE ARE HUNDREDS of questions you could ask yourself about your character, and it certainly wouldn't hurt for you to do so; but essentially character concept can be boiled down to a few important areas of consideration:

Name:

OU need a firm identity! Be aware that when role-playing, your name can be extremely important. Rightly or wrongly, people will judge you immediately if your character has a name like 'WizZarD' or 'Silver Slayer'. Names from fiction or popular myth like 'Gandalf' or 'Bilbo' also tend to be frowned upon… and sticking a 'Sir' in front of your name is also a big no-no. Try and think up something original that fits in with the rest of your character and with the idea of the guild: this could be a purely made-up name like 'Eramil' or 'Arabeth Carsir' or something as ordinary as 'Charles Thomas' or 'Jemima'.

Where are you from?

HEN you're deciding where you were born, try and stay true to UO Geography... that means pick a location on the map! If you want to make up a little village in the woods, that's fine, but make sure you can describe its location in terms of other towns or places: "I grew up in a little village in the swamps of Yew, not far from Empath Abbey."

History:

OUR CHILDHOOD and your past - if you're even old enough to have a history beyond childhood! What exactly has your character been doing until he showed up here? Moments of your character's past will probably have a lot to do with defining what sort of person he is, so this is probably one of the most crucial things to consider. Think of specific events that may have been of importance; remember, they don't have to be monumental in terms of how others may view them, only in terms of how your character was affected. Take some time to think about the more ordinary things such as the members of the family. Piece everything together and you should start to have a really good picture of your character forming.

Personality:

O NOW that you've decided on the sort of life your character has experienced, you can better define his personality. If you've had a protected and pampered childhood in a wealthy family and are really still under the influence of your rather pompous father, it is highly unlikely that you're going to be the type of person who is everyone's best friend and enjoys a drink in the tavern with lads on a Tuesday night after a hard day spent slaying the evil that roams Britannia. It is crucial that your personality and background tie in to make your character believable to others.

ECIDE on the big things - general personality, any prejudices or vices, anything that will strongly impact on how your character will interact with other people and carry himself generally. Then pad it out by considering more: hobbies, secret interests, and any eccentricities that will make your character really unique.

Speech:

ES, this is important! You will notice when you role-play that people often 'speak' with an accent or throw in olde English words. Decide from the start how your character would talk. This will be based on a lot of things: someone of noble birth will be educated and talk in a refined manner, while someone born and raised in the back-allies of Britain may well 'ave somethin' o' a drawl an' be unable ter be speakin' wi'out droppin' lett'rs all't' time, ye see?

OU COULD ALSO consider variations on this, which may be interesting. Have you ever considered playing a mute? Someone with a stutter? What about an elderly character who constantly repeats what other people have said, perhaps even repeating back wrongly?

Motivation, Flaws and Creating Conflict:

F THERE WAS an equation for role-playing, it would look somewhat like this:

Fun = Conflict²

HE QUESTION then: how to create conflict? Conflict comes from your character having personal goals he sets out to achieve and having something standing in the way of them. While the barrier could come in the form of other players foiling your efforts, it is always far more fun not to have to rely on other people, instead creating your own 'fatal flaw'. This term is used a lot when talking about characters in Shakespearian tragedy: the characters usually have a 'fatal flaw' that will quite obviously lead to their downfall. Your character's fatal flaw could be reasonably minor: he can't stop gambling, he is ambitious, he is cowardly or disloyal - it is then up to you how you use this in a situation.

LAYING your flaw in line with your character's goals and ambitions will almost always provide entertainment. Get this part right and you should never have a dull moment!

Choosing Your Skills:

E ARE there now! Just because your character is a role-play character, it doesn't mean you're expected to have a 'useless' template, however you are expected to try and be a little realistic and fit skills around your chosen background. This can be very tricky, depending on the sort of character you have chosen to play. It's fairly easy for any warrior type, as you can build a realistic and useable fighter template, but what if you've chosen to be a humble farmer or a cowardly scout who would never dare raise arms?

HEN you choose your skills, base them around your character as much as you can, but not to the exclusion of being able to use your character for something other than verbal role-play. For example, your humble farmer could realistically wield a pitchfork at anyone who threatened his cows, which would allow you to go for something like: fencing/tactics/ anatomy/herding as a starting point. We could probably slip healing in there to make him viable, but if you tried to include chivalry on that template, that's when people would start raising eyebrows. Save the l33t slaying skills for another character!

The Finer Detail:

NCE you think you know your character fairly well, try answering a few questions about him. This will not only make you think a little harder about the character, but also hopefully fill in any gaps there might be before someone actually asks you the question in-character, and you're not sure how to answer!

Here are a few questions that might help you. The list is not extensive, so feel free to come up with your own!

• City/Forest
• Family/Friends/Self
• Virtues/Self
• Chaos/Order
• Optimistic/Pessimistic
• Law/Anarchy
• Death/Life
• Past/Present/Future
• Change/Familiarity
• Day/Night
• Fame/Wealth
• Advancement/Romance

Other questions may be:

• What does your character have in his pockets? Why?
• What past failing would your character be most ashamed for people to find out about? Why?
• How would your character describe himself, in a word or a short sentence, to others? Is this different to how you would describe the character?
• Who has been the most influential person in your character's life? Would they admit this? Describe the influence and its effects.

Suggestions:

HEN WRITING a character biography, avoid the age-old method of "Adam's town was overrun with orcs/drow/other evil but Adam escaped because he was (insert possibly feasible activity here). Adam vowed vengeance on these wicked creatures and has trained himself to be a psychotic weapon of mass destruction in order to wreak death and doom on the aforementioned offenders". Really! Once you've finished pounding orcs into a bloody pulp, what then? Try and think of something that allows for further character development.

ONFLICT and purpose in a character allow for role-play opportunities. Try and write something into your character biography that gives them something to struggle against.

OUR CHARACTER should not be a god. Every real person has flaws and so should your character. Is he a compulsive liar, does he drink more than he should, does he lose his temper too quickly? Perhaps he has an extreme phobia of something and is afraid someone will find out because he will look less of a man? Flaws create fantastic role-play opportunities and will give your character an appealing dimension that will make them more memorable to others, and more fun for you to play.