Roleplaying, emotes, and character development 101
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We've had alot of threads recently discussing how to build mechanically powerful characters, or how to mechanically play wizards, or how to quest efficiently. But as true it is that mechanical ability will always play a role on CoA, its only one side of the coin. By far the more important side is roleplaying, and while we have plenty of guides on creating characters and concepts, there is very little in the way of guides for how one can grow as a roleplayer, craft better emotes, bring scenes to life, portray your character the way you want to portray them, create sustainable conflict in an interactive storytelling enviorment, and how to use all the mentioned in creating and pushing plots on CoA. Thats what this thread is about. I will be adding plenty of advice over the course of the thread, but for now I will add these three to get the thread started.
The main reason I grew as a player, and eventually made DM was because when I started up, I attached myself to the hip of more talented and creative players then myself. People like Ordinath, or BG, that while no longer active really made any character they played seem real, and were often at the center of things. By playing a minion for their pc, and paying attention on a concious level how they roleplayed their characters I was well poised to learn and grow as a roleplayer. So first thing I suggest if you want to become a better roleplayer, is interact with those who are more creative and talented then you are. Dont be afraid to ask them OOC for advice either. I see alot of people ask certain players for mechanical advice, while completely failing to ask them for advice on how to play more interesting characters, what kind of emotes to use to portray a character as a troubled soul, or a bitter man, etc.
Dont be afraid to make characters flawed, even if it will make them unliked, or generate hostility. But also be sure to add at least one or two redeeming aspects to the character. Then do what I suggested above, and figure out whats to portray these conflicting traits. Conflicted characters are among the most memorable. Champions of good that are hated for their piousness. Paragons of crime, with a heart of gold. Blackguards that regardless of the evil they have done, are more honourable then any of the champions of good hunting him. These are easy examples, but hopefully illustrate what I mean.
The best stories on CoA are the ones that allow the key strenght of multiplayer games (other players) to factor into the characters story. Let what happens IG effect your character. Memories and experiences are the true "loot" your character will earn, and will stay with you alot longer. Let your character develop in real and organic ways, and others will be drawn to you, knowing that interaction with your pc has the chance for them to sway him to their god, or cult, or simply make out under Kests Chicken Stand (<3 you Polaris!!!). CoA is all about the story, and here its written by dozens of people every week, so let them influence your characters story, like hopefully they allow you to influence theirs.
Looking forward to hearing what you guys have to offer as advice.
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Reserving for future post.
Also, no trolling on mah thread.
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Building more upon the story aspect, the game NWN itself is entirely boring. It really is, when you look at it. Trying to focus on mechanics does nothing but bore and frustrate me. The rolls feel skewed, enemies always hit me with "that critical that just happens to kill me", etc.
The fun of role playing on CoA isn't in who can beat who, although like Lemon says it is one half of the coin. The fun is in the storytelling. I don't mean to talk about myself, however I just want to use me as an example, but as far as emotes are concerned, that's exactly what I like to do if anyone's noticed. I take great care and usually put plenty of scenic detail into the emotes of all my characters in order to bring them to life with themselves, the people around them, and their environment. That's what's enriching for me.
I try and think about how situations will effect my character on every level. Emotionally, mentally, physically, you name it. And I think about how events will change him. You have to start losing some of that grasp on what you want for your character and who he/she is personality-wise, that way you can learn to tell more interesting stories as well as not getting personally upset when bad/different things happen to your characters that you didn't expect. Half of the time, I'm honestly in the dark about what my character is going to say next, that's how much I immerse myself into the setting. They almost become their own thing, like a split personality. How to achieve that? It's a learning curve, really. It's not something that can usually just be picked up, I as well observed many around me while I grew as a role player. You take bits and pieces from everyone.
Long story short, what I try and do is ask myself "How can I keep my character dynamic and alive?" Because a dynamic character is going to accomplish much more than a static character. Take note, what I mean by accomplish isn't necessarily that step by step list of goals that you make for yourself, but rather how much of an effect they have on others' stories, period.
An evil character who eventually becomes swayed to the cause of good without the player even planning it brings tears of joy to my eyes. Likewise, and this is much less common (unfortunately), goodly characters who fall down the path of darkness without the player even intending on it also brings tears of joy to me.
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Always take into account your characters race, class and background when building up there mind-set.
A elf's age is likely in 3 digits. A paladin a paragon of justice backed by a god, a sorcerer got magical blood that set him from others from a early age and a bard from Eveningstar seen a knight order first hand.
Details help flesh a character out, they help you rp being effected by situations better, as you have more to draw on.
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Thank you for this post. It seems like the majority of discussions on this forum are about A.) moving and shaking or B.) mechanics. I feel like this third aspect is one of the most important aspects of the server, and it gets neglected in discussion a lot.
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Adding another few pieces of advice.
1. Keep a healthy amount of distance to your character, remaining only as attached to it as you need to, to stay personal. Never put too much of yourself into your character. If you do, you will react to things that happen to it personally, taking offence, causing drama and never taking risks. You are portraying a character in an urban fantasy setting, telling their story, a story that may very well end poorly. If you lack the needed distance to the pc, then bad endings will feel very unsatisfying. When you can engage in conflict, make enemies and take risks to pursue things of interest to you and other players, safe with the realisation that no matter if the character succeeds or fails IC, you win OOC no matter what happens.
2. I struggled alot with emotes starting out. Anything past a basic "nod" or "smiles" was overwhelming as I was trying to keep up with what was happening around my character. What I did to help become better was:
a- write up several emotes for my character, for combat, social rp etc, that were fairly universal background emotes that regardless show cased something important about my character. Having them ready allowed me to focus more on what was going on, while still having the character portray himself properly.
b- Start adding slowly. Instead of Nods I emoted Nods + one or two other words. Nods amused, Nods once, nods slowly. Nothing ground breaking, but already telling alot more. Then I moved forward to nods + possibly something like once or slowly + something that drew attention to my characters mood, physical state, or the enviorment around him. So Nods once, frowning at the rain Nods slowly, appearing tired. After that I started adding my characters reaction to that emotional state, or enviormental cue. Nods slowly, appearing tired, he picks up his sword, and turns to leave, or Nods amused, appearing focused on something on CHARNAMES face, taking a piece of cloth and wiping it away. I slowly built a foundation, practicing. And after a while I started to be decent. (Now obv I am the best ever)
3. Adventure and Intrigue dont mean all you need to do is A&I. All my successful characters have done CoA Sims stuff. One fed birds, taking along a character he wanted to get to know and used the interaction to portray aspects of his character and bond. Another took adventurers to fish fresh fish for his cat. To portray a less serious side to the hard exterior he had to maintain as Kantheas apprentice and the first MG Councillor.
For me CoA sims is a very important part of CoA, its during those times that the motivation for why my character is doing what he is doing are fleshed out. (Like my with my MGer it was to keep his cat and little sister safe) To form personal and deep bonds with other characters. In many ways, these are the moments that I enjoyed the most. They made my character real, and why I did stuff like seal away a devil lord on the brink of becoming a devil prince, or intrigued with vampires, they were more then goals I needed to accomplish to get praise from a dm, loot, xp or promotion or whatever. They were things he needed to do, to protect the things that truely mattered to him.
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I personally find writing out a character description helps me flesh out a character. Having a firm grasp of how your character looks, talks, what his quirks are, etc all help me roleplay on the fly. Often times, it will give me ideas to that lead to concept revision.
I tend to write up a long description about my character's personality, appearance, mannerisms, accent, etc, then trim down to the things you would notice about my character at a glance in the IG Character Description.
Things To Put In the IG Description:
Things that would be immediatly obvious to anyone looking at your character, like:
-Usual countenance
-Tatooes
-Scars
-Weapons usually used
-Knick-knacks on person
-Cleanlyness
-Outstanding Attributes (A character with 20 str would have something about unreasonably large muscles, etc)
-Holy symbolsThings to Keep handy, but out of IG description:
Things that are better left to roleplay IG and emotes:
-Character Quirks
-Personality
-How you want to make other characters react (Avoid "god emoting")
-Back storySomething I will often do to help me RP in situations I'm not prepared for is to have an "avatar" or "avatars" for my character. Basically, another character or mix of characters from something like a TV show that is similar to what I want my character to be and that I am familiar with. Let them be your inspiration for situations where you don't know exactly what your character should do.
(Also I really like reading character descriptions. Please do them! :) )
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I sometimes sit and actually do the emotes I want to portray, think about what I'm doing and then put it in to words.
If anyone saw me they would think I'm crazy, but it certainly helps!
It's the little things I think make a character interesting in my opinion. If I see someone quote a favorite book he / she has read or have some back story ready for a favorite wine they have drunk I'll jump right in to whatever they are doing!
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Think of it as the difference between, Nods grimly, between the, he nods slowly, a scowl forming on his feature as he gazes upon the horizon, brooding on what comes, a hand reaching for the stubble upon his chin as lines crinkle around his eyes.
The first one is quick, the other shows character and describes the very image of what you wish to portray.
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point to note here though, if you type slowly then the former might be more appropriate so as to not cause a break down in the conversation you are in.
the second is obviously the more descriptive and immersive, but i find waiting ages for a huge emote to often be less immersive than getting the short version.
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I don't think that build optimizing and good roleplay are mutually exclusive. Even when I optimize I really love tinkering with stats when I work on character's persona. Especially the <10 stats.
For example, a lot of characters have low charisma and conventional traits are "have a stutter, be shy, be a generic jerk, be really hideous/stinky" or any combination of those. That works, but there can be more variety. For example, when I just started playing on CoA and ran with Gentles' crew I was absolutely fascinated by a certain dwarf who was just extremely moody and touchy. A kind of a seemingly normal person but when you get to know him closer and trigger a mood shift, temper outburst or emotional breakdown it just makes you think "What did I say wrong? What's wrong with that guy? I just need to keep my distance next time."
I guess you may just think "what quirks, in my eyes, make a person seem really not likeable, or not very bright, or a wimp?" and incorporate some of them in your roleplay. Think what made him be like that and you'll receive a great insight in his biography.
Everyone knows how to roleplay uber stats, but I think there are ways to creatively portray them too. For instance i remember a very high-strength character who roleplayed having magically grafted metal hands or a very high-int/wis wizard who roleplayed having a creepy symbiont in his brain.
You can even combine traits, like if you're low-wis and lawful, you may be bull-headed, maybe even dull and unable to think out of the box. While if you're low-wis and chaotic you might well be reckless and flippant. A high-wis lawful person could be an extremely conservative scholar, etc.Speaking of emotes, I think they are not always great and mood-setting. Sometimes something is happening and there are already walls of text on the screen and your "leaning against something lazily, lighting a cigarette and puffing on it deliberately, looking utterly disinterested in the conversation of peasants" is more distracting than inspiring.
Generally speaking, I'd pick a short emote (which manages to set a proper mood in fewest words possible) over a long-winded one (where there are more epithets than actual information) any day of the week.As to plots, I think a very important thing ULK didn't mention is that to get involved in something big you really want to have a very close contact with DMs and spend a lot of time on the forums. So don't be afraid to run the stuff you intend to do by the crew and reach out to people via forums. For many newcomers this is not an obvious thing, so I thought I'd mention it.
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As to plots, I think a very important thing ULK didn't mention is that to get involved in something big you really want to have a very close contact with DMs and spend a lot of time on the forums. So don't be afraid to run the stuff you intend to do by the crew and reach out to people via forums. For many newcomers this is not an obvious thing, so I thought I'd mention it.
It just helps to keep the DMs informed if your planning things.
You don't need to be on the forums all the time.
So don't be afraid to run the stuff you intend to do by the crew
Thats the only thing that helps. If your creating great stories in game, we will hear about it anyway.
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Something else to consider with character development is your characters faith and how this effect there actions and objectives.
This is more than putting "Trom" or "Bale" on your character sheet!
Firstly, why does your character follow there patron and why did you pick that patron in the first place? What parts of there dogma do they think is the most important? What other gods do they like and why (try to make sure there one on there that's got quiet a different alignment!) ?
Don't be afraid to twist the words of your gods dogma a bit based on your characters own ethics. Maybe your CN fighter really does see Talos as "necessary destruction" Perhaps your monk of the Red Knight believes the use violence is a sign of weakness and true victory is defeating there foes without a fight.
Also outright heresy can be fun! :wink: