Disclaimer: All views expressed in this article are the opinion of the author. She does not claim they are the only way to RP. Hopefully someone will find some merit in the article but as with all RP, it comes down to personal preference.

Character Building

Part 1 - Introduction & Personality

So you want to create a role play character. You want this character to be interesting, be attractive, be loved by those around, have others to interact with regularly, etc. How do you go about it?

As a writer and role player for 20+ years, I’ve learned a few things along the way about character building. I’ve made many of the mistakes that afflict new writers and role players and have seen firsthand the results. It is my hope that some of what I have learned the hard way can make character building less painful for venturing into the role play realm.

Because building a good character is such a far reaching topic, I will break it down into a series of articles to make for easier reading.

Fun

Everyone wants their character to be fun to play. If the character isn’t fun then what is the point in logging in and slogging through the levels? I’m sure we’ve all created a number of alts then abandoned them for various reasons simply because they were not fun.

First thing you need to look at is what do you find fun? Do you like being by yourself or being in large groups? Do you like one on one interaction? Do you like funny, light-hearted RP or do you like more serious and dramatic? All of these must be considered when building a character.

Interest

Everyone wants to have an interesting character. After all, if the character isn’t interesting then what is the point in having him or her around? There are several factors that play into whether a character is interesting or not; Personality, Appearance, Believability, Weaknesses, and Background. These are just boiled down because sometimes factors overlap but this is a good starting point.

Let’s Talk About Personality

Try to create a personality that not only you can enjoy playing but one that others enjoy interacting with. That is if you want interaction with others. If the character bites, insults, or otherwise abuses others about them for no apparent reason and with great frequency, you’ll soon find yourself without anyone to interact with. This goes for drama llamas too. (See definition below). Now I’m not saying every character has to be Polly Pureheart, but they should have enough redeeming qualities that there is something to bring others back to play.

First generalization you need to consider is do you want to play a good guy or a bad guy? This may seem like a silly thing to consider, but it is the beginning point of your personality. Don’t worry, there are bad guy characters that are cool beyond belief and others certainly do want to interact with them.

Good Guys:
First off, not all good guys are of the Polly Pureheart variety. By being a “good” guy, that could be as simple as someone who works hard, helps others, brings food to their sick aunt Patty. Then there are the extreme good guys. If you’re going to play a good guy, you need to think about the level of the character’s goodness.

Now, as with many things, there are areas of gray. Not everything is black and white. Perhaps the character is mostly good in that they do not try to actively harm innocents. They try to be good but sometimes what may seem good to them, is not so good to others. During the course of play, these types of situations will also help shape the character.

Bad Guys:
Not all bad guys have to be of the kitten-eating demon variety. Someone who is greedy or a bit of a megalomaniac can be considered a bad guy. Perhaps it is someone who feels they have no choice in what they do. It doesn’t mean they are not a fun character just because they are a bad guy.

Some bad guys are obviously bad, but they are so cool and suave about it we continue to be drawn to them. I use Dr. Doom from Marvel Comics as an example of a cool bad guy. He’s bad, he’s a megalomaniac, and he wants to kill the Fantastic Four… a lot. But he’s cool. If you can create a bad guy with the element that leaves others saying “Wow. That character is bad… but cool!” you’ve created a good bad guy.

Common Personality Traps:
When creating your character, there are a few common personality traps that you should try to avoid, otherwise you may have others rolling their eyes at your character or just avoiding it all together.

Mr./Ms. Perfect:
The character that is so pure, so heroic, so sweet, so loving and so GORGEOUS that everyone should lust after them and want to be their friend/lover/pet/champion.

Nobody is that perfect. Others like to interact with characters they can in some way identify with. Why do they roll their eyes at Mr. Perfect? Because he is not believable. Disbelief cannot be suspended with this type of character because they do not exist in life.

(Zydrate's Note: In all RP communities, this is generally referred to as a "Mary Sue")

Superbad:
Superbad is a character so evil they eat kittens on their Cheerios, happily slaughter their way through Stormwind on a daily basis and steal Ol’ Emma’s water bucket just for laughs. In general, they treat everyone around them like crap. And they are sooooo bad nobody in the universe could ever hope to quell them!

This one should be self-explanatory. Who wants to interact with someone that treats everyone around them so badly? Where’s the fun in that? If people enjoyed being treated like crap they’d go back to High School! Even bad guys need some redeeming qualities.

Drama Llama:
“Oh my life is so tragic! It is more tragic than yours could ever be! There is nothing that could ever be done to make my life less tragic! And nobody else cares!”

/eyeroll Yep. Nobody else cares. You know why? Because the drama llama seeks only for everyone else to fawn over her while she whines and wallows in misery. How is that fun for anyone but the llama? Others expending their energy trying to make someone feel better or help them out and that person continues to wallow. Eventually people run out of energy to expend and go off to do something fun.

The one factor these types have in common is extremes. Anything taken to extremes gets real old, real fast. A good character has a balanced personality. A good character is not only fun for the player, but fun for those around as well.

Next time we’ll talk about Character Backgrounds!

Seeya then!

Zydrate's Note: A lot of this section may be omitted because it had an emphasis on World of Warcraft Lore. Sorry about that.

Character Building

Part 2 - Background

Every character has a history of some sort buried away somewhere. This history filled with experiences shape the character’s personality, reactions, quirks, hobbies, style – everything about them. Sometimes finding that background is the most difficult task in character creation. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.

Often times you have to play the character before you can fully flesh out the background. Many role players and writers refer to this as “giving the character time to tell you about it” or waiting for the character to start “talking”. No, they aren’t suffering from delusions or multiple personality disorder. This is simply giving their subconcious imagination time to brew up what it needs to fit the character and manifesting it in a way that is easier to translate into written or role played form.

Taking time with the character, seeing how a few things play out, is usually the best way to build a background. If you have it all written out before you ever set foot in the world with the character, can sometimes be very limiting. The last thing you want to do is restrict yourself and the character you play beyond your ability to have fun with them.

That being said, you should have a general idea about where they come from before you let them speak. Here are a few tips to help you get started.

Know The Lore
You don’t have to be an absolute fiend about knowing the lore of the game to create a feasible background, however you should have a general idea of the history of the race you’re going to play and some idea of timeline.

Know The Race
Zydrate's Notes: I've done my best in my other thread to compile as many notes regarding "Spiralians" as I could. The game is incredibly vague but there's a few things that new roleplayers may be unaware of or get wrong. Be sure to do this research as much as you can, and please read the in-game dialog!

Avoid The Eyeroll
There are some common backgrounds that I see from many new role players that leave me rolling my eyes. I’ve heard the same comment from other long time role players as well. While this is RP and you are more than welcome to play what you like, if you want to interact with others and avoid the eyeroll response, try to avoid some of these common background traps.

The Vampire
While you may think its cool and spooky to play a vampire, when you announce to other players that you’re a vampire, you leave many of them rolling their eyes and putting your character name on a mental – if not actual – ignore list. If you want to play a vampire, check out Vampire: The Gathering and its subsequent additions. It’s a very good table top game for vampires.

The Daughter/Son of (Insert Major Lore Character Here)
It's generally considered bad form to make your character be related to a known NPC. It simply feels like you're trying too hard to seem "special" or "distinguished". There are MANY other ways to go about this, make sure not to fall into this trap.

The Half-Anything
Halfbreeds and Hybrids are a hilariously common background trap for many young roleplayers. And by young, I mean that in every sense. Too many times I've wandered the spammy galls of Gaia Online, finding every other profile to include some variant of "Half-Something". It's debateably worse than being related to a game's NPC... So the same notes apply. It's trying too hard, and it probably doesn't even exist in this lore.

The Catgirl
Whether it is born to a druid in cat form or the product of a mating between a druid in cat form and a wild tiger, it’s overdone, and simply put – ridiculous. You may think you’re being so creative with your cat-tail hanging down and your furry ears and you’re pointed teeth peeking out of your mouth, but if you go around claiming you’re a catgirl (or boy) don’t be surprised if you’re not taken seriously.

The Trauma Llama
Everything bad that could ever happen to a character has all happened to this character at least twice. Now while bad things are a part of everyone’s history, nobody enjoys a trauma llama that wallows in it, spouts it to every person they meet on the street, and tries to one-up everyone else’s traumatic events. If the trauma of the character’s life is the be-all, end-all of their background you’re going to have a difficult time getting anyone to take an interest. This is a game meant for fun. Trauma can, and does, help shape a character, but it shouldn’t be the sole focus of their life and history. Where is the fun in that?

Think Creative Without Being Outrageous
It is possible to create a wonderful, interesting, and colorful background for your character without being a victim of the eyeroll. Your character doesn’t have to be the leader's illegitimate half-demon catgirl in disguise to be interesting or fun to interact with. Don’t try to force importance, validity, or take any aspect of the background to extremes. A good background is like a good personality; well-balanced and feasible.

Do not underestimate the power of the ordinary. The Background of your character does not have to be grand or outrageous or even noteworthy. It is merely a tool to help shape the personality of the character, to help guide their actions and reactions when you play them. It’s there to give you something to talk about on occasion.

What’s wrong with being a mere notekeeper? A mere Soldier or Apprentice? It isn’t the background that makes the character, it is how you play the character that makes them. It is how that character acts and reacts with others. It is their views, their loves, their dislikes, their mannerisms. Let the character make the character. If you’re creative and confident enough to do that, you’ll do just fine.

Next time I’ll talk about Appearance.

See you then!

Character Building

Part 4 - Weaknesses

Throughout these articles I have discussed the need for balance. One of the features that make a character well balanced is weaknesses. Their weaknesses will contribute to their personality, behaviors, responses to others and different situations. Weaknesses are woven deeply into everything about the character and provide a more well-rounded personality. After all, nobody is perfect. Weaknesses contribute greatly to who a character – or person – is.

Well-crafted weaknesses are just as important and interesting as any other element of your character. It would be impossible to determine a character’s strengths without weaknesses to offset them. Weaknesses can also provide something to work towards. If, for example, the character is scared of dogs, that provides a goal to work toward; overcoming that fear of dogs.

Types of Weaknesses
There are certainly many types of weaknesses, but they can be most easily broken down into two; Psychological and Physical.

Psychological weaknesses are those that spring from the character’s own mind. Whether it is a fear of heights or narcississtic tendencies, they are self-defeating weaknesses. Psychological weaknesses are, in essence, controlled by the character’s own mind, which makes them especially difficult to overcome. They may have been created by some severe trauma in the character’s past or perhaps some other event that brought it on. However it came to be, it is part of the character and may or may not be something that can be overcome.

Physical weaknesses are of the sort that affect the character’s physical appearance or abilities. Physical weaknesses can also cause psychological ones that are closely intertwined. A physical weakness might include a missing limb, sensory loss (blindness, deafness), vertigo, or some sort of disease or condition such as allergies. Physical weaknesses can be caused by injury, disease, birth defect or any number of other factors that can affect physical appearance or ability.

Severity
Not all weaknesses are of the debilitating variety. Some are small, just little quirks of a sort. Some are humorous, some are sad, some are so outrageous we find ourselves trying to fix the person we encounter with it simply to have it gone. Sometimes we give our characters weaknesses without even realizing we’ve done so. Is your character bigoted toward another race? Do they drink to excess? Are they lazy, dishonest, scared of the dark? Do they have a teddy bear that must be with them at all times? Are they promiscuous? These are all weaknesses that help to round out the character.

When deciding the severity of your weaknesses, however, be sure that you don’t write yourself into a role play corner and leave yourself with a character that is unplayable. I have a friend that wrote a character that has issues with his foot. Severe enough to keep him from adventuring. He recently realized that this made it very difficult to get anything done with the character and is working on a role play reason to make the character viable again. My friend is an excellent and creative RPer so I have faith he will have no problem coming up with a creative and believable way to make this happen, but it helps to illustrate the point here. All things in moderation. Don’t defeat yourself and your character before you’ve even started playing it.
Reasoning

If you are going to build a weakness into your character, be sure there is a believable reason behind it. Do they dislike the Strangers because one of them stole his prized shield? Are they repulsed by the smell of the clockworks? Did they lose their left pinky toe in the fight with Vanaduke? Be creative but be believable. The weaknesses must fit the persona, not just be tacked on because you think they are “cool”.

In-Play Happenings
Sometimes weaknesses can come from happenings in current RP. These can either be temporary or permanent, depending on the situation. Whatever the case, again, make sure they are believable. When coming up with other happenings that influence your character, make sure it is not something you’ve already done to death. If your character is possessed by demons every Tuesday, others are not likely to give the reaction you’re looking for. They are more likely to roll their eyes and relegate you to a forgotten corner of obscurity.

Avoid The Most Common Trap
The single most common weakness trap is “Sir Buford is afraid of failure.” Now, if played properly, this can be a valid weakness, however quite often it is seen as a cop-out for someone trying to run Mr. Perfect who never has failures, and has no weakness. Remember, weaknesses can be fun! They don’t have to be huge and traumatic. Be creative and go with what fits the character.

Next time I’ll give a brief summary of these articles and talk a bit about Believability.

See you then!

Role Play 101: Drama In RP: How Much is Too Much?

Every story must have some conflict or drama to be interesting. When it involves RP, how much is too much?

Every player has their own tolerance threshold for character drama. Some are going to have a fairly high tolerance, some are going to have a fairly low one, and some it will depend on what they have recently been involved in, how believable the drama is, and how original it is. Personally, I only rarely create major dramatic threads for my characters. Why? Because they get real old, real fast. I rarely get involved in other people’s major plot lines. Why? Same reason.

Part of the problem with major RP threads is the time commitment. Most major drama threads require a commitment of time either in game or in written RP that many folks have trouble making. This is a busy world, things happen and the larger the storyline, the more people involved, the greater the chance that someone will have trouble meeting the time obligations due to real life.

There is also the interest factor. I can attest to the fact that after waiting for days on end for the next person to do their part, interest wans. You want to move on, do other things, spend your time on something that is moving rather than wasting it waiting.

RP Is For Fun
The one point I cannot stress enough is that RP is for fun. It is not supposed to feel like work. It is not supposed to create stress. It should leave all participants with the feeling that they enjoyed themselves. It should not leave anyone feeling bruised, angry, or in any other way stressed out.

I realize that many people find the long, drawn out, dramatic role plays fun but I ask you, for how long? For whom? Please stay tuned as I explain.
At one point in the rp community on my (old) server there was a chick, we’ll call her Chiclet to protect her identity, that wasn’t content unless she was surrounded by huge dramatic rp. If there wasn’t huge drama going on that she could somehow switch the spotlight to her, she would create it. She became a bit of a joke among role players with her “weekly demon possession” and people quickly learned to avoid her.

Now there are many reasons why Chiclet became a joke. First off there was the overuse of old plots. She had been possessed by demons no less than four times that I am aware of. One possession well played (which I have never seen done) can be an interesting plot. More than that and people yawn and walk away. It’s too much! It is not believable and if it was poorly done the first time, the second and third won’t be any better.

Chiclet never allowed for down time either. It would be wave upon wave of huge dramatic RP. She was possessed, she was dying, she was pregnant, she was pregnant with a dying possessed catgirl… You get the idea. After a while, others get tired of expending their time and energy.

Finding The Line
There is a definite line in dramatic RP and some people are very good at not crossing it. Others, not so good. The difficult part is finding that line in the first place.

RP is meant to mirror reality in many ways. Even though we're in a fantasy setting, the aspects of life, of believability are what draw people back. They want a glimpse of people, situations, places, creatures they will otherwise never see. They want a story to entertain them for a few hours here and there. They want to interact with that story and influence it and have it affect their characters in return.

Because this is a fantasy setting, we’re pushing the line of believability every day. However, you can push the setting believability line a lot further than you can push the character believability line. Characters should mirror life much closer than any other aspect of your story. Their life path and how they deal with it are the elements that will draw others back or repel them.

Life is full of ups and downs. I know for a fact that there are times when it feels like it is nothing but downs, but truly there are ups too. When looking at a character as portrayed in RP there are a few things to consider when planning their plot. First off, if you only give the character down moments, never any up moments, you’re going to turn others off really fast.

The character that is the perpetual downer that ONLY has bad things happen, has them happen three times a day, and is so traumatized by every single one of them that they can never be happy is not very interesting. People reading, or participating in, a story like for things to get better. Like for the character to have ups as well as downs. After all, if nothing ever gets better, what is the point in trying? People don’t like to have hope killed. Hope keeps us, as human beings, plugging along through our lives even when things are bad. If the characters in our entertainment have no hope, it creates a sense of fear that we have none either.

How the character deals with it is another point that can draw people in or repel them. Time to talk honestly here. Overall, tragedy makes people uncomfortable. We feel helpless in our lack of ability to fix it. Sometimes we can do something to help ease it, but overall, we’re not truly comfortable again until it is gone. If we can watch that character actually work towards improving their situation, we can follow the story with pleasure because it builds up that sense of hope. The “mud puddle” character is not going to accomplish that. What is the “mud puddle” character you ask? That is the character that falls into the mud puddle and instead of trying to climb out, just sits there, splashing around in the dirty water, saying, “Oh no! Oh no! I’ve fallen into a mud puddle!”

Because we only see the characters for such a small amount of time, every moment that we do see them that is influenced by the downs is going to be magnified. Because we don’t see the flashes through the day of them just staring at the sun daydreaming, or sleeping peacefully at night. What we do see is intensified by the short amount of time that we see it. Some drama is great for a story. But give your “readers” breathing space or you may find yourself RPing alone.

Now if you are sitting there insisting that your character is defined only by tragedy, then I have nothing further to say to you. You’re stuck in the mud puddle, you don’t want to get out, and nothing anyone says is going to convince you otherwise. However if you’re the one reading this that wants there to be more to your character that a string of cheap misery tricks, read on!

No Firm Numbers
Nobody can give you firm numbers on how long you should wait between dramatic events. RP, like life, should be fluid. It should not be forced. Let it flow and take it’s own path. If it feels too soon for something else to happen, likely it is WAY too soon. The owner of the character is always the last one to recognize this.

While many role players will say their character “talks” to them, we all do have some control over the path they take. And you should exert that control on occasion to make sure the character is not only fun to play but fun to interact with. Role playing alone isn’t nearly so much fun!

If you’ve played out a major dramatic storyline, give your character some time off. Let them run around doing mundane things for a while. Take them fishing, to an evening out in a pub, for an afternoon walk in the park with their pet worg. Let them live a normal life for a while.

If your character has a tendency towards depression, give them a few moments of “uptime” here and there. Let them enjoy themselves while questing with others or find something they do enjoy for a while. If it is something they’ve done alone, let them talk to others about it. Eeyore is cute, but after a while his bummer attitude gets a little old.

Be Creative
As with anything involved in rp, be creative. Down time doesn’t have to mean dull time. With a bit of creativity you could even make sitting on a curb eating cheese interesting. Be imaginative! Is there something simple that you don’t often play out with your character? Well, try it! Something totally off the wall that they’ve never done? Do it! The really fun part is the “why” behind it. Give it a shot! Try walking through a city, but don’t just walk! Interact! Set up a macro that has the character nod at those they pass or bump into them or something else.

Nothing is going to be perfect every time. Nothing is going to be audience captivating every time. But if you keep trying, keep testing new things, keep the audience entertained without forcing depression down their throats, you’ll have more fun than you could imagine. Gloom, despair and agony are not the only path to interesting role play.

I have said it before in other articles; Never underestimate the power of the ordinary. Make it a challenge for yourself to take something ordinary and turn it into something extraordinary. So you’re standing at the mailbox reading a letter. What can you do to make it fun? Interesting? To draw others in? Giggle at the letter? Start talking back to it as if the author could hear you? If walking through town, what can you make happen by tripping over that warpstalker’s tail? Make it a challenge to yourself. Take an ordinary situation and challenge yourself to make it something else. If you like, come back here and tell me about it. I would love to hear your story and I’m sure others would too!

Zydrate's Note: The first part of this was personalized for the actual writer of all these articles, but it all leads up a very specific point so I'll simply replace her bio with, well, mine.

Role Play 101: The Other Side of the Pixels

I’m going to touch on a subject that all players, not just role-players, should keep in mind. It may seem like it has nothing to do with RP and therefore has no place in this series of articles, but I assure you it does. It has a very firm place in all interactions we have online and I hope people will read it and take it to heart.

Who Am I? Who Are You?
Hi. I'm Zydrate. I like to write stories and play video games. My home life is not terribly impressive; I'm 23 and having trouble finding a job. As a result this puts a strain on my home life. I live with my brother, mother who in turn also lives with her mother. My brother has mental issues which prevent him from getting a job as well. My entire family has various forms of depression of varying severity.
I have dreams and daydreams, I think every day about what I'm going to do the next. I have wishes and goals and theories.

In other words, I am a human being on the other side of that computer; a real person with real feelings that can be damaged by carelessness. Just as I am sure you are too.

It’s a tragedy that so often that fact is forgotten or blatantly disregarded in a world that conducts so much of its business, communication and social interaction online. We may be utilizing a heartless machine to communicate, but the being doing the communication is still human and should be treated as such.

Sometimes it’s far too easy to forget that person on the other side. Many times it is incredibly easy to misinterpret something that was typed or to type something that seems fine at the moment but might act like a fiery brand on the temper of the person on the other side. Other times it is far too easy to hide behind the Great Wall of Internet Anonymity and be an ass.

Verbal vs. Electronic
While a study in human nature determining what the exact percentage of our communication is nonverbal is nigh impossible, fair estimates put it firmly somewhere between 85-95% with 93% being the most common approximation. So that means that approximately 93% of the meaning of our message is conveyed through nonverbal cues; tone, volume, inflection of voice, facial expression, body language and eye contact. Literally hundreds of messages can be conveyed through half a dozen spoken words by the nonverbal signals we send.

Our world is moving deeper and deeper into the digital age. The average person conducts somewhere between 40-60% of their daily communication electronically, either by email, text, chat programs, social networking sites, etc. Each year that amount increases as electronic communication becomes faster, cheaper, easier. Our youth grow up in a world where instant, anonymous communication is the norm. Yet none of those forms allow for nonverbal cues.

Now considering the message conveyed in the two previous paragraphs, is it any wonder that it is so easy for drama, cruelty, depression, anger and frustration to explode so fast and so painfully over the internet?

The Great Wall of Internet Anonymity
It really is easy to hide behind internet anonymity. That dark little voice in the back of your head that reminds you that person doesn’t know you. You don’t know them. You don’t have to look them in the eye, you don’t have to acknowledge their feelings, you don’t have to witness the pain you cause. We are empowered by being anonymous.

This freedom from having to acknowledge others as sentient beings with viable feelings and emotions that should be respected leads to hordes of people across the cyberverse that display little or no regard for others. They don’t know that elf/troll/dwarf/noob/pug personally so they feel no responsibility to treat them with common courtesy.

I’m sure there are a number of people that have stopped reading by now or will stop shortly but think really hard. Examine your behaviors and really look at them. Consider them from the other side of the computer.

“Noob.” “WTF! Idiot!” “You suck!” “OMG you can’t heal/tank/dps!”

It’s so easy to type. It is so easy to picture the fingers typing the message. But when the same messages are directed back, they don’t feel very good, do they? You feel angry, hurt, confused. It’s even easier to lash back because we feel justified in our anger. “They started it! I’m going to finish it!” syndrome.

Sometimes the messages are more subtle. How we type a phrase always has the chance of being misinterpreted. Wording is a very tricky matter if you don’t pay attention.

Study the three following sentences and see if you can pick out which one is the best and why the others might cause problems even though they all say the same thing.

#1 - “If you don’t pick up your dps you’re going to get kicked out.”
#2 - “You even going to try getting your dps up, noob?”
#3 - “Your dps seems a little low. Do you need some help figuring out why?”

#1 – The other person has just been threatened. It might have been meant as a warning or advisement, but the more common interpretation is going to be seeing it as a threat. Being threatened causes a person to become defensive; feeling the need to defend/protect themself. The most common reaction is going to be to strike back.
#2 – The other person has just been insulted. When typed it might have been meant in a joking way however there are no nonverbal cues to communicate that so the more common interpretation is going to be as a deliberate and cruel insult. Once again, the person has been put on the defensive. Most common response is likely to be the same as the threat.
#3 – It should be obvious that number 3 is a more correct path to prevent hurt feelings and explosive drama. I hope to many it is, but it’s also easy to forget. In number three it has been communicated that there may be a perception that something is wrong and there is an offer to figure out why this is so. There is no accusation, no insult, no threats.

Nobody responds well to threats, insults, accusations in any form. Always think about what you are going to type before you hit that enter key, sending it into someone’s face.

One should never feel justified in cruelty. You may be stuck in that group of idiot puggers. Sure, someone may be acting like an ass. Does imitating that behavior make us so much better?

In-Character Is Not an Excuse
What does any of this have to do with Role Play? It has quite a bit actually. You see I can’t tell you the number of times I have witnessed someone using role play as another wall to be cruel. One more excuse to hide behind. Not only are you anonymous behind a computer, you have yet a second face to use as a shield. One that is imaginary.

I have seen “characters” mob another one with hate filled comments carrying on for days to the point where the receiving player is so hurt and upset they lash out, hide, quit or engage in defensive behavior. Then the phrase “Oh it was IC hate” is flippantly tossed out as if that makes it all better.

I, myself, have been the target of in-game hate mail thinly disguised as role-play from not only an anonymous player but character as well. Insults bordering on OOC or some of them blatantly OOC meant precisely to be cruel and cause damage. Hidden behind an excuse of “but it’s in character”.

IC anger/hate/maliciousness/cruelty should be understood and explained before ever beginning. If it happens spontaneously out of the blue, communicate with the other person and make sure it’s okay. Discuss it and maybe come up with a fun plot, rather than one person feeling abused. If IC hate/anger/drama starts to hurt the player, they need to speak up reasonably about it and the other party needs to be willing to drop it and move on to something else. Period.

The moment a player expresses that a role play behavior directed at them is bothering them out of character, the other person needs to stop and the players need to consult. Maybe a compromise can be found, maybe the characters just need to not be in the same stories or they need to pretend the other doesn’t exist. Either way, it cannot be allowed to continue. The player’s needs always outweigh the role-play.

Don’t think that someone is being too sensitive because one character abusing their character bothers them. Our characters are extensions of some part of ourselves. Whether the character is the law abiding paladin, the pocket-picking rogue, the puppy-sacrificing cultist, they are the creations of the player. They are that player’s work. When creating a character for role play or writing we always put a bit of our heart, our soul into that character. Without it we could not make that character seem real.

However even that tiny little piece of ourselves that we build into each character can cause pain and we need to be aware of that. Courtesy is not so difficult. If you want to interact with someone’s character, especially in a negative way, it is basic courtesy to communicate with them. Especially if it seems feelings might be getting hurt in the interaction.

Whether in role play, in groups, on the forums or in chat, it is important to break down that wall. Don’t use the Great Wall of Anonymity as an excuse to be an ass. Courtesy is not so difficult. Kindness goes a very very long way. One tiny bit of kindness could improve a person’s day one hundred fold, prevent weeks of drama, and does it really cost so much to spare?

It doesn’t take very long to examine what you type before you do so. Let’s put faces back on the person we communicate with.

Hi. I’m Zydrate. It’s a pleasure to meet you and I hope we can be friends. I will be kind to you even if I feel you are not kind to me because I know on the other side of that screen, we are not so different.