Rp Tutorials

When filling out vital statistics about my characters, like height and weight, I always look to their initial play-by. Most celebrities have their height listed somewhere on the Internet. Some even have full measurements. However, more often than not, their weight is not listed. This is when I look to the art of guestimation. To be honest, I've never been good at guessing anyone's height or weight or even the square footage of a house. I'm a writer; numbers aren't my forte.

So, what is a writer to do when the overwhelming need to guestimate something like weight is encompassing? Or rather, what do you roleplayers do? Most Web sites that calculate BMI take into account age and the body's "average"* growth rate, so I imagine in teens, BMI tends to differ drastically when considering bodily development, self-image issues, and fad diets. Should I just list a body type, e.g. athletic, muscular, slim, etc., and just be done with it?

*I say that carefully because we all know everyone's body is different.

I have had these saved in my cdj from all the way back in '08 and I thought I would copy and post them here since there's been a few people interested in such things. So I bring you four crazy long character development survey/worksheets and one meme that also works as one.

( Follow the white rabbit )

So, finally went through and organized the millions of journals I've been collecting for the past ten years. As you can imagine, there's a bunch I have no need for. Sure, I could just go in and delete them, but that just seems like a waste. So, take a look and leave a comment. After such, I'll send you a PM with the password for the journal. After that, it's all yours.

( Read more... )

While this was originally written for the Gotham Falls game (gotham_mod ), where the Nolanization of comic characters is quite relevant, I think it might be rather useful for anyone looking to write in a darker, gritty world filled with hardship.
There has been lots of tutorials posted here about how to write good, multi-layered, well-researched, soundly motivated characters. This addition deals with creating characters that have messed up lives and suffering from the the results of living in dark places.

( In Gotham...bad things happen to good people... )

( Proactive vs. Reactive Characters )

I’ll admit it; so often I rely on how people sound in tv shows/films to determine how a character speaks; all Californians sound like Elle Woods and everyone from the South has a drawl, right? Maybe not.
When it comes to accents outside of my own little corner of the world, I’m hopelessly lost and I know the exasperation at watching shows and having everyone either have perfect Received Pronunciation or Dick Van Dyke Cockney Mockney accents but I’ve found the following links so, so helpful and hope they help others.

→ International Dialects of English Archive ; super dupy handy website featuring real people accents from around the world.

→ BBC Voices ; great for localised vernacular

I'm having one of those periods when you have great ideas, but the enthusiasm isn't shared between players. Instead of writing for lines, I'm writing for myself. However, all of these failed lines have left me dry in the creativity department. I think if I find the right PB, I might find that spark again, and I remember once seeing a comm here that suggested PBs. I haven't been able to find the link though. Does anyone remember the name of that comm off the top of their head?

While neck-deep in what is proving to be a difficult name search for a couple of new characters, I came across some new-to-me naming resources. Since I can't possibly be the only person who sucks at naming characters via imagination alone, I thought I'd share.

( My list behind cut, plus many great options contributed in comments. )

One of my biggest inspirations for coming up with characters is astrology -- yes, yes you've heard that all before but hear me out. Namely, I like the DARK SIDE of astrology: i.e. the astrology that focus on the flaws and irritating irritations that makes us human and make characters all the more fun to work with.

For your pleasure, I have linked some excerpts in the fake-cut below. Still not sure you want to click? Samples:

[ARIES]

Aries are reactive, not reasonable. By refusing to think before they act, Rams often ruin their chances for happiness by making wild assumptions without gathering all the facts. Being born without the humility gene has negated their ability to admit mistakes. Argue with one, and you'll suffer a barrage of irrational, angry shouting. Prove they are wrong, and they will react like that toddler who says, "Am not," then shrugs his baby shoulders and walks away.

( Follow the Fake Cut! )

Magic Baby Names

Enter some names, it gives you some more. Potentially very useful for those of us who are picky about character names.

Whether your character loves it or hates it, fashion can play a serious role in how your writing, and one that is often highly under-rated.

I remember one really great writer in a game I ran whose characters always came off so clearly and strongly right from the beginning of a scene, and a good chunk of that had to do with how this writer described them through and by the clothes they wore at the outset, which matched up perfectly with their different character's personalities. I was always impressed by how original she was and by how well she knew her characters by this seemingly insignificant aspect.

While one doesn't want to begin every scene with an itemized list of what their character is wearing, it can be super helpful--and enjoyable!--for you as a writer to think about how your character expresses themselves through their choice in clothing, whether they're passionate fashionistas or just pick up the closest thing off the floor. So! Here are some resources to get you started.

POLYVORE: By far my favourite place, this website allows you to create "sets" of clothing by compiling the pieces on a whole bunch of clothing-merchant websites. One thing I love about this is all the methods there are to sort by! Keywords, colours, price range, all at once! All of these help in really focusing your search for your character's fashion. You can see examples of character wardrobes for a high-school game in this post here.

ETSY: I should post this with a warning. You are probably going to want to buy every other article you see on here. But Etsy is a wonderful resource for those that have characters fond of vintage, hand-made, or one-of-a-kind articles. There could also be inspiration there for fashion in period-games in the "Costume" section (not to mention, good ideas for your character's quickly-approaching Halloween costume).

THINK GLEE: As the article points out, Glee fills out the cast wardrobe by going to real malls and buying actual things people wear. Who would have thought? If you have a modern-day game, check out the websites of average stores like Old Navy, Smart Set, Eddie Bauer, etc.



This post inspired entirely by Stardoll.

It's...

Character Develop-month

That means this month's theme is ways to create awesome characters. Here's some great stuff to get this month started (please share your own and don't feel like you only have to post character development stuff this month)!

100 Character Quirks to get you started.
When to Use Character Quirks (has a GREAT exercise I think would be great on a character application - how your character reacts to the arbitrary situation like the grocery store example).
Story Elements: Creating Well-Rounded Characters (I ESPECIALLY love this one and the things linked)
Holly Lisle. Everyone's favorite and go to website for advice.
Building Character: Particularly good for character descriptions


Also some other handy stuff I keep meaning to post:
Pixlr: Think of it as a legal version of photoshop you can use from your browser. It's fantastic.
Username Generator: Basically, this gives you random word combinations. For the most part, they suck (although there are some gems, such as sassyidol). However, they can be a great starting point for ideas.
Down For Everyone Or Just Me + Ding! It's Up: The first tells you if a website is down. The second tells you if a website is back up.
Valebrity: For the celeb RPers here, this validates whether a celebrity's twitter account is real.
Pic Resizer: For us too lazy to open photoshop.

So, I know I'm not the only one that has a bit of difficulty with personality at first!! You want your characters to fit a certain mold, maybe, but not to the point where they're a cardboard cut out of a certain character theme!

That's where this comes in handy!

It's called a Natal Chart.

"In natal astrology, a natal chart is a horoscope/astrological chart drawn for the exact time of an individual's birth at a particular place on Earth for the purposes of gaining information about the individual." — wikipedia

The neat thing about Natal Charts are that they aren't nearly as cut & dry as your sun sign is. For example, my sun sign is Cancer & I am a Cancer native through & through. But my Ascendant (shows our natural defenses and how we cope with day-to-day issues. It's basically the mask that everyone wears.) is a Libra. Which makes a lot of sense because I am ALWAYS trying to make sure that everybody is happy. I'm big on neutrality & Cancers are actually known for not being very neutral & rather over-protective. lol.

It explains all of it in your natal chart. It'll give you tons & tons of personality quirks that you can run off of. I didn't explain it TOO well, but if you give it a try, you'll definitely understand better!

Hopefully I helped somebody out!

This is a slightly modified and expanded version of a conversation I had with dea_caelesti where I was trying to explain to her what RP was. If you have any suggestions on how to improve it let me know!

( What is RP and How to Do It 101 )

Part 2 will come tomorrow as I am about to crash and I'm sure you all want to understand what I am typing here and considering I stuffed up all the LJ tags... well that is fast approaching!

There's been a lot of talk here recently about over-preparing, over-doing the histories and details of our muses when players just want to up and write something without creating family trees that include the life story of everyone up to cousin Samuel's Great-Auntie Elsbeth. I think a lot of players agree that when starting a line the freedom to move around and develop as you go is quite desirable, but when it comes to long-term characters in a game, getting into the nitty-gritty details not only improves the way you play your character, but also improves the ease and quality of writing scenes with others.

Setting scenes in real-life games, especially boarding-school ones, interactions frequently take place in the bedrooms of our characters. However, when writing these scenes much is left out if a room is only described as "a mess," or the pace of the scene becomes awkward as the author tries to note all items of importance in case one of them catches the others' eye (especially when this occurs with every new character that sees said room). Until recently I had a tendency to be guilty of doing both.

Writing a scene with a new player in my game, in which our characters retired to one's dorm room for tea, the player linked me to a post in their journal which had a complete description of the character's room. I could read it and from there know what aspects of the room my character would take most notice of without awkwardly including this long description in the scene. I was so impressed by this that I started writing some up for my own characters. Writing scenes in these locations became so much easier with a vastly improved flow and development on both sides, and gave me a lot more insight into my character's minor or more quiet interests.

We learn best by example, so here are a few samples from my own characters and the characters of the player who introduced me to these.

Will | Liam | Morgan | Omar

( Tips and Pointers: And how should I begin? )