[Brody]

Although it's true that the games we play are often used as escapist fantasy where we don't want to deal with realistic elements, it's actually enjoyable sometimes to play a character that manifests handicaps and other "flaws." My characters have included a blind Timonae, a one-legged bisexual computer hacker, a one-armed witch hunter, and a speech-challenged master of ceremonies.

What kind of flaws have you played out? How do you enjoy "flawed" characters compared to the steady hero types?

[Ilkidarios]

I think most good characters need a flaw. If not as major as the ones you listed, I'd say minor flaws just add that realness that a character needs. Most guys I play have flaws, it makes a character interesting.

[Delerak]

My characters tend to vary with flaws. No one is perfect so sometimes I will play them very dim witted. Sometimes I play them very sharp witted. Sometimes arrogant, sometimes shy. It depends on what I list in the characters background, and have set in his character document I keep on my computer while playing him.

[Chayesh]

Reality is far too real and true is stranger than fiction...I'll stick to escapist RP. No flaws in my characters.

[prof1515]

Originally Posted by (Chayesh @ Nov. 28 2005,15:15) Reality is far too real and true is stranger than fiction...I'll stick to escapist RP.  No flaws in my characters.

Not having a flaw incorporated into your character would pretty much constitute a large one in both your character's design, your character's personality, and your potential for good RP.  It's the imperfections in a character that help define them as something other than a cookie-cutter cliche.  In other words, you've simply turned from an IC flaw to major OOC flaws.

That, of course, is just my opinion, but I've never seen a "flawless" character that wasn't boring whether it be in film, literature, or MUDs.

As for my characters, some of my more recent ones include the following flaws in their personality:

A man who followed a religion based around honesty and chivalry and who sought to join the King's elite army found that he could not without sufficient funds to supply his own armor and training (to a level that would gain him entry).  He found himself quite comfortable with resorting to poaching, both an unchivalrous activity to say nothing of being in violation of the King's Law, in order to raise the funds he needed.  All the while, he continued to go to his church and pretend that he wasn't a total hypocrite.

A man who was abandoned as a child and forced to raise himself had grown up bitter and with so much rage internalized that he could hardly look upon another person without feeling hate.  He lucked into an opportunity for employment that would both help him get by as well as prevent him from getting killed, yet found that he hated the assignment:  to gather information, something which required him to interact with others and was something he was completely incapable of doing with any success.

A man who was born into wealth yet wasn't in line to inherit it.  He's the first born of the third born, is more capable than his relatives, yet knows he has to prove himself if he hopes to overcome the circumstances of his father's birth order.  He knows it's possible, yet he has one flaw which is critical to his success.  He knows the way to gain influence in his family is politics, yet he's probably the most scrupled member of his family.  If he wants to succeed politically and prove his worth as the leader of the family, he has to gamble his success and effort as well as try to balance his own ethics against the questionable ethics he may have to employ to meet his own ambitions.  He's probably not capable of doing this, since he actually has a good sense of right and wrong.  However, he is deeply biased in some respects as well, viewing those below his station in life with respect yet those outside his culture with complete disregard (almost as animals).  He can calmy talk about the need to show compassion for his fellow countrymen (something most of his fellow countrymen don't do), yet sees no problem with wiping out what he deems less advanced cultures in the name of civilization.

A man who despised the upper classes of society, yet found himself working alongside them.  Unfortunately for him, he even found himself in a friendship with one of them.  And yet, he was unable to shake his dislike for the social strata which divided them, regardless of how his social superior treated him.  There was simply a disgust for the social inequity they shared that made him despise the friendship in a way.  Additionally, he longed to return to his own neighborhood, yet his situation was working vastly to his advantage.  He was faced with achieving the goal of providing for his family everything he wanted, yet to do it, he had to swallow his pride and work alongside those he blamed for his family's situation.  If he returned to his family, he'd have to give up the situation that would help them, yet every second apart made him long all the more to return.

Those are just a few.  In every case, there's far more to their personality, including numerous other flaws which I've omitted for the sake of brevity (a hard thing for a historian like me to do *grin* ).  In each case, the character has turned out differently than I expected and even had further encounters with situations contrary to their personality which has provided even more conflict for them.  And in all of the above cases, it made the role-play all the more enjoyable.

Here's hoping the present character finds even more conflict as a result of his flaws.  

Take care,

Jason

[Chayesh]

Bah...text often has a way of stealing the sarcasm of a post.

Sorry for a poor attempt at humor....bleh

[Ilkidarios]

I'd try using italics more often.

I mean,

I'd try using italics more often.


Works pretty good for me.

[kalaazar]

Flaws are usually great stuff. And I'm a big fan of doing things BADLY. That warrior who struggles to put their armor on and then clanks into things because they can't very well see through the narrow slit in their visor. Fun. That sneaky liar who happens to say the very wrong thing at the wrong time. Fun. Or even the more subtle flaws seem to add so much more depth to the character.

But lately. Well, maybe just today, I don't know. Me and my character actually wish we were, well, special. And I don't mean the handicapped kind.

I've been trying to play a plain girl forever, but it's really hard to write a desc that says PLAIN, without actually spelling it out. So with this attempt I did. Something along the lines of, 'This character is not particularly remarkable or memorable in any way. Her face consists of a mouth, a nose, and two eyes.' It's longer than that but you get the jist.

I had considered myself reasonably self-confident out of character, I'm quite pretty in RL, so why would I have trouble playing a plain girl? Oh, but how wrong I was. It actually made me cry tonight, out of character and I feel like the silliest girl for crying over a game. Over a character -I- made up. Mind you she isn't the typical wall flower. She doesn't blush, or dart her eyes away, she's more of the 'I'm invisible anyway, so who cares what I say or do' type.

But there I was sitting with some uber beautiful characters and, I can't quite pin it down, but it got to me. It got to me hard.

So, eh. I guess in conclusion, I understand why women especially rarely play anything other than gorgeous. Even with a healthy ego outside of the mud, it's just.... hard.. to be the outcast. I admire you guys and girls who play ugly. I really do.

[Danlor]

Slightly off topic to start with, but:

I completely understand where you're coming from, Kal. I had something sort of like that happen to me with an evil character I was playing. He was a little imp, the only one on that mud, and he was just despicable and gross. I could only play him for an hour or two at a time because I would start to get this feeling like 'someone' was watching me over my shoulder and I would start sweating and looking around the room, expecting someone to be there.


Back on topic, though, I haven't played a character with any physical flaws before. I perfer mental flaws.

I remember one character in particular had an encounter with a sith when he was six or seven (it was a Star Wars mud) and the sith put a mind block on him. Basically it made the character a simple-minded, happy-go-lucky kind of guy. But there was a medication he could take to lessen the effects for a short time, and he would become aware of all the stupid things he'd done, and the way people had treated him because of his simple-mindedness.

Unfortunately I stopped mudding for a while, and when I came back the people who had been involved in the RP had also left for RL reasons, so I never got to see that RP to it's conclusion .

[kalaazar]

That mind block sounds fun. I especially like that you got a chance to play out the moments of lucidity and reflection of your character.

Yaaaaah. I might have been a bit off topic, but I didn't intend to be. When I see the words 'steady hero type' I get this picture in my head of some beautiful character who is perfect in every way and nice to everyone and their dog. Maybe my characters don't quite fit in the 'flawed' category. I tend to play people who have subtle flawed misconceptions of the world that influence their behavior.

For example I played a girl who never let anyone touch her, not even her hand, simply because she was under the misguided notion that if she did, she'd fall in love and have some illicit affair. I realize this isn't something as grandiose as a speech impediment, or a missing limb, but still.. Maybe all characters should be flawed to some extent, but then what seperates the 'hero' from the 'non-hero'?

[Danlor]

I'm sorry--I didn't mean to imply that you'd gone off topic. I meant that I was going to start off topic by not speaking about a handy-capped character of my own, but of a character where I'd had a similar experience with feeling something about the character.

[kalaazar]

Aww, I must have misread it. My own apologies.