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Old 08-06-2008, 03:22 PM   #4
Milawe
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: USA
Home MUD: Threshold RPG
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Home MUD: Archons of Avenshar
Posts: 653
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Re: a little problem

Some characters I find impossible to roleplay because I simply don't have the knowledge base it would require to do the character justice, so I try to find character concepts that I can research or have pretty heavy working knowledge in already.

I do understand what you're saying. We have a player who wants to be this really evil, nasty, lying, horrible person. In real life, he's a really nice guy and works with the rescue squad. His problem is that he always gets busted in lies as his character because the player simply isn't a good liar. To be able to realize the potential of the character he created, he would have to be able to perform skills he simply does not have. It was horribly frustrating for him, and it was very hard for me to figure out what the problem was.

I think we had a discussion a few years ago on TMS on how to play characters that you, the player, have no working knowledge of. How do you play a character that is smarter than you really are? How do you play a character that knows more about instruments than you do? How do you play a character that is more likeable than you are in person? How do you play a character that is more diplomatic and personable than you are in real life? I think we settled on the opinion that you end up playing characters with exaggerated parts of your personality with which you can identify, but you can't make yourself into a good liar to play a thief if you're simply not good at lying.

I think what I usually tend to do when I really branch out in characters that don't suit my personality is to have a list written up of a basic guideline for my character. The lists are often pretty simple based on the original design of the character. Then I figure out how much flexibility I allow the character to stray from the core concepts, and then I try to figure out how much knowledge the character has on subjects that come up often. Since I ended up having to play so many characters, I have several of these. It's much easier when I'm invested in just ONE character so that I can have a much more detailed list and time to really learn my character outline.
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