Need a bit of help...

[Talcian]

I've been having trouble keeping interest in characters for some time now. Seems I'll get a character to 30-40 and then just quit playing them. I think what my problem might be is coming up with a rp that keeps my interest. Usually I'll come up with a really awesome idea, start playing it, and then find out I don't like it as much as I had orginally hoped. I flesh out the character well before beginning too, background, motives, etc. Though I do find sometimes I have trouble really justifying why my character wants to say, join a cabal, or kill for instance.

Any tips, webpages, advice, anything would be great. Read the essays half a dozen times good stuff in there, but I think maybe I'm needing a little more help getting... more in depth maybe? Not sure. Thanks.

[MysticR]

First of all, find a class you really want to play. Make sure you want to play it, and set a delpass once you make it. Don't burn yourself out on the rp before you even roll the character. Decide on the background and flesh the character out a little bit, but flesh the character out as you go along, because that is how it should be. Books don't flesh out characters right at the beginning, you see more and more as the book goes on. Or at least, that is how I believe in playing characters. As for cabals, if you can't find a reason to join one, don't. Because that makes for really crappy rp. Making a character to fit with the Cabals rp is fine, but making up a rp just to scrape by to fit in, is really kind of lame. So unless you can totally justify joining, or why you want to join, I wouldn't recommend it. Any character I have had in a cabal has had a solid reason to want to. Even my current ones have good reasons, if you can't find a good reason, I can't encourage you to join one.

Just my 2 cents.

[Deykari]

If I have a really complex idea I find it hard to keep interest sometimes. What I usually do is think of a really basic idea, "I'm a goodie and I want to go and kill all the baddies!" and then apply some sort of twist or spice to it, however subtle or strong.

Playing one character at a time helps me a lot. I always have just one character that I play, no more. I might create the odd new character, but I always delete them and focus on my main.

What I always do though, is create a char, get it to about rank fifteen, decide on a new race-class combo, repeat fifteen times until I find something I stick with. I can't help it, and I just have to go with it until I find something I want to stick with.

Dey

[Pali]

Make a character that you DON'T have solid long-term plans for. Just start playing it, and see where the game takes you. Just made a new character myself with that same idea.

[TheNewGuy]

Or make a char without a background, and sit at a bit over thirty and trash pk

[Iusedtobesomebody]

start with a short background, like how he/she came to join a guild. add any significant points that would define your RP. then go talk to people as your rank/get gear/etc. and see where your character takes YOU.

[jb5679]

I've often gotten bored or tired of my characters after being at 50 for awhile. To alleviate this I generally took a few days break and played some other games, focused more on something else, whatever and eventually found myself coming back...

[WagesofSin]

I've often gotten bored or tired of my characters after being at 50 for awhile.

I get this all the time too. It's like I hit 50, have nothing left to do because I no longer need to get ranks, spells/skills are already mastered, and I usually play character that leave people alone(i.e. seldom initiate PK).

[Deykari]

start with a short background' date=' like how he/she came to join a guild. add any significant points that would define your RP. then go talk to people as your rank/get gear/etc. and see where your character takes YOU.[/quote']

Sound advice. One thing that makes things really interesting for me is to do just that; have a short background (nothing detailed) then improvise character details/specifics/stories/whatever on the fly. It's challenging, keeps things interesting because you can just change your character about in different ways and things don't sound as 'scripted' as what some things can be. I'm guilty of it just as much as anyone, but it really makes me cringe to see set-piece, fully planned out background stories that people constantly re-tell all the time, that go into an awful lot of detail, and sound more as if it's the player telling you about the character, and not the character speaking about themself. It just sounds so 'scripted' and planned and not natural.

Try it though, it can be a lot of fun to let others shape your characters and have a character go into a completely different direction that you originally had in mind.

Dey

[MysticR]

I'll add two more cents to make four. Pretty much exactly what other people have said, just slightly different. I take a central idea about my character. What does he want, what does he do, what will he do. Only one. Then I flesh that out a little bit, and roll the character and do the desc based on the central idea. Then I just let my character flesh himself out as I go along.

[Talcian]

Thanks guys. I think I'll try that approach

[Fiere]

My favorite characters are always the ones that make me (and other people) laugh. Usually just a piece of just strange, far out RP, like the Dastard.