Thoughts on pre-made characters/roles?

[ayzrules]

I've been roleplaying on a different website for a while, and one thing that I've noticed there is that everyone seems to do these pre-made characters/roles for the RPs.

Sometimes it'll just be a name or a title/archetype plus a few bulletpoints, but other times it gets as detailed as this (not my character description)-

i. Byrne, Emaleth
ii. Emaleth Nykteria ["Of the Night"]
iii. If the gossip mongers of Haggy can count on anyone, it is Emaleth. She is like a shadow on the wall, for the way she seems to magically know all that goes on of these haunted halls. Although she knows all the rules that are broken and all the hearts that are crushed by deeds most unseemly, she refuses to take part in such revelries herself. She has her eyes on the prize, and getting caught up in pathetic merriment now would only distract her from her ultimate goals. Far from being a snitch, Em uses other’s secrets to illicit favors and loyalty. Most just assume she has a stick in somewhere unpleasant because she has never learned how to let loose, but all of the Byrne clan has a terrible secret. Their fortunes have dwindled to a pathetic state, and they have had to secretly sell almost all of their possessions of worth just to maintain their lavish persona. The dowry to Em’s betrothed was vast, with powerful objects and ancient texts since her family has never boasted of great power. That, too, has been sold off, and if her fiance’s family were to know the truth, her impending union may be disintegrated. Emaleth has to balance carefully to maintain her image of perfection, for if anyone were to suspect that she had nothing to show for her name, her future would be as dark as her heart.
iv. FC: Sara Witt

(from urstyle.com/styles/553167)

The way it works on that site, most people either have a "reservation" system (first-come, first-serve) or you have to "audition" for a character, so you basically get a character based on how much GM likes your sheet (if there are multiple people "auditioning" for the same character). If you don't get the character you want, tough luck. They'll usually let you pick another character that hasn't been taken and run with it, but I find that most times I don't want to do that

I just wanted some of y'alls thoughts on that+pre-made character archetypes in general? I will admit that I don't mind being assigned a name/FC that much, and I think the pre-mades are a good system to ensure sort of """diversity""" among the characters (so that way there aren't like 20000 edgy emos in on RP), but after several bad experiences with the audition system I am really adverse to that. I don't mind the system that we have on RPG either (where you just make up a character on your own). I know people here/on other forum RP sites who will do vague/loose archetypes, which I don't mind either. But I think it's really fucking stupid to put in tons of work/effort for a character that you might not get to play, and a first-come first-serve system isn't completely fair either. I've been trying to think of a happy medium (ie very vague archetypes/roles), but I'm not really sure if there is one. I still think just player-created OCs are the best way to go, but again sometimes the archetypes/roles/pre-mades can be useful.

Thoughts????

[BrokenPromise]

It's an interesting concept. From the Gm's perspective, it helps weed out willy-nilly roleplayers. That is to say that one needs to want to participate in the RP badly enough that they are willing to face rejection. On the other hand, I like seeing my players come up with their own ideas with my guidelines being the only restriction. I've had good luck in that most of my players have been fairly creative.

I don't think the system works for every RP, and it does limit the players to choosing only what the GM will allow them. I suppose you could make a light version of the system. You could divide the rolls by RPG classes or their rolls. But this creates other problems. When I recruit for my RP, I genuinely expect 20% of my players to leave just as things start, and another 20% in the months to follow. If I have plans for certain characters, I might not have them once things get going.

I also don't feel it works for every player. I tend to get excited about the prospect of jumping into a world with a character I created. My story might not work if I was denied a particular archtype, and I would lose interest rather easily. But if someone is more interested in the idea of the RP than actually making a character for it, it's not an issue.

It can work, but it does require a different approach. I don't think it would work for the type of RPs I like to run.

[AlteredTundra]

I think it's a neat idea. Though it might seem a tad controlling to some players, others, like me, look at it like answering a casting call. I mean, in essence, we do audition for RPs with our own characters, so these seem like the reverse of that. Instead of us auditioning with our characters for the RP, we are auditioning our writing skillset for characters/roles already made for us. That, in itself, is highly interesting to me.

I considered doing it myself for one of the games I have GM'd in the past. Maybe I'll do it in a future one.

[Rai]

For a GM this is a delight. You can create characters types and roles that need to be filled and simply let others work within a boundary to sell the character right and boom you've got a coherently directed story. But for the player you'd have to be down for seeing the story and characters the GM is making come to life without intruding beyond the subtle actions and turns the characters can make.

Maybe to bring a medium you could have the GM lay out roles that need to be filled and character archetypes and such. Have people apply with a brief summary of their idea of a character. You choose the one that you like the most as GM THEN you let them make a CS, and work with them on it also so you both are happy with it. As the story progresses as long as the players feel like they are making a change in how things progress then its fine to keep it rather narrow in progression. You want to get to point a to b and so forth with the in between being something everyone can agree on would be fun and work with the story.

[PrinceAlexus]

For a GM this is a delight. You can create characters types and roles that need to be filled and simply let others work within a boundary to sell the character right and boom you've got a coherently directed story. But for the player you'd have to be down for seeing the story and characters the GM is making come to life without intruding beyond the subtle actions and turns the characters can make.

Maybe to bring a medium you could have the GM lay out roles that need to be filled and character archetypes and such. Have people apply with a brief summary of their idea of a character. You choose the one that you like the most as GM THEN you let them make a CS, and work with them on it also so you both are happy with it. As the story progresses as long as the players feel like they are making a change in how things progress then its fine to keep it rather narrow in progression. You want to get to point a to b and so forth with the in between being something everyone can agree on would be fun and work with the story.

@Rai

It needs a balence, you need allow enough room to keep people allowing some creativity.

Like maybe having to have certain classes or roles but beyond that rest is up to player on direction.

Ie, knight, rough age and rank.

[Hero]

I think pre-made roles are a way to guide the rp in the direction the GM wants. Not too big a fan of pre-maded characters unless maybe the GM has something very specific in mind, but it could be cool.

[skidcrow]

A GM does the hard work for me? Where do I sign up?

(context: I hate trying to come up with character concepts)

[Dion]

I've done this for the first time (well, half-done this) where I basically made players follow a certain theme for the team they'd be on in the IC. I can tell from the lessons I learned from that that this is something I will do in the future as well (and possible double down, pre-selecting themes I want to see and/or character types).

One thing I worry about is that, with certain niché RP's, you might force people a certain way that they don't want to go in and thus diminish the already small playerbase. Could be (easily) offset by just having smaller invite-only RP's, but people don't seem to like those.

[ayzrules]

It's an interesting concept. From the Gm's perspective, it helps weed out willy-nilly roleplayers. That is to say that one needs to want to participate in the RP badly enough that they are willing to face rejection. On the other hand, I like seeing my players come up with their own ideas with my guidelines being the only restriction. I've had good luck in that most of my players have been fairly creative.

I don't think the system works for every RP, and it does limit the players to choosing only what the GM will allow them. I suppose you could make a light version of the system. You could divide the rolls by RPG classes or their rolls. But this creates other problems. When I recruit for my RP, I genuinely expect 20% of my players to leave just as things start, and another 20% in the months to follow. If I have plans for certain characters, I might not have them once things get going.

I also don't feel it works for every player. I tend to get excited about the prospect of jumping into a world with a character I created. My story might not work if I was denied a particular archtype, and I would lose interest rather easily. But if someone is more interested in the idea of the RP than actually making a character for it, it's not an issue.

It can work, but it does require a different approach. I don't think it would work for the type of RPs I like to run.

@BrokenPromise

I agree with this-I really do love seeing what people can come up with. I don't like the concept of facing flat-out "rejection" when joining an RP, though. If I know there's a 50% chance that I won't get the character (in instances where there are 2 people going for the same one), I find that it makes me less likely to want to join.

For a GM this is a delight. You can create characters types and roles that need to be filled and simply let others work within a boundary to sell the character right and boom you've got a coherently directed story. But for the player you'd have to be down for seeing the story and characters the GM is making come to life without intruding beyond the subtle actions and turns the characters can make.

Maybe to bring a medium you could have the GM lay out roles that need to be filled and character archetypes and such. Have people apply with a brief summary of their idea of a character. You choose the one that you like the most as GM THEN you let them make a CS, and work with them on it also so you both are happy with it. As the story progresses as long as the players feel like they are making a change in how things progress then its fine to keep it rather narrow in progression. You want to get to point a to b and so forth with the in between being something everyone can agree on would be fun and work with the story.

@Rai

This seems like a sensible idea, although I will say that as a player, I've changed my mind about where I wanted to go with a character quite often during the character-creation process. So I dunno if it would be the absolute best way, but I think it's definitely something worth considering!

I think pre-made roles are a way to guide the rp in the direction the GM wants. Not too big a fan of pre-maded characters unless maybe the GM has something very specific in mind, but it could be cool.

@Hero

I've not had many problems with the concept of a pre-made character as a whole besides the "audition" system. I don't particularly mind it, and sometimes it just makes sense (ie when characters are based off of Greek gods/goddesses). It's also nice when the lore/world is rather complicated, because then you can sort of get a feel on what's allowed and what's not.

A GM does the hard work for me? Where do I sign up?

(context: I hate trying to come up with character concepts)

@Mara

Assuming this is a rhetorical question, but...

shameless self promotion

urstyle.com/topic/1575908/my-undead-g…

;D

I've done this for the first time (well, half-done this) where I basically made players follow a certain theme for the team they'd be on in the IC. I can tell from the lessons I learned from that that this is something I will do in the future as well (and possible double down, pre-selecting themes I want to see and/or character types).

One thing I worry about is that, with certain niché RP's, you might force people a certain way that they don't want to go in and thus diminish the already small playerbase. Could be (easily) offset by just having smaller invite-only RP's, but people don't seem to like those.

@Odin

Ooh the idea of following a theme is pretty interesting! I also do sort of like the character-type idea as well, like (cliche example but bear with me) if it's a superhero RP you could do "leader: x people, technician: x people, etc etc". My only question is how you figured out which people would be in which team (and subsequently which theme they would get).

My overall opinion is that while I don't mind pre-mades, I don't think the most common selection process on the other site ("auditioning") is that great. People put in so much time and effort into a CS there-it's not just typing stuff up, people usually have to make associated "sets" or "collages" (b/c that's what the site is primarily for lol), which is hella time consuming. So it's really really frustrating when you don't get the character you want, and none of the ones that are left interest you at all. Plus just waiting for the GMs to make a decision and wondering if writing everything up is worth it at all is just too much stress and frustration for me. I don't think that RP should be super duper stressful (it's something I do for fun, after all), but that system of character selection kinda...is.

(sidenote: I've also heard stories of GMs playing favorites and just giving their friends the roles, although this hasn't ever happened to me, thankfully)

[wisteria]

I actually love the idea. Too often are roleplays scattered and not coherent enough. I love themes, foils, alllllll that good stuff. I love characters representing different ideas, I love concepts that have been shown in interesting ways through characters. To me, I wouldnt mind this at all. Sure, give some leeway for people to be creative with their character, but i love the idea of characters filling out story roles and having their roles relate and deepen the story and show something. With most groups rps you just don't get that cohesion and charqcters working off each other tbh. That's why they end up boring me so much. I actively ask my 1x1 partners to create characters that are foils to mine. Or i ask, 'what sort of themes can we tackle in the roleplay? How will the characters struggle or show their theme? How can it tie in different ways?' For a gm to have this insight beforehand, while also working with the rp'er to make a fulfilling arc with their character and development, is ideal. You can do it without the pre made roles too, but people may abide more to the theme of the story with their pre made roles.

It also makes rps a little more diverse i would say.

[ayzrules]

I actually love the idea. Too often are roleplays scattered and not coherent enough. I love themes, foils, alllllll that good stuff. I love characters representing different ideas, I love concepts that have been shown in interesting ways through characters. To me, I wouldnt mind this at all. Sure, give some leeway for people to be creative with their character, but i love the idea of characters filling out story roles and having their roles relate and deepen the story and show something. With most groups rps you just don't get that cohesion and charqcters working off each other tbh. That's why they end up boring me so much. I actively ask my 1x1 partners to create characters that are foils to mine. Or i ask, 'what sort of themes can we tackle in the roleplay? How will the characters struggle or show their theme? How can it tie in different ways?' For a gm to have this insight beforehand, while also working with the rp'er to make a fulfilling arc with their character and development, is ideal. You can do it without the pre made roles too, but people may abide more to the theme of the story with their pre made roles.

It also makes rps a little more diverse i would say.

@cosmicsherbert

I mean yeah I like the idea in principle but how would you go about making the selection process fair??

[wisteria]

<Snipped quote by cosmicsherbert>

I mean yeah I like the idea in principle but how would you go about making the selection process fair??

@ayzrules

I'd put a prompt like: the character you are adutioning for has to rescue a cat from a tree, or any scenario really. Then i'd see how they write the char and put their spin on it.

[BrokenPromise]

<Snipped quote by BrokenPromise>

I agree with this-I really do love seeing what people can come up with. I don't like the concept of facing flat-out "rejection" when joining an RP, though. If I know there's a 50% chance that I won't get the character (in instances where there are 2 people going for the same one), I find that it makes me less likely to want to join.

@ayzrules

Oh, I know what you mean. On here I joined an RP where they basically had one slot for a particular roll, but I lost it to the GM's long time buddy. They did let me participate in the RP anyway, but they basically treated me like shit until I left. Not too fun. And making the players compete against each other makes for a more hostile atmosphere. I want my players to peacefully coexist.

Odin's idea for having themed teams feels a bit more fair that way. It's fine if many people want to join the same team. the chances of you the GM needing to make a choice between two players instead of a choice based on the merits of their sheet is much lower.

[Sierra]

Now I can only genuinely speak for myself but I can say that the opinions of those I respect often mirror my own on this topic. Half the fun is writing the character concept out. I wrote one out for a role that I ultimately conceded, but in the end I think it was worth it because I enjoy crafting the character. There are thus hard limits to how much can be prefab with a specific character role before it turns me off. Full disclosure: that conceded role was also for co-GM and I have some pretty firm views on handing out the role of co-GM. I conceded it primarily because I felt like even if I got it, it wasn't properly earned.

I think the notion of encouraged diversity & better character compatibility is best accomplished through having roles/classes predefined if necessary without any character details, and by better GM enforcement. I feel like too many GMs approve absolutely anything even when they should turn down certain things because they clash with the desired party dynamic or duplicate an already-filled niche. With my own project I actually got put in this position where I had to think long and hard on approving a second strongman-type character or denying it to demand more diversity. I also had to deny more than one character because I felt like they would end up being a liability to the party and the RP in general. I know firsthand it sucks to have to write the "I can't/won't approve this" message but I think not enough people will stand strong with their vision for the RP they're recruiting for and instead cave to characters they ultimately shouldn't approve.

[Sunbather]

I can work with roles, but I find that most of the time this concept is even introduced is in slice-of-life and teenage drama roleplays, and, to me, it's very off-putting. I'm not really interested in playing your made-up characters, I'm interested in playing WITH them. If I don't have any input at all, I'll just pass, because I know I won't be as invested in the character. Also, with the aforementioned tendency of what type of roleplay utilizes these, I often feel the background motivation was self-gratification on the GM's part.

[BrokenPromise]

Related to this topic, ongoing roleplays could have auditions for characters who's players left them if things are far enough along and the character is important enough. This feels like a really good way to let new players join an RP with a character that is already integrated into the story. If they drop out, you're not stuck with extra dead wood. If they like it, one less person the GM has to unceremoniously remove.

[Sierra]

@BrokenPromise That's actually a really interesting take because it's a potential solution to a problem I'll inevitably run into with Tear the World Down. There's a character duality, a physical character and a guiding spirit, and per the lore there's 12 of these guiding spirits. That's pretty much written in blood & stone and cannot be changed. The problem I'm in is what happens when a character who's already been written into the story a substantial degree has to drop? (or in a real case I'm having to deal with, ejected for inactivity.) Per the lore, the character can die and the spirit has to select another chosen to place in their tutelage.

I've so far felt like forcing join-in-progress players to choose from a prefab list of spirits they didn't write (previously an important element of character creation) plus all the history of that spirit in the RP thusfar would be too off-putting to potential players and severely hurt my ability to get new blood in to replace old. I kind of want to adopt this now reading your thoughts but at the same time I'm concerned about that possible outcome. The last thing I want to do is suffocate my RP slowly by making such an experimental & unconventional move.

[BrokenPromise]

@Sierra I think the simplest thing to do in the case of your spirits would be to simply make it so that even though there are twelve of these spirits, they can trade their responsibilities with other spirits, or are perhaps reborn every time they take on a new "master." But since that ship has sailed, your players are going to have to make due with these other spirits. Unless it's not too late to write up some mumbo jumbo in the lore. I specifically design my RPs so that problems like this never arise.

But even so, nothing dulls the exhilarating feel of death like a bunch of pointless inactivity kills. You might like trying this system if you have some characters like that. I'm actually surprised at how many of my old players are willing to take up another character. But you can always slow the dull of the death knife by giving the physical characters reasons to abandon their quest, or otherwise drop out of the story without dropping dead. Then that just leaves you with figuring out what to do with these spirits.

[Penny]

like 20000 edgy emos in on RP

@ayzrules

That may be the best description of the guild ever posted...

[Milkman]

I've been roleplaying on a different website for a while, and one thing that I've noticed there is that everyone seems to do these pre-made characters/roles for the RPs.

Sometimes it'll just be a name or a title/archetype plus a few bulletpoints, but other times it gets as detailed as this (not my character description)-

<Snipped quote>
(from urstyle.com/styles/553167)

The way it works on that site, most people either have a "reservation" system (first-come, first-serve) or you have to "audition" for a character, so you basically get a character based on how much GM likes your sheet (if there are multiple people "auditioning" for the same character). If you don't get the character you want, tough luck. They'll usually let you pick another character that hasn't been taken and run with it, but I find that most times I don't want to do that

I just wanted some of y'alls thoughts on that+pre-made character archetypes in general? I will admit that I don't mind being assigned a name/FC that much, and I think the pre-mades are a good system to ensure sort of """diversity""" among the characters (so that way there aren't like 20000 edgy emos in on RP), but after several bad experiences with the audition system I am really adverse to that. I don't mind the system that we have on RPG either (where you just make up a character on your own). I know people here/on other forum RP sites who will do vague/loose archetypes, which I don't mind either. But I think it's really fucking stupid to put in tons of work/effort for a character that you might not get to play, and a first-come first-serve system isn't completely fair either. I've been trying to think of a happy medium (ie very vague archetypes/roles), but I'm not really sure if there is one. I still think just player-created OCs are the best way to go, but again sometimes the archetypes/roles/pre-mades can be useful.

Thoughts????

@ayzrules

I actually see that you point out two seperate topics. The first one are "pre-made characters/archtypes/roles" and the other one is how GMs handle the application process.

Personally I don't see any reason to participate in a roleplay where I have to play with a pre-made character (Name, background, personality, skills already determined). I like to bring my own creativity to the game and when everything is being made for me without my involvement the roleplay is simply not interesting for me. But that is just the case for totally pre-made characters. There can be a good reason to have some pre defined roles and guidelines for the characters to follow. Lets say you're hosting a military style roleplay about a special forces unit. Within that unit there are certain specializations such as a sniper, demolitions expert, medic, communications expert and maybe some more. Such specializations will form the backbone of the pre-made roles. You don't want to have your team made up of 20 snipers.

The next part might involve some guidelines for the characters personality of the said roleplay. If the GM wants to have a certain degree of realism to his roleplay then the participants need to understand that their characters are highly trained professionals and not John Rambo or some other action hero. Nor can they start out as totally broken emo's with an extreme amount of psychological issues. Such people won't be on active duty. Such guidelines and specific roles can still be very appealing to me :)

Now lets go to the next issue. The application process to roleplays. I think the primary reason why the fast majority of roleplays die within a few months is the total lack of any form of application process. GMs tend to focus entirely on their awesome story/plot ideas and world concepts but totally forget to think about what kind of players they want in their game. They almost always forget to ask themselfs that simple question and generally roll with whomever expresses their interests. The most likely outcome of the lack of application process is that a group of people with totally different expectations about the roleplay start a journey. In that journey many will find out that player A posts to frequently to keep up with, player B posts way too little and drags the roleplay, player C likes to write these 10 paragraph over 9000 words posts which player D responds to with a one-liner. Player E is totally into same-sex romance and he's constantly persueing player F's character much to his annoyance because he's totally not into that and just wants the plot to move forward. In the end for many players the roleplay does not live up to their expectations and they will lose interest and drop out. Eventually the roleplay dies and the GM will start a new one and will repeat the above process over and over again until he is lucky and by accident stumbles upon a group of players that are more or less on the same level. Or he will lose his confidence and just persue a carreer of writing mediocre fanfiction :)

Personally I think it is vital for the success of a roleplay to get together a group of people with similair expectations about it. Not just only on post frequency and length but also on direction, roles, content and participation in the overall creative process. Communication with those who express interest in the RP is vital. Not just on how his character should be but also about what he expects from an RP, what his interests are. Does he like to have a touch of romance in between murdering goblin hordes? I think it is crucial for GMs to get to know the players. Know what aspects of roleplaying they enjoy, what levels of posting frequency they are comfortable with and in general what kind of roleplaying experience they are looking for. Then find those players who are most in line with your ideas as GM and with eachother. That way players are more likely to enjoy themselfs in the roleplay because it lives up to what they expected of it.