(no subject)

[igpayatinlay]

Question:

When you're creating a character/writing an app/starting a game, do you consider how they might grow over the course of the game? Not necessarily pre-plotting, or establishing relationships in advance, but maybe more like, establishing where they are in their life at the start, and how they'll grow if things go a certain way? There's no way to control the other characters, so obviously this can change as things happen, but I'm curious - do you apply the idea of a character arc to roleplay, or do you make a character to have fun with and then wing it? Sometimes one or the other? A mix of both?

Comments

[igpayatinlay.insanejournal.com]

I'm curious about all different answers, so if it's not too nosy... do you still feel a strong character voice from the start, or does that become richer at the same time as the arc starts coming in?

[immlass.insanejournal.com]

I have a voice and ideas from the start, but it takes a while for me to see what's going to stick, as it were. For me, characters aren't static; they evolve in play. I do think about what might happen, or how my character might feel about things, or whatever, but sometimes (fairly regularly) I find I'm surprised by some event in play. E.g., unless I write a character with a predetermined ship, I don't generally expect to ship my characters up and am always mildly surprised if/when they do find someone.

If you're familiar with GNS theory at all, I like long-form narrativism, where most narrativists are short-form (they like to force crisis quickly). Long-form for me means seeing what elements keep cropping up and addressing the associated premise/conflicts once they've shaped themselves in play. /gaming theory nerd.

[igpayatinlay.insanejournal.com]

I'm not, but from that brief summary it sounds like something I think is neat. I can't stand when people are like, hello, I formed this ship last week, and next month, they'll be exclusive, the one after that, they'll move in, the one after that, they're engaged, and somehow, six months later, the characters are married. OCCASIONALLY that happens in real life (and then if you check back later, a fair amount of them are divorced, though RP rarely covers that), and y'know, no faults if that's the kind of courtship you have, but it seems that things move far faster in RPlandia, so this theory sounds neat to me!

[immlass.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, it's sort of a running gag with me that most social Potter games last six months because that's how long it takes for characters to do a shipping arc. (This is one of the reasons I set Dulci up as a character with a divorce in progress, by the way.)

Shipping is the biggest place I get surprised, but I had one character decide he was going to cure lycanthropy (out of game scope, but first steps were definitely in game scope) because of the results of someone else's plot that landed in his lap.