NaNo 1

[jedi_of_urth]

Well after discussion with real life friend of mine it turns out I'm not even the only person I know using roleplaying as inspiration for NaNoWriMo novel. I have lots of character I could have used actually, more a comment on how much I like my own rp characters than anything I suppose. However I feel it is less silly knowing I have a real life friend who is just as much a roleplaying dork as me.

1380 words so far today and it's not midnight yet. That's...not too much under the average needed for a day. I am however already getting distracted by want to vid. This could pose a problem, because it's been a while since I vidded anything too.

p.s. I love talking about roleplaying characters, and would love it if someone asked me questions about them. I don't know why you would but I'd give you c a good talk.

Comments

[tsukara.livejournal.com]

Yes, one of my RP friends is doing their entire Nano as a fanfic (30 characters, 32 chapters), and it looks like it should be a whole lot of fun for her.

But! RP! Who do you play, where do you play, etc. etc. I just got in to LJ RP recently and am having loads of fun with it so far.

[jedi_of_urth]

I'm a tabletop roleplayer. I play a lot of White Wolf games, mostly Mage and Changeling (old WoD, not new, I can't get into new WoD). My lj name is actually a homage to two of my favorite characters, and the NaNo story is inspired by the "urth" part (it was a homemade game don't try to find in anywhere) except I've gone so far as to change to world name so...there's not much left of the original game. I bet you can guess what universe the character behind the other part of the name came from.

And I can write trilogies (long ones) inspired by several of my character, the idea of writing a chapter for them...umm. I always *want* to write loads of story either about their backstories (always complicated), the campaign (sometimes) or what happens afterwards (usually more trouble), or an aspect of the story that never got focused on, or what have you. When I get into a character I get *into* a character and they never really let go of me completely.

[tsukara.livejournal.com]

Oh, see, I'd never considered writing my Nano on my tabletop gaming characters, even though I usually write out their histories anyways (maybe because our DM delights in killing off characters? Perhaps). That's an idea...*has done abletop for a long while*

But I definitely get into characters, and they have whole histories in my head that my DM will never, ever hear about or see. And I always keep ol charcter sheets because they're my babies, you know? Or something like that. Not kids exactly, but not precisely me. Hm. *pondering that now*

[jedi_of_urth]

Oh yeah, if the GM knows all the people in my character's backstory it just becomes more people for them to use to torture my character (I've had more mentors/siblings/parents/friends killed off or turned evil than I care to think about just now). I don't always have all the backstory worked out before a game starts for multiple reasons, but by the end, between my own filling in the blanks and the GM messing with me (ask me to tell you my Star Wars character's backstory I dare you) it gets mighty complex. And by the end my character are so angst filled and often insane, I find them like crack to want to write about. I'm an angst ho, I admit it, luckily my GM's tend to love that about me, and my characters would hate us both for it if they got a say.

[tsukara.livejournal.com]

Oh gosn, me too, every word! I mean, what's a character without a few good weaknesses? Or, well, a lot of good weaknesses, I suppose. I've ad my new halfling, what, a week? Her backstory's already so complicated I shudder to think what she'll be like once this campaign really picks up!

You know, if I didn't love it so much.

Out of the two DMs that run our games most often, one requires a page or more of written backstory, while the other never really asks for it until it might effect the campaign. Both are fun to write for, one because he cares, the other for the surprise-the-DM value. >:]

[jedi_of_urth]

My two main current characters:
Border line drug addict doctor.
Fifteen year old ghost-ish girl with no idea how she got that way.

Yeah, I don't give my characters complications at all.

And NPCs at the start of the game might as well have "kill me" signs on them. My GMs tell me it's partly my own fault for playing it so well when said NPCs get killed off, which I choose to take as a compliment, but sometimes makes me prone to saying "Sorry, important person is *already dead* I get to say when and how it happened instead of you coming up with the most traumatic way possible." Granted in that case the character starts off with personality issues (because it usually still happened in about the worst way possible), but oh well.

We cause angst because we care.

My GMs fall into two categories, the ones where they just adore and encourage all my angst creating backstory/game playing; and those who structure the game around the mystery/monster of the session with less mind to character backstory. I prefer the first really, but that doesn't mean I don't give the later plenty of issues, it just tends to get less flassed out during the game.

[tsukara.livejournal.com]

Ooo, nice. My only current one is a rogue who makes terrible puns all the time and will recite the Gypsy Rules at the drop of a hat, due to th clan she came from following these as a life philosophy.

And she's only a week-old character.

NPCs always have "kill me" signs on them. But then, I usually kill off my charater's NPCs in the most traumatic ways possible anyways, so that's sort of a moot point.

We cause angst because we care.

Phwahaha~ My story-writing mantra~

[jedi_of_urth]

Yay puns, I'm a fan of puns.

I'm often not great at knowing what my character will say at the start of games; also we play so much homemade stuff, or at least house canon versions of other stuff that being able to recite things at the start would be difficult but that is cool.

I'm a big one for playing out the effects that all the stuff that happens in game has on my character, whether it be giving them PTSD, having them descend into psychopathic tenancies, just becoming all around curmudgeony...well it's usually bad you can see. Going on long enough can see them come back from it a bit, if given reason too, but it can also be part of why I want to write about what comes next (of course that doesn't mean I stop causing them angst if I think about what comes next).

But when I'm *roleplaying* my characters going through the trauma of losing their big NPC attachment...it makes for some awesome roleplaying I admit, but I'm also slow to come out of and sometimes I'd rather skip past it in terms of game play. The rocking in a corner sobbing or the screaming matches are great, but there could be too much of a good thing I suspect.

[tsukara.livejournal.com]

Well, it's Fourth Ed. DnD, so it's new to me, but also not new. It's actually rather confusing to me. But the gypsy rules thing just came to me as I was looking over some sentence in the book that reminded me of it. They're not from the setting in the least, they just fit really well with new canon for her race.

As for puns, this past session was particularly egregious. We were fighting a dragon, in a sewer. So, yeah, there were a lot of shit puns on my character's part.

But it's usually a manner of speaking that comes to me earliest. I once had a gnome who was entirely too cheerful and spoke like Kristen Chenoweth, even when she got cursed into being evil.

Playing out the effects is what makes 'em interesting. I mean, there's no point in giving a character a quirk, flaw or weakness if there's no reason for it! My friend had a character once who was afraid of bodies of water because he "had a bad experience". I eventually got so fed up with this that I wrested the character from him and (with permission) wrote out a whole story for this "bad experience" with lots of nice NPC death. And that was all someone else's character!

I've found roleplaying out traumatic experiences, and sometimes their after-effects, is best done when the other players care as much about their characters as you do yours. Otherwise things can get a little awkward, I've found...

[jedi_of_urth]

I've found roleplaying out traumatic experiences, and sometimes their after-effects, is best done when the other players care as much about their characters as you do yours.

Yeah, being the one person to want to play out the depths of stuff like that in a group that doesn't get into it like that can be kind of awkward. By the flip side, if I don't have reason to think the GM will make use of my backstory/NPC attachments I'm less likely to make meaningful ones to start with. Sort of ironic since those are the NPCs much more likely to survive.

But with players who are able to get into it to the same level and get into it when other people do it even if they're not an active part of it can produce *amazing* results. I normally don't consider myself good at improv, but with a character whose head I've gotten into and someone good to play off of, I can get into screaming matches involving philosophy and plans of attack at the same time with no time lag to think of things to say.

I'm still not great of improv in general though.

Character quirks *can* be there just because. Real people can be scared of spiders without a traumatic reason why, but I think to be make if a *huge* deal it needs a reason (the difference between jumping on a chair to avoid a mouse and having a paralyzing fear of them...or a one point flaw and a five point one). We may not often play the small phobias but that doesn't mean they can't happen

One of my favorite after effects I ever played wasn't something I thin either the GM or I had planned. The game started with big explosion killing of my major NPC (surprise surprise) and months later we're basically at ground zero of another big explosion in which a couple of the characters are quite burned and my character goes nuts with PSTD flashbacks. It's not like I had any stats on the subject but I knew in that moment that that's how she'd react. Luckily it was with a GM who was totally willing to work with my character's issues so it did get played out, but it surprised both of us I think.