Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?
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@paris said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
@wretched said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
There's a lot of pathos that can be mined from nonverbal reactions that offset, undercut, or inform people's villainy; Rufus Sewell is a master of that, but we RPers can do so as well, yep.
Can, yes. Unfortunately fewer can than think they are, and fewer still will find people who can/are willing to respond to it in kind. Which is why I think without other anchors in ones play, or to interact with the game in a meaningful and interesting way beyond it, it is setting yourself up for frustration/burnout.
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@wretched Sure, but I'm not talking leadership here, I'm talking popularity.
If you're great at it you can play a fail-at-life nobody so well that people will come and play with you. They, too, could play as seeing what a loser your character is but it won't matter; every time you're in a room it's entertaining. Every PrP with you in it is better, more memorable, more fun.
Even if everyone plays it well, stats can only do so much. Arguably that's a good thing.
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Shh. It’s propaganda.
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@arkandel said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
Possibly not for this thread's scope but it's also why attributes like Charisma or Status don't work very well for MU*. A great player might be playing some baseborne peon yet that's gonna be a baseborne peon with a goddamn following before long, just because it's fun being around them... while Leaderman McStatus might struggle to find anyone to come to his party.
The last time I posted here it was a big ol' grouse about social stats in general, so I'm with you.
@wretched said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
@arkandel On one hand I agree with what you are saying.
On the other hand i think it's also partially the payers responsibility to have their character 'stay in their lane' based on stats.
[...]
But of course at the same time, it's really really hard to be 'but i have all the stats I should be the leader!' if you cant Rp yer way out of a wet paper bag and every time your PC show up people groan and leave.And thus my never-ending gripe with social stats. People like what they like, and in an ideal world respond how they think their characters ought to respond to what's happening, because that's natural (rather than what they know about someone's stats).
I said in those other replies that it's cool, obviously, if people like to play that way. Different strokes, and all. But...I hates it.
I guess it's peripherally related to this thread, though, because all of these concepts are pretty 'how are you playing them' instead of 'how are they intended to be perceived,' which is honestly not always a perfect-circle-venn-diagram thing.
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@mietze I always try to have multiple defining traits for my characters (even if they aren't always obvious) just to make things more flexible. But my policy is to also try to say 'yes' to RP opportunities whenever I can, even if at first it might be out of character for them to be there.
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Likability
I find on most MU that it is a pretty binary scale on likable/unlikable with players always choosing to act at the fringes. You see them in every single game. Tropes and the way they’re interpreted, mixed with the dosage of whatever the marketing departments of particular cinema/music/etc is chucking to be ‘popular’ at the time and voila, there are your characters. You see players moving from one game to another, and you can see that ghost of the other game's character there in the new game. Mainly it isn't about the character, it is the player behind it that other players will more than likely gravitate towards and that's natural; we are playing on a virtual tabletop.Incompetent
You might grow out of one of a pile of initial weaknesses, but you’ll more than likely acquire another weakness. The weaknesses of mythological characters comes to mind; the vast majority might have done epic deeds and overcome a weakness/adverse situation but then don’t see the true weakness in the foundation of their soul as they fail.I rarely see people playing to the weaknesses of their character sheet and intentionally/unintentionally transfer their Player stat to the Character stat (meaning the player really is the one speaking by its proxy character). Which is why you see the same characters interpreted quite differently by multiple players who play them as each go for their schtick. It’s rare you see folks play up to their weaknesses as it leaves them vulnerable for an immature player to take advantage of the situation which then leads to good player leaving or not showing a weakness again. Dumb.
That said, I don't want to play with the village idiot who is eating their shit. That is just weird RP that doesn't interest me, but hey, it worked for Black Adder.
Inactivity
Every character will at some time go inactive just as every game will die. It’s just natural. I get less interested and active in a game for all sorts of reasons, many which have nothing to do with the game itself as I might be playing some other game (like RDR2, ACO) or traveling, etc. Some games I just play to offer PRP or whatever, some games I’m more engrossed in and so can devote more time. If I can’t find RP in public spaces or events due to me being not very active, problem is probably me and not the game. YMMV. -
I'm going to go with "it's a dual perspective" meaning it's both the character in the fiction, AND in the readers/audiences perception.
I think that is most important for likeablity, as in you can love a grouchy, mean, horrific character as a reader. Likewise, involvement, characters in games and books often do things "off camera" either from the point of view of other characters, or the audience itself.
Just stuff to think about.
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I think that a skilled player could create and "successfully" play an unlikable character (maybe they're hypercompetent, so people bring them along just to get the job done and they start making connections despite themselves). A low-activity (lazy?) character is more difficult, but if they're competent and/or likable, they could get dragged into RP (although that sounds like a lot of work for your RP partners), alternatively, if you-the-player work extra hard to force the lazy character into activity, it could be very fun to play the unwilling hero.
I think that it's when you combine two or more of these things that it becomes difficult. I've seen unlikable, incompetent, high-activity characters, but they're never played that way intentionally, and they usually get avoided. I think that a likable, incompetent, low-activity character can be fun flavor, but is going to be OOC work to keep involved. And an unlikable, competent, low-activity character is likely to just be drawn in to roll dice when things get hard.
Note, I'm assuming by "low-activity" you mean a character who has little interest in involving themselves in things, rather than a player who has little interest in involving themselves in things.
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@mietze said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
I think people can truly adore unlikable characters based on how they're written (or like in the case of a TV show, how they are portrayed), in a love to hate way. For me an example would be John Smith in the latest TV series of Man in the High Castle. Do I like him as someone who I'd love to hang out with? NO.
I think this is the rub when it comes to MU characters... a crap-ton of RP is just, basically, people hanging out. So if you have a character that you wouldn't love to hang out with, that really makes it hard to work them into a lot of scenes.
So I think characters like that on a MU are best left as alts who show up occasionally, stir up some trouble, and then go away for awhile. That also helps to create a buffer for the players of both the antagonist and antagonized.
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Truly unlikable characters are probably best left, as @faraday says, in minor roles. That is minor in terms of appearance, not necessarily authority. That grouchy, irritable Vampire prince? Perfectly acceptable as a sort-of-NPC that shows up occasionally with the only real interaction with other people being out of necessity rather than desire. They can be interesting characters, especially as folks learn their foibles and delve into backstory to try and make working with them easier.
PCs that are in constant, sustained use being universally unlikable are likely to simply be ignored in favour of others that aren't such crappy people.
ETA: This also applies to incompetence. We all know that guy who is only in the role because he knows somebody who knows somebody. We all hate that guy. If your PC is regularly inept at things they try to do, other folks just won't bother including them. But if the Colonel in charge of your unit (for instance) is inept over and over, it provides story material when characters are forced to deal with that ineptness: Overcoming their CO's lack of ability, trying to prove he's inept, or whatever.
One must also be constantly aware that when you play X kind of character, one can fall too easily into the 'oh that's just what my character would do' defence when their action actively harms the fun or story other people are trying to tell. It takes an incredibly smart person to play stupid with any degree of authenticity that doesn't detract from the experience of those around them.
ETA2: So I guess characters with such intense 'flaws' are best used as tools rather than people. They drive aspects of the story, rather than having the story be about them.
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@thenomain said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
@goldfish said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
So I'm sitting here, wondering to myself: Can I make an unlikeable character?
Yes. @Coin does this all the time without even trying.
Yeah, but that's because I have honed this skill through years and years of methodical study and practice.
You're a natural, though.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@coin said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
@thenomain said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
@goldfish said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
So I'm sitting here, wondering to myself: Can I make an unlikeable character?
Yes. @Coin does this all the time without even trying.
Yeah, but that's because I have honed this skill through years and years of methodical study and practice.
You're a natural, though.
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I agree with most of the posts, but it might just be easier to try to think of concepts in terms of, "How am I going to make this character fun for other people to interact with?" Especially with an unlikable character, it is important to nail that. If you do, people will want to RP with you, if you don't, they won't. So I think it's pretty simple.
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@apos Yeah. It's possible to create RP and advance other people's stories by giving them some kind of foil, if you do it right.
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It sounds like in addition to RP Hooks, people might consider listing foil scenes they might be open to or looking for.
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Batman is the most unlikable prick in the world, but he does good things.
Joker is one of the most popular villains in comics, but he's a homicidal maniac.
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@chet Neither of them are characters that one has to directly interact with. We're outside looking in, with plenty of information, not inside trying to have fun while dealing with them.
He/Him
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@tinuviel said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
@chet Neither of them are characters that one has to directly interact with. We're outside looking in, with plenty of information, not inside trying to have fun while dealing with them.
Tell that to people who roleplay on superhero games(?)
No, never mind, Batman and Joker are both insufferable in superhero games.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@coin said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
Tell that to people who roleplay on superhero games(?)
There are lots of things I'd like to tell people that roleplay on superhero games. Unfortunately, this is the constructive section.
Still, given that they are already existing entities they get a slightly different slant in their favour: They're established, and people want to play with them. (Or against them, which is playing with from another angle.)
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@chet said in Unlikeable, incompetent, and inactive: Can these characters work in an MU?:
Batman is the most unlikable prick in the world, but he does good things.
Joker is one of the most popular villains in comics, but he's a homicidal maniac.
Mr. Freeze (the Paul Dini version) is not a villain.
