Character Woes

[silentsophia]

For me, it depends. There's a point where an asshole character has little or no redeeming or interesting points. Most people can't pull off 'lovable asshole' well and spiral straight into the anus. Besides, if they're constantly abusive to my character and she's not the doormat type, why is she going to take that asshole along when she can take someone else or go hang out with someone else? They also confuse gruff or rough around the edges for just tearing into people.

Reminds me of the political mage on HM who was upset my PC stopped taking her to places after a backstabbing or two. Like, for reals? My mage wasn't born the day before.

If the person talks to me OOC and wants to keep in contact, yeah, I'll work something out. But if all they do is drop in and be an asshole to my character, she's going to get tired of dealing with it.

[Bargle]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

I had a point, but I've kind of forgotten it. We are sometimes weirdly resistant to making social connections on a game that's all about social connections, I guess, and I don't understand why.

Some people seem to have a deeply ingrained sense of "if it didn't happen IC on-game it never happened." It doesn't make any sense to me, but it's an attitude I've come across several times, and it's almost always annoying.

@Derp said:

@SG said:

@Roz Hahaha, I've encountered these types too, but there's another type that I find quite puzzling. When people play hyper-abrasive assholes or complete creeps.

I was playing on shadowrun a little while back and someone poses in being a really aggressive, rude asshole. Then they got bitter on +pub when characters that were better socialized just left rather than be around that. I just don't understand why anyone would choose to socialize with a character like that unless they were trapped on an island.

Is it because I work in the service industry that I have a low tolerance for characters like this? Or have I just not seen 'edgy rp' done well?

I think that this is usually only done well when there is a lot of OOC communication. My characters can definitely be dickish sometimes, and don't hesitate to be rude, but I try my best to be pleasant and cheerful OOC, and to let people know that the player is not the character, and vice versa, and work with them OOC on how we'd like to progress. I can often find ways of resolving the conflicts.

Usually.

Yeah, I generally find that about 80-90 percent of the time that a player gravitates towards playing overt assholes, they usually turn out to be assholes looking for a way to be assholes to other "people" without having to worry about consequences. Not to be confused with people that occasionally play a dickish character for a change of pace. I mean the folks that always play assholes.

Basically the MU* version of the Greater Internet Dickwad theory.

[Olsson]

I mean I personally prefer to play characters who cause conflict in some manner, I find it more fun and intresting than just sitting having casual chats about life. if I want to hang with a friend these days I tend to just bug a friend and hang with them, but who knows I might just be an asshole looking to be an asshole.

But I would also say I find a lot of times people will assume you're a dick because you play a character they might be a dick, which is only natural since often that is their first interaction with me and it is all they have to go on. Even more so since we only have those OOC letters before something to try and differensiate (did I spell that right?`) out personas, and we often get influenced and people identify us with those personas.

Still I found it meh when people don't like me because my character isn't compiant and friendly.

[Coin]

I play asshole characters because they're the least effort. >.> <.<

---

@Olsson Differentiate.

[7Wonders]

The challenge I've run into asshole PCs is that some are interesting and compelling when it comes to behaviors. Most though stomp toys or pull serious IC dick moves and get OOCly butthurt when other PCs want to enforce consequences that don't include hugging it out and finding out why their inner child is so wounded because this one time....

I like a PC who can pull a dick move and gracefully take the fallout OOC on the chin and maybe work IC to redeem themselves if they want to. But that's sadly rare.

[Sunny]

I am playing the biggest asshole ever on KD right now, and it's hilarious. He is the most sexist, condescending jerk I have ever played by far and away. We are talking plates of food dumped in his lap first scene to making people make composure checks when he opens his mouth and the views come out. He's usually alright, if he is pretty sure the audience won't be receptive, but occasionally it spills out.

He is one of the EASIEST characters I have ever had to find RP with. I take him out and people are always OH GOD WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO NEXT? and then there are people. Even better than that, the character tends to grow on people despite everything. I tend to call it him dimpling his way out of trouble (dimple smiles fix everything).

There's a few keys to it, I've found:

In nearly every single pose that I make with people who don't know me, and my PC is being an asshole, I include at least one meta sentence acknowledging he's a jerk, usually mocking him for it.

Make people laugh, be over the top a little, get that 'oh my god I can't believe he just SAID THAT' thing going on.

I try to preload people, as well. FYI, this character is a jerk, I know it, feel free to abuse him.

Then again, the character is definitely there to be a punching bag, so that's probably different than most people who play assholes, too. I went into it with full intention of laughing hysterically whenever he reaps what he...uhm. Sow is a pig. Sew is thread. Uuuuuh. Reaps what he planted. Fucking Dory brain.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Sunny said:

In nearly every single pose that I make with people who don't know me, and my PC is being an asshole, I include at least one meta sentence acknowledging he's a jerk, usually mocking him for it.

Even with characters who aren't assholes, displaying anything resembling a sense of humor about your character, or acknowledging when the ridic things they do are ridic, goes a looooooong way.

[Sunny]

@Three-Eyed-Crow

I used to get SUPER defensive whenever the topic of metaposing came up, because I almost always do a fair bit of my-own-PC-mocking in my poses amongst other things. Eventually, I really did realize that when people said 'no, no, not how you do it, that's fine' that it was actually the case.

[Derp]

@Sunny said:

@Three-Eyed-Crow

I used to get SUPER defensive whenever the topic of metaposing came up, because I almost always do a fair bit of my-own-PC-mocking in my poses amongst other things. Eventually, I really did realize that when people said 'no, no, not how you do it, that's fine' that it was actually the case.

I think that in a lot of games, especially World of Darkness games, metaposing is one of those things that should happen. It's a storytelling game. Tell the story.

[silentsophia]

I think a lot of the backlash against metaposing came from when people would use it to Mean Girls style bash on people with little or no consequence besides more metaposing.

[Arkandel]

I'm playing a character who's New At This. It's just that in his case 'this' entails shifting into a massive wolfman, which in combination with not having a pack yet to anchor him and happy circumstances where he simply hasn't ran into any of the many, many things out there tougher and bigger than he is has led him into a sense of personal invincibility. "We're URATHA", he figures, "the apex predators!".

So since he just doesn't give enough fucks to prevent him from it all coming off as overconfidence and smug superiority, it could rub people the wrong way. Hopefully it's a problem time will solve for me.

[Coin]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

@Sunny said:

In nearly every single pose that I make with people who don't know me, and my PC is being an asshole, I include at least one meta sentence acknowledging he's a jerk, usually mocking him for it.

Even with characters who aren't assholes, displaying anything resembling a sense of humor about your character, or acknowledging when the ridic things they do are ridic, goes a looooooong way.

My friends used to have a drinking game re: 'take a drink every time Coin calls his own character a jerk/asshole/dick/whatever in meta'.

... turned into a lot of drunk RP...

And I didn't find out about it until a while after. Like, a year into it.

[midgardener]

I think that the desire to play a Loveable-or-Not Asshole character springs from the sheer number of them that appear in stories both written and acted, book and film. Such characters can be interesting due to the strife and chaos that surround them.

The difference between those and the attempts online is that the popular fiction character often has an underlying reason written into them that demands attention from more sociable sorts. "If you want to pass through the Gates of Almost Eternity, then you'll have to speak with Gomez. Be careful, he bites," "If you're going to storm the walls of the Colorless Keep, then you'll want Abigail by your side. Her guns sing the songs of the dead... if only she didn't rely on them to deal with personal problems," and such.

If there is no motivation to associate with the unsociable, no "if-thens", it is unlikely to take place.

[Misadventure]

I agree that difficult to socialize with characters need a reason to Rp with, however that reason doesn't need to be a unique functional one such being the only person on grid with a certain power or status. The players just need to make sure they have one in mind when they play.

[SG]

@Sunny said:

He is one of the EASIEST characters I have ever had to find RP with. I take him out and people are always OH GOD WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO NEXT? and then there are people. Even better than that, the character tends to grow on people despite everything. I tend to call it him dimpling his way out of trouble (dimple smiles fix everything).

I think you've found out how to do it right. Have a bit of humour going on. Basically, make a scene FUN rather than a stressfest that nobody else enjoys.

[Sunny]

@SG said:

I think you've found out how to do it right. Have a bit of humour going on. Basically, make a scene FUN rather than a stressfest that nobody else enjoys.

Yeah, it's all in intention, I think. I do it to entertain myself and the people I play with (he's so fun to pick on), rather than to be an actual ass. You basically made my point much more succinctly. If you play an ass with the goal of entertaining not just yourself, but other people as well...it's not generally going to be awful. If you're doing it just for yourself, or you're playing an Entirely Serious Character from an OOC perspective, probably going to have an issue.