Again, you have probably got some idea of what you want and the important thing is to make sure that this character is what you want. You’re the one who’ll be playing him or her after all. So these are all recommendations and can be ignored totally if you wish. At least try to understand the reasoning though. It’s so much nicer if everything falls into place, and that’s more likely to happen if you’ve fully thought things through and picked what you’ll be most comfortable with. Below, I've assumed that you're playing a human or humanoid character. This isn't always the case on a M* but I'm sure you can adapt the information appropriately.
As a note, for a first character, don't be too ambitious. Stick with something you have experience with rather than plunging straight into the exotic. I'm not saying you have to play yourself (or the theme's equivalent), but remember that you'll both be trying to get into this new character and into M*ing. One that’s a little closer to you RL (or to somebody else you know) will be easier for you to get into playing.
Isn’t it a little warped to have guys playing girl characters and vice versa?
No, not in most people’s opinion. If you personally don’t feel comfortable with it, just play characters of your own sex, but keep in mind that any character you come across could have a player of either gender. There are different ways to look at it. In my own opinion, if I were writing a story, my characters wouldn’t all be twenty-something females. Yes, roleplay is a little different, but not all that much. Any decent writer needs to be able to get under the skin of their main character, and there have been plenty of great stories where the hero or heroine has been very different in person to the author. Similarly, actors play a variety of characters, and—particularly on stage—have been known to play somebody very different in age to them and even somebody of the opposite sex.
There are also reasons to play the other gender. On some M*s, there are overall more players of one gender than another, for the simple reason that the books, films, comic strip etc that the M* is based on appeal predominantly to that sex. Since most people tend towards playing characters of their RL sex, there is usually a disproportionate amount of male characters to female on those games—so many players try and even things up. Another reason is that some roles on games are gender-specific. If your ambition is to be the high priestess of the god Zog, you're not going to get very far with a male character. And then, of course, some people just want a change or a challenge, which is as good a reason as any other.
Unlike chat-rooms, people rarely pretend to be a member of the opposite sex for any purpose barring IC ones. Some people prefer to keep their real gender unknown so that they can try out their RP skills on unprejudiced eyes, but, as far as I know, I've never come across somebody who said that they were female/male RL when they weren't. True, most characters will use their IC pronouns on channels as well: [Channel] Foofoo kicks herself even if Foofoo's player is male, but that's force of habit and keeping in character rather than willful delusion of other players. If you start posing Foofoo as he on channel, you're going to forget to pose her as she in RP.
The straightforward way of getting a name is obviously to make it up, but if you’re not good at making up names, go here for my favourite name generator, or you can simply steal a name from somewhere (not a M*, that can be construed as bad manners and, at the least, gets confusing. You'd be surprised how many people assume same name=same player). Your favourite character from your favourite TV series or film for example, although you might want to lose the surname if there is one. Depending on the M*, surnames and other name types aren't going to fit in. Olaf Dragonslayer or Starspinner might best be avoided. And check with the M* staff before taking a name from the same theme that your M* is on. Unless you're allowed to use the same actual characters, it’s probably not allowed. A last name source is a foreign language, which has the added perk of being able to have a name that means something.
That depends very much on what you want to do with the character. It’s another good reason to connect as a guest first, and then read plenty of helpfiles. The main thing to remember is that your character will age faster than you will, so if you start him or her at your age, in a year’s time, they’re going to be quite a bit older. Commonly (on the games that I play at least), time passes four times faster than it does for us, so after a year, your sixteen year old will be twenty.
Presuming that you want to go out and do something with your character, it might be best to start off young. 16 year old apprentices are much more IC than 30 year old ones, and M*s generally have some form of IC and OOC training period for IC positions. Of course, basic, 'blue collar' jobs, like a nanny or a bartender can be held by any age and frequently don’t require training, so if you want a middle-aged character, don’t let me hold you back! Besides which, older characters are very much in the minority, and more around would be wonderful! But be careful: you might find that there are age limits for certain roles on the game.
Finally, don’t worry! You can always change your character’s age, although for obvious reasons, it’s going to seem a bit weird if the kid you’ve been playing for a year, suddenly goes through puberty and out the other side overnight. But few people are going to pick at you if you shave a few years off a couple of weeks after creation for whatever reason. Just don’t make a habit out of it. You’ll find it much easier to develop your character if you let them age at their own rate.
Gender Name Age Description Background History Personality
Descing (writing descriptions)... it's harder than you might think. Obviously, your desc is merely what your character looks like... only you have to write it down in coherent sentences. It can’t be too short, it can’t be too long. It has to be reasonably IC, i.e. you can’t have pointed ears if you’re playing a straightforward human. And of course, everybody has different tastes and styles in descing. Look at the people you meet for examples, and form your own taste in descs from that. The shortest advice I can give you is to avoid ravishing good looks unless you really want them since they're very much a cliché. In slightly longer fashion, a desc should be half a dozen lines that read easily and convey an image as well as putting the character across in the way you want. First impressions and all that. But to start with, just cover the basics. Here’s a list of things you should try to mention:
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Your build—willowy, stocky, broad-shouldered for a woman, smaller than most your age, plump. Obviously, slim characters are in the majority by far, but then, that’s IC for most places. I'd caution against going to extremes since you end up having three out of ten characters being 'unusually' short. Always err on the side of average. It's better to stand out for the quality of your RP. |
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Hair and eye colour—bearing in mind that both red hair and green eyes tend to be rare RL. And silver eyes aren’t all that natural. There is nothing wrong with mousy hair or brown eyes and, ironically, you’re more likely to stand out if you use them. But then again, it’s only a game, if you want to be a redhead, well, who am I to stop you? |
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Skin tone—dark, pale, tanned, freckled, ruddy. Remember that if you want to give your character definite racial physical characteristics, it’s not always IC to describe yourself as caucasian or clearly of Asian heritage depending on the world you’re in. Anyway, you can get the same impression across and be a little more creative. It’s definitely more interesting if you’re swarthy or pasty-faced. If possible, avoid scars that were caused by a near death experience in your childhood—another cliché. Scars caused by acne are much better! |
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Personality—I don't mean a sentence tacked on at the end, saying She is very mischievous and is always ready for pranks. Nobody can know that by looking at a person. Try to convey the personality throughout the description by the words you use and other ways more subtle than the above. For example, instead of the sentence above, you could use Grey eyes snap and sparkle with the light of mischief... One corner of her full-lipped mouth quirks naturally to one side as if in perpetual amusement. Don't try too hard for this, it's better to write a plain desc and show personality through RP than to write a desc with a brief personality sketch attached to the end. Still, without exception, the best descs I've seen have always conveyed personality without thrusting it in your face. |
Do not include things like your expression. It’s a little difficult to crying your heart out when your desc says that your mouth is curved in a bright, sunny smile (Again you can see here how it can be difficult to successfully bring off a personality). On the same note, don’t include your environment. Maybe your hair shines in the sun, but that’s going to look a little odd if you’re inside or it’s night-time. Finally, don’t write something like his gaze is dark and disturbing so that you cannot meet it, but drop your own eyes after a few seconds. The character looking at you may be afraid of nothing or proud to a fault and ICly would never be unnerved by somebody’s gaze. It’s a form of powerplaying, which is covered in more detail in the RP section. Saying his gaze is dark and disturbing so that most people cannot meet it. is acceptable, if a little melodramatic IMHO.
As for the style of writing, that’s all a matter of taste. Some people like to use the poetic Sparkling sapphire eyes nestle ’neath graceful sweep of obsidian ’brows, and others prefer the simpler Bright blue eyes are set beneath the delicately curved black brows. I like to see less apostrophes and more articles personally (I get a headache trying to figure out some descs), but there’s no right or wrong between them. Just make sure that it’s more or less understandable. And with all descs, please take the trouble to check through your spelling and grammar.
Mummy, where do characters come from?
One of the hardest things to do can be to explain why your character’s just showed up in the area you’ve decided to make your home. You don’t need to do anything elaborate. Say that your character has lived in a small settlement nearby and left to find their own place in the world or some such. Just fill in any details that you feel you need as you go along. But keep a note of them, helps for consistency if you can remember your own character's history.
You can also say that they’ve lived there all along. Most areas only have a few dozen actual characters being played (this number obviously varies according to the size of game and area) but ICly are supposed to house hundreds of people. Those hundreds of residents are still there, they’re just NPCs (Non Player Characters) and you’ll quite often find that some of them acquire their own names and histories. But most of them are just tacitly accepted to be shadowy figures in the background, so you can say that your character has been one of them. The drawback here is that this means that you would already be familiar with the area and pretty much everybody in it, and they’d know you. You can carry this off, but you might want to post to the area mailer saying who you are and that you’ve been here all along so that nobody RPs asking you where you came from, or something.
Often though, it's a lot of fun thinking up a background for your character to set up motivations and history to go on in RP. And if you have ICly just arrived in the area, then you can build up relationships with the characters already there naturally. But what's your motive to be there? This is where the clichés come in—you get a lot of runaways. Don’t try too hard to be un-clichéd though, because it’s unlikely to work. The main thing that I’d avoid is angst—parents dying, childhood abuse, lone amnesiac survivor of a shipwreck, that sort of stuff (I’ve seen all of the above frequently in character histories, sometimes all three together, I kid you not). Long lost relatives are overdone too. It’s an all too rare relief to find somebody whose entire family is living, accounted for and generally loved. If you do kill a relative off—accidents will happen!—try not to have your character deeply, emotionally scarred by this. In fact, deep, emotional scarring is best avoided altogether, unless you really think you can play it well and you intend to work your way through it. If you cry your eyes out all day every time something reminds you of your dog's death, no matter what people say to you, they’re going to get bored of the RP really quickly. Granted, if your character does have a perfect family life, why would he/she leave? Often it’s a safe bet to make it some quirk of your character’s personality: his wanderlust drove him from his sheltered home; an ambition to be a great whatever brought her to wherever. Again, there’s no right or wrong, just overused.
This is actually one of the first things you think of when making a character, but it’s usually the last thing to be fully established. After all, personality is to an extent dependent on environment. You’ll find the personality as you play, but you do need to start somewhere, so have the main traits in mind. Sweet and shy is very popular, but I’ve only ever met a couple of people who do it well. Why? Because it’s very difficult to RP with somebody who sits in a corner and doesn’t say anything. There are ways to RP shy and quiet and make it fun for you and everybody else but an outgoing type is easier to play. Also don’t be perfect to a fault. Character flaws are more IC and much more enjoyable. Be lazy, a tease, tactless, thick as two short planks etc. Flirts and pranksters tend to be overdone, although they can be great fun. The problem is that people in those roles often go over the top, which is worse than all the Misses sweet-shy-and-coming-out-of-her-shell out there. Most of this comes under RP rather than character creation and is dealt with there.
Playing Yourself Gender Name Age Description Background History Personality
