The Struggle: Strengths and Weaknesses

Every interesting character has their strengths and their weaknesses; the first enables them to compete in the storyline, and the second makes it difficult for them to succeed. Whether it’s their raw intelligence coupled with overweening pride, incredible strength paired against low wits, or tact and guile against callous character, each individual struggles and fights against things. These characteristics are, importantly, not external but rather internal, byproducts of the individual’s own character and not the events around them, though both will motivate the story. This balance between strength and weakness is of utmost importance to develop interesting, character-driven stories in all fiction, but it’s incredibly difficult to do well. Just the few examples I listed seem fairly trite, but executed properly they form the foundations for some of the most interesting characters you and I know. So how do they do it? Let’s look at it from a roleplaying perspective.

Write Real Characters, Not Rational Ones

One of the greatest blessings and curses of roleplaying is that every writer has an audience. Whether it’s posting the character sheet or responding to the roleplaying thread the character is in, each person expects what they’ve written to be read. On the one hand, this is great because it gives writers a real, living experience for their creations to live in. But on the other hand, this also means that even the people who really aren’t writers, at their cores, can still play creative fiction on their unsuspecting victims.

In practice, what you end up getting is a pretty steady demographic with roleplaying. Every roleplayer I’ve met has fancied themselves a fairly intelligent, rational person in their own minds. That may very well be the case, and there’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but it does have some serious implications for the sorts of characters you run into in your adventures. As we have already long since established, people are inherently drawn (usually unhelpfully) to write portions of themselves into characters. You should tread lightly.

When to Write a Short Post

Not too many posts ago, I discussed what I referred to as the “Disease of Long Posts” in roleplay, getting into what makes a so-called “Long Post” and why it’s really harmful to the roleplay. Today I want to look at it from the other perspective, though I suspect there will be a portion of overlap in it. Approaching your posts with an understanding of their length is absolutely crucial to your success as a roleplayer, and it should be an issue the writer is continually sensitive toward.

Ever been on a web-site that banned members for making a “short” post? Some places will classify them as spam, others will say it’s simply poor writing, but all around there’s a sense that fewer words mean diminished quality. Naturally, there’s a really important question we have to ask ourselves:

Does this make any sense at all?

Roleplayers Love Feedback

Roleplayers love feedback. It’s true! But I don’t mean critical feedback, where you go “I really liked what you did here, but this could use some work” I mean feedback in the communication sense. Presumably how this works, according to modern experts in communication, is that feedback is the response to a message sent by the sender. It’s a good thing we have armies of PhDs and experts to analyze our communications and decide that, indeed, effective communication requires a two-way path.

And yet, this may seem obvious, but so often we absolutely miss it, especially in roleplay. In fact, we miss it so much of the time that when a roleplayer actually gives another person “feedback” in a roleplay, it’s a huge deal. When I think of the greatest moments I’ve had in roleplay—or other people’s moments they’ve recounted to me—it never involves just one person. It’s always about the tradeoff, the exchange of information between two people that creates something memorable.

So if this is so powerful, so pleasant and so memorable, why does it seem so rare?

Written Character Histories are Evil

At the very beginning of this blog I talked through all the major points people run into on character creation. I started from conception to appearances, then histories, and finally personalities, but I’d like to revisit the history section today. When I first discussed it, I pushed away from the idea that many larger roleplays press, which states that longer histories are indicative of a more thought-out character. To a gauge a character’s depth on the author’s ability to summon an encyclopedia’s volume of information for their 20 year old character is obviously dumb, but it may be worse than that.

The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that character histories are, in fact, quite evil. When I say character histories, though, I should be clear that I mean written ones. Every character, even if you roleplayed a creature created immediately before the RP, has a history or biography. You, as the writer, should know your character’s history at least loosely, but I think asking roleplayers to write one up is a mistake.

The Disease of Long Posts

I took quite a break from roleplaying this year, one that I had meant for good but eventually realized was futile at this current time. Six months later, here I am again, writing mostly for myself in the hopes that I could understand the nuts and bolts of roleplay better. Tonight I want to talk about “Long Posts” though I suspect there will be some irony in the length of my own explanation and discussion of the topic. In my mind, “Long Posts” are damaging to a roleplay and should be avoided whenever possible. And yet… they really do seem like a disease. Every time I visit a place that would call itself among the upper-tier of roleplayers, a bold claim to say the least, I always see the same thing: Long Posts. 

People seem to cling to them like hope incarnate, and they begin to live and breathe the Long Post until they know no other way but it. Abandoned to this senselessness, they are consumed. But what is a Long Post? Why is it bad?

The Two Elements of Writing

Over the last year or two I've noticed a conversation that's come up more than a few times, and I now feel comfortable enough with the idea to actually write about it rather than just talk. In this post, I'd like to get more in depth with what I consider to be the core two elements of writing, specifically for creative writing. As always, my aim is that by looking at things in more detail, I can flesh it out more for myself and hopefully progress more as a writer. Looking at core things like this can be useful to evaluating writing, whether it's your own piece or not. As writing quality can increase, so can roleplay quality, which leads to more enjoyable roleplays altogether!

Obviously quality will always be something subjectively measured, but theoretically quality roleplay will involve both you and the other roleplayer actually enjoying the scenes you're putting your characters through. I've said this all before, but I think it's certainly worthy of repeating. Roleplay is about two people at once, so that means you've gotta balance two people's happiness at once. 

I think the argument for how to do this begins at the very core itself of writing a story. I would argue there are two basic elements of writing that everything else can fall under, and this applies to all creative writing, not just roleplay. Onward! (I put a page break and a picture!)