How did/do you create and become something your IRL self isn’t?
I’m currently finding it hard to create and become a character, that’s intended to be used in RP as if I were said character, that isn’t just a sort of self-insert with a fantasy twist.
So how did you, the reader, do as much? Did you like a class fantasy so much that you developed a character around that or did you read up on some of the vast WoW lore and decide that you’d have a similar character to someone or something completely different?
RP is writing and improv combined. You have to learn how other people tick, and how characters behave, and how you want to come across. Character writing is also a skill, so you will hone it as you go.
Starting with yourself is a good baseline for fiction but can be an issue in RP because you might take things too personally. I do recommend thinking about your favorite characters in media and how they behave vs how you behave, and start piecing together characters from tropes and storytelling techniques.
My main RP character started as “Riven from League of Legends, but an Orc,” and she’s turned out pretty great. Kai was a minor character in another character’s backstory that I decided to follow around for a bit and see what she might be up to, and I decided I wanted to write an anti-hero type with her. Gravewhisker started with a joke about lawyers.
Generally, any writing advice that revolves around writing characters and believable dialogue is good for RP. Also, my next bit of advice is to be ready to cringe at whatever you start with a few years down the line.
Every good writer reads, and reading a variety and experience of things can help aid your own writing abilities. We’re all doing improv, but broadening your basis of experience by reading, getting interested in a topic, doing research, and building up comfort is a key aspect in playing characters that are different from who you are.
Theme. Your character(s) face struggles you haven’t, have you weaknesses you do not, all that. A thematic statement, some quotes from sources you love, and loose vision for their progression from embodying an anti-theme to a chosen theme can help define difference between them and you.
It might be good to purposefully choose traits you don’t have. If you’re not stubborn, make them stubborn. Give them a tragic past unlike yours, vices and problems to overcome that you can’t even relate to from the context of your own life.
You can also dig in and define their voice and tone! Maybe they speak in shorter sentences and different turns-of-phrase than you do. Lock any figurative language they’d use into beliefs they have that you don’t. Stuff like that.
I’d also like to play a devil’s advocate in the mix and say it’s also okay to be self gratifying and give characters you make traits and themes you desire to see in yourself. Whether it’s a confident character where you feel you lack confidence, or one who you wish embodied things that you yourself have.
Also writing characters you wish to see existed that don’t in current media, or just by channeling your interests into character form isn’t a terrible idea either. Of course, finding and making sure characters align with lore and world building is important if your goals want to stay in those confines, but don’t be afraid to be a bit self indulgent with this sort of stuff. After all, this is a character you WANT to play as.
…After I realized that a self-insert was not working for me and that I could no longer keep up the pretense. xD My first character was unintentionally intertwined with myself as is often the case for new roleplayers. It just took time for me to grow personally and mature as a writer. As I did, I became more brave to branch out and try writing new character concepts and personalities. I also realized that how I was portraying my first character was simply cringeworthy and embarrassing. It was garnering negative attention as people did not take my character or me as a person seriously.
I love thinking about concepts in WoW that you could not possibly do in real life which therefore gives you a bit of separation. The Warcraft setting offers such a great parameter to shape your characters and make them a part of the world. I also take inspiration from history, books, movies, operas, and even lore characters to incorporate some details into my characters.
I am also of the belief that it is okay to add elements of yourself (and arguably impossible to completely separate yourself from your character). As long as it is not overwhelmingly your own traits, it is fine. I do not think people should force their characters to be drastically different. It is natural to draw from what we know. We should challenge ourselves, but do what feels comfortable and natural—otherwise it will stop being fun and start feeling like a chore.
What a thought-provoking question with some already great tips mentioned in this thread such as reading and research.
There is an actor/writer in all of us. We just tend to grow out of it and forget.
Think about how easy it was to play pretend when you were a kid. As sophisticated and mature and self-aware as our creative processes may have become as adults, that’s still really all we’re doing. Playing pretend. So don’t be intimidated by the notion that you have to be a great writer to do this, or that you have to take it super seriously.
It’s totally fine to play yourself to some extent. You can keep your personality - after all, it’s every bit as unique as any character’s you could write, and having that internal consistency can make your character feel more natural and believable. Just try to think of how you would be different if you lived and grew up how and where your character did. Have a decent grasp of your character’s race’s history and what might motivate them. And before you know it, the character will start developing a personality all their own. You shouldn’t ever feel that you have to force it.
Some RPers are the opposite and prefer to be more detached from their characters. Different strokes for different folks. In either case if it doesn’t feel natural and enjoyable, then don’t put that pressure on yourself.
Personally, I got into RP because I wanted to feel like a kid again, unashamed of the thrill of using imagination to create magic with my friends. I got into playing Talanor because I love Night Elf lore and aesthetics. He began as basically a fantasy alter ego and has over the years grown to be quite a bit more while never really straying from that as a core principle. Otherwise it can feel like I’m trying too hard to “act” and it feels forced.
It might seem odd, at first, but take an broad, shallow aspect of yourself you really like, and put it into the character. Maybe you like to be strong, or you want to be strong. Maybe you enjoy jokes and dumb word-plays. Maybe you live to explore and to uncover hidden secrets.
In this way, something you enjoy will always be a part of that character, and you will always have some enjoyment with them, which adds a desire to keep playing, and a desire to engage with the character, to grow them, explore them and how they fit into the world around you.
The trick is to make it only a piece of yourself. Do not subsume your identity into a character or ‘blur’ the line between You, the Person, and Them, the Character. That line must always stay firm and well defined, no matter what happens. Bad things happen to those who cannot keep the two separate and distinct from one another.
Tropes Tropes Tropes Tropes
Take your favourite series. Get nice and comfy, and go punch in your favourite character/series into the https://tvtropes.org/ and jot down what tropes/parts of the character/parts of the series that appeals to you. Go research those tropes, because they will give you additional reading material and examples of similar tropes in other characters or series that you can look up or read about and mine for more context, information and inspiration.
But … it is TVTropes. You’re gonna disappear into the abyss for a while no matter what you do.
That said, do make sure you’re making your own, original character, not just a carbon copy of some popular memetic trope. You don’t need an endlessly edgy archetype who spams memes every five minutes, and you don’t need to be the invisible white-bread sandwich that nobody can actually see or be able to interact with. It is a balancing act, and every failure is a step forwards to finding who you want to use as a Character in the future.
Talk to people in the know
If you want to roleplay something, but you don’t have personal context for it … talk to the community who does. Be it writing lesbian characters when you’re a man, be it writing trans characters when you’re not, be it writing white characters when you’re black and vice versa, talk to people and try to ask questions about why what you assume is so very different from what they’re telling you. Be aware, you’re gonna get slapped in the face with a wet sock more often than not when you compare what you ‘know’, and what people are gonna tell you, because the broad strokes of humanity are far more diverse and far-reaching than you can imagine when you start out, and it can get overwhelming really damn quick if you just dive into the deep end without a warm-up.
Stick to what you know first, and branch out slowly. You’ll get there, it isn’t a race.
One of the hardest things we have to do when writing, acting, roleplaying, is divorcing ourselves from our characters and our settings, and accepting that, sometimes, we mis-step. We go too far, we flanderize, we aren’t familiar with the context of why and why not, and we may simply have never had the contact required to accurately portray or talk about the thing we’re interested in. There’s nothing wrong with saying sorry and there’s nothing wrong with asking for more information. Not everyone is gonna wanna deal with you, or be willing to be polite about it, take it on the chin and remember some people have deeply rooted trauma they don’t or can’t talk about, some people deal with bigotry every day, some people just are looking to be morally righteous and you’re their victim of the day.
At the end of it, the questions you need to ask are “Did I do everything I could to not hurt anyone?” “Did I enjoy doing this?” and “Did the people around me have fun as well.” If you can tick all three boxes, tell the haters to go jump toes first into a wood chipper and carry on. Like all things in life, your journey is a work in progress, there is no end goal, and there is no pleasing everybody. Try to do no harm, keep an open mind, and be aware some people are gonna hate and snipe no matter what you do, and the best thing you can do is ignore them and let them screech into the void. They’ll move on to another target sooner or later once they can’t milk drama, pity or sympathy, and the longer you keep trying to placate or fight them, the more they’ll latch onto you like a lamprey onto a struggling fish.
Read. A lot.
And also branch out into different genres if you have the time, funds and patience. As WoW communication is a text-based system for the most part, improving your language, diction, speed of typing and vocabulary can only help, and also can help in online communications outside of the game too, which is a lovely bonus.
It can also give you access to different styles of writing if that’s your thing, but I find folks who want you to only communicate in X style or Y phrasing tend to be more effort than they’re worth.
If you can’t access actual books, online articles written by people can also be a valid training model, and I know there’s plenty of writing sites like Ao3 and the Community Discords who can link you to language training and writing training sites that are either cheaper than a cup of coffee, or free even, if you really want to commit to the bit.
A much overlooked method I found is going to ‘national’ Twitters (NEVER X) and learning the language and cultural ‘tempo’ if you want to add some diversity to your character(s) speech patterns. My Dwarves and Kul’tirans were trained off of Scottish Twitter, my Humans and Sin’dorei/Ren’dorei Elves off of English Twitter, my Gnomes off of the Irish one. Orcs, Goblins and Trolls get their linguistic ‘tics’ off of New Zealand Twitter, Humans, Orcs, Tauren and Trolls off of Black Twitter, my Kaldorei/Shal’dorei off of French Twitter.
All the other races speak with Australian because I have enough voices in my head.
I hope some of this may be of help to you. You’ve gotten a lot of really good advice from the other people so far!
Mimicry. If there’s a character in a movie or TV show that you’ve seen that has unique ways of saying something, gesturing, etc., start there. Some of my earliest characters were based on mimicking specific characters.
I got a lot of traction out of a character I based on David Spade back in the day, for instance. He has a specific kind of sarcastic whine to his voice that I could hear in my head, so I used that as the basis for a character and they grew from there.
Kirsy was originally based on Starfire from Teen Titans, but that only lasted for maybe a couple of weeks until she started growing from different RP experiences she had.
tbh all my characters end up being a vessel for me to insert silly jokes. I try not to go full meme character and keep it grounded to the setting/character but I always like to have a little bit of humour and I think that’s honestly a bit of inserting myself into the character. I’m a silly jokesy person IRL and I can’t help but not bring that into my RP despite how serious a character might be.
Versca my undead is probably my most serious character and I still end up managing to bring humour into my RP with her.
IRL, I’m an elder millennial mom
In game, I’m RPing a himbo Illidari-aligned satyr
I’ve read a ton of books. I’ve written stories (some published) for years and years. I’ve RP’ed since the days of Yahoo communities and chat rooms.
I’m not sure how to teach someone to put themselves in the shoes of a fictional character and write from that perspective, I’ve always just been able to do it, male or female. All I can advise is read a lot of books to get perspectives on the lives of other people, fictional and non-fictional. Then imagine a character in those scenarios.
Reading is important for imagination.
Edit: and it’s totally fine if your character shares SOME aspects of your personality. But you don’t want to self-insert because that can just lead to OOC drama. Really though, just read I guess, then write a few paragraphs about a character living in that world/time and how they might react. Make their background and even their gender different than yours to force yourself to think outside your own perspective on things.
A lot of my ideas come from racial and zone lore primarily and then class secondly, based on the stuff I find most interesting.
For example, I really loved the Silverpine quests and Pyrewood Village. I read everything I could about them. Then I came up with an idea for a young girl from a farm outside the village who was visiting family in Gilneas when Greymane sealed the gate and cut off Pyrewood and the surrounding lands. She was incredibly bitter towards Greymane and became a Crowley loyalist.
A really good starting point is looking at the lore and asking if something bothers you, or inspires a strong reaction. Pay attention to stuff that makes you think, “Hey, that’s not fair!” or “I admire that, I don’t think I could show that kind of bravery” or “I can’t imagine the grief that must have caused.” That’s not to say you have to focus your characters on traumatic emotions or situations, but I find it’s super helpful for getting into a character’s head when I look at events that would have had a big role in shaping them.
There’s lots of great advice here, so I’ll add an affirmation that many beginner roleplayers need: do not be afraid to be generic. Let me explain.
There’s a pervasive fear and pressure when writing and character creating that revolves around being derivative. Yes, you shouldn’t typical take an idea wholesale and pass it off as your own, that’s just bad etiquette. But you also shouldn’t be afraid of being Orc Grunt #367 or thinly-veiled Legolas-inspired elf hunter. If you love Orcs, if you love elves, if you love any well worn character archetype, just do it! Make it and have fun! The roleplay police isn’t going to hunt you down, I promise.
I think part of learning how to get inside a character’s head involve experience. Starting a character - like a Legolas inspired elf hunter will give you a framework to you can use to get out there and get your feet wet. You don’t need an elaborate backstory. You don’t need every detail completely nailed down when you start. Some simple backstory, really light on details that give your character room to evolve will do. Think about things in the real world. You don’t introduce yourself to people by reciting an autobiography.
Posting this thread is a great start by the way. When I got started, or second started because my first Rp character was a horrible experience, I was lucky enough to get into a guild and found a number of people with Rp experience, some in WoW and also from many other places. so I was able to ask them. Experience is great - even someone else’s! Eventually you will find what works for best for you.
Also, as others have indicated putting too much of yourself can become an issue. But it can also be help - at least at first. It can help you connect to a character and make it easier for you to figure out to interact with others. But, it usually becomes a problem. It happened in my early days with Kina. I took things way too personally and got involved in some drama that shouldn’t have. It took a minute, but I managed to sort that out. I actually based some of Kina’s personality on things that I admired about my grandmother. I wanted a strong, independent female character. That was my grandmother - strong, pragmatic, stoic, and sometimes appearing aloof. That actually seem to me to work well with a Tauren. It gave me point of view as to how someone would respond and react in situations.
In terms of becoming the character, that’s part of time and experience. It will happen, sometime you just need to be patient and let the character cook for a bit. Kina’s first few months of existence felt very stiff and stilted. She need time to evolve in my mind. And I need experience RPing. The more you do the more comfortable you become and the easier you get.
Sometimes there are character you try that just aren’t ever going to work the way you first imagined them. Sometime there are characters you just know are good from the beginning. Trial and error, experience, time and patience. Oh, and don’t be afriad to restart a character, and try something different with them. Banging your head against a brick wall isn’t going to make them work.
Don’t be afraid to roleplay what you envision your character to be.
Characters are as diverse in this game as they are in the real world.
There will be times when other RP’ers will test you here on the forums or in game on lore. You have to have a bit of thick skin and not take it personally.
Nothing is more entertaining than
going out and DOING YOUR OWN RESEARCH on the lore of your character’s race and class.
There are plenty of reliable resources about WoW lore out there in a simple search engine request.
One thing you will learn in writing is that there are no good ideas, just good execution. Generic can work, especially for RP, because more generic characters can often serve as a normalizing force in RP. I personally love it when a generic blood elf character talks to my demon hunter and there’s conflict or contrast that arises because of it!
Hell, I personally work within the lore and rarely step outside canon events for character backstory, and it’s made for a lot of compelling characters. Lorastrasz is the most Red Dragon to ever Red Dragon, and I like to think people enjoy writing with him.
Another thing to note is that you will almost always think your ideas are generic and derivative because you live with them in your head all the time. But once you write it, you’ll realize that not everyone’s always thinking the way you do.
You (and, frankly, everyone else in this thread) are thinking way too hard about this.
You are you. No matter what you make, you will always be you, hence whatever you create will also carry some of you inside it. The more you seek to distance yourself from that, the more frustrated you will become.
Do it the other way around. Lean into the parts of yourself you want to explore. Characters who are more vulnerable than we can be in real life, characters who are more decisive because the consequences aren’t real, characters that are petty, shallow, obsessive, whatever else that isn’t acceptable in real life.
In storytelling, hoping for either perfect representation or utter uniqueness are both recipes for disaster that create stale, inauthentic characters. What we should strive for are characters who reflect parts of ourselves in new circumstances so that we can see new facets of those reflections.
This is great advice and I want to piggyback that not only this is a great start, as it gives you a fairly basic platform to just get out there and RP with low stakes, but more importantly, gives you the foundation to just explore and grow just from lived experiences.
This character (Lianshi) didn’t have a background when MoP launched. In fact, they were going to be a parody character of every anime ninja, kungfu, archtype tossed into one character because I had no intention of playing them wholly serious. It wasn’t until from some walk up RP, going through regular in-game interactions and being put in the position to improv or come up things through RP that this toon became not only my main character but one of my more fleshed out characters since I’ve been RPing in WoW for over 10 years now.
It’s okay to start off simple and flesh out as you go along, taking those interactions to build into the totality of a character both separate from yourself and into something entirely unique.
Now I can’t get the official music video for Bon Jovi’s song “Bad Medicine” (the one that starts with Sam Kinison riling up the crowd outside before they shoot the video) out of my head until I go watch it all the way through!
