Cantr II Discussion Forum

So I've had issues with character development in the past, mainly, too dull. The more interesting I try to make them the more average they seem to be and so for the sake of future character developments not just in game but also in my writing I figured I'd ask for some tips. Now, granted, writing interesting characters is a bit easier than creating them in game since it seems like a coin toss whether or not they'll be a success to me. But I've seen some really well done in game characters and most had the same background as mine so I feel it's definitely something I'm doing wrong. I've tried hostile characters, non-hostile, village idiots, you name it and I've tried it and yet all my characters (at least to me) feel the exact same with only a handful being really outgoing and interesting.

I'm not sure if it's my role play failing me or if it's just me lacking imagination as far as character builds go. Also, another thing I've noticed is my characters that do have a unique taste to them end up sharing a lot of attributes with other in game characters which is honestly a bit awkward.

So I'm asking, is there a particular trick to creating interesting characters? What am I missing that everyone else (and a few of my characters) seem to get right? I've been playing a lot of RP servers in different games and again it's the same problem, only a few of my characters felt like they had any real depth to them.

Anyway, if anyone has any tips then I'd be glad to hear it. Otherwise I'll just continue trying to improve on my own. But I felt it was a least worth checking to see if anyone else had this problem or if anyone knew how I could improve my characters general uniqueness and make them a bit more interesting and a little less mundane.

Out of curiosity, how many characters do you play?

None right now but I've played up to 8-12 I think. I had a lot of personal problems and had to delete my acc. I can give you a full list of my old characters once my account gets reactivated, but I think my most fun and interesting was Beau, I don't remember anything about him except he had a very childish attitude and frequently got his feelings hurt when people said he smelled bad. :p Other than that he was either spawned around the Naron area or moved through there at some point. He died near Cantr City. But he was by far my most interesting and fun loving character in my opinion. xD

I have several different techniques to choose from so that if one of them fails to create an interesting character, I can use a different approach. Here are a few of the ways to change things up.

1. Allowing the environment to shape the character is an interesting approach. In a way, this is the most realistic way to give a character a certain flavor about them, since people develop this way in real life. For instance, if a character grows up in a place focused around trade and commerce, rather than fighting the system, allow the character to thrive in it. This can go for just about any scenario. A new village that struggles constantly for food? Make their personality reflect the struggle that they go through every day. Drama llama town? Welcome to the pack, fellow llama!

2. When creating a character, first think of who you want that character to be. If you're like me, then you sometimes will have an ultimate goal for a character. The key to this, though, is to start the journey with a blank slate. If you want a musician, it's no fun if they automatically have a killer voice and a virtuoso playing style; it's all about the journey from a "meh" musician to a great one. If you want your character to be some amazing chef, maybe roleplay them burning dishes quite a lot when they first start, even if they have an expert level in cooking already. I like to think of the abilities as natural affinities that allow the character to get the hang of something faster, rather than objective levels of ability.

3. Sometimes a sudden and impulsive change in the character's life is the way to go. If it seems like a character's personality is going nowhere, then it might just be that the environment isn't that conducive to roleplay. If there's a flyer on the ground for a service that sounds interesting, just pack up and give it a shot. If a person passes through town and they mention a place that your character might find beautiful, ask if your character can travel with them.

Those are just a few of the ways that I use. I'm sure that some of the more experienced people here have even better suggestions!

Undine wrote:I have several different techniques to choose from so that if one of them fails to create an interesting character, I can use a different approach. Here are a few of the ways to change things up.

1. Allowing the environment to shape the character is an interesting approach. In a way, this is the most realistic way to give a character a certain flavor about them, since people develop this way in real life. For instance, if a character grows up in a place focused around trade and commerce, rather than fighting the system, allow the character to thrive in it. This can go for just about any scenario. A new village that struggles constantly for food? Make their personality reflect the struggle that they go through every day. Drama llama town? Welcome to the pack, fellow llama!

2. When creating a character, first think of who you want that character to be. If you're like me, then you sometimes will have an ultimate goal for a character. The key to this, though, is to start the journey with a blank slate. If you want a musician, it's no fun if they automatically have a killer voice and a virtuoso playing style; it's all about the journey from a "meh" musician to a great one. If you want your character to be some amazing chef, maybe roleplay them burning dishes quite a lot when they first start, even if they have an expert level in cooking already. I like to think of the abilities as natural affinities that allow the character to get the hang of something faster, rather than objective levels of ability.

3. Sometimes a sudden and impulsive change in the character's life is the way to go. If it seems like a character's personality is going nowhere, then it might just be that the environment isn't that conducive to roleplay. If there's a flyer on the ground for a service that sounds interesting, just pack up and give it a shot. If a person passes through town and they mention a place that your character might find beautiful, ask if your character can travel with them.

Those are just a few of the ways that I use. I'm sure that some of the more experienced people here have even better suggestions!

Those are really good actually and I've considered the 1st. In fact, most of my characters (not all but most) who have been interesting have all been built by their environment. I'll keep that in mind, thank you a lot!

I'm definitely interested in your old list. It'd be nice to see if I recognise any (probably not). I'd suggest starting two characters, and not spawning any further characters for at least two weeks. Looking at my character lists supports this. The dead characters spawned were spawned shortly after my first two, and were all boring. Now I know it's a cliché to keep your character list down to 2, because inevitably you'll spawn another and wonder why you did that. Just don't do that until you're entirely comfortable with your two characters.

One thing I wholeheartedly support is characters that do not strike out on their own. Every business, organisation and religion in Cantr fails because everyone wants to make their own. Well, don't! Join an existing one. Build forth on other people's legacies, rather than adding your own to the list of organisations we never heard about. The same goes for travelling, don't choose your own destination (unless you have a following already), but go along on other people's journeys. Of course, once you're in the organisation you shouldn't blindly follow instructions (although that can be fun, too).

Spawning location is always an issue. Sometimes you're better off pulling the plug, but as a general rule it's good not to kill off a character if you're expecting to spawn another. Jumping aboard someone's ship or van can lead to unexpected results. Of course the first time I did that since my return, my character was violently murdered but that was more fun than had I slowly let her starve.

---

Feel free to stop reading here if you don't like unnecessarily controversial opinions. (I don't want to hijack the discussion, after all.) My personal opinion is not to spawn sensitive girls. The Cantrian idea of the "girly girl" is so ridiculous and unrealistic and boring. They're nothing like women in real life and it makes it feel like I'm in an anime rather than a society simulator. What makes it worse is that the characters invariably end up in trouble, and their personality calls for their complete failure, but the player who loves their character doesn't allow this and passive-aggressive behaviour ensues. I'm fond of characters I can imagine meeting in real life, or being portrayed in a movie. Contrary to popular Cantrian opinion, women are not weak, constantly crying and overly sensitive beings. Surprisingly, none of them have perfect breasts and butts either. I'm not a fan of babies or clowns either (even though I must admit playing one of the latter). Like I said, this is a very personal opinion and probably best discussed in another thread rather than this.

Oh, that reminds me, I love shaping my characters around a certain book character. There's a young and defiant Jane Eyre (by a different name) walking around somewhere, and one of the maids from her childhood home too. I like my Brontë. I imagine anything written by a Victorian author would work well in Cantr. It hasn't failed me so far.

EDIT: Oh, yes. For me, if the name sucks, the character sucks. Don't make it too complicated or forced, find the right balance. All of mine have a first and last name, but that's not always necessary in my opinion. All of my good characters had their appearance mapped out before speaking their first words. That doesn't necessarily mean pre-spawn, because you can still decide the appearance while looking at everyone else in your spawn location. I love desert characters that have dark skin.

*Wiro wrote:I'm definitely interested in your old list. It'd be nice to see if I recognise any (probably not). I'd suggest starting two characters, and not spawning any further characters for at least two weeks. Looking at my character lists supports this. The dead characters spawned were spawned shortly after my first two, and were all boring. Now I know it's a cliché to keep your character list down to 2, because inevitably you'll spawn another and wonder why you did that. Just don't do that until you're entirely comfortable with your two characters.

One thing I wholeheartedly support is characters that do not strike out on their own. Every business, organisation and religion in Cantr fails because everyone wants to make their own. Well, don't! Join an existing one. Build forth on other people's legacies, rather than adding your own to the list of organisations we never heard about. The same goes for travelling, don't choose your own destination (unless you have a following already), but go along on other people's journeys. Of course, once you're in the organisation you shouldn't blindly follow instructions (although that can be fun, too).

Spawning location is always an issue. Sometimes you're better off pulling the plug, but as a general rule it's good not to kill off a character if you're expecting to spawn another. Jumping aboard someone's ship or van can lead to unexpected results. Of course the first time I did that since my return, my character was violently murdered but that was more fun than had I slowly let her starve.

I'll keep that in mind and as for the second part I totally agree with all that too. The girls in Cantr do seem pretty ... unrealistic. Especially the really old ones that seem to keep their youth in tact, very immersion breaking for me. I wish there were more broken down aging folks around. Just hobbling around struggling to get from point A to point B due to age. That would be a definite fix to the society in Cantr in my opinion.

I once played a character who aged like a real human would. She died when she was 77 and I never regretted letting her die. It felt like her life had reached a natural ending point. The rest of my characters don't seem to go past 70s at most in the aging process, there was a thread about this somewhere. I dislike it when someone is 90+ and looks like they are in their twenties, even though there have been arguments that Cantrians only get stronger as they age, so they shouldn't go frail and get wrinkles and gray hair. But when you look at elves in LoTR/The Hobbit, like Elrond and Thranduil, they certainly don't look like they're in their twenties, but more mature, and that's something a 200-year-old Cantrian could look like. Or what about Gandalf for that matter, he might look old but he can still ride a horse and fight with a sword and kick ass, so you definitely don't have to look like a 20-year-old.

Edited my post with something about names and appearance (at the bottom). I really like the idea of playing an old person. I've always been a little disappointed that the players with old characters keep their characters young. What I wouldn't give to be in their place and play a wrinkly old hag.

In my experience special personality or physical traits tend to backfire. Tread carefully there. I do miss having blind characters around. Not the magical Helen Keller ones with superpowers, though. I have this fantasy of my characters stealing from a blind person, but the one opportunity I had I didn't take because I couldn't tell whether the player would magically roleplay "oh I hear my pearls disappearing into your pockets across the room" or go along with it.

*Wiro wrote: though. I have this fantasy of my characters stealing from a blind person, but the one opportunity I had I didn't take because I couldn't tell whether the player would magically roleplay "oh I hear my pearls disappearing into your pockets across the room" or go along with it.

That's so funny but I don't really blame them. I mean playing a blind character must really suck when people try to take the upper hand on you. :p

Being blind isn't called a handicap for nothing. A good way to determine whether you should play a blind or deaf person (or any other handicap) is to ask yourself whether you want to do it to make your character interesting or because you want to crawl into the skin of such a person. These things are generally only interesting if they're believable and not just a trope. You can apply that criticism to a lot of decisions surrounding character development.

By the way, the contact form has been bugged for a while. If you used it to get your account reactivated and it still hasn't gone through, you might want to resend it (because it got fixed just yesterday I believe).

Its nuances that help me to make my characters feel unique and have depth. They're completely at the mercy of their environments, but I like to give them traits or ticks ive seen in real People.

One character of mine is forever pressing a hand to her forehead a certain way, because I had a boss who used to do it and I loved that. Others smooth their clothing, scratch their shoulder. The key for me has been to cnvince myself with these minor human behaviours (one or two each) that they were real, and after that depth comes easier.

*Wiro wrote:By the way, the contact form has been bugged for a while. If you used it to get your account reactivated and it still hasn't gone through, you might want to resend it (because it got fixed just yesterday I believe).

Oh well thanks for the info, I'll do that.

Not great advice for every character--as variety is the spice of life--but I've found that making my characters greedy or wealth-seeking, with very far-off ambitions and personal desires really drives them forward. This also makes them super fun to play.

*Wiro wrote:One thing I wholeheartedly support is characters that do not strike out on their own. Every business, organisation and religion in Cantr fails because everyone wants to make their own. Well, don't! Join an existing one. Build forth on other people's legacies, rather than adding your own to the list of organisations we never heard about. The same goes for travelling, don't choose your own destination (unless you have a following already), but go along on other people's journeys. Of course, once you're in the organisation you shouldn't blindly follow instructions (although that can be fun, too).

Can't second this enough. Though sometimes good leaders (town, business, or otherwise...) are in such short supply you wind up having to strike out on your own anyway. But I always do try to develop my newspawns organically, and so in the beginning before they've got any firm goals of their own they're impressionable and very recruitable.

And I'm a big supporter of Undine's points earlier about letting your surroundings shape your character. For me their skills do a lot to shape who they are too. The five I have now are some of the most enjoyable I've ever played, even the two in very quiet places who rarely have a reason to look up from their projects feel like fleshed out and interesting characters, without my ever needing to force or rush their development.

Of course just flat out desiring wealth like FiziKx suggested is a good motivator too. All of mine are seeking it in their own way, to the best of their ability, simply because by this point in their lives they have goals they want to accomplish (even if it's as vague as 'live forever while being awesome' or 'tooling around the island doing whatever I want while wearing pretty clothes') and getting a certain amount of wealth together is a necessity for that.

Oh yes and maybe I'm off topic but I'm a firm supporter of making old characters actually look and act older. I've seen way too many 'very old' Cantrians who look like 20 year old models and it's just boring and lame and feels like such a missed opportunity. Not saying they have to be withered up and frail but just something to show all those years and experiences have had an impact.

And the 'overly sensitive girly girls' can be annoying too, but they don't seem as common as they used to be, and they do have their place. (being fun and easy to mock, for on...)