PDA

View Full Version : Typecast



Asilynne
3rd July 2009, 08:45 PM
Most of us here have had at least a million characters, and inevitably we tend to fall into the same kinds of patterns with them. Obviously, since each person typically puts a little bit of themselves into every character, so it should come as no surprise that a good amount of our characters would have similar qualities. We even begin to associate a certain type of character with the roleplayer, essentially typecasting them XD
So basically this is a topic to discuss what your typecast is. Do you always play the loner or the bubbly personality? Villian types or always good, or somewhere inbetween?

I know mine XD I tend to play mostly girls, who are either feisty typical aries with an adventurious outlook on life, often mischevious and playful but honest and caring, or a more subdued character, that life had beaten down somewhat but who has a strong determination to rise up against the odds and succeed. I often play doctors, scientists and healers of any kind, and I mainly tend to make my age between 20-25. Looks wise a lot of my characters have red hair and green eyes XD And I tend to base the height/weight proportions on myself, though sometimes I like making shorter characters for fun. If I think of any more details Ill share, how bout you all?

Crystal Tears
3rd July 2009, 11:49 PM
You also tend to play characters that have a thing against technology =P

I also think people choose to play characters they (personality-wise) could never be in reality. Where they can say and do things without worrying if they'll hurt someone, or any sort of real consequence.

I usually play characters with a minor attitude problem. I think it reflects on myself, as my attitude can get rather nasty at points, usually this appears in male characters only (perfect example: Drake), while my females are considerably nicer in comparison (thought there are exceptions; like Cross). On the other hand, I also enjoy being the happy-go-lucky, never-ever sad characters (two notables: Joey Ip, and Zekekii).

I think I'd be typecast as playing asshole-males. Course I could be wrong, but I rather enjoy playing mean, male characters more than others =P

Outlaw JT
5th July 2009, 05:43 PM
I'm curious to see how you all would typecast me.

Bear
5th July 2009, 06:10 PM
Let's see, how to answer this...

I almost always play males. Not that I have any particular aversion to playing a female, just no real desire to. Physically, I tend to model alot of my characters after my real self (at least lately, it wasn't always this way). I also have quite a few character that resemble me in personality too. I think the reason I gravitate toward this is because it is far easier to act like yourself than someone else. The bigger reason is that, by acting like myself and reading back over it later, I am able to discover some flaws of mine and subsequently work on fixing them. If I read over my post and realize I sound really cocky, or annoying, or whatever, then I am able to find out things about myself. Of course, I haven't always done this. I've played a few characters that were more introverted and quiet (which is so not me in real life).

Also, all of my characters to this point have been on the good side (if I remember correctly, I've made a -lot- of characters). Although, I'm intending to play a bad guy in an RPG I'm writing soon :D. Most of my characters tend to be the chivalrous type, protective of their friends and with well-developed senses of justice. This is a theme I use frequently when creating my characters.

I dunno what else to say. Anyone else have any insight into my characters?

Heald
5th July 2009, 06:40 PM
I never tend to model any of my character after myself: I'm an average guy with a pretty mediocre life and wouldn't make a particularly interesting character.

I don't really notice the trends I've made, but I'll try and note some.

First of all, I cannot recall playing a single female character, apart from one Dragonball RPG where one was a foil to a male character I made, and in that case it was a female android, completely emotionless. I don't play female humans mainly because I'd doubt I'd play one well. You girls are a special kind of messed up that I honestly do not want to be involved with.

One trend that I have noticed is that all of my characters seem to be fairly neutral, regardless of whether they are good or evil, or otherwise do not have a great stake in what is going on. A lot of my villains have often not been directly aligned with the main evil force, instead either freelancing, part of a splinter group, or are only operating with the main evil group because they share a common goal or enemy, or he is using them to achieve his own goals. Likewise, many of my heroes are perhaps not good or lawful, but instead share the same beliefs, or perhaps use the good guys to achieve his own ends. I enjoy having the flexibility of my character realistically turning on other characters, or switching sides completely, or abandoning his supposed allies once they have served their purpose. Sometimes my character is a bystander who is able to help and does so because in the end it will be better to end the threat than idly stand by and let it continue to threaten them.

One of my more interesting characters was Legion: a conflicted demon that could not be killed, save by God or the Devil, and was originally an unwilling vassal of the forces of evil, indirectly forced to help Satan. In the 2nd part of that RPG series, Satan had taken away Legion's immortality, but had also sacrificed his control over him, allowing him to make his own choices, which eventually lead him to (unsuccessfully) seek God in order to find his true purpose.

One thing I also noticed is my characters ALWAYS have scars on their faces. This is one of two allusions to myself, as I have a scar on my face (albeit not a very noticeable one, but still). The second is that sometimes my characters are Scottish. There just aren't enough Scots these days.

Blademaster
5th July 2009, 07:55 PM
I almost always play males. Not that I have any particular aversion to playing a female, just no real desire to.

Physically, I tend to model alot of my characters after my real self

Also, all of my characters to this point have been on the good side

Most of my characters tend to be the chivalrous type, protective of their friends and with well-developed senses of justice.

Are you me?

Seriously, this post is me and my characters almost to a T.

One thing that sets my characters apart - in both good and bad ways - is that they typically embody a specific emotion. Ivan, for instance, embodies regret and resentment towards it. Enigma, hostility and passion. Cleft, free-spiritedness and the desire to just get up and go his own way. Etc., etc..

Drago
6th July 2009, 08:45 AM
When I first started RPing, I tried to make all of my characters as cool as possible. In other words, they had few to no distinguishing personalities, they were just generic hip. My most prolific character, Draco, initially had the 'extra' biography space filled with 'hates following orders' because I thought that was cool. That kind of thing.

Later, I'd find my niche in playing jerks, for a couple of reasons. One, they're easy to do. Pretty much any interaction can just be some variation of lashing out at other characters. Two, they're more appealing for other RPers to work with - whenever a post involved a clashing of heads or a disagreement, oftentimes they'd just default with the jerk character on offer. And three, I am a jerk. So I know how they work.

ChobiChibi
6th July 2009, 10:35 AM
I try my hardest to vary my characters as much as I can, but I find that most of them have one theme running between them... They've all got the same set of morals, mostly. They're all the loyal, friendly kind :/

I play mostly girls... The kind that always gets into trouble by complete accident and needs rescuing >_> It's mostly unintentional, with the exception of Meiya XD It's not because I don't like to play guys, I do try, but they tend to end up being more feminine than I'd like (I blame yaoi).

Appearance wise, they tend to be as far away from me as possible! lol! I think I scarred myself for life with one of my first characters that was supposed to be like me, but just wasn't. She annoyed me a lot, even if she was in 4 RPGs in total... It was odd.

Weasel Overlord
6th July 2009, 01:50 PM
I think anyone who knows me will have noticed that, perhaps, I play somewhat similar characters on occasion. And yes, most of these are male. If I was to look in my RPG folder (which I can't do at the moment, cos I'm not at home) I'd be willing to bet that the majority of my characters are male.

I've been trying to get away from my old types lately, however. There's not as many homosexual characters in my repertoire lately, and hasn't been since Hotaru in Furinkazan. But I've noticed that I'm playing the rogue-types more and more - see: Sirius in Darkness Descends. I have an extreme love for those womanisers, and I honestly don't know why, heh. A lot of my characters tend to be based on something I'm obsessed with at the time (as in Arc in Marvel and Castiel in Kalah's never-started final one), and they also tend to be on the older end, so much so that I've often found myself being the oldest characters in an RPG. I like to rationalise my choices for characters, and I'd say that this is probably because I like older guys.

Appearance-wise, I try as hard as possible to be diverse from character to character, although my males do have a tendency to be among the messy haired crowds (can't help it, it's a Thing). Each one will probably have one characteristic of my own in their personalities or appearance - whether it's hair colour, eye colour, height, clothing taste (especially clothing taste), sense of humour, etc.

And now this has given me an idea... excuse me as I zoom off to have a mod conference. :D

Houndoom_Lover
10th July 2009, 09:28 PM
I try to have my character vary as much as humanly possible. The only thing I can think of is a disregard for rules, mostly becuase I play villians.

Perhapse my inclination to include mental illnessess or conditions, just 'cause that's how I roll.

And villians are better that way?

I can think of little nitpicky things that are the same, like how alot of my characters need anger management, but I have just as many that are as calm as a sunbathing cat.

And the perverts are balanced out by the prudes...I have so many. I'm making a bio and referance folder so I can have them all in one place.

Crazy Elf Boy
10th July 2009, 11:51 PM
I try and not to make my characters to similar but I do seem to fall under the category of really quiet people who sit in the background watching the action and when the going gets awesome they run in and start to kick some ass.

VirtualPlay
11th July 2009, 01:08 AM
My typecast, as pretty much anyone who knows me can tell you, is playing either cute/innocent girlish girls, or girlish guys who become girls. Yeah, weird one there, but true. I'm not sure when I fell into this typecast, but I know I started out only playing guys based loosely on me and it sort of morphed into what it's come to be.

Not that I really mind, I'm just amused by it (and amused that people can predict my characters).