Welcome to Gaia! ::

Getting a little impatient, Mr. Vay tapped his watch again but didn't bother to look at it as he walked back toward the front of the class to flip through the papers on his desk.

“I'm seeing an interesting thing in this assignment, other than half the class's inability to turn it in,” he muttered slightly then looked up to the class. “It seems there's some blurring of the line here between what makes a good character and what makes a good player. There is a difference. To break it down simply: the character is the design aspect while the player is the execution of that design. A good player can take a bad character and still do good things with it, conversely a bad player can utterly ruin a good character. There is separation between the two,” He leaned back against the teacher's desk to look over the students with a slightly flat look then shook his head.

“And I'm getting tired of waiting for late work. Most of you have done the oral part now. Keynir, Venom, jump in with yours when you get around to it. For now, let's take a look at what the few of you that turned something in actually said,” he paused shuffling though the papers briefly before continuing.

“The most common answer across the board seems to include, in some form or other, that a good character must be consistent,” Vay looked out over the class a touch expectantly. “Yeah. There's that blurring of the line. While consistency is of utmost importance to the player it's actually not all that important to the character. Sounds like an odd thing to say, don't it?” he paused to shrug off his irritation and give them a friendly smile. “Well, have you ever met anyone who was bi-polar? Or even contrary? Maybe just someone who's simply inconsistent? Take my wife for example.” Vay snapped his fingers and in a big puff of smoke a dark haired woman in a pinstripe skirt suit and combat boots appeared at his side with a stumble.

“What tha-” she gasped straightening up with a confused little glare in dark chocolate eyes as she looked out over the class. Then she turned that glare on the teacher and it heated. “Making example of me already?” she only half asked in a grumble as she stood taller than him and looked a touch threatening.

The teacher grinned wide and patted her shoulder lightly, “You remember to get the car registered?” he asked rather non sequitur.

“Umm. . .” she blinked with a slight blush and the gruff demeanor completely changed to something shy and adorable, hands clutched in front of her and booted feet turned in as she raised her shoulders in a little shrug with a sorry smile.

Vay just grinned and patted her shoulder again then looked to the class. “It's called a 'mercurial personality' or sometimes 'chameleon' and is a trait of good actors, and by extension con-men and other manipulators. Most women have the capabilit-”

“Hey!” the woman cut him off with an offended look for that but Vay just returned it with a flat challenge and she couldn't really argue so just looked away with a huff.

“Capability to suddenly switch moods for no apparent reason,” he continued then gave a little wave to the woman, “My wife can completely shift personalities to meet the needs of the situation and often does so unconsciously. While these personality shifts are mostly surface, the core traits underneath are rather inconsistent as well.” He turned back to the woman with a smile, “What's your favorite color today, darlin'?” he asked lightly.

She gave him a pouty glare and seemed to consider not answering before she rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Think I'll go with turquoise and a dot of goldenrod today,” she answered with a little sneer.

“Yesterday it was chartreuse,” Vay glanced to the class then returned his attention to the woman with a polite little smile. “So, would you be willing to go to a concert tonight? That band you liked last week is playing at the stadium.”

She blinked then considered a moment, “The one with the banjo?” she asked and Vay nodded patiently then smiled when she curled her nose in mild disgust, “Naaah, I don't think I really like them all that much. I mean, I know I said they were great but that's just the novelty of it. Ya know. How often do you hear banjo in a death metal band?”

“You told me to get tickets if they came to town,” Vay told her gently.

“I did?” she furrowed her brow at him and got that shy look again as he nodded slowly.

“Don't worry, I know better,” he patted her shoulder again then turned back to the class. “My little ball of chaos,” he waved at the woman with a wide smile.

“You do it too,” she huffed under her breath at him.

Vay just grinned with a little nod as he went on to the class, “Some inconsistency in a character's design can actually be beneficial as it can lend a humanizing touch to the character - after all isn't everyone a little inconsistent sometimes?” He gave the woman a winking grin then snapped his fingers and she disappeared in another puff of smoke. “Just don't go overboard with it or you risk tripping into the realms of 'crazy' which is, in most cultures, socially undesirable,” he paused, “We'll talk more about 'crazy' later. For now just consider it a bad thing.”

“For a player though,” Mr. Vay stepped to the blackboard and drew a large 'T' on it then labeled the left side 'Good Player' and looked back to the class, “As I said earlier, consistency is of utmost importance to being a good player.” He scrawled 'Consistency' under the player side. “Even if inconsistency is a part of the character design, the player must be consistent in that inconsistency. It's harder than it sounds actually as we do tend to fall into certain patterns after a while and forget to be inconsistent. But inconsistency in the player is never a good thing.” The teacher turned back to the board and drew another 'T' labeling the left with 'Bad Player' and underneath writing, 'Inconsistent' then turned back to the class.

“Inconsistency in players usually manifests in what most of you mentioned: changing the character's traits in the course of the RP, usually to benefit from the situation. Note the usually. Sometimes character shifts happen by accident simply because the player's own personality is far removed from that of the character and the player overlooks this going with their own, gut reaction rather than taking the time to think of how the character would react in a given situation. Both are bad. And here's why: It's important for the GM and other players to be able to at least vaguely predict what your character's reaction to a given situation will be. If they can't do this then they can't trust you and trust is the basis of all relationships. If another player can't trust your character to have their back in a fight then you're not getting invited to the fight. If a GM can't trust your character to do the right thing to further the plot then you're getting left out of the plot. Not to mention the general annoying-ness of being that guy who always says/does/has/is just the right thing at the right moment. No one likes that guy. Everyone wants to be that guy but no one wants to watch him one up them at every turn,” Vay paused to look over the class then flashed a wicked little grin, “Last reason not to be inconsistent - some GMs are nicer than others but most good ones will punish an inconsistent player. I've been known to kill their characters with their own inconsistency.”

Mr. Vay paused to let that sink in then he stepped aside so they could see the board and gave them his polite smile again. “Now then, since I'm still missing most of your papers, we're going to try something else for this.” He paused briefly, “I'll take one trait from each of you. It can be good or bad, for player or character. Feel free to use something from your paper if you actually did it. Let's try this one at a time. Someone please stand up and give us a trait to put on the board,” he nodded back at the T-charts.

Roll Call:

Mayura heard D'cund ask about her first language, but then others started speaking and she didn't want to interrupt, taking a few notes and listening to what the professor was explaining to them, trying to understand as much as she could.
She thought about it for a moment after Levi gave his late assignment, and when she saw no one was getting up she took a deep breath and stood up with out saying anything and walked to the board, and wrote down 'lack of descriptive abilities' she turned to the teacher giving him a nod and then looked up at D'cund as she walked back to her seat " my first language is Spanish by the way" she said with a smile and sat down.

Alex didn't say a word as he got up from his seat and made his way to the board. Under the Bad Character section he wrote 'static characters' in a quick hurried style. He returned to his seat and noticed that he couldn't even read his own writing. He shook his head, sighing as he made his way back up to the board and erased his chicken scratch. He rewrote his subject, this time taking his time to make sure the writing was legible. He made his way back to his seat and nodded to Mr. Vay.
With his assignment done, he pulled a piece of paper out of his bag and wrote a message on it. He expertly folded the note into a paper airplane and gave it a gentle toss forward towards the front of the class. The plane gently glided to a stop on Alice's desk and Alex allowed himself a smirk. He may not have been able to do many things well but he had always had a knack for useless little talents, like making paper airplanes and learning how to throw and accurately determine flight paths.

A pen flew through the air as Levi let out a small gasp. He'd been writing much, and furiously so, the past couple of hours. Something his wrist wasn't accustomed to at all, which it reminded him to by stinging sharply. From the sting, Levi's hand twitched up and the pen shot out of his hand. His face flushed as he watched the pen fly and disappear over the edge of the desk and heard it clatter on the floor.

Grabbing his wrist with his other hand, he leaned forward over the desk to see if he could locate it. Luckily, it didn't fly away too far, just a few seats over. He chose to let it be for now and leaned back into his chair, reading over what he'd just written. This way he'd just casually swoop it up when he returned from handing in the assignment and everyone had forgotten about his pen falling. He opened and closed his hand a few times in an attempt to get the blood running again while his eyes flew over the words.

When he was satisfied with his character assignment and his wrist had stopped tingling, he grabbed the paper and stood up from his chair. He chose to stick to the walls this time and went around the edge of the first desk up to the front. His eyes were trained on the ground so he wouldn't somehow trip and make an even fool of himself, as he believed they already saw him that way. When he reached the desk of the teacher, his head perked up as if he were surprised to have made it and he placed the assignment carefully on the pile already there. He nodded to the teacher, his face giving way to a small, curtious smile. He picked up a piece of chalk and wrote "Convincable" on the good side of the player T-chart in a neat letter. He wrote it slowly and careful, the resistance of the chalk on the board felt odd to his hand and the last thing he wanted was to leave messy handwriting behind.

When he'd finished that, he turned around and navigated through the desks to where he thought his pen lied. He tried to avoid desks with people sitting behind them, especially Tombstone's, as Levi was slightly freaked out by him. As it turned out he wouldn't be able to avoid everyone, as he found his pen in front of Basira's desk. He eyed her nervously, not wanting to look longer than necessary to avoid coming over rude. He murmured a "Hi" while he bent down and picked up his pen. He clicked the top a few times and found it still working perfectly. His hands fumbled with it while he walked back to his chair, starting to take it apart and put it back together again. He'd done it so often he could do it blind by now, but his hands just had to be doing something. It had always been like that, especially when he felt awkward. He had it disassembled and almost put together again when he reached his chair a few desks over and sat down, looking over the classroom.

Maayura was surprised as she hears Garret whispering to her, and in spanish she quickly turned around and the stopped hoping she had not caught too much attention from others, "I'm from Mexico" she whispered, not that you could tell by her accent, people seemed to never guess she was from there, Russia, France, South America and even Morocco was in her list of places people had ask if she was from, yes that is how weird her accent was.

As Basira was rounding up her last few thoughts on the subject of character, her professor snapped. Well s**t. If I can’t finish these assignments I’ll never get the damn cupcakes… “Damn, fuggin’ cupcakes…” With more grumbling Basira crumpled up her paper into a ball and dropped it into her bag, along with the other balled up pieces. Her bag was overflowing with unfinished ideas. Okay. New plan. ******** cupcakes. Bludgeon the quiet one with a brick AND TAKE THE CUPCAKE! Her brows raised, her eyes widened and a grin from ear to ear emerged. “Bricks. I’ll need bricks. And a bag, and, hrm, paper or plastic, or that canvas sh--” The collision of a tiny object jettisoned Basira from her single-manned conversation. She looked down at the bottom of her desk. “Weird. Who just goes throwin’ pens aroun’ ? A bit ridiculous if you ask me. No one’s really askin’ me. That’s a weird turn-a-phrase I suppose.”

The scratching of the chalk to the board beckoned Basira’s attention. She squinted her eyes a bit and leaned forward. “Good, bad, right.” Soon another student turned and began walking toward her desk. She kept her gaze fixed on him, her jaw sliding back and forth just to knock her teeth together as she thought. He sounded like a baby bird. Just a small chirp of an hello. “Well hi!” Basira dwarfed his voice with her own, but he was already on his back to his seat. “I tell ya boy, really strange, real strange. Cupcakes, boys ain’t say real words, I mean has the world gone haywire?” Basira looked down to her little scale bar. “At least your listenin’ right? Lets go turn this little s**t in uh?”

Before rising to go to the front board Basira crossed her arms and racked her brain for a moment. Part one was to determine what the assignment was, and once completed to find an answer. She pushed the chair back with her back legs and strutted up to the board. “Only 5 minutes late for this one.” She grinned as she plucked the piece of chalk from Mr.Vay’s hand. On the side for good player she wrote down ‘Word Choice’ She looked to Mr.Vay and gave a nod. “Like, instead of jog you say gallop! And it brings a whole new world of image right? Does that count? Its kinda under badwriting, but, that’s not all encompassing right? How else are we supposed to write if the good stuff was taken already?! It’s not fair.” Basira dragged her feet back to her desk and plopped back down behind it. “now I ain’t never gettin’ that cupcake” she mumbled.

Vay handed over the chalk to Basira with a friendly smile and stepped aside to watch her scribble on the board then have a little rant. With a patient smile the teacher just gave a slow nod as he watched the girl slump back to her seat and mope. He stepped father aside to let D'cund to the board as he talked to the class.

“Yes, good diction (a fancy term for word choice) is beneficial to being a good player but it does fall under the writing category. Again, since we've a whole department dedicated to that, we're not going to focus on that aspect of RP here. If you're interested in improving that check out the LIT classes.” Vay paused to give Basira a gentle smile, “And don't get worked up. Life isn't fair but there's always another chance to make good if you keep your eyes open for it and don't let yourself get bogged down in past failures.” He watched the girl a while before adding, “There's also plenty of good things left and we might be doing another round so rack that brain of yours for something to put on the board,” Vay nodded as he stepped aside to let D'cund back to his seat then turned to squint at what the pair had written on the board.

“One for each of you I see,” Vay gave the monster a grin then tapped the first, 'flexibility' under the Player side. “Good to make note of this as Jikial has already displayed it for us in making changes to his creepy little hand dude,” he gave D'cund a nod then looked to the rest of the class. “Flexibility is really just a good quality to have in all aspects of everything. It's important to getting along with others and necessary to getting things done. As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said 'the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful' and that there is the basis of the Taoist religion, which he founded. For a western perspective we've got good old Charles Darwin's well known quote: 'It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.' How's that importance for ya?” The teacher gave the class a wry grin as he paused briefly to move from the board a bit.

“Putting it in relation to RP, flexibility is needed when things don't go your way. Whether it's a disagreement with another player over what the group should do next, an argument with the GM on if something is possible, a bad turn of events within the game's action, or even a character trait that is causing problems, you will encounter difficulty and flexibility will be required to overcome it. Inflexible players quickly piss people off and a good GM will punish them for it,” the teacher gave them a warning look then turned back to the board and tapped D'cund's second item.

“Hmmm. . . coming from you I'm going to guess you're talking about a background,” Vay glanced over his shoulder at the rock monster then up to the player pulling his strings. “All fancy worded, let's dumb it down a bit for the rest,” he put a slash after 'context' and added 'background' for clarity then turned to the class with a smile. “A few of you mentioned this in your papers and it truly is the heart of a good character. As the popular idiom goes 'x can not exist in a vacuum' where x is whatever subject you are talking about. In this case characters. No one comes from nothing and the old amnesia cop out can only be used so many times before you just gotta buckle down and give your character a back-story. Most good GMs will ask for this on the submission. Better GMs will actually use it in the course of the RP. The best GMs will help you with it, thus weaving little bits of their plot into your character's life. Now for a GM to do this you first have to make a good character, with at least a vague background, to give them something to work with. GM preference varies here but generally the better ones like as much background as you can give them. That is not to say you should write a book for your background, GMs are busy people and don't have time to read all that, but a timeline with explanations of important events will do the job nicely for most.”

With a nod and friendly smile the teacher held out the chalk again, “Come on, there's still plenty of good things left to put up there. And quite a few bad ones left as well.”