Welcome to Gaia! ::

So, to give people an example of things I'd like to do around here (mind you, this area can be used in a variety of ways, including practicing RP'ing), I present you something that has always bugged me: the basics of posting in an RP.

Now, if you've been here a short while and learned the basics of being a literate RP'er, you've seen a handful of different things out there. You've got your pretty posts with the fancy layouts that might be breaking the gaia rule of image sizes, you've got the walls of text that have way too small of font, and then there's the eyeball-bleeding color choices with dialog, and then there's the rare old school post that has little to no formatting but kicks a** regardless. Oh, and then there's the not very literate posts that involve AIM speak (which is almost as bad as the bright colors to one's eyes).

So let's cover some of those kinds of posts, and to maybe make some suggestions as a veteran. I'm going to assume you can write fairly fluently in English.

DISCLAIMER - I do not claim to be an expert in writing, nor English in general. I'm a computer graphics major, not an English one. That said, I've been doing this whole RP thing for over 10 years, so I think I have some status as a veteran.

DISCLAIMER NUMBER TWO - I apologize if anything I say comes off as aggressive and/or dickish. Not trying to be mean, seriously.



First - Paragraphs. This should be fairly simple for most rookies, but remember to break up your posts some. Avoid the wall 'o text, or else your post might be mostly ignored. Your usual paragraph should be between 3 and 8 sentences, although I personally do not treat this as a hard rule. It should come naturally to you (feel free to tell me otherwise, folks). Generally speaking, it's best to break up paragraphs when several characters are talking. It helps readers keep track of who is talking.

Second - formatting. This might annoy some people when I say this, but I highly recommend avoiding the smaller font sizes. Maybe it's 'cause I'm getting older, but I like reading normal, 12-size font. It's easier on the eyes. Size 9 should be the smallest you should be working with, unless you're bringing focus to something, like a whispered smart a** remark. Which is kind of a d**k move, btw.

Bolding, Italicizing, and underlining are useful tools, but shouldn't be abused. They exist to bring focus to a particular word. Notice how I did that? Yeah, that's the power of bold/italics. Also, many writers like to use Italics for thoughts, and there's nothing wrong with this. Some like to bold dialog, but personally I find it unprofessional.

Now the topic of colors is an odd one, and it's one that many Gaia RP'ers take for granted. In all reality, a good writer doesn't deal with colored text, because it's expensive to do that in printed books. However, given our digital medium, we can take advantage of color in our text. It's useful for things like dialog and internal thoughts, but again, I recommend not abusing it, as it can be quite distracting (am I proving my point here?). In fact, I like to believe that a good post doesn't require any color text. If someone can read your post without the aid of colors to help tell one person's speech from another, you've done well. That said, it's still handy.

Note - easy on those bright colors. Remember that our default background is white. Yellows and pinks usually do not show up well with a white background. Not to mention, you don't want to cause your readers any eye damage (and not everyone can highlight text, since not everyone is using a computer/laptop)

Lastly - Images. This might hit a sore spot or two for those who enjoy their fancy post layouts, but I am a firm believer of KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. From image layouts (let's not stretch the screen here, folks - nothing will get your post ignored faster than the need to scroll sideways), to the images themselves. I find it best to keep it to one simple image - a pic of your character at most. Maybe, just maybe, something else to make it look pretty, but I recommend keeping it small.

Furthermore, your post layout shouldn't screw with your text's formatting. I've seen this a few times where a layout will shrink the paragraph widths (thus forming the dreaded wall 'o text, and thus I've barely read those posts).

Don't know how to resize or crop your images? I'm sure there's a few people here who are more than happy to help. Plus, if you're running on a version of Windows that's newer than XP, you have access to a version of Paint that can do both of those (which is more than enough most times). Rarely do you need to break out Photoshop for most image jobs.



Please, share with the class your thoughts on posting in general. If there's anything I missed, or you wish to elaborate on, feel free. This is an open forum here.

-Yamazaki, Headmaster
Also, thoughts on that title for myself... Does it sound too pretentious, or does it work? Maybe I need to grow out a Dumbledor wizard beard or something...

Okay, now that I'm pretty much bored while doing laundry, and I got my rant about posting done, let's move onto a topic that actually matters.



Keep in mind that I will never claim to be an expert, nor a master, of this art. But I've made a good number of characters, revised them, and then made more characters. Creating an Original Character (OC, as people seem to refer to them as) is not easy, but it's not as hard as everyone makes it out to be. Just takes some creativity and some inspiration. There is great satisifaction to be had for coming up with your own original character.

But first, we need to talk Genre and Setting. The reason being is that it will limit how extreme of a character you can make. For example, modern day American high school will mean your character is human, likely between the ages of 13-19 (depending on what year in school and timing of their birthday), and is going to be dealing with a crap ton of hormones (and likely acne lol). Meanwhile, a medieval fantasy setting grants you a greater deal of flexibility based on the setting's racial and social options, thus allowing for elves, dwarves, orcs, humans, etc, and take inspiration from a number of mythologies and societies. As a result, an orcish viking may be a legitimate character idea, or maybe a dwarven inquisitor, or an elven wizard.

Anyways, let's take this step by step, the Yamazaki way. Of course, there are many different ways to create a character, and in the end, it's what feels natural and proper for you. What I have here are things to consider, as well as tips to avoiding cliche's. Furthermore, I will come up with a full character while I work on this.

Step 1: the Concept
When I run D&D, I always tell my players to come up with a concept for their characters first. They usually ignore me and start looking at the various classes and races, but that's besides the point. But it's important to have some sort of image in your mind before you begin constructing your character. Look for inspiration - images help me, as I'm a visual person. Play games, read books, watch movies/TV/anime/whatever. Find something that calls to you, but keep in mind the setting. I also listen to music belonging to a game of a similar genre, so for fantasy, I listen to Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim OST.

For our example, I will come up with a character for my Steam Age Arcanus campaign setting. While I have an advantage that I know everything about the setting, including all the details that I've revealed to a small handful of people, it's a fairly fleshed out setting to work with. It's a steam-punk fantasy setting involving magic, ancient technology, and war. Given that the plot revolves around war, the character should be a soldier of some sort. While I've come up with a dozen characters for the setting, let's do something I have barely touched, but I've conceptualized - the Dragon Knights, a monk-ish samurai order who slay dragons and other nasties of the world.

From here, I start looking around for ideas for my concept. While I have a basic idea, I want to flesh it out a bit more before moving deeper into the character. So I start looking for inspiration. Games are usually the first place I look. A few existing characters come to mind: Nero from Devil May Cry 4, the Berserker from Torchlight 2, and Hakumen from Blazblue. I take a quick look over some D&D books for some more ideas, and the Thunderstriker Fighter Archetype from Pathfinder catches my interest, as well as the Spiritualist class. With these ideas in my head, I proceed onward.

On a side note, if you are having troubles with ideas, I recomend looking at what you usually make for a given RP. Then find something completely different. For example, if rogues are all you've played, try a heavy fighter, or even a cleric. Or put a twist to the usual, like the healer that's annoyed at the party for needing healing all the time lol.

Step 2: Fleshing out the concept
Next, you'll want to start working out the concept. I don't recommend to start writing up history, or personality, or anything yet. Those are details you can get down later. Now I'll be honest - I tend to think of combat first when it comes to any character I create. This character is no different. I like to start with their abilities and fighting style, as I believe this says a bit about their character, especially how they chose to fight.

Most of my reference ideas are melee-centered, so I figure out a weapon. In this case, the nodachi comes to mind first, as well as the katana and scimitar. Personally, I find the two-handed weapon combat styles to be more interesting than it's opposite, the dual weapon style. I then consider what kind of armor they'd wear. Between watching Hakumen's fighting style, Nero's design, and the concept behind the Thunderstriker archetype, I consider a gauntlet on the left hand that goes up to the elbow and shoulder armor on that side. From there, I go with lighter armor, likely an armored jacket or something. This sorta solidifies how they'd fight - the left, armored side facing their enemy with blade parallel to the ground, which allows for them to strike with the gauntlet or make a full slashing motion with the sword. A offensive defense theme...

Next is the abilities, which is the tricky part. So, dragon knight implies something involving dragons. Nero's devil trigger and the berserker has a spectral nature to it... Ah, having a dragon spirit as a weapon! They could manifest the claws, wings, tail, even head to help fight.

At this point, my image of the character starts forming. Colors start coming to mind, as well as gender and clothing/armor designs. While I hadn't thought about it before, racial options start coming to mind. I start flipping through my reference folder on my computer for images I could use, either as a character in full (which is something I've been doing the last few years) or for means to draw the character out (like I used to do). After racking my brain for a while, I settle on a male human character and a red color theme. I find a few images of a character that gives me some more ideas for the personality.

Step 3: History
Now that we have our concept fleshed out, we can start working on their backstory. I find it works best in the grand scheme of the RP to keep it loosely defined, as this allows for more role-playing chances down the road. Some of my best characters didn't have a back story written out until it came up in the plot.

So for Agni, name pending, I need to come up with a reason why he's in the party. Now, if I wasn't the GM for Arcanus, I'd have plans in store for the character invovling the grand scheme of things. I'm going to avoid part of that here, because we should assume you do not have access to such plots and schemes.

The setting dictates that Dragon Knights are an order of dragon slayers and Revenant destroyers - seeking out the corruption of either to protect the world. In a way, they're a paladin order that doesn't get involved in the politics of the world, but we can't have that here. So Agni needs to be exiled from the order for some reason. Maybe be a mercenary?

That said, I will go plot-scheme GM mode, declare him something beyond normal human, and set him up with an Artifact sword - Kagutsuchi. There's also some messed up backstory involving the inquisitors...

Step 4: the Personality
At this point, it's time to really flesh the character out. Who is this person, and how do they interact with the world and others. How much to do they show the world, what is real and what is not.

To borrow from D&D 5th ED, I suggest the following for your character: alignment, 2 personality traits, an ideal, a bond, and a flaw. These will give you the basis for fleshing out the personality. That said, I do something different - I just give a basic outline of what I have pictured in my mind.
Normally, everyone will tell you not to make a self-insert character. But this is where I tell you that it's kinda hard, and not a big deal. I like to explain it like this - every character I've ever come up with is an exaggerated aspect of myself. One of my earliest creations, Fuujin the Wanderer, acts far cooler and myserious than he actually is (not unlike my own desire to be cool and myserious). Isaac Forland, the alchemist, is my cynical, bad-boy persona (complete with chain smoking and alcholism, traits that I thankfully do not possess). Keris Mardok is my emotional femine side, while Locke Alexander is my angsty teenage self.

As for our example, Agni, I intend to mix some of that angst with some rage and battle frenzy. This is where I look up some fancy words to describe him, such as bold, brazen, and crazy as ********>. A touch of irratiability and a foul mouth, and I think we have the basis here.

Side note: avoid personalities that clash too much with the group. While a bit of conflict is good, pissing off your fellow players is bad. Quiet, anti-social characters are also a bad idea, as you never get to RP with anyone (funny I say this, 'cause I did one recently unintentionally... Oh well, it was a boring RP anyways). And as always, avoid the Mary Sue types.

Step 5: Bringing it all together now
Alrighty, time to get this thing into an actual character sheet. Now, it is of my own opionion that character sheets should be fairly simple, and not the messy, overly codified disaster that some RPs have. But that's a rant for a different day.
This is where the powers of summation come into play. Remember when I mentioned KISS? Yeah, that's also important here. So, here's our example played out:

Quote:

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Name: Agni
Race: Human
Age: 26
Abilities: As a Dragon Knight, Agni is both skilled with his blade as well as the Dragon Spirit under his command. He possesses greater strength and fortitude than an average human, likely a result of Dragon Knight training and conditioning. He uses a combat style known as 'Thunderstriker', in which he uses his armored gauntlet as a shield and weapon as well as his nodachi.
Equipment: Artifact - Kagutsuchi (Nodachi with super-heated blade and jet thrusters and CLASSIFIED); Artifact Reproduction - Convicts Bracers (clasps wrists together and pulls to ground upon command word of commander); dragon bone gauntlet; dragon scale armor jacket
Background: Agni was born and raised within the monastery of the Dragon Knights, not like many others before him. He never did fit in with the other children, ever angry at the world for reasons that even he couldn't understand. He took to combat training well, however.
Many years later, upon his 20th birthday, he began the graduation ritual - to hunt down his first dragon. 6 months later, Agni returned successful, slaying a rare hellfire dragon and completing the ritual. A year later, he was exiled for CLASSIFIED.
Unable to continue as a Dragon Knight in the traditional sense, he joined up with the Ebon Fang Mercenary Company, who fought against the barbarians alongside the Tannishian Legion. After the barbarian tribes were driven back, an Inquisitor team was sent to retrieve the exile for study. CLASSIFIED
Currently, he is in the brig of the Raven Sailor, being transported to the Wyrmfang camp in Altzan territory. Agni is to be taken to the Altzan Ruins to meet up with the Inquisitor team camped there to open the Ruins...

Anyone who knows how I run will tell you that I never ask for a comprehensive history, nor even ask for personality. I do this for the distinct reason of allowing role-playing opportunities.

Anyways, questions, comments, smart a** remarks?

-Yamazaki