How do you create a character...

that... you actually like... and want to keep? Makes you want to develop further? Makes you want to keep as a part of yourself? .. A character that you put time and effort into, and don't get bored of after a few weeks/months. I find all of those questions that I just asked.. hard for me to accomplish or stand up to expectations that I motivate myself to have.. I'm really upset and mad since Ive been trying for months and months on now to actually create something that Ill love and learn to "communicate" with in a way.. you know.. how you share your problems with your character sometimes.. if anyone even has a clue as to what Im talking about... and, well, if you think that I'm crazy than I will go with that, too. Ugh.. train of thoughts that you don't need to read since they are useless. Anyways, I have already read all the "how to make an evil character/stag" by thereisstillhope or whatever. And the one AliceV and the others created. So... now I'm at a dead end. Help?
Sypris's picture

Uhm, I'm not sure if this

Uhm, I'm not sure if this will help but... For me, it really helps to just roleplay that character. Just don't get upset. <3 Relax and draw or write or whatever makes you happy. Smiling
shamiya's picture

Well for me character

Well for me character creation has to be flexible, otherwise I'll get bored. My deer here is actually based off of my main character on another game, extremely flexible as far as personality goes. There is more to it than just 'oh she's bipolar', because she isn't, but it's far too extensive to go into it here.

Anyways, my deer here Sianna, her personality is flexible, though different than my main characters personality. I wanted to try something a little different, not have everything exactly the same, yet still, I don't get bored because my character here, even though not the exact same, is still flexible.

She can be loving or feel dislike. She can be tolerant or feel jealously. You get the idea. I also spice things up by allowing myself to switch her set when I want to. Despite her being drawn the same way in all pictures, in-game she can be wearing anything I personally think looks good. This helps me feel more relaxed and into things also giving myself the freedom in doing so if I'm getting bored.

I'm the type of person that does get burnt out very, very quickly, so I have to give myself room to explore. I don't like having tons and tons of characters, so instead, I created a highly flexible character to keep myself from feeling restricted; such as having one set, one personality(say evil/territorial constantly).

Anyways, this is what keeps me liking my character and wanting to keep it.

Sypris; Everything helps!

Sypris;

Everything helps! You see, I have already tried to roleplay with other people and deer and stuff and rp in general but it just wont work for me. I have literally tried almost everything. I guess I just need to be more patient. (:

shamiya;

Thank you so much. I will most likely stick to one character myself, I just don't know how exactly to start out.
Unplugged's picture

Well, I can't really talk

Well, I can't really talk because I've never been the type of person who could go "ok well here's my new character" and I've never been into the whole roleplaying either, but still.

You say you've tried several times, and several times it didn't work out. General advice, if something doesn't work for you in one way, try something different, find another method. Common knowledge that we tend to forget and sometimes need to be remembered of.

I think you shouldn't worry so much about making an 'official' character. When you try forcing this sort of connection you seem to be aiming for ((i.e. an emotional connection)), things will most likely go nowhere for you. Established Characters and Roleplaying are a healthy part of this community, but there's nothing wrong with not having an official character. You can have just as much fun without roleplaying ((at first or not at all)). Relax, we don't expect anything from you and neither should you feel any pressure about your situation.

Judging from what you wrote, I think it's good if you first just enjoy playing the forest without worrying about that stuff. By this I don't mean "being OOC" in the popular sense of the word (('play TEF the way it's intended, laugh and treat everyone in the same way')), but more of an experimenting stage, where you just do whatever feels comfortable to you. You decide how you want to react towards different individuals. Inevitably you'll also build and develop different, diverse relationships, which is essential for your character. These close and 'intimate' characters you're talking about are usually not something completely planned out; things will come naturally.

If you rather want to have something to build on, perhaps you could find inspiration from something more than already existing character ((archetypes)). Anything. Art, music, certain words, pictures, books, situations, moments from your life or certain emotions, random items, ... Anything that you find interesting. It's easier to say that than actually do it because we're constantly surrounded by characters and the thought of 'I want something like this'.

Also, here's an old blog entry I wrote a long time ago. It's outdated and maybe a bit 'out there' but maybe you'll find it interesting.

Mon, Apr 5 --
humantalk --


tl;dr Nonsense talk below.



There must be a difference between "deer with personality x" and "character with personality x", I just can't quite put it in words yet.

You can run around as a deer who will react in such and such manner to things. It reminds me a little bit of programming. You program the computer to react in a certain way to certain things. You can "program" a deer to react in a certain way to certain things. You write a different code to get a different result. You set different character traits and you get different reactions.

But a real character is different. Somehow. I don't quite know how.
A real character has to breathe. He is able to think, a character has his own mind, not something you programmed. A real character does not work like "if X result = Y".
Compare - Android and real human. Androids are made to resemble real men, but they are still only robots. This is what distinguishes "character with personality x" from "deer with personality x" - One of them is real, the other one isn't.

In order to keep a character alive, he needs constant exposure to different impulses. He needs something - or someone - to interact with.
There have been experiments where people were isolated from everything, kept in small rooms with no stimulation of any kind. None of them managed to do stay longer than 48 hours. As a result of this total isolation their mental abilities were extremely limited.
It is the same with characters. If they don't get any stimulation, they deprive. And eventually they die.

My mother once told me that the reason I don't have any brothers or sisters is that she was too afraid to neglect one of them. I believe it might be the same with Mozart and me. I would really like to have another character as well developed as Mozart, but I am afraid I would neglect him, and maybe even kill him without realizing. But there are people who manage to have many characters at once, which is something I admire.

Sometimes our characters don't react the way we expect it and sometimes they do things we don't approve of, but we still love them, how stupid their actions might be.
We cannot control them. At some point our characters just start going a different way than they were told by us.
The relationship between a character and his "creator" seems a lot like the relationship between a mother and her child. We love our child.

I have tried bringing new characters to life, but in the end I have always let them die, because I am too impatient.
Like a growing child, a character needs some time to develop. At the beginning he is still young and somewhat helpless. He yet needs to learn and discover everything. It takes time for a character to grow. But we don't have the patience, we don't want to wait and we expect our character to appear in his new life as an "adult", even though he is just a young child. We get frustrated and let him die.



Huh...



But remember, all of this is just the way I see it, the way that works for me. No matter what I just wrote, I believe everyone needs to find their own way how to do things and find what works best for them, because everybody handles things differently and a solution that might work for one person might not be useful at all for another. That doesn't mean it's 'bad' or 'wrong' though. This process involves a lot of trial and error to find what's right for us, and knowing how other people do things helps us a lot to find our own ways.
Aivilo's picture

The characters I have loved

The characters I have loved most and played longest have always been a reflection of some part of myself, and not necessarily 'cool.'
Since my deer are the handiest characters I have for an example, I'll go over them a bit-
Rire was my first deer, and is essentially my inner child. He loves to laugh, he loves to play, he loves to have friends. He's shy at first, but warms up quickly, and is ready to lend a hand when need be.
I still love to laugh and play, but in the real world, I don't get to very often (work, meh). Rire lets me laugh and lets me play.

Candlelight, on the other hand, is a quieter reflection. He still likes to be around others, but is usually just the quiet companion and listening ear. When I have work to be doing and can't be running around and acting the fool (with Rire), but still want the company of others, I'll throw Candle into the Forest so that he can watch the others frolic, and maybe we can both smile a little while I go about my business with the peace of the Forest in the background.

In short, characters - like friends - are easier to love when you can relate to them. If your character is a huge bear-dragon-snake thing who hates everyone, and you're the bubbly type... Even though he may be awesome and well-developed, you will probably (not always, but often) lose interest in him after his "coolness" wears off.
Imagine a friend you want to have, and make him a deer. Together, learn what your (and his) likes and dislikes are, and explore the world. Then, if you are so inclined, make another, different one with what you now know about yourself.
Kiwizoom's picture

Ah, I agree with the above

Ah, I agree with the above posts : ) For me, in the beginning, I made two characters that I was excited about, then suddenly it just felt aweful to rp them. I planned it too much, it took too much energy to think about what they'd do in every case, how they'd act to another player if they did this or that. When I cam back to TEF, I stripped my characters so they don't really exist anymore; sometimes I wear their sets but not often. I let the forest sort of reclaim me; people casted spells on me and I just let it layer up like paint. It all gave me something to think about. I now play very stream of conscious -y. Whatever I feel like doing, I do, then I reflect upon it. When I'm feeling melancholy, I stray from the groups of deer and go for a walk in the forest. Or if I feel up to it, I find a playful player that wants to exchange emotes and sort of sign language. I get much more heavy feelings and opinions from playing experimentally, that "hmm, what should I do now.." Just kind of melds with the forest and sparks creativity. I took advice like the people above me have said. I haven't gotten to the point where I've made a solid character yet, I'm still an it and a thing : ) But it feels good. I have my own preferences for this or that, my looks and the way I act, but it no longer bothers me anymore what other people know about it, because everything seems so point blank about TEF. You are sized up by the moment, unless you want to make a long-standing icon out of yourself by using characters. I think that comes with some confidence in your place here and what you want out of this site ^^

I have such problems with

I have such problems with this too...
or rather, I feel bad, because I love all my characters, I just never feel motivated enough to go in-forest, and I feel like that irks people.
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