[Talk] It's Over 9000
- Thread starter gimmepie
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Sapphire Rose
[I]Only thorns left on this rose.[/I]
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Not at all lmao. Different characters can give different vibes. I myself like it a lot when a character has serious flaws they need to work on for character development. Though that doesn't mean they need to become a broken plate that you very slowly need to glue together. More like a chipped mug c: with a few extra cracks. Keep it balanced.
Simon in Spear is a good example I think. Fox has written him in a way that you really want to root for him. He has a few personality flaws but they're nothing major. It's moreso his power level. He uses a full bug team which is often looked down upon because bug types aren't really considered powerful Pokémon. You could say his skill or power was still in the growing stages compared to many other characters. Simon tended to lose a lot in the beginning and made the wrong choices based on that. Now he's growing from those choices and growing stronger. Simon will probably remain one of my favourite characters from Spear because of the way Foxrally has written him.
Then Catherine. Catherine was the opposite from the above example. I like picking Catherine for an example because Simon has lost to her a few times and are completely the opposite when it comes to personality. Catherine has power and skill, maybe even talent. Because of that she wins often but the funny thing is is that she didn't want to even do Pokémon battling. Her personality is just not something to write home about. She's very cynical, didn't want to be here in the first place and doesn't really like humans at all actually. She prefers to be friends with Pokémon instead. Because of that she's often pretty curt and rude to trainers. A characters who is not innately bad at what they're doing but have to grow to like the thing they're forced to do and have obvious talent for. It makes it very interesting to read Catherine's story. It makes posts were Simon and Catherine interact together almost always a blessing to read. They're so innately different and the opposite of each other that it's just interesting to see them put together and interact. And very often, battle.
Going to use Pia (my own character hurdur) as an example while I'm at it. I've written so much that I don't think anyone will get this far anyway. Pia has trust issues that are connected to several events in her early life. She's intelligent, witty and because of that wants to be in control. If she's not in control, she gets anxious because something could go wrong and she wouldn't be able to do something about it. I wouldn't say she has talent but she has skill for battling. She doesn't necessarily have power but because of her calculating nature to assess situations she only needs to previous (the skill) to make the third one. The problem? She doesn't trust her own Pokémon. She over-calculates. She over-assesses. She doesn't believe in the small percentiles but prefers to go for a more reliable strategy that has a higher chance of succeeding with minimal casualties. The latter could be a good thing depending on the situation but early in the story it meant that her Pichu, now Pikachu, was basically never allowed to battle or do anything that could be dangerous. Even when Milla (the pichu) had a very playful nature. Pia was holding her Pokémon back with this and actively causing them to have less fun. Pia also has attachment issues that caused her to not be able to form any meaningful relationships very early on. She ended up having a romantic one, only to break it with expectations that they were going to drop her anyway. That's where her story ended [for now]
The first example was someone who did not have talent, skill or power but had a personality that allowed them to work through what they had and gained power through that. The latter two are examples of someone having talent, skill or power but having social or mental flaws/struggles that they had or have to work through first before they can properly make use of it.
And I think all three examples are ways to write a character
Simon in Spear is a good example I think. Fox has written him in a way that you really want to root for him. He has a few personality flaws but they're nothing major. It's moreso his power level. He uses a full bug team which is often looked down upon because bug types aren't really considered powerful Pokémon. You could say his skill or power was still in the growing stages compared to many other characters. Simon tended to lose a lot in the beginning and made the wrong choices based on that. Now he's growing from those choices and growing stronger. Simon will probably remain one of my favourite characters from Spear because of the way Foxrally has written him.
Then Catherine. Catherine was the opposite from the above example. I like picking Catherine for an example because Simon has lost to her a few times and are completely the opposite when it comes to personality. Catherine has power and skill, maybe even talent. Because of that she wins often but the funny thing is is that she didn't want to even do Pokémon battling. Her personality is just not something to write home about. She's very cynical, didn't want to be here in the first place and doesn't really like humans at all actually. She prefers to be friends with Pokémon instead. Because of that she's often pretty curt and rude to trainers. A characters who is not innately bad at what they're doing but have to grow to like the thing they're forced to do and have obvious talent for. It makes it very interesting to read Catherine's story. It makes posts were Simon and Catherine interact together almost always a blessing to read. They're so innately different and the opposite of each other that it's just interesting to see them put together and interact. And very often, battle.
Going to use Pia (my own character hurdur) as an example while I'm at it. I've written so much that I don't think anyone will get this far anyway. Pia has trust issues that are connected to several events in her early life. She's intelligent, witty and because of that wants to be in control. If she's not in control, she gets anxious because something could go wrong and she wouldn't be able to do something about it. I wouldn't say she has talent but she has skill for battling. She doesn't necessarily have power but because of her calculating nature to assess situations she only needs to previous (the skill) to make the third one. The problem? She doesn't trust her own Pokémon. She over-calculates. She over-assesses. She doesn't believe in the small percentiles but prefers to go for a more reliable strategy that has a higher chance of succeeding with minimal casualties. The latter could be a good thing depending on the situation but early in the story it meant that her Pichu, now Pikachu, was basically never allowed to battle or do anything that could be dangerous. Even when Milla (the pichu) had a very playful nature. Pia was holding her Pokémon back with this and actively causing them to have less fun. Pia also has attachment issues that caused her to not be able to form any meaningful relationships very early on. She ended up having a romantic one, only to break it with expectations that they were going to drop her anyway. That's where her story ended [for now]
The first example was someone who did not have talent, skill or power but had a personality that allowed them to work through what they had and gained power through that. The latter two are examples of someone having talent, skill or power but having social or mental flaws/struggles that they had or have to work through first before they can properly make use of it.
And I think all three examples are ways to write a character
It's only important that my character has enough competence to be likable and/or justify their role in the story I'm trying to tell with them. Beyond that, their competence is purely subject to how I want them to be perceived in relation to the world around them.
Ruben Sancho (My 'Pokemon Spear' character) had to be good at football because otherwise his avoidance of responsibility with managing his injury wouldn't be as meaningful. No one would care. He had to hold lots of status, otherwise his mismanagement of interpersonal relationships would look like pitiable incompetence rather than a lack of desire to take responsibility when the situation demanded it. What made Ruben and Pia work from a narrative standpoint was Pia's desire for control (As mentioned by Sapphy in the above comment) and Ruben's desire to stay as far from responsibility as possible but conflict would arrise when the life Ruben had built for himself (his football career) was an unavoidable influence on the relationship and he refused to take responsibility for that. In contrast to all of that, he had to be bad with Pokémon because his lack of inability to take responsibility and prioritise needed to be highlighted rather than it just being a case of "pokemon training is hard". Of course, being good with pokemon was the core metric everyone was measured by because the plot was a pokemon journey. TL;DR They needed to be good at something relevant to be worth following the journey of but it doesn't have to be the thing that is the central value system of the plot.
Lars Berrardi (My 'As the Dust Settles' Character) had a huge ego, so he had to be strong in order to reinforce that. Power scaling in RPs can be a challenge because people don't usually want their characters to be shown to be definitively weaker than anyone else's unless their character is specifically on a trajectory where they start off weak. Thankfully in that scenario I had a character who the headmaster of the school picked out as being above everyone else at my disposal, so I could use that to show my character being strong in a loss and even setting his personal journey into motion.
Between those two I've played plenty of character with varying degrees of competence, the likes of Logan and Jared are fun because I can be a bit more inconsistent with their competence due to their flaws being their respective desperate and anxious attachment styles. They're the types of characters that can be highly competent when being nurtured but crumble when forced to act independently, particularly when the opposition is the very people they want to be nurtured by.
D&D is a little different in that respect because as much as I want Luther Bastione to be highly competent but just short of those he sees himself as inferior to at any given moment, the dice decides on that one. His 'sword that will never rust' quickly became the 'sword that will never hit' and it's difficult to make a character look competent in that scenario. Thankfully in Khairo I again have a character, like Logan and Jared, whose competence under pressure can easily be put down to how secure he feels and becomes a character moment rather than just a poor dice roll.
Ruben Sancho (My 'Pokemon Spear' character) had to be good at football because otherwise his avoidance of responsibility with managing his injury wouldn't be as meaningful. No one would care. He had to hold lots of status, otherwise his mismanagement of interpersonal relationships would look like pitiable incompetence rather than a lack of desire to take responsibility when the situation demanded it. What made Ruben and Pia work from a narrative standpoint was Pia's desire for control (As mentioned by Sapphy in the above comment) and Ruben's desire to stay as far from responsibility as possible but conflict would arrise when the life Ruben had built for himself (his football career) was an unavoidable influence on the relationship and he refused to take responsibility for that. In contrast to all of that, he had to be bad with Pokémon because his lack of inability to take responsibility and prioritise needed to be highlighted rather than it just being a case of "pokemon training is hard". Of course, being good with pokemon was the core metric everyone was measured by because the plot was a pokemon journey. TL;DR They needed to be good at something relevant to be worth following the journey of but it doesn't have to be the thing that is the central value system of the plot.
Lars Berrardi (My 'As the Dust Settles' Character) had a huge ego, so he had to be strong in order to reinforce that. Power scaling in RPs can be a challenge because people don't usually want their characters to be shown to be definitively weaker than anyone else's unless their character is specifically on a trajectory where they start off weak. Thankfully in that scenario I had a character who the headmaster of the school picked out as being above everyone else at my disposal, so I could use that to show my character being strong in a loss and even setting his personal journey into motion.
Between those two I've played plenty of character with varying degrees of competence, the likes of Logan and Jared are fun because I can be a bit more inconsistent with their competence due to their flaws being their respective desperate and anxious attachment styles. They're the types of characters that can be highly competent when being nurtured but crumble when forced to act independently, particularly when the opposition is the very people they want to be nurtured by.
D&D is a little different in that respect because as much as I want Luther Bastione to be highly competent but just short of those he sees himself as inferior to at any given moment, the dice decides on that one. His 'sword that will never rust' quickly became the 'sword that will never hit' and it's difficult to make a character look competent in that scenario. Thankfully in Khairo I again have a character, like Logan and Jared, whose competence under pressure can easily be put down to how secure he feels and becomes a character moment rather than just a poor dice roll.
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