Post by Yirmiyah "Yatta" Young on Apr 30, 2014 4:03:15 GMT
Credits to the creator of the guide
Alright guys. This guide is dedicated both to newcomers who wish to learn, but old experienced people could use aswell, it could give you things to think about. I started and took breaks whilst writing this, edited and shit, I put effort in it so I REALLY expect and want you people to freaking read it, really. Especially outsiders or future outsiders. Anyhow, this guide will help you guys build a more stable, realistic, and likely unique character around the neighbourhood of Willowfield.
Throughout the guide I will give you some points and aspects you should think of when you make your character around Willowfield and what, the hell, builds his personality, and ANY person's IRL personality. Also throughout the guide I will use some real, honest examples that either happened to me IRL or happened to my character, just to show you people some not made-up examples.
Just noting that there are actually a lot of good guides on characters on the LS-RP beginners forums, but I am going to make a specific one, about characters in a poverty striken gang infested neighbourhood.
Alright, so let's get started.
Contents:
1) Your General OOC attitude.
2)Building your IC personality.
---2.1) The environment/neighbourhood.
---2.2) Character Information.
---2.3) Approach.
1) Your general OOC attitude
That's a rather serious aspect you should look at if you want to reach success within this faction, and generally other factions (I hope so). A clear and obvious thing I noticed lately, that many people come to RP with RBF mainly, if not only, to get /invite and yeah I am sure you are not here for that, you're here for the roleplay obviously! Anywho, being /invite hungry is wrong, take that in mind and note that before Ryder Block was official almost everyone in the hood was a fucking unique legend. Though being /invite hungry is completely normal! I can't judge people for that, I have been this way myself. See, I have been an outsider in official factions before RBF, and I have been just the same /invite hungry newb that is not understanding why the fuck am I standing against this pole in either Sixth Street or Washington Block for the fucking third month already and I'm still not fucking invited by those jerks!? Haha well, yeah, that happens to everyone.
However it is really important to try your best to get rid of that attitude, and really care more about the roleplay then your character's status. I'll give an example of myself right now, really not in purposes of bragging. When I came first to RBF, I REALLY didn't give a damn jack shit wether I'll get initiated or not, why? That's because I was already an official member in another faction. Tyrell_Hines was just my alt that I went to RP on when I was really bored (and I was apparently really bored all the time in the official faction I've been invited to apparently). Now later on I got requested to either stay with that faction or get the fuck out and RP on my RBF character. My chose was obvious but hell, even after I quit my head account and switched it to Tyrell, I still kept on roleplaying an annoying ass 10-11 year old boy, and I really, really, REALLY had no expectation to get initiated at that age. I thought it wouldn't be possible and I didn't mind, because I knew that I'll reach a point when my char ages up and then I'll have the chance, but I still didn't hurry. I remember I have spent like 3-4 months being 10 years old?
I even remember a case when Tyrell was brought as an 11 years old boy to some alley and got surrounded by the gang members (obviously a jump in ceremony), and I roleplayed Tyrell acting dumb on purpose, saying some stupid immature shit, and ofcourse his jump-in was postponed.
Anyway this thread is not about the history of my character lol, but you should really think about what I told about myself and think where are you standing right now and what you are here for.
2) Building your IC personality
2.1) The environment/neighbourhood
One of the things that affect a character's personality the most, if not THE thing, is his environment. What neighbourhood did he grew up at, what school did he go to, in which CLASS was he in that school, who were the residents of his house and generally the people around him. I personally think that I would have been a completely different person IRL if I didn't go to the specific class I went to, didn't have the specific friends in that very class that I was in, anyway watch Butterfly Effect if you want to get the picture.
Now like you understood, the neighbourhood you grow up at is a freaking important influence on your personality.
Now I happened to have seen in many threads, people arguing about how gang bangers act. Some people claimed they live in a gang infested neighbourhood and they can walk there and not get robbed, some other people claim that it's impossible, some other people take examples from movies.
Alright, so, basically, you can't DEFINE a gang infested neighbourhood. Just like all the people in the world are different, the hoods are fucking, different. Some hoods are mad dangerous and stereotype, if you step you get robbed, you got crackheads everywhere and no children playing outside, THERE ARE places like that in this big planet. SOME hoods are easier, with children running around whilst yet having gang bangers around, and some hoods are just rich ass high class area with bored rich greedy kids who wanna be cool and show off their daddy's gun.
OUR hood is more or less like the second option I stated. With all the so-called dangerousy around the block, if you imagine yourself the big every-day picture (imagine nobody could go off-line and not appear, you know?) you see kids running around, funny fat guys smoking and eating cheeseburgers, other homies arguing, gambling, etc. Hood environment.
People -do- act recklessly and shizzles but when the big homies are around, shit is actually carefull and we are acting reasonably. Most of white/Mexican people who come around wouldn't immediately get stabbed/shot without affiliation check, people think twice and shit. On the other hand we get (atleast used to get) constant drive-by's, personally my character, Tyrell, grew up around a type A of a hood, because it really changed from the times Ryder Block were rivals with a massively active Murdaville and BPL plus some small time wanna-be sets. Lol it was a bloody warzone, every time I logged in game I would get to experience atleast 1 violent act.
Nowadays Willowfield is way way way way way more calm, but still has these drive-bys and ... kidnaps .. by BPL.
Anyway what do you need to think of, is, how would YOU act if you lived in such a neighbourhood? I would personally never get out of my house for example lol but that's just me. You need to mix the real feelings you could get from the situation with your character's personality's feelings.
2.2)Character Information
Alright guys so this thing is one of the things that bother me the most. Many and even most of the new guys who come to roleplay with our faction come with the attitude of 'I'm 16 y/o nigga man and I pack gunz cus my moms sick and also ma fav colors is grey n blue'.
-
-
-
No.
Look, if a 16 years old dude popped out of nowhere and decided to hang out with a bunch of dumb smoking & drinking ass niggas there HAS to be a good explanation to that. This is about your approach, but more about Approaches later.
Thing is, when you start building your character's personality. Try to be unique, but CHECK IT - sometimes Normal IS Unique! Sometimes being a regular guy with feelings is unique! All of that attitude of a ruthless dude (No, just because you said "What the fuck???" when somebody drive-byed me doesn't mean your character has got feelings) is completely un-needed. And if you ARE ruthless, there better be a good reason.
Also, you need to build a really basic NPC history for your character and not just RP that suddenly, a teenager was born and started hanging out on the streets. What's his background, how he lived before he started hanging out on the streets, what kind of family he's from etc. etc.
ANOTHER THING THAT YOU MUST REMEMBER: You came to roleplay a CIVILIAN at first, not a GANG BANGER. Wether your char would become a gangster or not - that's not your concern. Trust me that us, the initiated members are not blind neither are apothetic to any of the outsiders. If they see a good roleplayer they would actually try putting some effort into teaching YOUR character the way of the hood. Your job here is just to roleplay a life.
If you are bored? Well think of it like that. What would you freaking do IRL, if the whole electricity in your town would be cut the hell off. I would personally invite a friend over to my house (Shut up, I'm lazy and it's too hot out here to go out) and try finding something creative to do. Or actually just go outside and fuck around because we have nothing else to do.
And another thing. The DETAILS of your character's personality - so check it, there are Developed Details and Small Details (atleast that's how I like to call it). The first ones are obviously the details in your personality that you developed while RPing your char's life.
It can be: Fears, phobias, hobbies, bla bla bla etc.
For example from myself, my character was dumb enough to sit on someone's FCR and speed the fuck off while laughing like a retard, hitting a wall at medium speed and crashing his forehead lmao. Since then you won't ever see him riding a bike unless it's some mad emergency shit, and yet he will still sweat and shake like a bitch.
Or the fact that my character is afraid of black vehicles, especially 4x4's, since most of the time bad people sit in those, either coming to drive-by you or coming to go Mafia on your big homies xD
SMALL details are those details which seem to be un-needed for your roleplay (Like least favourite food, childhood scars on your eyebrow, bla bla), but hell you don't know how much it is important for the general image of your character. Also if you're having trouble inventing all of these you can take a few examples from your IRL self.
For example IRL I can't stand fish and anything around it as a meal, so I applied this attribute to my character aswell. Or favourite colours, etc...
Also I want to tell: Don't hurry to create your character info page, seriously ! ! ! Why - because you should let yourself see how your character acts first ingame, and only THEN decide what is he like, lol try to understand. For example I roleplayed around the faction for a few weeks, and I opened a char info page only few weeks, or was it months, after I started roleplaying. This way I knew exactly how to describe my character from an objective point of view so other people could agree with me about his behaviour.
A lot of you guys just state shit like: "He is nice but gets angry and he also damn reckless like hell but respects everyone but hates only who disrespect him". Now what the fuck do you base this off? Seriously, give it some time, then run to open your page.
Notice how the old character info pages who belong to old members of RBF weren't opened right after these said members started RPing around. If it is Kush, Dee or anybody else, they made their threads a long time after they -beginned- to RP.
2.3)Approach
Last but not least! The thing that people have discussed here for quiiiiite a lot. The other thing that bothers me terribly is, are*, all of those guys who come out of nowhere and say "Sup". Let me explain it to you clearly.
HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS. I am sure you encountered those at your surroundings. Look............ How to say, people don't go around and ask "What's up" randomly, usually. I mean sometimes when people in my class got a troll mood they can come to people they don't know and randomly ask What's Up, or shake their hand, just for the lulz you know? Mostly making fun of people. But with all seriousness, nobodoy walks up to a group of people he doesn't know and asks what's up with seriousness in an attempt to make friends unless he's either 6 years old, or some social reject.
Personally, me, IN REAL LIFE - I wouldn't even be comfortable if a friend of mine introduced me to a bunch of HIS friends which I don't know. Not to talk about going to a completely unknown group of strangers lol.
Think back about it, how did you get your current friends, or best friends? In my opinion a friendship usually starts out of some casual conversation that appears because of either boredom or no choice.
Like -
"Man this teacher looks like Donald Duck"
*the other fool giggles and the conversation starts*
Personally I got only 1 friend right now that we're friends because I came up to him when we both were 4 years old and asked if I can play too ^^
What's I'm saying right here is that if you want to make friends, try to do is casually, and try to make it like you have no other choice.
This leads me to the next point: The REASON of the approach.
Why, the fuck, did some dude decide to just suddenly hang out on the quite dangerous streets? That's just question of being creative. You can either roleplay growing up in the hood and not going out often, and apparently one time going out and roleplaying something that you do outside every day like going to the store or some shit, or going outside to Iunno wash your momma's car..... OR you can RP moving from another town (which most of people do and it becomes really un-original, even though I did that myself) but then you need a freaking GOOD reason why the fuck did you even MOVE suddenly from another town, I mean moving to another city IRL is a kinda major and big step you know? Don't just "mang i came cos i been real poor in new york so now i earn moneyz here".
You can either interact with other people by asking something (NOT ASKING WHAT'S UP!!!!!!), or randomly roleplaying with yourself and letting them interact with you (not always works).
I'll share my personal story of how my character got introduced to RBF, it's a total coincidence lol, like whole life. Remember, everything, the fact that you're born is a coincidence, every fact about you and any action you take in life is a coincidence.
ANYWAY I was just literally roleplaying with myself for my first 15 minutes, arriving in the airport, having my NPC mom pay for a taxi to Central, to her new apartment which she temporarily rented while she starts working at her new job, which is the reason we moved from the other town in the FIRST PLACE. I roleplayed helping Tyrell's mother to load her shit into the house, then RP'ed that she told him to get out for a minute so she can make some phone call (Lol really random), and then, after I just sat down on the step of the porch and did a few /me's, RANDOMLY Marcel (old faggot ryder who think he slapped someone but no lol) came up and started interatcing with Tyrell, finding him funny because he was quite naive and had these childish jokes. And Tyrell was quite friendly and less shy due to his age and his annoying personality and Marcel introduced him to more people, like Kenyon, Klip, Dope, T-Loc and more.
You see what I did there? Just let it all happen by itself, not really minding to the fact wether my char'll become a gang banger or not. To be honest with you? If a Murdaville member would pass by at my first day, be friendly to Tyrell, take him to Ganton and introduce him to his friends? Hell Tyrell would simply become a Murdaville member even though in the first place - OOCly - I came to RP with RBF. None of my OOC intentions matter here.
Alright guys. This guide is dedicated both to newcomers who wish to learn, but old experienced people could use aswell, it could give you things to think about. I started and took breaks whilst writing this, edited and shit, I put effort in it so I REALLY expect and want you people to freaking read it, really. Especially outsiders or future outsiders. Anyhow, this guide will help you guys build a more stable, realistic, and likely unique character around the neighbourhood of Willowfield.
Throughout the guide I will give you some points and aspects you should think of when you make your character around Willowfield and what, the hell, builds his personality, and ANY person's IRL personality. Also throughout the guide I will use some real, honest examples that either happened to me IRL or happened to my character, just to show you people some not made-up examples.
Just noting that there are actually a lot of good guides on characters on the LS-RP beginners forums, but I am going to make a specific one, about characters in a poverty striken gang infested neighbourhood.
Alright, so let's get started.
Contents:
1) Your General OOC attitude.
2)Building your IC personality.
---2.1) The environment/neighbourhood.
---2.2) Character Information.
---2.3) Approach.
1) Your general OOC attitude
That's a rather serious aspect you should look at if you want to reach success within this faction, and generally other factions (I hope so). A clear and obvious thing I noticed lately, that many people come to RP with RBF mainly, if not only, to get /invite and yeah I am sure you are not here for that, you're here for the roleplay obviously! Anywho, being /invite hungry is wrong, take that in mind and note that before Ryder Block was official almost everyone in the hood was a fucking unique legend. Though being /invite hungry is completely normal! I can't judge people for that, I have been this way myself. See, I have been an outsider in official factions before RBF, and I have been just the same /invite hungry newb that is not understanding why the fuck am I standing against this pole in either Sixth Street or Washington Block for the fucking third month already and I'm still not fucking invited by those jerks!? Haha well, yeah, that happens to everyone.
However it is really important to try your best to get rid of that attitude, and really care more about the roleplay then your character's status. I'll give an example of myself right now, really not in purposes of bragging. When I came first to RBF, I REALLY didn't give a damn jack shit wether I'll get initiated or not, why? That's because I was already an official member in another faction. Tyrell_Hines was just my alt that I went to RP on when I was really bored (and I was apparently really bored all the time in the official faction I've been invited to apparently). Now later on I got requested to either stay with that faction or get the fuck out and RP on my RBF character. My chose was obvious but hell, even after I quit my head account and switched it to Tyrell, I still kept on roleplaying an annoying ass 10-11 year old boy, and I really, really, REALLY had no expectation to get initiated at that age. I thought it wouldn't be possible and I didn't mind, because I knew that I'll reach a point when my char ages up and then I'll have the chance, but I still didn't hurry. I remember I have spent like 3-4 months being 10 years old?
I even remember a case when Tyrell was brought as an 11 years old boy to some alley and got surrounded by the gang members (obviously a jump in ceremony), and I roleplayed Tyrell acting dumb on purpose, saying some stupid immature shit, and ofcourse his jump-in was postponed.
Anyway this thread is not about the history of my character lol, but you should really think about what I told about myself and think where are you standing right now and what you are here for.
2) Building your IC personality
2.1) The environment/neighbourhood
One of the things that affect a character's personality the most, if not THE thing, is his environment. What neighbourhood did he grew up at, what school did he go to, in which CLASS was he in that school, who were the residents of his house and generally the people around him. I personally think that I would have been a completely different person IRL if I didn't go to the specific class I went to, didn't have the specific friends in that very class that I was in, anyway watch Butterfly Effect if you want to get the picture.
Now like you understood, the neighbourhood you grow up at is a freaking important influence on your personality.
Now I happened to have seen in many threads, people arguing about how gang bangers act. Some people claimed they live in a gang infested neighbourhood and they can walk there and not get robbed, some other people claim that it's impossible, some other people take examples from movies.
Alright, so, basically, you can't DEFINE a gang infested neighbourhood. Just like all the people in the world are different, the hoods are fucking, different. Some hoods are mad dangerous and stereotype, if you step you get robbed, you got crackheads everywhere and no children playing outside, THERE ARE places like that in this big planet. SOME hoods are easier, with children running around whilst yet having gang bangers around, and some hoods are just rich ass high class area with bored rich greedy kids who wanna be cool and show off their daddy's gun.
OUR hood is more or less like the second option I stated. With all the so-called dangerousy around the block, if you imagine yourself the big every-day picture (imagine nobody could go off-line and not appear, you know?) you see kids running around, funny fat guys smoking and eating cheeseburgers, other homies arguing, gambling, etc. Hood environment.
People -do- act recklessly and shizzles but when the big homies are around, shit is actually carefull and we are acting reasonably. Most of white/Mexican people who come around wouldn't immediately get stabbed/shot without affiliation check, people think twice and shit. On the other hand we get (atleast used to get) constant drive-by's, personally my character, Tyrell, grew up around a type A of a hood, because it really changed from the times Ryder Block were rivals with a massively active Murdaville and BPL plus some small time wanna-be sets. Lol it was a bloody warzone, every time I logged in game I would get to experience atleast 1 violent act.
Nowadays Willowfield is way way way way way more calm, but still has these drive-bys and ... kidnaps .. by BPL.
Anyway what do you need to think of, is, how would YOU act if you lived in such a neighbourhood? I would personally never get out of my house for example lol but that's just me. You need to mix the real feelings you could get from the situation with your character's personality's feelings.
2.2)Character Information
Alright guys so this thing is one of the things that bother me the most. Many and even most of the new guys who come to roleplay with our faction come with the attitude of 'I'm 16 y/o nigga man and I pack gunz cus my moms sick and also ma fav colors is grey n blue'.
-
-
-
No.
Look, if a 16 years old dude popped out of nowhere and decided to hang out with a bunch of dumb smoking & drinking ass niggas there HAS to be a good explanation to that. This is about your approach, but more about Approaches later.
Thing is, when you start building your character's personality. Try to be unique, but CHECK IT - sometimes Normal IS Unique! Sometimes being a regular guy with feelings is unique! All of that attitude of a ruthless dude (No, just because you said "What the fuck???" when somebody drive-byed me doesn't mean your character has got feelings) is completely un-needed. And if you ARE ruthless, there better be a good reason.
Also, you need to build a really basic NPC history for your character and not just RP that suddenly, a teenager was born and started hanging out on the streets. What's his background, how he lived before he started hanging out on the streets, what kind of family he's from etc. etc.
ANOTHER THING THAT YOU MUST REMEMBER: You came to roleplay a CIVILIAN at first, not a GANG BANGER. Wether your char would become a gangster or not - that's not your concern. Trust me that us, the initiated members are not blind neither are apothetic to any of the outsiders. If they see a good roleplayer they would actually try putting some effort into teaching YOUR character the way of the hood. Your job here is just to roleplay a life.
If you are bored? Well think of it like that. What would you freaking do IRL, if the whole electricity in your town would be cut the hell off. I would personally invite a friend over to my house (Shut up, I'm lazy and it's too hot out here to go out) and try finding something creative to do. Or actually just go outside and fuck around because we have nothing else to do.
And another thing. The DETAILS of your character's personality - so check it, there are Developed Details and Small Details (atleast that's how I like to call it). The first ones are obviously the details in your personality that you developed while RPing your char's life.
It can be: Fears, phobias, hobbies, bla bla bla etc.
For example from myself, my character was dumb enough to sit on someone's FCR and speed the fuck off while laughing like a retard, hitting a wall at medium speed and crashing his forehead lmao. Since then you won't ever see him riding a bike unless it's some mad emergency shit, and yet he will still sweat and shake like a bitch.
Or the fact that my character is afraid of black vehicles, especially 4x4's, since most of the time bad people sit in those, either coming to drive-by you or coming to go Mafia on your big homies xD
SMALL details are those details which seem to be un-needed for your roleplay (Like least favourite food, childhood scars on your eyebrow, bla bla), but hell you don't know how much it is important for the general image of your character. Also if you're having trouble inventing all of these you can take a few examples from your IRL self.
For example IRL I can't stand fish and anything around it as a meal, so I applied this attribute to my character aswell. Or favourite colours, etc...
Also I want to tell: Don't hurry to create your character info page, seriously ! ! ! Why - because you should let yourself see how your character acts first ingame, and only THEN decide what is he like, lol try to understand. For example I roleplayed around the faction for a few weeks, and I opened a char info page only few weeks, or was it months, after I started roleplaying. This way I knew exactly how to describe my character from an objective point of view so other people could agree with me about his behaviour.
A lot of you guys just state shit like: "He is nice but gets angry and he also damn reckless like hell but respects everyone but hates only who disrespect him". Now what the fuck do you base this off? Seriously, give it some time, then run to open your page.
Notice how the old character info pages who belong to old members of RBF weren't opened right after these said members started RPing around. If it is Kush, Dee or anybody else, they made their threads a long time after they -beginned- to RP.
2.3)Approach
Last but not least! The thing that people have discussed here for quiiiiite a lot. The other thing that bothers me terribly is, are*, all of those guys who come out of nowhere and say "Sup". Let me explain it to you clearly.
HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS. I am sure you encountered those at your surroundings. Look............ How to say, people don't go around and ask "What's up" randomly, usually. I mean sometimes when people in my class got a troll mood they can come to people they don't know and randomly ask What's Up, or shake their hand, just for the lulz you know? Mostly making fun of people. But with all seriousness, nobodoy walks up to a group of people he doesn't know and asks what's up with seriousness in an attempt to make friends unless he's either 6 years old, or some social reject.
Personally, me, IN REAL LIFE - I wouldn't even be comfortable if a friend of mine introduced me to a bunch of HIS friends which I don't know. Not to talk about going to a completely unknown group of strangers lol.
Think back about it, how did you get your current friends, or best friends? In my opinion a friendship usually starts out of some casual conversation that appears because of either boredom or no choice.
Like -
"Man this teacher looks like Donald Duck"
*the other fool giggles and the conversation starts*
Personally I got only 1 friend right now that we're friends because I came up to him when we both were 4 years old and asked if I can play too ^^
What's I'm saying right here is that if you want to make friends, try to do is casually, and try to make it like you have no other choice.
This leads me to the next point: The REASON of the approach.
Why, the fuck, did some dude decide to just suddenly hang out on the quite dangerous streets? That's just question of being creative. You can either roleplay growing up in the hood and not going out often, and apparently one time going out and roleplaying something that you do outside every day like going to the store or some shit, or going outside to Iunno wash your momma's car..... OR you can RP moving from another town (which most of people do and it becomes really un-original, even though I did that myself) but then you need a freaking GOOD reason why the fuck did you even MOVE suddenly from another town, I mean moving to another city IRL is a kinda major and big step you know? Don't just "mang i came cos i been real poor in new york so now i earn moneyz here".
You can either interact with other people by asking something (NOT ASKING WHAT'S UP!!!!!!), or randomly roleplaying with yourself and letting them interact with you (not always works).
I'll share my personal story of how my character got introduced to RBF, it's a total coincidence lol, like whole life. Remember, everything, the fact that you're born is a coincidence, every fact about you and any action you take in life is a coincidence.
ANYWAY I was just literally roleplaying with myself for my first 15 minutes, arriving in the airport, having my NPC mom pay for a taxi to Central, to her new apartment which she temporarily rented while she starts working at her new job, which is the reason we moved from the other town in the FIRST PLACE. I roleplayed helping Tyrell's mother to load her shit into the house, then RP'ed that she told him to get out for a minute so she can make some phone call (Lol really random), and then, after I just sat down on the step of the porch and did a few /me's, RANDOMLY Marcel (old faggot ryder who think he slapped someone but no lol) came up and started interatcing with Tyrell, finding him funny because he was quite naive and had these childish jokes. And Tyrell was quite friendly and less shy due to his age and his annoying personality and Marcel introduced him to more people, like Kenyon, Klip, Dope, T-Loc and more.
You see what I did there? Just let it all happen by itself, not really minding to the fact wether my char'll become a gang banger or not. To be honest with you? If a Murdaville member would pass by at my first day, be friendly to Tyrell, take him to Ganton and introduce him to his friends? Hell Tyrell would simply become a Murdaville member even though in the first place - OOCly - I came to RP with RBF. None of my OOC intentions matter here.
