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Thoughts on Premade (or semi-premade) Characters?

WanderingBlackDragon

WanderingBlackDragon

World Hopper
Joined
Dec 13, 2020
Now, I do remember some RTs talking about premade characters. To get this out of the way, a premade seems to be a character that someone makes for someone else to play as.

For context; I have a set of rping characters that I originally wanted for the cast of a series of stories I was planning to write. I decided to scrap the story, but keep the characters for rping. Since then, I had the idea to pair two of these characters up, my main is a boy named Jaden, and the girl is his friend Mina. However, I felt awkward about writing any romantic/sexual scenes of the two, so I figured I'd give Mina to potential partners to play. But, the problem there was that I ended keeping all the stories I scrapped as backstory.... Which mean Jaden and Mina had a bunch of history that the potential partner would have to be briefed on, which could take a lot out of the planning and their ability to input.

Since then, I scrapped Mina, especially to make room for other characters, such as if I put Jaden in the RWBY universe. However, considering how integral Mina is to Jaden's character, and their group as a whole... Not to mention the fighting style and ability set I put together for her, I decided to bring her back as Jaden's rival-turned-friend-turned-soulmate and run a theme of their relationship evolving into a polyamorous romance (Mina would have a theme of discovering she's either bi, or pan).

But, now I'm not sure how to present her to potential partners.

  1. When planning a potential plot with a friend, said friend decided she wanted to take over Mina's character. Which, I suppose could work, but there's a way I made her to be in terms of themes, personality, etc. So, I was kinda miffed by this.
  2. I could just play as Mina myself the whole time, but as aforementioned, it feels kinda awkward like I'm just playing as myself.
  3. What I could do is work out Mina's role and history with Jaden and their friends with my partner. I've been thinking to redo their general background to make them easier to work a rp plot out of.
So, what are your thoughts on premade characters? How best can they be implemented with a partner, if at all?
 
I have very rarely engaged with someone who was advertising a premade character. I only will if I am really into the faceclaim and story concept. I wouldn't chose one based on their backstory or only on their personality.

I never re-played existing characters until I came back to online RP and found that it was now all these craiglist-style forums where almost everyone ends up ghosting. I've now got a mental graveyard full of characters, and half of them I really wanted a decent chance to play. I don't advertise characters to play with, though. Depending on the scenario a partner and I choose, I may offer an existing character who fits in well, tell them so, and say there's no obligation to play with them. Then, still, I will change anything about them that needs to be changed to fit them in.

There's only one story concept where I have characters posted for a partner to use. It was a big world that I spent a lot of time building and didn't want to re-invent all four wheels. Still, I said it was no obligation to use the existing characters to replay that world. The first to take me up on replaying used half of the characters I had on deck and made some new ones of his own. The second made a whole new 'partner cast'.

I'm really not pushy about re-using characters or having partners play what I originally had in mind. But, it can be cool if they want to.
 
Personally? I'm not a fan, for two main reasons:

1. Half the fun of writing for me is building my main character. What does she look like? What's her personality and background? What's her name? If all of this is done for me before I even start the RP, I feel less like a writer and more like an actor (and I am a terrible actor). This is also why I almost never play canon characters even if I use a canon universe. Now I don't mind if my partner asks me to play a very loose archetype ("My character's childhood friend"; "the girl next door"; "a rebellious princess") and leaves room for me to interpret that how I will, but if someone were to give me a pre-written history and description, even a beautifully-written one, I would probably decline.

2. I will never be able to play a character another person has created as well as the creator can play it themselves. Even if they seem satisfied with how I'm doing, in my mind I'm going to constantly be wondering if I'm playing "their" character well enough, and the stress would probably sap the fun out of the RP for me pretty quick.

Naturally I am not every RPer, and I'm sure there's a lot of folks out there who'd be more than happy to jump into an RP without having to do the work of character-building, but there's one more thing I would seriously urge you to consider before asking someone else to play a pre-made character.

In the setup you're describing @WanderingBlackDragon , I think you need to ask yourself how comfortable you would be with seeing someone else play Mina...not exactly as she might appear in your mind. Is this a character you feel very attached to, and who appears very distinctly in your mind? If so, you might want to stick to just playing her yourself, otherwise you risk setting your partner up for failure if they're unable to play her exactly how you want. I get the vibe that you know this character better than anyone, but if you hand her off to someone else it's almost guaranteed they're going to start introducing new elements to her that you may or may not want.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's awkward at all to play her yourself, depending on the context. Even if you want to write a scene between Mina and Jaden without any other characters, that's what the Storytelling forum is for!
 
Shiva the Cat said:
In the setup you're describing @WanderingBlackDragon , I think you need to ask yourself how comfortable you would be with seeing someone else play Mina...not exactly as she might appear in your mind. Is this a character you feel very attached to, and who appears very distinctly in your mind? If so, you might want to stick to just playing her yourself, otherwise you risk setting your partner up for failure if they're unable to play her exactly how you want. I get the vibe that you know this character better than anyone, but if you hand her off to someone else it's almost guaranteed they're going to start introducing new elements to her that you may or may not want.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's awkward at all to play her yourself, depending on the context. Even if you want to write a scene between Mina and Jaden without any other characters, that's what the Storytelling forum is for!
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Well, to your first point, I'm not entirely sure. I know I have a general concept; a girl struggling to fit in and struggling with her sense of identity. I had a general direction with her personality, and a look, but I've been struggling with specific details about her background, her life (outside of Jaden and their friends), etc. Part of what's making this difficult is that my muse is hyper fixated on a story involving the cast fighting off a band of neckbeards who think they can charm her (and her prospective girlfriends) out of Jaden's arms and failing miserably

As for the second point. I wonder if I've taken the idea of writing out scenes between characters in an erotic roleplay as being the same as masturbation. I've since moved away from regular writing since the process turned out to be too taxing for me. But, I could've also taken the act of rping with a partner as basically cyber sex, which might be making more dependent on a partner.
 
I'm not into it personally. I tend to build a character around the plot and scenario, around what I want to explore and the energy and ideas I get from my partner. So when I see these pre made characters, many of which have very generic and implausible face claims*, whether they be animated or real people, I kind of just shrug and move on.

I also feel like they are so worked out that there isn't any room left for alteration or creativity. Kind of like buying a set of clothes off the rack over getting something made just for you.

* Ongoing thing for me. People who describe their character one way than post a photo of someone that is just the complete opposite or lacks any kind of personality etc. Whether that be a realist photo or drawing or an animation.
 
I don't care for them, and frankly skip any mention of them.

To me, characters are made to fit the RP, not the other way around. Especially given that I'm looking for RP with non-human characters, most premades just don't work.
 
Whenever I read a request thread where the male characters are already set up, I don't reach out. Said person should write a book on their own.

To each their own, of course, but I like to surprise a roleplay partner here and there, both in scenes and situation as in character.
 
If the character fits, I'm fine with said character. It's no different from a canon. I generally build my character for each RP but I also play canon
 
Okay. So, I have encountered a couple of players who wouldn't mind a premade character.

But, on the hand, I've seen RTs where the poster asks not to ask them to make such a character for them.

My reasons for this threat are started in the original post. So, after reading through the responses, I'm busy musing over things.

Now, getting back to what @Shiva the Cat asked me; I had this idea of simply playing as Mina myself against my perspective partner's characters.
 
WanderingBlackDragon said:
Now, getting back to what @Shiva the Cat asked me; I had this idea of simply playing as Mina myself against my perspective partner's characters.
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For what it's worth, that's probably what I would choose to do myself in your situation. If I went through the trouble of building a character, I don't know if I'd be objective enough to hand it over to another person 😅
 
Shiva the Cat said:
For what it's worth, that's probably what I would choose to do myself in your situation. If I went through the trouble of building a character, I don't know if I'd be objective enough to hand it over to another person 😅
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To be honest, I might have had the idea of letting someone else play as Mina because I was having a case of writer's block when trying to develop her character. Maybe what I really needed was help. On the other hand, as aforementioned, there was that feeling of awkwardness of effectively rping with my characters when I'm supposed to be doing so with them. I might still be in the mind set of erping= virtual sex
 
I only use premades tbh. My freshly created characters are VERY hit-or-miss in terms of how much personality they have, their backstories, muse for them, etc. If I come up with a good one, I throw it on my premade list.
 
I have to like and be comfortable with them. They also have to fit what's going on. If that checks out, great!

If it's someone else's character/canon, I need to be somewhat cozy with their 'writing voice'. I'm not gonna get it perfect, but I'd like to be comfy with it. Hit or miss I'd say. If a partner goes 'I really like this faceclaim' and makes suggestions, it's hit or miss - so then I'd like multiple options to see what clicks ^.^
 
I feel that premade characters are for stories you the author should create yourself. It's almost like fandom, but the only person who knows the lore is you unless you share it. It sounds like a strenuous amount of work and ultimately I am not playing the character, but making her say and do things that I hope you feel the character you created with history would say or do. No.

Sometimes even when doing "fandoms" I can tell a partner, I'll use Ashe from Overwatch, but I'm really just using her likeness, and a little bit of her personality. You don't need to read the Overwatch Wiki to understand what I'm trying to do with her. I applaud anyone who attempts this, but it really seems like a recipe for disaster. As I know I would lose my shit if I got a message saying: "My OC wouldn't say something like that. Please edit the post."

Oooh, I'd be gone. But again, I would never put myself in such a restricting, uncomfortable and honestly awkward position. Every once in a while you play with characters who you and your partner decide have history.

They went to school together for three years. Dated briefly for a few months. But that's different than you creating a character from the ground up, giving her a personality, traits, quirks, ticks and preferences, and then giving her to me and saying, "Here... play her exactly as I think she would be played."

Not a chance!

I guess I have a couple of "Premade" Characters. The only thing that remains stagnant is their name and appearance. In terms of what their personalities may be, backstories and relation to YC, those are all fresh and new every single time.
 
Seranda said:
Sometimes even when doing "fandoms" I can tell a partner, I'll use Ashe from Overwatch, but I'm really just using her likeness, and a little bit of her personality. You don't need to read the Overwatch Wiki to understand what I'm trying to do with her. I applaud anyone who attempts this, but it really seems like a recipe for disaster. As I know I would lose my shit if I got a message saying: "My OC wouldn't say something like that. Please edit the post."
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I'm sometimes influenced by a TV show or film/book etc or a character in one but I never want to play it exactly the same. The idea of being restrained by someone else's vision doesn't appeal to me either. I also found that no matter how much I might like the source material I am never so knowledgeable of it that I can follow it exactly anyway.

I tend to put my own spin on things.
 
I have never been a fan of pre-made characters as I believe characters should be made for the story, not the other way around.
 
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