I've an ego the size of a house to want to share my experience in this thread, but regarding what advise there is for newer players, I will try (and check I say TRY) to be brief.

There's of course one major rule. You need to like your character. So make as many changes as you feel like it until you do, otherwise, you won't have fun. Silly advise maybe, but the truest of them all. So what if your character is not the second descendants from a future hero of alien monkeys? And what if it is, so far as you have fun playing them? Besides, you disliking your character always shows in the writing.

Second advise contradicts a bit the first, but you should make your character challenging to play with. If your character is the master of the universe, you are going to get bored, you know. There's only one way to make your character interesting to PLAY with (don't care about impressing others, that bites) and that way is: make them flawed.

You will learn to like your character -because- it's flawed and, if you are like me, you will end up having a childish, neurotic, biggest coward, selfish, self-centered, anxious, articulation / coordination challenged, paranoid, irresponsable, obsessed, emotionally-thick attention-hag... and I'm probably forgetting a couple of adjetives.

You will also find that, the less advantages they have, it's all for the better. Which is why I will often insist not to go into the whole space monkey thing: play an underdog. Underdogs are generally liked by society as whole, and you often feel gratification for either putting your character in impossibly unfortunate or embarrassing situations, or making him/her struggle and earn people's pity.

Third advice: Give your character a purpose. An advice after all. A written story needs a conflict like a RP character needs an idea of their role in the story, even if it's in the making. A purpose is twice more important than a background and usually scars the character better than (or is the same as) a trauma.

Fourth: There are three character types, which you can base your character in 3 different concepts: Background, Behavior and Player's Performance. Background characters are played in consideration to their past, specially traumas and scarring events: usually dark and depressed characters play heavily in the background. Example: "If only mum was still alive..."

Behavior characters are ones that have a personality programmed into them, and are prompt to tags and nicknames such as "grumpy" and "the mom". They are popular TV figures. They tend to be rather repetitive, but you can make their actions original by looking for every creative way in which they will act according to the circumstances without breaking the rules of their personality. Example: "I love you! And you! And you, my lovely bearhug cherrypie! And you and - oh, darn, I just want to hug all and every little one of you, my pretties~"

Player's Performance character are players that may not have much background and not even much behavior, but in which the involvement of the player is perceivable. The importance doesn't rely on the character but in the physical reality around them. In other words, it's the player's ability to commit to the story, disregarding of what the character's background or behavior is.

For example, a cranky old lady and the male pop singer might have exeedingly different personalities, with abyssmal difference in their backgrounds, but if they are left alone (not at the same time) in a haunted house, they might react exactly the same: cold shiver down their spine, moving slowly listening for any sound, jump at the slightless touch...

My advise is to experiment with all three types and eventually make the character with a bit of the three. And this is where the last advise comes: verosimilitude and credibility. Not only because it makes the character all more likeable, all more challenging and all more credible, redundant as that sounds. But also because, the story will flow better out of you and for your readers.

Note: If this post is too long for you, just read the bold and imagine the rest I said.


Oh also, I don't agree with playbies/celebrities. Often movie stars are all sparkling nice looking people. I hate that. I've only a handful characters that can be considered pretty and it's just a lot more interesting to invent a face and try to describe it.