Playing the Not-So-Nice Character

WTT: [RP] posted an entry about playing the bad guy. I haven’t played a truly “bad” character, myself, but I have played the not-so-nice character.

They do share some similarities, the first of which is…not everyone will like you.   Sometimes this will even happen OOC, as not everyone separates IC from OOC very well.

My not-so-nice character, in this instance, is the Cranky Warrior, Lyestra. She’s foul-mouthed, often tactless (“blunt”), and has violent inclinations. She’s also done many…not-so-nice things in her military and mercenary career.

Some people find her hilarious. And some people have called me (me-me, not Ly-me) mean and /gquit.  Uh.  Okay.

The trick with a not-so-nice character is to have them be layered. There must be more than a crusty exterior. Get to know Lyestra and worm close to her heart, and you find that she might some days admit to….emotions. She might come to call you a…friend. Of course her nature still rings true-if you insult her friends she’ll quite possibly beat you to a pulp over it-but there is honor, loyalty, and adorably awkward affection nestled behind the thorns.   She’s worth getting to know.

There are reasons for Lyestra being the way she is.  She was raised by emotionally stunted parents, and forced into being a warrior to make them happy when all she really wanted was to be a hunter like her best friend.  A certain amount of her rage (pun intended) is caused by that, along with not having very good…examples growing up.  In many ways that she will never ever admit, Lyestra is similar to her much hated father.  She’s not angry just for the sake of being angry.

Of course, layers are good for any character!

RP and Character Transfers

Lyestra is one of my favorite RP characters-she’s a Kaldorei warrior that originally lived on the Sentinels server.

However, a lot of my friends from there migrated over to Wyrmrest Accord as their main server, meaning that Lyestra-already an alt I didn’t spend enough time one-saw less of them.  Which meant I got bored and lonely and spent even less time over there.  It became a self-fulling problem, in essence. 

However the people who moved to WA also “rebooted” their characters, which left me in a quandary because we’re talking 3 years of development here.

Transferring an old RP toon is a bitch, let me tell you.

Ultimately I decided NOT to transfer her over to WA where the others went-rather, I’ll make a hunter version of her there, and thus make use of the “reboot” without qualms.

I transferred warrior-Ly over to Earthen Ring, instead, where my “alternate reality” DK version of my paladin Ambrosine lives.  She’ll continue on there with the exact same story she’s developed so far, because I’m attached to many aspects of it.

Transferring RP toons can be very complicated, especially if your character’s story has become wrapped up in other’s storylines.  How  do you handle  a transfer with a long established character?

Do you re-write the story so that they’ve developed along the same lines, but sans other people’s characters?
Do you restart them from their original story?
Or do you leave them as is and shift important characters to NPC status, as I ultimately decided to do with Ly?

Fleshing Out A Character Via Silly Online Tests

One of my favorite ways to flesh out a character is to take online personality tests.  I have notebooks full of this stuff for many abandoned projects.

I’ll show you an example.  Let’s go with an existing character of mine…Ambrosine, in her DK flavor.  We’ll use this test because I love the Meyer-Briggs results.  Of course for World of Warcraft characters, not all of the questions will apply-Ambrosine doesn’t exactly watch soaps on TV, for example-but you can think on how your character would react anyway.

Ambrosine tests as ESFJ: The Caregiver.  Already it sounds like Ambrosine, who if you don’t know her, is one of the sweetest and huggiest Death Knight’s you’ll ever meet.  

How I Use The Results
Go ahead and go through them.  Whatever seems to ring true, I highlight.  Sometimes, I’ll scribble in additional details.  “Yes, like when she does _____ or _____!”  Or perhaps even “No, because _____ happened and has skewed her more towards ______.” 

Here’s a paragraph with some potential:

ESFJs who have had the benefit of being raised and surrounded by a strong value system that is ethical and centered around genuine goodness will most likely be the kindest, most generous souls who will gladly give you the shirt off of their back without a second thought.For these individuals, the selfless quality of their personality type is genuine and pure. ESFJs who have not had the advantage of developing their own values by weighing them against a good external value system may develop very questionable values. In such cases, the ESFJ most often genuinely believes in the integrity of their skewed value system. ..  This type of ESFJ is a dangerous person indeed. … They’re usually quite popular and good with people, and good at manipulating them. … They are driven to manipulate other to achieve their own ends, yet they believe that they are following a solid moral code of conduct.

Hmm, I could make an interesting character out of the second part!  …but, Ambrosine was a paladin before she was captured and turned.  She’s certainly not of questionable morals!  The italic part, that’s her.  I’ll file the rest away for another day, though. 

ESFJs respect and believe in the laws and rules of authority, and believe that others should do so as well.

Oh yes, yes she does.  And she’ll be quite vocal about it, too.  This sort of detail is a great in on RP-all she has to do is hear someone being rude/unkind to someone else and there she is, all sunshine and Light.  “That’s not very nice, you know.  You should really be more compassionate to your  fellows.”

ESFJs incorporate many of the traits that are associated with women in our society. However, male ESFJs will usually not appear feminine at all. On the contrary, ESFJs are typically quite conscious about gender roles and will be most comfortable playing a role that suits their gender in our society. Male ESFJs will be quite masculine (albeit sensitive when you get to know them), and female ESFJs will be very feminine.

Huh.  I’ve never thought of her as being feminine!  Well, actually-she is very mothering, and is “feminine” in that sense.  She cooks, cleans, tends, and all the other stereotypical female-y stuff and is very comfortable doing it.  But that’s because she was a farm girl, and everyone had to pitch in for everything.  But, because she had to pitch in for everything, she also takes on a lot of “non-feminine” roles around the farm and isn’t what I’d call girlyat all.  While she picks nice clothes to go out and about it, she’s never dressy-practicality is key.  She works with horses, so dirt and hair and mud and other things are something she fully expects to encounter (and get on her person) every day.  She just brushes her hair or tosses it up in a pony tail-why fuss with it?  And why bother with makeup when it’ll only get messed up?

…there, I just went on a massive detail-spree all from the word feminine.  Now Ambrosine is a well established character, having been RP’d since ’05 in her paladin form.  But there’s loads of potential with this method for a less detailed character!