Isla Aukate
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Character Creation Tips
#1
Those of you that know me know that I spend a lot of time behind the scenes helping Fox fine tune and build the Aukate universe. I have also been an admin on several roleplay sites and was in charge of fielding new character applications on more than one. That’s not my job here, but to help folks with character creation I thought I’d give my two cents on the matter.

Also, to keep from making your eyes roll out of your heads from having to read too much, I’ll try to keep my points simple and easy to understand.

So, do you want to make a character that wows folks? One that will ease through bootcamp and doesn’t annoy the people who run things and admin the forum? Well, just follow these easy steps…

Study the world your character is existing in. Have you thought about what their home life was like? What island they were born on? Why they wanted to become a Minion for Fox? One of the biggest things that will impress the folks that run a roleplay world is showing that you give a crap about that world by making a character that fits into it instead of walking in with one that you shoehorn into it without much thought for what Aukate is like. I promise that if your character background has elements about the islands and Aukate life that is relevant it will jawdrop the admins right there.

Avoid overused character tropes. You’re the last of your kind. You’re an orphan. Your parents/family/friends/sibling/pets were tragically/mysteriously/senselessly murdered. You were born with strange markings and so everyone picked on you. You secretly have magic powers. You are from a secret society that you just made up. You are an assassin who killed hundreds but was never caught. You have multiple personality disorder. Your character is a loner who hates authority. No. No no no no no no no. These things instantly drop red flags onto the character review field. They /can/ work, but they will instantly make most roleplay admins flinch because nine times out of ten? These characters are a pain to work with and will probably never leave boot camp.

If you want to make a character unique, do so by wowing the GM with your creativity. The examples mentioned above are bad because they’re not unique, they’re so overused they make many GMs’ eyes glaze over. We used to joke that the moment a family gave birth to a PC the family would die horribly and they would be sent to the ‘tragically born a PC’ orphanage with all the other PCs who were orphaned.

Uniqueness does not come from ‘I am cooler than everyone else’. It comes from being someone that is fun to play with. What fun is there in being around or playing with a character that angsts about their tragic past or brags about how awesome they are all of the time? Or quietly flaunts their 'special secret' that nobody (but actually everybody) knows about? Why not play a character who grabs other ones and teams up for jobs? Or puts a fun spin on drudge assignments and makes it enjoyable for everyone?

Don’t focus on the sparkle, focus on the content and the intent. You’ll find you get a lot farther.

-Gen/Artemis/Chiria/Ect...
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#2
Very useful information. Thank you for posting this Artemis!
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#3
Excellent food for thought w.r.t. character creation.
Art will always bring a smile to my face!
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