(09-08-2016, 07:51 PM)Foxenawolf Wrote: if you tell your characters's "story" in their background, well, where can they go from here? What's left for them to do if they're already done? View RP as a way to tell your character's story HERE. So what you want in your profile is a bare-bones blueprint of the person they are and who they are currently. Your profile is the prologue. Your story starts in boot camp. :p
This, one hundred times. RPing is acting as a person that's not you and live its life, not putting a character on a pedestal.
As a note, though, while I said before that tragedy is an easily abused trope, one thing someone could do is actually overcharging a character with it. Someone whose life has always been pain, fatigue and suffering, who always got a metaphorical kick in the teeth whenever things could go right, would develop in a fatalistic, submissive, diffident, bitter, spite-fueled person. Would this be exaggerate? Maybe. Or maybe not if the writer is good. It's always a matter of balancing and making the character believable. There's no absolute when working with tropes, just good or bad writing.
You could easily classify the bad use of this trope in two categories, actually:
-the Poor Puppy: "Oh, look at me, I have always been beaten ad suffered injustice, have pity of me and (metaphorically) cuddle me. *in a cardboard box under the rain* "
-the Superman: "Life has been incredibly harsh to me, but I'm so tough I have always overcame obstacles without a scratch. Look how strong I am! *sparkles* "