Where to go from here? (Character Goals)

Have a personal plot in mind that can take you and your character from Beginning to End. Something that drives and continues to influence them in their day to day lives, interactions, and goal to improve-- or fail-- and look for people that will help you with that. Read profiles of multiple people from strong and imposing to weaker than you and maybe, in your eyes, not worth "bothering" to deal with and think about how your character might interact with them, what they can offer versus what your character can offer them as well.

(Spoiler alert: don't be that guy who says someone's beneath their notice; thread with anyone and everyone if possible, you never know when a random thread will spark a massive development moment.)

Find what that is, better yet, write that character application knowing what that is, and begin laying the groundwork for them overcoming it and how that thing interferes with their life.

And, for the love of all the good writers out there, make that interfere with their life. A 100% success story is as about as interesting and satisfying to read as trying to eat a burl.

Also leave room for change-- because your plot and goals will change if you're playing your character right.

Hi. I'm newer than Kire, though I've been around longer than albrecht. I joined back in april, and holy shit. I've been on the site for nearly all of 2016, coming up on 8 months. Now, I may not have 15000 milestones like Kire or Takua, but I do know a thing or two about roleplaying. Now, if you're anything like me, you'll be satisfied with a 300-500 grade on your app in the beginning. This is fine. Remember the site tells a story, and isn't a video games. Stats and skills don't mean everything. The words you use and the people you talk to do. Now, I totally support Kire's statement above about personal plot building and throwing screwdrivers into said plot on purpose. Have your character get into fights, and don't just make friends. Make enemies. That way, once your character does something good, you have somebody to come up to you and put you back down in your place. Honestly, that's all I've got to contribute, but really, just focus on integrating yourself into the universe. Whether your integration and position in that universe is positive or negative, is up to you.

My envision of Freyleif's goals was inspired mostly from Dragon Age: Inquisition. To become Queen and leaping at gathering in like minded players and characters on missions. Storytelling has always been my favorite thing and choices. My long term goal for Frey has been accomplished for Frey to become Queen but there is still -more- I can do like over coming her weaknesses and flaws as a chara. Make her feel -real- in my eyes than this thing just bumbling about and refusing to accept her flaws.

I've struggled a lot in writing her but her goal was always the same thing: become Queen of the Quincy. Then gather all the people for some damn fun, but I see that is hard to manage if you don't have passionate people and hard to work with others when you get to 300 rei.

I suppose I have a lot of that DnD and RPGs idealization and I'm still new to this forum RPing. It's unlike the MMOs I play when you actually have visuals and people on at the same time to go out raiding or such.

A lot of meets 'n Greetings can lead to pitfalls if you don't have some sort of planning and communication with your partner. But hey, some people don't like to plan and just go with whatever, sometimes it can be great sometimes not so much.

I...have no idea what I'm doing here.

3 milestones for me, you silly walnut.

What you were looking to say is that we have 10k word milestones.

Totally different!

Let's see Paul Allen's application.


I don't really feel qualified to make any comment but I'm curious as to what the pros have to say about this matter. *saves thread for future reference*

*squints* did we all post at the same time? I swore I thought I posted first! Senpai beat me!

who is senpai in this situation

It's Kire. Kire is always Senpai, no matter what.

Literally never.

<3 Fixed that typo for you~

Also, on a more serious note:

Listen to Kire kiddies. She knows what she's taking about; there's a reason she's one of BG's best, and it isn't because she's always our Senpai (though that helps).

I don't even go here anymore?

And lmao no, no, I was not ever one of the best. Not even close. Take that brown nose somewhere else, child. That's just what I feel works best in the long run. Your Mileage May Vary.

I was gonna go hard on this, but let me keep it simple. Thread with everyone, try to find something in those threads to take away, try to, during this, come up with a plot of some kind of your character that fits the people who can facilitate it.

For example, I did meet and greets, I realized I wanted to test Jian's optimism, I found someone to do that, I found people to deal with the consequences of that. Each one a lesson to learn, each one a dozen threads I had no idea what I was going to get until I did it.

It varies.

For Munin: I have a plan for it, all the way to the end. Of course, what that will end up doing is questionable. However, all of my short-term goals have been originating through conversation with other players or my own ideas. For instance: Munin's current goal of 'fixing its brain' and 'becoming better than it is' came out of previous threads where I ended up playing with various creatures and realizing where this was pushing Munin. Of course it is somewhat tinged by the original plan, but I still just want to go with wherever the tides take me.

So I suppose what I'm saying is:
Know what you want to explore with the character.

Once you know that, I encourage you to just thread with seemingly random people. Heck, even ask people who have been here a long time! A lot of people here are willing to thread with new characters. As you're doing that, just focus on playing your character well. Know who your character is, and what they overall want, and use that to your advantage to just play with those interactions.

As you do that, you might pick up on some ideas that you want to explore. Run after those! Think on them and see where that might lead, and see if you can find some people who are willing to try and enable that.

And most of all: don't be afraid to go to a position where your character can fail. And don't be scared to let them fail.

That's about all I think. One important thing: different things work for different people. This strategy might not work for you, and that's ok. The best strategy is the one that works for you.

I won't make this too long but what I had in mind when I created Shinsei was to make sure it felt like he was going on an actual adventure. Everyone above has stated great things to help others in their struggles after grading day. But an important thing to remember is that the world you created for your character is just as important as they are. The past you created for your character should never be forgotten simply because of the adventures you get up to in threads. 

For example, in Shinsei's history I made sure to create sub characters: Family, friends, mentors, rivals, ect. If these characters didn't die in your history section, then they shouldn't die in your mind. have them join in on your adventures from time to time. Go to familiar places, and let old problems re-emerge from the past. it adds a little bit more reality to a character. It reminds you and everyone else around you that everyone has a past, and sometimes can also be a stepping stone. Your character's journey doesn't start after their app is approved, it starts when they were born.

Hopefully that makes sense.

When I made Eaon all I really had was a concept of what I wanted him to be like. Adimus and I have joked in the past that Adi is "Fake Thor" and Eaon is "Fake Dante" because initially that's what Eaon very much was, a cross between Dante and Virgil with some other personal flare and concepts mixed in, also he was very ignorant and untrusting of the spiritual world. As such my earliest threads involved Eaon being very untrusting and ignorant and that resulted in angering the Shinigami and getting in all sorts of lovely personal scraps. Through that Eaon became bitter and colder though more knowledgable and from there began to take on a darker but more personal twist. Eaon was pretty jaded and cynical when the Incursion happened and that was enough to get rid of a lot of the "fun loving" aspects of his character and make him very cold and harsh even to colleagues. Now he's trying to figure out his place in the world that he's become so jaded.

If I was going to offer advice for new characters/players it would be "Don't have anything so Holy you're not willing to change it." You've created basically a blank slate, let the world leave it imprint on you and then after you feel sufficiently printed start putting your print back on the ground. That's what I'm doing now, Eaon's not passively finding threads to influence him. He very much is an instagator who will threaten other characters, recall the Vigilacne, tell extremely powerful entities that if they're in his town he'll come after them and risk all in order to push his views and that makes RPing him more interesting and development more readily available.