Creativity Slump

[Esprit15]

As players, I'm sure most of us here have run into points where we'd like to play a game, but just can't really come up with a character to fulfill the roll for RP, even if I know what I would like as far as mechanics go. It is especially run into the problem here on GitP, since recruitment threads often encourage large backstories, when I find characters to work best when allowed to grow naturally in a story.

Lately, to combat this problem, many characters I have made are expies of other characters, even if primarily visual and less personalitywise. Mostly it's for ease of visualization IG, but sometimes it makes for a good base personality as well.

My question is, is it bad to make characters that are expies, whether purely visually, personalitywise, or even mechanically? At what point does it become bad? I'm curious what other people think of this.

[hymer]

Well, it depends. My rule of thumb is to not do it. I've forced myself not to cringe at dwarven fighters called Gimli too many times to be comfortable with blatant expies. But I believe they can be done with style. My first suggestion is to take something a few steps away from the over-used expies. If it must be (say) fantasy, pick a less used character. Glorfindel rather than Legolas. Or go to a different genre and get a rich personality. Winchester from M*A*S*H has a background and personality that can be translated into most game worlds. Most people won't even see where you're coming from.

I don't think there's anything wrong with not being overly creative and original every time. But I think there is something wrong with cookie-cutter expies in general. They can reduce enjoyment quite a bit.

[goto124]

Have you tried the FFRP section of these forums? You don't even need a backstory to start playing- just jump in with some random character and go! It's a great way to enjoy roleplay without the hassle and frustration of mechanics and having to stick to 'proper' RP. It can also help flesh out your characters, since you like them to grow organically right?

I recommend you start off here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ers-start-here!

Don't worry about originality. Everything has been tried before anyway.

[Kol Korran]

I have been a player only rarely, I mostly DM, but I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Most of what we do is not entirely original, but rather bits of inspirations from so many places it make take us years to realize the sources, but we put different ideas together, and hope to make something interesting out of them.

So why not take from our previous ideas. Where is the harm in that? You are not hurting anyone, it doesn't infringe on anyone's fun, and those are ideas that you as a player feel connected to, still wish to explore, to develop, so why not do so? You are not required to be an endless fountain of boundless creativity, but rather bring a character you'd like to play, and feel you can play well and be fun to the entire group. If you're doing that, who cares where you bring your characters from?

Heck, one of my players always play two type casts, with minor changes here and there. He enjoys them immensely, we enjoy how he plays them, including the known stuff, and the new tweaks, and it's all good. It works out, yeah?

And just for the record, I am also of the school of thought of bringing in characters with simple backgrounds, and letting them develop into the story. I often find it works out best. What I usually focus on is bringing in a decently developed personality to the game. it helps me get the feel of the behavior better, so I can roleplay more naturally.

Good luck to you! May you find a good game! PbP games are notorious for breaking up, and progressing waaaaaaayyyyy too slowly. Play for the moment, and have it as your "side dish" RPG. I don't find it suffices as a "main dish". at least not to my tastes. But keep a good group in PbP. those are rare but oh so fun!

[Beta Centauri]

Personally I tend to dislike any character that is highly preconceived, whether with a long detailed backstory, or with a clear intent to recreate some existing character. Both tell me that the player isn't really interested in the adventure itself but in their own idea, and that they're going to be focused more on advancing their own ideas than the game as a whole.

Inspiration from an outside source is fine, though, and really rather difficult to avoid anyway.

I recommend just not playing the long backstory game, and see what happens. It has become sort of an arms race, so don't play it. You may find GMs like me who are relieved at not having to wade through a wall of self-indulgent writing.

[goto124]

Both tell me that the player isn't really interested in the adventure itself but in their own idea, and that they're going to be focused more on advancing their own ideas than the game as a whole.

Is this actually true?

Though, it really should be okay not to write a huge backstory. A lot of it won't pop up during the campaigns themselves anyway. Be a cooperative player and you're good.

You may find GMs like me who are relieved at not having to wade through a wall of self-indulgent writing.

Do the recruitment threads here really demand long backstories? It sounds pointless, especially when it leads to people padding their stories with a lot of long descriptive words and stuff that doesn't add anything.

[Synovia]

And just for the record, I am also of the school of thought of bringing in characters with simple backgrounds, and letting them develop into the story. I often find it works out best. What I usually focus on is bringing in a decently developed personality to the game. it helps me get the feel of the behavior better, so I can roleplay more naturally.

As am I - characters with heavy backstories don't have a lot of room to play with.


I'd also much rather see a well visioned, well played Gimli than see a [Aged][Templated][Templated][Obscure Race] [Class1]/[Class2]/[Class3]/[Class4]. Adding more 'stuff' onto a character doesn't make it more creative.

[Esprit15]

Do the recruitment threads here really demand long backstories? It sounds pointless, especially when it leads to people padding their stories with a lot of long descriptive words and stuff that doesn't add anything.

More often than not. Most use it for gauging whether someone can write well and thus RP well.

[Beta Centauri]

More often than not. Most use it for gauging whether someone can write well and thus RP well.

That's pretty unfortunate, considering how little the one has to do with the other.

[mikeejimbo]

Good artists borrow ideas. Great artists steal.

[(Un)Inspired]

What so you mean when you ask if something is bad or not?

Surely an unoriginal character never cause someone to develope some terrible disease. It's never caused a passenger plane to crash or for a tidal wave to strike (those are all bad things right? Maybe not? I'm not sure).

If someone dislikes your character because it has too much/not enough backstory does that make it bad? Surely SOMEONE is going to dislike any character concept out there. How many need to dislike it for it to be considered bad ?

[TheThan]

I’ve found a good way to get out of the creativity slump is to brows the net for fantasy pictures. Find a cool picture that speaks to you and transform it into a D&D character. Figure out a name, what happened to put that character into that situation. Start brainstorming idea on what that character’s class and background is, how he/she/ it became an adventurer that sort of stuff. pretty soon you’ll have something to play.

Another thing to do is to play to type, take a common trope about a fantasy race and make it your own. Yeah its common that elves are hippies, but why are they hippies, why do they live in the trees and dislike dwarves. Extrapolate characterization and personality from them. why are dwarves always drunk? does it have something to do with their culture?

Or play against type. That big honkin half-orc is a thief? Yeah, he is but he’s not picking anyone’s pockets, he’s thumping you over the head with a sap and taking your money while you’re knocked out. That dwarf is a druid, yeah but he’s a druid of rock and stone, not of trees and grass.

[valadil]

I had to look up the term expie. Definitely encountered this in play though.

My gut reaction the first time I saw this was dislike. I put a lot of energy into being original. This was the exact opposite.

Then I thought about what the player was trying to accomplish. He wasn't taking credit for the character. He was trying to act out a character someone else made. When I play a character I created I have license to redefine the character as I go. But if you're playing an established character, that's no longer true. I actually think it's good acting practice to take a recognizable character and make other people recognize you expressing that character.

I do think it'd be a little lazy if that's all you ever played, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. I'd also have no respect for someone who copies a character and claims it as his or her own.

[Esprit15]

Ew, no, just grabbing someone and plopping them in a setting I dislike. At most, I'll borrow an image, maybe a few abilities or personality quirks, but I work to make them still their own person when I'm borrowing ideas. If anyone asks, I'm open about my inspirations, which is honestly what I tend to think of it as.

[Angel Bob]

In my D&D group, in which I am more often than not the DM, I frown on "expy" characters, but I can generally tolerate them if they aren't full-blown carbon copies. Allow me to explain in further detail.

The way I see it, there are two kinds of "copycat" players. There are those who copy a character in personality or aesthetic (for example, someone who makes a lithe, agile elven archer), and then there are those who take the literal name of a character (Legolas, in this case).

When a player does only one of those two things, I find that it's not too disruptive. For example, one of my players is playing a rogue named Durza; since his personality is unlike the Shade, the similarity is in name only, and I'm not concerned. In a similar case, I once played an evil character who had the same aura and effect as Ganondorf, but his name and history were different, and that seemed different enough to me.

Those who do both, however -- who both copy a character's personality and don't even have the creativity to come up with a new "coat of paint" -- those are the people who get under my skin. Thankfully, I've never actually encountered any of these people in person; I've only seen horror stories in the Playground.

[goto124]

When I play a character I created I have license to redefine the character as I go. But if you're playing an established character, that's no longer true.

One/both of my characters was taken right out of a computer game, and I added and removed depending on how well it work in Tabletops, as well as my personal preferences. More of the former though.

To me, originality doesn't matter nearly as much as how well the player can work with the other players.

[the OOD]

just because a character starts as an expy doesn't mean they will stay that way.

I had a player (unbeknownst to me) make a character a robotic version of an (I think)anime character, who ended up totally different via natural evolution and subtle character development.
he became captain of a ship, then a small fleet.
then he started (and made profit off of) a galactic war.
then he became a combat roomba.
then he became the largest bounty in the entire friggin' galaxy.
then he died.
then he killed and replaced chaos Lucifer to come back to life.
fun times.

at the end of all this, you could look back and see how the character had changed slowly over the years and grown into who he ended up being(all hail Deadeye Vash, roomba-terror of the galactic seas(and newly reincarnated chaos Lucifer))


point is, it can serve as a starting point, but there is really, truly, absolutely no way to know where that character will end up.