How close are your characters?

[Molalzsath]

How much trouble do you have with keeping your characters to how they should be, versus how you, the author, are?

For example, Molalzsath is pretty much the anti-me (or at least how I think of myself). Dumb as a brick, greedy, brutish, and evil. I want'ed to make a character that I'd have to obviously play.
But I keep slipping, and sneaking personal traits in. He'll not attack some-one because it's a fight he'll loose. He'll slip a newbie a bit of advice. He THINKS about things more complicated then "where him stab best".

Thalgor, on the other hand, was my first RetroMUD character, and I was a little less able to seperate reality and fiction (you know the type). So he's human, noble, kind, good, and so on. All the attributes I'd like to attribute to myself. He's supposed to be a bit more world weary and cautious about people then he really ends up being.

Although, now Thalgor is back in RetroMUD, as a Sent. That's turning out to be a bit different then I first thought, too, but I still keep mixing up character attributes and personal attributes, and character history and personal history. Bleh!

So how do you guys keep it all straight? Or do y'all just have a better grip?

[Mireille]

I'm horrible at keeping them separate. No matter what race or guild I played, Mireille is just me. Well, except I don't fart in real life. Ever.

[Schrau]

I know Schrau and I know me. Scruffy and sarcastic is about as close as we get.

[Mall]

I find that delusion, insanity, and obsessive compulsive behavior helps keep my characters separate. I say insanity since I had over thirty different characters. I'm down to six now though.

Mallac, my very first retromud character, was me learning to play a retromud on telnet. There's nothing special to note about him, he wasn't a character.
Eventually I started my eighth character, Mall, and quit playing the six others that still existed.
Mall is me trying to be social and tolerant. I think eventually I started to be more like Mall. I don't mean that I have murdered anyone with a battle axe, or tried to fly.
I just started being more tolerant in the real world. Some time after I started Mall, I created Cavirelle, who was a remake of another character I abandoned, she was a stereotype: cute evil. I think I scrapped her original persona.
[/RANT]

I don't have problems with confusing characters. But I don't know if I'm playing the character, or if I really act like any of the personae I created.

[Lacrifish]

Lacrimus started as sort of an angsty tragic character, because I wanted to try roleplaying and such and I thought thatd be fun to play. As time has gone on, though, hes gradually taken on more of my traits. He's never really all that much like me, but he usually has whatever sort of personality I find entertaining at the time.


Lacrifish isnt really a roleplay character though, so he definitely is just me. Which of course is why he's random and strange and generally just light-hearted and easygoing.

[Mireille]

...
And INSANE.

Lovingly,

Mir

[Loktai]

Loktai... when he roleplays, Loktai is very much like, well, himself. You have to realize that Loktai's experience in the Retroverse is perhaps different from most characters who roleplay - he has long been a lost soul, seeking understanding, and gaining temporary enlightenment at times, only to realize the uselessness of a certain train of thought when one tries to look at it more objectively. (That's the IC excuse for his frequent reincing, anyways.) I think he's decided on monk, though, at least for the forseeable future, although he shrugs off the shell like most characters change clothes. I suppose he's overall a nice person, but the concepts of right and wrong are more situational for him than they are for me. It's easier for Loktai to say that the road to being a Fallen is quickest for the Paladin, than it would be for me to say the same (although I've seen the real-world equivalent, and been somewhat like that myself although not to that degree). Loktai IC is somewhat like me, but has a more distinct idea of what his role should be according to his race/guild/level/etc (A more Japanese attitude, perhaps? This is how the Japanese are described in the few Western books that I have read that describe them in-depth, but having never been to Japan... I know that the few Japanese people I know are just as varied as anyone else, of course.)

[Carnely]

Carn and me are equally flirty and chivalrous, but I'm not as promiscuous IRL as the mack ratty. We're both fairly secretive, though rather easygoing and friendly. We're single by choice and we both have dreads.
However, I'm rather more abrupt and impatient IRL. As a sentinel I have to mind my language and keep my temper in check. Thus Carn is nicer. ; )

Baisangur the jinn ranger is my Angstmachine. He's unpleasant and elitist; sometimes I have trouble RPing him, because his "Elemental Pride" mindset is absolutely alien to me and I have to pick up the lingo from nationalist websites. But I like his backstory and he has potential to develop into an interesting char.

[Moonsilk]

Moonsilk and I are similar in a few ways and very different in others. The only time I really have to struggle to stay in charater is when her husband starts getting really romantic and brings out the hopeless romantic in me that she isn't.

[Feweo]

All of my characters have definite personalities of their own.

I'm not religious or a bipolar zealot like Feweo ("KILL ALL THE UNHOLIES AND LET SIKKAR SORT THEM OUT and then we all can have tea and prayer.")

I'm not uhm... like Ezeiric (He's one of the hardest for me to roleplay as I'm more inclined in trying to be friends and nice with someone than belittle people at will and seeing all their traits as faults.)

Wahtae poses an interesting challenge for me since I have to think like a budding studious intellectual using large words to describe the obvious.

However, I slip out of character too much when I'm not in a group that's actively roleplaying. Sigh... my chi is weak.

[Carnely]

feweo said:

However, I slip out of character too much when I'm not in a group that's actively roleplaying. Sigh... my chi is weak.

THEN KILL MORE UNBELIEVERS, YOU WIMP!

*ducks the wog*

[Glove]

I don't think I share a personality with any of my characters. I share certain personality traits, but for the most part, if I met anyone who I made up and roleplay I would probably get into a yelling match with them. But then again...if I met myself on the street that would probably happen too. I don't find it hard at all to play them, though, since I adopt their mindset while roleplaying.

[Dinadan]

For me, the longer I write a character, the more independent of my personality they become. With Din, I at first modeled him loosely on some bardic stereotypes (seduce anything that moves), Steve Brust's Vlad Taltos (keep talking as if you hold all the cards even when your mind is scrambling to figure out what the hell is going on), and my under-exercised performer personality. [For those who don't know, I'm a musician in real life, though primarily a composer and music scholar.]

Over the course of Homecoming, the fragments gelled a into a more complete character. Din got more serious, but he also became a more complete performer. The arc I'm currently working on (which will start going up sometime in the next couple of weeks) has been an opportunity to throw some new challenges at the more complete Dinadan and see how he reacts. At this point, he's pretty independent of me. Most all of my characters are after the first 5-10,000 words.

[Inech]

Inech and I really aren't much alike (which should be comforting to any of the few who have met him).
Inech is a religious zealot who is fairly single minded in his quest to kill all sinners. The strange thing about him is that he is a Fallen. He doesn't believe that what he is doing is in any way bad. He believes fully that The Nameless One is the one who will judge in the end and is the creator of all. Because of this, he goes around and tries to knock off anyone who does "sins against the Nameless One." I haven't really played Inech long, but I'm working on making him emulate knights in stories.
The only thing that he and I really share at all is a sort of reverence of women. In my case, I believe that women have to deal with many more problems than men do and deserve a LOT of respect for that. In his case, a combination of stories in which knights raise women on pedistals and a distrust of men (for fear that they will attempt to take his power) has caused him to care for all women in a sort of worshipping way.
The biggest problem I have is justifying his actions.

[Urthdigger]

Urth is essentially an online representative of me. We're fairly close in our ideals, although Urth is a thief and I hate thiefs. He's more thingyy and outgoing than me (usually), and is essentially the kind of person I'd like to be. My other main character, Stranger, is about as far from me as possible. I RP him by thinking "What would I do in this situation", and then do the exact opposite of it. As for the Avatar, this IS me, sorta.

Edit: More thingyy than me? What the heck was I typing there?