Making a More Realistic Character

[Dominique LaRue]

Better Roleplay #1:
Making a Realistic Character

Introduction:

Welcome to the wonderful world of roleplay, an activity where you can play any kind of character from any kind of walk of life as long as it fits your scenario. In SA-MP, our scenario is a 100% realistic (with the exception of the supernatural in limited amounts) and modern urban environment, a life modeled closely after our own and with plenty of crime on top. However, all too often I see robotic characters or people just playing themselves. Worse yet, I've seen people roleplaying what are referred to as Mary Sues or Gary Stus; perfect characters that are clearly played in such a fashion as to fulfill the player. These characters are usually closely modeled after themselves or what they want themselves to be like. They're the strongest, fastest, smartest, best-dressed, richest, have the best cars, best homes, best guns, best hair, and best relationships. This is a guide to creating a more realistic character, one with a past, thoughts, feelings, and a personality. It is taking your roleplay from the next level of "just playing" to "playing a character."

Creating a believable roleplay character is really not as easy as people think. When making a character, it's easy to be suckered into creating a caricature, or a stylized exaggeration of what a person is. It's easy to do just a few steps of the character creation process and not the rest. Thankfully, however, you can take the character you have now and deepen them with a few basic steps. Be warned, however, it will take you a few minutes- but those fifteen minutes will make not only you but everyone roleplaying with you that much more glad.

What is a 'character'?

To play a better character, one has to understand what a character is. Characters are very much like any real person you know, but in a literary sense a character is best when they have an objective and a motivation. An objective allows them to have a driving goal that makes them act the way they do. How they act is all influenced by their personality and perception, but we will get to that later. The idea of having a good character is that if you take your character and another person's and put them in a similar complex situation, they will both act differently based on what makes them tick.

A character, besides their motivation, is a well-rounded combination of strengths and weaknesses wrapped around a past. How they use these strengths, how they're hindered by these weaknesses, all depends on their motivation and their past experiences- much like a person. So, now what? Where do you start? I'm going to take you on a step-by-step guide, one that will, at each step, make your character just a bit more realistic. Some questions will be really easy to answer, others will take a little more thought.

Just a warning:
At some times it might seem like I'm saying there is only one way to do things. These are just my recommendations and I always encourage you to find your own way to make your character if you think you can. Different things work for different people and if all of this guide doesn't work for you, don't feel like you have to follow it word for word.

Creating Your Character

Step 1: Occupation
Surprisingly, one of the first and foremost questions to ask is fairly easy to respond to. What does your character do for a living? What else has your character done for a living besides this. If your character is currently a gang member, have they ever had a job before? Did they ever imagine themselves doing anything else? Or perhaps they're a member of a gang, but they also work part-time in a fast food place because their mother appreciates it, or because they don't want their family to know they're running with a bad crowd.

Jack Bemply is a mechanic who currently works at his uncle's garage in East Los Santos and he is slowly becoming better at his job, learning as he goes.

Step 2: Objective
So what does your character ultimately want? What is their biggest goal or dream? Objectives are the light at the end of the tunnels for our characters. At what point would your character finally say "I'm done. I did what I wanted to." If someone asked your character "what do you want in life?", what would they answer? Now, mind me- the objective does not need to be a goal that's realistic or achievable. So if your character secretly wanted to own everything in Los Santos, that's probably not going to ever happen- but that doesn't mean that it will ever happen. In fact, unrealistic goals can sometimes be the most fun to play. Usually, the harder the objective is to achieve, the better for roleplay it is. A good drama is always made so by difficulty- an easy problem to resolve is never fun to read about or roleplay.

Mind, however, that the objective has to be something that your character can do something about- for instance, if your character's objective is simply philosophical, it can't drive their actions or at least not as well. The main purpose of an objective is to get you, the player, to stop thinking of yourself and to get into what your character is thinking.

Objectives come in categories- it is always best to have a more specific objective than a generic one. So some categories can be: Wealth, Political Power, Criminal Power, Patriotism/Nationalism, Security, Family, Vendetta/Revenge, Comfort, Love, Peace, etc.

Jack Bemply wants to become the richest mechanic in the United States. He wants to open up his own garage franchise and have it spread like wildfire with franchises opening up in every city and town. He also wants to get married and raise a good family.

Step 3: Motive
If an objective is your character's goal, motive is their 'why'. It's not just 'what' your character wants in life, it's also 'why' they want it. Or why they do anything else they do. You can describe, if it makes it easier, as a motive being a need that your character has for something(s) and that that's what makes them act the way they do- whether they know it or not. There are a bunch of things that can motivate people and it's all about thinking of one for your character. Sometimes, it's easy to choose an 'obvious' motivation for your character- try to take a motivation that you'd not expect for a character of your type. For instance, how about a mobster with the motive of nurturing?

There can be many types of motivations, you can always make your own- some of the ones I found in a villain-creation handbook are as follow:

• Achievement: Your character will need to get difficult tasks done. They will keep high standards for themselves and work towards very distant goals. They are willing to put forth more effort to get what they want and they might even enjoy competition along the way.
  
• Affiliation: Your character needs affiliation- they enjoy being around people, friends, and they readily accept people. They make efforts to win friendships and associations with people.
  
• Aggression: Your character needs fighting. They enjoy combat, argument. It's easy to annoy them and they're willing to hurt people who get in their way. They love to "get even".
  
• Autonomy: Your character needs to get away from being controlled, restrained, confined, or restricted. They like it when they're free from people, places, obligations, anything- they like that feeling of unrivaled freedom. They can be very rebellious when faced with any restraints.
  
• Exhibition: Your character needs to be the center of attention. They will enjoy having people listen to them and they may do things just to win people's notice. They can enjoy being dramatic, witty, or just being the 'class clown'.
  
• Nurturing: Your character needs to give people comfort and sympathy and will usually assist others when possible. Their interests may include caring for kids, the disabled, or just offering people in need help. They're usually very willing to do favors for people, even if they might not be friends.
  
• Order: Your character needs to keep everything neat and organized. They don't like it when things are messy, disorganized, or confusion. They like it when someone, whether themselves or not, is in charge because it keeps people in line- not because of the power.
  
• Power: Your character needs to control or influence. Your character needs to be able to direct other people and will express their opinions loudly and will enjoy the role of leader- a role which they may assume out of nowhere.
  
• Safety: Your character needs to be out of danger. They don't enjoy doing very exciting activities if danger is involved. They like to avoid risk, especially of their body.
  
• Succor: Your character needs love, sympathy, and care. They like it when others are there for them to offer them advice or protection, or maybe just a few reassuring words. They might be insecure or simply helpless by themselves and they need the support. They usually will share their difficulties very easily, especially to someone willing to listen.
  
• Understanding: Your character needs to understand things. They want to know how things work or why they work. They're motivated by knowledge, whether in many areas or just very expansive in one. They're the kind of people who'd take something apart just to see "how it works".

Jack Bemply has a need for power and achievement. He hates it when his uncle tells him to do things and really yearns for the day that he can be calling the shots. He wants to own his own garage someday because of this and then. He also wants to achieve big things because he spent a long time of his childhood being told that he would never amount to anything- being a successful mechanic would be the ultimate way to show everyone (and himself) that he always could.

Step 4: Personality
Usually, personality is the first thing that we think of when describing a person or a character. When you describe either of these two, usually you'll use just a few, maybe even just one, broad word to describe them. "Mean" or "funny", perhaps "snobby" or "shy". I find that it's best to have one or two really big and obvious personality traits for your character that everyone will be able to see from first glance and one, usually completely opposite or unexpected, personality trait- something that not everyone will see but that adds depth to your character.

Here is a good list of character traits- feel free to google more up or make your own: Character Traits List.

For example: Dominant Trait 1: Lazy. Dominant Trait 2: Practical. Contradicting Trait: Stingy.
Jack Bemply's two dominant character traits are lazy and practical. While he loves to just laze around and get nothing done at all, he's also all about the effective solution to a problem. It's not uncommon for him to come up with a solution that most people wouldn't think of or would dismiss quickly because it doesn't seem useful. This also means that he rarely looks outside of the box for his answer, expecting things to be simple and logical. Now, his 'contradicting' trait is that he's also very stingy. Few people know that he is very careful about spending money on himself and especially others. He always cuts corners on spending and is difficult to persuade to have some fun with his money.

Step 5: Attitudes and Behaviors
Attitudes and behaviors is how your character views other people or groups and how they act around them. Mind, just because they feel a certain way about a group of people or a person doesn't mean they have to act that way around them! A character, for instance, might actually hate a certain race but act nice around them out of fear. So it's important to think of your characters attitude about others and how they behave about others. Pick a group and give it a shot. A waiter who works in a restaurant will have a set of attitudes and behaviors about the rich people coming into the restaurant than the really poor types who come in.

Jack Bemply respects rich, successful people. He thinks that they've earned their place in society and is, as such, on his best behavior around them. He does not respect his elders, in his past his parents and grandparents have usually been very negative forces in his life. As such, he's usually very short and sometimes even a bit rude around older people. He feels very at home around Hispanic people because he grew up around many of them and a lot of them also have interest in vehicles, like he does. Because of this, he always is much friendlier when someone's of Hispanic descent and enjoys their company.

Step 6: Taste and Preference
Different people prefer different things. As such, a character with tastes and preferences really makes them that much more distinctive. Usually, people will have different tastes or preferences because of how they were raised. What does your character like to eat? What kind of music do they like? What's their favorite style of decoration in housing, if they have one? What's their favorite color? You can think of a whole bunch and it really helps set up your character and set them apart- even simple tastes can put them apart. If your character went to a restaurant, what would they order? If they went to a bar, what drink would they get? It's always nice to have these questions answered beforehand rather than having to think of them if the situation ever comes up in game. You don't need to spend hours deciding, just a few are enough to get a handle of it. In fact, in the future, making a choice randomly is an awesome way to get a feel for your character.

Jack Bemply likes to listen to hard rock while he's working on cars or just lounging around. He likes to eat cheap and heavy, preferring fast food and usually with plenty of grease. His favorite color is red and whether he notices or not, he wears red clothing often and favors red things. He doesn't like to read, but when he does, he likes things with lots of colorful pictures because it lets him get his imagination running.

Step 7: Surroundings
My mum always told me that you can tell a lot about a person's life by the condition they keep their room or office. Surroundings are a very good way to give you an idea of your character. Where your character lives, frequents, works, and then the conditions they keep these places in. If your character has a house, is it very clean and organized or cluttered and messy? Is it decorated neatly and furnished well or are all the things there just bought because of necessity? Did someone else furnish the place for them or did they? What does your character surround themselves with? Where does your character spend their time? What about-- where is your character when you're not logged into the game? Are they at a bowling alley near by, jogging around town, or in their home watching television?

Jack Bemply lives in a small apartment that he rents. It's very messy and barely furnished, his bed is just a mattress and he doesn't even have a table that he eats at. He thinks that furniture is too expensive and unnecessary. When he works in the garage, his work area is messy but he always finds his way around it. His toolbox is disorganized and half of his tools are just lying around on the floor. He's usually most comfortable inside and with a lot of noise, so when he's at home he likes to turn on his television on loud even if he's sleeping or not even watching it. At work, he keeps the radio on and loud. He rarely goes out anywhere.

Step 8: History
The step that most people spend the longest and the most thought on is this one and for good reason. History is everything that has happened to your character in their live. You don't need to go to the extreme and make the backstory very complicated or try to make your character very special by giving them a very special or unique background. The important thing is to focus on motivations. You don't need your character to be a list of very bad tragedies or best bros with a bunch of important historical figures. In fact, simple is better most of the time and you don't need lots of details. Where your character grew up, how did they get where they are now, what was their family like, etc.

The important thing is make such a grand backstory that your character is just a walking history- the best way to make your character evil, for instance, is not to have an evil backstory but to roleplay them as an evil person. I like to think of it this way: Your roleplay actions speak louder than your backstory words. The most famous mob boss ever who killed twenty-six people who tried to get him and who ran all five families in New York City is not as interesting as the young guy from the city who wants to be a gangster just like his dad before him.

The example I'm going to offer is pretty simple, but it'd do the trick for getting an idea for your character. You can always do more, make it bigger, longer, more detailed, describe their living situation in everything they did, so on- it will all give you a better idea of your character. Writing a character story is a good way to get into the head of your character at maybe a certain time in their life or a situation. Think of a time where your character had to make a big choice, or maybe pick a normal every day in their life and write about it. Seeing how your character would act in a situation is a great way to get in their head.

Jack Bemply grew up in East Los Santos to a fairly poor family. He was raised in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood and went to a public school in the area. His parents had mostly bad relations, divorcing when he was six. Eventually, because of his parent's irresponsible conduct, he was put under the care of his uncle. From a young age, he took a big interest in cars because his uncle would always be working on them. He'd watch his uncle work and even help him out from a young age. In exchange, his uncle taught him and put him to work in his garage quickly enough.

Jack dropped out of highschool in his second year, figuring that he was planning to always be a mechanic and that it wasn't necessary to waste his time in classes. He never had lots of friends but the few he did were close. Most of his time was spent in the shop or doing nothing at all so he didn't have too much desire to go hanging out with friends. He occasionally met people his age, usually who were interested in cars too, who'd just come by while he was working in the shop and just talk.

He doesn't necessarily get along with his uncle but he has a lot more respect for him than most people that are older than him and views him a bit as a role model. He's now a bit older and hasn't really progressed too far. His uncle had to practically force Jack out of his house and make Jack find a place to live somewhere else. Jack wasn't too glad about the change because he didn't think it was necessary to spend the money living somewhere else when his uncle had enough space to house him.

Now he spends most of his time at the shop or at home. He does not maintain contact with his parents and only sees a friend or two once or twice a week. He doesn't seem to be making any progress in terms of his goals but still dreams each day and thinks about how he will get there, though he shows promise in being a mechanic. His uncle tries his best to push Jack onward and genuinely wants the best for the kid, but often is disappointed at how passive and lazy Jack is.

Step 9: Network
Just like in real life, characters are defined by who they know and who they spend time with. It is always a good idea to think about the people in your character's life, from friends to enemies. One such thing, for instance, is family. Having a family humanizes a character, especially a criminal, and it is great to think about which of their relatives or parents is alive and if they maintain contact with them. Another thing to think about is your character's friends or acquaintances. If they have a best buddy at the local gym or a girl at work they find particularly pretty. There is nothing wrong with making use of NPCs, or characters that are not played by any player, as your character's friends or familiars- they will still give plenty for your character to talk about, think about, and for you to get a better feel for your character.

Jack Bemply's parents, Gary Bemply and Martha Bemply, are still alive, though he rarely speaks to both. His dad tries to call him occassionally to see what's up but his mother doesn't care to call. His uncle is the closest thing he can call to a real parental figure, though, and though he dislikes the way his uncle treats him sometimes and though he wants distance, he appreciates his uncle and his presence and respects him. He has an older brother, Bill, who is in the army now and he is often times disheartened by it. One of his closest childhood friends is a guy named Pedro who he tries to speak to atleast once a week. They sometimes go out to a bar together, but usually just sit around and drink cheap beers and talk about cars. There are a few regulars who come into the garage who he has developed varying levels of friendliness towards, including a Hispanic family with a daughter a bit younger than him, Esperanza- who he has subtle feelings for.

Step 10: Appearance
It's easy to pick a skin and just say that your character looks exactly like that. Because SA-MP has its limits, we're stuck with about 250 pre-set appearances and you're bound to see multiple people, especially in factions, that have an identical skin. Plus, with many people have different modifications for skins, you can't just rely on it to convey who you are. Some people make use of /me commands that they fire off by macro every now and then, but you don't have to make it clear about how your character looks to everyone- just knowing it is good enough and occasionally mentioning it in emotes or roleplay.

Some of the best things to do are to define the things that are not detailed so much by the game- so the skin might just make you look like a mid-30s asian male, but you might add that you have two missing teeth or a very neat haircut. It's usually a good idea to pick a unique physical characteristic or two by which people can remember your character. Describing a particularly pointy nose or a disfigured left arm are good ways to do this. As well, a typical facial expression is good to think about. As such, when I describe a character's appearance, I like to include facial features and the expression on the face, how tall they are and their build, the clothing the character usually wears, and how they carry themselves.

Jack Bemply is taller than average and also slightly chubby, with rounder features that are born of a really unhealthy lifestyle. His face is rounder, with a very defined chin and a strong jaw, but a small nose that looks tiny on his face. He has brown eyes and naturally blond hair, which he lets grow out and just keeps back in a messy ponytail. He rarely shaves and usually has a beard or atleast a lot of scruff. Usually, his face is passive and some might even assume that he's usually stoned or drunk, though he rarely is. His clothing is usually messy with oil stains, grease, or just drips and drops from messy eating. Generally, he wears inexpensive and simple clothing, lots of sweat pants and work jeans, wife-beater shirts and baggy tees. He slouches a lot and doesn't put forth the energy to keep his posture up.

Step 11: Abilities and Skills
The last step for me, though the first step for others- depending on how they roll, is deciding your characters abilities and skills. It's easy to get stuck in the typical choices- "my character shoots good and drives good" but there is a world of things out there that your character can do. Maybe they dance very well, or maybe they know how to play a musical instrument? What about the things they do poorly? They could never throw a football to save their life. What about their skills? Like speaking a foreign language or painting. This gives your character things to do, to talk about, and to give you an idea of what kind of a person they are. Remember, in a /me, the sky is your limit. Just because there is not a guitar model in the game doesn't mean you can't roleplay getting your grandfather's old guitar that he brought from Mexico and strumming a song for your friends around your grassy backyard at night after having a barbecue.

Jack Bemply is pretty good with his hands. He's able to work quickly and efficiently with tools or other instruments. He isn't particularly creative, though, so he can't really create new things or express himself in art. However, he is good at applying himself practically and can usually express himself through just simple construction or work. He is particularly good at card games and even some games which take a higher level of thinking, like checkers or Battleship. While he's terrible at driving cars, he's really good at putting them together and making them look nice and clean. He can't cook for himself, having no taste in food. He can stand his own in a fight because of his size and how aggressive he gets in them, having seen lots of fights in his youth.

Thinking With Your Character

After following the steps above, take all your answers and see how they work together. You have yourself yourself a character with a past, who has goals and motivations, who has skills and a way they act. There are still a few things you might want to do to really shape your character.

Strengths and Weaknesses
One of the most important things in a character is strengths and weaknesses. It's easy to stock your character up on strengths but some of the most rewarding roleplay will always come from weaknesses. You don't need lots and lots of unnecessary details, always leave room to expand in actual roleplay. Still, it's nice to have a handful of weaknesses that your character might have- they can be physical, mental, or anything in between. Maybe they're physically weak, maybe they have a handicap or condition, maybe they have trouble telling when people are taking advantage of them.

People are not all perfect and it's easy to just make perfect characters. A character with no flaws is boring-- and, besides, having flaws make it easier to draw the character into plots that you either make or that occur in everyday roleplay. Well-defined flaws = depth. Consider the hobbies your character might be bad at, what they're clumsy at, things they've done that they're embarrassed to admit, things out there in the world they couldn't handle.

Answer Questions
There are many questionnaires and interviews online for the sole purpose of making your character deeper. Asking seemingly random and plain questions can offer some of the best insight and understanding of how your character runs. I always highly recommend taking one or two of these quizzes because even if they don't give you a lot of understanding, knowing that your character's afraid of heights can be a fun point for a roleplay in the future. Here is a good little questionnaire I found, there are practically hundreds of others out there: Character Questionnaire

Another fun thing to do with your character is very similar to the above. Come up with a hypothetical event (or a real one for your character). For instance, say your character has a constantly recurring dream or nightmare. Describe it. Let's say that your character gets a dog. Describe the dog. What was your character like at 10? Take a different stance- what do you, as the player, hate about your character? What are good reasons to dislike your character? What habits does your character have that would annoy you?

Finding Ideas and Inspiration
You can look all over for inspiration in life for a character. Watch a movie, take a walk outside, read a newspaper. An important thing to remember, however, is to not just copy and paste something you saw in your life and call that your character. Don't just take your coworker's personality and make that your character- they are never the most interesting characters. Always look for inspiration to trigger ideas and go from there. Keep what you like, throw out what you don't.

Develop Through Play
One of the best ways to make your character deeper, fuller, or just to develop them further is to play them. When you roleplay your character, whether it's in-game in SA-MP, on the forums, in a character story, or just tossing ideas around in your head, you're developing them. Adding more to that character. Patience is key, though, and planning is always nice to have because it makes your character that much more realistic. For some people, they need lots of work to flesh out their character before they start, for others it's instantaneous.

Be Original
All ideas have been thought of one way or another. With a setting like SA-MP, where our characters are all "real" people, it's difficult to get too original. However, never take a character from fiction or history and just change a few details (if any) to make your character- use them for inspiration. Don't just take Tony Soprano, change his name to Luca Biscotti, and call it good. Always seek to make your character your own.

Play It, Don't Say It
If you say your character's a brave guy, don't just say that he is in his backstory or in how you describe him, roleplay him being brave. Another way to look at it is your character's past- while things can and should have happened in their history, don't ever let that overshadow what your character is now in your roleplay. Keep your character's background simple and include only the big events that really changed their lives or shaped who they are today, and avoid going super dramatic or tragic (as a general rule, some may find rather good success with the super dramatic or tragic).

Get Emotional!
Emotions are a powerful thing. Something that is seen very rarely in SA-MP are people roleplaying the limits of their characters emotions, something that's very important in any person or character. What is your character's "breaking point"? When would your character suddenly lose their composure- either get too angry that they can't control it or just suddenly brust out into tears? What would terrify your character to the point that they were cowering and incapable of speaking? If your character faces everything bravely and never cracks under the pressure, it's boring and unrealistic. Remember, it's a game- if your character makes some stupid decisions or even gets themselves in serious trouble because they got very angry and no longer thought about what they were saying, you as an OOC person do not lose out if you have good roleplay.

Leave a Plot
Try and think of roleplaying as telling a story. No good story starts off with everything resolved and perfect, or else that story would be boring. Every story has some sort of plot hook or a problem. As such, always leave a plot hook or a problem in your character- don't just resolve everything in their whole life in their backstory and don't make their roleplay one of being just pure perfection. Perhaps your character has an enemy, perhaps your character is considering going back home to help a sick parent, perhaps they want to invent something new- let there be some sort of cause for a story. If your character is friends with everyone, has no family, has all the money they want, has all the job they want, is just peachy keen- there is very little left to tell a story about.

Have Fun
Roleplay is supposed to be fun. SA-MP Roleplay generally tends to be more passive and vapid, but it doesn't have to be that way. While a little extra work to roleplay might seem like a big step from the 'fun' direction, once you get going and start seeing how you think about your character, you'll be amazed at how much more rewarding roleplay is. Your character is no longer "me if I was a badass cop", but "a cop that is X who wants Y and can Z and who is NOT me".

Finally: Let Your Character Grow and Change
I put this step last because this is barely anything to do with character creation but rather how you play your characters. Be open to your character changing while you play them.The character you start with and the character you have after a year of roleplaying should be different. Let your character change and grow. If you get into your character's skin, which is difficult to do but will eventually come, this will all be natural. You'll be able to just feel your character and the things that will happened. Your character's reactions and changes will come instantly and, looking back, you'll be surprised that it came so easily. Change is natural- so don't lock your character into what you made them to be especially with the method presented here. On the other hand, don't try to force change on your character or pre-plan a path that your character will take, or else it's not growing but following some railroad tracks. Be consistent- but don't block change.

Character Profiles

VHRP has a forum for you to post your character profile. While it has a suggested format, it's not a requirement, so feel free to go nuts and to design something that really reflects who your character is. Get creative! If you can do graphics, do graphics. Or if you just want to include some of the information that you've worked on in this topic, do that as well! Look at other people's character profiles and get familiar with your fellow RPers characters- you might find someone you're very interested in roleplaying with.

Link: Character Profiles Section.

The End!

Keep posted for more, future guides on Better Roleplay. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or post here. If you want me to look over a character of yours, feel free to post it here to share with others or also to toss it to me in private. I'm always glad to help- and finally, if you want someone to roleplay with? Ask here and you'll be sure to find someone. Remember, don't wait for roleplay to come to you. Whether it's in-game or on the forums, get out there and start it!

[Nico]

At least you posted one...*cough*

[Tommy Carreiro]

http://forum.ibp-rp.com/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=6159
Get the fuck out.

[Samara]

http://forum.ibp-rp.com/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=6159
Get the fuck out.

Tommy, Dude.. I'm really sorry to disappoint you here.

But Seeker wrote that. (:

[Samara]

Sean.. hasn't.. even.. posted.. here... .__.

[Tommy Carreiro]

He banned me for that post.

[Nicolas Djordjevic]

Here we go again...



Anyway, guide looks good no matter I read minor things of it. But people'll go like TLDR...

[Raiden Akimoto]

He just advertise a server..

This guides looks useful, but for sure I do not read it yet. Yes, it is useful.

[Tommy Carreiro]

He just advertise a server..

Another TL;DR noob. Did you even see that it says FORUMTOPIC.PHP?

[Dominique LaRue]

http://forum.ibp-rp.com/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=6159
Get the fuck out.

[Guide retired from the forums. If you'd like a copy, feel free to PM me.]
Last edited by Barton on Wed Nov 30, 2011 6:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

Good detective work. What a coincidence that that time is a few minutes before I posted this guide. It's a good thing I'm a really good thief and had a copy or else I would have lost the most steal-worthy guide on the internet. Good to know you did your research, Gumshoe. Here's your promotion.

[Tommy Carreiro]

[Guide retired from the forums. If you'd like a copy, feel free to PM me.]
Last edited by Barton on Wed Nov 30, 2011 6:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

Last edited by Barton

Last edited

[Dominique LaRue]

That's nice, dear.

Kevin: Read the server information main topics.

[Kevin Alymer]

It's a guide, read it don't complain about it.

[Dominique LaRue]

And feel free to discuss the guide here. As long as people have more to say than "this is a really long guide and I don't want to spend ten or fifteen minutes reading it :<"

[James Evans]

Yea this guide is really usefully , i took long time to read it.

[Kenneth Sullivan]

Hmm, done reading it all after having some spare time on my hand. Its actually a good one. Found the Network Section and 'Leave a Plot' part rather helpful for me, especially the Motive section. Thanks Dominique

[Dominique LaRue]

Thanks for all the feed-back that people have been leaving. It is a little bit of a long guide, especially to people who have not been on RP communities where writing big is required. What you guys find important and interesting in the guide helps me work on what I help people out with.

Hmm, done reading it all after having some spare time on my hand. Its actually a good one. Found the Network Section and 'Leave a Plot' part rather helpful for me, especially the Motive section. Thanks Dominique

Those are all wonderful sections. A lot of times, I read people's character stories on SA-MP and see that, in the course of it, they kill off their parents and siblings to give them that added extra spite. Pro-tip: "My character's parents were all killed by X and now s/he wants revenge" is probably the biggest backstory cliche ever. And it's not a good cliche. Another thing is that people rarely RP their family members unless someone actually makes a character for it and RPs with them. This is understandable to an extent- it's a lot more fun to RP with someone else than it is yourself. However, you can always have those family members in your backstory and your character's life and find someone to take up the role. Bottom line is, NPCs are very awesome for RP- even if they will never come up in game personally. It lets you have some more depth in who your character is, who your character talks to, etc.

They also help you leave a plot, as I stated in the guide. Having a full family- two parents and one sibling, offers you three more characters to define yours with. If your character's sibling has a drinking problem and for that reason your character never drinks alcohol, that little detail can help add a lot to your RP. If your character's mother is cheating on his father and your character knows about it but his dad doesn't, that can be a fun plot point. Those are small-to-medium plots. Leaving a big plot is wonderful too, like that your character is trying to raise money for a surgery in his family and that's why he's here in Palomino Creek, whatever or that your character heard about something strange in the woods and spends all their time out there trying to find out what.

[Simon Bourne]

This is a really long guide and I don't want to spend ten or fifteen minutes reading it. So i'll go play some MW3.

[Dominique LaRue]

This is a really long guide and I don't want to spend ten or fifteen minutes reading it. So i'll go play some MW3.

k have fun.

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