Question How do you handle changing or advancing your characters?

[Edward Ashcard]

How do you handle changing or advancing your characters? Some characters are about becoming something, but if the reason for the change is that you want to write as x faction or with x skill, do you "make" yourself write threads to "earn" it or do you simply declare it and move on to what you want to do?

I'm planning on making my character a Mandalorian, and I'm undecided about how to go about it, so I would be grateful to hear how others have handled similar situations.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

Honestly I think you can do it either way. If the head cannon matters for you then you might do a thread about him embracing the Mando lifestyle and culture. If the ultimate goal is you just want to write in that faction then don't bother with the prequels. Just jump in and have fun! You can always pull a George Lucas and write the prequels latter!

 

[Domina Prime]

How do you handle changing or advancing your characters? Some characters are about becoming something, but if the reason for the change is that you want to write as x faction or with x skill, do you "make" yourself write threads to "earn" it or do you simply declare it and move on to what you want to do?

I'm planning on making my character a Mandalorian, and I'm undecided about how to go about it, so I would be grateful to hear how others have handled similar situations.

I think a healthy balance of either or tend to be what happens on the site depending on the gravity of what it is your trying to do. If you wanna be like, a big bad of sorts then to have people 'respect' your vibes doing threads and just literally being 'around' during stuff will help you 'earn it' over time. Showing up to invasions, doing junctions/dominions, ect will get you reputation. Think 'Mission Passed, Respect Earned'.

But when it comes to 'personal growth' where your cheracter elevates to new positions in their life you'd wanna do like...a handful of social and private threads. Like if you wanna become a Mandalorian do threads with mandos, learn some of the language and culture. Forge a weapon or two, have a fellow mando show you some ropes since you are basically a 'foundling' and going through initiation can be a fun journey in of itself that you can look back on and be like "oh yeah, i learned these things by doing x stuff."

You can also just 'do it' behind the scenes and move on how you want, but in my humble opinion people do that a lot but it usually depends on what it is your trying to do. Don't just 'appear' with the power of starkiller yanking capital starships out the sky without at least putting 'some' work in to show how your character got to such a point.

Bout the best way i could explain. Hope it helps champ ^^

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Doing the same thing with this character. Way I'm working on it is I jumped into one faction thread as a not-Mando, I have a private thread where she's not yet Mando and some where she just became Mando. More recent threads are she's Mando but hasn't yet taken her Verd'goten.

Depends on what you really want to write, I guess. I like creating a story about change like this.

 

[Edward Ashcard]

That makes sense. I'm currently thinking of a few threads like this: language/culture -> training/trial -> "ascension". I'm in no rush specifically, but in my previous attempts to get into Chaos I was very cautious about not "presuming too much" so I would make a character with the aim of writing fleet battles but start them off in command of the smallest ship possible, and so I never maintained interest for long (in addition to picking times to get started here when I already busy with other stuff). It's been about 5 real years since my character was not "in-between jobs" so I while I enjoy writing about it, I don't want to spend the next 6 months doing so.

I can see the value in jumping around, but I like to have a more fixed timeline of threads for my character, even if others are bouncing around.

 

[Judah Dashiell]

I think a balance of both.

I will say threads building up to something tend to be good for character growth and getting the character to feel more complex and complete.

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

Honestly I think you can do it either way. If the head cannon matters for you then you might do a thread about him embracing the Mando lifestyle and culture. If the ultimate goal is you just want to write in that faction then don't bother with the prequels. Just jump in and have fun! You can always pull a George Lucas and write the prequels latter!

I support this. Either way works, just do what is going to be the most fun for you.

There are also other ways to show a character changing their course, via little snippets to show the past, or doing one-off blogs. You can get creative with it, or just put a throw away line in a post to establish it.

Just do what you think is going to get you writing and having fun with your character, what you find fulfilling.

 

[Alan]

Becoming a Mandalorian is very played out to me personally- I’ve written mandalorians for ten plus years now. I think the trick is to find out what Mandalorian you want to be. I’ve written gunslingers, mercenaries, warriors, crusader mandalorians etc. I think there’s a lot of room on chaos for NFU roleplay outside of the established space- the spacer role is vast. Wild space is a great setting I wish we’d do more of.

But honestly I think, the older I get, the smaller I want my roleplay to be. A series of first replies is more interesting to me lately than an invasion, dominion or anything like that. More personal experience and writing for that character, rather than a faction based thing. Lately that is. I think that’s the way to go for developing a character. Who they are in the small worlds, not just the big battles and setpiece threads.

 

[Darth Vinaze]

For characters to have an arc they need a conflict, personal or literal or both, and then they need to resolve it. I think the answer is found in your question, and other writers in this thread have already hit some nails on the head. If you want your character's arc to be "becoming a Mandalorian", you ought to write what that entails. What challenges would he face in training to become a Mando, physically or to his beliefs? What aspects or variety of Mandalorian ways appealed to him in the first place? How does he interact with Mandalorians who were born into the culture versus joining it later in life?

 

[Alan]

And also- what kind of Mandalorian he wants to be. All often I see characters that have Mandalorian tacked on as a trait, or even sometimes just to use the armor.

I think a good Mandalorian character has some part of the Mandalorian culture as a central or at least important part of their story. Even if that means turning away from the life of a Mandalorian.

 

[Edward Ashcard]

Thanks, I agree that it's important to consider the why and what when making such a change. I think writing threads that cover the change in various ways is the way to go, but without trying to make them longer than they need to be.

I do enjoy first replies more than I expected, and wild space does sound interesting. I guess there's pros and cons to having a more detached character but writing a character who exists more or less solely for faction play also has its own challenges. When I first started, I did not understand what the “point” of writing outside of faction play was. Perhaps it would have been smart to write a new character, but I like what I have, even if the original idea was simply "solider who fights for x faction".