RP Tutorial Course 4 – Appearance, Personality, Hi

[godhunter]

RP Tutorial Course 4 – Appearance, Personality, History

Appearance

The appearance of your character will determine how others treat them, where they can travel, the decisions they can make, and what sorts of jobs they will be able to have. A frail, pale Earthbender is likely not going to be able to lead men on the march, and a pretty, slim Firebending girl is not going to be taken seriously if she wants to lead the other members of her traveling party. With that in mind, look at the people around you. They are all different. Their faces have wrinkles, laugh lines, pimple-holes, pimples, moles, eyebrows that are too thick, noses that are flat or pointed or stubbed. There is no reason for your character to be breathtakingly gorgeous, just as there is no reason for them to have no redeeming qualities at all. Make your character as human as possible – make them ordinary. These characters shouldn’t stand out in a crowd of Avatar extras.

A few rules to follow:

No hair colors other than black or brown.
No eye colors other than blue, green, or gold.
You have already chosen your nation. Use “colors” of that nation to choose the features of your character. Dark skin, brown hair, and blue eyes for the Water Tribes, black hair, pale skin, and gold eyes for the Fire Nation, and varying darker-tinted skin, brown hair, and brown eyes for the Earth Kingdom.

Well, it looks like you’ve just been told exactly what your character’s appearance should be. Not true! Adjectives are encouraged. Radiant, healthy, coarse, bumpy, worn, young, bristly, austere, statuesque, elegant, rotund, comely, glamorous, homely, plump. Try thesaurus.com if you just can’t think of the right word. There are thousands of ways to describe every nuance of the human body.

Once you have described your character’s face and body structure, continue on to clothing. Again, match the clothing of your character to their nation. Firebender.com is a great place to look up screenshots of the background characters of Avatar. If you haven’t noticed, Fire Nation citizens prefer reds, Water Tribe citizens love blues, and Earth Kingdom citizens like everything in the greens to purples. Go into detail on your clothing as much as you can. Ask yourself all the questions you can think of. Are there any holes? Where did they get the clothes? Is the stitching done well? Is the thread strong? What sort of material is it made of? How big are the sleeves?

A few rules to follow:
Do not say, “he wears clothes that are like –insert character here-‘s clothes”. We want to know what your character wears. If it’s an outfit exactly like a main character’s, then expect to describe that outfit in detail. Make no mention of the main character at all.
Remember, your character isn’t going to want to be a walking freakshow. Try and give them clothing that will help them blend in.
No modern clothing. Jeans, t-shirts, and Abercrombie and Fitch don’t exist.

The description of your character’s appearance should be no less than ten sentences long. It may seem like a lot, but once you’re done describing everything you’ll probably find yourself writing more than you imagined. Picture in your mind that you’re painting your OC for us. All we see is an empty canvas – you have to fill in everything else that you expect us to see.

Personality

Your character’s personality is their most important feature. In the personality area you will describe the general attitude of your character, their quirks, preferences, dislikes, and (if it is applicable) how they would act in certain situations. For example, if your character has a high military position but can let loose at a party, you would make sure to include the fact that even though he is quite stern with his soldiers he has a soft spot for gin that can loosen his austerity. Give a detailed account of their traits.

A few rules to follow:
Those of you with little siblings know how annoying it is when they act like they know everything. Unless you are a very good and experienced RPer, it is generally considered annoying and rude for you to choose to play a know-it-all character, an evil character, or a character that holds an important position in society. These are all characters that require hours of refinement and dedication, as well as a firm grasp on the unwritten rules of RP to pull off.
Try to steer clear of the “High School Stereotype” syndrome. Two-dimensional characters are boring.
Make sure that your character has a reason for everything about their personality. If they’re reticent, why? If they’re bubbly, why? Did somebody say something or did something happen to them to make them that way? Follow the doctrines of psychology – trauma, a withheld lifestyle, and a person’s parents and environment will all affect how they think and act.
Do not create a character that kills/has killed others, professional or otherwise, if they’re less than 25 years of age.
Stay away from having your character be a rape victim.
Match your character’s personality to their nation as far as dislikes go.

Try not to contradict yourself too often. Characters shouldn’t be happy yet stern, angry yet kind, rambunctious yet calm, bouncy yet meditative and profound. It is natural for humans to have those traits, but in RP you should challenge yourself to give your character more solid behaviors.

Your character’s personality should be around five to ten sentences. You can, of course, do more, but since personality is such an important part of your character, you shouldn’t be doing less.

Whew! That was a long one. History will be the next one we cover, but you should still be thinking about in terms of why your character is the way they are and where they come from to make them so… then we’ll begin RPing! I apologize for the delay in updating and it won’t happen again.

[firenationstooge]

Hello, I'm not an RPer, but I find your post an interesting read. I would like to comment on a few of your points however.

No eye colors other than blue, green, or gold.

I suppose the eye colors are to match the nation, but aren't there other eye colors in the show, grey and brown for example?


Do not create a character that kills/has killed others, professional or otherwise, if they’re less than 25 years of age.

Why is there a rule such as this? Granted I'm not interested in seeing the RP topics overflowing with psychopaths either, but considering the environment of Avatar, a world embroiled in a 100-year war, it shouldn't be surprising to see SOME people (that is if they have the right occupation, such as soldier or royal guard trainee etc.) who have killed others. Even in our world, there are many "child soldiers" in wartorn regions.

Of course if this is just to keep the RP topics from getting overly dark, I understand perfectly.

[godhunter]

Truthfully, I didn't write this, Ti did, but most likely it is so that things aren't as confusing for newer RPers

[writer]

Are we allowed to have Airbender Characters? which I'm assuming it's a no..
and also want to put out this notice

Becareful with Disablied OCs
I have 2 OC with disablities, most people know that Chiko is mentally retared and is maimed not mention he stutters, on Feng Shui I play a blind midwife named Choji. I'm getting pretty dang sick of people with mental disablies and not understanding their symtoms. Or with something like blindness, and making them ninjas. I'm all for OCs with wheelchairs and the like. But be relistic. Rping with a disable character, very difficult and takes experiance

[Awapuhi]

Hi firenationstooge,

I was going to be away when this post was scheduled to be put up, so that is why godhunter posted it instead of me. Here are the answers to your questions....

I suppose the eye colors are to match the nation, but aren't there other eye colors in the show, grey and brown for example?

You're right - the eye colors have been set as such to make sure they match the nation. However, in this tutorial we aren't covering Airbenders. We're also teaching under the impression that Ty Lee is an anomoly in the system, and that millions of Fire Nation characters shouldn't start popping up with gray eyes much like millions of female waterbending warriors shouldn't start popping up because of Katara. Until times change we'll stick to the old rules of RPing, and many RPers would still be wary of a gray-eyed character. We're trying to make fitting into the RPing world easier for these new RPers.

Brown eyes? Honestly I can't recall seeing brown eyes in the show, unless it's the dark gold of the Fire Nation. This might be a mistake and if you can remind me of a brown-eyed person in the show, I'd appreciate it.

As to the second question, it is to avoid the countless number of new RPers who make their first character a teenage killer with absolutely no phsycological effects/an unreasonable personality to match their "heartlessness". Like Godhunter said, it is set to make things easier for the new RPers. I was alerted a while ago that many new characters had been cropping up with every other boy and girl being an 'accidental killer' or an assassin. It was suggested that I add something in about the amount of training and the nature it takes for killing. The problem is that the majority of those characters did not have the right occupation. Actually, they were ten to seventeen and didn't have any occupation at all.

Personally, I'd enjoy a darker strain of Avatar RPs, but that guideline wasn't suggested for that purpose. *shrugs*

I hope that this was of help. ^.^

[firenationstooge]

Ah thanks for clearing it up.

I'm pretty sure I saw other eye colors... but the topics where they were posted were deleted, and I would have to find motivation (a great obstacle) to watch those eps. again. I'll let you know if I find some good evidence. ;D


I can really understand your explanation to my second question. There's nothing more cliche-sounding than having an emo-teenager character who has killed people for no good reason/because they were victims of violent crimes, blah blah blah.

You know, it's not typical of me to imagine up OCs for any cartoons I have watched (and I've seen quite a lot, both Japanese and American), but Avatar is the FIRST show to really influence me to do this. I have four of them and will share some basic info if you'd like to read.

They are all Fire Nation. In order of rank (unfortunately I'm not creative/dedicated enough to name them):

-A powerful woman Firebender in her 30s. She is the head of the Firebender royal guards. Has survived many trials and ceremonies in order to be first chosen as a royal guard, and then becoming their leader. Although she does not personally approve of the war and has some "feelings" (not love, more akin to loyalty and care) toward Prince Zuko due to an encounter when he was a very young child, she is immensely loyal to the Fire Nation and will stop at nothing to obey the Fire Lord's will. Her figure is mostly hidden due to a cloak and dragon mask she wears. In her personal life, she is a kind and peaceful person, but when on duty she is a fierce and uncompromising guardian of the royal family.

-A male Firebender in his 40s-50s. Leads an elite unit of Rhino riders that primarily serve in protecting the FN capital. Above-average bender, but uses this ability in conjunction with his large one-handed sword. Not much personality here (not much of a talker either), but he's suppose to be like that, so go figure. He is a tall, imposing man, but no other physical appearance can be seen since he is completely covered by a variation of the Firebender armor that somewhat resemble those of the Japanese samurai (see the proto-Firebender here for reference: www.nick.com/all_nick/tv_supersites/video.jhtml?show_id=ava&clip=16)

-A brother and sister pair. Twins aged fifteen. While they are royal guard trainees, their background as children of one of the leading engineers of the Fire Nation was what chose them as candidates to test a new prototype war machine. For this purpose they accompany the guard leader and the Rhino captain (both mentioned above) and move from one battlefield to another. If an Earth Kingdom city is proving particularly troublesome, they are there to remove the opposition. While not terribly skilled at hand-to-hand fighting, since they are more accustomed to using machines, they are no slouches either. The brother is a capable Firebender, while the sister prefers melee weapons. The pair are interested in encountering the Avatar, since they are eager to witness the famed glider of the Airbenders firsthand. However, they are loyal to their duties and will stay with it.



Please be gentle, I'm allergic to criticism.

I have no experience in OCs or RPs, but Avatar should get credit for motivating me (no small obstacle ;D) into dipping my feet into it.

[jadawulf]

ti said:

Brown eyes? Honestly I can't recall seeing brown eyes in the show, unless it's the dark gold of the Fire Nation. This might be a mistake and if you can remind me of a brown-eyed person in the show, I'd appreciate it.

^ Brown eyes