When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

OOC General Discussion

Moderators: Forum Moderators, Active DMs

User avatar
BegoneThoth
Posts: 1589
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2017 5:20 am

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by BegoneThoth » Fri May 18, 2018 1:10 am

Like most good players, I delete once I lose in pvp, because pvp deserves weight.
\

User avatar
Rockstar1984
Posts: 267
Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2015 5:21 am
Location: RL Guldorand

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by Rockstar1984 » Fri May 18, 2018 2:46 am

BegoneThoth wrote:
Fri May 18, 2018 1:10 am
Like most good players, I delete once I lose in pvp, because pvp deserves weight.
You, sir/ma'am, are the hero that Arelith needs.

Oh the year was 1778...


MoreThanThree
Posts: 476
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2015 11:06 pm

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by MoreThanThree » Fri May 18, 2018 3:22 am

BegoneThoth wrote:
Fri May 18, 2018 1:10 am
Like most good players, I delete once I lose in pvp, because pvp deserves weight.
brb PvPing all ur doods
20 RPR GANG

Void
Posts: 1600
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:03 pm

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by Void » Fri May 18, 2018 8:43 am

DM Always This Late wrote:
Thu May 17, 2018 11:00 pm
This is a cool thread because the topic is super important!

I think that a really important idea is to know 'when' it's good to roll a character. For every player, this might be different! And we have no rules regarding -when- to roll. But these are some things I consider when I roll and I think they work out great.

Deciding to roll a character, for me, breaks down into these groups

1. Am I enjoying the concept?
2. Has my character found a resolution on their personality traits? Or- has the story run its course?
3. What is the 'world' around me like and where does my character fit in?

I'll explain briefly each point, though they all kind of tie into one another.

1. Is logging on a chore? If it becomes a chore you have a few options
A: Mix it up. Do something dramatic or different!
B: Just keep logging in!
C: Find a resolution to the story and move on!

To clarify, enjoyment shouldn't come directly from "Am I winning?" if victory is the standard used to determine whether or not you are enjoying a concept I would really caution against that because sometimes, you won't win. In fact, you might chronically lose! The point is to enjoy the story whether your characters agenda is being successful or not. And if it's not enjoyable? Move on! That's the beauty of it :D Success in Arelith is not determined by the number of victories, but rather the enjoyment you, and others, draw from a character.

If a character becomes frustrating, i'd consider shelving it, or wrapping it up entirely. Knowing when to throw in the towel is important. It could save you, and others, a lot of irritation.
2. Where are you at with your story? Has your character found a resolution to the things that make them 'tick?"
What I mean by this is when you make a character, what are their motivators? -Who- are they? Are you content with the story that's been told? If they are a cleric to some god, have they spread that gods word and founded a church that told a story? Like what have you done to meet your characters resolutions? Again, this doesn't mean "What have you accomplished" because failure is sometimes apart of the story.

Reaching a point where you feel like your character's story has been told and you don't know where else to go with it is a good indicator that it may be time to move on and begin something fresh! Personally, I loathe the idea of my characters becoming 'stale' where I feel like all my actions are just 'grey' or super repeitive. If I feel like they've run their course, I'll roll!

Pass the baton off to the next generation of characters! Set the stage for others to tell their stories.
3. Has Arelith's 'world' advanced past my character?
This one is tricky to explain, but I'd break it down like this...

Sometimes you reach a point where all the characters yours originally started with, and knew, have moved on. You're in like... the next generation. Maybe a few from your character's 'early days' are still active, but how do you fit in? Does your character -know- anyone? Or has everything moved past?

Or like your faction, or order, has everyone cycled out? How many are left that you still know or is it all fresh faces?

For example... One of my characters, I was playing casually as I was busy IRL, when I was really able to sit down again, I found IC most of the people my PC knew had wrapped up! It was all new faces! Instead of trying to take my older concept and implant it into a new environment I wrapped that story up in a way that I was happy with and rejoined with a fresh PC that just felt a lot better to work with.

This is maybe more personal preference but like I mentioned before, I am afraid of my characters becoming stale for me, and for other people. For me, i'd rather have one last emotional sensation from a character, rather then keep them around so long that they just become bland and uninteresting to me.
So, in conclusion none of these are "Rules" or what you -must- do, I really want to stress that everyone has their -own- play style and I'm not 'forcing' this on anyone. But coming at character rolling with these thoughts in mind work for me. I've really, really had a lot more fun trying out new concepts. Remember like IG time is moving -way- faster than IRL, so when you kind of scale that down to your characters actions things play out faster.

I usually last about 3-4 months on a PC before I reach a point where I feel like i've really had that character run its course. The story, whether it was filled with victory, or defeats, was fullfilling to me and I enjoyed the ride and it's time to hop onto a new one. Or like I've reached a 'brick wall' and my character cannot progress anymore because of the way I RP'd their story out-.

The great thing about Arelith is that there are a -ton- of build combinations to adhere to a ton of play styles. And unlike conventional MMOs, Arelith is changing fairly frequently in design over-all, let alone the constant ebb and flow of politics in one of the many different cities. This means, from an RP point of view, things are often fresh and different so it's not the 'same old same old.

That would be my advice for considering when to roll a character.

Ultimately, do what works for you and what is enjoyable. That's really what it all boils down to.
Good points. Thanks for posting.
Another forum ban, here we go again.

WinkinBlinkin
Arelith Silver Supporter
Arelith Silver Supporter
Posts: 236
Joined: Sat May 21, 2016 5:29 pm

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Sat May 19, 2018 5:54 am

Having the Arelith world advance past your characters is unavoidable for many people. I think of players of Arelith each having their own circadian rhythms. On top of the time zones, there is the amount and quality of time that people have in game. Amount and quality of time in game are not the same thing at all, as anyone who works from home or has children will tell you.

Many of the people who have the most impact in Arelith seem to me to almost live in its world. They are available for hour after hour. Anything that is taking place, they can be involved in, without the worry of having to disappear in ten minutes. They are constantly looking for people and events to fill their time.

People who work long hours, or have children are not available often, even when they are there. They cannot go on long patrols because they know that in 5 minutes the dryer will need emptying, and in another 20 the potatoes will need peeling, and somewhere in between those things a baby will start crying, or a child will get out of bed, or they will receive a phonecall from a customer. This might mean that those people actively avoid roleplay and involvement at times. Even though they are in game, they may well want to focus that time on something which will not negatively impact others if they have to disappear at short notice. Many of these characters are drawn to crafting, or shopkeeping for precisely this reason.

These characters are necessarily far, far, slower paced than those of people with less responsibilities and more game time. The movers and the shakers, with not just hours, but high quality hours every day will rise, have enormous impact, and fall while some of the characters of of the busier players will seem to move at more glacial rates, having less contact with the world around them, because they are in lots of almost Star Trek ways living in a different temporal reality.

I notice this more than most because as a teacher, I experience the difference in rhythms very acutely. My characters will make a set of contacts during one school break, and half of them will have disappeared by the next, another half again by the next. When I played a political character, you could plot a graph of the amount of influence she held against my term dates and see a perfect pattern. Almost every break, I would need to go out and meet new people, though I would run into some of those glacial characters myself (Morfin, Qilztra - thinking of you). Those glacial characters provided some of my favourite roleplay of all, because their characters patterns was in tune with mine. They had a shared history.

If I made a new character every time I lost a set of contacts, I would never get a character past 13th level or so. I hear about people reaching max level in 3 weeks. I see entire factions born, wither and die before my characters reach epics.

I also, from time to time, read things like - its bad form not to allow yourself to be raised and engage in capture rp. Its bad form to avoid people who want to do conflict rp with you. Just remember, its even worse form to leave your children at ballet classes after they've finished or to prioritise a game over your family. People have very different lives behind their screens and the judgements you make about their roleplay are probably more influenced by real life considerations than you realise.

I wanted to put this different perspective across. Often, the amount of influence a player has in game is not down to the quality of their roleplay, but to the quality of their time. I think its an important point to not conflate the two.

User avatar
Baron Saturday
Posts: 2364
Joined: Mon Sep 08, 2014 4:34 am

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by Baron Saturday » Sat May 19, 2018 6:22 am

That might just be my favorite thing of yours that I've ever read, WB. I've certainly experienced what you describe quite acutely myself, and finding a character arc that confirms to my RL schedule has been one of the most challenging aspects of RP on Arelith for me - in fact a mismatch between relevant RP and available quality RP time was a large part of why I rolled my first character, Helene.

I found that she had grown into someone who simply needed more quality time than I would be able to give her in the foreseeable future, at least if I wanted to develop her story in a meaningful way, so I elected to end her story on a high note rather than grow frustrated by my inability to play her properly. My characters since Helene have mostly been attempts to create a story arc that better meshed with my own schedule (with mixed results).
Rolled: Helene d'Arque, Sara Lyonall
Shelved: Kels Vetian, Cin ys'Andalis, Saul Haidt
Playing: Oshe Jordain

Xerah
Posts: 2036
Joined: Wed Sep 23, 2015 5:39 pm

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by Xerah » Sat May 19, 2018 7:10 am

Wow, that is amazingly well written Winkin. I can relate to so many of those points.

I’m currently leading a faction (that’s not huge mind you) but I’ve found myself having really having to push and juggle things to make sure the faction can progress. And even still, I find myself missing people, or not doing enough, or even causing other players to feel ignored. None of that feels good but you just try to hope that you’re putting in enough that people are having fun for me to keep going. Hopefully that doesn’t mean I end up rolling before I want to.

I’ve only rolled one so far. When I rolled her the story felt right after ten months. Different for every character I’d imagine.
Katernin Bersk, Chancellor of Divination; Kerri Amblecrown, Paladin of Milil; Xull'kacha Auvry'rae, Redcap Fey-pacted; Sadia yr Thuravya el Bhirax, Priestess of Umberlee; Lissa Whitehorn, Archmage of Artifice

Void
Posts: 1600
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:03 pm

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by Void » Sat May 19, 2018 7:51 am

WinkinBlinkin wrote:
Sat May 19, 2018 5:54 am
Having the Arelith world advance past your characters is unavoidable for many people. I think of players of Arelith each having their own circadian rhythms.
It is common on RP servers in general, not just on arelith.

In my experience, on many servers, and not just on Arelith, within month (1..2 months) chraacter risks falling out of a loop and becoming a ghost that is not connected to the world in any way, because all their friends disappeared or moved on.

But, hey, at least Arelith has epic roll thing which makes scrapping the chracter and starting something else less painful and more philosophical. On other servers I frequently felt that my character had to continue lingering on, instead of me dropping the concept. No such pressure here.
Another forum ban, here we go again.

StandingOnTheShouldersOfGiants
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 12:43 pm

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by StandingOnTheShouldersOfGiants » Sat May 19, 2018 1:41 pm

WinkinBlinkin wrote:
Sat May 19, 2018 5:54 am
Words.

Seven Sons of Sin
Posts: 2184
Joined: Mon Sep 08, 2014 3:40 am

Re: When do you usually decide to roll/retire your characters?

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Sat May 19, 2018 6:27 pm

Totally true, WB. Some of the greatest roleplayers I've ever had the pleasure of interacting are long forgotten and never likely got the recognition they deserved, because of a real inability to commit the necessary quota of playing time "to be remembered fondly."
Previous:
Oskarr of Procampur, Ro Irokon, Nahal Azyen, Nelehein Afsana (of Impiltur), Vencenti Medici, Nizram ali Balazdam, (Roznik) Naethandreil

Post Reply