Why do we do this? I cannot speak for my wife, though I have my guesses, but for me it can be summed up in one word: Practice. The more I write, the more I want to write, and vice versa. At the moment I haven't written anything for two months. I need a kick start. This sounds like fun, so we'll work with it first.
The character my writing will be observing is a Hylian gate guard. Yep. Just a guy watching a gate, making sure nobody steals it. I haven't worked out much about him except that I want him to be a fairly substantial nobody when this adventure begins. Just average Joe with a boring job.
What are your opinions, readers, about characters like that? Characters who begin their "adventuring lives" at a normal place? Personally, I like characters like this. People who are forged into heroes by extraordinary circumstance, circumstance that has nothing to do with their pasts. With these characters, there's no potential for anything corny later on (ie. Vader: "No! *I* am your father!"), and there exists amazing possibility for exploration of the human soul, the human condition.
Some people find this kind of thing boring, but I personally believe there is real storytelling potential in a regular guy/girl, living their regular life, with their regular parents and regular siblings, who is suddenly thrust into irregular circumstance and changed into something more by it. My book, should I ever manage to get it off the ground, will center on this concept.
I'd love to get this guy to do some character art. He was trying to get on with Marvel Comics but was rejected. I can see why; his style is just a *bit* on the cartoony side. While that worked against him there, it earned him my business because that style is what will be needed for this body of work. His official website can be found here and he does take commissions at fairly reasonable prices.
The debate table is officially open. Let's hear your opinions.
2 comments:
Love the concept. :) But you knew that.
I'm not quite as into characters with utterly banal histories as you are. I like my characters to have ties to dead cultures or to unusual races or the like. This is probably because I like playing historians, scholars, and mages. The two concepts stroll merrily hand-in-hand.
It depends, though. I've often played rather mundane characters who just happen to have one skill that sets them apart from the rest of the domestic masses.
I certainly don't get into playing devastatingly beautiful characters who have no visible flaws. That's boring. But we knew that.
I roleplay purely for the escapism. The writing practice is a nice bonus. I won't lie about it, though. RP is a release and to me is the next step in world immersion. That's why it's somewhat vital to my socializing. I find I get to know people better through their characters. Some people I'd rather not know OOC. It happens.
I actually love playing catalysts the most. I don't know why, that just "does it" for me. I don't need to be the force leading either army, but I like playing a character that instigates events on both sides. Fence straddlers. I like a character that can hang out with both sides and whose intentions and motives are often ambiguous, even to the character herself. This new character has that potential in spades.
I guess I'm "lame" in that way, but a roleplay without high drama is rather like a book with no pictures or conversations. :)
You know I like it, since you pitched it to me a bit ago. ;)
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