It's been a while since I played Lusternia, but I'm in the same boat as Lendren. I'm not saying the landscape isn't different, today, but I can't think of a single person I ran into who had some kind of expressive quirk like that who was also an impressive RPer. They were impressively consistent with their chosen quirk, maybe, and maybe their quirk was cute or funny or something, but their actual characters weren't very complex or interesting.

I'm not really an expert on the subject since, if my characters had personality disorders, they probably came more from me than RP. But I think the key to keeping something like that from being gimmicky is to come up with an interesting character concept first, then make your quirks organically go out of that (if necessary). I think a lot of people start with the quirk, then build an RP to support it. "I'm going to say all my 'S' as 'TH,'" and off they go.

When I think of the people at the top of their RP game when I was playing, not a single one had some kind of unique quirk of speaking or emoting or whatever. They just had very solid, interesting, deep character concepts that contributed to a great story.

That's a lot more impressive to me than someone being afraid of the color blue or whatever.

I can think of a few quirks that might be fun to try:

• frequently speak cryptically or in riddles
• frequently speak in rhyme (invites death via disgruntled org mates, however)
• spout platitudes and wise sayings on a regular basis (similar to above)
• sprint, tumble, climb and jump everywhere (monkey furrikin, perhaps)
• bust out bottle of fine liquor and/or smoke pipe for pleasure frequently (good for dwarves)
• character is "addicted" to an herb or medicinal substance
• facial tic and/or bodily twitching, emoted every 1-3 minutes
• religious fanatic: constantly proselytize your god, goddess, or org philosophy
• doomsayer: frequently break into rants about the end of the Basin
• prophet: predict the future, enhance with tea (leaves) or Tarot
• nervous: act startled whenever someone walks in or something happens suddenly
• sycophant: engage in excessive scraping, bowing and kowtowing to superiors
• RP being hard of hearing, nearsighted, partially lame, etc.

On the whole, I agree with Demetrios, but then the vast majority of people aren't on top of their RP game anyway, quirk or no quirk. If you're a talented RPer, adding a quirk won't ruin that (so like Demetrios said, build the solid RP foundation first). I believe Winnae built his RP concept and foundation first, which is probably why he's the current Lusternian "celebrity" of unusual RP.

We already have enough sycophants, thank you

you've all left out the s-s-st-t-utterer-er-s-s...

But yes, establish who you want to be first, then find the quirks. If you're short on ideas, use the emotion list, find a greeting that has some personality to it (See: Hiya), and go from there to develop a character.

I think of Winnae like most people think of Paris Hilton: Why do I know who he is?

Lehki used to be addicted to Ceria's Elixir, but I got bored of doing the quest for it every day.

Winnae is straight, it's just that... chewing on wood sounds so good for some reason...

I challenge someone to make a furrikin character who is actually, in fact, an animal, that gets dressed up and put through the guild motions by someone else.

I actually had thought of buying a pet for Ongaku that he did that to. A skunk that he took around with him and was his pet, but that he insisted was another Furrikin and dressed up like one. I have had other priorities though, so that probably won't happen for a while.

You need to come back!

Hm... Iktomi has a few oddities, but nothing I'd really consider a quirk. She has two different coloured eyes, and each one is expressive during different situations. Her sapphire eye is expressive when she's being sweet/nice, and her hazel eye is she's being mean/mischievous. She also started out as a Dreamweaver, and I rp'd it that she taught herself to not have to sleep because traumatic past experiences give her nightmares anytime she does.

I have to agree with Demetrios though. The best thing is to come up with a solid character, and then have your quirks develop out of that, rather than the other way around.

I've developed Akui more in Gaudi than I ever did in Seren. Probably because it's a better fit for her personality, but who knows. It helps to turn off the ooc clans now and again.


As for quirks and such though, gimmick is as gimmick does. Some are fine, some I don't care for. The only ones I really don't like are those that are obviously xeroxed from another character, or are especially facepalm worthy (An aslaran equivalent in my last MUD that rolled an "r" in every word that had one springs immediately to mind.)

Generally though, so long as they aren't senselessly obtrusive to the point of constant distraction, what's the harm?

I've actually met a character that was all of the above (except strike-throughs) on another mud. The guy was a partially senile mad-prophet. Yes, it was incredibly annoying. I think they ended up quitting eventually because, despite the fact that it wasn't a 'gimmick' but something that arose from the character concept itself, it was just too annoying and everyone kept either randomly killing them, or completely ignoring them. It was a shame, but some traits like those get selected against, like MUD darwinianism.

Sure, they're neat to see every once in a while, but even with solid RP, they just get irritating. It's why people ostracize the 'weirdies' in real life too. There's 'quirks' and then there's 'weirdies' and honestly it tends to be the 'weirdies' whose intensive RP is what gives rise to their quirks. *shrug*

A well roleplayed character with traits like those doesn't 'soften' them. And unless they're softened, it's a recipe for being shunted aside. May be a great character concept and impressive execution, but it's still too annoying to succeed socially. And if you can't socialize (in a positive way) in a mud, you'll eventually leave it and go play WoW.

*narrow crimson eyes*

Fay is still around. I just talked to her last night.

Well, you're a rat, so I guess I didn't think of it as a "quirk" per se when you did ratty things.

I think personality quirks can make things interesting. I chose Fay's RP at first not because of quirkiness, but because it was a more defined level of RP. Something I can follow. I've always had a hard time picking and acting out personalities, so Fay was more of a first time direct. She turned out quite fun to play so I stuck with it.




I've had Fay doing this since her creation the under RP reasons of being raised without much interaction with others. It has been shown that people's language development is critical at a young age. Those without the proper amount of exposure to languages at a young age can end up barely being able to speak at all. Fay's amount of language ability may not be realistic, but for convenience's sake, it is realistic enough!




Fay doesn't speak much. She doesn't have much to say. Plenty of people seem to think she is mute because of that. Although, one point I did decide to have her be mute, for RP reasons. I decided to have a silent period with her where she was "observing" others speak normally, and then was going to have her attempt to learn to speak normally. It wasn't as fun as I'd hoped. Fay has forgotten all about that stuff though!



I'm glad you enjoy her Sorry to everyone for coming and going. I'd like to remain consistent, but consistency with games is something I don't do well with.




So how does one determine if a character is complex or interesting? For those who judge complexity of a character, do you try to determine what is there before you judge that? Or is complexity something you can see without experiencing? I'm just curious what this is being based off of.

I think what Demetrios is trying to get at is that regardless of how flowery you emote, or how profoundly you speak, that's just you show how great of an RPer you are as opposed to showing how great your character is. The cover of a book might be super fancy or lavish but if the contents inside are boring, nobody will want to read it or try to understand it on a deeper level.

Oof! Sorry, I just saw this, today. Usually, people don't ask me for my opinions, so it really throws me off my game.

What makes a character complex or interesting, in my view, is the story they tell - their individual story as well as the story they contribute to. If you think about characters that really stand out in books or movies or whatever, they may have had unique quirks, but it's usually not the quirks themselves that make them powerful or memorable.

People typically don't find Harry Potter a compelling character because of his scar. In fact, his character really has virtually no readily identifiable "quirks." He has a cool story, and that story plays out well.

People don't say, "Raistlin is my favorite character in Dragonlance. That dude coughed ALL the time. Cough cough cough. Great stuff. Every time he talked, he coughed. That's awesome characterization."

Paul Atreides didn't have a catch phrase or profess his love of vanilla ice cream constantly. In fact, he arguably had no "quirks" at all.

People are drawn to these characters because of the stories they present - not quirks they consistently display. They may have quirks. Raistlin does cough a lot. But that's not what engages people all on its own. The reason Raistlin coughs is because of a particularly poignant back story that explains a lot of his character.

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Coming up with an awesome story for your character and fitting in to the larger landscape, consistently delivering that story, and portraying quirks if relevant or necessary is good RP. Constantly referring to yourself in the third person or yelling, "I LIKE BLUE!" every time your character sees something blue might be a catchy thing people can identify you by or get a chuckle or be cute, but it's neither "good RP" or very compelling. Anyone can latch on to a random quirk and type it in all the time. Creating, though... that's rare.

Obviously, these are solely my views and other people are completely welcome to disagree or to enjoy completely different kinds of things than I do. That's just my own take on it.