The best way to get development for your character is to RP. More often than not, however, is that the character develops to a direction you didn't anticipate. Maybe someone made a Party Chat joke that you decided to canonize. Maybe you were expecting your character to die but he was rescued... or the reversed happened instead. Maybe your character, whom you as his/her player, swore to never fall in love... fell in love anyway. Often times, our characters take on their own lives, separate from our intentions. Sometimes, we don't like it. But more than not, we do. A lot.
Here is where you can talk about it.
Spoiler:
I absolutely love it when my characters take on unexpected development. Much of Kapre's sad and tragic experiences chronicled in To Make a Jewel Smile were not planned by me--they are in-character responses to situations that were beyond my own control. I've had Kapre since May 2011, but it's not until around June of this year that he stopped being a perpetually static character. Before June, Kapre was stagnant of a character: A cowardly lovey-dovey matchmaker idiot with a lesbian fetish. Though he still possesses some of those traits, he has surely changed through the months. Now he is starting to become known for a spirit walker who struggles to keep his mind and soul intact while he tries to resolve his guilt and help the people of Azeroth. While still being a coward.
Other characters of mine took unexpected turns in character development. Mahen'tosh was supposed to be a sympathetic villain underneath a shell of a sweet but perverted old man; instead, the "shell" is his true personality, mixed with guilt of his past as a Bleeding Hollow warlock. Dr. Dino had a similar change, intending to be a villain-type who does evil to save his daughter; instead, people took on a more compassionate route to his plight and saved him. Now instead of being a crime doctor, he is a doctor for the Argent Crusade.
Yet not all these unexpected routes I encountered were favorable. I created Diwaata to be that funny sassy lady who adds sexy flavor to RP; she, instead, became intolerable and bitchy. Stefano was meant to be a funny guy who gathers friends easily; instead, he's perpetually lost and depressed. If you look at my list of characters, you'll see I have a massive list of retired characters; these are all characters whose development routes were extremely unfavored, or they simply cannot get RP.
However, the characters I did describe positively are the ones not only I love, but learned others do as well. They feel the most "human(oid)" because they have developed beyond their original concepts. In other words, life shaped them. I loved it. I'm happy.
I actually have more to say about my own characters, but I'd rather add them later, little by little. Probably character by character. But not now.
In this blog, share about how your characters have developed beyond your expectations. Talk about their relations. Talk about the scars they attained, what broke, what healed. This is your chance, your opportunity, to gush about your characters and tell us why you love them. Talk about character development.
I'd like to see how you compare your characters between now and their initial creations. Tell me a good story. I love reading about other peoples' characters.
When I first created Markuss, I was thinking for the uneducated pit-fighter type; but this idea seemed stale and boring to me. So, I looked at my own family IRL. To have Markuss being alone all the time seemed boring. So what seemed like a good idea to me? To have a guild totally revolved around a family. Something where everybody could develop in odd, yet interesting ways. When Markuss' daughter began courting a Gilnean, Markuss got mad, because he thought that people from other kingdoms were all cowards. Yet he did something that his stubborn personality hardly ever would have allowed; he caved in. He actually began to seem like he had a life of his own; juggling family, work, and talking an awful lot of grandchildren.
With the introduction of the storyline in the guild, I hope to get everyone in the family some form of fun, y'know? (Because it's not all about that one character that you have, I figured out on my early days of retail.)
Gandin
Gandin was supposed to be that dwarf that I used almost everything for. But, like Markuss, he began a life of his own. Instead of being around other people and socializing, his character had him talking to his animals due to him being alone and in the wild almost all of the time, making him somewhat awkward in social situations that didn't involve hunting for treasure or looking after his weapons and animals. Although Gandin became awkward in most social situations, I realized that under his shell of "Teh guy wit teh gunz," he was starving for interaction with people. So, his personality took on, and he began talking about random things, hoping to break the ice, and find a hunting buddy; somebody he could relate to. While he was semi-successful with scavenging for armor and weapons on the battlefield to melt down, and got a decent sum of money, he began to become evermore awkward around everybody he was with.
(Wow...I really seem to talk about myself and my characters a lot, don't I?)
Quote:Yet not all these unexpected routes I encountered were favorable. I created Diwaata to be that funny sassy lady who adds sexy flavor to RP; she, instead, became intolerable and bitchy. Stefano was meant to be a funny guy who gathers friends easily; instead, he's perpetually lost and depressed.
WE CAN FIIIIIX IIIIIT
Anyway, my biggest "unexpectedly changed" character change was Maeia. She was originally intended to just be a plot device character: she sends Forsaken out to look for Cristovao, they reunite, DRAMA HAPPENS, Cristo cries like loser, then puts Maeia out of her misery. Her entire personality wasn't meant to develop beyond a frail, weak, forgetful minded clumsy corpse who yearns for her son because she's craycray.
AND THEN ONE DAY I SAW SOME FORSAKEN RP, MET SOME NOOB CALLED JARED, JOINED THIS LAME GUILD CALLED BLACK HARVEST, AND OH BOY DID I NEVER LOOK BACK.
Since then, Maeia has developed into a very strong willed, independent, if still wary and possessive individual. She rapidly accelerated from storyline char (I RPed her in BH originally just to further her role as a plot device) to a side alt (I RPed her for fun when I didn't wanna RP anyone else) to one of my mains.
On that same branch, Cristovao's development was rather unexpected, too. Originally I just wanted him to get kidnapped by some zombies (once again lead by that noob Jared!) to instill some RIGHTEOUS HATE in him because I was tired of Cristovao being the upstart golden boy hero type, because he was so bad at it. He wasn't getting any IC respect and I was frustrated with him.
Well, Cristovao never ended up getting kidnapped and developing RIGHTEOUS HATE. Instead, he developed a very bizarre, hard to explain relationship with Jared built on distrust and begrudging respect. Cristovao became more of a deconstruction of paladin tropes, and I ran with it full stop like a child with crayons. I actually put focus on Cristovao as a Lordaeron native and as a Silver Hand, and he's become so much better a character for it.
And of course, how could I forget Flora? Flora was the first Forsaken Cristovao had major RP with, and what I thought was just going to be a silly one shot thing turned into a very bittersweet relationship as they tried (currently in vain) to rediscover the Light for Flora, and as she becomes more and more hopeless for it, he becomes more and more obsessed and desperate to help her. What was never even meant to be a lasting friendship has become a full out protective brother and sister shindig, and I love it so much. Really, Flora replaced Maeia's original storyline intent, and she's done it SO much better than I ever could with my old crappy idea.
And lastly, there's freakin' Gantrithor. Oh man I didn't even know where I was going with this guy, I just made him originally to fill out the male draenei pop, and he took 6 months for me to even ass with a profile. From there I tooled him as a super macho manly Alliance knight, who somehow ended up befriending Voragh of all people (Sol stop being so influential to my chars <3). Then Solidarity happened, he didn't develop -too- much there, but I liked shattering his idealistic view of the Alliance some as he was chastised and insulted, but it didn't go very far. THEN BAM SKIN THIEVES 2 and I took everyone's negative reactions to Gantrithor's bullheadedness and used to to break the big blue dope's sense of pride and ability. I made up on the spot why he cherishes Voragh so closely (he might not always be right, but he's got strength and will!), he met with Orvisha and opened up about his past, and then the vision he had from Judgement took me completely by surprise, and set him on the course he's on now, trying to connect with the spirits he's so long neglected. And then of course during doing THAT he's found himself going down the road of spirit champion (though he doesn't realize it yet).
Remyl is the one that easily fits in this. He wasn't originally meant to be a character at all way back when, just a mule to store stuff on PlaneShift. The first time I RPed him he was more the homeless hobo type, a kindly pie lover. It wasn't until I got cornered into some tavern RP one day that he evolved into a different kind of lover XD I had a very serious character (original Jonoth), and to shake things up, he evolved spontaneously into the antithesis: loud and vibrant.
Yvakara has made the biggest growth of all my CotH characters. I made her originally because a) I wanted to try a DK, and b) because Tauren are frickin huge. I slapped "Nurse" as her title more in jest, and had her silently sulk about. Then I randomly ran into the Stormshade Clan, and in mere minutes I had to brush up on enough Tauren culture to be passable, and figure out why she was sulking and quiet. In a flash, I was trying to come up with the worst possible thing she could have done to end up where she did, and arrived at killing her own son. I was unexpected invited to the guild, and my throwaway character that I was a day or two from deleting turned out to be the one I've probably RPed the most in my entire CotH run.
Dibykali had a similar story. Her accent was a result of m being a WoW noob and not knowing that the island-sounding characters were Trolls (I just thought they were all Orcs). She started off as this weird dominatrixy character, though as I learned the lore I decided to keep the accent and explain it as having spent a lot of time trading with them. It wasn't until a friend of mine took interest in the character for one of his own Troll storylines that things took a turn for the more interesting, and it took a lot of PMs with Bovel to correct the history, but in doing so I ended up creating another character I came to love: her adoptive mother Kela'rin the Barren.
The large majority of my development has occurred because of stuff that randomly happened IC. I usually steer some of the more major changes slightly, but the rest has been purely natural.
I think the biggest changes have been to Jurok. He initially started as a very minor, fairly direction-less character. But he's been through soooooooo much, and I love how he's turned out. The biggest unexpected change was actually him receiving a good position in the watchers. I guess peeps thought he was wise and shtuff.
I would like to note upon an interesting concept that occured to me while I was reading this thread. In regards to the character development changes that occur through RP, it is interesting to consider a character who has remained static throughout his, for lack of a better descriptor, journey. For those of you who have attended you high school reunion once or even twice and recieved the comment "You haven't changed a bit," the following thoughts will ring a bell. For those of you who have recieved the same comment at somebody else's reunion, well thats awesome... oh, I digress. Anyhow it struck me rather profoundly that, as in real life, a character can remain firm in their ways through out a trying ordeal or potentially life changing event. This can prove to be both a good thing (The crusader who remains vigilent during his trials in Outland, for instance.) or a very poor thing (The drunkard father who never faces his demons, thus providing a poor example for his offspring.) Infact a character might likely be affected in both regards equally. (The "like a rock" cowboy who makes his fortune by sticking to his guns and his wandering ways never finds love or friendship because he was never in one place for long enough to make connections with others.) Of course these are very simple examples but I find the concept behind them quite appealling. The depth of one's character cannot be judged based on change. The road forks many times, to remain on a straight coarse is a difficult thing indeed... oh man, I need to quit listening to cowboy trail songs while I'm on the forum. Thats all folks.
Pre-restart- Yes, I still remember those days. Valda was a shadowmage like she is today, but took an unexpected turn into Necromancy. It wasn't planned or anything, just two characters hanging out together and avoiding wanna-be heroes. She never got beyond raising a small house cat, but I really enjoyed the slight twist on her skills.
These days, I was taken back from all the inquires to her past. Where did she learn shadow weave tailoring? Indeed I had to make something up on the spot, and with her history it worked out just fine. I'm doing more now with it than I ever had before. What about her parents? And the house they lived in? What if Valda ever returned home...
Then randomly, this Westfall RP had kicked up. And, well.. Valda's from Westfall too! So I put together a bit of lore between the Bennetts and Appleflows that has just taken off. I really have to give credit to Vladdy for just eating it up. And abusing it ICly like only Markuss can do.
Another twist I've seen is sort of her reputation as a seasoned adventurer. I've sort of pushed this as I toss her in lots of events I can, but was pleasantly surprised when one adventure backfired- and she found herself Kidnapped. I was hoping to get her more exposed to the element of fire so she could get over her fear of it. And in reality she hasn't. She's less phobic, but is still timid around it. The process isn't going as fast as I had hoped or planned, but this is working better than I had hoped.
Another adventure led her into slavery, more or less. I thought it was going to be active, restricting, terrifying and otherwise so unpleasant ICly that I would probably be put off OOCly by it. And it hasn't been. Quite the contrary, she's still as free as she's ever been. And ICly it's eating her alive. She's paranoid for her master's return, and upheaving her life that she is slowly becoming comfortable in. The way she justifies her every action with this in the back of her head... is more then I could have ever hoped for.
Oh yes there's more. I had created Valda simply as a hedonist content with nothing past a whiskey-fueled romp. But another twist occurred, Valda has found something serious with another warlock! It is as if history is repeating itself. Their dynamic is nearly identical to her parents, and of course, Valda thinks she can do it better than her parents did.
Endling is probably the most obvious character of mine to change. If you saw her far, faaaar back during her initial conception she was actually a shadow priest, and following that at least one associated with the Undercity in some way or another. After some revisions she appeared in Kidnapped 2 as a mute and handcuffed forsaken.
Really it just flew away from there, because I anticipated quite a few things to happen to her eventually in Kidnapped, not the least being a meanspirited maiming or killing of the character as she was attempting to give aid to the wounded or something. Surprisingly the exact opposite happened and she ended up making friends from the whole experience, which ended up making her much more self-aware of her own being now that there were others around to be with.
Also she developed a crush on some elf named Krilari, and I'm -still- surprised that her whole romantic endeavors with Clovis have ended up as they have. It's odd to say, but at this point she's certainly the most content of my characters; the only one I think has got what could be considered a 'happy ending', even though she persists in RP. And I just expected her to get offed at some point.
Jovana
Spoiler:
Jovana was basically rolled on retail as something of a one-joke character. It's a gnome in a sombrero. Hilarity ensues. Aside from that, when I actually got down to RPing her she was a really upbeat and adventurous character, trying to pick up gossip, regale people with tales of how she got her various amounts of junk/loot, and a very scrappy duelist.
Then (and this is still on retail), she got into a relationship. It didn't end so well, with her significant other being maimed multiple times (at some point requiring a prosthetic arm, leg, and an eyepatch or something to that extent), before eventually going missing (which means assumed dead, as she basically marched into Gnomeregan to train by killing troggs). Then her guild fell apart, and the guild she joined after was largely inactive-- thus, by the time I brought her to CotH the same was assumed of that one as well.
On CotH she started off as pretty world-weary to begin with. She was still going on adventures, but was generally a lot less invested in half the stuff she did. She somehow ended up in two Kidnapped events, during which she pretty much felt at rock bottom due to her taking part. By the time all that's done she's actually turned into a fairly depressive character with a big issue with trust and retaining relationships, as well as a pretty sad drunk (contrasted to prior, when she was a happy one).
Rodile used to just be a random Forsaken Chemist NPC I used to creep out people in the Bloodsworn Honorguard. So there y'go.
Rigley
Spoiler:
Concluding things with Rigley for a moment. Rigley was basically me making a very rough and scrappy character concept when I was still young, and eventually having to fill in for it as I became better. Upon creation alone he had gone through numerous revisions-- at some points he was a former scarlet miner, a typical bruiser, an incompetent monk; then I found a matching set for a diving helmet in model viewer and made him that.
Even when he came up as a diver though there was still just a lot of junk thrown in. He was a tad crazy, and that crazy was pretty ill-defined. He definitely had marks of a troubled past due to me giving him the occasional discomfort of flashbacks or the like. He was a master nautical engineer, but he made a gyrocopter and putted around in that. Answering stuff like this eventually made him a lot more fleshed out.
...I've just noticed that romance actually is thrown a really significant part in most of my characters, or at least the desire for or loss of being a matter of contention. Don't entirely know what to make of that.
Annabelle
Honestly, most of her development was accidental. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the exact moment she was set on the path of the hero she became. And that sounds so egotistical, sorry. At some unexpected point, the Dark began to utterly love her. By that I mean, figures like Therai, Ralerian, Doran, Zalyen, and Tressian (her cousin, and that came about from joking that they looked alike) all came to be very caring to her, and protective. This struck a strange and fun balance. This weird priestess that a lot of people thought to be an epitome of Light having so many dark friends. Her relationship (literally, she's her neice) with Marianna came about because I just plain thought it'd be funny. Her long romance with Don Bronco was an accident--just a random meeting in Ratchet, and he tagged along with her do-gooder crew.
Orvisha
Not unlike Rigley's characters, romance is a big thing with this 'un. Two figures: Gantrithor, and Corlmitz. Complete opposites, draenei and orc respectively.
Gantrithor: These two met in Northwind, and he ended up giving Orvisha an axe after she lost her weapon in a fight with a Skin Thief. He stated that it looked good on her hip, and she retorted "why are you looking at my hips? :|". From that came the various shenanigans that lead to his truly falling for her, and her influencing his journey to Spirit Champion-dom (or whatever he is). She got to explore Outland, and met the Draenic Pilgrimage. She decided to become a shaman here as well. And met Krilari, whom would end up giving her a certain trial. Besides all that IC development, Gan's crush on Orvisha was influenced a lot by us joking in party chat. A crack-pairing we (Immy included) thought was adorable. She also met...
Corlmitz: Random meeting in a tavern in Shattrath. She decided to drag this strange, Goblin-accented orc to Nagrand for a taste of history. Then she stole his gun and ran off with it. We both, Krent and I, kept insisting that these two would neeeever develop into any sort of true romantic pair. Corlmitz is too broken, Orvisha is too good, there's Gantrithor, blah blah. We see where that went, with them just having a party for their life-mate-hood. The journey with Corlmitz has been one of "redemption", new views on the world, and ultimately, hope.
Also, her being Kil'shi's daughter was just a random HEY LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS thing on my end.
Daze. Daze started off as an evil younger crazy-Singe. As I tried to "define his evil" in an authentic believable way (and throughout interaction with other well defined and strongly individualised characters), he grew into a very complex actor. I built a lot on his background to make his moth-to-flame dance with slavery, subtrefuge, slaughter and sex believable to me. He din't change so much as gain depth, reverse-change in a way. With that depth, though, he's probably my most prone to future fascinating change.
Viridial Viridial does not change, for he is the Queen's will, and it does not ever falter.
Thrazin I loved Thrazin's evolution from tribal warrior to mercenary pit fighter, then to tribal military leader and into spirituality, then down the blessed Shadowhunter path. It all felt very real and just right, while not being plotted almost at all. My only concern is that he now seems at the end of a story-road, with little likely to spark a new chapter.
Singe Oh Singey, Singe, my cliche brother from another mother. Lots of evolution went into the guy, from mercenary rebel kid on the route to still-rebel martial-magic professor. He is supposed to feel like a decently executed walking talking comic-book-snark stereotype on the first few impressions. The amount of inter-personal relations and experience accumulated for him really adds depth to a character of many years now, with recent tendencies carefully building towards a (still playful) tired maturity that is to be a lot more about words and feelings than about chaotic good-ness. I worry about his path dead-ending sometime soon as well.
Jacob Educative good-willed clergy, lax bohemian hedonist or vicious manipualtive diplomat? All three, and dancing between the three tendencies has been fun. But it's hard to call it change. He was intended as such. Jacob's a character waiting for a big story. Or multiple small ones. Somehow, he's 'stuck' to few save a couple of story-arcs, and I hardly understand why in such a contextually flexible character. I retain hope for further development.
Dathem Dathem's sort of evolved through the time between his two incarnations, sort of like snapshots pf two moments of his life. Once an over-rational and socially inadequate Scryer researcher, now a less-but-still over-rational and socially inadequate Scryer Leywalker with the burden of leading his house thrust upon him. Plenty of room here, though he's slightly tiresome to RP, but often rewarding.
Telih Telih also goes back a lot, but most of the change has been into the direction of slinking deeper towards the feral feline side. The dance between his vindictive and peace-loving side was intended from early on. It's in the nature (heh) of druids and kal'dorei to be resistant to major change in self, which is why I often find RP on these century-old creatures rather slow.
This made me nostalgic.
(If any a' y'all wants to RP somethin' with any of my guys reading this, shoot me a line.)
Clovis was always sort of meant to be a stoic, borderline NPC like character, meant at the time for doling out events, leading groups, or just being a wandering Paladin. Needless to say, things didn't turn out that way.
Varjot was actually meant to be a brooding, corrupt, demon obsessed villain. Currently the only one of those traits he has left is 'villain' in the loosest of terms.
I know the phenomena you describe but I must admit this has so very rarely happened to any character of mine, at least the ones I intend to profile for the sole purpose of the character being my "main" for at least a while. This has taken place quite a few times with my NPCs, take tonight event for example, a death-priest that led spirits that haunted Telah for a long time with the purpose to weaken him and later try and possess his body. Part of this plan was to trick Telah into being initiated into the sect but instead his apprentice Aiya became the one that joined. In the end "Lady Auchena" as she called herself, instead was quite the good character very similar to Telah in many ways.
A lot of my alts have in turn become NPCs for different profile characters and storylines. For example my female dwarven armoursmith became the dark iron half-sister to Pelinal (who has his family betrayed and killed by dark irons/Twilight's Hammer). My night elven druid of the grove has become the antagonist for Blackbrute and my forsaken warlock Vautrine became a planned villain for dragonsworn events.
My troll witch doctor Gamba/Gambwe took an unexpected twist towards a darker side when he took Marwaz as his student, not because of her but because it really fit the RP at the time and he has since remained a much more sinister character featured as one of many enemies during the Witch Hunt. The pattern that emerges is that what really impacts RP for me or perhaps rather what is impacted through RP in ways I cannot always predict is relationships. Take Riael's relationship with Quennath (Jonoth) that over the course of one event went from brothers-in-arms to incredibly close friends. This goes for the roleplay that took place between Terauk and Tarania (pre-re-write).
But the biggest change of them all that is exactly what you talk about is Telah. When I wrote his story I intended him to be so scar from his past that he would only aid his own people and their families and never have another one himself. Then Nexariel happened and now he had the start of a family and not long from having another child, until the shamaness disappeared.
Piken 'Splosive' Thorium started out originally as just that and his original profile stated that he didn't remember his past at all. He was just an angry, aggressive Gnome who had a near-genocidal hatred towards Humans for.. no real reason, really. He was a criminal that rotated between the shady parts of Ironforge and Old Town in Stormwind. Mostly bullying, hijacking transports and caravans, things like that. That was his base character. Then years back, I slowly started molding him towards hating nobles since his view of them was as corrupt bastards, thanks to Stormwind. THEN.. I was flying around in Northrend by Dalaran. Talking about trying to get Piken up in Northrend to get into the RP there, I got the thought of an awesome all-gnome force that could be like mercenaries. A Special Forces kind of thing. After a quick RP with Lethys, that vision changed from a mercenary group to a force dedicated to starting to take back Gnomeregan.
His character(and name) had already changed from being a petty criminal to a hardcore Gnome-survivalist and enthusiast. This is where the main group of the GSF came in. Van, Babbakin, Neera, all'a them. All started by sitting in Ironforge eating candy and smoking and trying to think of how such a small force could make a difference. And they all influenced and changed him. When the GSF became a known force and actually worked with the High Tinker to kick-start the Gnomeregan Reclamation, I started thinking back on his character and changing things.. making him the son of a wealthy, but very greedy family in Gnomeregan and he hated how they acted with money so he left to lead a poor life as a criminal.
Towards the end of his time, he had experienced love and pain, he went from a common criminal to a war hero and defender of 'freed' Leper Gnomes. None of that, I ever expected or planned on. He was one of my greatest characters and roleplaying experiences.
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