02, May 2012, 09:29 AM
Last time (over a month ago, I've been a bit lax) I wrote about how you can play a character that works well within a SIM and still have fun, I touched upon Character Development. With that post and some recent posts I've made regarding times where you aren't busy during a plotline, I've been asked about getting into further detail about the aspect of Character Development. So as to create the best centralized position for this discussion (and actually utilize my blog here to the new intended purpose) I've opted to write an article regarding the issue here.
Character Development is one of the most important and ignored aspects of a character. A lot of people go into a game and just play through the plot and leave it at that, they're missing a large realm of what their character can be and are effectively creating someone with the depth of a TOS Red Shirt. The first question someone new to Character Development might ask is "When can I do it?". The answer is simple, Anytime! You can do something in the middle of a plot, even when your department is busy, you can do it when your department isn't involved in the plot at present, you can even do it when the sim isn't even currently playing by making log posts.
Now that we've got they when, we can get to the big aspect of how. As with the when there's no boundaries over the how except your own imagination, and the rules of the universe your character belongs to. With all the vast number of hobbies, relationships, jobs, and skills out there you only need to figure out what works best for your character and run with it, if you're currently drawing a blank right now don't worry! I'm going to provide you with some examples of a variety of stuff I've done, or have seen others do, to give you some great ideas.
Here's one example, but I think it's great. This goes back to the background of the character that developed over time, and I was working to bring it out in the simulation itself. The character was an elite sniper and part of the sim's marine contingent (he would go on to eventually leave the Marine's stay on the ship, become the XO for some time.) He had quite a few developments, a major one was in his past on a mission he had been hunting a target and things had gotten foggy and unclear he had taken a shot at the silhouette of what he believed to be his target, upon closer investigation it turned out instead to be his sister (whom he was unaware was at the location). He had left the service for sometime, but was convinced to return and joined the Marine's on SFOL's 'Gazer where he had become fiercely protective of his teams family members, while also trying to maintain a distance from everyone so as to prevent his getting hurt. Despite that he ended up getting married and having a child with one of the other crew.
Some of that one had been planned, but it doesn't always have to be that way. Let's take my other Spec Ops character on the other 'Gazer. He's become a favorite of many players in the group, and he was only conceptualized as a Spec-Ops Janitor named Snarf. He wasn't even intended to be a part of the Spec-Ops team, it was just intended to be a joke that in order to deal with the messes of the bathrooms on the 'Gazer they'd need a Janitor above and beyond the normal sort, but he got assigned in the Spec-Ops team, where he turned into a calm, smart mouthed, skilled, and highly experience spec ops operative. With an off comment from someone else about some issue that occurred on Vulcan and some Romulan focused plotlines early in the playtime with him he began to become more developed. With his seeming ability to be anywhere in an instant and his skill it was decided (though not yet revealed in the game) that he was part of a test program of the Starfleet Spec-Ops that he had a chip surgically inserted into his brain where he would no longer sleep, and having been the only one to remain at least somewhat functional after it starting, perhaps due to his obsession with cleanliness. All of the details about the character were developed due to interaction with others and thanks to plot items. One time they required the group to have fake identities, and a former identity utilized to run and undercover op in Romulan space over an extended period was created, one where he had a high ranking Romulan lover that helped him eventually develop the sonic mop he utilizes to clean the ship.
There's always family members and past loves that one can have contact a character that they can communicate with, perhaps your character is one who constantly flirts with the ladies in the bars only to consistently get smacked across the face (one of my players on Paragon has fallen into this role). Finding pet projects and studies that your character could perform that either fall into a similarity of his normal job (Wesley Crusher and his Nanites, or O'Brien building model engines during his Academy days) or just being a hobby (Sulu with his botany). If you still come up with a blank just refer to your favorite character from your chosen genre, most of them will have things that have helped develop them into deeper characters that don't usually have to do directly with the main plot lines, or just come off as gags or jokes (like O'Neill teaching Teal'c how to juggle, thus showing that he himself knows how to juggle.) Or maybe some weird quirk about your character that even mirrors yourself, I had a character that was on a ship of coffee obsessed people and he stood apart having a love for Dr Pepper. The ways you can develop your character are endless, and will sometimes require nothing more than a single off-hand statement or action that can create a suggestion and motivation for a big part of their background or future. As always if you still feel lost, or unsure of where to start feel free to come to me, The Man Your Man Can Sim Like, or just watch your favorite episode of your genre's series and watch what your favorite (or even the other) characters say and do.
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( 3 / 5 )21, March 2012, 10:30 AM
Far too often many players try to make their characters the center of attention by being the hero in every situation, this is a habit that usually annoys most players and the hosts as well (who try to create varied plots to get everyone involved). Everybody hates this type of character, fans of Trek should know this from the popular hatred of Wesley Crusher, he had become this type of character. Your character has a specialization (s)he should never stray too far outside of this on a regular basis. It's okay to always save the day if the problem is always with the Engines and you happen to be the ships sole Engineer. But if one week the problem is with the engines, and the next week it's a vicious plague running rampant among the crew, you should not be the lead hero. Even if your character is the primary focus for a fix, you should always work with others and field ideas and suggestions. This way everybody is involved. Remember this is a collaborative game, you aren't the only player.
There is another side to this coin however, sometimes players constantly seek attention by being inept or heavily accident prone. This can be just as annoying because there may be people that need to rely on your character (based upon their position) or may need to attention and resources of other characters that you've distracted with your problems. For a vast majority of the simulations out there you're not playing some normal civilian. You're playing someone of decent skill and ability, and you should be playing someone of such a caliber. Maybe you think you're character should have a difficult time flying, that's fine, but not if they're the main helmsman on a capital ship. Build your character so that they have the skills necessary to perform their job satisfactorily.
Now this seems to leave you with a relatively droll position at first glance. Playing someone that's good at their position but not so much at other positions. This part is true, keep in mind there's a reason your character is in a certain position and why others are in the other positions, those characters should be better than you at their positions, not you better at their jobs then they are. The same goes in reverse they should not be better at your job, otherwise why are you there? But your job and main job skills aren't all there is to your character.
Your character has hobbies, skills, and faults outside of their job, build on those. Sometimes these skills can help with issues that are outside of your main area of expertise, but maybe not. You should establish a realistic set of hobbies for your character at the start. You should also look into realistic faults that your character might have, some kind of failing that might at one point but not constantly, cause an issue. Perhaps they're relatively quick to anger, or a little bit careless, perhaps they have some fear of some technology or ability. Something that can add depth to the character while not drastically hurting their ability to the job that needs to be done.
The more fleshed out your character is for their primary skills, secondary skills, hobbies, and faults the more enjoyable the character will become for you to play, and that will translate to a quality and enjoyable experience for all. Having a lot of this out there and revealed will also allow the Hosts to create unique plot challenges that might allow your character to help in an "unexpected" way or perhaps challenge them to deal with the faults face to face, which is always exciting.
To summarize:
Create a character with skills that suit his(her) job, give the character a couple of decent hobbies, as well as a set of realistic faults. Don't go overboard with any of these, not all of the hobbies should be things that would help in times of need.
Let other people do their jobs and solve their issues, and make sure you do yours to satisfactory levels.
Now go out there and have fun, enjoy your characters without pissing off everyone else!
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( 3 / 5 )19, March 2012, 04:19 PM
So a couple years ago now (if I'm recalling correctly) I made a quote for our new (at the time) Academy, it was based off of the popular Old Spice commercial "The Man Your Man Can Smell Like". I've since taken to the habit of referring to myself as "The Man Your Man Can Sim Like". So it occurred to me the other day that perhaps I should shift my blog to fit in within that realm of thought. So I decided that a blog where I can write a variety of tips, suggestions, or just things I've learned along the way. This would tips I've picked up about how to be a "Man" as well as a variety of simming tips. I'll be more then happy to skew posts to answer individual questions, so everyone can feel free to email me any questions they may have about simming, or any advice I may have in your manly pursuits. These posts will likely come across similar to the popular Newspaper and internet "Dear ****" columns. Either way feel free to send any questions you have, or that you feel are common questions and I'll put up my answers here![ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink |
( 3 / 5 )23, September 2011, 09:39 AM
(Note: This post is originally from my blog Null Partition)
So this week I decided to do a bit of a cooking challenge, every Thursday my girlfriend and I get together, usually at my place. Most of the time I cook us dinner, though there’s been times where we’ve gone out to eat instead. Each week I usually try to do something a little different with the ingredients I have at home, most of the time there’s not major changes to the plate as it usually consists of chicken, carrots, and broccoli (the ingredients I’m most likely to have in my apartment). This week I didn’t feel like restricting myself to the limited ingredients I had at my apt, as I’d likely just to make the same thing I had made previously, and that didn’t intrigue me much. So I came up with an idea, I told my girlfriend to go out and get some things from the store on her way over, whatever random ingredients she wanted to have for dinner. At first I think she misunderstood my intention as she looked up a recipe online and planned out a small simple dinner from there, thankfully our conversations of the day revealed this and I pointed out that I was hoping to “work my magic” on some random ingredients. When she eventually arrived she had a couple of bags with a nice assortment of ingredients, of course she pointed out that I need not use all of them (and I did not) it afforded me an opportunity to broaden my pretty narrow cooking experience and work with a few things I never had cooked with. Here’s a Nice list of the items she purchased:
Chicken (skinless, boneless breast)
Yellow Squash
Mangoes
Peaches
Portobello Mushrooms
Garlic
Broccoli/Cauliflower
Chinese Noodles
Lite Soy Sauce
Chicken Broth
So after some quick thinking (and a taste test of a mango, as I don’t have the taste filed away in my mental taste cards) I set off onto cooking. The items I chose to use for the meal were as follows:
Chicken
Garlic
Portobello Mushrooms
Mango
Broccoli/Cauliflower
Soy Sauce
I also utilized a bit of salt that I already had in my kitchen, and away I went.
First I went through quite a learning experience while handling the mango, the nice hard “center” of the mango proved initial cutting plans futile, and so I eventually settled down to cutting off slices from the surface until I had enough. I then proceeded to cut up three of the sliced portobello mushrooms, a little bit of the garlic, the broccoli and cauliflower, and the chicken. Granted I started my cutting acts with the chicken, but the mango proved more exciting to cut so I had started with that. I took a tablespoon of vegetable oil and tossed it into my all too small frying pan and set my stove up to 6 and waited for it to heat up. Once some smoke started to drift up from the pan (the sign I use to indicate it’s heated up enough for the food to be put upon it) I put the squares of chicken I had cut into the pan and started cooking them, a few moments later I added my chopped up garlic, and then after a decent amount of cooking (the chicken was pretty much at a nice shade of white by this point) I added in the mangos and gave the cooking a few more minutes, to allow all the juices of the mangos and everything to mix. I also added a little bit of salt to try to enhance the flavors. I took all of this and put it onto a plate to wait for later.
I added more oil, gave it a few moments to heat up, and tossed my broccoli, cauliflower, and mushrooms onto the pan. While cooking them I began to add liberal amounts of the soy sauce into the mix as well as more salt, I cooked this grouping up for several minutes and then tossed it into a mixing bowl.
I added my chicken/mango mix into the mixing bowl and began stirring it all up to try to mix the flavors, I would have preferred to mix them in the frying pan for best results, however the pan was far too small to do so effectively and I’ve learned my lesson to not overfill it in the past. The mix came together decently and I served the dinner with great success, out of the various dinners I’ve made so far I feel this has been one of the best. Admittedly if I were to try again I might add a tiny bit more garlic, and less soy sauce but overall it came out excellent and I feel I passed the challenge successfully, which makes me happy. I’m thinking of trying to turn it into a weekly affair, should the girlfriend agree to these terms of dread, and I say dread as I’m sure to come up with a failure somewhere down the line. Though I look forward to that, because I will probably learn more in the failure than I do with the successes.
As for the ingredients I didn’t use, I hope to cook something up on Saturday using some of them, since we’re planning on doing a nice Star Wars Marathon using the new Blu-Rays we’ll see how it turns out.
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( 3 / 20 )14, September 2011, 12:22 PM
(Note: This post is from my personal blog on Null Partition.)
So I’ve fallen pretty hard since my last posts, having gotten to a point that’s effectively square one, well almost. My weight is back up to where it was in March before I started trying to do the weight loss thing, and my motivation took a major dive. I’d like to toss around excuses and blame but I believe it all happened because I allowed myself to become complacent after having entered into what thus far appears to be a successful long term relationship, sadly sometimes there’s downside to having an ever accepting girlfriend in that sometimes you allow yourself to fall hard back into old habits that you’ve been slowly working hard to crawl away from.
While it might be fun and sometimes entertaining to blame the girlfriend for making me fat and complacent again the blame can only lie upon my shoulders, and so I accept that blame…just don’t tell her that.
In my attempts to try to get back into my healthy habits that I was attempting to develop I’ve opted to not jump back into the weight loss plan I had utilized before, while it was good and did help greatly it was only designed to work for 30 days and not necessarily for the long term, so I returned to the site where I had first heard of this information, Nerd Fitness. most of the stuff on the site I was already aware of, having read it previously in the year. There is one bit that I quite like that I’m thinking about trying to emulate, and that’s a sort of Epic Quest Leveling system that he uses. Based off of various RPG games out there he has a set of items, or quests, that he desires to do and each time he completes one he gains 20% experience towards his next level. While his list is certainly quite Epic, a majority of it is not things that I have any interest in. Admittedly it has a lot in common with those bucket lists that have become so popular these days, though it’s not intended to be something to do before one dies, instead it’s a list of things to perhaps improve oneself over the course of ‘leveling up’.
So I ask you dear readers, what little may exist out upon the wild plains of the interwebs, what suggestions do you have for my list?
Here's a link to the list on NerdFitness for everyone Nerd Fitness: My Epic Quest
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