One of the biggest challenges of the multi-alt world I play in is keeping up different character voices, particularly in the comm channel chatter. (It’s important on teams, too, but since Margie and I duo so much — subject for another thread — it’s a bit less so. I’m afraid we don’t get into that much roleplay with each other …)
Anyway, what I’ve noticed:
- Quiet, reticent, and/or brooding characters are a lot of fun to write about (and tend, amazingly enough, to be what I write), but are a lot more difficult to play. This is true in F2F RPGs, of course, but it’s even more true when most RP comes about through conversation on the comm channels. If you don’t speak, you aren’t visible; that’s probably a rule for life, too. You need to find something to talk about. Which leads us to …
- Humor is always good for a quick tell. Which is difficult if you’re playing a quiet, reticent, and/or brooding character, as noted above. So …
- Come up with a character voice: something to talk about, visual distinctions of voice, and a sense of humor.
So, for my characters …
- Velvet: Jokes about most stuff, distinctive accent (or spelling, at least). Always chatty, and generally friendly, if a bit touchy at times. The easiest character I have to RP on the comms.
- Psi-clone: Speaks much more formally. Dry wit, and a love of wordplay. Always willing to blather at length. Second-easiest for me to play, assisted by the fact that he’s an exagerration (I hope) of myself, so I just have to ask what I would say if I were a hero.
- Torchielle: Friendly, but I don’t have her “voice” yet. Makes references to her family a lot. A fair amount of tentative stammering (“um”) to make her comms distinct. Not sure about her sense of humor, which is a problem. Need to play her more.
- Honeygun: Strong, sarcastic sense of humor. Pretty easy to play, though she seems to have been off the comms for a while …
- Truly Unstable: Fun and easy to play — just (a) act Daffy Duck crazy, and (b) mix contemporary slang with Rennfaire-like pronouncements. Toss in the occasional dark-and-angsty lament just for spice and to throw people off. Need to do more with him …
- OFFICER: Haven’t gotten on the comms yet with him. No sense of humor, but may start developing on. Problem is, there’s any number of “I am not human, but, like Data, am trying to learn how to behave like one” folks out there on the com lines, which makes him a lot less distinct of a character. Visually, though, since half his words are in all-CAPS, it may work. We’ll see. I’m not 100% happy with the power set at the moment, so he may be dropped some time soon.
- Sister Chinook: My problems with her last night provoked this post. I don’t have a good voice for her yet. She’s cynical and a bit sarcastic, but also one of those “quiet” characters. Since she’s Canadian, I need to remember to throw in an “eh?” here and there, for visual distinction. Or, if I can, spell some of my “-or” words as “-our”. Stuff like that.
- Suzy Atom: She was easy (announcement coming). Wide-eyed, enthusiastic naif, a combo Silver Age Supergirl (cough) with season 1 Mary Richards. Openly friendly, prone to saying “gee” a lot. Never long on enough to make that much of an impression, I fear (most of my RP with her was actually at the Consortium party).
One problem I have to watch is the non-verbal stuff. While I don’t keep my cross-dressing multi-alt gameplay a secret (see Google), I also don’t broadcast it, even in OOC comms. If people think my alts are run by completely different (and infrequently present) players, I’d be delighted, though it’s not worth to me a huge amount of effort make it so. To that end, though, I have to be careful about always using the same verbal tells between characters — like, “Heh.” Or how I flag OOC material. Or, it occurs to me, always giving an /em wave when I run across people.
(I also try to usually have a gap between when my character says hello/goodbye on the coalition chat and when Margie’s does.)
Actually, how you enter/leave the comms (or great/farewell other characters) is another signature. Velvet tends towards a “Howdy”/”Hey, kids, what’s shakin?” sort. PC tends toward more formality and jovial bonhomie (“Greetings, all. How goes the war?”). Others do more curt addressing folks by names — but, again, curtness is hard to pull off since it usually goes hand in hand with, well, not talking. And when you don’t talk, you’re not visible.
Anyway, enough blather of my own here. Just stray thoughts to put down.
Yes…this tends to be a problem. I know I have to do a lot of work to keep things seperate for each alt.
The “…” thing is a Puck only thing. And Since I paly Puck the most, the Dragged shift key “TH’s” and “WE’s” are also Puck only’s. Which means I need to do a lot of work to make sure I don’t do that in my other Alts. I have also takingh to doing different styles of things with different alts…copying the way others do things ( using “-” instead of “*”, or “::” instead…just to very things).
As to the Canadian thing. The spelling is easy, one you have it down. Plus there are several sites that have a listing of the differences of Canadian and American English (I was doing so well…even fooling both of the Canadian’s on in the Alliance…right up to the point I misspelled “Twoney”. Something a “real” Canadian would never do.)
So for the only people that know my Alts are my friends, and the folks on my Global Friends list, which now includes the Phalanx Officers. This has of course led to (“OMG…you play XXXX too…I never knew!” from both sides of the chat window.)
Also, google and the ability to find online dictionary’s is a god send for Rp’ing characters that are not American.
Yes, punctuation is a good delimiter, including using elipses vs em dashes vs whatever else to break thoughts in sentences.
Zazi, of course, comes across very distinctly. 🙂
Well…
Zazi is easy.
Toss out the Japanese words (which has become a bit of a problem now that there are three new Japanese toon’s using words that are not in my dictionary…), never use contractions, far more formal. This of course leads me to having to use both english and japanese dictionary’s.
Then again, you haven’t been on when Mofo has been on…Yiddish/Ebonics…good times. Good times cubed if Synoptic is on, just from all of the TELLS from Doyce ;->.
Not much of a problem for me, because A) I have two alts in use, and B) they’re both pretty much me.
Avocet had an extended RP session with Allegro last night, and I swear I was having flashbacks to my angst-ridden days at Glendora High.
I just have to remember that Avocet doesn’t have a well-developed sense of humor (which is what launched the Allegro episode, as you might imagine if you’ve met the Heroic Harlequin).
My alt, Remm, does have a sense of humor, but is usually just cranky, and his jokes tend to be mean0spirited. And he uses slang.
I suppose if I had an entire stable of heroes, I’d actually have to put some thought into each “voice.’ As it is, I can concentrate on character development. (Avocet took quite a big step last night, but he won’t be discussing it. He needs a close friend to talk things out with, but it’s hard for him to open up. Darned if I know how Allegro got him to talk.)
Oh.
Avo, I did like the little post about your conversation with Allegro that she posted.
So many bad jokes, so little time!;->
Very amused that Avo likes clownie!
That’s pretty fun.
Certainly one disad to my altmania is that it makes it harder to initiate, let alone sustain, deep (vs broad) character relationships. When Velvet is on only every 3-4 days, and Character X is on nightly, not much is going go on between them behind friendly greets.
Irony time: Was soloing SC this afternoon, and ended up on a pick-up team with …
“Cool. Another Canadian.”
Well, what could I say? Didn’t want to deny it, so I said a couple of things, added in a few “eh”s, referred to the Great White North — and didn’t act like a jerk on the team …
And “passed,” complete with an offer, if I ever wanted to join up with a Canadian SG, to look him (Dr. Odd) up. I thanked him nicely, felt vaguely guilty, and hied myself away.
(Frostfire mish, point of fact. And I provided the Frost, a flame blaster and flame tank provided the Fire, and we did pretty solid.)
Yay!
WHAT??? Allegro’s telling people about that?
I’m doomed.
NOOOO! She found the transcript of my conversation with Badlander.
AAACK! She posted everything! Oh, this is bad. This is so-o-o-o bad.
How will I ever show my face in Paragon City again?
And Badlander ratted me out! Oh, that burns me up.
And Anne Blaze was in on the rest of it, huh? Well, well.
Now let’s see if Puck Bunny can keep a secret.
Bwu hahahahahaha
Gee…It’s too bad that Puck doesn’t like Allegro…otherwise Puck would be forced to talk to her…on Avo’s behalf, as it where.
As I was trying to wrap things up last night, way too late, I was chatting with Avo about Allegro and FORCE and all that, then flew down to the train station in Talos to do my level up …
… and started hearing local chatter from Avo and Allegro and others.
Turned out they were all there chatting with Herr Macht and Anne Blaze about Allegro and FORCE and all. Felt obligated to come over and say howdy and offer my Leadership Support and all that.
Didn’t need that 15 minutes of sleep, anyway. 🙂
Kleiner Willy…he amuses me.
Yeah, we are supposed to have some form of adopt-a-criminal team up’s with the force folks.
I shall have to do a post to see if that is still happening.
I explained the memos were all in the big stack on my desk and I hadn’t read them yet …
It looked like, with Psi-clones approval, Avocet was going to be Allegro’s liaison. At the last minute, though, she got cold feet and whispered that she would rather have one of her friends, so Avo’s role may be more peripheral.
I’ve never been involved in such heavy RPing before! It’s a rather heady experience. In fact, it’s dominating my thoughts throughout the day (and at night, as I had a dream about it last night). Avocet’s attitude toward Allegro shifted abruptly during their talk last night. He’s now feeling very protective of her–almost paternal!
I wonder if it would be appropriate to have him write about it on the Alliance site.
w00t, as it were.
Please do Avo…Monthlies are coming up…;->