|
|
|
A LOOONG time ago, I used this a blog of sorts for my own entertainment, talking about my free-form role playing experiences, and the characters I've created for them. I may have to delete some of those old ones, because of my embarrassment.
Anyways, today, I wish to talk about how characters change and evolve over the years. Let's face it, you play the same character(s) again and again, and they will change over time. Their personality develops, sometimes in ways you don't expect. Other times, their abilities change (you liked the character, but wanted them to do something different). I'll talk about both.
For the first part, the personality evolution, I will use a old favorite of mine: Locke "Tetsu" Alexander. He first appeared in the RP VIRAL, as an electrical-powered psionic, complete with electro-magnetic telekinesis. This power hasn't changed much, but rather his personality did. In his first appearance, I wanted to have him be kind of silly, but serious when those moments came up. I pulled off the silly, in an immature, almost loony-toons style. But the serious parts were just emo. Seriously, Tetsu was a emo whiny b***h. After VIRAL, his emo tendencies diminished by my force alone. He became a much more laid back person, but with a strong loyal streak (this especially came up during his short appearance in a D&D campaign, in which he said "I really don't care about the balance, or the world, or whatever - I'm just here to keep my friends alive and to enjoy a good fight." wink
Sadly, I do not get many chances to really show off Tetsu's personality. Every time the zapper hits the RP, things die off. That said, we move on to ability updates.
Isaac "Red Riot" Forland. He is one of my oldest characters, generated for a crappy BESM campaign ran by my friend (he was one of three characters of mine to die in some stupid way). He was a generic gunslinger (originally named Riot the Storm) in a red coat and a robot arm. I have fixed the really obvious Vash the Stamped rip-off. But parts remained. He split into 2 different types over the past decade (gods have I been doing this a long time): sci-fi and fantasy. The 2 have blended in weird ways from time to time.
After his first appearance as a generic gunslinger, he made a true revival, complete with a proper name, in a online D&D game run by my former roommate. Given the D&D style, he was instead, a happy-go-lucky merc with a flaming sword, a love for chain smoking, drinking, and gambling. The campaign faded out quickly, as it was far too free-form of a storyline with too many diverging points. However, this was the formative year for Isaac.
His chain-smoking style stuck hard with me (despite my hatred of smoking, I do find it visually awesome for some reason. Maybe I have an oral fixation?). In future versions, he continued to smoke and drink like a fool, and the flaming sword was replaced by using a lot of alchemical weapons with his sword.
In another notable occasion, I created Isaac for a horror survival game. Armed with a sawed off shotgun, hunting rifle, a knife, and as many alchemical bombs as he could carry, and the luck of a trickster bent on staying alive. He killed vampires and werewolves and zombies alike. Or at least he would've, if that game lasted long enough.
Eventually, during the long hours of pushing carts at my local hardware store, I came up with a new version of technomancy: one that involved creating the item out of the enviroment with nanomachines and magic, on the fly. This lead to one of the more recent versions of Isaac, who was the mage/engineer of a merc group for the RP Space Dust Saloon. Another change was his weapon of choice - a powered battle axe with a plasma gun built into the head weapon.
Eventually, as I worked on my most recent brain-child, Steam Age Arcanus, Isaac was re-written to fit the steampunk fantasy world. I drew back to his older version with alchemical weapons, but added a pistol into the mix. After watching a great deal of Fate/Zero and some Outlaw Star, a whole new vision for Isaac appeared before me - the alchemical gunslinger.
Now the Red Riot was armed with a single shot pistol (modified to take rifle rounds), and a hatchet for melee. And bombs. Lots of bombs. He gained the ability to create alchemical bullets (which was as close as anyone could make to magic guns, as magic + gunpowder = explosion in the face). I loved the idea of a single shot weapon of great power, and throwing bombs around to keep things chaotic as he shot heads off. But his chain smoking style remained.
Ironically enough, he has a Pathfinder build: 1 level of Gunslinger (w/ Mysterious Stranger Arch-type) and the rest Alchemist (with Grenadier Arch-type). By 5 level, the build has achieved the style of play I want from the character (especially with the explosive missile discovery). Gods do I want to find a Pathfinder campaign to use this character in...
Well, enough ranting for one day. Catch ya next time, if there is one.
Yamazaki_Yoshio · Wed Oct 24, 2012 @ 03:08am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|