I'm going to use a slightly more conversational mode of discussion because ultimately, whether or not we like our characters, they are personal to us; I feel that entering a dialogue from essentially the first-person will make it easier to wrap our heads around the topic.

The topic in question of course is how to unstall a character who's gotten 'stuck' - I'm sure we've all experienced some form of this in the past, though the exact details might vary. First, an examination of why characters get stuck seems to be in order. Please note that this discussion is interactive, so if you have questions, feel free to jump in - the purpose is to arrive at solutions which work for everyone, and not every solution works equally well for every character.

Characters can be insanely difficult things at times (or just insane, take your pick). RP can be cruising along at sixty knots, and in the middle of a scene, a character stalls out and bam - you're done. Or rather, you weren't done, but the character is, and you have no idea where to go from there. Or possibly it happened even before the scene started and you can't come up with a reason for them to be in any given scene, or you just really have no idea how to take the character and get them to expand - to open up and grow. It's frustrating, and in a sense it takes a level of out of character comprehension and growth to handle, because much as we might like to chuck our characters into therapy for a few months or years, they're stuck in our own heads, and therapy RP is really only interesting if at all for the one doing the talking about their problems, as a rule. (Therapists make the big bucks not because they are smart but because they are listening to your problems without killing you.)

The reasons why characters stall out are varied - sometimes they stall out because they've been at a single place in their IC lives for so long, they don't know how to move on. Other times, they're faced with a decision and freeze up - or sometimes, they're just 'tired'. It can be difficult to at first glance know which problem is which. The first thing to do, no matter whether or not you know whether a character is stuck, is to examine the situation in relation to other players : how badly stuck am I that what I do about it is going to affect other people's RP? Note : this is not the same as altering the character's choices of IC conduct based on other people's desires. We'll get to what I mean in a minute.

The reason I say that you need to ask yourself how badly stuck you are is because very often the best thing to do when a character is stuck is to wait. Don't try to blast yourself out of the rock right away; forcing a storyline along via artifical methods (which is ultimately what using dynamite is) rarely works well, and often damages the existing story. Think of it, if you will, as a grafted branch; occasionally such an action will flow into the main smoothly, but more often it sticks out like a neon paisley print tie on a classic tuxedo and tailcoat.

Waiting, however, can take a long time, and is not always the best solution. If waiting is an option, then take the character out of play - not permanently, it need not even be announced unless it's likely someone else is going to want to interact with said character or needs him or her (or it) on a regular or semi-regular basis. If the character is needed, then it's only polite to make sure that there can be some reasonably IC reason why all of a sudden Mr. Jones isn't available to his wife and kids. Fortunately, this usually isn't too difficult - but might take a bit of RP to resolve in and of itself.

The vast majority of the characters in my stable are in 'waiting' mode at any given time. Right now, Valmiki, Madian and Audi are all in waiting mode, their little red lights blinking like 'on hold' calls on an office phone. Fortunately, they're patient; the few times I've tried to put Fiona on hold, she's had a lot to say on the topic.

Now, having established that waiting is an option, I should explain what waiting is for. Waiting it out is almost a zen meditation trick - it gets past your impatience and makes you put the character to the back burner, letting things settle to the bottom where they might be more easily seen. It allows you to (hopefully) examine the character more dispassionately and identify its merits and flaws and figure out why it's stalled. It's difficult because after all, we often want instant gratification, to solve it nownownow and get back into RP. It's often remarkably effective because it lets us get that closer look without our own preconceptions in the way.

It isn't always the best option, nor does it always work. If it doesn't work, or if for whatever reason it isn't an option (and not having the patience to do it is an option; this isn't like childbirth where once you go into labor it's kinda hard to change your mind no matter how much you want to), there are other methods which may work better for you - or better for others around you, or better for your character. Anyone who says that the characters have no input into their own development has a mind I quite frankly don't comprehend.

Another good method should really come as no surprise to any of you here : discussion. I mean, I love to talk about my characters. It's like a guilt-free method of talking about myself without being accused of being self-centered! Only even better, because my characters' lives are usually a hell of a lot more exciting than my own. (And thank god for that.) But discussing your character with someone else often allows you to pin down details which escape your conscious mind and attention - even things which you didn't know about your own character may well suddenly occur to you through the discussion. It's also invaluable because you can get a look at how the character appears to others - and like ourselves, what our characters look like to those who aren't 'us' can sometimes be shockingly different.

The important thing in these discussions is to be open to what other people have to say. It's very easy to go 'oh, no, no, you're wrong' when someone observes something about your character - because it doesn't fit with your notions, and after all, you play your character, not someone else. It's important to stifle these urges and examine what they're saying more closely and ask why that view occurs to them. You may ultimately end up disagreeing, but the process will teach you a lot about your character - and about your RP. Again, this is a method of ridding yourself of preconceived notions. Preconceived notions are often a direct contributor to SRPDS : Sudden RP Death Syndrome.

Sometimes this sort of discussion isn't a comfortable experience. It's one thing to know intellectually that we're all friends here and someone saying 'your character is x' is not the same as saying 'your character sucks, I hate your RP, go fuck a bacteria-infested pineapple and die'. It's very important, therefore, to learn to sort of hold your breath for a second when people's input arrives, and then calmly go 'now, what do you mean by that? I'm not sure I understand.'

Well over fifty per cent of us are subject to the whims of the moon and tide. While we're all usually pretty good at keeping it from affecting our interactions, even those of us who aren't have mood swings, so being sensitive not only to each other's moods but to our own is an important trick, and one that not everyone learns at all, let alone online." She pauses to revive the corpses and continues, as it's no fun to talk to dead bodies if there's no reactions from 'em.

The next thing to keep in mind is what can actually be done in RP to get past this character block.

As I said before, it's rarely if ever a good idea to force a character's development through an add-on. I'm tempted to say it's never, ever ever a good idea in a million years, but I'm also one to say never say never, so I will just emphasize that I don't believe I've ever seen it actually successfully work; if a character's development is not from natural causes, so to speak, it usually doesn't work. Please note that in this case the definition of 'natural' refers to an outcome which occurs from IC reasons for IC reasons without OOCly gimcrackery. As a result, our definition of 'natural' may begin with birth and progress through explosions, sex, robots, flying through the air, magical beings, etc. (Possibly even sex with robots as magical beings while flying through the air to escape an explosion, but I don't believe that's happened here. Yet.)

I should explain what I mean by gimcrackery and forcing of development. A gimcrack notion is one which wouldn't normally occur to the character, but which the player seizes upon OOCly to try to sandblast the character out of a rut. As most golfers can tell you, the difficulty with blasting your ball out of a sandtrap is that often, it just digs a deeper hole for the ball to rest in. It's much the same in RP. Okay, so your three hundred year old fae suddenly has begun to develop clairvoyance! Err... why? Well ... because! How does this affect you in relationship to anyone else? Oh, but people'll find it useful! Why will they find it useful as opposed to distrusting him? And so on. For every point in its favour there exists because of the sheer irrational nature (irrational in this case closer to a mathematical concept) of the alteration, three or more will pop up in its stead.

Occasionally such a thing can work, but again, I've never seen it work. It may work in the short term, but in the long term, it sacrifices story integrity, and ultimately, character integrity. Long-term value given over in favour of instant gratification. In every such case, I much more strongly recommend playing another character until some better solution presents itself.

Now, I have said that there are ways to get a character out of a rut which does not involve sandblasting and does not involve giving up playing the character for any length of time. This is probably not going to come as a shock to any of you, but it's possible you haven't examined it from exactly the same angles I have (despite us all being a bunch of contortionists, here). The secret to getting a character out of a rut through RP is, ultimately (can I have a drumroll, please) : RP.

Okay, so don't hit me. It's a little more complicated than just 'RP'; instead, the point is to interact with people you normally would not. Maybe the same players, maybe not - but interact with other characters. Take your stalled PC out of his or her ordinary setting and see how he or she reacts to people and situations hitherto unknown. Even a character who has lived a very long life may find surprises in someone who he or she considers an infant."

I would say that Fiona is an excellent example of this, as both Davydd and William at least have experienced. She has not as a rule proven alien to them, but for whatever reason, she tends to come as a surprise to those who meet her - and sometimes that causes rather dramatic changes, not because of her, but because of the concepts which then occur to those meeting her. An epiphany does not need a specific person's actions - but an epiphany may alter the structure of a character's thinking, which in turn may alter everything else. As witness Andrealphus.

If you stay in one place and only RP with those your character expects to RP with and have the same conversations, more or less, over and over, you might grow, but chances are your soil just isn't going to be fertile enough. And everyone knows you need a certain amount of bullshit to get pretty flowers.

Now, for this to work, there is a certain amount of mental preparation you need to do : you have to be prepared for your PCs to change for them to ever actually do so. This may sound self-evident, but it's sometimes the hardest part.

We get used to the status quo and we don't always necessarily want the storyline or RP to change. We can be just as guilty of holding our PCs back as they can be from holding us back from RP. If a story is stagnating and seems to be going down a dead end - if you feel like there's nothing left to say with your character - chances are that while you might just be ready to retire the PC, there may well be something you're missing. 'Evolve or die' is more than just the social Darwinist's creed; in writing, if a character stops evolving, he not only starts stagnating, but he starts stinking up the place.

You have to be willing for your character to evolve and interact - it is not enough to just RP. Sometimes people will RP without actually interacting - and by interacting, I do mean more than just talking to other people. (Some of the most frustrating scenes I've been in having involved a hell of a lot of -talking- but precious little interaction.) Examine what other characters say to you. Ask questions about what isn't clear - or even things which are clear, if it's what the character finds interesting. Very often people do present plot hooks which you can follow up by simply asking the right questions - and while your character won't nibble on every hook in a pose or scene, a few polite nibbles are at least a social grace.

And there's two final tips which I can give before people give up on their characters : ask for help OOCly. Not just by discussion, but by saying 'you know, I'm stuck. I realize I'm stuck and I haven't moved for a while to the point where I'm sitting on this egg and I don't know if I'm laying it, hatching it or if it's stuck up my ass.' (Actual language may vary.) Even if noone has any real valid suggestions, which I find highly improbable, you'll probably get offers for RP with various of their characters - which may well help to clear the blockage - or suggestions for new characters, new themes, or new directions. If after all this you're still stuck, then I really have to refer back to the top and recommend waiting. The final tip, however, is a bit shocking - daring - bold. So much so, in fact, that most people won't do it. This tip? Kill your character.

I realize this sounds counterintuitive, but this is a supernaturally rich world. Life can go on after death. I'm not talking about Embracing a character; for Myriad purposes, Embracing a character isn't killing it. I mean the big 'there's a fucking huge hole in my chest and my blood is escaping and I am beyond surgical help now.' I've done this twice - once with Johann, once with Karoly. Admittedly with Johann, we came up with the death first and the character second, but the character ended up working so well that we hated to kill him. It was a shame, really. He was such a nice guy. And that nice guy and his death has directly or indirectly led to at least one additional plot and two or three new characters."

Plus which, you don't have to stop playing a character just because he's dead. Ghosts exist. Maybe he made a deal with some greater power - or power, anyway, let's not get into how great it was - and he's got a body he can ride around in. Or maybe instead of being consigned for all eternity to heaven or hell he ended up in one of the various other realms in the Marches. Or you can just play the character in a different timeperiod - previous to his death - or you can have him exist in other character's memories, thoughts, or dreams. Death does not need to be the end of a character... and it sure as hell can shake things up, if it's done right.

Posted by rowan at May 21, 2004 02:34 PM