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Throwaway Characters, Good, Bad?


AlphaBatal

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7 minutes ago, Koko said:

if a CK or namechange forced you to have to wait a month until you could join any faction, to "establish your character".

Are you even serious right now? Longetivity of characters isn't an instant guarantee of quality roleplay, and as a matter of the fact most of the very long lived characters are the most dogshit ones. It's very difficult to be able to develop a character constantly for a couple months/years and not make some idiotic switches in the storyline & very few people are actually capable of doing that. In other words; no, it's not feasible, never was, never will.

Edited by i dont wanna od in LA
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Just now, i dont wanna od in LA said:

Are you even serious right now? Longetivity of characters isn't an instant guarantee of quality roleplay, and as a matter of the fact most of the very long lived characters are the most dogshit ones. It's very difficult to be able to develop a character constantly for a couple years and not make some retarded switches in the storyline & very few people are actually capable of doing that. In other words; no, it's not feasible, never was, never will.

Absolutely agree with your assessment: characters that live for years tend to make some absolutely stupid decisions to justify not being retired when they have nothing more to offer, I'm not sure where I might've implied that because I don't disagree at all. Longevity isn't a sign of quality, I didn't say older characters are better, what I mean is that you should approach a character with the idea that they want to survive and prosper, regardless of how long they've existed for. A lot of new characters have a total disregard for their lives, and I don't think that saying that is a particularly controversial take.

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1 minute ago, Koko said:

Absolutely agree with your assessment: characters that live for years tend to make some absolutely stupid decisions to justify not being retired when they have nothing more to offer, I'm not sure where I might've implied that because I don't disagree at all. Longevity isn't a sign of quality, I didn't say older characters are better, what I mean is that you should approach a character with the idea that they want to survive and prosper, regardless of how long they've existed for. A lot of new characters have a total disregard for their lives, and I don't think that saying that is a particularly controversial take.

This answers my concerns. I'm still having a pretty hard time understanding the definition of a throwaway character and I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one. As far as I just read through this thread, there are implications that a throwaway character would be a character made for no reason. On the other hand then, is every character supposed to have a reason? I'm only throwing an example here but let's say a player X wanted to create a character Z, a blank character supposed to work as a taxi driver. So to reiterate my point, would a character like this constitute a throwaway character? Even if the character had little to no development behind itself, would it harm anybody? I'd say that characters like this very often benefit the server because they aren't there to play some story, they aren't there to become a part of the faction & to my belief those very spontanic and short lived characters are very often the most realistic ones. People don't seem to mind taking an L on a character like this, opposed to their main characters where they'd cry, bicker and report people after losing a situation. 

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5 minutes ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

I'm still having a pretty hard time understanding the definition of a throwaway character

I personally see a throwaway character as a character you don't plan on playing for very long, but with the implication that they'll be used for something specific like an event or a short story. It's also a type of character you see that tends to be extremely reckless when played badly because some players don't care about what happens to them. They're not bad per se, I agree that these characters are better about taking an L, but sometimes they're too good at it. It's a hard balancing act. We have to remember in our portrayal that our characters have a life before we created them, and as humans they would personally have a drive to survive and live. 

 

Alts can make for great "extras" or supporting characters, but we should be careful with not making characters that we're happy to put into extreme situations or to constantly make reckless decisions. That's what I consider a throwaway character: the type of alt that people don't mind going kamikaze with.

Edited by Koko
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11 minutes ago, Koko said:

Alts can make for great "extras" or supporting characters, but we should be careful with not making characters that we're happy to put into extreme situations or to constantly make reckless decisions. That's what I consider a throwaway character: the type of alt that people don't mind going kamikaze with.

People do this with their main characters too, unfortunately. It usually ends up in the player reports section of the forums, or a RPQM report. I don’t see why this would be any different, or why it’s only being targeted at players with alts.

 

If the broader point you’re making here is a RPQM issue around characters not having any depth to their stories or to their roleplay, and they go out of their way to put themselves in dangerous situations unnecessarily because they don’t care about their character, then report them if it’s a pertinent issue to you.

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12 minutes ago, Psychedelic said:

People do this with their main characters too, unfortunately. It usually ends up in the player reports section of the forums, or a RPQM report. I don’t see why this would be any different, or why it’s only being targeted at players with alts.

Well, it's targeted at people with alts because the topic is originally about alts, but yeah, its not an issue specific to them. I play several characters myself.

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I like to invest my time in engaging with someone who puts the effort in RPing an actual character with long term goals and character development rather than throwaway characters, the kind of people who creates a new char each month is something I always try to avoid because they are the most boring people in gtaw.

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24 minutes ago, Macarroncito said:

I like to invest my time in engaging with someone who puts the effort in RPing an actual character with long term goals and character development rather than throwaway characters, the kind of people who creates a new char each month is something I always try to avoid because they are the most boring people in gtaw.

Basically this.

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On 6/20/2021 at 12:26 PM, i dont wanna od in LA said:

Are you even serious right now? Longetivity of characters isn't an instant guarantee of quality roleplay, and as a matter of the fact most of the very long lived characters are the most dogshit ones. It's very difficult to be able to develop a character constantly for a couple months/years and not make some idiotic switches in the storyline & very few people are actually capable of doing that. In other words; no, it's not feasible, never was, never will.

 

  That isn't objective though, is it? True, some people get bored of their characters and are unable to play a single concept for long. Others have played the same thing out for years, because they simply enjoy it. Strawmanning aside, sure. Longetivity is not a guarantee, but that isn't a the pertinent question here. Is it feasable? For most, maybe not. Is it moronic to play non-characters you have no intentions of being realistic with? Yes. You can agree with that. If you're a legal roleplayer, you've seen who does the dumb crime. If you're an illegal roleplayer, you know that one dude that rolls up to your hood to provoke you pointlessly. People that don't care about writing engaging characters or developing them, I hope you'd agree, aren't invested enough to care about what happens to them on an OOC basis either.

Feasable or not, the people you meet on GTA:W can make you feel like you've gone to another server in terms of standards. There's some tremendous roleplayers, and then there's people who quite clearly play robotic characters with little substance, be they asset-chasing truckers, robocops or what I outlined below; mercenary throwaways with a purpose. To acquire assets or to cause trouble to folks without any real pushback.

 

On 6/20/2021 at 1:00 PM, Psychedelic said:

If the broader point you’re making here is a RPQM issue around characters not having any depth to their stories or to their roleplay, and they go out of their way to put themselves in dangerous situations unnecessarily because they don’t care about their character, then report them if it’s a pertinent issue to you.

Been absent from the forums for a few days, which I apologize for. Now, what I know is that a RPQM report cannot solve this issue for various reasons. First, it requires proof of the character's roleplay. Which you cannot provide when the character is online for thirty minutes on a dirtbike/masked in a Torrence and then goes offline T+00:30 after pulling a lick. I can't gauge the character's story, I don't know it. The player "roleplaying" the character doesn't either. What's there to report? Only people capable of swinging such reports are other community members which have OOC proof of this happening, but we both know they aren't snitching.

What concerned me, however, is a trend I've been told about second-hand and in confidence. You see, I'm not in the habit of founding unofficial groups. Nor am I in the habit of joining them. But I know for a fact, and I'm sure plenty of people that read this post, denial or not, can attest to that;

Unofficial groups use alts to rob, steal, burglarize and mug guns for their up and coming faction, choosing to use throwaway characters as to not stunt their gang's progression. Unaffiliated characters that only serve that singular purpose.


Issue isn't that guns are inaccessible. Issue is that guns are inaccessible to every up-and-coming group that pops up on the daily. And when there's no rule to stop people from using alts to realize their goals, they will use alts to realize their goals.

Why do you need 40 hours for a PF license, to join some legal factions, but don't need it for anything else? To prevent abuse. But here we are, faced with abuse.



Can the issue be boiled down to just throwaway crime? That's the bulk of it, yes. I'm sure you can think of other instances. People that form investment companies or take loans, only to namechange or poker away the cash to their OOC buddies, and then take a CK. Hell, people have used poker for asset transfers since time immemorial, but that's a waiting man's game, which gets you funds and not what people that do throwaway crime want.

I figured it out, actually. There's guns on the server. A lot of guns. But why are people obsessed with guns, looting them, robbing you unrealistically for them or looting cars in rule 12 areas for them?

Because they don't have the connections or development to acquire them otherwise. Crimebot characters are the go-to when you're too spastic to deal with the big players on the server, when you want to fast-track what your unofficial group is capable of.

Yeah, people'll come and explain that it isn't them. Then it doesn't concern you, none of what I wrote in way of my distaste of meta, OOC-motivated roleplay concerns you, you shouldn't feel attacked, as I'm not attacking you. I mean a specific subset of players, they know who they are. And you know who they are too.

 

Edited by AlphaBatal
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