What kind of RPer are you?

Obviously, the secret key to role-playing is food.

Or just for my character. Its her first driving force. The second is her family. Her third is the Mages' Guild. Her fourth is the barony. Her fifth is her safety. Her sixth is adventure.....

I like keep a code like this in the back of my mind. It helps me ground the character to a specific set of morals which allows me to have a better understanding with her motivations. That makes for a smoother and more consistent role-play both for regular PCs and even for NPCs, in my opinion.

There are sometimes things that my PC does which upsets me a little bit OOG and makes me feel a pang of guilt sometimes. Mostly it involves food. Because it is my character's primary love, my IG actions make perfect sense, though I'll more often than not, go tell a friend OOG that I felt a little guilty for what my character did and . Even though my PC and I have very similar qualities and skills to make role-playing easier (she's a musician, I'm a musician; she's a hobbit, I'm Italian...) the thing that calms my mind is that we are very different people, and it still makes role-playing challenging and fun.

This probably sums up my knowledge and understanding of roleplay pretty well.

I wrote my character in the back seat of the car on the drive up my first game.
So....See Gina's post.

I try to set up a backstory, then make the rest of it up as I go...
Sooo yeah, back to the puppy.

I have to say I agree with Chris: for me, RP is about creating as fully immersive a world as possible. When I PC, I think that character, and I'll throw in as much of myself as I can to realize it. I plan to bring in a Dryad Ranger (eventually, I haven't had time to come back to KR!). I will sleep in the forest. I will eat food I prepare without the kitchen. I will walk and talk and my body will move in studied ways I've been working on to present the precise character I want to. I've been playing with my stance while drawing a bow to fit the character, not my OOG hunting style.

I use the restroom like a civilized 21st century person

But for my RP I tend to use "period" fire-starting techniques, food prep. Heck, once I bloody made a specific scented soap from rendered fat. I will do any amount of makeup necessary. I'll alter my voice and posture and body language. My greatest compliment as a player is if someone doesn't recognize the Player for the Character out of garb. It's happened only once or twice, but it's flattering to say the least.

THAT said, I don't expect everyone to go to these lengths. I just hang out with a lot of hardcore actors and re-enactors. We're nuts like that. As long as a person is having a fun, fulfilling RP and not directly having a negative effect on someone else's, it's all good. I don't expect people to research local edible and medicinal plants when they RP, or the right socks or some such silliness. Obsessive RP is just what makes it fun for me.


But in terms of character presentation, I really focus on a few major traits, a few things that are just "who I am", and a handful of "little details". I build my garb around that, and develop my sheet off my person. So I have, say, a Mage, his big thing is that he hates to see people poor, and he hates to see them kept poor even more. He is vocally anti-classism. He's not friendly to people in power on principle, but polite enough not to get stepped on. OK, big things, check. But he also does a lot of charitable and mutual aid work. He travels a lot from place to place, giving as he can. And even the rich are not below helping if they need it. He speaks slowly, walks slowly, and chooses slowly. But he is deliberate and hard to prevent. "Who I am" stuff? Check. But maybe he has a love of a specific type of soup. He wears a ring once given him by a woman he fawned over who had taken a vow of celibacy and left him for parts unknown. He has a slight twang, barely noticeable, around his long "e" vowels. His favorite color is orange, but he doesn't like wearing it. And he favors his right leg just slightly. Little things, check.

As the character develops, I'll add more traits, I'll keep a list of the character's behavior, his dress, his history. Basically, all my characters get their own player's gospel.

I may have a problem...

Oh nice! I am playing a Dyad ranger. I just started in April. I agree with you though. I like to throw myself into my character and then go from there.