RP Feedback

[kojikasai]

I'm throwing myself to the wolves on this one. I'm all for any and all feedback. This was my first RP with this character and my first time rp/ing in who knows how long. Thanks!

[nunnely]

Hello, howdy, shalom, you may not know me but I am always around. I pop in and out from time to time, worked a lot with Tate over the past year or so, currently on an indefinite hiatus; however I saw you wanted some feedback on your RP and I thought I would indulge myself with a read. I have found myself with a fair amount of time so this might be a lot more than expected.

RP FEEDBACK BEGINS HERE: 

Overall, I thought that the piece was a safe simple start. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It is common that a lot of writers when they start their characters is to lead with a complexity, often it be a sub-plot of some sort out of the ring that leads more into a larger common goal that connects with itself in the ring. I do believe that it leaves a lot of blank space ahead of you with a multitude of directions that you can follow and are only limited by your imagination. I think for an initial start to a character you leave yourself with a lot more good for the future than a lot more bad.

Your character's story that he told:
The story that you lead with is very generic. An Emperor got very power hungry and lost sight of humanity essentially due to the various voices in his head. Heard it a thousand times from a ton of various stories. I think the simple detail of including the name of the specific Emperor would honestly go over better in building your character. It builds your character's knowledge base and in turn, develops your character. Whether it be something he learned because of his heritage, education, interests, etc. it gives us a piece of insight into your character. It's a small piece, but I do believe that every detail does count. I know that I might be nit-picking here, but I think it's a small detail that can easily be remedied.

Roleplay's Layout
Overall, I don't see anything wrong the layout of the RP. Just keep on top of the spacing a little bit. Some of the boards do get kind of clunky, this board is not one of those, but spacing is an easy way to help the reader transition from paragraph to paragraph.

Word Count
You have 5,000 words you can use. Use it. I don't mean all of it, but you should for sure take advantage of it in the future. Not everything that you write and post to these boards has to be related to the ring. I do believe that the best Character Development though, connects with your character in and out of the ring. So for an example: If I have a character in the ring that is very kid-friendly and is a fan favorite, I wouldn't have his character develop to be someone who shoos away kids out of the ring or anything like that. A lot of it comes down to the psychology of the character and while this is a fantasy world, there should be this sense of realism with your character. Now, can you be a fan favorite in the ring and be a wanted murderer outside the ring? I say yes, it just depends on how you write it and connect the dots. It is not uncommon for killers to mask their behavior in some form. 

Think of the idea that "you can never judge a book by it's cover. You have to open the book and read it first before you can make a judgement." Your character falls under that same category, we don't know what your character does, who they are, or anything among that nature. It is up to you to put pen to paper and your ideas down to create this character that you as a writer can get behind and us a a reader can get behind. Obviously, it depends on the alignment, but again, we won't know unless you explore the 5,000 word count.

Painting a picture
Through my 12ish years of RPing, one thing that has always been pointed out to me and I will continue to extend the notion, detail. Now you don't have to paint us something that Vincent Van Goh would have created in his prime, but a nice little picture description would go a long way. It takes some exploring to find a happy medium between sentences such as: "The apple is red." versus "The apple's outer skin's pigment reflected a crisp and light blood-red onto the iris of my ocean water orbs I use to see out of." The first sentence is very simple and the second one is clunky and really just an overload of words. Try to find a happy medium. 

Special Circumstance
So, your character also falls under the special circumstance that he is, as far as we know, bilingual. I call this a special circumstance because you have the possibility of him speaking in his native tongue and you can theoretically write in his native tongue as well. This leaves a very tricky situation because of translation. Your opponent is going to respond to the words you write and the actions you write. What goes on in your head, to them, that's a big mystery and they shouldn't be writing to oppose your thoughts. (That's my personal belief and how I have always tried to model my RPs by. I have seen people write against people's thoughts before.) So you have the opportunity to write in his native tongue and confuse opponents, but you also have to keep in mind of the reader's perspective and I am sure that's why you translated in your opening. I say be careful of that just because you are writing against someone and it's a very delicate situation where someone could be like "well he has the translation here but my character doesn't understand the language..." so on and so forth. People will find a way to justify writing against something that they can understand because of the reading, but their character might not because they don't speak the language or whatever other reason. 

Final thoughts
You are probably fed up reading all these paragraphs now, I do apologize for getting carried away. Overall, my 2 cents would be to expand and specify. Those would be my two biggest things. Since it is your first RP with the character, I didn't want to focus too much on content. I know I mentioned CD as a thing to look towards in the future, but a lot of what I spoke of is stuff to just explore and essentially do a trial and error. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM. I pop in and out from time to time and I can always try to assist as much as I can. 

Cheers,

Jason Dave/Dominic Nunnely

[kojikasai]

Honestly, thank you for your opinion. I appreciate you taking the time to do this.