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Do your characters have any pets? Do they have informal 'playbys?'

 

Some of mine do. They'll typically have cats, with dogs and mice speckled in according to the character. I think the trouble with character pets is forgetting about them, which I've usually not had a problem with but if my character does have a pet, it's for a reason and features in the pattern of my character's life.

 

Play by for them? Sometimes.

 

What about you guys?

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Since pets play a big part in my life, many of my characters have pets. Since we also have witches, some of those pets are familiars. And some of them are shifters loving the life of a pampered pet. And one of them is a demon in disguise. 

 

And yes yes most of them have images. Sometimes I even use my own animals. Like I have a black cat shifter whose cat self is played by none other than my own cat, dandy! 

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It depends on the site, and the character, for me. I've had "villainous" characters that kept pet snakes around their neck, and such, to kind of highlight their "villain," I guess. In settings where characters having a pet is established already as being very normal, such as Harry Potter games, mine will have them, too. Whether I remember they have that pet or not, that depends on the day. My memory's really bad, so if the pet(s) don't play an important part in the character's personage or life, they will probably only have that pet in theory.

 

I have a friend whose character often has a horse, and he is often messing with that horse, so nobody forgets he has one. In one setting, the horse was a faery in disguise, too. My characters' cats, however, often get "So and so has a cat?" when the cat in question appears in a random thread once or twice a year. Hah. Some sites lend more readily to characters having pets and those pets being as much a part of the story as the character(s) themselves, but most honestly don't. On my current site, there is a character that has a "pet" cat, and the cat is sentient and active in the story-line, but she's more of a spirit guide/guardian than a pet. I imagine any other pets on that site will probably follow similar trend.

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one of mine has a giant ferret. another owned a big dog for a time, but that's about it.

 

more often I make characters which I play as pets in some sense. whether they be animal companions for other players, or just low iq childlike characters who are loyally attached to another character, or temporary sidekicks.

 

I usually have drawings for these characters, but not always.

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Not many of my characters have pets. When they do they are mentioned or thought about in posts relatively often. One of my guys has a horse, two sort of actually but one is for his woman/wife/lady. In fact he bought his mare because it was super attached to the other character's stallion and he couldn't stand to separate them. lol. Also he needed he a horse.

 

I have not had much chance to play Valor, who has a gyrfalcon that is sort of like a familiar? Highly sentient and capable of psychic communication and has magical ability. 

 

Peitar, my warrior is completely blind. His setting doesn't really call for guide dogs, but he has a very large dog, named Dog anyway. She helps keep him from plowing over people while walking. But doesn't often remember to help him avoid low hanging doorways/branches. They do everything together, and she is featured at least briefly in every single one of his threads. 

 

I just use random google images as 'inspiration' for their appearances. Dog's 'playby' is the Rhodesian Ridgeback because I had described as large and very red before settling on a breed she resembled. Then had to go and track one down. 😀

 

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My characters have creatures that are companions. A couple have dogs because their family has always kept dogs, but they are more than just a 'pet' - they are working animals like a sheepdog. One of my characters has a goat because they are important for the character's culture, and another as a couple of creatures that they've rescued.

 

The trick to remembering them is making sure that you write them down in the character's profile somewhere, or in a section on the site where you keep track of extra things for your characters.

 

I don't always use play-bys for them, but occasionally I'll use an image if it sort of fits the animal's personality (like a puppy being naughty if I can find one.)

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A lot of my characters have pets, working animals or other kind of animal companions. 

 

Mykola left the military about the same time the dog he handled was retired, so he was able to adopt her. After that she doubles as something of a service dog to help alleviate his PTSD, albeit she obviously wasn't officially trained for that kind of work. 

 

Seth almost always has dogs, most of the time he's got a few horses - depends on what setting I'm playing him in. He's the only character who's dogs have set representations, just because his PB is a huge dog person so there's an absolute ton of pics to use - so I just built the PB's pups into the character. 

 

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Often not, actually. I do have a few characters that do in some settings. Like my character Chuck (Charlotte) who was given a crotchety old cat because she's a bird shifter and her FBI partner is a wolf. It was a means to annoy her and she just took to it and teases her partner about it all the time.

 

Most of my characters travel a lot so keeping pets really isn't ideal for them and that's why.

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Some of my characters have cats, dogs or horses. Even parrots!

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A lot of my characters have dogs. Some are hunting dogs, but most are pets, usually big and clumsy dogs that are always making a mess. Some of my quieter characters have cats as well, and one of them has pretty much every pet under the sun because she lives in a large property and adopts anything she sees. XD

 

I feel that pets add a very human aspect to the characters and can serve as ice-breakers, comic relief or even for some dramatic moments every now and then. 

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If mine does, it won't be the in the RP for one reason or another but rather mentioned when it's appropriate.

I do mostly questing or otherwise travelling RP's, so on the road it's just impractical (plus I doubt the average cat would be loyal like a Disney bird). I've also done modern day action and adventure RP's and the same idea applies, really. When I'm writing about my characters going into space, or on dangerous missions... chances are very slim their cats, dogs or pet turtle are coming with them.

 

I do see that bringing in animals can reveal something about the character so from time to time I'll let them cross paths with animals and show whatever they need to show (dislike, affection etc etc)

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I love giving my characters pets, but usually I only do it if it furthers their story. For example:

 

I play a mage that had some pretty glaring issues with his father in his early years. Due to those issues, he doesn't really trust many people and prefers to keep to himself. Sometimes it is hard to play a character that is sort of anti-social, so I gave this particular character a dog. Now, his dog is an exuberant pitbull that he rescued, and she is happy to see everyone. She forced him out of his apartment and then can also force interactions for him as well. She has made it super easy to explore this anti-social character without putting all of the expectation on the other characters that I am playing against.

 

Pets can really give you an edge in plotting and development. I highly recommend using them.

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On one site, I have a character that adopts a dog (after finding out most people in his long-lost family are werewolves). Another character has some fish, and one raises horses, but has 2 favorites.  On my other site, my character takes care of a bunch of cats. One cat in particular is an old grouchy thing that has left my character scarred in multiple places, but my character keeps loving him anyway. All of them (even the fish) have pictures to go along with them.

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