Do the admins starting characters have an affect of you joining?

[Anonymous 234]

So I've been RPing a really long time and for me the admins characters don't affect me. I look for a character I'm interested in interacting with.

 

BUT I've run enough RPs to realize if I don't have a default amount of a majority of male characters (straight, gay, bi or otherwise) that people are more hesitant to join. So if I have a plethora of female characters (no matter their sexuality) people are less inclined to play. Its almost like they dig in to find a ship of their preference but normally male oriented.

 

What do you think? Does it affect you?

Anonymous poster hash: cec65...b54

[sohvi 22]

Personally, I do not care, and have never even cared. The only thing I check out with admin characters (as well as premades/canons/want ads) is the general sense of diversity; if an admin plays all white straight women, I'm gonna be a bit more hesitant about joining, as well as bringing out my Big Gay.

 

But I think this just depends on the genre, as well as the general atmosphere the admins create.

 

RL sites taking place in cities might have people looking for ships more than, say, swords & shields fantasy in a medieval world - as my site hasn't seemingly had any problem even though we started out with three female characters (two of whom were mine), and two male characters (both played by regular members). That said, we are also not shipping focused at all, like there's not even genders, sexualities or relationship statuses listed on character profiles.

[Mayu 12]

I don't usually look at an admin's character specifically look at an admin's characters.

The only time I really look into characters is when I am making my own for reference, and even then, I tend to look at characters randomly.

[Rem 8]

For me it's less about gender and more about "are these characters well rounded and balanced." If admins' characters are OP or unrealistic or cookie-cutter, it makes me wary of joining the site because I wonder what other kinds of characters they let through for others and how that's going to shape the world.

In general, though, I don't care what genders leadership writes or how many of each group they choose to have on their roster. If characters are fair and relatable, that's all I care to see before contemplating joining, myself.

 

 

 

[Grimscythe 181]

I fully support members and admins creative freedom with their characters. I have never judged a site based on which characters the admin has, because honestly roleplay isn't about shipping for me. Sure, I enjoy ships. But honestly, only a handful of people write them with me. 

 

We roleplay to enjoy ourselves, to escape the horrors of the real world for a fantastic image of characters we become attached to. 

[MorriganLFae 12]

I have to pipe in and agree that it is more about the content of the AU/site and lore around it that will make or break my interest.  As will overall activity.  For I don't want to join a site that is only intended to be one on one threads or LFRP to do outside the platform.

[Somniac 207]

I'm more likely to look at a character bank to see if 1. demographics other than white, cis, and straight can exist without major contest, and 2. there's any characters, admin or player, that I might be interested writing against.

[Atypicalzero 12]

In truth, I don't pay much attention to who the admins make unless I join a fandom rp. Then yes, they affect me, but not my joining. If I want to join I will.  I have a "try anything once" policy. Although looking at the admins' canons generally gives me a feel for what to expect. If they're playing all the big names or big roles, I know that chances are good I am stepping into a site that may steamroll the little guy. It comes off as a control thing and I'm not about it.  

[DivineRabbit 64]

I am more into the stories and the entire character cast. Admins ( and I am one )  their characters dont make me choose or not choose a site.

[Tyra Ravencrone 1]

Honestly for me they do not; I very rarely end up writing with mods on other sites. Outside of the one I run and the other I'm staff for. If I'm able to as a guest; I will read through threads and get a feel for the writers. I however will avoid a site if it's impossible to read no matter how good it is. My eyes can't handle some of the color schemes mods use.

[Behemoth 1]

It affects me only if the admins are 'hoarding' faces with characters that are inactive, or not keeping up with their own set of activity rules.

 

I'm a stickler for the faces I like; with some characters I can find new ones, others I just would have a hard time finding new ones for. In this case, I might think about alternative characters to bring to the forum or those alternative FCs.

 

I've been on a few sites where admins had 20-30 characters. It's great if they can keep up with them all - I could not imagine myself with that many but all the power to them! - but if they aren't, I just think it might be a little unfair. To people who might want these FCs, to people they're plotting with and keeping waiting. Speaking about my experience only, these admins seemed to create characters every time they had a new thought or idea. Great they could find inspiration anywhere, but unfortunate for those characters at the back of the interest line. It irked me a little to see these admins asking for new plots, ships, etc, for these characters when we had threads they were clearly ignoring or had no intentions to post in. That's ok - but maybe let them go for everyone's sake? I'd so much rather someone being upfront, letting me know their muse is elsewhere, than leading me on or dancing around the subject entirely. I was stretching myself thin creating open threads to make AC because I'd be called out for my activity; yet I'd have no threads to reply to because the admins were busy plotting amongst each other using whatever character interested them for five minutes!

 

Otherwise, no! If admins have a million characters that they post actively on, that's great. I admire the effort behind the posting, the creating, everything... even if you snagged a face that I like to use! 

[Huskerdust 625]

Yes but in a good way? Like I’m definitely on board if I see an admin with a nice number of characters. I personally feel like we’ll be a good match if the staff is like me and loves having lots of characters and ideas. Male, female, NB, I don’t care. I just feel more assured of the admins’ interest if they have a lot of characters. It gets awkward if I end up with more characters than them. 

[Belle 53]

Only when I get the sense that all their characters are thinly-veiled self-inserts or fetish creations. Lack of diversity is uncomfortable, but this is a step beyond only playing white people or one gender or whatever, this is a specific type of character with multiple identity signifiers duplicated ten, fifteen or more times. If the admin doesn't make a firm boundary between IC and OOC then it's more likely that other players won't either, and that's creepy.

[Yume 99]

Yes and no.

An admin's characters (usually) won't make or break me joining a site (unless as @Bellementioned there's something... Very wrong.) I can live with the occasional self-insert ish character as long as there is a boundary between ic and occ but if that doesn't exist, yeah I'm gone. And if All existing characters are of particular stereotypes, for example.... yeah. May back off just because that sort of thing may draw in a community I'm not interested in.

 

But, an admin's characters may effect what I decide to join with. For example, I may deliberately select a character in a similar group or location in order to be sure that I'll have someone to interact with - especially if the site is small or just getting off the ground, when it may be me just joining with only the staff available, or the staff and a very small collection of other people. I tend to join smaller sites, so this happens more often for me. I don't want a stranded character, obviously. 

[omnitricks 16]

For me its not limited to the starting characters but all their characters. There might be a problem in identifying which PCs belong to any admin but generally, the sort of admin which would actually show the inherent issues of the site will normally remind the rest of the community which PC they play.

 

Mainly its a part of them just bragging but that's how it is. Its really easy to discern whether the admin's personal PCs have such an advantage over the average player. I haven't been playing much lately but in some of the sites I was active in before I left, the admins which cause issues normally have their personal PCs becoming community leaders (whether it made sense or not) so the other PCs would have to fall in, able to gather a lot of wealth and items (dropping into their laps through admin buddies) or pretty much have plots focusing on them which becomes an issue in big site wide events since it just sidelines everyone else.