Membership Adoptable Characters

[featherstone 69]

1 hour ago, Death Kitten said:

Honestly, I've never played in a game with any sort of character like that, but I am trying to learn more about any characters of this nature to see if they would be useful for recruiting purposes.

 

Wanted Ads help recruiting, because newcomers get some idea on whom to play. Adoptables... I've never used those, but I see the point if a character leaves and their role was important. However I'm not sure they're so useful to help people join. Again they have too much past, and at least personally I wouldn't being comfortable changing someone's personality if they've been around for a while.

[Elena 546]

The adoptables aren't meant to be changed their personality radically, but to be written as they are, in the roles they have in the story (and eventually change during the story, because yes, as they get through new adventures, they have to change). Adoptables are already a part of the story, and the fact that they have a past and they are integrated into the story is their main attraction in my case. I have adopted several characters - two on a site, plenty on my site, and they have changed slightly in time, due to what had happened to them or what they had discovered during the story.

 

Yes, I make the difference between the wanted and the adoptables too. But often a wanted becomes an adoptable after the initial writer leaves...

Edited September 11, 2017 by Elena

[Uaithne 543]

Uh. The more this conversation goes on, the more I realize that I don't know what, exactly, an adoptable is since it seems people are using slightly different definitions. (Which makes it difficult to figure out what everyone is saying.)

[Quell 249]

@Uaithne For the sake of an adventure.... I'm going to just... write out what I think each one is (and then what I think about each. And we'll see if the descriptions overlaps with /anyone else/)

 

Adoptable Character: A fully developed and fleshed out character that either was made to be 'adopted' or was played and then dropped by the original player. (This is like playing a ... fandom character, except the fandom is someone else's mind??)

-- I.... won't lie. I hate these, personaly. I don't mind if they're skeletons, but I have almost never heard of the person who created the adoptable being happy with the outcome of the adoptable. ._. (Maybe they work if you leave a site??? and you never look back???)

-- Admin created ones I think work far better than adoptables created from abandoned characters.

 

Wanted Character: A skeleton/vague concept to fill a niche in a character's life. Often a family member, friend, enemy, or SO. 

-- I love these, but I also have had some weird experiences with them. I love how they work; I love that you get all the holes that would naturally already have people occupying them in there and then you get to play with other people instead of have 200 NPCs to play. THAT SAID, I also find them very problematic because of what @Elena said. I might pick up a wanted ad, but as far as I'm concerned that doesn't make my character adoptable in any way/shape/form without my explicit permission I know that this isn't how everyone sees it, but it is how I see it. -- as anyone can imagine, this can lead to misunderstanding and anger. I guess for me, a wanted ad I take the character for is my character who happens to have a close relationship with your character, but they are not connected. (It'd be like any other time two characters have a relationship on board, but this one is preset/more planned for convenience of everyone involved.) So in my ideal world, if I leave, my character goes with me, and the wanted ad would be reopened in its original form; maybe there are references to some things that happened between my character and another -- but no one would be playing the character I brought in. I dunno. It's kind of touchy stuff, I guess. #collaberativewriting

 

That was a bit of a tangent. ._.; Anyway, TL;DR. 

If an adoptable is explicitly stated that they are adoptable at the time of the player's departure from a site and/or if the player is contacted and give explicit permission and/or if the player posts said adoptable character somewhere, then they, in essence, give away all claims/rights to that character or any feelings they have about that character's portrayal. All people understand humanity and the world differently, no one is going to play your character the way you want except you. Thus the potential issue with adoptables (and human emotion).

Edited September 12, 2017 by Thyme

[CovertSphinx 710]

The way @Thyme put it is pretty much the way I think about the two, definition-wise. As for whether or not I like them...I'm a six eggs vs half a dozen chick: The more pre-fleshed a character is the less likely I am to take it but I'll often browse anyway (both adoptable and wanted) to see if a mood or muse strikes me.

 

On my new site, I'm trying to do something a little...half way between. I have certain NPC characters that are integral to the "World" as a whole, but most of them are bare-bones overviews with the design/hope that members will adopt these super important characters and flesh them out into PCs.

[Uaithne 543]

My take is pretty much entirely different. I divided them not by complexity but by how the request is made.

 

To me, an adoptable is the same as a canon list, but on a non-fandom board. The staff creates a list of characters, and members can choose from them. Maybe they go back into the pile if the member is inactive, maybe they don't. These could be characters that members have given up for adoption, or they could be entirely original. Maybe they characters are detailed, maybe they're skeletons. Regardless, there is usually one official thread for adoptables maintained by the site staff.

 

A wanted ad would be placed by a member in the general "wanted ads" or "plotting" forum. This character has a personal connection with the member's existing character, and the request details vary from "hey I just need someone to play my character's son" to "here is this 30 page dissertation on the exact circumference of this character's ass . . . for full details on how personality is affected by his appearance, please see page 593." But regardless, this wanted ad is controlled by the individual member, and there could be dozens of threads for wanted characters on any site, depending on the number of members requesting characters.

 

Who "owns" the character should a member become inactive and the complexity of information provided about the character don't influence whether it's an adoptable or a wanted ad.

 

@Thyme @CovertSphinx

[Death Kitten 200]

Okay, so as the thread goes on and we hash through the definitions, here's what I had envisioned when I opened this thread: something that kinda splits the difference. There would be a list of mostly ready made characters available, and if a new player wanted to pick them up and adjust them *before* they started play, they could. If the player decided to leave after the character entered the game, the character would be retired like any other character would be when a player left.

 

Do you think that something like that would be potentially helpful on drawing people into my game?

[Elena 546]

@Death Kitten I wouldn't be interested if the character is retired as the initial writer leaves. Having the OPTION to retire it, yes, but mostly I am interested in continuity of the story and this is the reason why I favour adoptables. They are already needed in the story.

 

@Thyme what you find problematic, I find attractive - again, the continuity. And if I put a wanted ad, the ad was taken, then the writer left, of course the character will be still needed in the story after the writer left, so of course I will have to find someone else to write it - with proper credits for who made the bio and with making clear who wrote what between past and present and with respecting the bio. And if I really can't find someone to adopt that character (one of them had been written by 3 people), then I will have to adopt it myself...

 

And yes, it is known from the beginning that if the writer leaves, the character remains on the site to be further written as per the bio, with due credits. But the initial writer can bring the character to other sites. Subsequent writers couldn't, as they aren't the bio creator.

 

About "reopening the wanted ad into another character" - this is not an option in my opinion since the character exists and had left already a mark upon the story. We can't pretend that a character's sister is... someone else after a while. At least, not on a real life site. On a fantasy/ Sci Fi, clones might exist or ghosts or something else. But a person who exists in an universe and is needed in a specific story... is the already existing person. Can have, of course, other sideplots as well.

Edited September 13, 2017 by Elena

[CovertSphinx 710]

11 hours ago, Uaithne said:

My take is pretty much entirely different. I divided them not by complexity but by how the request is made.

 

To me, an adoptable is the same as a canon list, but on a non-fandom board. The staff creates a list of characters, and members can choose from them. Maybe they go back into the pile if the member is inactive, maybe they don't. These could be characters that members have given up for adoption, or they could be entirely original. Maybe they characters are detailed, maybe they're skeletons. Regardless, there is usually one official thread for adoptables maintained by the site staff.

 

A wanted ad would be placed by a member in the general "wanted ads" or "plotting" forum. This character has a personal connection with the member's existing character, and the request details vary from "hey I just need someone to play my character's son" to "here is this 30 page dissertation on the exact circumference of this character's ass . . . for full details on how personality is affected by his appearance, please see page 593." But regardless, this wanted ad is controlled by the individual member, and there could be dozens of threads for wanted characters on any site, depending on the number of members requesting characters.

 

Who "owns" the character should a member become inactive and the complexity of information provided about the character don't influence whether it's an adoptable or a wanted ad.

 

I like your definition better.

 

 

I kinda like the idea of having the OPTION to adopt, but don't really see it being a direct "draw" to the site unless somebody browsing happens to see something that fits what kind of character they're dying to play.

[Quell 249]

10 hours ago, Death Kitten said:

 something that kinda splits the difference. There would be a list of mostly ready made characters...

Do you think that something like that would be potentially helpful on drawing people into my game?

I think... It's going to attract some and deter others. (Which I guess is what every choice does....)

 

If you basically have an entirely filled out profile so it's like playing a fandom character, I don't see a reason to retire them. Dozens of people play the same fandom character often on the same board back to back. 

 

That said it's going to draw a different audience probably than keeping it open to OCs. Like @CovertSphinxsaid... If someone sees someone they want, they'll join, but if not it's still a toss of a coin.

 

I also like @Uaithne's definition. That is much simpler.... 

 

--

I was on a site once that had "Suggested Canons" which basically was a profile that was filled out... But if you wanted to scrap it and do a different one when you adopted you could. It was basically... so that everyone could reference "Tim Bester" and that guy always had the same character traits.

Edited September 13, 2017 by Thyme

[Uaithne 543]

@Death Kitten

 

To answer your question more clearly, I am neither in favor nor against what you describe as long as there is a purpose to them.

 

More often than not, I see just a name, age, user group, and play by attached to these characters. This simplicity isn't bad, but ultimately this character doesn't have any purpose unless the member gives it purpose, and then what's the difference between that and a member-created character? That's the easy part of creating a character. Find some way to tie the adoptable to the game so that it has potential and a unique starting point (no matter if it's a skeleton character), and give the adoptables a purpose.

 

This could be a subtle tie-in or more complex. Obviously if it is complex, you might want to figure out guidelines on what happens to the characters should the members who take them go inactive.

 

What I'm thinking of doing for my own site is putting together the list and giving subtle tie-ins to the plot. Maybe just a sentence for each character saying something like "this character has been privately studying the Decay (a feature of my site) for a couple years and has made a significant discovery."

[CovertSphinx 710]

On 9/14/2017 at 10:40 AM, Uaithne said:

 

To answer your question more clearly, I am neither in favor nor against what you describe as long as there is a purpose to them.

This could be a subtle tie-in or more complex. Obviously if it is complex, you might want to figure out guidelines on what happens to the characters should the members who take them go inactive.

 

What I'm thinking of doing for my own site is putting together the list and giving subtle tie-ins to the plot. Maybe just a sentence for each character saying something like "this character has been privately studying the Decay (a feature of my site) for a couple years and has made a significant discovery."

 

I did it on mine with my "Important NPCs". Part of my world lore declares that there is seven sections of what we consider to be the equivalent of "Hell", each one ruled by a Demon Lord who manages the sector and is in charge of punishments, keeping spirits from escaping, managing supernatural underlings trying to tempt humans to sin, all that good stuff. They also have a "team specific" job of keeping four very powerful artifacts (power stripped from their coworker, Mammon, who once tried to conquer all of Perdition) in the Mortal Realm from ever being combined again. 

The Artifacts are explained in a Plot description and tagged which are claimable/pertinent claim-history when applicable), and the Demon Lords all have adoptable skeleton profiles that detail which other Lords they are allied/enemy with, their powers associated with their "sin", and quick overview of their persona-type and group role if there's a premade relationship. This was designed to give members multiple avenues they could take in creating a character that's immediately important to the story. 

 

Hopefully I'll find some new members soonish and will be able to report back to you on if this whole, "HERE'S A PLOT COIN PLEASE GO SPEND IT AND CAUSE DELICIOUS TROUBLE" thing works out XD. 

 

But one thing I DO know, is what I'll do with the characters if an adopter abandons them:

Strike anything unimportant and repost the adoptable, but create a small summary of important interactions/events to give the next RPer so that the new player can tweak what they like while not breaking any plots/lore/etc.