Viewpoint Roleplaying the same or similar characters—yes or no?

[Crenando]

I was given, at least in a tabletop sense, the advice to play incredibly broad archetypes. It can apply to freeform roleplaying just as easily.
If the RP lasts long enough, they're probably going to have at least a little bit of development.

I was going to talk about authors reusing characters across different settings for thematic reasons or bringing in heady New Wave SF ideas about characters being incarnations of the same cosmic figure but nobody has that in mind when they reuse an RP character

 

[Emeraude]

No, but I am considering it just out of annoyance of making new characters for rps that don't go anywhere.

 

[Jannah]

Typically I don't. I like to experiment with different archetypes and such. Even if I'm doing the same plot I'll create a new character. Sometimes they end up being similar to previous ones, but that's rarely intentional unless I really liked a previous character.

 

[Onmyoji]

I like to play certain broad archetypes. So in a way, it would be similar characters, yet not the same.

 

[ToteMaus]

I do, if only because I have an OC that I really love and adore, but have never had a satisfying venue to play her in. I came back to this site for the first time in almost five years, in fact, to try to find a place to play her again. I have spent so much time, money, and effort and given this OC so much love, it breaks my heart that I can't find a place to play her where she belongs. So of course I reuse her as I search for the right place for her or as RPs die off and I'm unwilling to retire her for an RP that lasted only a week.

That reminds me, sorry for the off topic, but it's somewhat related to the above is there a place to post for people looking for a specific type of RP rather than recruiting for an existing one like the recruiting section seems to be?

 

[Crayons]

I will reuse characters for different RPs if I don't get a chance to play them properly, for example if the RP dies within a few posts AND if the new RP is in a similar setting. (For example - different RPs set it Feudal Japan.) I almost always change them a little to fit into different RPs, based on the setting, history, other characters etc.

Then there's the character concepts that get reused. These, again, are ones I don't feel I got enough play out of to make them fully realised characters. They aren't necessarily tied as closely to settings and usually have different names, backstories, etc. while keeping the core concept the same.

Once a character has had enough play that they get "solidified" and become fully attached to that roleplay, then I do not use them again. They only exist in the setting that they have developed in.

On the whole I feel that trying to reuse the same character in multiple roleplays causes problems. Do you carry over character development from one to another? If not how do you cope with multiple versions of this same character in your head? If you do, how do you explain it if they got, I dunno, alien tech implants in one RP then the new RP doesn't have aliens or tech.

I also feel like it makes a player too attached to the one OC. They can overly identify with it and become too protective. Often it hampers them joining new RPs because the RPs aren't quite the perfect setting for their precious. It also leads to more arguments when they try to slide in non-setting appropriate powers/background and the GM tells them no. With a new character, it is still malleable and the player can more easily take advice or criticism about it.

Making new characters and playing a range of different personalities and beliefs is a big part of the fun of RP imo.

 

[SilverBlack]

I know a couple friends who use strictly a couple of OCs, and view each roleplay they join with those characters as them in "alternative universes." While they also have a CS made for each of them, they view their OCs like...Real life friends. As in, they are characters with their own souls, and they speak to the writer (aka the roleplayer), and sometimes they have dialogues. (It's for the sake of them figuring out and shaping their characters too, though, just in a unique format.) They view their characters as people they don't know fully about either, and then with each roleplay they join they "learned more about their own characters." I thought that's kind of cool.

For me, I rarely use recurring characters. The only time I do so is when the last roleplay that the characters were in died so soon and I never got t to put my character to good use. That's when I throw the same OCs into different roleplays lol. Other than that, it's when I see a roleplay and I really thought "dude it'd be so cool if xxx is in this one."

Sometimes the roleplay I joined is pretty plot-oriented, or my character is pretty specifically catered to fit that roleplay with that lore under that setting. When that's the case, if I realize throwing that character into another roleplay will mean I have to change the background story too much, I'd rather just make a new CS. uwu