Experiences When RPs fall off, what happens to your OC?

[JyoMonty]

As the title suggests, I'm curious what you all do with your characters when you start a RP but it ends abruptly?
I find myself looking at my google doc of OCs and think, "Man, you didn't get a chance to really spread your wings, huh?"
It's fairly bittersweet because I'm proud of what I made but disheartened when their first outing just ends.

To answer my own question, I do like to at least see if I want to RP with them in a brand-new setting.
And I simply like looking at them and can see an overall history of my creativity.
So, what about you?

 

[nerdy tangents]

I tend to not get too attached to my OCs. I might have them pop up as background characters in future stories (a little Easter egg for myself) but otherwise I just put em in my archive of roleplay ideas that didn’t get started and keep moving on.

 

[-Random_Person-]

It really depends on how long the character was in the rp before it ended. Sometimes, I write a small little blurb in docs abt how that character would have ended up like after the ending. Other times, I forget them, or use them in my own personal little writing projects, and sometimes I see if they would fit in a different RP. Honestly, I only tend to do something with them if I spent a lot of time with them, or if I put a lot of effort into making them.

 

[RascalRoadkill]

Usually I just end up recycling them if I feel like they didn’t reach their full potential as characters. Like, if a thread of a certain genre falls through and I join a different one of that same genre, I tend to use them again there in the hopes they can get a full story out of it and to save myself some brain space. Now, that does come with the ability to be flexible and not shoehorn them in too much, since all threads and settings are different and I like to fit the setting. Not even the full character a lot of the time, maybe just recycling some traits I really enjoyed. Not all the time, since I like to play new characters pretty often, but if there’s a good opportunity and they didn’t reach their potential before I tend to use them again.

 

[Edric Blight]

Mine die tbh or get “re-skinned.” Basically what I mean by that is that I just make a new OC but use a different name and possibly a different face claim but keep them pretty much the same as the OC that never got to get used.

But most of mine just die lol. Rip to all the lost OCs.

 

[DragonSlayer57]

If the rp doesn’t get far I’ll recycle them, but basically fix any and all flaws of them. Usually I’ll just adapt to the rp and change the oc where i need them to. If it was a decently long rp and it stopped midway, I’ll just write a short little blurb about what i think their future would have been like.

 

[Vox Angelis]

It heavily depends on how much I liked the concept of a character I created. It's more likely that, if I really liked a character and even got so far as to commission art of some concepts or actual characters, I'll recycle them for a later RP, otherwise they just vanish in the sea of abandoned stories.

I have hundreds of commissioned artworks so it'S waaaaaay more likely I'll reuse the same faceclaims in a cycle instead of coming up with something new now though. Gotta make use of all that spent money

 

[Idea]

For the most part my characters just sit on my saved character list when an RP dies. It is a little saddening - after all, I am both a planner by nature and someone with the approach of fully committing my efforts to making my characters something I can feel proud of having made, “worth it in of themselves” as I tend to say, which means underneath any character from dead RPs are mountains of discarded possibilities, plot threads, interactions, arc and so on that could have been and likely won’t be. I really do feel that feeling of “it’s disappointing I’ll never get to see the potential of this realized”.

At the same time, that principle I have exists in part because I know most RPs won’t last. I make my worlds, characters and worlds something I can be proud of having made in part because even when things die, even if I see it going nowhere, I can still feel proud of what I made and like I didn’t waste my time. This notably also includes the character sheet coding itself, in which I try to be creative and fitting to each character, even on a more standardized sheet like my D&D template, and occasionally I pull something I feel is pretty great.

This isn’t to say, however, that there is never a re-using of my characters though. The most common case is fandom characters, which I tend to re-use a lot. It’s a consistent world, and provided there is a close enough or fitting enough plot, I feel the character really fits in properly even if re-used. It also helps that this is usually group roleplays in which I feel it’s a less significant distinction between premade OCs and new OCs for the roleplay. I did try to experiment with adding a pre-made OC section as well, and I plan to do so again for the next edition, even though it wasn’t really something anyone went for. That list was mainly composed of some of my favorites, some OCs initially made for battle/colosseum RP, and some reworks of some of my first OCs from here and other sites.

Some of those OCs were part of very small set of exceptions that I have at one point or another re-used. Morois is a special case among those as well, as she was brought to a new RP that was a sequel to a previous dead RP.

In sufficiently similar settings (or RPs that take place in the same setting, even if non-fandom), the character might be referenced or show up as an NPC. There have even been occasions of my OCs and their associated setting becoming a bigger project for me. This usually results in compilation worlds which combine a lot of my disparate ideas into a single setting which I try to make cohesive. To date the most developed has been my Euphorium setting, though the Waken Isles and one other I have in works may come to rival it.

Lastly, many OCs don't really get re-used, but they do have spiritual successors, this mostly happening in characters that never even got to be used or character for the same plot with different partners. In such occasions I'm largely building the same character but with a few differences. I guess that's similar to a prebuilt OC, but I do feel it has more flexibility because there is no pretense that it's to be the same character, and as a result I can more easily discard things that would've been significant to that other character. There is a limit, but that limit is usually at the very cause of why I felt the character fit that RP in the first place.

 

[Frownist]

For me it really depends on how much I liked the OC. If I liked them then I usually end up recycling or reusing aspects that I liked about them. If not, off to the void with them, lol. I especially like the recycle characters for fandom role plays where I don’t have to change much. If the roleplay was pretty long then I usually just abandon the character, as I feel like they've already reached their potential.

 

[ViperBite]

Mine die a thousand deaths. It’s too much of a hassle to recycle imo.

 

[GrumpySwallow]

I just save them for future use in another RP. I make my own art of my characters, so I'm gonna use 'em, dangit!

 

[catbounty.]

Generally, mine die, even if I've invested serious effort into planning and drawing them (RIP). I've always been inclined to fresh new OCs for every RP I start anyway, and the characters I create are so peculiar to the individual plot that I wouldn't even know where to begin unraveling to make 'em work elsewhere, lol.

 

[FrostyDragon]

I have a couple that I wouldn't mind using again, but I've never found a new RP where they'd fit. I have the first post I made for that character saved, and keep that around so I can refer to it and possibly rework it into something that would fit a new RP if something ever came up that fits.

I find it fairly easy to "let go" of my new oc's. They never truly become real for me until I've gotten comfortable in an RP, so the characters i create mainly just feel kinda like lost ideas that I'm sorry didn't get to come alive. It's harder when left with an oc from a long-standing RP that died. Then I feel like i go through a grieving process when I can't write as them anymore, but I don't think it would ever feel right to use them again for a new RP. I suspect some of the oc's I make afterwards may have traits that are based on the one that 'died', though this is never done intentionally.

 

[DawnBreaking]

Most of the time they die, I have one exception, and this character is one I either am looking for a way to write a book about, or another way to incorporate in an RP

 

[A Sparkling Zombie]

I chop them up and eat them for breakfast. D:<

 

[sycamore.trees]

If I like them enough, they'll respawn in another universe, even if I'd killed them in the last one.

Some RPs are just sacred though ... you can keep rewriting your OC in all a different shape or form, but it never feels quite right ...

 

[AnimeGenork]

My methods have changed over the years - at one point, I just kind of forgot about whoever I wrote and left it at that. Sometimes I saved the OCs in a Private Workshop thread. (I definitely have a few OCs floating around that I never actually saved, and I could go looking for them... but I won't.)

Now I keep almost intense track of my OCs, regardless of how often or much I used them before said RP died. I have a few threads in my Private Workshop for different categories of characters, with a big one called "the vault" (which I refer to often in a joking but altogether truthful manner). Each post is one character and all the character sheets and in character codes I've used for them. The character sheet versions I've started archiving in my GDrive, and I have a spreadsheet letting me know if I did, in fact, archive up to the current version of the character. Or even finished a character sheet for said character (because sometimes an RP falls off before I finished the sheets). I have too many Canva images for the "directory" posts in these threads. It's a more organized system than even my own closet.

As for the characters themselves, I serially reuse quite a few of them. One of them has seen at least 6 RPs, and I think it's a given among my friends that if I'm doing a Disney-related roleplay, he's coming with me. Sometimes I don't feel particularly drawn to my often reused characters and cook up new ones instead. At least one of the characters I named a few years ago actually got a character sheet finally for something! Too bad she's probably the exact opposite of my original intention way back whenever. That happens rarely, though, since for a lot of the time I just make a new OC altogether. Should I? Probably not. But the will of the writing takes me where it does...

The short of it: now I keep track of them, I only reuse a certain subset of my eldest ones, I tend to make new ones at a ridiculous rate.

 

[BuggaBoo]

Hi!!

Ya girl just goes by this philosophy: repurpose, reuse, rejoice lol

In the whole time I been rping I finished only 2 rps I'd consider official since they had substantial amounts of writing devoted to it. Like everything else dies on me within like less than 40 posts. I'd say at least a good 30% of rps I been in like dint make it past page 1. I think that's rather generous too lol.

So now I have a roster of about 15 OC that I turn to on the regular and about 7 that I like have spawned from npcs.

When a new rp shows up and one of them fits welllllll then like repurpose, reuse, rejoice cuz you at least halfway done your charrie sheet. Just needs to rearrange things to fit in.

 

[GojiBean]

Hoyo!

What happens to my OC depends largely on whether or not I grow attached to them during the character creation process.

Sometimes, for me at least, when I create a character there's a certain level of disconnect. Like, I can think they're a fine character and that they'll serve the RP. But if the RP goes under then I won't feel bad saying "goodbye" to them and never using them for another RP in the future.

But other times I end up falling in love with the character's design. So, I'll save them for future use either in RP's of the same genre, setting, or time period, or I'll save them for personal use later in private short stories or as potential characters in stories I'd like to novelize someday.

Cheers!

 

[silkysoul]

Most of the time, I'll just establish the fact that they're in "stardew valley mode" and move onto the next character I create. Whenever a roleplay for me doesn't work out, I just shrug it off. Sure, I really liked my character and I was getting super attatched to their story, but I move on easily.

The next new shiny concept can very quickly wash my disappointment away. For my ocs, this is actually a blessing as with "stardew valley mode" it entails that they are still existing but rather just.. not suffering, per se? To me, my creations live in my head and also in their own universe, and I've made it so I have given them the right to just resume whatever they want to do with no interference.

My first ever oc is probably at a spa right now. My last abandoned character from a roleplay I really liked is probably picking flowers currently. My most favorite oc, whom I don't want to add into my active roleplaying sphere as they just wouldn't fit, is most likely running around their house and trying to organize cleaning chores with their family.

It's all on unpaused for me personally. I let them live their own lives without my interference until I need them.. and even then? I don't really need them? I'm someone that very quickly makes a new toy out of scratch and moves onto the next project, I'm literally just constantly creating little people, forgetting about them and then just putting them on constant stardew valley mode LOL

 

[ChillDyll]

Whenever my characters get randomly dropped in a story, it's luckily been when the roleplay ended short. So with that, they either get recycled in future roleplays (to make them better or continue using normally) or I just use them as references in other stories. I don't like letting go of characters I love, so weaving them into other stories in small ways has always been a nice way for me to let them rest or test if I should use them again.

If I had to give a guess, 25% of my characters are reused in some way as my next main character, others turn into background or side characters. Very few are forgotten!

 

[kawaiiyote]

i save them and any work i did on them somewhere! so many unused characters have found new life in different rps. i like to hold onto my favorites and recycle/reimagine them again and again in new settings and scenarios. when it pans out, i sometimes keep story arcs they've been through with other characters in tact. i love my characters to get lengthy backstories & collaborative development under their belts. it makes me love them that much more.

 

[Jannah]

Depends how far along the story is. If it dies very early on then I might recycle the character if I like them enough.

 

[Cheruzzi]

I get attached to any character I create so I usually just keep them & incorporate them into the book series I am writing or if they don't fit, I ask someone
else if they'd like to er..."adopt" them

 

[Daisie]

I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't really save their characters for other RPs. Kind of a weird take, but something about rewriting a character to another RP just feels sacrilegious to me - particularly if the original RP is one that has had any sort of length.

The most recent time I've reused a character was because the RP stopped before it even began, and I had gotten myself hyped up to see what I could do with them. That was a few years ago, and now that my character has had a solid RP to inhabit, I probably won't use them in another.

I also used to have a set cast of characters I'd use for all my RPs, but that was ages ago. I don't really do that anymore, each new RP has a new character.

I somehow feel like rewriting my established characters is like overwriting those precious RP memories. So each character has their time in the spotlight, and when it's over, they sit on a well-loved shelf in my mind, adjacent to the other RPers' characters they've grown alongside.