Need help with your character?

[Dirk]

Great, great ideas...

 

[Johnny Scumm]

I'd love to see Bob & Theo in a tag team, The Bear(d).

Anyways, I'd like someone's idea in what I could do next after having a pretty poor showing at the Lottery. Just a couple of tips would be nice, because I had something planned, HOWEVER, the Lottery fucked me up

 

[a0161613]

Doc, you've never liked Blade, the character or the me. Admittedly, I'm changing his core persona for my return. But I'm asking you to tell me what's wrong with my character. Bury me if you want, just be honest. Partly out of perverse curiosity, partly because I want to go all the way with this run and I want to improve whatever way I can over last time. And, where the criticism is warranted, I will change.

If that doesn't work out, guess I'll create a new character.

This is going to be fun, guys.

For what it's worth, I'm not Doc and his feedback will be worth the wait I'm sure but I want to stick my opinion in here. I'm not entirely sold on the idea that he hates your character. I think he dislikes your RPs more.

The Blade had big success in what I would call the Lee & Phoenix era. The characters were generally straighter, easily defined but the quality was generally lower.

What I remember of your RPs is how stubbornly you stuck to the (Becky Serra) interview (while smoking) formula. I told Overlast that he had to mix up his settings and I would say the same to you. The fed has evolved massively since you left and everyone has had to adapt. There's nothing wrong with the old basics. RPs that are written brilliantly should have a good chance of winning no matter what.

A case in point. You and Low Ki were routed by Gelgarin's RPs because he wrote beautiful RPs when he could focus on the match at hand

Plus you were on creative, so the opinion is that any success is railroaded because of it.[/cynicism[add smiley]

Like I said, Doc's feedback will be valuable. He gave me some great comments a few months back and I like to think I have embraced them while staying comfortable to what I like to write.

I'd love to see Bob & Theo in a tag team, The Bear(d).

Anyways, I'd like someone's idea in what I could do next after having a pretty poor showing at the Lottery. Just a couple of tips would be nice, because I had something planned, HOWEVER, the Lottery fucked me up

If you had planned for a killer showing at the LL then you have probably created a corner for yourself. There's a decent chance that you could dig yourself out of it fairly easily. I would offer the same kind of advice that I gave Blade, mix up your settings and how you write the character. I cant believe that your plans were fucked that badly.

 

[Dirk]

Anyways, I'd like someone's idea in what I could do next after having a pretty poor showing at the Lottery. Just a couple of tips would be nice, because I had something planned, HOWEVER, the Lottery fucked me up.

At the moment I'm visiting my mom in Robertson (even smaller than Stellenbosch) while she's telling me all about her boyfriend who I'm determined not to give a shit about.

Also, I'm watching a replay of the Stormers losing to the fucking Rebels. You're British, so I'm assuming you know who they are.

Long story short, shoot me a PM if you want to shoot the shit and bounce ideas around...

 

[The Doctor]

Doc, you've never liked Blade, the character or the me. Admittedly, I'm changing his core persona for my return. But I'm asking you to tell me what's wrong with my character. Bury me if you want, just be honest. Partly out of perverse curiosity, partly because I want to go all the way with this run and I want to improve whatever way I can over last time. And, where the criticism is warranted, I will change.

If that doesn't work out, guess I'll create a new character.

This is going to be fun, guys.

Numbers did bring up a good point in that your RPs often had little variation to them. I found they'd often devolve into much of the same week in and week out, boring trash-talk. Sorry, boring trash-talk RPs are pretty much my least favorite thing in eFeds because most people aren't as good at it as they like to think they are, especially when your character doesn't have any meat to him.

That was a really big problem I had with the Blade character. There was nothing to him. As Numbers said, this worked back in my first run in the fed, where everyone was pretty bland, but upon my return the fed had moved on and Blade had not. I honestly could not tell you anything truly about his character other than "he's arrogant, sometimes" and "he's a wrestler". That's not interesting.

I don't think that every character absolutely needs a gimmick, but every character needs a hook, something to easily point to and say "Hey, this character does this, and no other character on the roster can do this.". Imagine it from a booking angle. To go to very bare basics, only Saxton could really have a racially-charged angle, and Holmes/Celeste certainly wouldn't work quite the same with a male unless you wanted to make the story radically different.

Blade never stood out to me as anything but just another "cocky" character, and unlike everyone else, he was always lauded for it. Why? Is it because of his theme music? I mean, Bliss was pretty amazing. Gutted you're changing it because it was the only thing I really liked about Blade.

Blade needs to expand. He needs to be in more situations than the standard ones. He needs more of a personality. He needs actual angles to his character, something easy to latch onto. There's nothing wrong with being a wrestling character, but don't make him a wrestler's wrestler for the love of God. Unless he's very specifically THE GREATEST WRESTLER EVER or wrestling ties deeply into his psyche or personal life, it's an easy way to get very bland very quickly. And that's what happened with Blade.

Give him some form of hook that makes him unique and reflects on screen. Make him more than just "cocky heel" or "cocky heel but people are treating him as a face for some unfathomable reason". Not everyone needs to be SHIT or Saboteur or Krypto, but a few more Stormrage's or Howard's would be nice. Give us wrestlers with a hook, personality, and something specific and easy to describe them with, something that only they can lay claim to.

That goes with everyone, really. There's nothing wrong with gimmicking it up, just a little. Honestly, if you can do this with Blade and pull it off, I'll change my tune. But right now, to bastardize a wonderful Jim Cornette quote, "you're a 5 pushed like an 8 which makes [me] see you as a 2".

 

[Beastmode 24]

Is it wrong that I just read that whole thing in Saxton's voice?

 

[Blade]

Numbers did bring up a good point in that your RPs often had little variation to them. I found they'd often devolve into much of the same week in and week out, boring trash-talk. Sorry, boring trash-talk RPs are pretty much my least favorite thing in eFeds because most people aren't as good at it as they like to think they are, especially when your character doesn't have any meat to him.

That was a really big problem I had with the Blade character. There was nothing to him. As Numbers said, this worked back in my first run in the fed, where everyone was pretty bland, but upon my return the fed had moved on and Blade had not. I honestly could not tell you anything truly about his character other than "he's arrogant, sometimes" and "he's a wrestler". That's not interesting.

I don't think that every character absolutely needs a gimmick, but every character needs a hook, something to easily point to and say "Hey, this character does this, and no other character on the roster can do this.". Imagine it from a booking angle. To go to very bare basics, only Saxton could really have a racially-charged angle, and Holmes/Celeste certainly wouldn't work quite the same with a male unless you wanted to make the story radically different.

Blade never stood out to me as anything but just another "cocky" character, and unlike everyone else, he was always lauded for it. Why? Is it because of his theme music? I mean, Bliss was pretty amazing. Gutted you're changing it because it was the only thing I really liked about Blade.

Blade needs to expand. He needs to be in more situations than the standard ones. He needs more of a personality. He needs actual angles to his character, something easy to latch onto. There's nothing wrong with being a wrestling character, but don't make him a wrestler's wrestler for the love of God. Unless he's very specifically THE GREATEST WRESTLER EVER or wrestling ties deeply into his psyche or personal life, it's an easy way to get very bland very quickly. And that's what happened with Blade.

Give him some form of hook that makes him unique and reflects on screen. Make him more than just "cocky heel" or "cocky heel but people are treating him as a face for some unfathomable reason". Not everyone needs to be SHIT or Saboteur or Krypto, but a few more Stormrage's or Howard's would be nice. Give us wrestlers with a hook, personality, and something specific and easy to describe them with, something that only they can lay claim to.

That goes with everyone, really. There's nothing wrong with gimmicking it up, just a little. Honestly, if you can do this with Blade and pull it off, I'll change my tune. But right now, to bastardize a wonderful Jim Cornette quote, "you're a 5 pushed like an 8 which makes [me] see you as a 2".

I know Blade was too ambiguous a lot of the time, cause I could never figure out what I wanted to do with him. In my later RP's before leaving, I pushed the character towards someone dealing with the insanity that came with his career being on a downward spiral, but it didn't get me anywhere. But I have changed the character, as you'll see when I post up my Lethal Lottery RP.

And speaking of the RP stuff, I let my own worries hold me back from writing RP's with different situations because I didn't want to come up with some unique idea only to have it become directionless or have it simply fall flat. When I did have an idea that was somewhat different (The RP about the snakes in my match with Vengeance being an example), it usually didn't get me the win. And yet, my more generic RP's got me wins. Yeah, maybe the fed was worse back then, and you may hate my character for what he was, but I was still good at what I did.

With that said, the gimmick change is coming. I am confident in my own writing ability, it's just a matter of branching out more.

Thank you, Doc. Buddies?

 

[The Doctor]

Looking forward to it. Buddies!

 

[Coco]

What am I good at? What do I need to improve on? Where would you like to see me take Kravinoff?

You're one of a handful of people whose opinion counts in my book. Try not to look so shocked.

 

[Miko]

What am I good at? What do I need to improve on? Where would you like to see me take Kravinoff?

You're one of a handful of people whose opinion counts in my book. Try not to look so shocked.

I assume, like Blade, that you were talking to Doc, I'll see what I can say though; What are you good at? Comedy, descriptive writing and characterisation, I don't think a word of what you write is dull and your scene setting seems to be done with a nice little wink, wink, nudge, nudge. That is to say entertainingly written with a humourous twist, as opposed to simply setting a scene and describing the surroundings. You have a personality and a uniqueness, similar to the likes of Doc and that goes into the characters you write, making them stand out more than your average bear.

What can you improve on? Err, not having RP rust? Apart from that I am at a loss.

Where would I like to see you take Kravinoff? Well, if anybody can have a subservient character and not suffer I think it's you, I've had that issue where my character was having orders barked at it and once that stopped I struggled with what to do for a bit. That said, I'd hate to see Kravinoff taking orders from Constantine for a significant amount of time, I think you'll come out of the other end just fine but he is definitely supposed to be his own beast.

 

[Coco]

Thanks for the kind words and your two cents. Always appreciated, Miko(!).

I expect I won't actually see a reply from Doc until after the boards close. Doc's extremely generous, but I doubt he wants to sharpen the blade Kravinoff is going to have against Saxton's throat.

Wink face?