OK I have been reading and a few of you already seem to have your characters back story all worked out. God knows what else you have preplanned for us.
My question is are there any other free roleplayers out there?
Me personally I like my characters to be a slate, one that gets filled in as my story goes. forming not only their place in the dream as it currently displays itself to this character but also the characters history along the way. what better way to learn your character than to learn it with everyone else?
I have always been a fan for improv. I think with nothing but our minds delevoping our story around us on the spot it can lead to a much more exciting story in the long run.
I have done a scripted character before and it just never gave me the same joy. I like having each time I enter the dream to be a mystery, how is my character going to react to what comes his way. will he run and hide, or stand up for himself, and if he stands will he stand for the right thing?
Anyway so you know how I play, how about you? Free or preplanned. give us your reasons why.

I wouldn't say my character is completely pre-planned.  I have the backstory worked out and I know the direction i want to aim at.  You say you like to start with a clean slate, I would call what i start with is a mostly erased slate.  I like having certain things in mind and then adapting to situations.  My UL character was originally gonna be a manipulating lil bugger who's only goal was to achieve great power without drawing too much attention to himself until it was too late to stop him.  I started off good, had some great success, but circumstance after circumstance, I unded up adapting a new RP but I still keep some basic elements for the original inception.  Of course this was easier to do since I like flying under everyone's radar, and the dreamers who would have noticed the change no longer dream.

I put my vote down as pre-planned, but change is always an option I keep open.

Plans all have a way of changing. I don't like scripting anything out in advance - that doesn't feel like roleplay to me. But I still need to have some basic concepts worked out before I can start a character, to at least get some idea what direction to take them in and why they would be motivated to do a certain thing, or not do a certain thing.

I still consider that to be free roleplay, because everyone comes up with a general concept from the start to spring from.

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Originally posted by N'rella

Plans all have a way of changing. I don't like scripting anything out in advance - that doesn't feel like roleplay to me. But I still need to have some basic concepts worked out before I can start a character, to at least get some idea what direction to take them in and why they would be motivated to do a certain thing, or not do a certain thing.

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there's the point I was trying to make, thank you.

I just work from a basic concept generally.  As one GM in a pen and paper game once mandated (to keep his own paperwork from getting convoluted) "Start your character with a background no greater then 1 line."   While it can seem minimalist, you can define a lot in just that one line.  And the thing is, your character is playing in the present and not the past.  So current reactions always help more.

Basically I just fill out all the basic reactions feelings concepts etc.  I decide how he reacts to other people, how outgoing he is in tackling problems and his means of assaulting mares.  From there I let him develop organically as he interacts with people and houses.  I don't go for a house preference either, I just let the houses get a shot at talking my char into joining, unless I've decided for neutrality.  The only hitch is I try to avoid DoL with any new chars, Striker is a DoL member and it just seems redudndant to put two chars in the same dern house.

What's so beautifully wonderful about a vaguely developped past and present is that it can be defined later on to suit your needs for a roleplay.  You basically give yourself a roleplaying wildcard to play when you see fit.  Nothing about your characters background is set in stone unless you tell eveyrone it.  Of course this method can be tricky if you get in a conversation with someone and it turns towards you background.  It can be a fun exercise of improv as you create the background on the fly, but you better remember all those names you made up.

Since I have a cable modem connection right now I've been doing UL incognito.  A gold star to the first person who can guess who I am.

I'd have to say my character's planning is most similar to Strikes. Going to go in with a Cloudsbreaken history, attitude, goodness vs evilness, etc. Then allow the dream itself to sway hid decision for beliefs. So I guess you can say, half free and half preplanned.

I've also thought of creating any alternate characters I make on different servers. I think multiple characters by one controller on the same server should be banned. I know I'll probably get flamed for saying that, but wouldn't it be a nice peace of mind to know other controllers don't have subconscience information and experiences gained through a seperate character than the one they are currently controlling?

Actually, I'm with you PJ on the one character per server.  I tried the having a secondary character in UL twice and I found myself constantly clicking the "Change Avatar" to remind myself who I was.  I even had a major slip once, did manage to make up a story as to why Second Char new the info, but just made me uncomfortable with idea of slipping up again.  And theres those who every one knows about someone's secondary (or third) char and some clear OOC attitudes towards another individual, so blantant it breaks the supposed RP they keep claiming for their second character..... did that make sense?

Well, staying on topic ...... Brain and N'rella have explained what how I approach my intial characters actions pretty well ie. backstory, shard description, and physical description .... and then just go from there.

Well I wouldn't call my character concept pre-planned. I will be using traits that I used back in Underlight for my character. But I'll try and make his changes more subtle. I never did like sudden unexplained personality shifts.

But how and when the character will progress will depend on the events around him. And before I try my major character event, I'll have to have people around him that would want to participate. I want to retry the event I tried on my old Underlight character.

I got boo-ed for my idea because I had ideas for how things would progress. So pissed off, I quit Underlight without completing the story. Still bugs me I never got to finish it, so I want to try again putting some pre-events in to lessen the explanations later. Add some back-story to why it was occurring, so to speak. Its so much better when someone besides your character can explain what's going on. Creates immersion and lets the story progress without you being around.

The thing with pre-planned events is if you try to do such a thing and the one and only topic is you, well, you have a handicap going for you.  Everyone around you will have no big incentive for their characters outside of philanthropy.  You need a nice big pull to draw people into the plan.  Now, you don't want to play the "big threat to the dream" card unless you can somehow entice lyra to play along, and that's be overdone.  You don't want to play the "oh i'm horribly sick and will die" card either, that's something that's overplayed.  Now, a trickier idea is to take the initiative and do something big.

Just think of something in the dream you want to change or do big.  Then cook up some crazy roundabout UL science to get it done, hype it up at guild meetings or whever and get a nice big following, and of course, report your idea to UL.

Just take DoL repairing it's bridge after the great sundering.  That whole ceremony was a collective brainstorming idea by the members of DoL, we had people shouting at us left and right that it'd NEVER work.  We went through, and we got our bridge up before anyone else.

Moral:  Taking the initiative on dream altering events plays better.  Though if you want to do something smaller, keep it original.  Nobody getes interested in a roleplay of a type they've been in 3 times already.  Houses are also a big help, especially if you got a good science commitee.  ALWAYS foster the library, once you got some theoretical people in the house you can try to finaggle them into crazy ideas. ;)

That's just my 10 cents on pre-planned stuff.

Yeah, but its near impossible to be original with any idea these days. Anything you could do, someone is going to say "That was done by...." or "I read something like that before..."

Personally, I've decided being original is overrated. These days everything has been done. All you can do is just present it in a different light and try to make it entertaining. When I tried my storyline back in Underlight, I made sure I pulled in a character that would participate. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to pull out the big stuff. I got shut down in the character development.

There is another story I wanted to play out in Underlight, but to pull it off correctly would require alot of cooperation and possible even some Lyran interaction. It would definately be one of those dream changing events, not so much a change on the dream but a change in people's view on it. I tried to get things setup with it by having my character learn a particular piece of research and run with it from there, but I didn't feel other people would cooperation and would just aim to ruin the story.

Well, the thing I rarely get involved in are little scripted events that seem to be little more then some player trying to tout, "hey look at me, i'm character developing!"  I mean, mind you, if you got something interesting I may bite, but the thing is, I just don't like ham.  I am guilty of a few of that, a few more subtle early on in my career, I try to be more organic now.  I mean really, I don't need some event with pomp and circumstance to develop my character.  What I did do is get tied up in housepolitics and even got involved with the ambassadorial team, which was an interesting thing.  I mean, early on with Striker, I was a little too hammy, there were a few things I liked, mainly the hat was a nice sound prop I love.  I did player The Striker a little better later on and did climb to ruler.

It was funky, when I made new chars, they did well.  Instead of any big events, I'd just react to situations as I'd see someone in their back ground reacting.  A very good example of this is Taroneh, whoever plays her deserves much accolaid, she knows how to roleplay.  She doesn't do events so much as her character is a constant event.  I once did a bit of an overly dressed gentleman who was a bit of fun, i'd be overly polite, walk everywhere I'd go, and keep asking why some dreamers would keep leading me to such unpleasent areas where the walls seem to ooze blood.  It's those little subtle details, that aren't really a big event in themselves but they add a constant flavor to your character.

That's my two cents at least.  And please, I hate events that are so dead scripted out and immutable, it makes my participation seem pointless, it's like some some sort of stageprop that does little to the actual story.  Two ways around that is either don't have a solution in mind for the problem and let the most interesting sounding and elaborate one take the cheese, or put a degree of risk in the venture that would have costly consequences of the event fails.  Though putting your char on the line is like pointing a shotgun in their face, let's face it, if you don't get enough interest you'll end up pulling the trigger.

Firstly: What you have against ham?!

Secondly: Taroneh ruled. I loved that character.

She was the primary target for my first posted idea. Pulled her in and kinda put things in her hands. I had ideas for how the story would end, but none were the set ending. I was going to let things play out to one of the endings. Wouldn't have been any fun if I knew how the story was going to end.