Cracked Mirrors -- 3 Steps to Fixing That

What's he look like? Eh, ugly, over-weight middle-aged and balding male character, whose weapon of choice is a loud voice, an itchy ass, a bottle of Ex-lax and a TV remote with batteries clad in his bathrobe, slippers, boxers and a hot-sauce stained stripped shirt. Best sword master in the world too! Wait...Are you telling me that...thing...is the best sword master in the universe? Isn't he supposed to be a tall man with board shoulders and a long shock of silver hair that cascades over those shoulders, with a hawkish nose and deep hazel eyes, with small, slim hands and a slight build? Naw, we don't want another pretty boy being our sword master.

Appearance is a funny thing. We all want to be the most beautiful things out there. Nobody is really a gritty sort of man, with bags under the sunken eyes and a hallow look to the face, or a woman with wrinkles or a plain face with a too-wide mouth. When we talk about the appearance of our characters, we talk about their looks, how attractive they are to the opposite sex. It's a bad habit for pretty much all role players, myself included, to make our character's the most beautiful things to walk the catwalk. But I want to see a new wave of characters that emanate both power and ability, but some sense of reality to them. To no longer be a pretty-boy (or girl), but be realistic. To have strange features that set them all about.

Female characters are (almost) always independent, powerful and sexy. Some aren't, but we don't see those too often. Male characters are (almost) always badass pretty-boys. It's like there is no opposite side to the spectrum, but I want to see it today--no yesterday. But of course, chances of that aren't likely. Anime and video games heavily influence new role-players to the scene, and of course the characters there are always handsome and wonderful and cunning and all things marvelous.

So, how do we go about fixing that? Well, as the entry says, I've got three sure-fire (I hope) steps to get away.

1) Make the character more realistic in looks. Give the guy a beer belly, even a slight one. Give the chick frizzled hair. Give them facial defections, like too-wide eyes, or hawkish/hooked noses. Big hands, small hands, big feet, small feet. Anything and everything can be done, and the end result will give your character more life.

2) Don't stick to that slim, muscular and exceptionally fit body-type. Space it out a bit. Be scrawny, wiry, over-weight or big-boned. Be petite or somewhat flabby or any kind of type in-between. To see the whole spectrum of human body-types would make things so much more interesting.

3) Be dull. What do I mean? Dull hair, dull eyes, dull expressions, bored and annoyed, with plain faces.

It's probably not the best advice, but it would create characters more original and full of life characters than the ones that currently populate the role plays and duels with their angsting pretty-boy (or girl) -ness. But maybe I'm asking too much? In the end, though, it's you who decide the appearance, so make it a good one. Remember, not everyone is, or has to be, a gorgeous character.

 

- W. Visarett