What archetypes and traits do you usually use for most of your MCs?

I have a full stable of MCs and will try to pick an appropriate match for the story. I have a couple who I usually use for new stories then use the bench for replays in games I enjoy. Several were designed for TTRPGs like DnD etc but a couple are from choice games, like Cyrus who is from Fallen Hero and ended up developing his own unique personality. I even have one from a recurring dream I had as a young adult. Most are males and the females are usually only used on replays or gender locked games.

My most used character is Montaga (sometimes first name, sometimes last). He is a tall black man with long black hair, sometimes in dreadlocks, a trimmed beard and green eyes. The eyes are because a friend used bright green contacts in college and I loved the look.

He is sarcastic and flirty as F. Part of why I use him to trailblaze games is because he triggers all the romances giving me a good idea of who will match with my other more discerning characters. He is very physically focused and prefers sport/combat builds in most games. Usually with charm as a secondary skill. Despite being fairly friendly he’s not always that great a friend since he can be easily distracted and prone to emotional decisions.

Montaga was originally designed for a DnD campaign back in college. He was a chaotic neutral barbarian who I rolled insanely good stats for. Decided to try to play a charismatic barbarian and he ended up becoming a reoccurring npc for the group he was so much fun.

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I have already commented this somewhere before.

I choose Arthur if it got a medieval theme and for the modern world I go with the name Tyler, also my heroic name in some is based on my gaming name eg Fear/Void. As for the surname, I prefer to avoid it if possible or else just a random one.

About the personality it depends, what kind of life the mc is living. I go either with an aloof persona or a playboy one, though it also depends on who am I talking with there. I mostly prefer to romance tsundere type of girls, so I’m acting seductive towards them and as for the playful girls I am stoic most of the time towards them.

Yeah, and I feel like it stems from RPG game design in general. It’s really only certain action-RPGs I’ve played that allow for a wide stat spread to be viable.

The only ways I can think of getting around these issues in ChoiceScript would be to either make all the stat-checks criminally easy (I’d consider this a bad thing), or to have “partial successes”, where maybe passing the check comes with a cost. Otherwise, it does feel like the “average” stat you pick is superfluous to your character.

I just really like playing an adaptable character. Thankfully, some CS games do have a tactician-type role which scratches this itch for me somewhat.

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My go to MC is always been smartass and sarcastic MC.

taking notes of common traits people like to decide for themselves

I’m definitely a lover of playing a cynical person, perceptive and quiet but who is also very kind-hearted at the core. Someone who might constantly comment on the evils of humanity to themself while also stopping to help an old person cross the street, even if they won’t make much of a fuss over it. I love being able to play NB characters, usually swap between NB or male though, I like seeing changes in dialogue [when present] between genders for things like this.

Though, I am open to playing most forms of character even if I prefer tactical over intuitive. It’s why I have a few different characters in my head and not just one canonical MC xD.

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I always play my first run as an MC who focuses on a merciful/kind/genuine/charming diplomat that tries to make friends with everybody. Mostly I do this because aiming for being in everybody’s good graces and leaning toward the empathic tends to allow me to explore friendship hidden lore, and I can see what kind of personalities the supporting roles have without automatically flagging their “dislike” and only getting their less than stellar side.

Then if I play the game again I’ll go for all of the traits that will make their lives the most difficult with the plot, and only focus on key-characters that I couldn’t befriend in the first run due to being too “peppy”. Example: M from Wayhaven isn’t as receptive to a benevolent and sweet-as-pie character that is similar to N, but they build up FP’s fast if you’re a skeevy charmer willing to put in the work when the time comes but overall does what you want despite social norms (and is in my opinion, the best and most interesting friend in the group to have).

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I think that’s mine too? Except it’s a girl

I have, quite honestly, way too many OCs for me to pin down a specific theme that runs through each and every one. However, I find myself coming back to two frequent archetypes:

Whole Lotta Yappin’
The Orian Family

The name “Orian” won’t mean much to anybody here, because they exist in a canon that I have no intention of publishing anytime soon, but the short version in the canon these guys come from is that they were a family of ambitious do-gooders who formed a militia, the Orian Alliance, to protect a nation that had more or less been left to rot by the powers that be, and they were damn good at their job. But, authority and adoration went to their heads and the ones in charge became tyrannical and cruel, and the heroic militia went the way of far too many rebel groups (even though they weren’t rebels) and took over the nation with an iron fist. They eventually got torn down, and now the surviving Orians are just trying to live their lives quietly and unobtrusively - most of whom never wanted to be part of the Alliance in the first place, but had no choice because they were forced into it on pain of death.

Having spent the better part of their entire existence as survivors, militiamen, criminals, and hitmen, your average Orian tends to be the following:

  1. Wary
  2. Untrusting
  3. Distant
  4. Stoic
  5. World-weary
  6. Hard-assed
  7. Deeply, deeply sarcastic

Their many long years of constant conflict and turmoil, along with a… unique bloodline ability (which, for obvious reasons, I can’t replicate whenever I play an Orian in CoG stories - we’ll call it “blood craze” for simplicity’s sake, but it’s more complicated than that), has also made a typical Orian:

  1. Highly lethal in any fight

  2. Vicious to the point of cruelty - a sufficiently blood-crazed Orian will not hesitate to kick you in the throat hard enough to prevent you from ever speaking again

  3. Relentlessly aggressive

  4. Nigh impossible to kill when they’re in a blood craze (think “local man too angry to die,” but it’s their entire family tree)

Basically, if a game has a combat stat? Yeah, an Orian has that stat maxed out. Literally impossible for them to fail combat checks unless the story outright demands it.

They don’t sound like the nicest people, do they? Well, stick with me, there’s two sides to every coin - while it is extremely difficult to get on an Orian’s good side due to extensive emotional, physical and mental trauma, there are benefits if you do. Most Orians remember their heroic beginnings, and while yes, it got corrupted really badly, there’s still something to be salvaged there:

  1. They’ll literally walk through a hellstorm of gunfire to save your life (and will be so angry that you got hurt that the bullets won’t even make them bleed, probably)

  2. Orians value family like it’s practically a god, and if you get in their good graces, you’re family, bud - anybody tries to give you guff, they’re gonna find themselves being stared down by a sea of cold, grey eyes, real quick

  3. They’re actually super nice folks who will drop everything to help out if you need it, once you get them to open up to you

  4. Now that the criminal empire has toppled, the Orians are able to focus on honor rather than treachery for once - you do right by them, they’ll do right by you, even if they don’t have a single nice word to say about you

TL;DR: An Orian-type character is a hardcore edgelord who can rip you in half if you piss them off, but who’ll also be your best buddy forever if you put in the time to get to know them. They’re probably the most frustrating character to RP in a CoG game, because most of those games tend to respond poorly to player characters who act standoffish and stubborn towards the ROs.

Appearance-wise, an Orian is recognized for their black hair, grey eyes (ESPECIALLY the grey eyes, that’s their defining feature), tan skin, and chiseled physique. It’s impossible for an Orian to be out of shape. It’s just not in their genes. Orians tend to favor knives, swords, or their own two hands when it comes to fighting, though guns aren’t totally out of the question. And like the true edgelords they are, they prefer the color black and wearing combat gear.

Examples of games where I’ve played Orian characters:

When Life Gives You Lemons - Ryn Hart, formerly Ryn Orian, was a high-ranking enforcer for the Orian Alliance, known back then as the Serpent due to a tattoo of a snake on her back. She hated every second of the job. When she learned of her little sister’s birth, she decided then and there to take the baby and run, because she would be damned before letting the Alliance force another one of her branch of the family tree into the “family business.” Seven years later, the Alliance has crumbled from within, and Ryn, under a new alias, is living in the town of Lemon with her little sister, Maddie - it would be great to say that their new life has been quiet and peaceful, but between an obnoxious ex who will not screw off, a bunch of strangers who all seem to want in Ryn’s pants for some reason (which is more than a little suspicious to a former criminal enforcer on the run), and a salty loser who’s trying to run Ryn out of town for buying the house they wanted, it sometimes feels like Ryn traded one awful life for another one.

Regardless, Ryn does her level best to be as good a big sister and mother figure for Maddie as she can, and god help anybody who even so much as looks at her little baby girl wrong, because Ryn will unleash hell on them and there’s no guarantee that she’ll know when to stop.

OFNA - Given that you get forced, kicking and screaming, into a cult whether you like it or not, it only makes too much sense for me to play a character who wakes up and chooses violence at the first opportunity, and will continue choosing violence until he either gets away or tears the whole organization to the ground.

Enter Jacob Orian: restaurant server who trusts nobody and keeps himself fit for if he needs to start throwing hands. Now if only he could figure out how to throw hands hard enough to knock out the creepy bird freaks who are hell-bent on recruiting him for some asinine reason…

Love❤️Verse - When Millia Orian moved to Paris, her intent was to duck the Alliance. Just fly under the radar and make enough money to keep up with her rent, and hope she didn’t make any waves big enough for the Alliance council to put together that one of their best bean counters was hiding out in another country. She never wanted to have to run a business (even if she does have a sound head for numbers and an Olympic work ethic). Hell, she doesn’t even like people, now she has to be responsible for serving them coffee in order to keep the lights on? For crying out loud…

As if that didn’t suck badly enough, now all of a sudden everybody and their mother seems to have copped the Urge for her, specifically, and will not leave her be. Maybe this might be someone’s ideal fantasy, but Millia has no time, and less interest, in this lovey-dovey soulmate crap, let alone having it split between, like, five people. And one of them’s insane.

Good Guy Redheads

As the name implies, I, for some reason, cannot make a redhead character without them being the chillest of bros, at the very least. Being chill is the baseline. It only goes up from there.

Whether it be a princess who has to dodge assassins on the regular yet selflessly takes all six bullets from a revolver in order to save an innocent person’s life (and survives!), a professional killer with a heart of gold who uses his training to bring comfort and security to people’s lives for once instead of fear and death, or even just some bartender serving up drinks and listening quietly while people pour their stress out on the counter for lack of a shoulder to cry on, the standout trait of this character type is that, “if hair = red, then good guy = yes.”

This character type tends to slot in nicely just about anywhere, since they’re often criminally charismatic, as if being good people wasn’t enough for them.

It doesn’t matter what gender or eye color or height they’ve got going on, the deciding factor is whether their hair is red or not. This is apparently hard-coded into my being.

Examples of games where I’ve played a good guy redhead:

Wayhaven Chronicles - Detective Elizabeth Greene, in another life, would have joined the army, but her family back home said no, so she joined the police instead. Protecting and serving felt like just as true a calling as defending her nation, so she settled into the job quickly, and - if you asked her - being promoted to detective was proof of her efforts bearing fruit. (We’ll just ignore that it was more likely done to fill a recently vacated seat at the precinct…)

Multilingual, whip-smart, a closet tech junkie, and with a mean right hook, Detective Greene puts her best foot forward for the people of Wayhaven, because she refuses to do anything less. Even when a certain agency came rudely waltzing into her life thanks to a certain biological parent who she has nothing positive to say about, Elizabeth never stopped being a champion for her people. She doesn’t work for the agency because she supports them or agrees with their methods - hell, she’d just as soon quit that job if she had a say in it - but because she swore and oath to protect and serve, and even if she is terrified of the supernatural, if they live in her town, they’re her people, and they’re gonna be protected and served just like everybody else.

Just… she’ll have to try to not make a big deal out of them not being human. That’s all. It’s fine, she works with vampires, how hard could it be?

Evertree Saga - One of my three Evertree protagonists is a courageous redhead who, much unlike my timid thief build, was actually able to, you know, save people’s lives. I unfortunately can’t remember how their story went, beyond, “hey, everybody didn’t die!”, so no dramatic retelling of events, here.

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any game that lets me, I love being an unhinged little murder ball of a character.

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Ol’ Stabby McRip-n’-tear

Good point, in any game where it is possible to commit war crimes, I always do at least one playthrough where I do all the war crimes. It makes me sad but I gotta do it.

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For my first archetype is usually what can be described as white fox. Cunning, witty, handsome, and charismatic yet hide a sense of mischief usually with accompanying white/platinum blonde/grey hair, with blue or grey eyes.

For my second well… a brick of a wall maybe a better companion than Him, a no nonsense, one word asshole with the emotional capabilities of a bowl of rice usually around 6 ft+ and really good at fighting or combat although he sees this as last resort.

Trait : I usually go for combat focused character
I exclusively play male character
The main appearance for all my MC is Grey/white
hair with blue or grey eyes
I prefer to play a role of mediator or the guy they
send as last resort
I always approach two different alignment chaotic
neutral or chaotic evil

As a writer, my characters tend to be very bad at anything practical. Presumably because I don’t feel qualified to write competence, lol.

As a reader, I tend to play the heroic selfless route because in real life I also try to make things better and it’s super slow and frustrating… so it’s GREAT to be able to play a game that makes me feel like I’ve made a real difference with minimal effort.

Felicity

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To counteract the tide of dense/incompetent protags that are seemingly common in anime and related media (light novels, web novels, visual novels etc.), I always make my MCs geniuses and/or experienced, knowledgeable about things and fully knowing of the consequences.
And since I don’t write smut (because of Philippine laws), the MCs also have restraint, only reserving heavily-implied lovemaking for the heroines of their choice.
Other notable traits include being determined, merciful, being a little clumsy, and quite snarky.

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I tend to play a gay male MC that is either a gentle giant, stoic guy with a soft heart/frozen heart, a golden hearted shy/confident dude or a evil/merciless twat.

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It depends on the setting but usually play a straight male Mc who is a sarcastic no nonsense fighter with (usually) a heart of gold and who is a shy wreck while simultaneously having high charisma.

It varies very much based on the game, and I’ll usually do countless runs. But for my first run, I usually go for stoic characters with a dry sense of humour who are incredibly good at what they do, whether it’s polishing silver, slitting throats, or open heart surgery.

I mostly play as a woman with a rare hair and eye color like pink, purple, gold and white. I tend to romance men but if I liked the personality of a woman that wasn’t gender selectable or It just felt weird if she was a man then I’ll romance her too. personality wise my mcs tend to be ruthless, stubborn, cunning and pragmatic. I also tend to choose the charming and intelligence attributes making them a bit of a sexy villain. (It’ll be even better if they had a reason for their ruthlessness and they were actually the savior of that world all along). Depending on the world setting though I may also play a kind, stoic and genuine mc with a high combat and moderate intelligence attributes. however,if I feel like the story characters are judging my mc because she didn’t help them and put her life on the line even though they just met and that kindness was an obligation, I’ll either stop reading the story or become a true bitch on purpose just to annoy them.

I usually play as

If i can help it, if not, i usually lose interest unless the work makes sense that you cant be the above.

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