Change

Yes, and I get that, but no, Change is not a character I've created. Change has no backstory except my entire life and how it translates into MD. I've recently found out that there's at least one other person like me , but does that stop me from wanting to make another character? No. When did Peace decide that she was the daughter of Khalazdad? Before she started playing? Soon after? Long after? I'd have to ask Peace. For me to have a backstory for Change that's other than my life, I'd have to pretend that she had a history that caused her to make the exact same choices that I'd make. @TheRichMerchant and Dark Demon. Yes, sticking to a role will be hard, but that's part of the fun of roleplaying to me. I've just never let myself do it much. I've finished the rough draft of a fantasy book before, and I loved making each and every one of the characters, and they were all different than me. The whole treating people according to your role is why it's so hard for me to be Change. Yes, the players behind the role characters might not treat someone like there character did, but it's hard not to take it personally when your character is you personally. If someone like Dark Demon the character insults me, for I am Change, then I know that the archetype of Dark Demon, that character, that personality, treats me in a certain way. I feel like the only way for me to emotionally salvage Change is to write a backstory for her, and a backbackstory. The essential actions that she's took didn't have to be from me, they could have been from Change. History is written by the victors, and Change is still here, so she's a victor. I'm a victor. While I'd rather not have the active days to show that it took me 600+ days to write a backstory, I can't undo that for Change. Change's backstory is, she worried about what land she'd join, she joined the Fusioneers, she became a Protector, she tried to start the Coloured Paper (if someone wants to take that over from me, please do, but I might try and salvage it soon TM), she left the Fusioneers, etc. Thinking about it, I feel like doing that will put me on a more level footing with other characters who wrote their backstory by writing it, not by playing it. It might be even possible for Change to change her name if I want to get rid of all that change nonsense. So now, Change is starting MD. She'll have a backstory. Her character will be fairly fleshed out, but she'll still have room to change from her past going forward. However, as a writer I scream for the chance to write a character with a backstory starting out. I like doing that, I've just always doubted my characters, so I never stuck to it in my teens. Are you saying I should have to go to another game for that chance? Now that I know a good bit of the story of magicduel, I'd like to create a character that fits into that story. No good characters are perfect, they have flaws, even imperfect flaws. I don't want a perfect character. I want a character. Perhaps I can play two--some do, after all. Although it's discouraged. Of course Change will have to be less active, maybe active every few days-a week sometimes while I develop my new character after writing her backstory. But as a writer, I really do want my characters to be involved in the story of magicduel. Sure, it's selfish. Maybe it's even shallow, but that's what I'd like.

I do really appreciate all of the comments, and instead of saying all of the things that helped a tiny bit, I'll talk about the advice I just don't get. @Menhir Thanks for that, but while you and your character may have changed drastically, were the two the same? The main reason why I'm tired of playing me is I'm tired of feeling insulted when my character is, I'm tired of feeling inadequate when my character feels inadequate, I'm tired of feeling lost when my character feels lost. Others have smartly made the choice to create a character that they can look up to, look down to, or even look beside to. I haven't created a character. I've joined MD like it's a roleplay chatroom without creating a character profile other than 'Me'. Yes, it will, and I'm sure Peace the player made mistakes that were not intentionally mistakes of Peace the character. But Peace the player, Dark Demon the player, and so on, all have things to aspire to, to look at to get them back on track. I don't have that. Yes, I could make an ideal of myself that I want to aspire to, but to truly reach it without roleplaying a character other than myself, I'd have to take just as long as I'd take to reach that state in real life. Roleplaying, while being something fun, is to me, a way to experiment with different feelings and selves and see how you and others respond to them. That experimentation takes place in a condensed period of time, even on a lengthy game like magicduel. @Dark Demon: I did not think that the character that I created was best. I created it because I wanted to play magicduel again and I was relatively impatient, so instead of making a character, I made me. Big mistake, for reasons listed above. The 'cool fancy stuff' doesn't attract me temporarily, unless by temporarily you mean every single day I've been on magicduel. Every day I regret not having made a different character than myself. The only reason why I haven't started over before was because I felt the need to keep up Change for other people than myself. Ironically, when talking to Change in game, many of you have told her, and me, to do things for myself, not others. Well I've been keeping up Change for others, and not myself. I get nothing out of Change that I could get out of other characters. And while I suck at roleplaying, I want to roleplay. But I hate only starting to roleplay at 600 days old, and when I start to roleplay, what then? Roleplay a character about change (the concept) because everyone expects that due to my name. Change/myself don't like change, and seeing my reasoning for picking Change as a way to describe myself (I had changing perceptions of myself. Not anymore.) will continue to haunt me. A character is not 'free' if they're 'free' due to indecision. The adventure log is mainly just a reminder of how I'm the exception, and I'm not the willing exception. I've never given roleplaying a chance because I've always thought it'd be too much to play a role in real life AND in a game. But things have changed. I'm playing a role in real life less and less and less. Now, I know a good deal of who I am in real life--those seven plus years of overthinking about myself have paid off. I have a good idea of my character, my strengths, weaknesses, things I'd like to improve, things I'd not like to improve. So when before I didn't feel ready for roleplaying, I do now. And I can't play two characters without being too busy. I already have a hard time finding time for one 'character' in MD, nevermind two. One of them has to die, and while it'd be nice if they could die in a roleplayed way, things often don't happen that way. And by 'die' I don't necessarily mean die die. I might end up going onto myself, onto Change, once a week, and going onto my actual character the rest of the time. Thank you. The whole reason for this post has to been to please others rather than myself, and to hope that they can convince me that I'd actually be pleasing to myself to continue this too. Yes, it might be sad for Change, the name, to fade, and I'd rather someone had made Change other than me (though it'd feel weird due to using and identifying with change in other places years ago. My fault for choosing a common word to name myself.) but of course, that's impossible. No one can play myself/Change except me. That's the problem. I haven't been having much fun most of the time. In fact, the most fun I've had has been during quests, the domain of Mur event, etc., things where I have a purpose. Getting the Taint recently has also been one of those things. With the Taint, I've gained a role to play other than myself, and while I'd rather it be not myself whose playing it, it's certainly far more fun than lacking a purpose, a character. I've had fun talking to people, true, but I can do that either on YIM, if magicduel ever gained an IRC channel, or if I log onto Change periodically. I don't want to be born with necessarily desirable qualities. I want to be born with different qualities. Yes, roleplaying yourself might be the best way to get something tangible out of MD, but I'm simply not up for it anymore. I encourage anyone to try what I did by default. It's not fun, let me tell you. Really, all of this came out of me not having a character, or a name. While I often hate the names I create, that's because I tend to switch to using them to describe me instead of a character. I love art first, and writing second. One of the number one rules in both is to 'limit your palette'. I haven't done this. I haven't limited my palette to one character, and it's created a hot mess emotionally, even if others don't notice it. I'd like to roleplay someone different than myself, but not vastly different, in magicduel. Really, the question should have been, should I do that in the form of a different character, or should I finally create a character out of Change? The character would have to not be about change because sorry, I'm incredibly sick of that small roleplay that was only created because I couldn't choose a name.

Change is me. And I'm tired of playing me. While your character in MD tends to reflect some of yourself, Change reflects all of myself (most of the time). Edit: This also includes lengthy, heartfelt posts, so bear with me (and Change). So, I make lots of mistakes, I overthink things to no tomorrow, and I often am emotional about the littlest of things. I waited over 200 days to join a land because I (remember, Change is I and I am Change) was indecisive AND I thought that alliances were the only ways of getting things done in the land. So when I searched for a land for those 200 days, I was really searching for an alliance. I wanted to help people, because helping people makes me and others happy, and those who are happy tend to be nice around me. Basically, why lots of people like to help people. I'm also patient, so I know that my help will come back to me in someway. So, I joined the Fusioneers, what I thought of as the most practical alliance to help people and to promote 'change' (more on that later). Perhaps I really do fit into Golemus. After all, it seems to be about syntropy vs. the entropy of Necrovion (ironically, or perhaps not, I chose both principles. I think Marind Bell is the light that differs from the apparent darkness of Necrovion, but that's another story. The reason for me saying this, despite feeling a dislike for the land that was chosen by misguided intentions, is because I hate war. Now, this might be for multiple reasons, but one of them is balance. Magicduel seemed to originally be all about war, as are most RPGs. Nonetheless, it promised to be something more, so, desperate for a game in which combat, fighting, killing things, etc., were not the only real ways of achieving something in the game, I joined. I picked Change as a name simply because I have picked that name before. I pick it because whenever I pick a name that isn't a somewhat flexible neutral English word, I tend to dislike it greatly. That's because I constantly fall into the trap of making characters that are me, just in a different world. In my teens, I, like many others, didn't really know a thing about me, and I think this was more true for me in particular, but maybe not. So my personality seemed to constantly shift. I only recently have realized that it wasn't myself that was changing, but my perception of myself. I've always been me. There's been growth, but it's easy to tell what's at the centre when I focus now. Now that I know me, perhaps I can make a character that is me. But why should I? Isn't Magicduel about roleplaying in part? It certainly is especially for those of us who dislike games where fighting is more than 60% of the game. So I should create a character that might show an aspect or two of me, but not all of me? But I often join roleplaying games so that I can truly express myself, when I otherwise couldn't in the real world. I'm tired of puppet shows in the real world, so why would one here be any better? Yet I'm incredibly jealous of characters like Nimrodel, Peace, Syrian, and so on, basically, all of the characters who seem to have came into magicduel with a /character/. I didn't. All I came into magicduel with was myself, and a placeholder name. All of the 'Change' stuff was just to make the name have some sort of meaning, for the character to be something beyond myself. I wasted time, so much time, figuring out myself, when so many characters were born sure of themselves. Are all of those characters perfect reflections of the people playing them? I thought not. So it's with these thoughts that I look at my 622 out of 978 days with a heavy heart. Were all of those days a waste? No. I, myself, learned things about myself because of them. But I could have started with a specific character and known what I was doing from day 0. If I had the option, I'd sorely be tempted to wipe all of my principles, stats, days, and so on, starting over. Yet, I do have this option, but I feel like I'm a coward for doing so. After all, while all of the characters in the adventure log seemed to have a purpose at birth, a character at birth, I've met characters since then who also have lots of days in no man's land when they didn't know what they'd do. Perhaps I'll never be a major character ever. Is that a bad thing? Probably not. But it doesn't stop me from being jealous of Peace, who was a Necrovion from day one. Perhaps those days are gone, and it's normal for someone with 600 days to actually start their character, despite having the wrong name, land loyalties, and principles. Perhaps I should accept those 600 days as part of my growth. The problem is, they remind me far too much of my real life, where I've similarly pointlessly wasted two years away doubting myself. Those two years will forever permanently affect my life. It's irrelevant why, just trust me. If I ever appear in the adventure log now, doing something to progress the story of the realm, I'll appear as Change, the person who, despite being a Protector, Fusioneer, and so on, was absent from the story of the land due to her indecision for two years. So should I try and continue Change, even if she takes on a new name (if I'm allowed one, and if I can find one)? It will be painful, tearridden and a learning experience, moreso than playing a character that doesn't perfectly reflect me. Should I start to make Change's decisions different from myself? Or should I start over, make a new character, and play a mere aspect of myself, who is a person in her own right, seperate from me, but sharing aspects of me. I have to choose one or the other, because I've never been able to play more than one character per world I'm in. So I ask, do people want Change? What is Change to you, because I already know that Change is me. And should I continue to involve me fully in MD, or should I bring in someone who is infinitely more qualified for whatever job I choose at birth?

More than 20? Well having only 20 would be just awful. I'm in. (I was thinking of joining anyways, regardless of the double rewards).

I like bunnies. They're similar to me, but otherwise I'd pick cats. They also startle easily and laze around a lot. Like me. :)

INFP Introvert(11%) iNtuitive(38%) Feeling(75%) Perceiving(33%) You have slight preference of Introversion over Extraversion (11%) You have moderate preference of Intuition over Sensing (38%) You have distinct preference of Feeling over Thinking (75%) You have moderate preference of Perceiving over Judging (33%) Just took it again on various other websites and then I remembered this thread. :P What's weird is on some other site I got 100% intuitive (no sensing) and 84% feeling. I guess that this is scored differently, since I have a 'slight preference of Introversion over Extraversion'. In the other test that was the opposite. Previous results: Introvert(33%) iNtuitive(25%) Thinking(1%) Perceiving(33)% Change in results: -22% introvert +13% intuitive +74% feeling +0% perceiving It's certainly interesting--and kind of pointless. I know that several things outside of my control have led me to be more 'introverted' despite being quite extroverted as a child. Therefore I'd consider I and E the same, but INFP is 'the dreamer', and I like that title better. Since I do remember a few dreams a day, it's not as if I'm not literally a dreamer. Then again, when I took a test that had more organizational options I chose those, because I know that I always get things done more when I'm organized, but while I like being organized, it almost never happens. Picking organization options led to a ENFJ personality. Anyways, I'll stick with INFP or XNFP. I'm pretty sure that I'm NF at least, which is an idealist. Thank you, test, for telling me something that I probably already knew. I just thought that overthinking stuff irrationally was somehow a thinking trait and not a feeling trait, thus I used to think that I was more thinking. It'd be interesting to see again if other people's personalities have changed--or maybe people have just discovered what personality they had all along.

Take care!

4 gold 87 silver => 9 gold 12 silver.

4 gold 87 silver => 9 gold 12 silver.

5 gold 72 silver

3 gold 60 silver

I love this idea. :) It reminds me of how a witches broom is used to ritually cleanse a space/room of unwanted energy. I think that your idea is a perfect use for such a broom, TheRichMerchant. ^^ Maybe a mop can more easily cleanse the room, but it requires a bucket of water to use. Now feel free to totally disregard this, buuut--I remember reading that such spiritual/energetic cleansings tend to aim to align the energy of the room with the person doing the cleansing. If the energy of a Lorerootian is different from a citizen of Marind Bell . . . What if a room in Loreroot hasn't been visited by anyone for a long time and then a citizen of Marind Bell comes along and decides to stay in that room constantly, using all of their energy to sweep/mop the room? Despite the apparent permanent different natures of the lands themselves (not just the people), couldn't that make the room be more aligned with Marind Bell? Such a situation would likely not come about though. I'm not sure if this is a good idea yet, but it's an idea, which is why I'm posting it.

Happy Birthday!