G1 Slingshot and Movie Frenzy

[beckyh2112]

So, I am not really convinced of my ability to play jerks. Help?

Comments

[kalaryx.livejournal.com]

You're playing exactly the two characters I used to play in my one longterm RPG! :D

Playing jerks is always a sod, especially if people take the character's actions to heart. I always ended up taming them down in non-private RP for fear of winding people up.

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

If you say you also played Sunstreaker, I am finding the wire between our heads and disconnecting it!

It is. I find Slingshot's easier, because he seems to be more thoughtless about it. Frenzy strikes me as deliberately assholish.

[lunatron.livejournal.com]

How did I miss this!?

The thing about jerks is that they don't have to be jerks 24/7, especially in RPGs. Generally, in a comic, a cartoon, or a movie, we see only a little bit of a jerk character and we see the character at his/her worst because that is funny/dynamic/interesting for the viewer/reader. In a RPG, we see a lot more of the mundane day-to-day stuff, a lot more of the 'off' moments, where the character might not be at peak jerkitude, because realistically, if the character was at peak jerkitude 24/7, the other characters would lock him/her in a closet.

So don't worry about always writing the characters at peak jerkitude. This is not a movie where every second of footage needs to count and mean something.

That, and you're allowed to show and explore a softer side, because RPGs are a slower, more expansive medium.

That said, there are different kinds of jerks and different reasonings behind it.