You might introduce them in a story, you might actually roll them on your realm and bring them out to interact with your characters’ friends and guildmates.  Maybe you don’t do either, but your character’s always telling stories about a childhood friend, enough that other people feel like they’ve known that other person for years even though they’ve never met.

If you’re having a lot of fun with that NPC, sometimes this magical transformation occurs where they stop being an NPC and become a character in their own right.  Threnn’s sister Annalea started off that way — first in a few fics to establish their relationship, then rolled on Feathermoon to poke her head into the Pig ‘n’ Whistle every now and then.

But then there are the characters in-between:  with enough personality, interest and backstory that they’re not entirely NPCs anymore, but not quite ready to be full-fledged PCs, either.  You’re out of character slots, or simply don’t have the time to devote to a new character. Or — and this is when it gets fun — the NPC has sparked someone else’s imagination, and they’d like to borrow him for a story of their own.

So, what do you do when a friend says “Hey, I’d like to borrow Bob the NPC for a story arc?”

As always, communication is key.

• Ask how involved they’d like you to be. Do you simply need to proofread a post where the NPC makes a cameo for accents and mannerisms?  Do you need to log in and play the character to help with the plot progression?
• Get a run-down of the plot. What part does the NPC play in it?  Why would she get involved in the first place?  What will keep him hooked?
• If you don’t have a very hands-on part or can’t commit to one, write up a short character sketch for the person who will be controlling the NPC. Beyond the physical details and a paragraph or two on major events in his life, think about the scenario he’ll be facing.  What are the NPC’s motivations?  What will get him/her upset?  What points will she argue, what points will she concede?  How trusting is the character?  What things will they do reliably (do they stammer when they lie?)  What things will he never do (betray his family?  Commit treason?)
• Let the borrower know how much rein he has with the NPC. Can they make up bits of backstory if they need to?  Are you willing to let the NPC get hurt if the story calls for it?  Killed?  Exiled?

A lot of this hinges on trust.  If you’ve RP’d with the person borrowing the NPC in the past, chances are you’ll feel relatively comfortable sitting back and letting them call the shots.   If it’s a person you haven’t worked with as often, you might want to have a bit more editorial control/veto power.

The guidelines are much the same if you’re the one borrowing an NPC:

• Let the NPC’s creator know what the story entails. Give them an overview of the plot, let them know how long you think you’ll need the NPC for, if it’s a plot that would take up a lot of the character’s time or require them to travel away from the PC with whom they’re usually associated.  While you don’t have to go into every detail of the arc, be specific about the NPC’s role.
• Ask for a rundown of the NPC’s quirks and traits. It helps you get in the character’s head better, and lends authenticity to the writing/RP.
• Put it back the way you found it. Don’t do anything that breaks the NPC unless you have specific permission from his or her player to do so.
• Send a summary home with him. When the story arc is done, let the NPC’s original owner know what their character did on his summer vacation.  It might spark further RP, or give them a new angle for character growth.  It also ensures that, if someone else refers back to the plot later on when she’s back under her creator’s control, the NPC isn’t going “Huh?” about thing she’d know.

Thread’s open!  What else should we keep in mind when borrowing or lending characters?

So, take what I say much in the way the pirates describe their code: they’re more… guidelines.

The description add-ons are helpful supplements to the character models. Sure, you can choose your characters’ faces and skin/hair colors, but every human female has the same body shape. The character’s eye color depends on (I believe) the shade you choose for his/her hair. Unless you’re playing a Night Elf, there are no tattoos available.

Beyond the basic model and your outfits, the RP mods help you make the character a little more real, and can be very useful for conversation starters.

Of course, even if you have a very clear idea of what your character looks like down to the stitching on her boots, staring at that big, blank box can be intimidating. How do you figure out what to put in there? How much information is too much? Let’s see what we can hash out.

The first thing to keep in mind is that these mods are for physical descriptions, NOT backstory. There are only two occasions where I’ll flat-out state something as a rule, not a guideline. This is the first.

Your character was a Sentinel once upon a time? Great! Tell me she walks like a soldier, or that the bow she carries is one carried by the other kaldorei women under Shandris Feathermoon’s command. What I DON’T want to read about is why she signed up to be one, or how she spent the years during The Long Vigil. It might be a great story, but it’s one that ought to come out during RP.

When I see backstory in a description, I filter it out. My characters can’t read minds. Therefore, they won’t act on that information.

Can there be exceptions to this rule? Sort of. A few words of recent backstory that augment a physical description are sometimes acceptable. Has something changed about the character that people who know him might notice? Then it’s okay to allude to it. “Since his run-in with the Defias, John has walked with a limp.” Though, I’d argue that something like, “John has recently acquired a limp,” is still the better option, leaving room for acquaintances to ask what happened to him.

So, what do you put into that description box? Pretend you’re trying to describe the character to someone who’s never met him or her. What would you say?

Start with the basics.
How tall is he? Average height? Exceptionally short? What color is his hair? How does he style it? Does she wear glasses?

If you were telling someone who to look for in a crowded room, what would distinguish that person from everyone else?
Is she always wearing a certain kind of hat? Is he a troll with a broken tusk? Does she have a streak of black running through otherwise white hair?

What would someone standing very close to the character notice?
This is where the smaller, not immediately noticeable details come into play. Think jewelry, small scars, a particular scent. If the character’s a baker, maybe there’s a dusting of flour on his clothes. If she’s a gardener, there might be dirt under her nails. Describe the character’s voice — does she have a raucous laugh? Is he very soft-spoken?

Keep the five senses in mind.
Touch, hearing, smell, sight, and… Well, okay, maybe four. Taste isn’t likely to come into play very often, unless Skyborne’s decided to give you bathies.

Brevity is the soul of wit.
There might be a LOT of things that make your character distinguishable, but if your description makes other players scroll and scroll and scroll, you’re going to lose their attention quickfast. Pick out a few things, and be succinct. What’s most important? Don’t overwhelm people with information.

Different looks for different situations? No problem.
Some characters’ looks will change when they’re wearing armor, or acting in an official capacity: “When she’s on the battlefield, Threnn wears armor that is old but well-cared for.” It’s fine to dedicate some description space to that, just remember to keep it brief!

Did you do something to your hair?
Just like we don’t look the same day in and day out IRL, our characters will sometimes change the way they look. These changes can be temporary or permanent, but they’re definitely noteworthy. If it’s something you want to call attention to, try starting off a paragraph with “Currently…” Some people break it out from the rest of their description with asteriks or dashes. (“Currently, Annalea looks like she hasn’t been sleeping well. There are dark circles under her eyes, and she tends to startle easily.”)

Sometimes, less is more.
I’ve seen some great descriptions that are only a sentence or two long. I can’t remember who it was, but someone on Feathermoon’s RSP simply stated “This man looks like he’s up to no good.” You didn’t need to know anything else about him.

DON’T dictate other peoples’ reactions to your character.
This is my second rule-not-guideline. I see it all the time in RSPs — usually with ones proclaiming their mage has curves in all the right places, or suggesting that this Death Knight is Arthas’ long-lost twin — but it’s obnoxious in any context. All too often, it’s something like, “Sapphyre’s sparkling blue orbs make you catch your breath at their beauty.” Or “You feel a sudden burst of fear when Demonknight turns his gaze upon you, and you quicky look away, unable to meet that stare.”

You know what? No. I don’t care how breathtakingly beautiful you’ve declared your character to be. It doesn’t mean my character is going to fall all over him or herself with lust just because Sapphyre’s hips are swaying by. Likewise, your half-demon isn’t going to make my paladin cringe away because he’s radiating malevolence. Want my character to fear yours? Build up a reputation IC with the terrible things you’ve done. (This doesn’t, by the way, mean threatening Elly Langston and loosing your demons on Reese. That just gets your ass thrown out of the Pig.)

One’s eyes can’t plumb the depths of other players’ souls and know their deepest fears without their permission. Nor do passersby need to perk up at the aura of happiness Sparrkles exudes just because her description says so, or feel their fears assuaged by the comforting presence of the elf standing beside them at the mailbox. It’s a form of godmoding, and it’s NOT OKAY.

But what if you have a character who does exhibit one of these traits?  Give your fellow players the option of reacting. Try rewording it with “might” or “if” — “People who are sensitive to magic might notice the sharp smell of the arcane surrounding Jaina.”  “If someone is sensitive to demonic taint, they might feel a sudden flare of it when Joe passes by.”  But anything beyond that — mind-reading, mood altering, etc — needs to be worked out OOCly with the people you’re RPing with first.  If they agree to grant your character any insights, excellent!  But if they don’t, it’s something you need to respect as well.

All right, cats and kittens, that’s what I’ve got for RP description guidelines. What else would you add to that list? Any favorite RSPs to share?

1. No one RPs on Feathermoon anymore.  At all.  RP is dead.
2. RP happens, but it’s only in elitist cliques, and you’ll never break into them, don’t even try.
3. RP has been ruined for everyone, forever, because non-RPers grief it and Blizzard doesn’t police RP realms and last week I reported this one guy and I still see him running around Ironforge so since he didn’t get permabanned into next week I’ve stopped RPing and everyone else has, too.

Times like that, I feel like I’m something right out of Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail. Something sort of like this:

We have our valiant RP defenders that respond, insisting that we feel happy, and think we’ll go for a walk.  I’m not sure which side tends to win the shouting match — what proportion of the potential transfers actually do take the advice and roll a lowbie alt to give Feathermoon a try, and what proportion move on to other RP realms instead, because they’ve just gotten a glimpse of one of the quickest button-pushing subjects there is on our server.

I don’t know how often this happens on other RP servers — Argent Dawn and Scarlet Crusade are just as old as Feathermoon, I believe.  Moonguard is much newer.  But my advice for testing the waters is valid for any RP realm.  Ready?  Here goes:

RP IS WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT. ALWAYS.

Want to know what RP is like on Server X?  Asking on the forums isn’t the best way to learn that information — not every single person on a realm posts on its forums.  Chances are, there’s a large portion of RPers who never even visit them.  Plus, if you’re unfamiliar with the realm, you’re also going to be unfamiliar with its forum dynamic.  Lurking there for a while might give you a clue, but it still isn’t representative of the realm as a whole.  The only way to truly experience the RP on any particular realm is to do your own research.

How?  Easy.

Roll a character on that realm.

Pick your favorite race.  Get out of the starting area and into the nearest major city.  (Because, dear god, Goldshire is NOT going to be an accurate portrayal of a realm’s RP population.)

If you have an RP mod installed fill out your character’s description. It doesn’t have to be completely fleshed out.  You don’t need a full backstory.  It’s simply one more thing helps other people identify you as an RPer.

Another thing that helps?  Walk, don’t run. (Okay, run through Goldshire.  But once you’re in Stormwind proper, hit that / key.)  It gives you time to overhear conversations as you pass by.

Lurk for a while. See if the people nearby are having a conversation you can join in on.  Determining a private conversation from a public one is a whole post in itself, but for now, use your best judgement — if you were walking along the street in real life and overheard this particular dialogue, how would you react?  Two people who look like they’ve just been reunited after a long time apart? You should probably give them some alone-time.  Two people about to have a fistfight?  Maybe you’d try to break it up.

Still unsure?  Use your emotes. If RPers see you trying to engage them, chances are they’re going to respond in some way.  One of my favorite random RP encounters happened in Stormwind’s mage district, right near the well.  Threnn and Fells were having a fairly private conversation when a Draenei came along.  He didn’t try butting in, simply emoted that he saw the two human women, and sat himself down a distance away.  Then he took out a sketchbook, and started drawing them.  He didn’t join the conversation, even though both of us acknowledged his presence and broke off from what we were talking about to try to include him.  He finished his sketch, handed it to Fells, and moved on.  I don’t think we ever saw him again, but I sort of wish we had.

Don’t see any RP?  Start some. No, really, it’s not that hard.  Maybe the banker can’t find your deposit.  Or the auctioneer tried a bait and switch on you.  Or there’s a letter in your mailbox that makes you comment aloud.  Or Thomas Miller sold you a loaf of moldy bread.  Start small and simple, and see who reacts.  Try drawing someone nearby into the exchange.

If at first you don’t succeed… you know the rest.  Maybe there’s somewhere else on the server that’s an RP hotspot.  Maybe it’s just a quiet night, or the regulars in a certain area are off traipsing about in Ulduar — on Feathermoon, Thursday night is a pretty big raiding night, and even guild chat gets quiet when we’re staring down angry tantrum-machines.

It might take a few hours, or even a few days.  You might decide that a server’s not right for you, after all.  That’s okay!  You can put the big “No, thank you” stamp on that realm knowing that you at least gave it a try.  But, then again, you might find a new home for your characters that you never would have tried if you’d listened to the doomcryers.

RP is interactive.  It isn’t something that happens to you; it’s something that happens with you.

Instead, after events at Noxilite’s RP event last night, let’s talk a bit about how NOT to try insinuating yourself into a group of RPers.

A bit of backstory for you:  Noxilite gathers weekly in The Barrens, to catch up with one another and swap news and stories.  Newcomers are almost always welcome, as long as they’re polite and not there to disrupt RP.  We really only have one rule, which is: no harm comes to anyone at the fire.  If you try breaking that rule, you’re probably going to end up with some very angry Noxies skulking and looming and hoping for a chance to relieve you of most of your blood.

So, when a low-level blood elf asked Pill about a good RP guild, she told him about the RP night and suggested he come along.  He whispered Gharr, the guild leader, and came along to see us.  After a few minutes of hitting on the Sin’dorei ladies present in Thalassian (these are the times I wish we could learn other races’ languages…), he asked Gharr for a word in private.

Turns out, his story was that he’d been sent by… someone… to kill Gharr for… something… but had “thrown away his blade” when he realized Gharr wasn’t really a bad person.  Being naturally suspicious, Kansin — a troll rogue who is very protective of others in the guild — snuck over to see what was going on.  It became evident rather quickly that this player was in far over his head, and with every hole poked in his story, the lore-bending and other eyebrow-raising claims grew more and more ridiculous.

After a while, Kansin, giving the player a gentle out, suggested he either go back to Silvermoon and find the names of who had hired him to play the assassin, or to come sit quietly by the fire.  Instead, the elf ran off, waited a few minutes, then yelled “AAAAH!” and came back, collapsing.

With an arrow in his shoulder.

Because “they’d been watching” and knew he hadn’t carried out his job.

At which point, of course, at least three of us asked the logical question: if they’re hiding in the hills with arrows, why not just… shoot Gharr themselves?

The barrage of questions quickly made the player back off, typing into /say things like, ((lol this didn’t go the way I’d planned it, idk what to do next lol)).  And ((let’s just forget it and start over tomorrow lol))

Now, how and when and even if one should ever retcon is another post all by itself.  I don’t think the eight Noxies and friends who were there are going to be quite so willing to pretend that we’ve never seen this rogue before, especially after we dedicated an hour or more of RP to his story.  (Or, more accurately, to reacting to his story; Gharr and Kansin spent the majority of the time trying to help him salvage the plot while the rest of us looked menacing around the campfire.)

What I’m addressing here is the way he went about introducing himself to the story, and pitfalls he could have avoided.

The player’s ultimate goal, he told us at the end, was to join the guild.  Now, I’m not sure if he expected a guild invite at the end of the night, or if he viewed this as an introduction.  Noxilite requires a bit more interaction than one night of RP for us to throw out the /ginvite.

But let’s take a look at the fail.

What he did right:  talking to one of our members beforehand, and subsequently asking the GM some questions.  He also started out well enough, even if his declarations of admiration for the female blood elves was a bit over the top.

Where it went wrong: everything after that.

The assassination storyline failed on multiple fronts.

• Walking into RP suggesting you’re there to attack someone without first clearing it with them makes for some awkward moments. Even though his plan was never to truly attack Gharr, the mere suggestion that he was there to do so borders on godmoding.  It would be one thing if a player who had an RP history with Gharr had sent the kid.  This guy made up some nebulous NPC that had hired him — that suggests there are NPC enemies for Gharr that Gharr’s player hasn’t approved.Had he checked in with Gharr first, he might actually have found a bit of story there that Gharr could have let him latch onto.  However…

• He didn’t take into account what the guild’s reaction would be, either. Someone comes up and threatens our leader in front of seven of his friends, you can’t expect us to pat the would-be assassin on the head and tell him not to sweat it when he changes his mind.  With a little extra questioning, the player might have found out that the last time someone threatened a Noxie, they ended up facing a very angry Wall o’Tauren.**  Last night we had a low Tauren-count, but Linedan loomed enough for ten while we sorted things out.
• Once he “decided not to do it,” he didn’t have any answers prepared for why it was ordered in the first place. Sure, there are assassins who take on jobs not truly knowing anything about their employers or their targets — hell, it’s part of what made Grosse Point Blank such a great movie.  But when it’s the basis of your introduction to the guild you want to join, you’d damned well better have answers deeper than “I don’t know.”  Otherwise, your story leads…exactly nowhere.  And there’s no hook for the people you’re trying to draw into the story.  (Though, again, I point you to the first point — he really ought to have checked in with Gharr before deciding there were random people Out For His Head.)

For whatever reason, however, after his first twenty minutes of hanging out around the fire (the first ten of which, by the way, Gharr was offline to go buy me ice cream…) he decided that Gharr wasn’t such a bad orc after all, and didn’t really deserve to die.  Awww, an assassin with a conscience.  After dragging Gharr away to confess his abandoned deathplot, and after a good long grilling by Gharr and Kansin, elf-boy decided to slink away, presumably to try finding more information on who had sent him.  This was good!  This was at least a little promising, that he was willing to go think about the story and come back the next week with something more fleshed out.

Or so we thought.

Cue the AAAAHHH!, and the elf limping back to the fire with an arrow in his shoulder.  Begin the second round of fail.

Now, of course, you have a guild full of people standing around, looking down at him dispassionately.  Gharr and Kansin had enough time to relay the conversation to us, so the rest of us were… disinclined to assist the wounded rogue.  More story fail:

• If the people who want Gharr dead were waiting in the trees to shoot you if he didn’t do the job… why didn’t they just put an arrow through Gharr themselves? He hadn’t thought that one out, either.
• We tried giving him another out:  consider that the men who hired him sent him bumbling into a gathering full of people who are fairly deadly in their own rights.  Maybe they really didn’t want Gharr dead, and were instead trying to get rid of the rogue himself? Set the poor kid up to fail, get him out of their hair.  But he didn’t take it.
• It then came out that he thought that we’d offer him protection from his unnamed NPCs. Again, rather poorly thought out.  Our characters would be naturally suspicious of that — first you were here to kill our guild leader, now you want to be protected by us.  How do we know that’s not another ploy to get closer to the guild, for more opportunities to do Bad Things?  Granted, I don’t think the player would even have considered that possibility, based on his lack of forethought in other areas, but that’s what was going through several other heads at the time.
• At which point, he disintegrated into the ((lol this didn’t go where I planned idk let’s start over tomorrow lol ok?))  I’m not exaggerating  the lols and idks.

Still not quite sure what will happen if this rogue returns next week.  Honestly, from what he displayed last night, he’s not going to fit in with the guild.  I tried gently explaining, in whispers, that he might want to rethink the way he’d introduce a character to a group of people he didn’t know, but by that point, he had already tied his RP shoelaces together and tripped all over them.

What this boils down to, for someone looking to introduce themselves to a new group of roleplayers:

• If it’s an open RP night, observe for a while, see what you can pick up about the group dynamic. Are they at ease, bantering about their days, or is there some serious, heads-down plotting going on in low voices?
• If you’d like to set up a storyline as your intro, talk to people first. You will very likely find people willing to work with you to help set up an introductory plotline.  The advantage here is, they can help you tailor it to fit with the other plotlines already in progress.
• Don’t go bending the lore. Once his story started falling apart, our friend started making all sorts of claims about the government of Silvermoon that had Kansin thinking he’d been hit over the head one too many times.  People are going to catch it, and call you on it.
• Try to anticipate some of the questions you’ll get. You don’t have to have a whole long epic plotted out, but if you’re arriving under shady circumstances, be ready to get grilled and have some good answers prepared.  Who sent you?  How did you know where this group would be meeting?  Why shouldn’t they just throw you into a volcano and have done with you?

I think if our would-be assassin friend had tried just a few of these things, he’d have had a much better reception.  Granted, with all the lols and idks, (and other aspects of his IC conversation) I don’t think he’d fit in well with Noxilite overall; we’re kind of big on people using proper grammar and punctuation in our ooc channels.  But for pickup RP, he has a lot to learn.

**Noxilite and friends don’t take kindly to people threatening Davien with harm.  I ought to dig for screenshots of her sitting calmly behind the Wall o’Cows while someone postures on the other side.

So you want to be a bastard. You want to RP the mean, acerbic character who may (or may not) have a heart-of-gold.  This is the character that never has a kind word for anyone.  The  “Hero” who only wants money, fame, booze, sex or a combination therein. Here’s the problem:  Who wants to associate with self centered, loud mouthed obnoxious individual?  Having played a bastard on Feathermoon since launch, I have six pointers on how you can RP a bastard and not isolate yourself from your friends and guild mates.

1)  Backstory
Every good character has a back story. The same holds true for bastards because bastards have reasons for their bastardry. Develop those reasons. Maybe your dwarf isn’t really a bastard in the truest sense of the word.  She may really care about others but she comes off gruff and coarse due to cultural translation. Maybe your bastard comes from the elitist prick school of behavior–that only the high and mighty of Azeroth are his equals–so he condescends to everyone.  To be a bastard, one needs to clearly know how they became a bastard. A good back story, one that incorporates your fellow RPers, guildies or friends, allows for that character’s easy introduction to the server.

Your bastard can provide a foil for more traditional characters.  Your bastard may be able to provide contrast for other toons.  By developing your backstory, and incorporating other RPers, you have built in a way to introduce and keep your bastard around.

2)  Collaboration
When one plays a bastard, one has a tendency to do (and say) things that may isolate oneself from the rest of the server.  Cursing, insults, snarky comments and nasty retorts can push other players away from you.  It is your responsibility,as the player of a bastard, to work with other players to establish that the character, and not the player, is the Jerk.  If you run with an established group of RPers, this should be a fairly easy task.  Talk to you players and say, “this next toon is a jerk. How can I work with the established toons?”  If you don’t have a group of RPers you frequent, playing a bastard may not be the best idea.  I strongly suggest talking to people OOC and be very clear: The player appreciates and respects the interactions.  The character is a jerk.

When running an instance, be polite OOC.   When RPing, keep an open line of communication with the people you are RPing with.  Failing that and your bastard may become a cranky hermit.

3)  Flair
There is a difference between a bastard and an asshole.   Bastards know about people’s comfort zones and boundaries.  Typically, they push, pull and test the boundaries.  Assholes do this too; however,  people like being around bastards.  No one likes to be around an asshole. The difference between the Bastard and the Asshole is one part style, one part purpose.  The Bastard has flair and a reason for their bastardry. The asshole lacks one, or both, of these key factors.

For instance,  take comic book anti-hero John Constantine.  He’s a brilliant, spot on bastard. He’ll use people, disappear for weeks at a time, fake his death, get his friends and lovers killed …and yet people still flock to him.  Constantine has style.  Furthermore, he typically has a purpose–saving himself, London or the world–and this is why he pushes the established boundaries.  He’s witty and charming, even when he is working his con.

Now that guy in your guild who ninja’d the epix last week and complains that he wasn’t invited to this week’s run? He’s an asshole.  He ignored the social constraints, thought about himself then whined about the consequences.  He has no purpose other than to be self-serving.  He also lacks style.  This makes him a flat out asshole.

In short, both the bastard and the asshole would steal a protagonist’s significant other.  The bastard will do it with panache.  The asshole will just do it.

Develop your bastard’s sense of style, otherwise you’re just RPing an asshole.

4) Boundaries
Every bastard has a limit, a line they will not cross.  Your bastard needs those limits to provide definition to their bastardry.  Maybe your bastard doesn’t mock other races.  Maybe your bastard is a devout Elunite.  Maybe your bastard gave up drinking.  With your backstory, develop what ever line you have.  Flirt with it, push it or break it but always know those limitations.

Communicate these boundaries with your RP peers. They can help you develop and challenge you, and your bastard, as you RP.

5)  Never Apologize in Public
If your bastard needs to apologize–and I promise they will–never be sincere in front of a crowd.  Half assed apologies are part of the bastard’s MO:  you spin the blame to someone else.  If your bastard has to apologize for something, do it in private.  This way, you salvage your reputation and can deny doing it later.

6) A Change is Going to Come
All good characters grow and change.  Be prepared for your bastard to mellow, even if it is just for a brief period of time.  The down time lays the ground work for additional quirks down the road.  Allowing for your bastard to develop as a character helps to  establish how your character impacts the world around him or her.

There is a common theme through these pointers:  Open communication and collaboration.  Your character is the bastard:  You are the conscientious and courteous RPer who is playing a bastard.  Communicate your ideas and work with your fellow RPers while you work on this particular character.  Be willing to work with others, but keep in mind the boundaries and limitations you have set for your bastard.  Given these simple suggestions, you have the potential to create even more dynamic stories to tell.

BB