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Forums » RP Discussion » Question on Anon characters?

Hey everybody. Well I’ve always wondered why do people do anonymous character? Please do not be offended if you have them, I don’t hate them or anything. I just want to know why. I have many rp’s that have started with an anon character, but I’m always a bit more hesitant .

Can someone explain why they make them anonymous? No judgment, just curious.
I personally have no anonymous characters, but it might be if the character differs from their normal characters/play style? Like, say you usually do very dark, gritty roleplays but want to try out a more positive character? Idk, that's my take on it.
I only have a handful of anon characters but typically I make a character anon until I'm done fleshing out their page to my tastes. If I make them anon with the intention of keeping them anon long term it's usually because they 1. either don't really line up with what I want to be associated with me and I want to see how they are received first 2. I want the RP idea I have to be approached in an unbiased manner. Sometimes people like a character of mine, like the idea, but sometimes get intimidated or have some preconceived notions - or I worry they do - and so I make some characters anon to remove bias.
Redrose Topic Starter

Thank you guys for your input! It’s beggining to make sense.
Mipps

90% of my characters are a anon. It's a personal preference as some of my characters are old and I don't want to showcase them anymore.. or they are very dark characters.. which are most of them... Or they are characters that break my usual roster.

As a female I play a lot of male characters that are straight. And some people have a hard time wrapping their head around that so I find it easier to be a anon.

that and I think a lot of people have a hard time distinguishing between good and villain characters.. because I play a lot of villain characters a lot of people don't trust my good characters if they know I'm the player behind them..

So I find that being anon allows me the freedoms I need to express the character as they are without conflict of taking my other characters or my personal profile into context.

It's actually quite liberating to play anon. because people don't have any expectations beyond the single character profile. I believe it allows me to be more comfortable in that character skin so to speak.
Sanne Moderator

One of the side-effects of being a moderator is that a lot of people feel intimidated by that status (even when I wasn't a moderator for many years, it still seemed to have a lingering effect) and then are too scared or nervous to play. That makes me a little sad, cause I'm still just your everyday RPer who's here to have the same amount of fun as everyone else. :) Having most of my characters as anonymous means I get a lot more requests for RP and people are more likely to accept my RP proposals because it's not tied to my name and the mod label, which is nice! I like it when my RP partners can relax.
Rogue-Scribe

I echo Mercy, Mipps, and Sanne in the reasoning for using Anons for RP. I personally create all my characters as anons until I get them fleshed out in which I switch them to Public.

Some characters I choose to keep anon but don't make a big secret letting any potential writing partners who enter into an RP with one of them who is writing them. I've only had one person suddenly decide to not write the RP after finding my account name was associated with the character. I also have a couple 'deep-cover' anon characters as well, just because I can. :)

Re Sanne, yeah I had that issue on another site where I was an admin. The RPs were quite stunted since the name association was there.

Re RedRose, no offense taken. :)
Redrose Topic Starter

Thanks everyone! I hope it didn’t offend anyone with anon characters. And now I’m understanding why they are used so often. 😀.

Who knows maybe I’ll create my own and link it here.

Jk jk. 😉
Queen_of_Hell

Well I am a founder of a group and all of my characters have my name displayed, but those that aren't tied to my group, I would put them as anon, since I want people who visit my profile to see that 99% of my account is dedicated to the group. Plus I have some group characters that have an air of mystery to them and I put them under anon just to keep that cryptic vibe about them hahaha

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