Conclusion
You may see a few common threads here.

The first is that Characters Who Have Handles That Say One Thing But Who Are Never Seen To Act In A Way That Involves That Handle Are NOT INTERESTING.
Not just handles. Anything in your characters past or history. If you say you're a child priestess then by damn, play a child priestess- think about it, think about the ways a child (because they are a child foremost) would react to the kind of life you're describing. If you say you're a beaten, brutalise slave girl, react to that! If you have cat features and a tail, describe the consequences of this in your existance! If you have ten kids cos you have another one every time you get bored, play the life, physique and mentality of someone with ten squalling infants hanging off their arms.

The second is that Perfection Is Not Interesting.
Once upon a time there was a perfect society. Everyone was equally gorgeous, equally amiable, equally intelligent and equally healthy. Nothing bad ever happened there. THE END.
Not very interesting, is it?

I know you come in here to escape from real life issues and so on, and I'm not saying play crippled, intellectually disabled people with constant runs of really really bad luck- though I, personally, think that's a bloody brilliant character idea, if someone played it well. I'm just saying this perpetual perfection, where random chance never strikes anyone down, is pretty boring. I think this is also connected to the overproliferation of godlike healing powers. Injuries, illnesses and birth defects aren't very interesting when someone can wave a wand and make it all better.

So when you play your characters, rather than ONLY taking the very very best of everything your character concept has to offer, try throwing in some bad bits. Like- you're a cat person, right? Instead of taking the ooh so sexy seductiveness of a human libido and the supposedly 'sexy' cats eyes features, plus the patience of a nun, the goodness of Florence Nightingale and the mothering spirit of a chicken, try a little imperfection. Try being short-tempered some time. Try having a kid who has a club foot. Try shedding. Try having six boobs. Try not being the world's most sweet-charming-patient-hospitable-sweet-tempered paragon of a woman. I dunno, try SOMETHING.

Perfection is the stereotype. Stereotypes are not interesting. BREAK OUT OF THE STEREOTYPE.

The third is that Extremes of Character Creation are Rarely Interesting, or, Sometimes The More Mundane, The More Interesting,.
So you're a half-cat half-human who just escaped from a laboratory where they were kept, tortured and beaten by eeeevil eeeevil scientists?
So you escape, run away, and tell everyone your sob story... uh, what then? I guess you could go into a Dragonfly cycle, but as we all know, That Is Not Interesting.
Come on, how many normal characters are there in the Castle? Now ask, how many totally extreme cat-dog-angel-winged-massively tall-extroadinarily-beautiful people are there?

Try playing a single concept. Play a kid. Really try hard. Concentrate on the language, the body language, the behaviour. Remember being a kid? Remember how funny it was when someone farted or made a poo joke? Remember how good junk food was and how rarely you got it? remember what an exciting event it was when you fell over and skinned your knees? What kind of badge an honour a great big yellow bruise was? Remember how you so very very rarely EVER acted like the perfect child and no-one you know ever did either?

Play THAT. Don't play whichever stereotype is dancing around your mind. Play something you know or remember, and do your best to play it well. It's the best way I can think of to improve a lot of your skills, and truly, imagination is more useful in a mundane character. You can have truly elaborate character concepts who are the most dull, least interesting, least imaginative beings once in play I've ever come across.

Use your imagination, but direct it to the most interesting HUMAN you can play.

If you feel up to a challenge, play an animal. I don't mean someone who can mind speak with humans and really has a human brain even though they look like a big white tiger who has six kittens at once and a human husband.

Play a dragonfly. How does a dragonfly fly? What're the colours of the sun through it's wings? What the hell do you think a dragonfly thinks about? Does it think? What're the forms of it's thoughts? Go look at a dragonfly if you need ideas- or if you're feeling really nerdy, download a video file of one.

This is a handy practise character because dragonflies only live for one day. They cannot eat, shit or pee while in their adult dragonfly form. They hatch from the pupae, fly around for 24 hours or less trying to mate, and die.
Not exactly a long-term commitment.
If dragonflies aren't your thing, try something more familiar: a cat, a dog, a lemming, a ferret, I dunno, a none? Play true animals. Play a dog with it's incredible sense of smell or a cat with it's hearing. Play a goldfish. Play whatever you think will help you.

The more practise you get with the mundane, the more convincing and interesting you will actually be if you still feel the need to play the extremes

The fourth and final is that Description When Used In The Right Quantities Is Interesting.
Description really can be the key to making your cat person more interesting and realistic, and it is certainly the key to making your 'mundane' character truly interesting. Don't spend a page and a half talking about the colour of her eyes; spend half a paragraph describing the body language peculiar to this individual.

Description works especially well with Imperfection. Use a few judiciously placed negatives to play up the positives. I mean, what good're a pair of Stunning Emerald Eyes if the rest of you and every other person in existance is equally stunning?

Describe feelings, beyond angry, sad, frustrated, happy. Describe why they are, what they look like when any of the above, what their reactions are, how they feel about the person or events that made them that way.

This post is not aimed at converting all of roleplaydom into Ali (tm) style roleplay. It's pointers from Ali's point of view as to how the majority of new roleplayers I see out there can try to improve their roleplay. It's not complete, I know. It is simply based on the character creation techniques of a very few character types. I have not attempted to cover combat, evilness, or a whole lot of other great issues facing the Castle. I might one day offer my opinion on those as well. I might not.

I hope you get something out of this. I hope that if you think anything I wrote is really dumb, or you have a better idea, that you care enough to write a coherant response and let it be used on the Roleplay page.

I hope that if you found this in the least bit helpful, you'll let me know.

Have fun,
Ali
[email protected]

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