First time Role-player?

I was walking home one chilly night. My hands where taking shelter in my pockets, complaining the loudest about the sudden disappearance of warmth. Now, I don't tend to carry an MP3 player with me on commutes so only my weird thoughts occupied me. On this occation, I thought of this question:

What advice could I give to someone just starting to Role-play and is making their first character?

I thought about this, for a while and came to a good tip: Use what you know.

So, your character is made up of plenty of things but the most basic bits are the appearance, personality and a history. An appearance is easy. You describe what you see in your head. History is harder but its something that can be made up quickly with little fuss, depending on whether you've thought about it. Its the personality that is the most complex. You see, you've got to embrace this personality, as a Roleolayer, and make it interesting or you'll both loose interest.

If you read about the 'Mary Sue' article that is also in this section, you can comb it for do's and don'ts for your character.

That, of course, is all well and good but where do you begin? I've met quite a few that simply decided to use what personality they knew best: Their own. To me, it is a good tip for getting to grips with Roleplay when you have little experience.

When you play a character, you must think within the barriers of that character's personality in terms of their response to the world and events of the Roleplay. Its easy to stray out of that set of boundaries that character is expected to operate inside. So, its simpler to place your own personality in the body of the character, because who can be you better than you, right?

Obviously, its unlikely to be a total copy of you. You see yourself through a filter that will affect your first character and that is natural. Also, it won't be you anyway because your not living the same way your character is. Your character has been and will be shaped by a different past and present than yourself. It is an alternate reality you.

Its roleplay with stabilisers. Once you feel you've got the hang of things, you can try new things of course but start with what's simplest first and build your way up. Like trees and RPG characters, you gotta start small.