Treatise on "Toons"

[Rinnaldo]

What is your preferred way of referring to your characters?

I ask because I simply hate the epithet, "toons." Is it just me? I think this may stem from my role-playing background. I don't roleplay on DDO (I prefer to think that my characters have a background in there somewhere, though I can't currently be bothered to worry about it), but maybe I have a more personalized sense of my characters than those who dismiss them as "toons."

Is "toons" a dismissive term? To me, it says, "I don't really care about any of these avatars, and I can change into and out of them as easily as I'd slip on a new hat." (I am, of course, ignoring that this is true in DDO.) It makes me think of a simplistic cartoon sketch of a character, rather than a deeper or personal one - EVEN THOUGH my DDO characters are not very deep or personalized. They still represent me, as a player, and they are an extension of myself into a world; not simply a background, throwaway stand-in running around Toon Town in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

Don't get me wrong, I hold no grievance against anyone who likes the term; this post is not meant to provoke a flamewar. I just wondered if it irks others as well, and whether it's related to playing D&D in real life, or what. If you are a person who uses the term "toons" to talk about your characters, do you feel you are trivializing them? Have I overthought this?

So, how do YOU refer to your set of characters, and - if you have a reason - why? If there are other terms that you find annoying, what are they? As you may have already ascertained, I simply call mine, my "characters." As in, I have a level 6 barbarian character on Ghallanda.

Please share your thoughts.

[dranreb]

I call mine "characters". I use it because it's a D&D-derived term, and I also think it's more accurate.

I'm not offended if anyone calls them toons. Frankly, I don't care what anyone calls them. But, for me, it will always be character.

[kitselli]

Agreed!
I too refer to my characters as 'characters'. Not dissing those that choose the other moniker... Having played that other MMO where you play 'toons', I even referred to them as characters.
For me it's just more classy and classic to refer back to PnP days.
The only 'toons' were on TV on Saturday mornings.
Be well.
Kit

[dunklezhan]

I tend to use character in speech, toon in text. Two reasons:

1. Its quicker to type toon.
2. I held out through years of playing WoW, insisting on calling them characters, tutting at people who used 'toon' like they were some kind of illiterate. But oddly, within weeks of playing DDO I'd started using 'toon', too, because it was obvious that RP was practically a dirty word here. In WoW I was in an RP guild on an RP server. RP was everwhere, the game engine itself and the add ons you could get supported it really well, the Lore was everywhere and easily accessible... it was very easy to consider them 'characters'.

Here? May as well be toons.

Not like there's an RP happening anyway that I've been able to find, at least on Argo. So why pretend its more than a hack and slash? Used to irritate me - I got over it. I can certainly understand why it might annoy however. I yearn for some RP but the game engine just makes it so difficult to immerse myself I've stopped even looking. What DDO does have, however, is an awesome hack and slash engine and character build options (though pretty appalling at fixing character builds, truth be told). And that's enough to keep me.

[kernal42]

I much prefer "character" to "toon", but end up using both mostly because "toon" has fewer syllables. I sometimes even refer to them as "alts."

Cheers,
Kernal

[Vellrad]

I personally don't like this "toon" term, I mean, I'm talking about Vellrad, character from video game, not about Fred Flinstone, character from TV show. Yeah, I might be using it once/month or 2, because I don't want to repeat character over and over, and not everyone undersands what "char" or "avatar" could mean.

[Impaqt]

"toons" doesnt bother me at all and I have an extensive PnP Background

[MarinMegara123]

I prefer to use 'my bard' or 'my warchanter bard' or 'my ranger'.

[Rinnaldo]

"toons" doesnt bother me at all and I have an extensive PnP Background

Haha! Awesome! +1 for nostalgia! Never considered "toons" in terms of the old D&D cartoon before... (I still hate the term, but this made me laugh.)

[EyeRekon]

I'm lazy and prefer typing and saying the one-syllable "Toon" over the three-syllable "Character"
I much prefer the term "Character" though as "Toon" kinda makes me feel immature.

[Tholar]

I always use characters, this definitely does come from my PnP days. I would call it force of habit rather than a dislike of the other terms used.

[LordMond63]

I'd say that "character" is certainly more true to DnD's 'roots'.

I'd venture to say that pretty much all of us who played PnP looked at the random numbers, race and equipment that we generated to play the game and infused it with at least some personality, motivation, etc. I guess the degree depended on how comfortable you were with roleplaying (along with, chances are, the effectiveness of said roleplaying). So, in the sense that you imbued your creation with those qualities, I think you'd have to say that every one of them were "characters" in the same way that everyone in a play is an actor.

However, the very nature of MMOs does not really lend itself to imbuing your online creation with a personality. I have been a member of Guilds in other games that required Roleplay when not adventuring (like in interactions with players outside the Guild) but the effort was rarely appreciated and expended perhaps too much effort. Since this is the case in most circumstances, I really cannot argue with the use of the term "toons". I don;t consider it derogatory in the slightest; it is just a term of convenience that fits the (of necessaity) unidimensional nature of the beast.

[Hecate100]

I refer to mine as "characters". If I don't feel like typing it out, I shorten it to "char". The double meaning seems appropriate since my chars are always getting charred in the game with fire traps, fire elementals, etc.

[Zilta]

I generally use chars, not a fan of toon

[Failedlegend]

I prefer Character when talking but Chars just doesn't look/sound right so I use Toons when typing

[AyumiAmakusa]

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to. Who cares?

[Ashurr]

Character or alt. The term toon doesn't get on my nerves, just not my thang.

[Tholar]

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to. Who cares?

I'll call mine characters, and yours are forever toons.

[Tyndaleon]

Character or alt. The term toon doesn't get on my nerves, just not my thang.

This is me pretty much, I don't care too much if others use the word toon but I never will. I've also seen and sometimes used the word 'avatar' myself as well, though usually just characters or to use a short version, 'alts'.

[Postumus]

I call mine "characters". I use it because it's a D&D-derived term, and I also think it's more accurate.

I'm not offended if anyone calls them toons. Frankly, I don't care what anyone calls them. But, for me, it will always be character.

Same here.

I also think 'toon' is just more of the truncated forum jargon like 'horc,' 'helf,' 'pally,' 'barb,' etc that people overuse b/c they think it makes them sound cool or DDO chic - which is in itself quite amusing.