I try to find some reason for why my character is specifically interested in their character. I try to approach scenes with some IC goal in mind, so we’re not just standing around, we’re trying to move to a specific point.
For example, all things I’ve done:
- If I’m playing a bard, I might compose a song about their character
- If I’m playing a journalist, I might interview them for an article
- If I’m playing a bartender, I might name a dish or cocktail after them
- If I’m playing a private eye, I might interrogate them about their whereabouts during a recent crime
- If I’m playing an evil scientist, I might contrive a reason for why they’re uniquely important for the purpose of my experiments.
With varying degrees of success, I also try to make people laugh, most often at the expense of my own character’s flaws. I think this also has the double effect of signalling to the other player that I’m aware of these flaws and not gonna take it too seriously OOC if they wanna rib or even just disagree with my character. Which is also a signal I seek out in other preferred scene partners. For example, in a single pose my character might brag about how they can totally clear a hurdle, fail spectacularly, and then get embarrassed. And that way, hopefully you the player know that I’m not expecting you to glaze how cool and perfect my character is, which I think nobody really enjoys doing.
