Need some advice

[Fea]

Hey, I'm new here (bordering on my third week, wow!), and I've got to say, TI is an amazing game. It's everything and more that I could have imagined, and I love being a part of the community; but recently, I've been a tad troubled with something, and I'm unsure if it is just another element of the game's multifarious nature, or a flaw that only I seem to be recognizing, if it is a flaw at all - I'm a newb after all, and I might just be picking at something that really shouldn't be picked at.

I've met a ton of characters in the RP that I've gotten, and a few are so incredible that I'm going to recommend them as soon as I'm done with this post, but in general, I feel as if the RP engendered through the majority of players I interact with is mundane and repetitive, in the sense of meeting the characters for the first time. Basically, I feel as if I'm RPing with the same person in almost every scene I enter, even though I know that these are new characters and people. Is it perhaps in the theme of the game? It's a tough world, and the denizens of Lithmore have become accustomed to strife and melancholy, I understand, but I feel as if I just keep running into the same personalities over and over again, the same trope, the same cliche: the silent, stoic, dry-humored badass or the flustered, skittish kind of thing. I don't want anyone to feel as if playing this kind of character is necessarily 'bad' or something; please don't mistake me - I'm not trying to make people change the way they RP, hell, I'm far from stuff like that. I just want to know if that's what the theme encourages and whether I'm playing a character out of said theme and whatnot.

I know you guys may be looking over this with a critical brow and eye, thinking "What the heck is the noob on about, imposing stuff on us?". I'm really not trying to do that at all. I just want to know if the common use of such character traits is a result of the world and its socio-political influences on the people, i.e. the Order's strident enforcement of Davism and the Reeves' secular yet royal-sanctioned policing (sumptuary).

[Dice]

While I've definitely encountered some more tropey characters, I've also met a wealth of interesting and individual ones as well! I might suspect that a lot of what you've been seeing might actually be due to one major thing: public RP.

A lot of characters that appear simple on the surface have a lot of depth and interest beneath - depth that only comes out beyond tavern scenes and other very public interactions.

Moreover, it may partially be due to the nature of your character as well. You add a lot of entertaining conflict to the game, but the downside to conflict-driving characters can be difficulty in getting close to other people. You'll get a lot of the same reactions out of even very different characters in conflict situations.

[Applesauce]

TI has its fair share of tropes, but there's also the IC fact that doing anything to draw attention might get you in trouble with the Order (or, to a lesser degree, the Reeves). In public, MOST people tend to talk about the weather, drink, eat, smile and nod. Because that's what everyone does, and you don't get singled out as "interesting" by investigative sorts.

Once you make some friends that way, you will probably end up in non-tavern and non-Crossroads scenes that will mess your shtuff up.

Long story short, no the theme doesn't force people to play simple. If your character fits a medieval-ish theme and your personality is unique, more power to you. You won't be alone.