A thread to put character bios in

[Asbestos]

Oh, not ruining it, no, not by far, but that much detail is going to restrict the possibilities for character development, which is one of the main points of RP'ing!

Anyways, in my opinion, your character sheet, in, say, a fantasy RP, only needs to contain:

Name:
Age:
Sex: (Not necessary, usually the history gives it away with "Him" or "Her"
Race:
Abilities:
History:

Things can get really badly mixed up if you're going to throw and already completely developed character into an RP.

[rolemen]

exactly it destryos an element of rping: devoloping the charachter as you goi along, so the first few posts made by said person and noone can find interesting likes/dislikes, people already found it out and quite a few posts or parts of posts can be boring,

[Mikodite]

Not to mention that characters should have the stronger relations with characters within the roleplay that are not npcs, and relations with anyone else is nothing more than mere background.

In an essence a character needs to be just developed enough to show where they are coming from, and the roleplay determines where they are going. Not to mention very complete characters are predictable and are not that much fun to roleplay with. This isn't D'n'D where there is going to be dice throws and experience points while pwning the monsters. Here we work in a world, with characters that have goals and objectives, sometimes hidden goals and objectives. That just makes the roleplays just that much more fun.

[LordLynxx]

Example:

Originally Posted by LordLynxx

Character sheet:

Name: Tündér Farkas (T-Sis)
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Rank: Civilian
Position: Junior(or Part-time) Librarian and Substitute-Teacher at the Educational Center
Appearance: |Image| Slender, fit, but not athletic body. Her musing, deep silver eyes always wander, her expression barely changes from curiosity to smiling. Her light-golden hair reaches her tiny shoulders, but no more. Her dress code allows only solid, non-obtrusive clothes. Everything on and around her is perfectly organized.
Numbers: Birth: March 13. Height: 164cm Weight: 54kg B/W/H: 90/59/87

Biography: She is the last descendant of the Farkas family. The family was once the house of great inventors and philosophers. Her family worked for generations on the project of Horus, even before its name was decided. Her grandfather was the last person in the family who kept the tradition and worked for Novarian Ship Design. His work of a lifetime granted him a ticket to the voyage, but considering his age, they couldn't let him go by himself. That was when Tündér, his grand-daughter, volunteered to be his companion, because the other members of the family wouldn't want to take care of the crazy old man.
Before that, she was a top student in high school and she was first year in the college. She studied philosophy, but she joined several inventor and math clubs. She could be called as a prodigy, but since it was the least they wanted from her, she wouldn't take it as a compliment.
She was one of the first thousand people who could set feet on Horus, taking the opportunity, she got herself a part-time job as a librarian, but she was acknowledged by her intelligence, so she was asked for substitute-teaching on occasions.
Her name means fairy in Hungarian, but its hard to pronounce, so the students and her acquaintances started calling her T-Sis. She didn't like it, because it sounded like some cyborg brand.
Personality: She is always deep in thoughts or in books. She hides her kindness with a lazy attitude, but she would help the ones in need. She loves candy lemons and oranges.

Notable Skills: Advanced knowledge in Quantum-Physics, Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy and Psychology. Problem-solving attitude and great memory.
Other: She often helps his grandfather, who still works on weird inventions. Sometimes she speaks in Hungarian. People often seek them for help. His grandfather's motto: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

With this much, you can develop the character's background while starting to know the roleplay better, so it will fit better. In your case, the rp world would be pretty limited. Though, it depends on the player.

[Yvette Cloutier]

I personally find that having a richly developed background for a character allows for greater development in the future. If the complex personality already exists, the changes it undergoes are consequentially more complex. I find that starting with an underdeveloped character usually creates a roleplay in which I merely reveal a more developed character already extant in my head, and creates nothing new. Although such development could ruin a roleplay if that development entailed maturity, or if the author was unwilling to change the character's personality, I suffer from neither of these faults. I prefer to start with an already revealed, developed but juvenile character (and if you read through the bio, you will find that she is indeed a very faulted character, despite the amount of development that went into sharpening and explaining that juvenility), and allow the difficult circumstances of that roleplay to expose her weaknesses and force change that even I won't be able to predict. . Although the same can certainly be done with an underdeveloped character, I find the process much more enjoyable if it happens with an intricately faulted character. I can't keep a complex character together in my head. I have to have the personality, and the background that formed it, on paper. This is true both in creating and remembering that character

. I've tried both methods, and whatever your arguments may be, the experience has always been much more enjoyable when I've worked with characters that I've already developed.

However, the purpose of this thread is not to debate the proper methods for creating roleplay characters, but to decide whether or not a section for characters would or would not be useful at this forum. Obviously, the popular opinion is no, and I'm willing to accept that.

Thank you.

[LordLynxx]

However, the purpose of this thread is not to debate the proper methods for creating roleplay characters, but to decide whether or not a section for characters would or would not be useful at this forum. Obviously, the popular opinion is no, and I'm willing to accept that.

We were discussing the methods, because it might be useful to understand the necessity of a character sub-forum. You see, the PW had a whole sub-forum for characters where you could put a whole thread about you character. Most of the players who registered their characters there didn't even reached the half of the maximum character limit of the first post.

If you didn't enjoy making a simple character sheet, then i'm sure nobody would mind if you make your 4-5postly character sheet into the ooc.

[Atshihano]

What about for the Arena? It'll be nice to have a sub forum for character profiles, especially for combat purposes so that some people would know what they are up against

[rolemen]

ansaost in the IC!!!
actualy the art of posing charachter sheets in the IC can help go back to see the enemies weakneses, avilatys, etc. without having to go all teh way back to a charachter sheet thread that will have the charachter sheet die so quikly that it would take major work to get to it, and the guild loadibng time is already plenty slow.Anyway teh Arenea charachter sheets have a degraded scence of story so teh charachter sheets won't take much space as regular RP's do(or story building rp's, as they are rather called).

[Atshihano]

I know both Fire Fox and Internet Explorer have a tab feature which lets you look at two pages with just one browser open. You can also open two browsers, one with the character profile and one with the thread you are posting in.

Anyway, people can post character profiles in the sub-forum which helps listen their character's special moves/powers/abilities, details about their weapons, ect. You'll be surprise how detail it could be.

[Lancrist]

It's only really necessary in boards like the Persistent World.