@HaleyTheRandom Well, for my 21st birthday, I went with my family to a bar and ended up kissing a bald guy on his head who was at the countertop. I remember that being funny just because it was my first time at a bar and buying my own drink. It was also one of the first times I got really drunk. Like, I remember being at Savemart after we left the bar and I kept waving to people who walked by me and Nicole (one of my older sisters).

There's also a memory (one of them at least) I have with one of my best friends, who I pretty much grew up (knew him since 8th grade), where we would do a lot of dumb shit. Staying up all night, playing video games, mixing all of the available soda options at McDonald's, and being idiots by doing the following for people passing us by the road: youtube.com/watch?v=c7TfJcuIWmQ

Honestly, I have a lot of writing/roleplaying-related memories I could talk about too. But thinking about them does make me smile. I haven't lived an exciting life but I am pretty thankful for these memories. I may not be sad about what's happening -- at least not when it comes to the quarantine -- but I can understand why some might be anxious one way or another.

Okay guys.

Give me your favorite season.

Autumn. It's not aggressively hot and shitty like summer but it's not as annoying and shitty as winter. It's like spring bit cooler because the leaves are going through their edgy teen phase.

Personally, I don't have a favorite season, especially since weather is almost impossible to attach to a specific season here as there's rarely a pattern in weather. Some years we had constant rain in March, this year we've had snow.

I guess I'd have to say spring since I have a spring birthday (April 10th), though?

As someone who stays up late all the time, summer. It is the only season when nights are more comfortable than days.

Autumn/Fall.

Light jacket day weather, nighttime isn't freezing, and generally vibes with the midwest the best than Summer or Winter for me personally.

Autumn/Fall.

Light jacket day weather, nighttime isn't freezing, and generally vibes with the midwest the best than Summer or Winter for me personally.

if you aren't wearing a jacket every day are you really living

I'm inclined to favor autumn and winter. California winter can get chilly but not cold by the standards of those who are on the east coast (specifically northeast coast). Still, they can be enjoyable here and I like it that way.

Autumn. It ain't freezing cold, it ain't hot af, goldilocks references aside it also houses a holiday revolved around horror and candy so it's a keeper.

Okay guys. This one's gonna be RP related.

"Should likes/dislikes, hobbies, fears, etc. be included/required in a character sheet? What are some of the things that are absolutely mandatory for a character sheet? What are some things that we're better off leaving out?"

Things like likes and dislikes should always be left out in anything not SoL. The majority of the time they won't have any effect on the story and are in turn redudant. Yeah, your character hates bananas, but who's going to go out of their way to write that when the RP is about aliens invading or some shit like that? It becomes more of a "tell, don't show" sort of thing, and sometimes this happens in SoL too--people will write that their character likes or dislikes something yet never bring it up in a RP.

As for mandatory things, the basics should obviously be included. Name, age, appearance, background, etc. If it isn't part of the basics, then it probably shouldn't be included unless it is absolutely RP and/or genre-specific, such as what I mentioned with likes and dislikes.

"Should likes/dislikes, hobbies, fears, etc. be included/required in a character sheet?

Absolutely not. The only time 'fears' should be in a character sheet is if the RP is horror-themed around someone's fears or whatever. Too many times character sheets have useless stuff like '5 likes, 5 dislikes, 5 quirks, hobbies, aspirations, hopes, dreams, bank account, social security number' and it sucks. A character isn't any more or less defined by putting down 'they chew on their eraser when doing math problems' on a sheet especially when you can integrate literally every aspect of those sections in a post itself. Character sheets don't need to be autobiographies of a character, especially when it's a character that is newly created. I've been in dozens of SoL RPs and not once has the likes/dislikes/quirks/hobbies played a factor into anything other than padding out a sheet that was already a bit too long anyway.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but there's only about five things you really need for any given character sheet:

-Name
-Appearance (Either a pic reference or written out I don't give a shit; if your sheet has appearance and then a section for 'style' then fuck off, just describe the outfit in a post or something jesus)
-Gender
-Age
-Summary

And by summary I mean like two sentences to make your character intriguing enough to want people to know more. You can take any fictional character and describe them adequately in two sentences, you can do the same for an RP character. I don't need to know the life story in the character sheet. Yes, it's great that you've thought about your character enough to write pages of lore about them, but don't dump it all on the table before the RP starts.

You don't need stuff like a character's sexuality since nine times out of ten that exists solely for the purposes of quick shipping, you don't need their hobbies or habits or quirks because then people just don't do anything with them in the RP, you don't need half the stuff in any given character sheet. More often than not, overly lengthy sheets feel more like a way of vetting people based solely on length rather than content. Like a job application in other words.

There are exceptions based on genre, sure, but even in your fandom/battle/anime/isekai/superhero/whatever the shit RPs you don't need a fucking tome to explain that your character knows how to use a fucking fireball. It's okay to have a light character sheet, it doesn't make someone a lesser RPer; conversely someone filling out a long sheet doesn't make them better at RP than others. There's a stigma around it for some reason but sometimes less really is more.

Okay guys. This one's gonna be RP related.

"Should likes/dislikes, hobbies, fears, etc. be included/required in a character sheet? What are some of the things that are absolutely mandatory for a character sheet? What are some things that we're better off leaving out?"

Name, age, appearance, short backstory, personality overview, and a handful of primary skills. Powers and equipment if they're applicable. That's the mandatory stuff. Everything else is just gravy in my opinion. Likes, dislikes, fears, hobbies, even sexual orientation are something I'd much rather discover as I play the character.

Of course, this is just me. I'd include a bunch of stuff like that in an optional "other" section for people that have a more solid idea of who their character is going in then I typically do. No reason to restrict people if they want to go all out on detail after all.

Okay guys. This one's gonna be RP related.

"Should likes/dislikes, hobbies, fears, etc. be included/required in a character sheet? What are some of the things that are absolutely mandatory for a character sheet? What are some things that we're better off leaving out?"

Absolutely not.

9 times out of 10, a sheet requiring a bunch of arbitrary likes and dislikes is pointless.

Even in dramatic role-plays that function essentially as “oh hey man I like that CW show” or “man that slice-of-life anime was neat” fodder. A character’s personality, rudimentary backstory, and personal motivations should tell you all you need to know. I find a section detailing a defining hobby or niche far more valuable than someone tells me they like coffee, bananas, and first person shooters. I understand the concern in large, mammoth-like slice-of-life RPs is largely on figuring out what roles are dictated by who and what “acceptable overlap” is, but generally it is pretty clear in my twenty-or-so years in the hobby that it’s really pointless.

I have always abhorred likes/dislikes because they are stupid. As I said, I can see the argument for hobbies and clubs, but not for arbitrary preferences, no.

Okay guys. This one's gonna be RP related.

"Should likes/dislikes, hobbies, fears, etc. be included/required in a character sheet? What are some of the things that are absolutely mandatory for a character sheet? What are some things that we're better off leaving out?"

I'll say it: I like all of the likes/dislikes and whatnot. Can it be a hassle sometimes? Oh, absolutely! If I'm not giving with the character, then I'll obviously suffer trying to figure out what sort of quirks or habits they have, but if I truly know the character like I do the back of my hand, I'll for sure get behind listing all of the things they like and what they don't like.

Now, of course, it obviously depends on the type of roleplay. As stated, it's more common in SoL than not. I just think they get a bad rap for all the wrong reasons.

They get a bad rap because they are bad.

"Should likes/dislikes, hobbies, fears, etc. be included/required in a character sheet? What are some of the things that are absolutely mandatory for a character sheet? What are some things that we're better off leaving out?"

I think there's no harm in it, and I don't mind if people want to go that far, but for myself I'd rather keep details like "likes/dislikes" under my hat until it comes up naturally in the roleplay. I like being surprised. Knowing every little detail about someone else's character before we start sometimes makes me less excited to meet them ingame, not more.

If I already know everything including their long and tragic backstory, then all I can get interested in is the present/future. I probably won't bother having my character ask questions like "so where are you from?/why are you looking at me like that?" if I know I'm going to get an in-character repeat of "I'm from Hecktown, where both my parents died in a tragic demon attack. / You're a goblin, and I HATE goblins." Having my character ask questions I already know all the answers to isn't very interesting for me as a player, though sometimes you have to do it to "catch up" your character with that info to avoid metagaming. If you don't tell me, I'll have way more fun finding out as we play.

You can add some detail, I just don't want to know your character like the back of my hand like you do right from the start.

That said, for stuff I do want to know...

Name and the basic details of what they look like at first glance are the barest minimum I absolutely need to know. This isn't even because I need to know, per se, it just makes it a hell of a lot easier to write my post when I can address it properly...

"Jeff noticed the person(?) on the other side of the room and nodded vaguely" is doable, but not very smooth, easy, or engaging. If I don't know the basics, I've got next to nothing to use in my own post. Goes without saying, I guess?

"Jeff noticed the tall, cloaked figure, came to the conclusion he probably could not take them in a fight, and decided that extending a laurel might be a better idea. He ordered two drinks and approached with his eyes firmly fixed on the shadowed face." Even if all I know is that your character is tall, edgy, and wears a dark cloak shrouded in shadows, I can use that and give a bit more action/reaction for both of us to work with. I don't need a lot, but it really helps to at least have a little.

Then all the rest for me is decoration, and gives me more material to bounce off/work with. A more in-depth description, what their pronouns are, the basics I could have "Jeff" glean from a once-over... It helps me to get interested in your character, and I might get a better idea of whether mine and yours might get along or form an interesting rivalry/working relationship, but I can work with less. Other people may not feel the same.

TL;DR: Less is more, but nothing isn't something.

They get a bad rap because they are bad.

So knowing things about what might make a character more interesting is bad? Got it.

So knowing things about what might make a character more interesting is bad? Got it.

“Sophie likes Oranges and TV Dramas” is not making a character more interesting nor should it be a facet of a sheet.

<Snipped quote by Inkarnate>

So knowing things about what might make a character more interesting is bad? Got it.

I guarantee the most interesting characters across whatever fiction medium you prefer are the ones where you can't arbitrarily list out five likes, five dislikes, and five quirks. What makes a character interesting isn't the things they don't like and the things they do like. What makes a character interesting are their flaws, their actions, their deeds, how the evolve and grow, how they react to the situations they face.

One of my favorite characters I can only think of three things he 'likes' and one thing he 'dislikes': backgammon, hunting, and board games being the former and people telling him what he can't do the latter. None of those things are what makes him interesting or compelling and they tell you nothing about him as a character.

Think of any character you like and try to make them a character sheet. You might find that it's harder than you think to distill "likes, dislikes, and hobbies" down to anything other than something they did, like, once ever.

The thing about a section like that is that, especially in SoL RPs, it's grounded a bit more in reality and you can really like Big Macs, but you're probably not going to eat Big Macs every single day and you liking Big Macs isn't something you would tell people about in normal conversaton. "Hey, my name is Timmy Jones, I'm seventeen years old and male, I'm completely heterosexual, and I like Big Macs but I dislike Whoppers, let's be friends."

Yes, people and by association characters have things that they enjoy and things they don't. I fucking hate lobster but I love shrimp. I wouldn't say that I like seafood or dislike it. But that factoid doesn't make me any more or less interesting as a person, it would just suggest that I wouldn't suggest going to Red Lobster for dinner or something. The things you like don't define who you are, why should that be the case for characters you create?

You don't need to surface your character's hobbies and likes and dislikes or whatever in a character sheet. That's what RP is for, but even then at most all that's going to do is add a line of dialog or thought where a character expresses their opinion/reservations/whatever and that's all you really need. No character is more interesting because they like one genre of music over another genre of music or they like spicy food instead of sweet food and if someone pulls the "they like this thing because it reminds them of their dead parents" card or whatever then the interesting fact there is their response to the death of their parents and not the fact that they like something specifically.