AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

For every character I ever plan to make I have always have gone to the effort to write a short bio (usually one to one and a half in game pages) it helps me focus on what the character is like in character before I ever chose stats or skills etc.

But more than that I seek to provide a simple visual "snap shot" of what other characters will see when they look at my character, I never include the reams of OOC information that I have seen on some characters detailing their entire life from zygote to current times.

I always try to keep it deliberately short and to the point detailing obvious physical characteristics such as height and apparent mass, what sort of hair, voice, eyes etc things that people generally take note of every time they encounter or examine someone.

I have recently experienced some very negative attitudes from some players where they have completely presumed an incorrect feature of my character that a few moments of reading my short snap shot bio would have prevented.

When I have politely corrected them via a pm I am often met with either scorn of "I won't/don't read bio's ever" to outright hostility "don't be a dick I have been here since XXXX I can't be bothered to read bio's what I see is what you are end of story"......or words to this effect.

This server has many sub races and these may change the attributes on the character sheet they do not to my knowledge significantly change the in game avatar. So what you see is most definitely not necessarily what you get.

I.E. an Orc character might be in fact an Ogrillion, a very different race and physically obvious.

I would like to ask the community at large if its so bad to expect everyone to make a small effort at character generation to come up with a half decent bio detailing what the character looks like?

Also is it really to much to expect that people generally take a few moments to read and digest the bio’s of characters they intend or expect to RP with?

I am not suggesting we make it a server rule but there seems to be a lot of players who neither make relevant bio’s or who wilfully avoid even reading them. This to me seems an odd mode of behaviour on an RP server. But I am suggesting it would be very useful to RP in general for people to use this simple aide to RP.

Thank you for your time.

Nat

P.S. please see below for an example of a one my character bio's for reference

A young pretty woman of average height with a toned athletic form, often seen in her unadorned but well maintained full plate with an equally well maintained bastard sword hung from her weapon belt.

Her cloak is plain dark grey fastened with a clasp in the shape of a skeletal arm the hand of which is holding a set of scales.

Brunette shoulder length hair frames a pretty face with green doe eyes flecked with gold, that observe the world around her with a watchful gaze and a calm mien.

Her voice is mild and slightly husky and she is quick to smile.

I approve this post.

I'm downright obsessive-compulsive when it comes to reading bios. Others quite possibly don't like doing so. I think it's a matter of personal preference and have always left it at that. You can't force people to read a character's bio if they don't (for whatever reason) want to. Others might not bother writing a bio and simply tell you that WYSIWYG.

Bottom line: Politely correct people who are mistaken about your PC. If their behavior is out of line, screenshot and report it to a DM.

I normally will read bios on everyone I encounter for the first time. That being said, if it's more than a single page or includes your life's story from birth to the present it's overkill and shall be ignored.

A short physical description and the inclusion of elements that aren't properly rendered in-game (scars, decorative tattoos, etc) is all I'm willing to read.

I think bio's are fantastic, and are good for listing appearance and personality related things that one would readily notice. I say this because there are some things you can't convey 100% of the time, and so it's nice to know what you are encountering, and to let others know the same.

Blank bios and bios that have backstory or that are huuuuuuuuueg make me weep blood.

Either people start starting bios, or I start opening every interaction with copy-pasted bios like it's an old school AOL chat room, and then you'll have no choice but to see it. This is now a hostage situation.

My bios are the best, imho. Even a physical description tends to fall on blind eyes because people will still imagine whatever they want to imagine when they see your model, anyway. I try to eschew even physical descriptions and instead give something that isn't OOC, necessarily, but is simply "narrative". Something that evokes a feeling, sensation, emotion, opinion, reaction, whatever it takes to make someone think about a character a certain way, and then to visualize them as looking like the kind of person that embodies that idea.

...but probably most of you should just stick to simple descriptions!

I fully agree with you. If people don't take the time to read your bio, that's not your fault. The WYSIWYG does not help with this problem, I don't disagree with it being used, it makes -certain- things less of a headache than previously. But as you say, not everything -is- a WYSIWYG situation, such as physical characteristics, like you mention.

I admit myself I avoid reading bio's, especially lengthy ones. I prefer to read in moderation, you know? But I don't jump to assumptions about characters characteristics and what not that may or may not be true. If everyone took a little time to read a bio, make sure they have the right of what they may perceive then the whole situation would be a better and not too negative a thing, from my sight on it.

The people you explain replying with such hostilities need an attitude adjustment, IMO. Just because they can't be bothered to put in the effort to find out the truth behind your character, or any other for that matter does not mean they hold the right to say otherwise, RP your physical appearance as something other than what it is (Short of being delusional or under some kind of hypnosis.) it's a ridiculous attitude to have toward that, and even worse majorly disrespectful without any need behind it, at all. If you continue to experience it in future, consider screenshots.

I've been in the habit of making quite lengthy bio's before and I don't expect people to read it all, ever. I atleast expect them to be mindful of things they don't know, what's wrong with shooting a quick tell asking something for efficient quick access to a certain piece of info about the characters appearance and/or other things. You don't even have to make it OOC, you could RP observing certain features and in return the opposite person can emote back the relevant details. It's really not that big a deal and these people aren't representing themselves very well, or maybe they like to be perceived as something most people wouldn't respect, due to their lack of respect. I could use more colourful language and a better explanation, but I won't.

There's nothing wrong with expecting people to take the time to read your bio, the ones in question are ridiculous in my eyes considering how reasonably short the bio you provided is.

I don't mention it usually, but I don't like it when people use their bio for irrelevant things, like the often trend I've saw in the past of things like "It's a man.", "Don't meta game" or even "Pretty little rainbows!" - as opposed to what I see as more necessary, relevant physical appearance details and other things you mention. I don't think past events or anything another character shouldn't know IC has any real place in a Bio, otherwise it just invites meta gaming.

It highly disappoints me moreso that the ones in question are using the time they've been on the server as an excuse for being so obnoxious and rude, time spent on the server doesn't make you more superior to newer players nor does is make you exempt from what the rest of the player base should follow.

If anything, the older players should be setting an example for those less experienced in the game to improve the games experience as a whole, rather than making it such a negative thing and even for people just new to the server in general. I've met with hostile tells in the past, once for having a name similar to a character from another game, yes, maybe I should not have had the name, but was it necessary to basicly just insult me and verbally (well via text >.>) send abusive things my way? No, definitely not. They could have just explained nicely as a heads up and left it at that.

It's not good for the server itself or the servers rep for that matter, when people are using such negative things, I was surprised when I witnessed one or two other players literally telling someone OOC to just give up and leave the server a few years ago, the one they were telling to leave didn't understand what the purpose of this server was, he even shown a willingness to adapt and play it as intended, he was greeted with a reply similar to " if you don't know what RP is just go away and log off and find a PvP server or something". I regret the fact I hadn't acted on it at the time and I wish I did.

I mean, I was greeted similarly on another server when I was quite a bit younger than I am now, I was a teen at the time, infact, no one was willing to give me a heads up, instead they took it as an opportunity to PK me basicly, this gave me a sour first impression of RP servers, but I later was greeted by a more friendly player, who was willing to bear with my blatant levels of noobarism (It's like Barbarism, but with noobs!), he/she explained the whole idea of the server, told me how it works and how I should keep IC and whatnot, if it wasn't for someone like them I'd probably still have a negative attitude toward RP and RP servers, so to be nice, have patience and take the time to do what's right can go a long way, this includes reading bios or atleast not 'god RPing' to a certain point. Which how I see it, that's all theyre doing, they're changing what your character is or how they look just because of their laziness and unwilling attitudes to do things properly.

Bios are a nice way to flesh out the chunky in game model, however creating one is something that's only worth doing if you can invest the time and creativity into writing something unbiased that still manages to convey a certain tone while elaborating on the character.

When I read a bland list of invariably attractive features (¿or feline features?), the same old adjectives, and redundant descriptors, it just kills my horny.

Also bios like Anubis' posts just make me default to: tl:dr

Yeah, sorry. Still got that curse thing goin' on I mentioned.

My bios just spray you scent markings, like a trap.

You are now mine.

CouncilofAutumn wrote:

My bios just spray you scent markings, like a trap.

You are now mine.

Joke's on you. I can't read.

I'd be thrilled if people were that rude to me about a bio. Then I wouldn't have to discover they were dicks after investing effort. Consider yourself fortunate, you know right away who not to waste time on.

Cerpin Taxt wrote:

CouncilofAutumn wrote:

My bios just spray you scent markings, like a trap.

You are now mine.

Joke's on you. I can't read.

"This bio has been replaced with Explosive R-"

In a more pleasant length of summary:

It's not too much to read a little bio, or expect people to be considerate of such things. Shoot a tell if you can't bring yourself to read the longer bios and get specific info's efficiently.

People being so negative and acting how you describe are not helping the server and possibly destroying its rep bit by bit. Maybe a lot more than just a bit, infact.

WYSIWYG shouldn't be used in every single little thing like how the character appears on screen vs how they actually are supposed to look.

There's no need to be an utter tool over something so trivial because you're too lazy to do what you should be doing and then decide that someone else's char looks completely different to how they do (How someone perceives a character is a whole different thing, here)

Bio's should be relevant to what your character can see. No past IC events that can be meta games by reading this etc...

And I think that's all the points I was trying to make, but my own post is making even myself weep to try and read it over to make sure I don't miss any points I was making. ;(

I am all for bios, but if they're too long, I stop reading shortly after. I've been guilty of writing too-long bios and also for not writing them at all right away, but for the most part, I write a general appearance: height, weight, build, identifying items/marks/traits, and so on.

Really not popular yet, but I started this thread today in hope people will actually help me provide a tool for those interested in reading..?

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=69850

slkNihilus wrote:

I'm downright obsessive-compulsive when it comes to reading bios. Others quite possibly don't like doing so. I think it's a matter of personal preference and have always left it at that. You can't force people to read a character's bio if they don't (for whatever reason) want to. Others might not bother writing a bio and simply tell you that WYSIWYG.

Bottom line: Politely correct people who are mistaken about your PC. If their behavior is out of line, screenshot and report it to a DM.

This sums it up nicely.

Don't ever dismiss the mystery of not having a bio. I've had toons with bios and toons without them: in my experience people ask more questions of the ones without them.

I dislike when people put a large story, put facts we can see when looking at you... if you have scars say so, don't post 10 lines about how you were a slave to the a drow master who would beat you till you kneed him in the balls stole his portal wand and moved to cordor.

corypx wrote:

I dislike when people put a large story, put facts we can see when looking at you... if you have scars say so, don't post 10 lines about how you were a slave to the a drow master who would beat you till you kneed him in the balls stole his portal wand and moved to cordor.

Unless that is also highly visible and obvious. I'm voting for a full body tattoo of the personal story, and the character always being naked. KNOW WHERE I COME FROM, SO THAT YOU MAY KNOW ME.

I have to agree , if there is scars or other features which should be readily apparent they should be noted in the Bio. >.<;

Mushidoz wrote:

Really not popular yet, but I started this thread today in hope people will actually help me provide a tool for those interested in reading..?

http://amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=69850

You're wasting your time.

IMO, a (short) bio should describe what you see on first glance, but pretty much anything beyond the first page is optional reading/additonal fluff. While your PC should look more or less like your toon, having a bio trumps WYSIWYG.

Unless your character says something entirely interesting or calls out my character's name, and I happen to catch it walking by, I am probably going to ignore you PCs who have stock bios or empty bios until I am proven you seriously want to engage in the roleplay. Maybe that means nothing to you, but I am going to bet I am not the only one who files through interactions this way. Just a thought.

Ye who stands in Cordor in your hip black, with your dragon wings and bone arms. Eat my shorts!

Height. Their height der
Weight. I normally only do pounds, kg work too.
Build, general build, stocky lanky, voluptuous
Eyes. Color, shape, glowing
Hair. Style color, greasy, overly combed
Ages. General range, what they appear to be 30s

Description... Scars, limps, lumps, etc, how they dress etc

That's what I do, always, never any complaints

Also you people need to learn heights and weights. You are bot 7 foot tall, 220 and intimidating... Those stats make you a bean pole and a severe malnutrition basketball player! For freak sake, pair your strong athletic shit with athletes to.get an idea what weights go with what heights and builds Rawr.

Empty bios make my soul hurt.. double post I know, I'm working so shit on a biscuit of you don't like it!

I was surprised to find multiple people complimenting me on the bio I did for Ael'thil, it's quite long and I only really expected people to read the summary of his height, hair colour etc... I placed above the more indepth desc. I thought it was simple and just very basic in terms of just describing what you would see on him in general (I think I probably described more than necessary but I did most of it for personal reference if for some reason I forgot any details I don't think about often and not needing to tab out more often than necessary to remind myself, without adding anything that shouldn't be there from what I can remember of what was added to it)

I was also a little surprised I was complimented on another characters Bio which was short and sweet and not overly long, but also quite basic in the ways it described what was relevant, one person gave me props for using a race appropriate height for said char and explained they have seen numerous people type in heights that don't match the race they're playing, so there are people that do take the time to read Bio's, even if they are long.

GreatPigeon wrote:

Also you people need to learn heights and weights. You are bot 7 foot tall, 220 and intimidating... Those stats make you a bean pole and a severe malnutrition basketball player! For freak sake, pair your strong athletic shit with athletes to.get an idea what weights go with what heights and builds Rawr.

My God, this. If you're a 5'10 and 120 pounds you're dead!

SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE EMACIATED AT CREATION; LET IT GO! :cry:

I guess, but shifters.

Also Americans need to transition into metric already, because imperial is the stupidest thing ever (/hypocrite, because I've gotten used to using Imperial for height)

In my opinion: The character bio should be a brief description and any special notes which need to be stated to the world at large.

I read every bio of every person I meet, when I have the chance, since I feel that a player's description of their character is incredibly important. It helps me to imagine what they look like, beyond the very basic WYSIWYG.

For Shifters: Write up a bunch of descriptions for each of the main forms you take, and use the '/s f_bio N <bio>' command to just copy+paste a new description each time! Just makes it easier for everyone else. This is also very helpful for those people who use Thousand Faces a lot.

Yossarin wrote:

...but probably most of you should just stick to simple descriptions!

Rude much?

Yossarin wrote:

Elitist tripe.

Don't you have anything better to do than put down the community you're a part of?

So when I was about 120 lbs and not far off 5,10" a while ago I was infact dead?

... I think if you find that offensive then you're being oversensitive, sorry. So he likes bios that are emotionally evocative. Well I like dry descriptions of the meticulous details that game models can't accurately portray. The latter is, when examined for its complexity, simpler. Not simple as in dumb, just not complex.

And rewriting bios is a royal pain even with the /s stuff, and having potentially dozens of specific variations for a shifter is enough for me to sympathise those who go ahead and blank their bio. But my sympathy is only for shifters. Disguise-wearers, well, we don't get a free pass.

serbiris wrote:

... I think if you find that offensive then you're being oversensitive, sorry. So he likes bios that are emotionally evocative. Well I like dry descriptions of the meticulous details that game models can't accurately portray. The latter is, when examined for its complexity, simpler. Not simple as in dumb, just not complex.

I think you should go back and reread what Yossarin wrote. It has nothing to do with being offended or oversensitive. It has to do with him being a dick for no other reason than to simply be one.

Last edited by Palin489 on Mon, Feb 04 2013, 8:05 AM, edited 1 time in total.

I give every bio a look, it might be begrudging to read dry long bios.. But interesting ones are totally acceptable to me! Also lol @ Yos.

I read Bios of all chars I encounter and talk to, and being fidgety I can click around and just check chars walking by.

That said the profiles which begin with describing the athletic and alluring shapes of the person only hold my interest for a short moment

I try to read every bio at least once, during the first time I encounter another PC. I read them again if it is with my other PC, just because the two would have very different reactions to certain traits and I need to be reminded of it.

Both of my bios tend to have a short, "stat card" descriptions of physical characteristics, followed by a more verbose, detailed description. Like some others, I try to steer away from just listing appearance for the sake of appearance, instead opting to show things that help you better see what your PC would see. I consider both of my "detailed" bios fairly long(a couple of paragraphs each), but I try to list the most readily noticeable things earlier on. My thought is that the longer I RP with a person, hopefully the more they want to know about the PC, and if they haven't read all of the bio, they'll go back for more and get something deeper out of it.

I strongly recommend reading bios, just because I've been on the receiving end of rampant "WYSIWYG" before that really ignores RP for the sake of being lazy OoCly. I've lost track of the times I've heard "I know he can't see his skin, but I figured your PC would have a Drow accent," when my PC's Common-swashbuckler accent is something I mention very early on in his bio. I've even had someone straight-up tell me that "You can't clearly see my PC because you have a helm on" when my bio clearly stated that despite the NWN models, the PC usually wears open-faced helms. And I was refused to the point of my RP being ignored to interact with them otherwise.

So in closing, courtesy on both sides goes a long way and makes it better for everyone. My advice is this: if you're writing a bio, give thumbnail descriptions first, then whatever narrative you want to present for the reader's leisure. All the while, keep in mind, bios are meant to be read so strive to keep their content relevant to immediate RP. Despite the name "bio" they really aren't intended to be full biographies. If you're reading a bio, read as much as you can and have time for. If you don't read all of it, don't be an ass when someone tries to direct you to it. You may have missed some important information to aid in your immersion and perception of the PC. Most importantly, don't try to convince the person that their bio is "wrong." If you feel that someone's bio is immersion-breaking or most appropriately, appears to go against server protocol, PM a DM and just roll with it IC.

I stop reading whenever the common tropes ie the word beautiful pops up. Usually happens within the first or as late as the second sentence.

That's kind of silly. We're playing a fantasy game here, and furthermore, a fantasy game in which there's a numeric measurement that deacribes in unambiguous terms (among many other things) a character's attractiveness. Why shouldn't a character with a high charisma be able to be described as good-looking? Nobody gets annoyed when a bio describes a character as strong, intelligent, or dextrous. Why get bothered specifically over charisma?

Thoice wrote:

I stop reading whenever the common tropes ie the word beautiful pops up. Usually happens within the first or as late as the second sentence.

Not to be prick or anything, but I really can't admire that attitude. At all. Refusing to indulge someone else's RP because you find it to be cliched (especially so early in the bio) doesn't help the server, it doesn't encourage the person to go deeper with the bio, and it certainly doesn't help you interact with the PC on an organic level.

No one's saying you have to like every bio. Hell, you can downright find them tacky and uninspired from a literary standpoint. But ideally, it is information presented to you ICly, it is RP, and if you clam up because someone doesn't want to break out the thesaurus and look under beautiful, well frankly, that's your own damn loss.

Let's not forget that the Amia Wiki and PC Stories are both great places to put character details and expanded biographies!

From visible things, to things that no one (except the voyeurs like the kind of characters I play who cast Legend Lore on everyone) would probably know about the character. The wiki makes for an excellent resource of being able to catalog a character's information, provide it for stalkers, provide it for people who are trying to post your character's description for whatever reason, but couldn't remember from the character was dressed at the time or failed to take a screenshot - they could go to your character's wiki page and pull the obvious details.

I like bios that describe a character beyond what you see on the model, stuff you'd notice by just looking at them mind you, not the background of everything but rather their appearance, special symbols on gear, tatoos, scars etc.

Yossarin wrote:

...but probably most of you should just stick to simple descriptions!

Rude much?

Let's not fool ourselves, Birthdaygirl. We're all beneath his genious. :wink:

Dark Immolation wrote:

Thoice wrote:

I stop reading whenever the common tropes ie the word beautiful pops up. Usually happens within the first or as late as the second sentence.

Not to be prick or anything, but I really can't admire that attitude. At all. Refusing to indulge someone else's RP because you find it to be cliched (especially so early in the bio) doesn't help the server, it doesn't encourage the person to go deeper with the bio, and it certainly doesn't help you interact with the PC on an organic level.

No one's saying you have to like every bio. Hell, you can downright find them tacky and uninspired from a literary standpoint. But ideally, it is information presented to you ICly, it is RP, and if you clam up because someone doesn't want to break out the thesaurus and look under beautiful, well frankly, that's your own damn loss.

I wasn't aware not reading a biography constituted as not roleplaying with them. It's not the same thing so don't assume it as such, no need to get so upset on something so trivial.

I think the issue was seeing the word "beautiful" and refusing to read the rest of the bio. Yes, most PCs on Amia are described as being physically attractive. No, nobody expects you to read a character's bio if the words "beautiful" or "handsome" cause you an allergic reaction. Does it mean it's the right attitude? In my opinion, no.

People rarely take into consideration that, as Lizzie said, in D&D there is this nifty numeric system that quantifies a PC's attractiveness (or lack thereof). Any character with 18+ charisma is, unless the player decides otherwise, a very attractive member of their race. But enough about that, before this turns into the never-ending charisma debate.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

I think you should go back and reread what Yossarin wrote. It has nothing to do with being offended or oversensitive. It has to do with him being a dick for no other reason than to simply be one.

Australians are less inclined to see offence in such mate; sarcasm and insults are so deeply embedded into our culture that we interpret and respond to such comments differently. In saying that, I wouldn't take offence to what Yoss said. It was a harmless post.

Character Bio's yes/no?

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