AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

All characters have memorable items and possessions that are significant to their history. Some of these are DC items, items gained through DM plots, or items that don't actually exist in-game in the character's inventory.

For a nominal DC fee, characters can often buy small RP tokens or trinkets with a custom name and description to have in their inventories.

While they are certainly valuable, they have their downside. Not just the DC cost for example, but large item biographies tend to cause the character's file-size in game to balloon directly in proportion to the length of the biography.

So I have an idea that can help with this issue: Making custom item biographies posted on the forums. I'll offer to be the first guinea pig for my own plan, as I have a character that was one of the large file-size offenders, and I tend to keep items that lack use, mechanics, and aren't unique, but have sentimental value. How it will work is the following:

1) A Reference Sticky will go up in PC Stories and Character Descriptions. The first post will be an alphabetical character directory updated by editing whenever a moderator feels like it.

2) A PC makes a -new topic- in PC Stories and Character Description for -each character- who has personalized items they wish to describe in the forums. To differentiate these topics from other stories, the Title must be formatted as follows: "[Items]: Character name".

3) In the Character's TOPIC, the player may add each item as a new REPLY, or update the first post by editing it as necessary. The format for new entries is entirely up to the player, but I'll include a template for each reply you can feel free to add:

-----

Template Post:

Name: 'Anduril, Flame of the West'
Category: Weapons
Type: Sword (Longsword)
Magical?: Yes (High-Level)
Origin: Forged from the Shards of Narsil, Gift from Elrond
Current Use: Toothpick for all these Gondor Dinner parties.

Description: Anduril has a nifty pommel and a fancy hilt. It glows blue when Orcs are close, in case the wielder has plugged his nostrils.

Powers and Abilities:
Game:
+5 Enhancement Bonus
Vorpal Weapon
Onhit: Deus Ex Machina

Special:
! Glows Blue when Orcs are near.
! Whitens Teeth and Prevents Cavities.

Detailed History: It used to be a sword, then it got broken, then it became a sword again. There's a lot more details here than just that though.

-----

4) Post a Link to the TOPIC (not each post) In a reply in the sticky. The reply will get deleted once it's been added to the Master-List.

5) Clean out your inventory or ask a DM to trade out the item for one without an unnecessarily long Biography. (Remind the DM that simply wiping the item's biography in-game will not reduce its file-size.)

And it's that easy. An example of this will be with one of my characters shortly.

Would you be asking us to stop carrying these memorable items altogether, or just carry the items with blank (or short) bios with the full information containted on the forums?

sure this is a good idea to cut down on file space... and of course the physical item would remain in the inventory unchanged other than the bio.
BUT, would everyone be willing to post your most precious items info on the forums for all to see? sure you cant meta in game this info but i dont think id want everyone to know my swords stats just because id like it to have a cooler bio. this should be optional at best...

Pretty dandy idea. I'm willing (I've only got the one DC item at the moment).

I'd prefer the descriptions to be on my items, to be honest. I find the thought of clicking the item to see "Go to the forums" or something similar rather depressing. You could of course, write a long story and dump that in PC Stories and keep the description itself short, which sounds a reasonable compromise to me.

Yurell wrote:

I'd prefer the descriptions to be on my items, to be honest. I find the thought of clicking the item to see "Go to the forums" or something similar rather depressing. You could of course, write a long story and dump that in PC Stories and keep the description itself short, which sounds a reasonable compromise to me.

Exactly. I'm not telling everyone to blank their item bios, but to be succinct enough to fit the in-game description on one to two paragraphs and add a long, flowing, detailed history on the forum.

Aka, your item descriptions should be just describing what the weapon looks like and MAYBE what it can do, rather than its whole history of who made it/found it/weilded it etc.

I can get behind this. I personally never feel a need to write a history to a weapon, and I'm not intending to ever really have unique weapons unless they are given to my character, as he's not the type to go out and try to find something unique. He makes do with what he has or is given. I don't think the forum thing should be at all necessary and personally, I think not many people necessarily want to know where someone elses weapon came from, though I may be wrong in that regard.

DolphinRacer wrote:

Aka, your item descriptions should be just describing what the weapon looks like and MAYBE what it can do, rather than its whole history of who made it/found it/weilded it etc.

I can get behind this. I personally never feel a need to write a history to a weapon, and I'm not intending to ever really have unique weapons unless they are given to my character, as he's not the type to go out and try to find something unique. He makes do with what he has or is given. I don't think the forum thing should be at all necessary and personally, I think not many people necessarily want to know where someone elses weapon came from, though I may be wrong in that regard.

It's part of your character history - to be honest, not many people care where one's character comes from or their history. It's all about fleshing out everything, and it's fun to have a unique item with a history behind it.

Well, see it this way: you will have to strip your bloating character sooner or later. You will be the one to decide how to lower your filesize, and if you want to trade novel-like descriptions for stacks of spells, fine by me.

Is this meant to be done with all PCs we have, even though some might not be played anymore?

It's optional with any PCs you desire at your own discretion.

I like the idea.

When I get a DC item - I will definitely be edging toward an item-bio.

Kinda seems a waste honestly when you have the scribe job which allows you to scribe discriptions on items.

Selvec Darkon wrote:

Kinda seems a waste honestly when you have the scribe job which allows you to scribe discriptions on items.

How so? This is a way to prevent you having enormous file sizes, letting you have more items.

Yurell wrote:

Selvec Darkon wrote:

Kinda seems a waste honestly when you have the scribe job which allows you to scribe discriptions on items.

How so? This is a way to prevent you having enormous file sizes, letting you have more items.

Scribe is a potential fountain of file size issues given people can create their own discriptions, thus causing large discriptions of items to sit in their inventory as sentimental items. Rather this is good for now, but possibly efforts should be made more to snipping the issues in the bud, rather then attacking the fully grown tree with a spoon.

This is just an option available to people who want to keep their file sizes down rather than have a DM say "Your file size is too big, get rid of stuff now".
So how is having a post on the forum specifically dedicated to storing item bios a waste, especially when it allows people to read the story you spent so long writing?[/i]

Yurell wrote:

This is just an option available to people who want to keep their file sizes down rather than have a DM say "Your file size is too big, get rid of stuff now".
So how is having a post on the forum specifically dedicated to storing item bios a waste, especially when it allows people to read the story you spent so long writing?[/i]

Pretty sure I made it clear how it's a waste, and thats because the efforts of making the fourm could be better placed else where. However, on top of it since you seem to be in a mood for ignoring things, I'll put that it's highly unlikely most of the playerbase will go to the forum to read the item discription for an item. Espically when you add in that most of the playerbase doesn't even visit the forum normally.

Done, and I have to admit it was really painless.

I contacted a DM to let them know I'd copied the information off into the post as Robert requested, and was greeted with a "Sure, that's no problem at all. I'll get it done as soon as I am able."

+1 DM team, nicely done.

Regards,

Personal and Sentimental Items!

Who is online