So tempted in using that as a bio

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I hated hipsters before hating them was cool.

Wow, I usually type / hit enter my RP as soon as it comes to mind, so I relay my character's actions and dialogue in short snippets. I had no idea people found this annoying and hard to work with. It doesn't help I suppose that I'm a really fast typer and I would rather fill the "silence" with emotes and such.

However, I do have enough sense that I typically will make an effort to try not to include anything else in later that might affect other player's responses. For example, short and sweet or a big chunk of dialogue followed by several passive emotes. Is this annoying as well?

Anyways, if you're ever playing with me and want me to slow down to wait for responses, please feel free to send me a tell and I'll redouble my efforts.

I'm going to expand on my RP via hunt advice later this evening. I have a lot of points I think some will find helpful.

More than that to me is the completely blank bio or even worse than that... the standard racial bio. Just shows no real thought or desire to adhere to a character in my mind. Even just a

Height: approx. 5'10"
Weight: approx. 175 lbs.

at least shows an adherence to character. Everyone will know that your character is 5'10" tall roughly and about 175 lbs., making him the average height and weight for an American male by today's standards.



Me too. Occasionally, I find some really really good ones, too. I really like bios that don't contain any subjective information. Nothing that tells how my character feels looking at the other person's character. Silvarus' example is dead on point with what I find to be rather drone and humdrum. To put it bluntly, leave my character's reactions to me and I'll leave yours to you. Using the above example as a base, something like, "An air of dread and unease surrounds this man with eyes that seem to pierce into one's soul". It conveys the same message, but leaves you how your character should respond to that. Some people may not mind an unsettling atmosphere and are rather intense characters themselves, used to the piercing intensity of another while others may get extremely creeped out by it.

On a side note, ever notice how people seem to put a lot of effort into describing the eyes of a character?

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

My main character is a shifter. I try to change his bio every time he changes shape. However, sometimes I don't have one prepared for a given shape (or even for the given status of that shape, for it may have changed due to recent events) and so I'll clear the bio until I have the time to write a new one, preferring a blank description over a false or poorly-thought-out one.

Assumptions make... well, you know.

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"A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did." - Anonymous

Shifters are, by very nature, changing and the bios can be a pain to change up all the time. They are one of the few and far between exceptions, but if it was me I'd try to think up something clever to put in the bio rather than just leave it blank.

If every blank bio belonged to a shifter, then Amia would be about 50% shifters, I'd guess.

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

Sometimes, though, that can just be put down to ignorance. I have two friends who, despite both being Neverwinter veterans, had never played it online and had no idea you could change the default bio. They both thought it was just some pretty text to look at when you made your character.

If it bothers you that much when people have no (or the default) bio, and you were curious enough to examine them anyway, why not just drop them a tell and point it out?

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Characters:
Geinz of Oxon
Weston Friar (Deceased, RIP)
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C Major is the racist scale

I'm not gonna drop someone a Tell and tell them their bio is boring to read. Are you kidding? I like having friends.

Exactly. In real life I strive to push social boundaries and have no problem telling people about how stupid their outfit looks or whatever, because I do it with a healthy dose of sarcasm and wit. For some reason, my sarcasm doesn't quite translate over to written word and I just sound like Capt. Douche.

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

I must admit I feel the same way. I'm not going to tell someone OOCly that their bio sucks any more than I'm going to walk up to some random on the street and tell them their choice of clothes sucks.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

A bit off topic, but...

Many, many, many years ago, some friends and I used to call ourselves "The Fashion Police". We had badges with ID cards we could flip open like we were the damned FBI or something. We also had little notepads made up with all types of citations on them that looked pretty close to what a police officer would give you for a speeding ticket. If we saw someone that was just dressed horribly, we'd go up to them, issue a citation and ask if the offender had any questions.

Believe it or not, I only ever had a handful of people get angry at me. Most of them laughed or honestly didn't know that you shouldn't wear navy blue with black or whatever the violation was.

My personal favorite was "Failure To Maintain Proper Belt Height". This was given to anyone who either a.) showed underwear b.) showed buttcrack or c.) wore their pants around their bellybutton.

Sorry for the SPAM.... but I had to. I'll go stand with my nose in the corner for being mean now.

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

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BlackDahlya

Once Upon A Time Played
Adr'ael Ken'rahel, Auron Teken’ath, Aurora Mesodias, 'Daniel' Daoskinaxarijikkym, Eilin'ira, Helena Rios, Layla Faircurrent, May'Une Do'Ndar, Mellinda Tellus, Michael of Cliffside, Rizzen of Twilight, Valkirya d'Claddath

Blank bio and boring bio are different things.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

I've read very little of this thread, to be honest. I'll just throw in my two scents, and I'll leave it at that.

On Roleplaying: As long as you have a general grasp of syntax, spelling, and grammar, I'm good - and that's only a pet peeve. While I personally do a lot of emoting (oftentimes large, descriptive, flowery ones at that), I also enjoy very good, organic, natural dialogue. Sometimes an emote can accent dialogue in a way that just typing it can't. Thus, I feel like capturing the essence of my character and transmitting it via text and pixels is much easier when I paint a more detailed picture for people to see.

On Biographies: Please write them. I write a biography to remind myself, first of all, of all my character's details and intricacies. At the same rate, I ensure that my characters have biographies that capture how they appear and how they "feel" - being a writer, every character I have gives off a mood, a tone, and that's something I want to convey in a biography. Finally, I love a good biography because it gives me something to do when I'm bored or waiting on a response in roleplay - reading peoples' biographies has given me great joy over the years.

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Espiel Callahan

RP is escapism, to me not as much in content as in form. I write for a living, in Norwegian, which compared to English is a strict, almost minimalistic language. Comparing RP and my writing then, I'll take my RP verbose, emote-heavy and dripping with B movie clichés. It is to me delightful to break all the rules of my profession (show don't tell - when I RP I tell goddammit!) and glut in the excess of opportunities of expression to be found in the the English language.

[My latest fab is this way of talking I've picked up from HBOs The Sopranos and The Wire, where characters will for mysterious reason leave out certain conjunctives: "(If) You need something, all you do is ask."/ "(If/When) You come at the king, you best not miss."]

Other than that, I detest the kind of personal attachement to characters that will sometimes stand in the way of the best possible story. I want dynamic, cooperative storytelling with vulnerable, flawed and great characters, not mere online social interaction with actual (vulnerable) selves disguised as 3D characters. Yuck!

It's like in the movie Heat (1995): "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat (a great ending to your character) around the corner"

Kjetil

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To err is human; to forgive divine, but VENGEANCE IS MINE!

*Wince* When I see that, my characters presume the person they are talking to isn't proficient in whatever language it is they are speaking (when I know that it is a deliberate thing on the part of a player, of course ... otherwise I assume it's an OOC English issue and leave it alone).

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

On the bio thing, someone told me how to change it in game but I didn't write it down.
Could someone post how to do that please?
Also, is there a list of keyboard commands somewhere?

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Huzzah!

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=23455

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I keels u with my axe!

"Do ye know where the Holy-Flamin' Frost-brand Gronk-slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' woundin' an' returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-out-yer-bum is?"

Thank you

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let others speak, is my most held self ruling, sometimes to the point I worry people might think i'm afk cause I got lost somewhere in the conversation thinking of a relevant responce, but what this does is open up the story and conversations you wouldn't have heard before.

also try not to use party chat, at all, but of course its quicker and more relevant to use party to let your party know your crafting or something quickly while they shop, ready for the next adventure.

I also find I RP much better after playing inteligent games (example metal gear solid, the way people talk and act can give you many an idea, also movies.) I guess counter to intuition, try not to be overly friendly, unless your character is overly friendly. could lose a few points with people oocly but rivals and people to be cautious of are just as fun to stumble across as the paladin knights of untold smitings, or a gang of friendly bard who seam to have far too much coins, also the job system makes for good RP, "picking apples are ya? I can bake those into a pie!" and thus the adventure of the epic pie begins ^_^

I guess, improv! would be the best answer.

Kjetz! I think you can be a vulnerable person and still have vulnerable and great characters! Don't segregate! And also, psh.. depends on what you call a "great ending." I have a hunch that I might disagree with you at times (even though I would still probably end my character.. at least for a very long time.).

Sorry to drag the subject back up again, but poking people about blank bios was what I meant. I suppose I could've made that clearer. Poking them simply because you don't like what they have written would just be an exercise in futility.

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Characters:
Geinz of Oxon
Weston Friar (Deceased, RIP)
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C Major is the racist scale

On another server I had an incident which turned me off to that server after having played it for years. My character had interactions with another character, that led to my character being tortured by her and her husband, causing the loss of my character's twin unborn children. Later on, in game years had passed and the couple that had tortured her had ended up being caught conspiring against their own leader and executed, their bodies being thrown into a garbage pit. The heads were recovered by an ally spy, and made their way into my character's possession. I RP'ed int he forum about using the skulls as candleholders (she was a bit evil, the kind of evil that if you treated her fairly she would do the same for you, but if you crossed her, she'd destroy you and your family and your friends and their family). I received a tell from the lead admin, telling me that this RP was invalid and could I please remove it. I sent back a chain of possession for the skulls, and the ones who had possessed the skulls before my character did were both DM's. I was still told that the RP was invalid because they were the heads of two players who didn't want their remains treated as such, and that there was no room for negotiation.

Personally, I was surprised that these players even allowed the perma-deaths of their characters, but to be so attached to them as to get valid RP declared invalid was just tacky and childish.

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I hated hipsters before hating them was cool.

I wouldn't call that tacky and childish, but I do understand why you're upset. You just never know why someone is upset by something, and they could have traumatic experiences in their life having to do with dead remains. Not that that IS what it is, but it could be. I try to give benefit of the doubt. I think it's unfair your RP was declared invalid, but I wouldn't call it "tacky" or "childish." Perhaps just unfair.

Good point.

I've always been open to anything happening to my character. It makes it interesting.

I even like the waiver thread. I like a bit of realism.

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I hated hipsters before hating them was cool.

See, I would call it "tacky" and "childish" - if someone has traumatic experiences in their life having to do with dead remains (!!!), I call it upon them to steer away from entertainment where this experience is likely to cause hurt, rather than for the entire universe of RPers to take into consideration every possible "traumatic" experience, and adjust their RP accordingly whenever some past traumatic experience pops out from the woodwork.

Estara, while I might seem harsh, and I guess I am; I don't segregate. My statement did not mutually exclude vulnerable selves and great characters, just saying: I don't want them mixed, keep them apart! I don't want to deal with people's selves (often: their ideal image of themselves) directly injected into the game world as a 3D avatar. This creates storytelling devices that goes nowhere.

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To err is human; to forgive divine, but VENGEANCE IS MINE!

Saying that people should bear in mind every possible traumatic experience is obviously unfeasible. But its also unrealistic to invalidate those feelings when they do genuinely turn up, or to think that they never do.

I recall torturing a hin character whose player was pregnant at the time. Without thinking much of it, I stabbed her character in the stomach. This was no different to how I dealt with many other torture victims. I was not particularly graphic, for the time. She became more upset than many present felt the situation warranted.

Having been pregnant since myself, I can now completely understand how using that particular imagery was completely insensitive on my part and how her reaction was completely natural, given her condition.

I don't think this means I should go around asking everyone whether they are pregnant or not, prior to rp. But I do think we should be empathic and open to people having reasons for what may superficially seem like disproportionate responses to rp. We don't always know what will strike a nerve with us until it happens, so its no more possible to avoid situations where we might get upset than it is to run through a checklist of experiences that might cause pain.

There is this idea that total separation from character and emotionless acceptance of everything that happens to them is the ideal. It may make for less OOC hassle, but I think it is totally unrealistic. We are not machines. Heck, when I read a good book, I feel invested in the characters. I've been known to cry at movies.

The aim for me isn't to not have the emotional attachments, its to recognise them for what they are and deal with those reactions in an adult manner (something I will readily admit I do not always achieve) and to recognise, and forgive, the flawed nature of both ourselves and those we play with.

I don't believe for a split second that there is a single person who does not have a very complex emotional relationship with their characters, even if that emotion is pride at how little they care about that character's welfare. In fact, I think that the current vogue of one upmanship in how detached people can be is just as harmful in its own way as any other form of elitism.

_________________

Players must maintain a certain degree of separation from their characters. They must be connected enough to be able to properly RP the character. Yet, they must be aloof enough to look at what happens as a evolution in the story of the character and not a personal attack on them.

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

Call me crazy but I think the RP itself is what players need to detach from, not their characters.

I notice when I play I generally feel the emotions my character feels at that given time, because it's like acting. It doesn't mean I'm actually as angry as my character. But to some level the anger/sadness/happiness has to be thought out before being RP'd.

If I want to realistically play someone angry I need to bring up the kind of things that an angry person would say/do.

At the same token a player who plays a victim needs to say/do things a victim would. That combined with some of the psychotic things that occur in game sometimes causes rifts.

I feel the best thing is player/player communication.....especially in torture/killing situations. I feel this is important because the victim can be reassured that you are merely playing a psychotic and together both parties can come up with a great ending to the RP, rather than one party simply deciding what occurs and the other being merely the proverbial rag doll to be tossed around.

To the original poster, roleplaying is and really -has- to be substantiated by those who practise it, not those who react to it. I had the hardest time explaining this to myself until I envisioned the ideal as putting on a puppet show, only the folks attached to the puppets were invisible and mute, only able to communicate via the puppet. This simplicity allowed me to separate myself and my reactions from my character's. Often, I find that me the player reacts most harshly toward the game and it's physical instrinsics (lag, anticipated spawn locales, expectations based on game use itself, etc.) though it is difficult for me to turn that energy back down in order to interact with the other puppets once that energy has been activated.

As to blank biographies: I detest the scheme Bioware enacted originally, as 'description' would have been far more constructive, especially in light of the fact that it is something carried into online multiplay. For myself, I have absolutely no use for long streaming stories about your character placed in their bio detailing their angst-ridden past and how it led to their angst-ridden present. Not only would my puppet not know any of this, but they would have no access to it without initiating roleplay with your puppet in the first place, negating the use and need for that long bio story. This isn't the sole reason I choose to keep my field blank, even of physical characteristics, as often times clothing or environment or physicality (you fifty meters away cannot possibly see my aqua-and-gold-flecked eyes nor my ever-present sardonic half-smile behind my full helm) renders this just as unhelpful and unlikely as the story bio, in terms of roleplay initiative.

Most importantly, perhaps, is not that we are all doing the same thing the same way when we are our puppets but that we, individually, are engaging in any sort of roleplay activity at all while online as we each feel it represents our style, comfort-level, and ability to evoke/engage the same in others.

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Not the indie publisher. Sorry.

Agree to disagree, punk. You can call it upon them all you want, but this was RP produced by their character's dead remains traveling around (unknown to them as players, I'm guessing) until they had their character's dead heads mounted up in public and they were made aware of it OOCly. So I guess you expect them to have their other characters they want to play avoid that area/staking-of-their-heads at all costs so they don't have to invalidate someone else's RP? Either way, they still heard about it OOCly on accident at some point if they're having to choose to skirt around it, and if dead remains in public are a sore spot for them, it's probably bugging them even if they're avoiding it. Every time they pass the transition to that area it probably eats at them. That situation seems unfair.

I'll get personal. (Though I'm not upset! Promise!) Last year, one of my really good friend's mothers got shot by a thief. I didn't want to participate in Roleplay where one of my character's friends' mothers just got shot by a thief, or participate in Roleplay having to do with helping that character get over it. At least not until I was ready to. Not because I'm a stupid vulnerable person, but because I'm a person who doesn't want something I'm doing for fun to be tainted by a constant revisiting of my memory to that day where my friend's mother got shot. Or those memories I have of holding a broken-down human being. And I don't think I'm being "tacky" by desiring that.

Now, I'd probably just use IC tactics to get out of the situation and not make it OOC at all. But in the "dead remains" situation, I don't see how they could've done it ICly and not made it seem like they were just being babies OOCly for no reason. Which, they were being regardless, but perhaps for a good reason.



You are definitely harsh. But it's okay, I don't mind. I am too! I'm not sure if I'm correctly understanding what you were saying. In my Roleplay, I play characters that have parts of me in them. Not because I'm trying to "be me" in the game, but because I get fun out of roleplay for different reasons than you. I get my fun out of exploring my personality through little avatars that have no real effect on who I am as a person besides what I make of it. And I don't make much of it. I don't want to torture elves in real life and see if I can come up with some way to rationalize it as cool. But I DO want to do that as a character! It's fun! And I like to take a journey as a player with my character. I don't want to play God as the player, making something I'm not connected to at all and just watching this little bug that has no part of me do things I don't really care about. I want the DM to play God and do that to my character, while I'm sitting there at my screen riveted and having fun as my character!!!

And, I don't think my characters go nowhere. Nor do I think I create OOC drama for anyone! I create IC drama, yes, which makes people angry. But... not the OOC stuff. I hardly talk to people OOC! Anyone wanting to, feel free to rebuke that without mentioning specific incidents...do it! I dare you!

From a psychological standpoint, role play allows for people to expound upon and explore facets of their personality that they otherwise would feel unable to express. Case in point: CEO of a Fortune 500 club who has a room in his house where he likes to be tied up and embarrassed in full BDSM fashion. The CEO can't show weakness in his daily routine. He would get eaten alive if he did. However, he can role play a submissive and fill his need to explore that side of his personality in the safety of his own home with little or no consequence. (Until someone finds out, that is. )

I feel it's the same on Amia. I can't count the number of times someone who plays a talkative, promiscuous or other form of extrovert has told me that they are, in real life, an introvert. They're shy, conservative and so on and so on. I have no doubt that this applies in reverse, as well.

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

As far as I'm concerned, good roleplay is always based upon respect for the other players you're roleplaying with. I liken it to improvisation in theater: the most important rule is the Rule of Yes. When a player invents something, you don't deny; instead, you say, "yes, and...". You run with each other's ideas, you don't try to stifle them and out-drama them.

Case in point, something that irritates me to no end is when random people come up and heal my character, or cast buffs on my character when they haven't even spoken a word of conversation. Even though I understand that the intent is benign, the imposition is annoying. Given the game mechanics of HP, a character down to one HP could be bleeding profusely, or could have not a single scratch on them. You don't know until you RP with the person and find out what they're doing, and by seeing their status bar and assuming that you can see they are hurt, you are foisting your story on them, rather than allowing the story to form naturally between you.

Incidentally, this question of whether the character is completely distinct from the actor or if every character a given actor plays has a little piece of them inside is an age-old argument in performance theory, and there's no clear-cut right answer. Different people have different styles, because different people want to get different things out of roleplay.

I pretty much agree with what most people have written (up until my quote here, too lazy to read the rest right now), but I just wanted to add to Estara's tidbit about Yoss.



As odd as it may seem, especially to people who haven't bumped into Yossarin the character, that's probably one of the PCs I have the easiest time picturing when I see him. I remember asking Yoss about it, long looong time ago,and his response was something like "well, how would you like to see him?" It did a lot of good for me in my own writing of short stories to take into account the reader's (or in this case, fellow player's) imagination and entertainment. By letting others picture your character the way they prefer, you'll also end up with a better idea of what people think of it. I can't do it quite as minimalisticly as Yossarin, though, I'm too nitpicky for that, and at times I even go completely over board and type out walls of emotes only to finish off with a "yes" response.

As for tips on roleplay? I don't really know what to say. When I began playing NWN, I began roleplaying. Never did any of it beforehand, and aside from some Baldur's Gate 2 playtime, I didn't have a lot of RPG experience, either. My luck was that I'd been writing short stories on and off for quite some time at that point already, so it wasn't too hard to get the basics covered. Since then I've pretty much just grabbed onto whatever I found interesting in the way characters were played, how accents have been used, how to best describe movement in a fluent manner that isn't too hard to read for anyone. Make roleplaying with your character fun but challenging, and at all time follow Iron's advice:



No one has shaped my characters more than the people I've played with. BlackDahlya and RedeemerAutumn turned a character of mine away from Loviatar, Koragi managed to keep a leash on my wicked jestery draconic, Krautboy planted the kelemvorite seed in my earth ganasi only to drive him away with the harsh methods of Sharina, and LetumLux then gave him back his long lost memory by accident. I've never planned any of these things, and some of them has happened completely at random. When my characters have been changed, it's simply been as a result of me playing with people I found so entertaining, so good at what they do, that I wanted to give something back, and I firmly believe that the greatest respect you can pay to a fellow roleplayer in this game, is to allow them to have an effect on your character.

I doubt a lot of that was useful, really, but I figured I'd just write away, since I've got nothing better to do.

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Profiles: DakoDako & ElWacko

Characters: Currently trying my best to stick to Beridoc Brushgale

"You may feel a gnawing sense of dread as his glowing eyes lock with yours."

"You might irrationally fear that he is gazing into your very soul."

Turning an unconditional statement into a conditional statement may only require a few extra words and gives the examining player the choice to act as their character would. Only the last part has to be dropped, if you can invoke a feeling of helplessness in another character then you don't need a description which makes them feel that way.

The edited statements lack the impact of the original description, but then they rely on the examining player using their imagination and deciding whether that's really scary for their character to see, or not.

THIS. By offering a conditional you are not locking everyone else into your point-of-view. Allowing those who encounter you to a) understand the information you are trying to get across about your character via what you've put in your description and b) allowing those same characters to decide how best -they- would react to it.

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Not the indie publisher. Sorry.

I think my profiles and bios are the best. Save for the one on my main PC, which is a bit of a compromise between what I prefer and what other people said they really, really wanted to know, the majority of them are short, sweet, simple. And telling. Dako is right that I leave things like physical appearance and even the assumption of the general attitude up to the imagination of the people I play with, because it is all so much more interactive that way (and because your assumptions regarding what I do not illuminate, both IC and OOC, reveal you, both IC and OOC, to me.)

1:
"The word I associate with Yossarin the most is -beautiful-. And it has naught to do with appearance and voice. He is rare and precious and precise and so very, very uniquely suited to the needs of the time and place he was born into - it seems as if he's both out of place and a perfect fit for it at the same time. And as often is with treasures, he's all the more precious to me because of a sense that he could be so easily lost. Not just simply, as in through death or some other such removal, but a loss of himself. Just too much of "the game" that life is slowly eroding the very basic, the first foundation of who he is. Yet what use would it be to try to put him in a velvet case? He's nothing so simple as a diamond. Perhaps the only protection such a one as he needs is someone who can understand him through and through - aye, but here's the rub. No one can truly understand you, because no one is you. Even the most perfect-as-possible understanding and empathy and connection is only, at basic, suppositions and theories based upon experiences. I wish that the gods still spoke to use with an audible voice."

- A dear and faithful friend


Height: 6'3"
Weight: 175
Skin: Midnight Black
Hair: Raven Black
Eyes: Ivory White
Teeth: Pearly White

Shadowbard of the Burning Sands; Singer, Loremaster, Lover, and Cantomancer

The quotation is from someone who is Yossarin's very dearest friend, ever, with whom he still holds some correspondence, but the reason I use it is for a purely literary reason - it is another person's opinion being used to define the character, as though the character has no absolute definition of his own, but merely the definition imposed upon him by the opinions of others. This is how it often is with the archetypal "bard", in my opinion, who is known by many people but "who he is" or "who he was" is always a subject locked with the oral or written tradition, with no absolute guarantee that it is ever true.

Add to that the fact that bards are "authors" themselves with the power to conceive of and enact the exact same forced definition of other people, and you see more of what I am actually saying about Yossarin, without ever saying it.

The latter half is an addition to appease what others like to see, and you can see that I have an economy of language in it that is meant to express a meaning (the black and white contrast, polar extremes, the conjuration of images - midnight for the witching hour, raven for the grim association, ivory for its connotation of riches and wealth and pearly for purity, all of which compose far more than just the physical appearance of the character, as they seem to here, but the actual character of the character).

The height and weight are just a clarification on the limitations of the engine. Yossarin is, admittedly, much taller than people assume.


2:
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be.

Be one.

The bio of my Lathandran paladin. Not only is it a statement that defines who he is, and one he is likely to utter, it is the very heart and soul of why I created him as a character in the first place: arguments on the forums about what a paladin (or a good man), should be. Nothing else needs to be elaborated upon, because he is a person born a paladin and who will die a paladin and who will know no other way of living because he knows no other way of living.

3:
"Come unto me, my children, and hear the tale of the spider and the fly..."

The very first words of a short-living Lolthlite character. But the community did not want an overweight, old governess who seemed to know more about the Lolthlite faith at level 1 than the ranking priestesses. Her role was to be the failed and looked-down-upon drow woman, who is neither priestess nor young (drow are not supposed to get old and should die gloriously in battle) and whose role is to teach girls that they are superior and to teach boys that they are inferior and to teach them all that drow are superior to everyone else through narratives and fabricated parables of Lolthlite faith, wherein the relationship between the spider and the fly becomes manifold and complicated, with many faces standing in for both roles, but with the spider always the victor.

4:
Love thy Neighbor and Thyself as thou wouldst love thy money. Covet them, for when invested wisely, they all yield many happy returns.

The bio for a Waukeenar priestess that probably does not need any elaboration. I work in concepts and meanings, not necessarily in simple appearances and histories.

5:
The Urban Druid.

Nothing more needed be said about Diane Arbor. I will admit some people assumed she was attractive for whatever reason when in fact she was homely, well over the 30 hill, and with the ravages of two childbirths on her and acting as a nursemaid for infants at the orphanage (by nursemaid I mean that in the most literal sense), so I suppose I could have stated that she is not a blue ribbon prizewinner at the county fair, but it seemed to me disingenuous and mean thing to do to a character with a very short fuse and a devastatingly low self-esteem.

6:
I think my mask is slipping.

A reference. Those who know the source immediately and instantly understand the truth about the character.



The only reason I list these out is to show you that you can be creative and thought-provoking with your profiles and bios and give "brain candy" to closet bookworms like me without having to go through the whole boring and mundane process of "she has black hair and charming almond-shaped orbs with emerald irises that watch you from afar."

And btw, calling eyeballs "orbs" is so cliché and pseudo-literate that when I see it I want to stick a thousand pins in each of my orbs.

I try to keep my descriptions to vital details .. but with inspiration I think from you, Yossarin I did end up with a quote in Vaelmith's description which I think suits him ironically and appropriately.

Torin's description is far too long but is necessary because what he is is so far detached from what the engine can show that it is almost necessary.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Go medium, and but to the end of your bio (that can be scrollable a bit) a link to the amia wiki page of your character, where you have (or could have) the whole detailled description put in place.

I tend to have from shor to medium bios, but some of my chars have none as they just are WYSIWYG or I haven't come up with anything propriet to say about the character.

I hope this helpes someone. It's easy to make and maintain wiki account to amia wiki, and it is great fun to add info of your chars there ^^

PS: I hope more people would use the amia wiki, in general.

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Beldan'aun d'Tinnerai

I dunno how much I like yours aside from Yossarin's, Yoss. I mean, I love the ideas of them.. but mostly just because I think you have unique characters, it -is- necessary to know height and stuff. You even admitted the engine doesn't do it justice. I remember thinking that when I saw Diane Arbor the first time. Being tall instead of short or something can be vitally needed for interaction-- the first interaction included. Especially when it's a human and the height ratio can be drastic. It's like when people claim it's "unnecessary" to dress nice and appropriate for job interviews. We do treat tall/short people differently because of their height or weight. Appearances do matter, and affect how anyone would be. *shruug*

Though I have left physical height/weight out of a few of my characters, mostly because I didn't get that opinion/view on it until way after I created some of them. And by now they're pretty much seen as how they're seen.

There's another reason I love details like that out - they're unimportant in the grand schema. Let me explain to you how unimportant they are.

If someone were to have just made the assumption that Diane is attractive, it gives me the opportunity to have her respond as I often did: "Don't flatter me, I know I'm a frumpy woman." When in fact, that could even be interpreted as goading them into telling her even more about how attractive they think she is. Which either makes her feel better about herself, or worse about herself, if she thinks the person is leading her on (aka, trolling her).

If someone were to have made the assumption that Diane is, oh, over two hundred and fifty pounds (even though I see her as just below two hundred thanks only to her child-bearing thighs), and suggested to her that she needs to lose weight because it is unhealthy...she immediately becomes, in reality, more overweight than I had imagined her, if in fact I think the player is putting something interesting forward and I can do something with it (RP'ing her struggling to find a better diet, healthier eating habits, or just plain getting out and doing a lot more gardening for the physical exercise).

"Unimportant details" about my PCs have some wiggle room to be determined and even dramatically altered by the players I play with, as they conceive, mold, and make them. It is yet another one of my metatextual ways of exploring, I guess, the process of interactive roleplay and collective creativity.

Naturally, this has sensible limits. You don't get to tell me I'm six feet tall when I'm a halfling. You don't get to design me as a locquacious gabber when the character is so heavily introverted they operate almost exclusively through gestures and monosyllabisms.

Yeah, I like that! I get why it gives the interaction more breath, feel... the unknowing, discovering exchanges... and that side is thrilling. It's fun to feel like your character is getting defined and molded. I definitely have had that happen (even unknowingly at times) and do try to do that, too, in my own way... but I have recently just felt like it's unfair at times. We don't get the advantage in real life of "letting other people make up who we are." If yousa skinny mang, yousa skinny mang. If yousa fat mang, yousa fat mang. Though I guess everyone's weight does go through changes, depending on work-out/diet/etc like you said. So I can see both sides. I suppose you don't walk down the street and someone interacts with Diane like she's 250 and then you think to yourself, "Yeah. She's 250 today." But then someone acts like she's 110 and you say, "Yeah. She's 110 today." So I suppose it's not unfair when you do it. I do have a hunching feeling that some people do change their weight (and more importantly OTHER things) on the fly of the moment, though.. based on whatever they want/feel their character to be best at.. and that's when I don't like that there's no set definition in the bio.

I try to interact realistically, unless I'mma drow bathing in BLOODZ.

Sidenote: If Diane is that fat, why didn't you use the fat human model? 200 is pretty hefty! Or did you and I just missed it.. can't remember..