How to Write a Character Story on this Game

Before you have the thought police start telling people what to write about their OWN character - perhaps you just send the person a nice note saying glad to see you have a Bio.

Then if they reply as if they want to discuss it with you - then and only then - you start with the superior - I know how you should write your Bio better than you act.

Now after they /ignore you for being a jerk - realize this isn't your game or my game its OUR game and we can play it however we like including badly written Bio's (to your opinion) or no Bio's - to novelette's.

My bios range from the lengthy to the short.

For example my Goo character (Gelatinous Ruse) has this as it's bio.

Hmm me, personally, I don't mind you creating a 'Statesman from another dimension'.

Admittedly I personally think there's enough of them but hey, there are enough alternate dimensions that it is quite feasible to do that. There is no problem with that claim although you will end up with the questions.

"Well why aren't you as powerful as our Statesman or any of his other dimension/time versions was/are?" Because the only other versions of Statesman ingame require a full team of 8 people to bring down or in the case of Tyrant a full 24 teamup of superheroes/supervillains of now godlike power. Note that Tyrant nolonger appears anywhere ingame, instead you fight an Olympian Guard (which is a watered down weaker clone of Tyrant according to lore).

"Why are you here? Surely if you exist that means you're needed more in your home dimension than here?"

While it isn't going to strike the same nerve that having a character claim they're the "Son of Lord Recluse and Red Widow" since...we know that to not be canocial fact. Heck why not have an original character who styles themself after Statesman to be "the hero he could not be."

That opens up lots of opportunity for expansion, will he go down a darker path trying to make sure justice is done or will he be an upstanding rolemodel to all these 'dark and gritty' heroes that playing by the book and doing the right thing CAN make a difference?

With regards using a character from CoH background lore, why not make your own immortal wizard instead of using him?

I mean hell it's not like immortal Wizards aren't uncommon in comic book lore or even, as mentioned, in CoH lore. Why take something that isn't your own and make it your own when you could simple make something that is your own?

You could still have had that conversation with Hero 2 (who is probably, like the example above, a hero who has styled themselves after Hero 1 rather than a canocial 'passed the torch' person) about the good old days of the Dawn patrol, you'd still be that immortal wizard but one of your own creation instead of an canoical NPC.

Wouldn't that be better?

[QUOTE=FNG;4114306]This is just... wow... First off, just because someone doesn't RP on Virtue it doesn't mean they're not worth RPing with. I feel pretty qualified to say that considering I've been RPing on Virtue for about five years now and have run across some pretty good RPers on other servers as well as made a couple characters on Union specifically to see how the RP there differs from on Virtue and had fun doing it.

Also gotta say that how strongly someone adheres to the lore of this game is not really important and does not make someone a god moder. I have a character that never tries to do more than engage people in polite conversation about a variety of topics and is far more interested in hearing what others think than trying to share their opinions. I wouldn't call that god moding at all but, this particular toon's backstory includes an explanation of how the universe was made that rips apart a sizeable chunk of lore and rebuilds it from the ground up. No, this character isn't responsible for the universe being created either. I just went the macro route for my character's story and fit the game's lore into it rather than going the micro route and fitting the toon's story into the game's lore.[/QUOTE]

Good for you but that last part is one of the cornerstones to my view on god mode. Aspects of the games lore is kept intentionally vague we still dont know for example the true nature of demons just that they apparently pre date the gods and have power enough to let those who make pacts with them match even divinely taught magic. We know the shadow shard was created to containt the Rularuu, an entity not just intent on devouring mere worlds, but entire universes at a time. A predator of infinity if you will for in the games multi versal aspect there is no end to the number that exists for every action, every possible path is taken somewhere.

Even trying to give an explanation to the how or why is God Mode. Claiming the mantle of Valmaz I can admit was not without a level of arrogence, viewing him as having interest in Numina to annoy infernal might seem abit much, but trying to tell others how or why of the universe or even that you where there without a lore based character to at least sync up. That is a major example of god mode in my book. Might as well say you are the guy who created this specific timeline and imprisoned the rularuu while your at it, wouldnt be any more extreme.

I suppose I'll have to jump in here. Don't worry, I'll try to keep it brief.



It is true that not everyone is a skilled writer. But I greatly appreciate anyone who makes any attempt at a backstory. This tells me that they see their character as something more than just a collection of numbers and statistics.

Choosing to complain about whether they borrow elements of canon or have less than refined writing skills or have an idea that takes up more than the relatively small space provided, is somewhat petty.

This is a game. People are here (I hope) to have fun. If part of their fun involves a complicated and convoluted backstory incorporating canon elements, then so be it. Bravo, show me more.

I invite anyone who wishes to tell their character's full story to do so. Feel free to start a thread in the roleplaying section and let fly. I try to read all of the ones I can find on the forums and, very often, I find ones that may not be literature, but they are worth the read.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheShattered
That must be in your head, because i'm sure as heck not crying about it.

It must be because I come from Union, where anything like that is frowned upon, then laughed at, in that order.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demetrios Vasilikos not helping unions rep saying they dont have any quality standard for RP. You do know anyone who actually is worth RPing with goes to virtue, those who go to lesser servers and thier minor RP populations are there to be ignored by thier server community, unlike virtue which is ruled by its RP community. And Lore in every form be it minor or major is far more important then so called freedom. In my experiance those who ignore lore are the worst of god moders.

You're not helping Virtue's rep any by looking down your nose at anyone elses RP community, either. We're already looked upon as the "sex-crazed catgirl server", the "loony RPer's only server", and the "OMG Virtue RP LOLZ server." We don't need to add "rude, hateful, lore-based RP snob server" to the mix.

I'm genuinely glad you have found a community that engages in your style RP. Some of the RP encounters you've described sound quite interesting, and it's clear from the way you write how much you enjoy spontaneous RP with new, like-minded people.

It would be a good thing to allow others the basic courtesy of enjoying their own communities without insult.

Backtracking to the OP, since I don't think I've ever actually commented on it since the thread went sour.

Honestly? The opinion of how to write a good character description is simply an opinion, and an extremely subjective one at that. I try to read character bios whenever I can: sometimes I find really good ones that are worthy of a "nice concept" tell from me, and others that just don't work with my thought processes.

There's a phrase that comes to mind when looking back at this topic: if you don't have anything nice to say, then it might be better to not say anything at all. I could complain and call out the people who have those "badly-written descriptions", but I have the decency and common sense to hold my tongue and keep my opinions to myself, especially on a forum where it has the chance to be shot down by people who will defend themselves.

Part of the reason why there's been so much negativity in this one topic probably stems from the fact that the OP felt the necessity to include examples that he felt were "bad". It's something that I, as a poster with my own subjective opinions on the subject, would have left out. Dragging conflict from another (DV's) thread into this one was the back-breaking straw, here.


I want to repeat the call that CoH is a game, and a massively multiplayer one at that. There's too many minds to call for a strict standard of "how" something should be done, and it's a generally futile effort to try to singlehandedly shape a community (especially with this being the internet, of all places) into a mould.

I had to read "Yukon Grey" out loud several times before it finally clicked. Well played, sir. *adjusts monocle* Well played.

I see that I am late to the party, but just to offer my response to the OP:

How a player chooses to write a character's bio is his/her decision.

If you're RPing regularly, then I can understand why you might want to read a short blurb: you will probably find out everything else about the character via your interaction with them. But for the rest of the player base, writing a detailed description may be as "in-character" as they get. Then it is there for anyone who enjoys reading that sort of thing, and out of the way for those that do not. In the end, everyone's happy.

I wasn't going to post in this now epic thread but I must just pop in to applaud Ironik for a much needed laugh today. Those bios are brilliant, well done sir!

(Not that there haven't been other things in this thread that have made me laugh out loud of course. )

Well, I'm gonna have to do this too, when I get home. Prepare to get a bunch of posts about my characters on Virtue.

Now I can't wait to get back home, lol.

I don't necessarily write much in my bios, I mean my oldest and original toon (Katana/Regen) still has, after 7 years the bio of 'Where *does* that Katana come from?' as a one man, completely unnoticed protest at the lack of a saya costume piece...

However, on a side note, I have a terrible habit, I read other people's bios and if I see a spelling mistake (and I will see it if there's one there, sadly I can spot one at 40 yards) in a bio that otherwise uses the english language and not gibberish, I'll send them a tell about it. Just gently pointing it out along the lines of 'There may be a typo in your bio, the <word with typo> in <general location in bio> should probably be spelled <corrected spelling>'

Am I alone in this minor pedantry?

I don't think I've had an annoyed or angry response yet to that sort of thing, I think most people are mildly pleased that someone's paid enough attention to the bio to spot a potential error.

Anyway, we now return you to your regularly scheduled argument.

And on a side note, related to the current disagreement, my opinion is that in this game, regardless of whether you're teamed or not, the world you see is the world as defined by your character. So we've got thousands of coexisting, parallel world histories running at once. Who *CARES* if one of your teammates has a bio that says they're the son of the big bang, come to save the world using only their left eyebrow? All that matters to me is the path through the game that my character takes, and how they interact with all the weird and wonderful creations that other people come up with. All other players are are bit parts in my characters story. All I am to other characters is a bit part. That's how I rationalise it to myself, anyway.