How to Write a Character Story on this Game
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2012-02-11 16:31 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I don't mind having a minor mispelling pointed out to me as long as it's done in a friendly way. After all, one's own worst editor can sometimes be oneself.
I'll remain succinct.
You play as you want within the rules and EULA, and I'll play as I want. We don't have to agree, and no one is forcing us to RP together. Don' t like my bios or what I do or don't write? Don't like that I have/have not used canon lore? Doesn't matter to me. I'll play in my sandbox, you play in yours, and we'll coexist peacefully.
Try and tell me how to play my character or write my bios and then I'll get testy.
"If I fail, they write me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart." --- George A. Romero
"If I had any dignity, that would have been humiliating" --- Adam Savage
Virtue Server: Kheprera, Malefic Elf, Lady Omen, Night Rune, La Muerte Roja, Scarab Lafayette, Serena Ravensong, Kyrse, and Arachnavoodoo among others.
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Originally Posted by Canine
Am I alone in this minor pedantry?
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Not at all. I have been known to do this from time to time. Most of the time I get a 'glad you liked it' sort of reply. I've even had people ask me for suggestions on improving what they've done. If they seem to be honest about getting my opinon I give them as fair and neutral one as I can.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
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You're free to do so. I, however, don't and generally dislike it for many reasons.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
But that's exactly what my character ('my character' being 'me' who's actually typing this) is. How else have I played other games and experienced other worlds if not visiting other dimensions? It's not seamless, no, but that's basically a story in and of itself unrelated to the game being played or experienced. But one stipulation is, to fully play 'myself', it has to be with a pole-arm weapon, most likely a spear or staff. So this will be fun for sure  |
The first and most obvious is that your background becomes bloated with a lot of extraneous information: past adventures, absent abilities, missing contacts, etc. For someone else approaching you to RP it's akin to approaching a longer running television series. You may want to hop in and enjoy, but there's so much to catch up on. So in a way it's a bit alienating. We all have the CoH lore in common, but not so with some other work where a character may have been created.
Secondly, I feel it often comes with a lot of shoe-horning if the person wants to portray it as the same character (rather than simply an alternate version of the same). Despite all the options we have in our character creator, the mechanics to the game are pretty limited. There are a lot of concepts we can't pull off terribly well (shape changers as we're stuck to a humanoid frame with few exceptions, growth-shrinking, skills of all kinds). At least when moving from PnP to the game, I can't help that it would feel like a downgrade for most characters.
The third, and probably most personal reason, is that I like to see people stretch their creativity a bit. I've gamed with people that always want to RP the same character and same persona. On one hand they know the character well and can play the role, but on the other hand so does everyone else in the group. Admittedly, that's not so much a problem in an MMO where there's plenty of people with whom to interact. It's a personal annoyance though. I'm not a person to watch the same movie twice, nor see someone act out the same character again and again.
[QUOTE=Demetrios Vasilikos;4114526]
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And you're welcome to that opinion but, personally, I think that trying to assert that other people are roleplaying incorrectly, that you need to show them how to, and then making characters specificly to dictate to other players what it was like 'in the good old days' is far more god modey than anything I've ever done in this game and that's on top of the multiple times you've insulted entire communities on this thread.
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Originally Posted by FNG
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. |
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Panda !!! You were in one of my Costume/Concept Contests on Freedom in City Hall. Not sure if I was on D a r k A g e though. You would know cause D a r k A g e is the badass Brute with the boneyard/skull look.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
Yes. Get out, you freak.
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If you want your costume to win next time I suggest you get on my level son. I will be having another CC this weekend probably so you can look at D a r k A g e and take notes
lol as I wrote this
some of your other costumes are cool. I'm a judge that likes simplicity and logic so fantasy armored characters dont always win like the other Freedom CCs
Really?
The bio is fine as it is.
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You talking to me??|
Originally Posted by QuarriosSoul
Really?
The bio is fine as it is. |
It was a Costume COntest probably.. because I got the bling bling people always come to my CCs. I dont have time to read like 60 peoples character descriptions. So Panda's bio didnt factor in..just his costume.
If people wrote like I said.. we could have Bio CCs now could we : )
Not sure if you were talking to me
Duke of Dis-Orient.....now thats clever I would admit.
Initially I wasn't going to post any of my character bios on this thread, in part because I personally don't think they're all that great and partially because I didn't feel like having them critiqued but, I'll post this one that's been accused of being god modey and let others decide. All I can say is that I was seriously considering deleting the character until the day I got what I think is the ultimate compliment when I was told by another player that if there were novels about this toon that they'd read every single one.
In the time before we were not alone.
In the time before there were those that bore great gifts.
Fear.
Hunger.
Death.
Destruction.
A decision was made.
Seven were born.
Seven were left in the darkest of places with the foulest of beings.
Seven were made to love pain so completely that nothing could hurt them.
Seven were taught the beauty of lies so perfectly that nothing could decieve them.
Seven were forced to die so nothing could kill them.
Seven were unleashed.
Afterwards those that made the seven looked upon their champions.
Afterwards those that made the seven were afraid.
A decision was made.
Seven were stripped of their power.
Seven were locked away.
Seven were forgotten.
With old eyes made new, seven now bear witness to that which they sacraficed their very being for.
Fear.
Hunger.
Death.
Destruction.
Those from the time before were right to fear the seven.
Seven are not pleased.
God modey? Maybe. I didn't think so when I wrote it. I'll leave that up to others to decide and apologies for taking up a chunk of space on the page. I just thought it was important to present the bio the way it's written in game. Oh, and to clarify. I didn't intend to have the character be some sort of super ultimate unbeatable character. I rarely play it actually and mostly just try to engage other characters in small talk to learn about other people's backstories when on this one.
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OK, I can't decide if you're being serious, condescending or deliberately trying to get a rise out of people here, so I'm not even going to bother trying to figure it out any more...|
Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age
You would know cause D a r k A g e is the badass Brute with the boneyard/skull look.
If you want your costume to win next time I suggest you get on my level son. I will be having another CC this weekend probably so you can look at D a r k A g e and take notes |
Ironik, IMO has posted a variety of costumes demonstrating creativity and a sense of humour. A 'badass Brute with the boneyard/skull look.' sounds to me like a dozen or more characters I've seen every week since issue 6 at the Cap Au Diable market. However, I'm willing to be proven wrong, so feel free to post your brute, with bio attached.
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
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If I wasn't before, I am now.|
Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age
You talking to me?
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I'm aware of the unspoken rule that costume contests are as subjective as those who run them, but I don't think that making the "do X if you want to win next time" comment on a forum was the best idea.
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Dont know how. Know how to take pics in game but its not like posting pictures in this forum is as easy as attaching a pic to an email.. Guess I have to put pics on photo bucket or something then link it. Its kinda sounds like a lot of work. Might help me show winners of my CCs though.
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Originally Posted by Canine
. However, I'm willing to be proven wrong, so feel free to post your brute, with bio attached.
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Originally Posted by QuarriosSoul
If I wasn't before, I am now.
I'm aware of the unspoken rule that costume contests are as subjective as those who run them, but I don't think that making the "do X if you want to win next time" comment on a forum was the best idea. |
Do X ?
Was joking with Panda...I just thought it was funny cause I recognize him still. Probably held that CC two or three weeks ago or something. Just remember there was a very large turn out.
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I have subscribed to your mailing list.
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Originally Posted by Ardrea
I prefer well written long bios to badly written short ones. I also prefer well written short ones to badly written long ones. It's not the length of the bio that matters to me.
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I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
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And like common sense, its actually uncommon.
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Originally Posted by TheShattered
Yes. It's called common decency.
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I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
Eh, here's one of my overly-long-by-the-OP's-rather-dim-and-puerile-standards bios. In this case a DM/Elec Brute named Thunder Locust.
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It's not a character i play very much anymore, but the bio does pretty much adhere to canon.|
Jeri Hallaway was a linguist/semantician involved in the early efforts to reverse engineer Rikti Technology. A way to interface Human and Rikti control systems was needed, and the team Hallaway was a part of came up with the idea of using neural mapping to create a learning system interface to translate between the two technologies. Hallaway's work in studying Rikti semantic structures made her mind an ideal candidate for mapping. ... Something went wrong and the project was quietly shut down and buried. The equipment sealed away in a secure storage facility. 3 years later Thunder Locust emerged from a Rikti autofabricator in an Arachnos lab as it was destroyed by a massive power surge. "So swarming covers you, oh, but you thought you knew, the warning heeded not unfolds beneath an acid dew. This ticking in your brain, hard strikes the writhing rain, you feel a million sets of reaping 'cisors clamp and chew." -"Locust" by Luxt |
Honestly though, CoH lore, with the enormous number of alternate dimensions and alien worlds, is pretty open and flexible as long as you don't actively contradict established canon.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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Well, just like some TV shows, the episodes are one-shots until you get to the multi-shot episodes. You don't need to know much about the character, past episodes or what-not to 'get' the one-oft episodes. And the multi-shot episodes are for fans of the series (namely myself) to understand and enjoy.|
Originally Posted by ketch
The first and most obvious is that your background becomes bloated with a lot of extraneous information: past adventures, absent abilities, missing contacts, etc. For someone else approaching you to RP it's akin to approaching a longer running television series. You may want to hop in and enjoy, but there's so much to catch up on. So in a way it's a bit alienating. We all have the CoH lore in common, but not so with some other work where a character may have been created.
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| Secondly, I feel it often comes with a lot of shoe-horning if the person wants to portray it as the same character (rather than simply an alternate version of the same). Despite all the options we have in our character creator, the mechanics to the game are pretty limited. There are a lot of concepts we can't pull off terribly well (shape changers as we're stuck to a humanoid frame with few exceptions, growth-shrinking, skills of all kinds). At least when moving from PnP to the game, I can't help that it would feel like a downgrade for most characters. |
As for missing abilities, that's simple. Every place has its own rules. Think of it like an episode of Quantum Leap, but with any piece of fiction ever possible. Many have different explanations for different things. That's basically the 'laws'.
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It's weird that you would recognize him from a CC on Freedom, since he's on Infinity. However, due to the popularity of my costumes in-game and via my "Alt Alphabet" thread in the Media sub-forum, I know that a number of people have borrowed some of my designs. I even ran into a virtual clone of Future Shock on a different server.|
Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age
Do X ?
Was joking with Panda...I just thought it was funny cause I recognize him still. Probably held that CC two or three weeks ago or something. Just remember there was a very large turn out. |
I don't know what you mean by "come up to my level" either.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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I should hope not. You're terrible at putting on socks! You keep getting the seams crooked on the toes, and the heel isn't just for decoration you know!|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Oh look, someone else trying to tell me how to RP and write my characters.
Can you cut the crap and let me play the game, please? I don't come to your house and tell you how to put your socks on. |
(As for this bit in the OP: "Also put spaces in your story for each paragraph. No one wants to read a big block of text." It's true that some people just don't bother with spacing or punctuation, but it's also true that various bugs in the bio text box have often made it impossible to appropriately space things. I haven't bothered to try for a while. Last time I was typing in a bio and hit the backspace key, it started deleting things three lines earlier than where the cursor was, and it went downhill from there.)
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
Well, go ahead and judge me...
Robots/Traps MasterMind
Emp/Rad Defender
Robots/Force Field MasterMind (no pulse laser gun powers)
Mind Control/Psionic Assault Dominator
Invulnerability/Super Strength Tank
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.