Shattered Planes Archives (Seasons 4 & 5)
The Hub => Staff Updates => Suggestion Box => Topic started by: Logan on April 27, 2012, 03:35:42 PM
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I personally understand why it is suppose to be a paragraph long but when you are popping out as many characters as the average teenage mother now days it is kind of hard to come up with a long paragraph for the personality. I was going to post this in response to Hikaru's post but I decided to instead bring it here. Hiro has pointed out though, my personality isn't a paragraph they seem to hit the character's personality right on the bat.
I really think this one paragraph rule should be changed. I see the importance of it, but in my personalities I down right give you simple as possible explanations of the character's personality at this point when they enter the story. Other than going into detail with saying they like to watch my little ponies or get high on air planes I really don't know anything else to put. If I did go from one word to sentences it would probably end up like this:
...He is a good person. He cares about others. He likes to make the right choice...
And I'm sorry but that was really dull and boring. I think with the way I doing it I've set the ground work for the character and with that I could build on to it. As I pointed out before, this personality will sometimes be useless in a few weeks, and I'm not coming back to change it every time my character decides he is going to change his outlook on life.
All my characters are humans, and as humans my character's personalities can change just like that. I think truly if the character wont grow and develop then the character is in fact useless and boring. It doesn't matter what powers or how much power you give a character, what truly makes them fun is watching them grow and in the end looking back and saying wow, it really changed from when I created it. If people's characters grew as much they wouldn't get bored of it because when they got tired of them being that way they could put them in a situation to change that character's personality.
I thought about taking this into the reform debate but I don't think that is needed this is such a small change I'm pretty sure it can be resolved by a quick staff vote. Though I do realize you are doing your job by enforcing the rules and respect that, but at the same time I can clearly see that a majority of the staff agrees with this as well, other wise they wouldn't have accepted my characters.
I'm not saying I want special treatment but maybe we could put an exception for the paragraph rule that says if it covers the personality real well it can be exempt. I changed Akida's personality to a paragraph and by the council of Hikaru made some things up this is what I got:
Personality (one paragraph minimum): Akida has been around for many years. Many call him the destroyer of worlds. He has no morals other than he just wants to watch the universe burn. He loves ponies and kittens. He plants flowers on a normal basis and hopes they will grow to be big and tall. Then on his weekends he burns people on a stake just because he can.
I personally in the past have stated a paragraph is useless. As an rp things change and character grows. I've added the starting foundations for these characters and now I'm going to build up with them, I don't see why a paragraph is needed to explain a character's personality when it's probably going to change a week or too later. This is just my thoughts on this.
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I feel the same way about personality and the biography.
The entire board doesn't need to know the "bible" of every character made. That's boring, and it puts it bit too much pressure to "concrete" the character in question. How I always do it is, I write about how they came to power if they're a leader, what military campaigns they took part in if they're a general or commander -- things like that. I base the biography you all read on something integral to their identity.
Personality, I'm even more-so against. Mainly for reasons previously stated. Role-playing is supposed to be immerse people into its story. You're s'posed to created a reality within fiction; characters are s'posed to feel real. Characters are supposed to act like living, breathing people we spend our day-to-day lives with. People in reality grow and change over time. I can honestly say that I grew as a person since January 1st, 2012 until now -- I've learned things I never thought I'd be on some of about myself. And guess what? I'm STILL growing and changing.
I don't feel like the "breath of creation/life" has been put into a character that is restricted to a cardboard cut-out of how they're supposed to think, feel and interact with the multi-verse. Like Logan said, the best part of character development is . . . well, development. I'd hate to think that members weren't letting their character thrive or reach their developmental potential simply because of a demanding personality section. We aren't supposed to automatically know everything about an IC element; our character interact with it, and they let us know about whatever it is you're curious of. I hate knowing every single thing about something IC, especially when my characters/races didn't find that out, but I did.
To know important shit like loyalty, abilities, race -- yeah. There's no question there. But interpersonal things like their life story or how they interact with their surroundings? That knowledge should come from our characters. This way, our characters can thrive and develop as we, their creators, would want them to.
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I know personality gives a sense of what the character's like, but even that changes over time. I think it's a little more fun to have personality show during the play, not before.
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The paragraph is to give us a glimpse of the character at that moment, if it develops it develops. Hell Hikaru started out merciless evil as hell and now she caaaares.
Also it's for us to judge your skill as a roleplayer as well. If you're requesting a lvl5 or a lvl6 and you put a one sentence personality then it shows you haven't put much thought into such a powerful character....
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Yeah I understand that but I find the one word descriptions of the personality to work better then a blotch of random sentences. I made up some things like you wanted me too but they are so random. I just think a complete paragraph on personality is asking for a little more than needed.
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Is writing 3 sentences really that hard for yall? Shit, i could bullshit a 3 page essay in like an hour and get an A.
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When it comes to making a character actually yes. I probably have enough for a paragraph most of the time. But when I add them into full sentences it is really dull.
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Then make it into the dull paragraph, it then follows the rules no?
And the paragraphs for the bio are negotiable, it does have to be a backstory but you dont have to write say 3 paragraphs for absolute jack shit worth of backstory and you also dont have to give all of it at character creation, you can hit the base points using only the 3 paragraphs.
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Speaking as an actor I can tell you writing a personality paragraph is one of the easiest ways to immediately get a grasp on your character. You have you're own idea of what the character is like, but usually whenever I write it out I get an easier grasp on his/her personality.
Also, if you have trouble, write about why they have such their personality. Sure we are born with it, but the world still shapes it.
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Is writing 3 sentences really that hard for yall? Shit, i could bullshit a 3 page essay in like an hour and get an A.
You know me, I'm lazy 8D