Character Applications: Tips For Making Top-Notch Roleplaying Applications

If you love text-based role-play, then you're probably familiar with filling out character applications. They can take hours of your time and then you have to worry that they may not even be accepted.

I have over six years of experience moderating and have read hundreds of applications. I know what I look for and have only been rejected from one game in my time (their Hermione was a mod and was looking for a more sexy, less-flawed, Ron Weasley). I have had to fill out revisions and have made requests for revisions to be submitted to me, in turn.

This check list won't be fool-proof, but it will help to make sure that your application is thorough and leaves no room for question.

Character Application Checklist

Personality

Flaws: Your character cannot be the super best friend of everyone. What are her short-comings as a human being? These flaws, if concretely defined early on, will not only stop you from being marked as a Mary Sue, but will also give you room for character growth later on.

Sexy Flaws: A not really physically detracting scar or a flaw that is glamourous or can be toughed through is not a real flaw.

Practical Flaws: Your character is also a Mary Sue if their only real limitations are in their head. Practical Flaws are drawbacks that you can't get over or willpower through and you need at least one of these. Examples include: near-sighted, bad at math, bad back, can't swim, etc.

Likes and Dislikes: It may seem simple, but I have seen players scramble to know what their character likes. Even if it's just a meme you put in your journal behind a cut, have a clear list of hobbies, favorites, and things they dislike. It will help the simpler interaction later to know that Ron hates corned beef or that John is obsessed with Oreos.

History

Chronology: Make sure to put everything in chronological order and clearly label the flow of time. Statements like "When she was seven" or "Shortly after" give a sense of a timeline. I have received an application that had absolutely no sense of time or the order of events. I didn't think it was possible to forget time in a history, but it happened. En media res is a trick you can save for your own fiction. In a straight character biography, make it simple and clear.

Mind the Gaps: Make sure that every span of time is accounted for. If three years pass between life-defining events, mention it. Even if all they did was live comfortably and work at a nice job, mention it. We need to know what happened between those years.

Format

Length: An application that can fit on a page with minimal scrolling is probably too short and will make a moderator think you half-assed it. An application that is more than four pages in 12 font will make a tired moderator skim it and miss the details of your character. If you have a novel to write, save some of it for in-game. Be thorough, but don't make your application so much work that moderators will dread it. Length doesn't guarantee it's good, anyway.

Clarity: Html can help (bold form fields like Age: 17, Gender: Male) but it's not needed. On the internet, two scientific facts prevail; Sans-serif fonts are easier to read on a monitor and text is more palatable broken up into smaller, narrow chunks.

At the very least, without any Html, put headers in ALL CAPS and put return spaces between sections.

Experts can put the whole application in a blockquote to make a more narrow column. Change the font-family to Sans-Serif (Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, etc). Bold headers and add return spaces between paragraphs. Indents are hard to do on the internet, and you shouldn't combine paragraph indents with block spacing in a body of text anyway. Avoid scary color choices or white on black text. It's hard to read. Use some design sense if you're going to code it up.

Answer Everything and Then Put it Behind a Cut: Make sure every field is filled out. Proof-read it for silly grammar or spelling mistakes that will make mods want to nit-pick for more, and then make sure it's behind a cut. Nobody wants to add you to their game and then have to scroll through your whole application on their friend page. MAKE SURE IT IS VISIBLE TO MODS. At least once a month I receive an application that the player forgot to unlock.

*NOTE* Since creating this post I have left text-based RP. Working on my own fiction and business endeavors has taken my time away, but mostly the decision was made based on the current climate of the community. For those still toughing it out and fighting through the drama, flakes, and word-count elitism to find good gaming, good luck!

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Who is This Laine Thursday Girl And Why Should We Care (We Shouldn't)

I've been seeing a lot of screaming and ranting on RP Thieves about Quit Roleplay being deleted and the Laine Thursday scandal. What is going on? Who is Laine Thursday? I'm not really sure that who she is is important. What is important is the drama fueling cyclone around her and how it is destroying the Story Form community as a whole.

Laine Thursday is a Pen Name For a Pink-Haired Girl

This is Laine Thursday. She has pink hair and a tongue ring and that is all I know for sure. She may actually be a perfectly nice person who has gotten on the bad side of some mean-spirited people. I don't know.  

Laine Thursday is a girl who allegedly is a bad celeb RP player who has been in conflict with other players for harassing them. She switches usernames and pseudonyms and yet she somehow reveals herself to be the same crazy person. This is all alleged because I have never encountered the girl and don't care to.

More Annoying Are the Warnings About Laine Thursday
Quit Roleplay was flooded by repeated posts about Laine Thursday. The girl posting about her claims that she just wants to warn people, but either we're going to see her posts or not and it doesn't matter if every post on the page is about her. Flooding a community with warnings about Laine constitutes SPAM.

So when the offending journal was blocked from QRP, the user, who apparently had gotten in with the mods under another journal, hijacked the QRP community and deleted it before starting her own exclusively to rant about Laine Thursday.

I don't care how crazy this pink-haired Laine chick is, that's way more crazy.

You Can't Claim Someone Is Stalking You if You Keep Taunting Them On the Internet
If you keep posting about someone on the internet, warning people not to play with them, that's like asking for them to come out of hiding and defend themselves. If you really want the drama to end, DROP IT. Don't keep talking about her where she has no choice but to say something.

Further, the users involved in this drama claim that she has contacted them at work, but they are on The Dirty posting personal information about where she lives and what her house and kids and cats are like. Who is the stalker?

The user who was freaking out about Laine Thursday has a ridiculously long post in a journal about how Laine keeps claiming she is trying to end the conflict. The point is supposed to be that each letter claims she will leave them alone, but then another letter follows. The point I'd like to make is that between these letters are countless publics warnings to other players about Laine Thursday, trying to ostracize her from the Story Form community.

In real life if you ran around taking out newspaper ads to warn women in your hometown not to date your ex-boyfriend, you would be the crazy one.

The Point Is That You Can't Protect The Whole Internet, So Don't Try
It's a waste of your time and energy to run around every roleplaying community on the internet to make sure that every user is warned of drama and by doing that  you are actually perpetuating the drama.

It may not seem like it, but if you ignore a drama llama long enough, they will stop. It may take a week, it may take a month, but eventually with no response they will give up. It will be boring. Instead of running around trying to warn people about Laine Thursday, DELETE HER COMMUNICATIONS AND FORGET IT. Don't even post them somewhere for a laugh, just delete them and save yourself the stress.

Warning the whole internet about someone is just too damn much work!

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Story Form eBook

The following eBook contains 2 previous blog posts (A Drama Intervention and 6 Common Mistakes of RP Plot) plus much more content for expert and newbie text-based Roleplayers. It's an in-depth guide to the format I play, "Story Form."

Table of Contents:
Story Form vs Action Form
Story Form vs Tabletop RPG
6 Common Fatal Mistakes of RP Plot
Navigating Game Information
A Drama Intervention: How to Avoid RP Drama and Why
A Guide to Gaming Graphics
Expert Tips for Moderators

If you're new to the medium or just want some ideas for moderating, this guide is for you. Click the cover image to download the pdf eBook!

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6 Fatal Mistakes Commonly Made in RP Plot

Text-based RPGs were a passion of mine from 10th grade (2002) until very recently. Right now my life is too busy to commit to much gaming, but a break from the hobby can do wonders to renew passion.

Despite my distance I find myself ever-lurking, observing mistakes players make and acknowledging my own failures in the medium. With 8 years experience playing and 6 years modding, I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two. So, here I pass on some wisdom and welcome comments supplementing my knowledge.

"All I know is that I know nothing." -Socrates.

6 Fatal Mistakes Commonly Made in RP Plot



1. Blowing The Load

You heard me! So many great plots get rushed through. A story that could have beautifully, slowly developed over months takes two week and then it's over and done with. This happens most commonly with relationships. Two players get so excited by a ship that they fall in love, get married, and consummate (usually not in that order). Any tension from a forbidden romance, any secret love, gets rushed and done with so that plots have to loop or fizzle out because they were over too quickly.

Worst of all, none of the other players care about these fast-developed ships because they see them as too little development with too much enthusiasm.

Credit Hannahtess on DeviantArt

2. Becoming Romantically Dependent

Too many players make their romantic plot their only plot. Then if their ship gets boring (because good relationships make bad TV) they end up in an endless loop of fluff/smut or fade away. Even worse, if their ship partner drops they have no friends or plot to fall back on while they NPC the ship and find a new player or adlib a breakup.

3. Isolating

Like becoming Romantically Dependent, if all your plot is with one other character, this spells doom. This is really specific to communities and not personal story lines, but it's a boundary that is dangerous if confused. Other players will come to dislike you if they see you as a pair playing out a personal story line in a community and it will be hard to get involved in the community should your storyline partner fade away.

It's easy to come up with an epic plot and barrel ahead, but it's always a good idea to find little ways for others to play with you. I'm not saying that everyone has to cater to your plotlines, but that you should give others opportunities to fill slots in yours. Offer up roles that an NPC might play to the community for grabs or find a way someone else can complicate it.

Further, don't just stick to plots you came up with. Volunteer to help others and even if you have an amazing plot running with plenty to do, tag open threads. Don't get stuck in your own world. You are part of a community.

4. Hitting an Emotional Dead End

Sometimes plot is so epic that it breaks a character. If you are going to horribly scar your character for life you have to decide if you will be willing to realistically deal with the emotional fallout of certain traumatic events.

Killing a spouse, for instance, makes a character very unpleasant to play for quite a few months.

This is not to say that you're a bad writer if you don't want to deal with it. Writers in prose fiction generally have the luxury of summing up a character's emotional breakdown in a literary montage or at least reflecting it off of a supporting cast of characters. You play one character in role-play and you really shouldn't play anyone who interacts with them. You don't have the luxury of summing it up because games are played in real time. You have to wallow in it.

Consider before you do it.

Credit altana on Deviant Art

5. Ignoring Plotholes and Flaws

If there is a simple way your character could solve all of their problems, but they aren't, you'd better be ready to point out in your narrative what psychological reason your character has for ignoring that out or you will be seen as a Mary Sue player.

Too proud to apologize to win her back? Make it clear that this is a flaw in your character and not just you being too attached. It's admirable to make your character flawed, even stubborn. It's annoying when we can't tell if it's the character or the player who thinks they are right.

6. Failure to Recognize the End of an Arch

If a plot has nowhere to go without going in a circle, end it. Sometimes you need to do this with characters, too. If you have a character you've played for years and you love their plot and arch too much to upset it with drama, retire the character. Nobody will fault you for saying that you have no more stories to tell with that character.

Only write the book if you have a story to tell.

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8 Dice Nerds Will Love

I saw a blog entry a couple of months back about the most expensive dice in the world, and as cool as it would be to have a meteorite as dice, it's just not worth it to me. Gaming is fun, but I can't imagine spending $200 for something that might roll under the table and end up traveling through my dog's intestines.

These dice, though, are cool and reasonably priced. Some of them, I'd say, are even cooler than the world's smallest dice or the world's oldest dice.

1.) We begin with handmade steel dice. These are D6 and are useful for most board games, but probably most desirable to Warhammer players. Steel dice are a subtle, classy, sleek statement. Unfortunately they were made for a gift and aren't available for purchase.

They are good-looking, though, aren't they?

2.) Okay, so maybe these aren't affordable, but these crystal dice sure look nicer than the clear plastic ones you find online. Neiman Marcus sells these dice for $600 which means that you could afford 3 meteorite dice for the price of the pair.

My recommendation is that you either keep these on a shelf or don't own a dog or a small child. I get the idea that these dice are made for the gambler who isn't blowing his money fast enough at the tables.

But they're just so pretty!

3.) I continue the theme with the expensive dice, moving down the price bracked to $98. These crystal-studded black dice are a bit gaudy for my taste, but if you want to show off, they're a lot more reasonable than all crystal.

Barneys New York sells the pair in a leather box and they are embellished with Swarovski crystals.

Once again, I suppose they're intended for the heavy gambler, but I figure anyone who can afford to spend $62 on a soul grinder has disposable income for some bling on their D6.

4.) We're back into the realm of sanity with this Chessex set. The set automatically generates dungeon paths. It's a great way to run a pick-up game or to sluff off on your planning duties as Dungeon/Game Master.

The D6 come in sets of 4 with room numbers on them so you can randomize your paths.

Alternatively it's useful for when you play with that guy who has read all of the core material and knows every canon dungeon in the game. These dice take away the pressure of having to make some random dungeon up from scratch.

5.) This one is called the "Weird yet Fair D6". It has the shape of a normal D6 with beveled corners and carved numbers. The coolest part is how this dice was made. The D6 was made using Shapeways, a company that specializes in converting 3D models into tangible objects.

It's a simple enough concept, but the fact that it was implemented with computer assisted design makes it really cool. The D6 goes for around $10.

6.) Finally a D20! For all of you D&D gamers (I only use D20 in my life for MTG as I play D10 systems) who want a big flashing beacon when you make a critical hit! This ThinkGeek dice does just that!

I'm not sure how you'd change the battery in a dice that runs $9.99, but it is an LED dice so it'll be a while before the power is gone.

The site suggests playing it behind a DM screen or in the dark for a dramatic effect.

7.) PC Diagnostic Dice have no gaming purposes. They're like sex dice for nerds and the ThinkGeek site suggests that it's likely as accurate as a real PC diagnostic test.

This set of 3 dice comes in a velvet bag. Roll the dice to see the problem, the culprit, and the suggested action.

Incidentally, as I type this, I am on a shiny new iMac because my PC had a melt down a few months ago and I was tired of rolling the dice.

8.) The final point on this list is pretty much all of DiceCreator.com. The webmaster boldly sent me a link to his blog a couple of weeks ago and I had fun browsing his gallery finding everything from Cthulu to Punisher to Firefly to Portal dice. He does some odd dice but most are D6. I'm not sure how the weighting works out, but the designs are really detailed and amazing.

Browse through the blog if you have an hour or so to kill. Some of these designs are even available from his eBay store.

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eBook Conversion

Owing to the huge popularity of the Drama Intervention post, I have turned my article on how to avoid/resolve drama in online role-playing games into an eBook. Share it, enjoy it! I even found someone using it as the default drop box message in their game and someone else had it as their status on tumblr!

Click the cover below to download the eBook in PDF format.

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People Who Should Not Play RPGs

I was at Gamestop at the Galeria the other day-- by the way, after the gas they wasted me on a bait and switch, I will not go back there-- and I had a conversation with an employee that I frequently have with such individuals. I was buying a 1st anniversary present for my husband, a copy of Dragon Age II and I expressed shock that less than 5 weeks had passed and it was already sold back. He bragged that he beat the game in 3 hours.

Wario knows a thing or two about
video games and douche-baggery

I often hear video-game enthusiasts who take pride in bragging about how quickly they beat games. Most often, though, I have to pull at my hair and scream at the sky in my mind, as they are bragging about how fast they beat open-world RPGs.



Major console RPGs cost 60 bucks at release. If you work in retail, that's a whole day of work after taxes (or before taxes if you work in Massachusetts. ZING!) So I have to ask myself why you would blow a day of wages on 3 hours of entertainment. It's like you are paying them 20 dollars an hour to entertain you. It's not because the game is bad. It's because you are a bad player.

Beating a game fast does not make you a good gamer. It will not make you elite. Yeah, sure, you can beat a lot of these games really fast if you blow off the side plot, but why? Why would you miss the emotional involvement, the plot diversity, and the entertainment by skipping side quests? Why would you blow off the fat loot, new moves, and trophies that you paid for so you can brag about it?

And before you say that you can go back later-- ask this-- would the end of Black Swan be nearly as awesome of you fast-forwarded through the movie and then after watching the ending, came back and watched the movie? We're trying to elevate gaming to an art form and yet the people who claim to be the most elite gamers are the ones lowering its status by blowing off what makes these games art! If you breeze through the story without exploring conversation and relationship-building options, you're going to miss the emotional impact of the plot.

YES, you can beat most RPGs on blitz, but that's because most modern RPGs are designed so that the baddies level up with you. So sure, you can claim you beat it in 3 hours, but that doesn't make you any more skilled than my husband, who milks games for the maximum plot and development and spends 60-70 hours on any decent RPG.

Why would you pay them 20 dollars and hour to entertain you when you could be getting your value at less than 1 dollar an hour? So you see, it doesn't make you a better gamer, really, just a dumb one.

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