Your Bio and YOU!

[Xeres]

On 11/19/2020 at 10:32 AM, Soyuz said:

It had to be said.

 

I'm odd, in that I don't go out and deliberately roleplay much, but all my characters have a concept and therefore a bio. I try to give each one a distinct voice, but I'm not sure just how successful I am in that endeavour.

 

1024 characters can be pretty limiting though. I find myself picking my words *very* carefully, since each character counts.

I feel exactly the same way.  I don't RP but could expound upon some of my character's backstories in this section rather easily.

[thunderforce]

17 hours ago, Krimson said:

I used to have bios but now I don't bother. Putting effort into something that only I will care about seems like a waste. 

It's not only you; I read every bio I can, and I'm sure the other people in this thread do.

 

I'd like more characters. The reanimated corpse came in at about 1022 after several rewordings.

[Hardship]

I would be ok with adding more characters to the bio, but this right here:

On 11/19/2020 at 8:32 AM, Soyuz said:

1024 characters can be pretty limiting though. I find myself picking my words *very* carefully, since each character counts.

Is probably the best reason NOT to. I like to read bios, I even take the time to write a few for some characters, but I really don't want to read 3 pages of random musings. Keep it short, keep it concise and that will keep it interesting.

 

[srmalloy]

19 hours ago, Arnabas said:

All my characters have bios and most of them from live were tied together in one big soap opera that included 2 novellas and countless shorter posts.

After I saw someone say "Для" in chat back on Live, I experimented and found that CoH supported a number of Unicode character sets (one, obviously, was Korean), so I rewrote the bio for Yaderniy Ogon to use references in Cyrillic, as well as the comment "Это не костюм; это мое тело. «Подарок» «славной советской техники»." (This is not a costume; this is my body. A 'gift' of 'glorious Soviet technology'.), which she used in response to 'nice costume' remarks. After that, I would often fall back on a Russian name and bio when I had name collisions with existing characters, and eventually built out a loose history of Soviet hero and villain groups, using real research institutions for more detail, and some characters have origins that are more or less loosely connected -- for example, one character acquired her powers after being contaminated in an accident with DE biota, and two others got loosely-similar powers due to inadequate safety precautions during the cleanup afterward.

[ForeverLaxx]

All of my characters get a bio because I don't make a character without a concept for it first. Sometimes the story I come up with just isn't good enough and I'll rewrite the bio (before leaving the creator/tutorial) to something that has the same general start but a more believable middle and end. Sometimes my story is too long and I have to rewrite it in order to condense it down to the limit without it feeling like it's being condensed.

 

I probably take it a bit too seriously and don't really have any "silly" backgrounds or "just because" reasoning since I see these characters as existing in a "real" universe. Pretty sure my "silliest" character is getting deleted and remade into something else soon, and that character is basically just a soul that's been transferred into a crystal orb that controls an artificial body. Might be getting rid of that one today, come to think of it.

 

Anyhow, yeah, every character I make gets a bio I put effort in to. I don't RP any of them, though. Go figure.

[thunderforce]

5 minutes ago, Krimson said:

I've been playing since July of 2019. Many of my characters still have bios and when someone comments on one, I will report back to this thread. Just don't expect it to happen this year.

But one of these things is not like the other. I have read many bios (and enjoyed reading them, or why do it? [1]) in the last year; I have commented on, perhaps, two?

 

[1] this is a bit misleading because I'll read basically anything you put in front of me.

[Ejlertson]

Everytime I click to read people's bio and there is none to read I'm a little disappointed.

[Coyotedancer]

4 hours ago, thunderforce said:

But one of these things is not like the other. I have read many bios (and enjoyed reading them, or why do it? [1]) in the last year; I have commented on, perhaps, two?

 

[1] this is a bit misleading because I'll read basically anything you put in front of me.

 

You're two ahead of me. 

 

I read them all the time. I don't think I've ever directly commented about a bio to that character's owner. 

[DoctorDitko]

I look for them on any good team. If I like one, I make sure to tell the player.

Sometimes I find myself saying, "You have such a great name|costume, it just cries out for a bio!"

 

I don't mean any criticism, but a cool character with no bio makes me sad.

Even just a few words.

"Bitten by a radioactive superhero."

That works for me!

[TraumaTrain]

All of my characters have back stories and origins and connections to other characters.

 

Most of the time, though, it's just in my head. Only a few of my characters have it actually written out.

[CrudeVileTerror]

I have a villain whose backstory is basically "murdered by a radioactive superhero."   Does that count, @DoctorDitko?

[Force Redux]

I read bios. And if I like you're costume, bio, name, or concept, or any combination of the above, I'll send a text. I like to encourage that sort of thing. Likewise, when someone comments on mine, I'm encouraged.

[Ukase]

Some get 'em, some don't. If they don't get them, it's because I'm trying the character out - I have no idea if I'm even going to play it the next day, if ever. So, I don't bother wasting time with it. 

[DSorrow]

All of my characters are based on a concept, so most of them get a bio. However, usually it's just one or two sentences that very generally describe something about the character.

Edited November 23, 2020 by DSorrow

[drgantz]

I usually write a story, but won't if it is too simple.
I like reading stories.  I've thought of running a story reading event.  No judging  or prizes, just people reading and displaying stories.

[Arnabas]

On 11/20/2020 at 12:09 PM, srmalloy said:

After I saw someone say "Для" in chat back on Live, I experimented and found that CoH supported a number of Unicode character sets (one, obviously, was Korean), so I rewrote the bio for Yaderniy Ogon to use references in Cyrillic, as well as the comment "Это не костюм; это мое тело. «Подарок» «славной советской техники»." (This is not a costume; this is my body. A 'gift' of 'glorious Soviet technology'.), which she used in response to 'nice costume' remarks. After that, I would often fall back on a Russian name and bio when I had name collisions with existing characters, and eventually built out a loose history of Soviet hero and villain groups, using real research institutions for more detail, and some characters have origins that are more or less loosely connected -- for example, one character acquired her powers after being contaminated in an accident with DE biota, and two others got loosely-similar powers due to inadequate safety precautions during the cleanup afterward.

Had you intended to quote me in your post?

Just curious because it doesn't seem to relate to anything I said.

[ClawsandEffect]

Some of my characters have bios. 

 

All of my 50s have a backstory. About half of them have it actually typed out in-game. The other half are in my head. 

 

Any of my characters that make it past level 20 I have at least some idea of who they are. 

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Arnabas said:

Had you intended to quote me in your post?

Just curious because it doesn't seem to relate to anything I said.

It related to your tying your character bios together; I'd done the same thing, but more loosely.

[Bastille Boy]

All of my characters have biographies. I try to keep them short enough that people can read without scrolling. Most are three very short paragraphs (so way under 1024 characters).

 

Though most of my toons are associated in some way with Port Oakes Penitentiary, the world's only minimum-security prison for supers, my best biography is a one-off:

 

Scrapper: Ice Melee / Willpower

Tim Sundae's ability to summon ice comes from a mutation he inherited from his mother. From his father, he inherited homosexuality and self-denial.

 

I enjoy reading other players' bios, and I always look for them if there's downtime while waiting for a mission/event to start. I find biographies easiest to read if they're either short or formatted with paragraph breaks or other white space.

 

[Sailboat]

On 11/19/2020 at 6:55 PM, Shred Monkey said:

While of course you can do a better bio with more room.  I think the amount of space we have now is actually about right.  A character description give just enough information to "introduce" the character and maybe set up a way to interact with their RP.  But a good backstory needs pages, not a paragraph.

 

What we really DO need, however, is a better editing function.

 

 

I  am a fan of the brevity and precision the confined space enforces.  I think of it as the haiku form of character backstory.

[Oskmey]

Maybe this thread has inspired others. I have received a number of tells very recently about my bio for Apprentice Jenny.

 

Due to that I started reading more and instead of just grinning to myself or giving a thumbs up the person will never see, I have started letting others know when I like their bio. It does not need to be perfect, just interesting.

 

I usually have some sort of backstory in mind when I create my characters. It helps me when I go to choose powers, costumes, etc. I then change their costume up in game as they evolve more and more in my head. I really need to write down a lot of the stories I have stored in ye olde brain case for my characters. Apprentice Jenny just could not stand on the sidelines anymore while heroes ran in and out of the Ouro, Oskmey was a local, small town hero who went to the big city and discovered more than she had bargained for, Electricutrix was a spoiled brat who stole her sister's designs on a suit of technology and is using the hero work as a way to get famous, etc, etc.

[EmmySky]

I am surprised I have yet to see a PSA for personal hygiene in this thread.

[0th Power]

It was easier to have bios for all my alts when I didn’t have so many alts. 
 

But I do have (mostly short) bios on all my characters I invest in. 

[KC4800]

What if you're just a legend in your own mind? Asking for a friend.