The Absolute Beginners Guide to Writing Descriptions

[Crystal Dragon]

Good time zone everyone! With recent questions coming up in General Chat for the Everlasting community I thought I'd take this step to help players that are unfamiliar with description writing for your characters in the game. There's any number of ways to write it out, but there's pointers of what to avoid, and what is safe to add for the best player engagement you can receive as a role player.

• Add what you feel would be rough information for your characters details. This includes physical traits that are visible on first glance, and nothing sexually suggestive. Basic information such as age, apparent sex, known city records information of your character or a list of criminal details that might be known to the public through police records in turn. It doesn't have to be long, or detailed
• Anything that might actually be detected by those with psionic abilities surface-level thoughts/moods/feelings are not a bad thing to add either. Things like auras, and magical signatures aren't a bad idea to toss into the blender either. But please try to remember your bio can be read by anyone, and if a GM sees bad content, they can and will wipe it and action your account if you are caught doing so repeatedly. 
• There are specific contents NOT allowed to be put into descriptions, this includes physical attributes that are generally hidden from sight (Chest and, ahem, nethers, no one sees that over clothing in the first glance, please think this one through.) And any content involving real life criminal activity, suggestive content are also not allowed.
• Tips for engaging with your character, so labeled "hooks" or RP hooks. This could be anything from a quick note of favorite devices and objects they keep on their person, or their posture/expression upon first approach or glance. These things are always good to add, and can change if you wish to any time.
• Lastly, a quick brief of what you look for or prefer with roleplaying. This could be adult, mature, dark, slice of life, theme preferences, era or generalized wishes for roleplaying partners. Remember, this is a PG-13 rated game, and should be treated with that respect of caution in writing details out. 

Hopefully this proves to be useful for those new to roleplaying here, or just looking for a brief on what could be put on a description to draw out roleplayers.

 

You can format it anyway you wish, whether it's conversation between two npc characters over heard, or a brief note posted on an office wall about said character. How you frame it is up to you, but be sure to break your description block up so it's not a huge wall of text. (Reading disorders can cause misreading information or even worse, drive a player off from reading your description at all.)

 

 

[McSpazz]

I have a few more tips to keep in mind!

1. Avoid adding links to your description that are too long OR are from a URL shortening service. The former takes away from your precious 1023 character limit AND is less likely to be used as people will have to carefully copy the whole thing. The latter because those URL's can be used maliciously and can spook people away from using it. I recommend using https://fbsa.cityofheroes.dev  if you want a good external link for descriptions or services like LinkTree. I'm sure there are others and I'll mention them here if they are pointed out.
2. Avoid putting forward ideas that are not cannon if you aren't also going to define them in your description or make clear what it is. For example, if I said that my character was a world class Pata'dooda, you would have no idea what that means and it wouldn't serve as a hook as you, as the reader, would have no idea where to even start with that. Simply adding that Pata'dooda is some sort of fighting style from another dimension or even just "the Pata'dooda fighting style" goes a long way.
3. Don't include your character's ENTIRE background. Aim for a cliffnotes version if anything at all. This is not just because you want to leave things up for discovery, but also because the limited character limit will make any detailed backstory feel gutted. As Crystal said, use hooks.

[Crasical]

My personal recommendation is that before you get too deep in the reeds describing your character's steely glare or the powerful divine magical aura they radiate, put some character count towards explaining your character's 'deal'. It doesn't need to be an exhaustive backstory, but just letting people know you're a rogue arachnos operative, a thrillseeking luchador, or a praetorian mad scientist goes a long way. Keep in mind that the reader doesn't know your character, so give them the elevator pitch first.

[biostem]

I tend to write my character backgrounds as either new heroes or ones fallen from grace/depowered in some way.  If you are going to say that your character is super elite, a god/deity, or otherwise some sort of world/universe-class power, then come up with a believable reason why they are of a significantly lower power level in game.

 

Do not write things in your bio that dictate how others should react to them - that is not for you to say.  No "your character feels in awe of Jane Doe's beauty" or "you shake in fear at the mere presence of my character".  You can say, however, that "Jane Doe seems to emit an otherworldly aura" or some such, as it is up to you *where* said aura originates from, just not how it affects other players' character.

 

One point I'd like clarified, though, is what aspects of a character's ID are actually viewable by others from an in-game perspective;  Is someone's name simply able to be gleamed from a cursory "scan" of another hero or villain?  Do you start from a position of ignorance and RP to get more specific details?  Cheers!

 

[Marshal_General]

You can also write your bio from another person's view. I wrote my Thugs MM characters bio as an interview with one of her thugs.

[Crystal Dragon]

4 hours ago, Marshal_General said:

You can also write your bio from another person's view. I wrote my Thugs MM characters bio as an interview with one of her thugs.

I *love* reading a bio that describes a character from an NPC's point of view. As long as agency of the players character isn't taken away, or forced feelings/thoughts were included, you'll be fine.

[Marshal_General]

This is the character I was referring to.