Characters for backstory

[Rudra]

50 minutes ago, Crossie said:

Not really - You are applying real life applications to an online world regarding a vow of silence.  No such thing as a defined definition as it applies to COH.  The million dollar question which you decided to ignore is....  If the story is too long and you don't want to read it, what's the big deal if I choose to write a long story?  I get what I want and you get what you want.  Win Win.  Surely you aren't upset because people MAY be writing long back stories you won't read anyway?

On the contrary, I'm not ignoring it. I'm simply accounting for the point that @biostem made that you can write a bio as long as you want and post a link to it in your bio so others can read it.

 

Edit: Also, I enjoy reading other players' bios. Unless they write their bio as one very long run on sentence with bad spelling making it very much difficult to read. And I don't care if the ingame bio is long or short, as long as it is entertaining or interesting. So your attempted point of you getting what you want for having a long bio and me getting what I want by not reading it, fails. Because again, I enjoy reading bios. I just won't follow a link to have to read it. Which boils down to the same thing you want, but in a different way. You get to have as long a bio as you want writing it in a word processor and posting it online, or doing something similar, and then providing a link in your ingame bio for others to be able to read it. Win win. Without needing to expand the ingame bio character count.

 

Edit again: The linked bio even works spectacularly well for your vow of silence character. (S)he has an introduction card that refers the other person to "talk" to someone who has not taken such a vow to explain who you are and what you are about. There you go. Your ingame bio is your introductory card referring the reader to the other person that is the provided link to be told about your character. And that other person, the provided link, can be as verbose as they want in detailing your character and the profound reason for your vow. Your character now has his/her own bard to regale others with your history and exploits.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Rudra

[biostem]

Would a character taking a vow of silence preclude them from using a simple text-to-speech device in-game, or would that undermine the spirit of such an vow?  Similarly, handing any interested party a little card explaining the situation and directing them to call a 3rd party also seems like it may go against that, too.  I wonder if such  a character trait would be more trouble than it is worth, outside of explicitly full-time RP groups...

[Rudra]

9 hours ago, biostem said:

Would a character taking a vow of silence preclude them from using a simple text-to-speech device in-game, or would that undermine the spirit of such an vow?  Similarly, handing any interested party a little card explaining the situation and directing them to call a 3rd party also seems like it may go against that, too.  I wonder if such  a character trait would be more trouble than it is worth, outside of explicitly full-time RP groups...

Vows of silence do not preclude the individual writing. Under the correct circumstances, they don't even preclude the individual speaking. (And I believe, in some instances, if a person with a vow of silence refrains from speaking when their speech could have saved a life when present at the time of being able to save that life, the courts are fine with finding the silent person as complicit in that death.)

 

So yes, a character with a vow of silence is still fully capable of communicating without violating that vow. (Text-to-Speech would be fine since writing is okay and so is having someone speak on your behalf, and Text-to-Speech is both at the same time.) Unless of course, the player insists that the character is prohibited from any form of communication. (Which would preclude the character from responding to written comments, including texts on any personal devices, or writing a report for allies to know what is going on. It would also preclude the character from even being able to interact with any contacts since some form of verbal or written communication would be necessary to accept or turn in missions. So no using the phone to get or receive missions from a contact with this character since (s)he considers writing as a violation of the vow and obviously can't speak into the phone because that would be a violation of even a real world vow of silence. This would also potentially preclude the use of sign language, at least in my opinion, since the point of sign langauge is to specifically "talk" (communicate) with your hands to share or get information.) So if the player is going to allow his/her character to use the phone to get and turn in missions with a vow of silence, that is going to require written communication (texts). And if the character can use a phone with contacts, even if defined as just texts, the character can write out a note referring someone to his/her story as to why (s)he is being silent. If the character will not be using the phone to deal with contacts, but will instead physically go to the contact every time? Go for it. That still brings up the question of proper interaction to get mission data or to turn it in. (Missions can fail after all, and the character will need to disclose whether the mission was a success or failure since contacts are not omniscient or psychic. At least, most of them aren't....)

 

So either @Crossie's character is still obviously okay with written communication, the character decided on a vow of silence and then immediately broke it to write a story about why (s)he has a vow of silence, or the character decided to take a vow of silence and then effectively broke it in delaying it until after saying everything (s)he wants to. A vow delayed to continue proscribed activity is a vow broken. (Or at least is a pretty pathetically bad attempt at the vow. "I vow to never eat meat! ... after I'm done with this steak. You know, can't be wasteful, right? So after I finish this steak, I won't eat any more meat!" Yeah....) So no matter how I look at it, the character can still at least provide written communication because the character either is not prohibited from writing as part of the vow, already broke the vow to write the autobiography (s)he carries around to hand people to get to know him/her, or violated the spirit of the vow by saying it does not apply until after (s)he has finished talking and writing.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to insert missing "be" in "would be a violation".

[aethereal]

I have never topped this bio:

"What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?"

 

Thank you Mr Yeats!

[nuII]

The longer someone's character description or backstory is, the more of it I end up skipping over. Being able to condense your writing is a valuable talent to possess, and you should practice it at any available opportunity.

 

TL;DR: K.I.S.S.

Edited March 8, 2023 by nuII