What Makes a good Bio?

[SirArthurIV]

I was musing earlier about RP bios and my method for writing them. A particular thought entered my brain.

 

What aspects of someone's bio or appearance makes you want to approach them for RP? And what are the best opening lines to initiate with someone else? How do you incorporate what they write into the interaction? I always feel awkward approaching people and could always use tips to get that opening "hey" out of the way.

 

Usually, I come up with a character design I like then build the backstory of the character justify the appearance. It's like I reverse engineer a story for how I want them to look as wyswyg is my default consideration and it's easier to work backwards. 

[WanderingAries]

First you make sure the roll of TP is in range and follow it with a good pack of wipes. Then you....OH, you mean "A Bio", not "/bio".  >.>  <.<  >.>

 

 

I guess it depends on what your style is. I quickly came up with templates because I quickly found that you had to be creative with names (back on live) and not everyone might 'get' the name I chose due to things like language variances. Also, I heavily advise creating an actual document that you can copy / paste from for archival purposes.

 

Quote

Name: Ange (French for Angel)

Title: Ange des Ténèbres (Angel of the Shadows)

Visual Age: Late 20's

Actual Age: 192

Birthplace: French Quarter, Louisiana

Mate: Briana Molanof

Affiliation: The Watcher Clan

 

Pyromethious, leader of The Watcher Clan, recognized the purity in Ange's spirit and asked him to be his "Angel of the Shadows". Ange earned the upmost respect of the clan and eventually became blood brother to Pyro.

 

Later he was sent in search of Cygnes, Pyro's exiled wife, to see what she had been up to in the Rogue Isles when the “Vixens of the Isles” drew him out of the shadows. Overpowered by Cygnes' Vixens, Ange was all but dead when Briana stepped between him and her sisters.

 

Battle Cry: Mourez dans le ma Pêche (French: Die in Silence my Peach)

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

17 hours ago, SirArthurIV said:

Usually, I come up with a character design I like then build the backstory of the character

 

Some of my favorite characters, to include my main, have back stories built this way. IMO it's totally legitimate and I wouldn't be surprised if most comic book characters had their stories written after they were drawn.

 

That said, for me the biggest single factor in a bio that influences whether or not I want to interact with a character is correctness; spelling, grammar, and formatting. If the player doesn't take the time to review their own work and assess it for errors when they have the time, it gives me the impression they aren't taking their character seriously, which really lowers the stakes for me.

 

17 hours ago, SirArthurIV said:

How do you incorporate what they write into the interaction?

 

I usually try not to do this, unless their bio specifically has a hook that is listed that makes sense for my character to elicit or employ (eg: their character is 'famous' etc).

 

Other exception would be a note about how the character's design might be limited by the CC's options so I try to call that out relatively early (if that makes sense) as a way to signal "hey, I see and care about this exceptional thing you care about, that my character should very obviously be able to see for themselves." 

 

Otherwise? I like to let the player present their character at face value and determine via writing what I should or shouldn't know about them.

 

17 hours ago, SirArthurIV said:

I always feel awkward approaching people and could always use tips

 

That's the way it is! People are naturally programmed to one degree or another about flubbing first introductions. My method is to just relax and try to have low stakes. There's a million things that can make your first bump tricky, most of which you exercise no control over.

 

But if something draws you to another character, just try to lead with that if it makes sense. After all, it's your most natural reaction and in the absence of a clear reason for in-character interest, it will lead to more authentically written dialog for your character. 

[ChallengerYura]

On 3/27/2025 at 6:34 PM, SirArthurIV said:

What aspects of someone's bio or appearance makes you want to approach them for RP?

 

Generally what makes me approach people is if they're making an effort, I'm only relatively new to RP in CoH but I've done it for years on various platforms and other MMORPGs. It's not so much that it needs to be extremely detailed just that it's structured nicely and generally they have a good grasp of English. I'm not talking University levels of writing just being (mostly) fluent in the language! 

 

On 3/27/2025 at 6:34 PM, SirArthurIV said:

And what are the best opening lines to initiate with someone else? How do you incorporate what they write into the interaction? I always feel awkward approaching people and could always use tips to get that opening "hey" out of the way.

 

The best lines I think are the one's that come natural to your character, they're their own person with their own personality so you need to play off that. If your character is an antisocial type then it'll be a little harder. All you need to do is focus on your characters traits and let them naturally play out, whether that's approaching someone out of curiosity, commenting to them about something they've said or even just watching a group of people.

 

That could be asking them questions about whether they've seen a certain individual you're hunting (make it up if need be), asking them if they've seen a character you've written that's connected to your backstory, maybe your character is doing an investigation? Looking for his sidekick? Maybe you're eavesdropping on them for information? More than anything try not to stress out, if people are in public with their RP tag on they're usually fine with being approached! (most of the time) Just remember they're here to RP!

 

When it comes to what's written in their bio that's at your descretion, if they say their character is famous you might recognize them. If their character is an infamous SG that maybe has a bad reputation and it's specified that they publically identify with them you could comment on that! You don't always have to react to what's in there, stick mostly to hooks unless it's something you feel they're making public, your character might know and you might want to comment on it IC.

 

On 3/27/2025 at 6:34 PM, SirArthurIV said:

Usually, I come up with a character design I like then build the backstory of the character justify the appearance. It's like I reverse engineer a story for how I want them to look as wyswyg is my default consideration and it's easier to work backwards. 

 

There's nothing wrong with that at all! I usually work the other way around but I've had plenty of good characters in other games that came about because I spent the afternoon messing around with the character creator. What I will say is you might want to start out with a simple concept with a character that has a friendlier personality if you're struggling to be social IC, I made a sidekick that's essentially naive patriotic youth. The end result is her approaching people at random to say hello, offer help and hanging out at random is natural because that's basically her job!

Edited April 1 by ChallengerYura

[FFTMime]

My honest advice to all RPers.

Come up with one, one single on, really strong conceptual foundational trait. It can be a lot of things. A single personality trait. Some concept. Some specific event they were involved in. Or just a one-line concept of who they are. I built a CoC character around the simple idea of, "Schoolgirl who throws rocks as hard as she can at the evil fish men taking over the gulf coast." That was all I had. Then I built 'herself' up around that one part at a time as I used her and tested interactions. Yeah, kind of make it up as you go around what you have. This was one of my best characters, and all successes I have are similar. Which should make characters in COH all the easier. Since you can even do silly things like, "Was a family pet dog. Got soul transferred into the mind of a crime fighting humanoid robot." 

It kind of is that simple. You just need one VERY strong trait to think about. The rest can justify itself around it. It just works. This is how you make interesting characters worth interacting with. In my experience. I've never had luck doing anything else. Well thought out reasonable beings aren't interesting to chat with, turns out. 

[Latex]

I try to fit in character hooks lately, anything that makes my character easier to approach even if they're not the approachable type. Try to think of it from the outside looking in, what would interest me in a bio and how can I include that in mine.

First up is RP style for the character, if they're an adult concept then I don't want them RPing with minors IC or OOC, I really dislike self-censorship so I get that out there, also include that I'm cool with OOC approaches/Tells Welcome etc, a little OOC chat for anyone too anxious can quickly break the ice. A synopsis and then 3 or 4 character hooks that might not come across in costume or backstory elements others might be able to link to, e.g. 'Known to work frequently with Crey Industries.' or 'Works for Hero Corps most evenings.'

Basically I try to cater my bio to make it as easy as possible to engage with me and the character

[TigerEmperor]

On 3/28/2025 at 7:57 PM, FFTMime said:

My honest advice to all RPers.

Come up with one, one single on, really strong conceptual foundational trait. It can be a lot of things. A single personality trait. Some concept. Some specific event they were involved in. Or just a one-line concept of who they are. I built a CoC character around the simple idea of, "Schoolgirl who throws rocks as hard as she can at the evil fish men taking over the gulf coast." That was all I had. Then I built 'herself' up around that one part at a time as I used her and tested interactions. Yeah, kind of make it up as you go around what you have. This was one of my best characters, and all successes I have are similar. Which should make characters in COH all the easier. Since you can even do silly things like, "Was a family pet dog. Got soul transferred into the mind of a crime fighting humanoid robot." 

It kind of is that simple. You just need one VERY strong trait to think about. The rest can justify itself around it. It just works. This is how you make interesting characters worth interacting with. In my experience. I've never had luck doing anything else. Well thought out reasonable beings aren't interesting to chat with, turns out. 

 

This is one thing I do with some of the characters I make. Having a trait or concept I want to do, then letting it build out from there, such as when I write the basic description, traits, etc. Such as "Okay, so this is a vampire that's not connected to my Carnival of Blood idea, she got turned because she got taken by surprise or advantage of by another, and is now this. No distinct age thing so why...? It's been a couple decades, she's still 'missing' but the search has dropped off. Also, she's able to take her time with things like getting a Ph.D, trying career jobs, figure out how she likes specific things, etc."

 

And like Latex mentioned, mentioning hooks like "Affiliated with X in this way." or "Does X at Y frequently." sorts of things, especially since those can provide good descriptive details.

 

Also, yes, if you want to explore concepts, gotta be clear about that and how far they'd go with it, if at all.

 

Assuming you have space in the bio, of course.

[UltraAlt]

On 3/27/2025 at 2:34 PM, SirArthurIV said:

Usually, I come up with a character design I like then build the backstory of the character justify the appearance. It's like I reverse engineer a story for how I want them to look as wyswyg is my default consideration and it's easier to work backwards. 

 

I don't end up role-playing much other than designing my character and writing a bio which I do before ever zoning into THE CITY.

If someone start rp'ing at me, I'll rp back at them, but I'm not trying to use any standardized rp behavior because I'm mainly focused on playing the game when I'm running around doing stuff in THE CITY.

 

I'm a character conception player. Generally, having a general character conception gives me a good idea of what is going to go on in their bio (if not the archetype and power sets immediately). 

 

I write a couple different kinds of bios based on the character conception.

Standard one is a 3rd person origin story which may or may not integrate the character's connection to THE CITY.

Some of a kind of rambling 1st person account of the character  in general and possibly their origin.

Some villain characters it is an APB issued by some authority or another.

If it is a homage character, I'll take the basics of the original character conception and twist the bio enough that it fits with the homage concept.

I think I have some kind of in-your-face ones as well ... over 150 characters all with bios so I kind of do some crazy off-the-wall stuff sometimes.

 

 

[Bleak Sun]

In contrast to some of the respondents, I generally come up with a concept first (based on a general understanding of all the powersets) with specific powersets in mind, then compose the look and bio. I rarely enter the game without a firm concept in mind, and if I do so without a bio, it's only because I haven't worked out all the details yet. But they'll be there before they reach level 10.

 

I'm frankly surprised by the OP, I've been playing since this version went public (actually since 2006, and was online when they pulled the plug) and have yet to see any players in Homecoming on any shard who have bothered to create descriptions for their characters, except for one who (in ungrammatical English) apologized for not having "ideas" and instead left a bulleted list of possible origins for the character. I see characters with the "Roleplaying" title above their heads, but in my experience none of them are doing anything remotely related to RP and they don't have bios. I'm happy to discover that somebody is actually interested. Kudos to you.

 

I don't think you need "roleplaying hooks" in your bio, I think you just need an engaging character story (not just "angry guy from Hell looking for revenge" but more like "Jane Smith had a normal childhood, but then the Rikti invaded and she discovered abilities she never knew she had...", or "Mary Jones was an investment banker with a growing family when terrorists changed her life forever..."). Anyone willing to actually RP will pick up on that and play along. Good luck finding them.

 

(Bear in mind that I had some unsavory experiences in the original game with adolescent boys apparently acting on crushes on my characters, some [but not all] of whom were scantily clad, seemingly unaware that these are cartoons, and they had no idea that I was [at the time] in my late 20s with children and a completely unflattering body type. I did a lot of server jumping in those days.)

 

Taking a cue from UltraAlt, I had a few "homage" characters in the original and only recreated one of them here. All my bios are third person, but for homages I try to explain how and why they are different from the character they copy (they only look like clones). If the costume is the only thing resembling a published character (completely different backstory and abilities), I don't bother explaining why they look like a published character because the concept is completely unrelated. If I get "genericized", I'll just change the costume.

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, Bleak Sun said:

I'm frankly surprised by the OP, I've been playing since this version went public (actually since 2006, and was online when they pulled the plug) and have yet to see any players in Homecoming on any shard who have bothered to create descriptions for their characters, except for one who (in ungrammatical English) apologized for not having "ideas" and instead left a bulleted list of possible origins for the character. I see characters with the "Roleplaying" title above their heads, but in my experience none of them are doing anything remotely related to RP and they don't have bios. I'm happy to discover that somebody is actually interested. Kudos to you.

 

Wow.

What Shard are you paying on?

 

I can't say that I have seen bios on every Shard, and they are few and far between sometimes, but I know I have seen other players with bios on Reunion, Torchbearer, Everlasting, and Excelsior ... and I only usually have time to look for them when standing around waiting for a DFB or task force to start.

 

Try going to the bars upstairs in the Pocket D on Everlasting and you will run into RP's just /emote'ing or just standing there without an emote even and most ... if not all of them ... have bios.

Heck, even characters just standing around in the main room of the Pocket D often have bios.

 

I guess if you are on Excelsior, you get what comes with being on the most populated server.

 

3 hours ago, Bleak Sun said:

(Bear in mind that I had some unsavory experiences in the original game with adolescent boys apparently acting on crushes on my characters, some [but not all] of whom were scantily clad, seemingly unaware that these are cartoons, and they had no idea that I was [at the time] in my late 20s with children and a completely unflattering body type. I did a lot of server jumping in those days.)

 

I have been lucky this time around and only run into two stalkers that were following my characters around or trying to go on "quiet walks" with them or what not.

 

Server jumping has always been good for me. I still do it all the time.

 

3 hours ago, Bleak Sun said:

Taking a cue from UltraAlt, I had a few "homage" characters in the original and only recreated one of them here. All my bios are third person, but for homages I try to explain how and why they are different from the character they copy (they only look like clones). If the costume is the only thing resembling a published character (completely different backstory and abilities), I don't bother explaining why they look like a published character because the concept is completely unrelated. If I get "genericized", I'll just change the costume.

 

My homage characters costumes always look different from the character they are a homages to, but with the same basic flavor often with color palette changes.

Kind of the way I do with my bios. 

 

I don't recall ever having even one of my characters' names or customs being genericized. 

...well, except for when I genericized all my character bios, changes their costumes to Praetorian androids, paraded them all out to the statue in front of City Hall in Altas, and then blew them up with https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Inherent_Powers#Self_Destruction when I cancelled my subscription almost a year exactly before the Sunset...

... but the DEVs didn't do that directly to my characters ... the DEVs only prompted me to do it through the changes to the game and NCSoft trying to squeeze as much money out of F2Prs and subscribers alike.

 

 

[UltraAlt]

On 4/8/2025 at 11:47 AM, Latex said:

I try to fit in character hooks lately, anything that makes my character easier to approach even if they're not the approachable type. Try to think of it from the outside looking in, what would interest me in a bio and how can I include that in mine.

 

Well, "[looking to roleplay - talk to me in /local or send me a tell]" would probably go a long way.

I don't know if the rper flag helps or not. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Roleplaying_(Slash_Command)

 

On 4/8/2025 at 11:47 AM, Latex said:

First up is RP style for the character, if they're an adult concept then I don't want them RPing with minors IC or OOC, I really dislike self-censorship so I get that out there, also include that I'm cool with OOC approaches/Tells Welcome etc, a little OOC chat for anyone too anxious can quickly break the ice. A synopsis and then 3 or 4 character hooks that might not come across in costume or backstory elements others might be able to link to, e.g. 'Known to work frequently with Crey Industries.' or 'Works for Hero Corps most evenings.'

 

It looks like you already have those bases covered.

There is really no way to know if you are trying to ERP with a minor or not, so unless you actually know the person, I would suggest avoiding ERP in game.