What are your thoughts?
Introduction
Character Sheets? Character Sign-up? Character Application? Character Blurbs? Detailed character sheets? Vague character sheets? Do you like character sheets? Yay? Nay? Do you prefer to make a full, detailed character sheet [basic information, persona, biography, miscellaneous, other]? Why or why not? Does it depend on the genre of the roleplay and what the roleplay entails? Or, is this just the "norm" of how you organise or create a character?
Background
I remember the first time I heard about "roleplaying". It was such a new world to me and who would have thought it could, as cliche as it sounds, change my life? It was absolutely engaging and enjoyable to create these being and these worlds from my imagination and bring them to life! I was always a daydreamer and so my imagination always ran wild. So, having the ability to let my imagination run free was liberating. As my friend integrated me into the world of roleplaying, she walked me through the process of this whole new world that she created herself, giving me the plot of her roleplay. Once I knew the synopsis of the story that we were getting into, the next part was character creating. So, she gave me a basic formula sheet that entailed basic information, persona, and biography. Once both of us finished creating our character, it was time to dive right into the roleplay!
So, for the longest time, I always thought that the only way to create a character or be part of a roleplay was through these requirements and criteria of a character sheet given to me by someone else. I thought each requirement was needed in order to be accepted into a roleplay which included the biography. So, this brings me to the main point of the thread aside from character sheets itself but also character biographies and personalities.
When I was roleplaying with my friend, I always thought it was a must to have your character's biography and personality in your character sheet. I remember when other people wanted to join the roleplay my friend and I created together that we both required the players to be absolutely detailed with their sheets, not leaving anything blank. Although most complied, there were some who refused to do character biographies as they wanted to save their character's backstory reveal for the roleplay. Of course, being new to roleplaying and not knowing any other 'ideas' at the time, my friend and I refused to have that. We needed to know at least some history of the character and some depth of said character before they roleplayed in the world we created. It was a norm for us and just a complete must. While we preferred detailed character sheets and others may have experienced character sheets in which they didn't need to put too much detail to save for the story, our perspective was different. If the person kept refusing, despite telling their reasons to why they didn't want to finish a certain part of the character sheet, we thought the person just didn't want to add depth to their character and were just being too lazy. And, as bad as that sounds, that was just how our thought process was way back when.
Now, time skip forward to about three years later. I never realised how much my perspective changed regarding character sheets and creating characters. I personally love character making. Like, I honestly have an addiction to making characters. It's unbelievable. Nevertheless, I figured I would stop boring you guys with too much details - unless you'd like to hear more and the reason why my perspective changed, feel free to ask. I have found myself feeling as if filling out character sheet requirements have become quite the hassle. Perhaps it is because of my "laziness" or quite frankly, especially in group roleplays, I have seen roleplays die during the character making process that it just hurts to put so much time into a character sheet for the roleplay to not even begin. At the same time, I feel the dread and tiredness from keeping up with character sheet requirements and what's needed to be considered acceptable or up to par with others. I used to absolutely love in-depth character sheets that gave me a better idea of the character. But, I also feel that writing out personalities to my characters can be a hard as sometimes it's incredibly frustrating to try to describe my character's persona within the limits of a character sheet itself.
So, for the longest time, I always thought that the only way to create a character or be part of a roleplay was through these requirements and criteria of a character sheet given to me by someone else. I thought each requirement was needed in order to be accepted into a roleplay which included the biography. So, this brings me to the main point of the thread aside from character sheets itself but also character biographies and personalities.
When I was roleplaying with my friend, I always thought it was a must to have your character's biography and personality in your character sheet. I remember when other people wanted to join the roleplay my friend and I created together that we both required the players to be absolutely detailed with their sheets, not leaving anything blank. Although most complied, there were some who refused to do character biographies as they wanted to save their character's backstory reveal for the roleplay. Of course, being new to roleplaying and not knowing any other 'ideas' at the time, my friend and I refused to have that. We needed to know at least some history of the character and some depth of said character before they roleplayed in the world we created. It was a norm for us and just a complete must. While we preferred detailed character sheets and others may have experienced character sheets in which they didn't need to put too much detail to save for the story, our perspective was different. If the person kept refusing, despite telling their reasons to why they didn't want to finish a certain part of the character sheet, we thought the person just didn't want to add depth to their character and were just being too lazy. And, as bad as that sounds, that was just how our thought process was way back when.
Now, time skip forward to about three years later. I never realised how much my perspective changed regarding character sheets and creating characters. I personally love character making. Like, I honestly have an addiction to making characters. It's unbelievable. Nevertheless, I figured I would stop boring you guys with too much details - unless you'd like to hear more and the reason why my perspective changed, feel free to ask. I have found myself feeling as if filling out character sheet requirements have become quite the hassle. Perhaps it is because of my "laziness" or quite frankly, especially in group roleplays, I have seen roleplays die during the character making process that it just hurts to put so much time into a character sheet for the roleplay to not even begin. At the same time, I feel the dread and tiredness from keeping up with character sheet requirements and what's needed to be considered acceptable or up to par with others. I used to absolutely love in-depth character sheets that gave me a better idea of the character. But, I also feel that writing out personalities to my characters can be a hard as sometimes it's incredibly frustrating to try to describe my character's persona within the limits of a character sheet itself.
Discussion
Currently, my preferred method is writing blurbs about the character I'm creating. And, as life would have it, I have done a 180. Remember when I first talked about how there were some players who wanted to keep their backstory a mystery from the character sheet and asked if it could be revealed in the roleplay? Well, guess what? I have softened up to the idea and I quite frankly, love that idea now. It allows the players to give a more genuine reaction to the character, in my personal opinion. I also find it really interesting to slowly find out a character's personality and backstory from just what little the character blurbs are given. Of course with these backstory reveal and character blurbs, it would require perhaps "trust" within the group roleplay where the character itself shouldn't be a "mary sue" or a "gary sue" and etc., I believe.
But, nevertheless, to add-on to the questions in the introduction, what is your preferred method of creating characters? Character blurbs [ just 3-5 sentence of information of your character ], character sheets [vague or detailed], or character applications [ information of your character such as name, age, gender, role and perhaps the idea you're leaning towards for your character ]? Or, do you completely never use these character methods, skipping the process, and just diving right into roleplaying?
But, nevertheless, to add-on to the questions in the introduction, what is your preferred method of creating characters? Character blurbs [ just 3-5 sentence of information of your character ], character sheets [vague or detailed], or character applications [ information of your character such as name, age, gender, role and perhaps the idea you're leaning towards for your character ]? Or, do you completely never use these character methods, skipping the process, and just diving right into roleplaying?
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