Guide for Writing Good Character Profiles

Argent Dawn
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Guide for Writing Good Character Profiles

Okay, so this is just going to be a quick summary of what to do and what not to do for your character’s role-playing profile.

Obviously, a lot of this is going to come down to personal preference. What I write in this thread, will not delve into lore or even role-playing style but rather on what I believe makes for a good and approachable character profile that will generate interest from other people.

It doesn’t matter what role-playing add on you use, heck, one of my recommendations is that for a truly immersive experience you swear off of addons or using out of character resources for role-play but that’s just a personal preference. In reality, since everyone uses them now, they’re more or less required.

What you probably should have in your profile:

A brief description of your character’s physical appearance with an emphasis on things that are prominently visible to anyone that would be looking.

There’s really no need to go over the top with this. Nobody cares if you’ve got full and voluptuous child bearing hips because unless they want to sleep with you, they’re not looking that hard.

A name for your character and a brief title. This isn’t a Song of Ice and Fire. Your character doesn’t need a gazillion titles of every job they’ve ever had.

Optional first glances that gives anyone who approaches some RP hook, or something they could pick up on to interact with.

Entirely optional but it also might be a good idea to put in some brief back story and at least fill out your role-play style because that’s probably the most important aspect of whether or not someone will find you approachable for role-play.

Character art is always a pretty good thing to have, or a visual reference. If you have one.

Be receptive to constructive feed back and touch it up/improve it here and there when you can. There’s no shame in wanting to correct mistakes or polish something up. Nobody is perfect.

What you probably shouldn’t have in your profile:

A thousand and one titles that sells your character as a Jack or Jill of all trades and virtually makes them interacting with anyone relatively pointless.

A theme song, or a play list of theme songs. Literally nobody is interested in seeing these but you.

I find that having a linked voice actor or actress is limiting to creativity, and it’s not hard to imagine or describe a character’s voice.

Adding ‘Ian’ to the end of every single location in-game you could have probably come from. I.E: Lordaeronian, Westfallian, Goldshirian, etcetera. Honestly, it sounds utterly silly.

An enormous amount of additional information listing your whole family network, amount of IC pregnancies and dates of conception.

Literally nobody needs to see this information, or even cares for that matter. The additional information section is there to sprinkle on a bit of colour. Saturating it, is stupid. Less is more.

IC Kill Counter - Quite possibly one of the most ludicrous things I have ever seen in a TRP. If your whole profile is designed around showcasing how much of an all powerful edgelord you are, why on Earth would I or anyone reasonable want to role-play with you?

Show and don’t tell. World and character building OOC is fine, it’s something I actually find quite enjoyable, but don’t turn your profile itself into that project or it makes role-playing with you absolutely pointless. Interactions should lead to character growth and development.

Copy and pasting canon characters from various media. You people. I hate you so much. Oh my god.

Yellow text on yellow background. Are you even from this planet?

If it’s not visually apparent at a glance, then it’s not a first glance and it doesn’t belong in your first glances section. Common sense, please.

Titles are not the same as adjectives to describe what a prat your character is.

The only time you really need to add loads of prose to your profile is when you’re obviously trying to attract people for the sake of promiscuity. Stop that.

HP/Stats/Etc. - What is wrong with you people.

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Is it a bad thing I judge people on their profiles?

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No. It’s kind of what they’re there for to be honest. You look at someone’s profile to determine whether or not you’ll potentially enjoy role-playing with that individual, so don’t be ashamed of it.

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I use those on my priest because we had a roll system with the people I was playing with and I wanted to keep track of my character’s HP. :frowning:

I promise it’s nothing malevolent!

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Normally I instantly pull a :confused: face as soon as I see these ‘guides’ on the forums, but honestly? I’ve seen enough really off-putting TRP profiles that this is needed and its commentary is pretty decent.

Good stuff, thanks.

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it’s nothing personnel kid

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dude I killed like a 100 guys ic I will totally kill u in one hit because :gun::laughing::ok_hand:
Instashoots you in the hand with a flintlock from another continent
Avoids any and all attempts to fight back by you like Neo from the Matrix, just dodging everything with ninja moves

P.s. Honestly it’s good to know someone also cares about other people’s RP profiles. Always thought I was the only one who got peeved when someone had the addon installed but didn’t put information on it.

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You forgot ‘smoke those fools’ as your motto.

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https://i.gyazo.com/23adbcce3a54edf3e6c07bba187b9747.png

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I love this so much. I hope people take this guide into consideration when writing our their TRP’s!

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It’s my about page and I am not ashamed.

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I can´t even count how many times I forgot to remove that thing from my TRP after guild event.

Most of the time, people have it because they simply forgot.

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Ramsay voice: Finally, some GOOD effing content!

:+1:

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Yes and no.

They’re very good at getting a ballpark idea about a person’s character (and how that character is portrayed) but the problem with them is they are often only a superficial synopsis of a character.

A better and full way always is to engage with the character (if possible).

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You forgot to mention F-lists in the " What you probably shouldn’t have in your profile:" section.

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what’s flist

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Its best if you didn’t know.

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I don’t fully agree, some things are obviously stupid, but I’m not a fan of people saying how others should write their TRP. Do people really get that upset if they see voice references, HP stats, family, theme song? Like, really? Should every character profile be short, boring and stereotypical? I know it’s 2019, but do we really have to get triggered by everything?

Sure, we can all agree that some of the stuff should not be in there, f-list, kill count (literally never, ever seen this, so… wot?) and other cringe stuff, but blatantly telling what people should and shouldn’t do is not creative and for new RPers can come off as quite elitist and unwelcoming.

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If something is a bloated mess of pointless info, will I get upset? Heck no.

Will I waste time reading it? Also no. Which kind of defeats the point of writing something in the first place? :slight_smile:
(I’m not saying that should matter to the owner; oh no, some random scrub in an interwebs game didn’t read my bio! BUT, if you are writing the TRP to be actually informative, rather than a mess, then the above info is actually useful.)

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You do realize not everyone might find it pointless? That’s like saying all the information in the AA is pointless, all the written stories are pointless because nobody will ever read the bloated messes anyway.

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