Pointers on making a bio? ***RPG Newbie***

Greetings, i am KING VENUS. i am new to the rpg-forums. i was thinking of getting into this forum because it looks interesting and you all are great at playing your roles. It's only one thing holding me back. i need a bio.

-you think you all can help me out?

@kingvenus: Trust me when I tell you that you don't need a bio to RP. The main reason most of us have a bio is because we set the limits of our characters and details about them for everyone to read. They make it so that when you rp fight with somone you cannot just suddenly come up with a trumf card because you are losing.

tl;dr Bio's aren't really needed but are awesome.

Now for the bio.

• General information (Real name, alias, alignment, occupation, education, species, affiliation etc.)
• Powers section. (As mentioned above + You get a chance to explain your idea behind your powerset.)
• Then you can add stuff like the History or Personality of your character or the RPs they took part in, but that is just like a cherry on top.

Also, good examples of bios are @rafael_romeiro, @the_psyentist, @pyrogram or any of the old timers.

(PS: Bios generally don't have to be that long as the guys above have :P)

I'm here if you need me also message my main @darkchild: Whenever you need me

@crazy_eights: Duuude. Out of all peeps, I would never guess you to also be in the Alt game o_O

@kingvenus: PM me and I'll help you any way I can.

@kingvenus: I tend to go way out with my main bio. I keep the stats first for easy access when people just want to know what my character is about at a glance. If they want to get more in depth and into the story of my character, the bigger biography follows (with pics!).

@james_vantu: Thanks for the shout out! :)

@james_vantu: @crazy_eights: @rafael_romeiro:

Thanks, i have created a bio. be sure to take a look at it when you have the time

@the_psyentist: Not worth the mention :P

@the_psyentist:How do i separate my dialogue from my actions?,And can you identify the different types of locations?

@kingvenus: For RPGing? "I type dialogue using bold and quotation marks." Where actions are just normal. Some make actions italicized.

Locations are listed as threads. Usually any special rules are listed in the opening post. For a place like Local Anonymous, location can be specified merely by prefacing a post with the location in text. For linking locations in bios, I think the site has decided to only let this feature be available for people with over 1,000 posts.

@kingvenus: Welcome to the addiction.

I'll tell you man, Bio's are ok if you want to impress, but if you just want to write you don't need one. I've used about twenty alternate characters or more in the past 2 years. I made bio's for like...three. They can be constricting, you can end up confining yourself to a linear path for the character. If you want that, a bio is perfect for you. If not I'd just play it by ear, then if you feel like you got him or her the way you want, make a bio based around what you built.

I didn't make a bio for six months either, and people didn't really mind. I built my bio around me canon.

All that I really care about are the stats and such. I like to know what I'm going to be dealing with in an RPG scenario. In depth biographies are just icing on the cake.

I'd suggest this to most new RPG'ers because it's probably the best way to write up a bio. Because often times, even for me, I write a bio for a character before doing anything with said character, but once I start writing, I go back to the bio and start editing things out because some of the things are limiting as far as what you want to get out of your character from a narrative standpoint.

@rafael_romeiro: Very good.

You know Kurt is the quintessential character for being built around canon.

He didn't have a first name for three months.

Didn't have a surname for a year. LOL

@pyrogram: LOL I remember when he didn't have a surname.

In any case, bios are important but I don't think everyone has to write an in-depth bio like LL for example. I think people look at bios like that and they're impressed but LL only does it like that because she has fun building bios. If you want to build a very in-depth bio but it feels like work, then don't, because you're not having fun. I think everyone should at least have a bio that has basic information about powers and whatnot so that RPG'ers don't go into battles and start whipping out new powers left and right and so that others also know what type of character they're dealing with.

The in-depth stuff though, that's probably best to add as you build more and more canon. Like how you did with Kurt.

@rafael_romeiro: I think the most important aspect would be powers and knowing what your character actually has. It took me a year and six months to FINALLY get a grasp of what powers Kurt (Pyrogram, for any new RPGers reading) has. It's easy to get confused and confuse others without a bio which clearly explains your powers.

Story wise, etc, that's not important, much, at all, that's extra information on a bio which most people won't even read, lets be realistic. 90% (or more) just read the powers.

QFT

@pyrogram: Agreed. On everything. Story-wise, I used to want to consistently update my bios to include stuff about events that my characters participated in but having to do it all the time became annoying so I stopped doing that LOL.

I only do that for my main.

@rafael_romeiro: I used to update my bio with story.... But it's so tiring. It got annoyed as you said, and LOOOONG lol

@pyrogram: @the_psyentist: I don't do that anymore, it's too much work LOL.

@rafael_romeiro: I would call you lazy, but I know you're not. LOL!!

If its too much work for Impero.. its way too damn much!

@the_psyentist: ;)

@rafael_romeiro: Also, you change mains like every month.

LL? :O

@the_psyentist: Right? And I still bust out killer bios ;P

Oh my God LL LMAO.

@rafael_romeiro: True story though. LOL

@the_psyentist: That's my name lol.

[Also my posts don't seem to be going through. Is this happening to anyone else?]

Mhhhm, comic vine has been shitty recently.

@strigidae_23: I keep getting errors and needing to repost. Then sometimes my notifications won't show up. And the PMs are a mess. I just CAN'T.

@the_psyentist: Yeah, my PM's are a disaster everytime I try to use them. The site itself seems like a wreck too; pages won't load the first or second time, stuff won't post, 404's, red error bars, everything.

All the things you have described is happening to me too.

@kingvenus: @strigidae_23: SOB. Literally just as I clicked to respond to these comments, I got a 404. -____-

@the_psyentist: Uggg, yeah. I'm not sure what's going on but the site is losing its marbles.

@the_psyentist: How did you make your Background Image?

And the newbies can read your account name Premadonnagram.

@_retrofire_: Well it's not the only important thing, but it's the most.

@pyrogram: ^ lol

I don't think there's anything someone needs to know about your character other than powers, it's the only thing that really separates characters from real people. The perk of official looks is they work like facebook pics, you can figure the age, height, etc from that. Powers are the only surprise, and even then it's the same as interests, personal history, and current situation. You get to know the person and you'll find out over time anyway. Powers are best to know for battles and since those can go down without even knowing the character, it's best to have an idea of what your getting into.

@james_vantu: Ive got so many alts its scary

True to an extend. Apart from if a character relies on backstory to be a character.

Xenon, for example.

His powers are meaningless without his backstory.

More often than not, I write the Powers section on a bio and...thats about it. Rarely have I ever cataloged the goings on within rpgs. Tried when the site first got big....then said EFF IT

Welcome, first of all!

I usually like to my bios relatively simple, at least at first. I find that some of the best characters are the ones that are constantly evolving. Try to squeeze in too much detail too early and you might write yourself into a corner.

Agree

This can make or break as a writer. You think too much and you will just drive urself nuts

@kingvenus: sometimes using a character sheet helps, establish your powers and abilities. Then think of how it could've incoroporated into your character via radiation exposure, gamma rays, toxins, neogenic recombination, inherited from parents or alien or mutant origins. Then imagine yourself in their shoes and write as if they were you and describe your life's story.

I'm not tryna undercut you but nah :P All powers have an origin, often times interesting ones, but they're technically irrelevant.

@_retrofire_: Well, an X-Gene origin is boring, and that's Xenon. Without a backstory Xenon would be the dullest character around with his typical ass powers and origins of said powers. But like, you haven't written origins (maybe head canoned them) so you wouldn't possibly have that problem, because we work differently. It's all based on how the individual works.

@peak: Yeah I have lol We were talking from another persons perspective towards the character. I don't think he'd be dull, I think his back story just wouldn't be known outright, someone IC would have to ask him his story. I'm not gettin though how him being a mutant born with abilities makes him boring, not even sure why his back story would be meaningful more so to his abilities if you say he was born with an x-gene, since it would just be 'Intro: Womb' :P

@_retrofire_: @peak:

Badass normal ftw.

But, on a serious note, having powers is one aspect. But although powers CAN make you interesting it doesn't. But not having powers doesn't necessarily make you interesting either.

One big part of what makes someone interesting in my opinion is being different. To have something to set you apart from everyone else.