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Character Creation Guidelines; MANDATORY -- CHARACTER TEMPLATE CONTAINED WITHIN
Topic Started: Mar 2 2017, 01:20 PM (1,287 Views)
Czernobog
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Best Influence.
So you want to make a character. Great! We're here to help you out, but please take a moment to look over this guide to cover some basic points.

General Guidelines


At the bottom of this page, you will find the Character Template. You will have to fill this out for any character you create, and there are certain things that we need you to be sure of so that your character can be approved in the minimum amount of time. If you're new, then

Guideline 1: Look at other people's characters. Before joining up, you should probably have lurked a bit, so find a handful of character applications from people you think are good writers and read their applications. tl;dr: lurk for a while before apping a character

Guideline 2: We greatly prefer too much information to too little. So, get a couple of paragraphs down for each of the big sections – personality, history, and appearance. By “a paragraph” I mean that you should have several lines – preceded and followed by a blank line – on the same general subject. You want to talk about your character's family history? Great! Give us a lot of detail. But put a line break between that and the inevitable horrible tragedy that follows. tl;dr: make sure you've got enough material that someone else can understand your character, and make sure it's readable.

Guideline 3: This RP takes place in a small city in Japan. Your character should have a reason for being there. This is much easier if your character is a Japanese National or other legal resident. tl;dr: No demographic is prohibited, but ethnic Japanese characters will receive less scrutiny than western characters, and if you app a North Korean character, please have a good reason.

Guideline 4: No direct connections to prior canon characters, and get approval from other players before you say your character has a connection to them.

Guideline 5: This is a Persona RP: your character does not have other super special powers. Moreover, you cannot be a robot, shadow, dog or other such creature.

Guideline 6: There are less than 100 legal handguns in Japan outside the possession of the police. By default, your character cannot have one. If you want to change this, you must give a compelling, well-thought-out reason. tl;dr: No guns.

Persona Guidelines


Okay, now for your character's persona. We use an expanded elements system mixing all of the previous persona games together, meaning that the options are: Physical, Fire, Ice, Wind, Lightning, Water, Earth, Dark, Light, Gravity, Force, and Nuclear. A lot of options. Please note that we don't consider "Psychic" or "Ailment" as damage types. You can have as many Resistances as you want, but each must be balanced by a number of Weaknesses. If your character Nulls an element, then they must take two Weaknesses to balance it out, and the number goes up to three for Absorb or Reflect.

You can have up to three skills from the Lower Tier-1 section of the Master Skills List to start with. This number will grow, and you will replace skills over time. The most you can have is eight skills, and you gain new skills by participating in ruins threads, combat, or significant personal development. Ask a staff member for advancement if you are interested in advancing a character, and if it's been more than a month since your last advancement, and you've been active with that character, you should be approved.

If you have trouble thinking of something, field the question to the staff or the community at large and we'll help you out. But we'd really prefer it if you didn't take a persona someone else has taken. We really prefer that the persona reflect a mythological figure (including, admittedly, modern mythology such as might be found in popular culture.)

Please note that you can use any arcanum for your character, but you should avoid using Fool or World unless you have staff permission. Also, do not use Arcana from outside of the Rider-Waite deck: No Jester, no Hunger/Lust, etc., and please put the name in English (Despite P5 using French -- this game is based largely on P3 & P4, which use anglophone names.)

Characters without Personae

Due to the nature of Rebirth as an RP site, characters without Personas are not typically allowed as player character options. This is due to the exact nature of interactions between characters that tend to occur: while Rebirth is absolutely a highly character driven site, much of our character interactions end up involving Personas and the ruins, and characters who lack Personas, as a result, will be inherently cut off from interactions with Persona-using characters.

For this reason, characters who are never intended to obtain a Persona require special staff permission to be run. Before applying for your character, you must discuss with the staff your plans for your character once approved, to ensure that you will be able to run your character with the restrictions playing a Persona-less character imposes, as well as make sure that your character's plans will not cause issues within the setting itself.

If you wish to play a character of this type, please either send a private message to a staff member detailing your character idea and plans, or contact a staff member in the IRC chat.


Wildcard Guidelines

So you wanna be a wild card? It's much more difficult to be a wild card than a single Persona user, as stated in the rules. Here, we'll lay down the guidelines for applying, and what exactly you get out of it. An important note is that you are not allowed a wild card as your first character! Only read this if you already have a regular character.

What you get

You get basically as many Personae as you want, but you will have to put each of them on your profile as they show up. (I.e, you have ideas for pulling out a super tiger monster of super proportions later. It doesn't need to be on your profile right away, but it needs to be there by the time your character summons them).

Admins do reserve the right to reject your Personae if we think they are too powerful, or if we think your current roster is too powerful. After you're approved, please start to keep a 'compendium' of your Personae on your profile.

You can have up to ten Personae equipped at a time. This way, we can keep battles a little less hectic and confusing, by making it so that we don't keep having to flip to your profile every time you change.

You can change Persona once every two posts. There is a reasoning behind this. While in the games, you could exploit a boss by constantly shifting your Personae and covering your weakness, that would make for major god-modding in an RP. This way, you can't just keep switching in response to people's attacks. For example:
let's just say you switched your Persona in your most recent post in order to cast a buff spell on yourself. Now everyone completes the rest of the post cycle. Your next post comes up. You cannot change Personae in this post. You have to wait for the next cycle after this one to change again.

What you don't get

You don't get any special leadership privileges, and neither does your character.

You definitely don't get the right to god-mod.

You also don't really get bragging rights, you jerk.

What we expect from your profile

In the rules, it says you need to make your profile really good. This does not mean however, you need to write 1,000 pages of text. Length does not equal quality. All we want is a well written history and personality. Please don't slouch on it, as lazy profiles will be rejected as wild cards, where as they might actually get passed as regular characters.

You don't need to do anything special for appearance. Just type a good description or post a picture.

Please have a good reason as to why your character should be a wild card. The biggest reason you might not get approved may very well lie in a shaky reason. A simple "Oh the gods smiled on him when he was little" does not cut it. It can have something to with their personality, or with their history, so you can include it in there, though if you'd like to you could possibly put brackets around that part so we can find it easier.
Another option would be to put it at the bottom as a note of sorts.

In the rules we also ask for an RP sample. For normal characters, you don't have to do that, but we'd like you to do it here just so we can see that you are determined to get a wild card and are putting actual effort into it. This doesn't have to be Victor Hugo quality, but don't be lazy.


Staff Moderation of Character Creation

Okay, last big section before the character template but this is a very important section, and is laying out the duties, responsibilities, and limits of staff involvement during character creation. Please pay attention, because this directly influences how we will behave during the process of approving and disapproving characters, and relates to what you can expect from us.

During character creation, staff members may:
  • Approve a character.
  • Deny a character.
  • Ask for clarification on an element before approving or denying.
  • Ask for changes to be made to fit the setting or to disallow certain thematic avenues that we do not wish to be present in the game, especially things that would violate the terms of agreement with Zetaboards.
  • Ask for changes to format of the application to make it readable.

During character creation, staff members may not:
  • Fill in an entire section for you.
  • Write passages of your character app -- if you decide to take a suggested passage, you must rewrite it both fit your style and show that you understand/accept the changes.
  • Be required to be present for countless iterations of your character sheet.
  • Be required to review new versions of your sheet without substantive changes that reflect prior critique.

In short, we are leaving all of the necessary information to make a character out for you to review. It is on you to make the character, and it is on us to make sure that you can do that. However, administrating and moderating this forum is tantamount to having an additional job, and many of the members of the staff are juggling a lot of responsibilities. Please be understanding, and try to make the game fun for everybody.

Character Template

And now, the part you've all been waiting for!

Code:
 
[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]

[b]Class:[/b] [Enter a class that your character is in. If he/she is a teacher put down what room he/she is in charge of and what subject they teach. (Note: Your character might not even go to school) Taiyoutono class numbers are number-number, while Reitaku are number-letter. The first number denotes the year they're in, while the second number or letter denotes the classroom they're in. So, a hypothetical third year at Taiyoutono might be in class 3-3, while another hypothetical third year at Reitaku would be in class 3-C. If your character is a Rokujima student, instead denote that and their major here. If your character is an adult and not in school, your don't need to fill this out.]

[b]Clubs/Occupation:[/b] [Are there any clubs that your character takes? Or do they have a job? This is not required to fill out.]

[b]Personality:[/b] [How does your character act? Try and flesh out your character a bit and avoid writing only one line.]

[b]History:[/b] [Your character’s past. Write about what your character has gone through until this point. Once again, write more than a single line or something.]

[b]Appearance:[/b] [What does your character look like? You can use a picture, but it would also be helpful to have a brief description. You can also include information on mannerism and vocal quality.]

[Note: If you use a picture that you didn't make yourself, please credit the original artist! If you don't know who the artist is, try a google image search.]

[b]Current Weapon/Combat Skill:[/b] [How does your character fight, if at all? This should reflect your character's current combat experience.]
[b]Mask:[/b] [What does your mask look like? If you missed the explanation about the masks, they are to be worn as medium in summoning Personae.]

[b]Persona:[/b] [Who or what is your persona. You can either write a paragraph to describe your Persona or use a picture.]
~Name:
~Arcana: [Pick your Arcana from the list of Major Arcana. You cannot pick FOOL or WORLD/UNIVERSE Arcana unless told otherwise by Admin(s). That means you have 19 to pick from. Also it is advised you know what your Arcana represents.]
~Drain:
~Weak:
~Null:
~Reflect:
~Resist:
~Skills: [Remember: you only have 8 at a time. If you're going to pick physical, please keep in mind that we don't split it up into pierce, slash, ect. It's just physical.]


[b]Have you read all the stickies?[/b] (NOT AN OPTIONAL SECTION)


By 'the other stickies,' we mean all the stickies in this forum.

Here, have a list of clubs


Weakness/Resist Policy
  • An element can only be used once in the Weaknesses/Resistance list; if a character Resists [Element], they cannot have a weakness/null to the same element.
  • If you take a Resist [Element], you must take one Weakness to [Element].
  • If you take a Null [Element], you must take two Weakness to [Element].
  • If you take a Reflect/Drain [Element], and you have not ascended, you must take three Weaknesses. If you have ascended, you must take two weaknesses instead.

And here's a picture of the Taiyoutono uniforms, courtesy of our old head admin.
And here's some more pictures of the Taiyoutono uniform, courtesy of the birdmin.
And while we're at it, here's some pictures of the Reitaku uniform too.

If you need to source your image, look here.
Edited by Czernobog, Mar 4 2017, 12:50 PM.
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Czernobog
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Best Influence.
Best Practices

So, if you follow all of the guidelines above, your character should be approved. But you don't want to just succeed, do you? No, you want to succeed with style! So please take into account the following best practices to make sure that your character slots into the game easily and you have the most fun, right? So, with that in mind, I present to you our best practices for character creation:
  • Read the setting primer (FORTHCOMING.) Make sure you know it backwards and forwards.
  • Read the style guide (FORTHCOMING.) It's brief, it's simple, but it will help make sure that you get everything across in a way that everyone can read and enjoy.
  • Know your Arcanum. Part of the reason that the social links are so fun in P3 and P4 is that there are layers and layers of meaning to them. The Arcana don't just tell us about your character's personality, they tell us what kind of themes you're going to be writing with.
  • If your character has a connection to someone else in the RP (specifically someone else's character! And especially if they've been going for a while,) make sure that you have their permission and make sure you know enough about their character.
  • Have a general direction for how your character is going to develop over time. A specific plan will quickly break down, but an idea of how you want them to grow (or fail to grow!) will make it a lot easier to move.
  • When coming up with a persona, try to branch out into new mythologies. Greco-Roman and Norse mythologies are really just about tapped. Japanese, Chinese, and Vedic stories are getting there. Native American and Sub-Saharan African mythologies are still largely untouched.
  • At the end of the process, before you hit submit, take a moment -- go get a snack, go take a walk, go take a nap -- then, please sit down and read your application. Not knowing anything else about your character, would you still read a story about this person? Are you interested to know what happens to them?
  • Don't be an edgelord. Please.
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