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Feedback ยท Add (Pseudo-)Characters to a Roleplay. (accepted)

This is a new subsystem I'm proposing for roleplays, one that combines the suggestions for roleplay Notes and images within roleplays.

The idea is that posters within a roleplay can add Characters. A Character has 4 parameters. Name, Aliases, Notes, and Images.

The Name would be the name of the character. For example, could have Character named Smoldr.

Aliases would be other spellings and names for a character. Smol, Smolder, etc.

Notes would be a text field where things about the Character could be added in. A short description. Such as "A very small shortstack dragon with a blue tongue and a bad attitude."

Images would simply be pictures of that character.

Now, when a character's Name or Alias appears within a roleplay, the text would be highlighted in some way. When a user mouses over the Name, the first 200 words or so of the Notes appear, along with a small resolution pic of the first Image.

When the Name/Alias is clicked, the user is taken to the Character page where they can see all the aliases, notes, and images.

These Character pages would be created for a specific roleplay, and could be Imported--with the proper permissions--into other roleplays.

They would be basically mini-profiles. They'd add a lot of value to

  1. Roleplays where the characters in the roleplay don't match the character in the profile, ie about 95% of what I do.
  2. Roleplays that have multiple characters, about 10-20% of the roleplays I do.
  3. Group roleplays with lots of characters. Not something that has been going on lately but with the new system and notifications, has a lot of potential.

meta info

endorsement points: 60

created: 25 March 16 at 03:16 AM (build: 3/20/2016 4:18 PM beta)

Griz

Two more things like also add. First, these Characters could also be things like a City, a particular map, etc, the kind of things that people want to keep track of within a roleplay.

Second, a system like this could be toggled on and off in options, ideally, so that those who don't want to see the links could not see them.

Astarte

I like the idea concept, a mini reference for the world and people being created. I've noticed a trend in my own RPs , even simple ones, for an increasing number of reference materials being used which have required juggling hyperlinks and referencing posts several pages back. A system purpose built to support that would be very welcome.

Wrecked Avent Site Administrator

Why would this be a fixture on roleplays, instead of being something that a writer profile creates?

Griz

The two could be linked. The main thinking on associating them primarily with roleplays though is that it'd just cause a lot of clutter on a profile. I have 5 pages of roleplays and 90% of them use characters that don't have a profile, probably more. The characters aren't really developed until the roleplay actually starts as well. Sometimes I'll reuse them, but being able to import from a roleplay would be good.

As well, if they were linked to profiles, you'd run into the issue of overlapping. You can have multiple characters that share the same name. Two writer profiles might also have the same name.

You could need to manually add characters from a writer profile to a roleplay, but at that point you might as well cut out the middleman.

That said, being able to collect a bunch of characters on the writer profile wouldn't be a bad thing either.

Samus

Here's how I imagine this getting used, if I have things straight: I'm running or playing an RPG, or I have a continuity, and there are NPCs or side characters or so on. We'll play as normal but any names we mention of those characters can be highlighted with access to a picture and notes and proper name - right?

Sounds pretty neat. In a D&D game if my player character had an animal companion I'd use this. Same goes for, well, all the primary characters if I were GMing.

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