Long or Short? Application Process!
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@catzilla said in Long or Short? Application Process!:
Do you prefer lengthy/intensive application process? Or a shorter one where you get into play quicker?
I don’t have a single answer to this; both long and short processes have worked for me in the sense of “I got a memorable character and some good RP out of this”, and both have been failures in the same sense.
I think that the length of an application process should be informed by the kind of game being run. A game where everyone is a World War 1 soldier in the Battle of the Somme and it’s expected that characters will die in droves will benefit from making it as fast and easy as possible to get back into play. Similarly with a no-holds-barred PvP-encouraged type of game.
At the other extreme, a game where you’re expected to hold onto the same character for years and build up an extensive in-game history and character relationships doesn’t have to have a lengthy application process, but it’s more tolerable to me since I know I’m not likely to have to do it again any time soon.
People have mentioned the desire that information provided in an app be used in play by staff, which is also vanishingly rare in my experience. I also appreciate getting some indication that my work was actually read during the application process. If I spent hours putting the writeup together, it’s nice if the feedback touches on some of the stuff I wrote about in terms of “we liked this, it fits well with the game” or “this isn’t a great fit, but what about this?” instead of just “your stat math is off, fix it.”
I strongly agree with @Pavel (and others) that if a game has requirements then they ought to be explicitly set out - ideally somewhere that’s as front and center to the players as possible so that it’s difficult to miss. And while I don’t usually write my backgrounds in bullet point format, I do find “here’s the bullet points we’d like your background to cover” super helpful in making sure I cover everything that staff wants to see, and not too much that they don’t.
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I tend to write a lot as a general rule, since I (like @MisterBoring) am one of those “write till I’m done” types, so my most recent apps are enormous because I’ve been really interested in the character’s until-now development. That’s just me, though, and it could easily just be a short story I write for myself without forcing anyone to read.
Anyway, that said, I think the app process should be similar to a mullet: short in the front, long in the back. Shorter app to get in and involved, with the idea that the character’s background info is a kind of living document, to a point, that can be fleshed out by making connections and associations either with other players or with ongoing plots.
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Said it in the other thread and I stand by it: there’s no wrong or right answer to this, it all depends on the kind of game and the kind of playerbase. @Autumn gave some specific examples that I agree with above.
I think that one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had in this hobby was some 20 years ago when I tried rolling into Shadows of Isildur. The application process took at least a week all in all and was highly involved. Since I’d never played a RPI before and really didn’t understand how the game worked, I perma-died a couple days in, and obviously never gave the game another chance. I’d probably do just fine nowadays as someone who knows how RPIs work, but eh.
But in contrast, I’ve played games with lots of PvP mystery features, which heavily rely on players actually filling all those details in so that there’s something for other players to uncover if they want to go digging into your character. I’ve spent weeks in chargen on such games and had absolutely no regrets about it; it’s been an intensely rewarding experience. In fact sometimes I’ve enjoyed creating even more than I’ve enjoyed playing. I treat it as a creative writing exercise, which is why I’m in this hobby anyway.
I have also had lots of fun on games with literally 0 chargen process. A friend of mine once ran a custom tabletop campaign where we didn’t even get to pick our characters’ names or powers or backstories. All of our characters woke up together in a lab, with an assigned number-name and amnesia, and discovered who we were and what powers we had as the game progressed. I would just as happily do something like that again, but it obviously doesn’t work for every setting.
My big chargen gripes aren’t about how long it takes, but when it’s designed in a way that seems arbitrary and frustrating. For instance, I hate having to pick between ten slightly different, identical-sounding options for a skill. Like if I have to choose between whether to put points into Karate, Krav Maga, Kung Fu, Taekwondo or Jiu-Jitsu, and I have no idea how badly that choice is gonna fuck me down the line if I pick wrong, I already hate your game before I’ve started playing. Just let me pick “Martial Arts” as a stat if that’s my concept, and maybe customise it in character notes with the specifics. I’ve seen this justified as “well we don’t want everyone to have the same build”, but idc, it just smells like a newbie trap. The chargen process should be as intuitive as possible, limit any mechanical advantages that a veteran player could have for making more meta choices, and not encourage/require more work than will end up paying off.
On the writing side, this also means not having too many “optional” customisation fields that feel like a requirement if they aren’t, or that are asking for subtle variations of the same thing. For instance, you shouldn’t multiple separate textboxes for backstory, history, summary, personality, quirks, hooks. Like … what? I just got finished writing all about how my character’s upbringing in a monastery instilled them religious fervour, now you want me to write another paragraph about their personality, and then repeat that in a catchier way for hooks? This could’ve been 1 box. Or, if the description section is broken up into a bunch of different fields so I can describe my face, eyebrows, hair, fingers, toes, butt, all separately, and then also my hoodie, what the hoodie looks like on the floor, what my hoodie looks like with the hood up, and what other people see when I’m putting it on and taking it off … but THEN after I put all that work in, I discover it’s actually some kind of faux pas to have filled everything in, and I should’ve just picked 1 or 2 of these fields … f u, ur community, ur game, this is also a newbie trap. Don’t put these fields there if filling in every single one isn’t an expectation; and ideally, don’t have these fields at all if they add nothing that RP won’t. I mean I can just write, as needed: “Kestrel walks in, bundled up in a loose hoodie. Shivering, she lifts up her French-manicured fingers to pull the hood up over her long, dark hair.”
Other than that, I am happy to take as long as needed to ensure my app is up to the game’s standards/expectations. I don’t see vetting by staff as a hindrance; if they’re willing to make the time for it, I often find it beneficial to get communicating early on about how to ensure the best possible experience with my character for both of us. This is often better than rolling in and discovering only after that your concept doesn’t actually work.
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@Kestrel Omg, there’s so much pain in these stories.
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@Juniper said in Long or Short? Application Process!:
If I have to apply, I’m already gone.
What is an ‘application’ to you?
I probably should have clarified or something my original message.
At least to me, an application is just ‘here is my character’. It could be as simple as a picture (or description) with a 1-3 sentence concept/history. Or as ‘complicated’ as having 20+ stats to keep track of with detailed descriptions of them.
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I don’t like having to make stats. I like writing a bit of backstrory.
Descriptions can kiss my ass.
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@junipersky said in Long or Short? Application Process!:
Descriptions can kiss my ass.
Just reuse the same description. Chances are no one will notice. I’ve even done it with multiple characters on the same game.
Unsurprisingly, I prefer a shorter application process. Bullet points are my friend. I function best when I can exit chargen with a skeleton of a character that fits the game and spent time playing them to actually flesh them out.
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@Babs said in Long or Short? Application Process!:
Just reuse the same description.
Chances are no one will notice.Chances are no one will say anything to you.
he/him
this machine kills fascists -
Anymore, I like games that offer the quickest avenue to RPing out on the grid. Whether that’s allowing a bullet point background, or offering roster characters that you don’t have to write applications for, or whatever that is - I think it’s important to get people out there and playing vs locked up in chargen for days on end while they are busy working on their 3 paragraph note to try and justify having 3 dots in sportsball that isn’t even going to really come up or offer any sort of mechanical benefit anyway.
I don’t think that application processes stop the worst offenders from coming onto your games. You’ll weed out the trolls (probably) and the characters that don’t fit your game (likely) but the true creeps will look good on paper and not show themselves until they’ve already infiltrated the community.
For roster games, I don’t know how valuable it is to have people write several paragraphs about why they want to take the character and what they want to do with them. Sometimes people don’t really know until they’ve played the character a few times. Sometimes they are BRAND NEW to the game and really, really don’t know whatsoever, they just thought this specific roster looked cool and want to give it a go. The only time I think it’s valuable to apply to a character is if the character could be in high demand and it wouldn’t be fair to give it to someone on a first come, first serve basis, but even then, I think there should be multiple characters like that so there’s enough to go around, I guess.
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@Trashcan said in Long or Short? Application Process!:
@Babs said in Long or Short? Application Process!:
Just reuse the same description.
Chances are no one will notice.Chances are no one will say anything to you.
If there’s a wiki or a place to stick a character image, chances are nobody will even read your description. (yes, yes, sans several very loud exceptions)
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@Babs said in Long or Short? Application Process!:
Chances are no one will notice.
This is the exact phrase that lead my best friend to copy pasta a chili recipe into his US History final essay and still somehow get a B on the assignment.
