Backgrounds

[Djarjak]

This is probably more directed to newer players, but some of the Armageddon veterans could give some good input here, too.

I know that it's impossible to come up with luridly rich detailed backgrounds if you're running through ten characters per week because of the harshness of the world. But, do you think it would be easier, both as a beginner, and as a frequent apper to have more guidance when making your background?

For example, during character generation, the current info could be updated to give you ideas (this is hypothetical):

   Where is your character from?
   Who did s/he grow up with or rely on when s/he was young?
   Does s/he have any living relatives or close friends (virtual or otherwise)?
   What profession does s/he have? How did s/he get trained for it?
   What is your character's long-term goal? Does s/he want to retire wealthy, powerful, reknowned, or just die doing something new and interesting?
   What are some of your character's short-term goals? Does s/he want to join a specific House or group? Does s/he want to convince people to hunt for the blue kank?
   What kind of personality does your character have? Is s/he shy? Lusty? Manipulative? Conceited? Rude? Practical? Lazy?

or other documentation... (input welcome)

Or should existing documentation just be organized better? If you have any opinion, be specific, include links or example text you would like to see. I'm curious what you think.

[Beux]

My two cents:

Yes more general guidance, such as a list of possible questions to be answered - this would be particularly helpful for newer players.

Yes - the documentation could do with being better organised, but that pretty much includes all documention as you can look through any of it to gain interesting details for backgrounds.

I think there should be more specific documention for certain types of characters. The 'what you know' stuff is great, but I don't think there's enough for people who aren't from cities. If someone wants to play a tribal human (who is no longer around their tribe) or a nomad...I don't think there's enough information about how they live/behave.

Perhaps a few examples of good backgrounds too (like you have for the magickers, but for everyone).

[Northlander]

As one of those players who need to play their characters hours to find their personality, rather than make it up beforehand, I've seen the addition of a biography command as a reason to slacken in the background department. This I hope is fine - but new players in particular could benefit from running their personality concept past the staff.

The questions you suggest are good; though we shouldn't be made to answer them as prompts. They should exist as a suggestion at the background segment of character creation.

This is the current text one receives before the background bit of character creation:

Code Select Expand

On the lines below you must enter your character's background. This
will provide the staff with insight into your character's motivations
and actions.  If your background is too long to fit into the standard
length, please provide a thumbnail version and email the longer version
to mud@ginka.armageddon.org.

    * Terminate your background with a tilde (~) on a line by itself.

Note: The first time through your background will be automatically formatted
for you.  If you do not like the formatting, you can change it later.

Enter your Background.
Text Editor: (1810 character maximum) [create mode]

This could be written with a kind but more guiding hand.

[jhunter]

I can see how it would be helpful to some players, especially in the beginning. I wouldn't like it to become some sort of rigid requirement to follow these specific guidlines. Sometimes I like to make a very basic and general background so that I can sort of mix in some ideas that fit in during the early stages of playing my pc. I would hate to see backgrounds become a requirement to be flushed out to a certain amount of detail and take away the ability to do this.

[mansa]

I believe that it needs to be rewritten.  Please?  Thanks!

[UnderSeven]

I'm not voting really, I have no idea what a new players experience is like, but as an experienced player I'll say this:

As much information as can be without making the process more annoying for someone who doesn't need said information.

However if the staff were to err in favor of making it easier for new people or slightly more time consuming/troublesum for older players. Like an extra screen of text to scroll through, I'd much rather see it in favor of new players.

[Djarjak]

I just want to clarify -

No one is suggesting that this be made into a rigid requirement, or that the current freeform nature of background entry be changed into a question and answer scenario.

We still, ultimately, want you to be able to be creative. This is just an idea for discussion for a possible improvement to help newer players and others who have trouble getting through this step of the bio so that the staff has something decent to go by when interacting with characters.

Thanks for posting that, Northlander - that text is one of the things I'd like to see clarified if this is updated.  Does anyone have good suggestions about what documents pertaining to background are good but hard to find? Or about how this particular text could be changed to make it more useful to you?

[Larrath]

When I was creating my first two characters in Armageddon, I had a real problem getting a background right.  It's just so intimidating!

I think we need a list of questions coupled with common answers and/or explanations.

For example:

Where is your character from?
* In the South, most commoners live in Allanak or in its surrounding farm villages.  In the North, most commoners live in Tuluk.

Who did s/he grow up with or rely on when s/he was young?
* Large polygamous families are very common in Zalanthas, but practically all types of relationships exist.  Many people are orphaned due to the high mortality rate.

Does s/he have any living relatives or close friends (virtual or otherwise)?
* It's recommended to only include one or two such friends/relatives for your first few characters, for the sake of simplicity.

What profession does s/he have? How did s/he get trained for it?
* Remember that your character will enter the game only moderately skilled!

What is your character's long-term goal? Does s/he want to retire wealthy, powerful, reknowned, or just die doing something new and interesting?
* The primary concern of most Zalanthans is to simply survive and make an enjoyable living, and that is frequently followed by the desire to accumulate wealth and influence.

What are some of your character's short-term goals? Does s/he want to join a specific House or group? Does s/he want to convince people to hunt for the blue kank?
* Most Zalanthans are unemployed, and therefore a common short-term goal can be as simple as finding employment or learning how to mine obisidian/lumberjack profitably.

What kind of personality does your character have? Is s/he shy? Lusty? Manipulative? Conceited? Rude? Practical? Lazy?
* Zalanthas is a cutthroat world, and because of that, frail and naive people are very rare.  Most people are suspicious of almost everyone else, and with good reason.

[Barzalene]

I think more guidance cannot be a bad thing. I'd prefer not in the form of prompts.

[Eternal]

Agreed with Barzalene.  Would hate to see prompts coded into the background app process, though a list of rp-questions provided for contemplation through our website would be groovy.  (Or perhaps as an option for prompts for players who would prefer, kinda like stat ordering is optional.)  I like the background being freeform and as static or easily-evolving as the writer prefers.

Hmm, I'm not sure I have anything else to add at this time, some good ideas here, though.

[Agent_137]

I think more guidance cannot be a bad thing. I'd prefer not in the form of prompts.

precisely. If i ever get off my lazy butt and stop playing for a moment and finish my walkthrough, this issue would be dealt with.

My walkthrough.
http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15822

[Djarjak]

Ok, I've edited the original post to make it clearer that the discussion should focus on documentation rather than changes in procedure.

No one is talking about changing the bio entry into a question and answer session. However, adding questions into the information that is displayed during bio entry might spark some ideas in folks and is a possible change that could make things better.

[Jherlen]

Yes, more examples of backgrounds, and questions to answer in your background (as suggestions/guidelines) would be very helpful.

Reorganising the documents would also be good.

[Nao]

A link to the example backgrounds should definitely be included.
(http://www.armageddon.org/intro/backsamples.html)

Why?
Making my first character, creating a background was a HUGE obstacle for me - if I hadn't been talking to a helper by then I'd have given up. I'd read the documentation, looked for example backgrounds but couldn't find them for some reason, so I knew little about the world and had no idea what were possible scenarios for my char to grow up in.

A link has the advantage that it doesn't take up much space (thus doesn't get in the way) and still provides a lot of help. The problem comes up because the documentation is badly organized, it is very hard to find a document exspecially if you don't know that it exists in the first place. Including a link during char generation might be a quick fix for this until someone gets around to organozing all the documents.
Some questions like the ones posted by Djarkak could also be a great help, provided that they're explicitly labelled as suggestions, they give you a guideline of what you could write up there.

On a sidenote, I'm all for including a link to the sample descriptions in the documentation, too.

[Melody]

After my first character died recently, I wanted to look into playing a role in the bard's circle in Tuluk. It took me more than 30 minutes to try to navigate through the website, (I will spare you the details) and in the end I had to enlist the assistance of a helper to find it.

Surely, the information (abundance of it) is there. It isn't difficult to find at all - once I knew where it is. But for a new player like me, it is akin to a nightmare. Or perhaps I am simply slower than the average masses. The help file's structure manages to confuse me to no end - perhaps all the general information could be linked to the helpfiles?

From my point of view, what's out there suffices - if it can be made more accessible and easy to find.

[Lizzie]

I'm semi-new (2nd character, so that counts right?) and I like the idea of giving some guidance in the chargen background thing. I think I would like it even more, if it was toggleable. So like:

>Please type your background (with the usual paragraph as posted by Northlander)...with this addition:
Do you want some general guidelines? Please type # for yes, anything else to directly begin your character's background.

That way people who have a good idea of what they want, or who are already really good at writing backgrounds, don't have to see their game client window scroll a lot of things they don't need/want to read.

L. Stanson

[Beux]

Just a thought...

I'd really like to see a page on the website that lists exactly what you need to know during character creation. Basically a page that has the character creation form laid out. I know the first time I made a char, I spent ages filling it all in, only to be suprised by the background - which took me too long and I dc'd half-way through.

It would be nice to know what needs to be prepared in advance.

[Marauder Moe]

http://www.armageddon.org/intro/intro.html ?

I've always thought that page covered everything nicely enough.

[MorganChaos]

I always have trouble with backgrounds. The strict character limit always made me think I had to fit my bio into four lines and then I started getting in trouble for that.