Hello, my name is Joseph Silver, and my character is Argent Gish, a neutral evil male human wizard.

I am currently a level 3 wizard, and I focus on buffing spells instead of direct damage spells. I work well with decent melee characters, though I can change my repertoire to suit the party's needs.

I am also a potion maker. Right now, I make Potions of Bull's Strength.

My character is a cheerful but amoral mercenary who works for the highest bidder. He is neutral evil not because he wants to make others miserable, but because he will work for anyone, no questions asked, as long as the pay is good.

If you're looking for employment opportunities in-game, your best bet would be to make an advertisement in the 'Public Notices' forum section. That section is for In-Character (IC) dealings. As it is, nobody would know IG whether you're a mercenary or not, even if they read your passage above. :wink:

It actually says in my ingame description that I am a mercenary mage. Okay, I'll post there.

The point is gish , nobody LOOKING at your character SHOULD know what you are. Not unless you really DO have a tattoo on your forehead that says "mercenary". Then you'd really get some funny looks and likely a lot wouldnt believe it merely because it's written there :D

You may look like a mage, but they dont know your history or what you want till you tell them or you tell somebody else that tells them etc.

I generally keep the "description" field for basic visual appearences for that very reason. Sometimes I might put in things you may not be able to see all the time, or some sort of odd behaviour that might be specific to the character.

It's mildly annoying that you cannot change your description as your character's appearance changes. (as it would given certain events etc) but bioware never gave us the command for that, probably due to design limitations. Maybe nwn2 will give us the power to reflect what we want to reflect.

An ingame explanation of why people know that I am a mercenary wizard is that I spend a lot of time advertising my services to people I meet in Sanctuary. I usually greet people with, "Hello. I am Argent Gish, mercenary wizard. Are you in need of my services?"

Sanctuary is a small city, and eventually, everyone gets to know everyone, just like in small communities in real life.

If you wish to roleplay a character keeping a low profile, you can exclude your background from your ingame description. If you wish to play a character keeping a high high profile (like me), then you can include your background in your ingame description.

At least, this is the way I see it.

People use the biography space for tons and tons of purposes including interesting backgrounds, histories, beliefs, as well as physical descriptions. That's fine and dandy to me, but the -only- information you can use IC'ly use are the physical description and observations another character could make.

"Was a slave of the drow for twenty years" or "Follows Torm" is not information a character would know upon meeting another character. If they approach a PC with these comments and suddenly exclaim "DEATH TO FOLLOWERS OF TORM" and start hacking away, they are metagaming knowledge.

Expecting others to use the information in your biography that goes beyond physical descriptions is expecting others to metagame your character. You should also remember that many people don't even -look- at your bio, so you must be prepared for that too. I think the best bio's are short, 1-3 sentance physical descriptions so I can quickly examine a character a get an idea of what my PC sees, like a scar over a face, or an unusually crooked grin. What I can't conclude by looking at a person is whether or not they were a slave, follower of Torm, or a mercenary mage.

Argent Gish An ingame explanation of why people know that I am a mercenary wizard is that I spend a lot of time advertising my services to people I meet in Sanctuary. I usually greet people with, "Hello. I am Argent Gish, mercenary wizard. Are you in need of my services?"

Sanctuary is a small city, and eventually, everyone gets to know everyone, just like in small communities in real life.

Things like reputations are intangible. They exist because of the relationships you've actually formed, not as the result of a superfluous 'reminder' in the character's description. If the other player characters actually know through your own IC actions who you are, then I'd say you've accomplished your goal and there's nothing more to it! :)