Reminder: Personal Character Notes

[Jayde Moon]

Hello, everyone!  I would like to take a moment to remind everyone about the Personal Character Notes!

This is your forum to tell the DM Team about the amazing things your character is doing, how they are developing, and/or to explain the idiosyncrasies of your character to us.

I understand that it sometimes feels frustrating to spend a lot of time typing something up and then see the 'views' counter only go up by one or two reads per post.  Anytime you post somewhere else, you can easily expect 10-20 views per post!  But keep in mind that those are views from DMs and that the rest of the playerbase can't look at those threads.

"Why is it important to post in that forum?"

The DM team has a lot on their plate.  We are multitasking big time and have to keep track of factions, plots, NPCs, and a variety of PCs.  PCs come and go and while your own PC is the one that's generally of greatest interest to you, we have to juggle the wants and needs of the entire playerbase.

It can be difficult to keep track of who is doing what and how each individual is going about it.  A thread that can quickly give us reminders about what your character is doing or trying to accomplish can be a great reminder for us.  Sometimes we may even troll these threads to come up with our next DM adventure.

This can be especially important if you are trying to earn a PrC or are doing things that we may not be around to actually witness.  If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?  Do we know it fell?  Does anyone care?  Well, if you tell us about it, then at least there is something to point at and say, "Hey, this is what I'm doing, maybe you can throw me a bone!"

Also, there are times when you are playing a concept that may be a little out of tune with the generally accepted paradigm of how we view things in EfU.  We want to encourage creative thinking and character concepts (while maintaining the correct balance for what does and does not fit in our gameworld).  If there is something off-center about your PC, but in a way that doesn't require an app (or even if it did), this forum is the place to tell us what you are thinking and why you think it works within the construct of EfU.

This way, instead of scratching our heads and wondering, "WTF is going on with that PC?!?", we have a clearer picture of just what it is you are trying to convey.  It can also pique our interest in a way that has us on the lookout for your PC, to see if the execution matches the potential of the interesting thought you had... or alternately give us an opportunity to tell you that, "No, that just won't work in our server, and this is why..."

"Will you guys REALLY read my posts?

I do.

Honestly, I don't read all of them and some of them just aren't very interesting, I'm not going to lie!  That said, I read a lot of them, especially if I notice something about a PC that seemed interesting or odd.  I go to the Personal Character Notes and try to see if there is anything written up on the PC.  And guess what?  90% of the time, if there isn't anything there, I immediately lose interest and whatever piqued my curiosity is quickly forgotten.

I also check them whenever a player sends me a tell in IRC asking me if they are 'progressing on their PrC' or if I noticed they are doing X or Y.  Characters with long term goals that they are trying to reach often want to know how they are doing.  If there isn't anything there, then I generally don't have an answer for them.  I'm also probably not going to show a lot of interest, because you are putting the onus on ME to keep your personal plots together in my head.

I've got too much to think about to store that reliably in my brain, whereas if you post it, I can quickly check back there and get the facts straight/jog my memory and perhaps help you along.

Finally, if you can't take 5 minutes now and again to write something up about your PC, why would you expect me to take the potentially hours to run something to progress your PCs story?

"What should I post?"

Remember, that this is not an IC forum!  While there may be rare occasions when something like that is appropriate, generally it is NOT and those posts will probably be deleted.

Formatting!  At a minimum, use paragraphs.  A wall of block text is probably going to turn us off.

One thread per PC.  We don't need a new thread for each different thing you want to post about.  In fact, that makes it hard to keep everything together.

Initial post:  Consider posting your stats and how you plan to represent those stats.  Got an 8 in Wisdom?  In game we probably aren't really seeing how that plays out, maybe the way you convey it is something that we miss.  If you post it in this thread, we can look for that and get a warm and fuzzy feeling that you're actually playing your stats.  Maybe give us some background on your PC, where they came from, why they think the way they do, etc.  Are they racist?  Are they bigoted?  Where did they come from?

What do you hope to achieve with this PC?  What are your goals?

Subsequent posts:  we don't want a day to day log of every little thing your character did.  Wading through the daily minutiae of your PC's life is going to turn us off and we probably won't ever get to the good stuff.

What we want to see are the broad activities that represent working towards your goals.  Major interactions that are shaping how your character views the world at large and the island/village/situation in particular.

So there you go.  Personal Character Notes.  Use them, help us help you help the server!  Good luck!

[Jayde Moon]

BUMPITY BUMP

[AllMYBudgies]

I'd just like to bump this with an extra helping of PLEASE update your character notes. Without them it is certainly difficult tracking all of the wonderful things you are doing in game and as such there is chance it will be missed by the DM team. Not using them is counter productive to your fun.

[AllMYBudgies]

Hello everyone, another reminder of the many benefits that come from using your personal character notes.

It is impossible to track a lot of the goings on with your characters without updating these regularly. Recently character notes are pretty sparse, using them alleviates confusion and adds to DM interest in every sense.