rpanons | Make that anon suffer

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That is some very helpful clarification. I'll see if it's possible to format things so the history section is behind a cut as a courtesy. Otherwise, I can suggest putting in an "end history" break so that people might ctrl+f past it. While I now know that it's the community norm to not care about spoilers (thanks to you and several others now), for both ease of navigating application profiles and as a courtesy I think this might be a good idea.

In the case of characters with little backstory (for example characters who's canon has not yet mentioned their childhood or teen years), do you recommend putting any potential extrapolation into the history section or the headcanon section?

if there needs to be more than very slight headcanon, it should be marked out separately, if not necessarily in a completely different section. i've seen a lot of apps where headcanon is designated with a different text color. in general, though, history sections don't have to cover anything that hasn't been covered in canon.

Alright, good to know! Thank you, and I'll make sure the other mods know as well.

Dwrpers have a loose view on spoilers since it's acknowledged that you're *going* to be spoiled when you play with certain characters. I know some players who try to avoid some spoilers in top posts and will oocly ask if it's okay to spoil. Players also use ooc permissions/warnings posts and HMD (How's My Driving) posts to have options for people to ask oocly ask to avoid spoilers or to avoid [character] for whatever reasons. If someone actively asks a player to avoid spoilers for them, they will for those threads, but other threads will probably be spoilery. Dwrpers value well-written posts over people tying themselves into knots to avoid spoilers.

Dreamwidth has a cut/"read more" system, if you check out the help section it will explain how the site coding works. It's fairly simple. Most people just put sample apps in another post and link to them or have them behind a cut so that people randomly scrolling won't have to scroll past all the tl;dr of an app. Most mods will also link a sample app, rather than have it all in the the same post with the app format.

It is also helpful to have more than one sample app, especially when you have a game that involves different kind of apps (OU, AU, doubles, etc). Most mods who run games with both OU and AU characters will have a sample for both. It's not required, but just nice to have.

Highly low backstory characters (like a character who is named and has speaking roles but you know nothing else about them) are often called canon OCs in dwrp, and people often use a mix of a OU app with an app for OCs to fit that kind of character. Many games don't allow these sorts of characters unless they already allow OCs and usually get canon OCs to get an okay from castmates (characters in the same canon) already in game, since it can potentially mess with how those players play their characters depending on the character and canon.

It gets to be quite a mess, hence why most games just don't bother and don't allow them. I would say to have set rules in place for how you're dealing with those kinds of characters. I can't think of any games that allow canon OCs off the top of my head, but if you look around you'll probably find one or two at least.

The exception to low backstory characters that is often allowed is if the canon is long enough to have shown a decent grasp of the character's personality even without knowing their backstory. This example might be some protags who you never learn their backstory but since you see them throughout canon, you still have enough to use for a normal app anyway.

The canon OC idea also sometimes applies to protag characters in some video games where the character either never speaks/has no set personality (Link from some LoZ games or protags from Persona games), or is made up solely of personality picked by the player (Bioware games or Elder Scrolls games). Some games say these are the same as canon OCs first described, and some games have different rules about these (like allowing players to app them if the choices/story in game has enough of a "sense" of personality to say is canon), it depends on what you choose to do and if you even encounter people wanting to app these kinds of characters.

Oh! This is all very helpful, I'll make sure the other mods see it when they're up, thank you.

I believe we have two different app formats already going - one for canon characters, one for OCs. I haven't really thought about how filling out an app for canon ocs would work before. I'll ask to see if we can include canon oc characters, since I think that'd be a really great exercise in extrapolation and world building.

Thanks a lot on your input on how low backstory characters are generally treated! It's cleared up a lot for me, since I'm rping one of those characters. It's a decently sized canon that I'm working with imo, so I should be ok.

Glad to be of help! For terminology's sake I'll also say that a canon OC is different than a fanon/fandom OC which is when a person creates an OC within a canon world. Gemsonas are an example of this. Most games don't allow these kinds of characters for many reasons, the top being because fanon OCs tend not to mesh with OU characters (especially when the fanon OC is supposed to be someone's lover/bff/child) and can turn a lot of players away because fanon OC players also tend to be very mary-sue-y, another term that means they're over powered, infallible, and always perfect... which doesn't make for a fun rp experience. Dwrp has a long history with all kinds of OCs tending towards this mary-sue playstyle, but we've been slowly moving past that history and being able to enjoy a lot of really amazing OCs in our games without anyone harassing them simply for being OCs. We've come a long way but still have a ways to go.

example of game that allows canon OC's and their system (http://reparator.dreamwidth.org/8175.html)

and also the requirement from apps do vary from game to game, and there are some that have laxer standards, while some are very rigorous. but as a rule a firm structure and conforming at least somewhat to general standards will make it easier on both mods and players. the former will have an easier time judging the apps, and the latter will know what is expected of them to put in.

Make that anon suffer

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