In the past I used to go in blind to the taken list because I would join based entirely on premise or on invites from friends.
Now I double-check the same standards as y'all; I swing to less anime characters, but also check for a healthy population of adult characters.
I also check to see if the OC population's doing fairly well. Usually games don't have more than a handful, but if the ones that are there are substandard in some way (my gauge often goes by urban-fantasy LA-PB's who are especially arrogant or 2 cool... and I'd be lying if very badly drawn icons weren't a sign, but more of what I'm looking at is how thought-out the character is and whether their history and world are rich and fun to read about!)
Re: poll/question
Now I double-check the same standards as y'all; I swing to less anime characters, but also check for a healthy population of adult characters.
I also check to see if the OC population's doing fairly well. Usually games don't have more than a handful, but if the ones that are there are substandard in some way (my gauge often goes by urban-fantasy LA-PB's who are especially arrogant or 2 cool... and I'd be lying if very badly drawn icons weren't a sign, but more of what I'm looking at is how thought-out the character is and whether their history and world are rich and fun to read about!)