Experiences Character profile pet peeves

[Shuusuke]

Sometimes reverse image search doesn't work, or would take a while to work since you'd have to filter through many results. But at the very least, if you're using Chrome all it takes is to right click the image, and then click "search image on google", that's what I imagine is the 2-second part. Alternatively you can save the image and drag-and-drop it in the Google image search box. Even if sometimes that still doesn't work, at least that much people should try.

On the topic of credits, when you do give them, don't just say "profile/character image made by Bob" or something, link to Bob's profile on Deviantart or Patreon or whatever they use, too. The laziness that separates a click/copypaste from typing someone's alias on the search bar is real, and doing that increases the attention the artist gets.

 

[Nue]

I'd also encourage just not using google images for faceclaims, because like said before, a lot of it won't link to the original post. Sites like Zerochan always have the artists name there so you can find it, and also have tags that helpfully find images with specific themes, for instance. (So if you're like, 'I wanna find a red haired anime girl with blue eyes' you can use those tags to find it *and* get the artist) That being said, it's not a perfect solution because a lot of artists say they don't want their art to be reposted, and their wishes are ignored and it gets reuploaded to those sites anyway..

I usually draw my own characters, but for those that don't have that option - I think using art from official sources is good! Like art, screenshots, gifs ect. that come directly from a show or a video game or something like that.

Also just saying 'credit to the artist' isn't credit and doesn't help anyone

 

[rae2nerdy]

I'd also encourage just not using google images for faceclaims, because like said before, a lot of it won't link to the original post. Sites like Zerochan always have the artists name there so you can find it, and also have tags that helpfully find images with specific themes, for instance. (So if you're like, 'I wanna find a red haired anime girl with blue eyes' you can use those tags to find it *and* get the artist) That being said, it's not a perfect solution because a lot of artists say they don't want their art to be reposted, and their wishes are ignored and it gets reuploaded to those sites anyway..

I usually draw my own characters, but for those that don't have that option - I think using art from official sources is good! Like art, screenshots, gifs ect. that come directly from a show or a video game or something like that.

Also just saying 'credit to the artist' isn't credit and doesn't help anyone

I mean technically the official art all belong to someone too. And unless you find the original image and see where the person said - yes you can redistribute this. Than your still taking something without permission.

I think if this is really about fair use than your best bet is to use dollgenerators, make/take your own pictures, or go to sites that have licensing that allows for the fair use of their work.

Dollgenerators are extremely popular and cover pretty much all the art styles. You won’t get a lot of variety in body type but you can customize the character to look like whatever you want. And those exist for the express purpose of people making their own characters.

Then you have sites like unsplash, pexels, and This Person Does Not Exist

The last one isn’t even real people it’s image compilations made by an AI.

 

[Nue]

I mean technically the official art all belong to someone too. And unless you find the original image and see where the person said - yes you can redistribute this. Than your still taking something without permission.

I think if this is really about fair use than your best bet is to use dollgenerators, make/take your own pictures, or go to sites that have licensing that allows for the fair use of their work.

Dollgenerators are extremely popular and cover pretty much all the art styles. You won’t get a lot of variety in body type but you can customize the character to look like whatever you want. And those exist for the express purpose of people making their own characters.

Then you have sites like unsplash, pexels, and This Person Does Not Exist

The last one isn’t even real people it’s image compilations made by an AI.

With official/promo art it's a little different, it's usually made with the intent of being used and spread around, not necessarily with credit either (so for example every time someone posts the official character art of say, a Persona character, they don't need to credit Shigenori Soejima each time), so I feel it's a bit different to using personal artwork from a much smaller creator.
All the other options are valid too though, Dollgenerators are a really good idea that I hadn't considered. I remember Rinmaru had one that was extremely detailed (Kisekae too but uhhhh unfortunately it's sort of nsfw)

 

[rae2nerdy]

With official/promo art it's a little different, it's usually made with the intent of being used and spread around, not necessarily with credit either (so for example every time someone posts the official character art of say, a Persona character, they don't need to credit Shigenori Soejima each time), so I feel it's a bit different to using personal artwork from a much smaller creator.
All the other options are valid too though, Dollgenerators are a really good idea that I hadn't considered. I remember Rinmaru had one that was extremely detailed (Kisekae too but uhhhh unfortunately it's sort of nsfw)

But that mentality only works if you know what the character is (and if your doing canon roleplays).

As not every person is going to know enough of visual mediums to know when they are taking official art and when they are taking art from a small artist.

Then you have people who have “original” characters who look exactly like characters in an established medium. Which in itself can be very distracting to people. I have had people comment previously - “Oh your character is A from X fandom”. I have no idea who that is but it is distracting to the other person.

Which is why some people use random google images in the first place. So they aren’t using a readily recognizable character as their face claims.

It’s why the dollmaker are the ideal solution for people who can’t draw. You aren’t taking someone else’s work without permission and you aren’t going to be using an image that is super popular and might be linked to another fandom.

Photos are a crap shoot whichever way you look at it. But you can use “less common” fair use models if ya know where to look

 

[FoolsErin]

I agree with everyone here who said likes and dislikes. It’s not really necessary, I can never think some up, and overall I don’t really like having it on a character sheet.

I don’t personally like having personality on a character sheet because I’m absolute shite at describing personalities, plus I personally think it’s more fun to figure it out from the way the character is played.

 

[Anshelical]

Simple: there's too much information, down to the birthmarks.

 

[kibou]

Personality sections that are bullet-pointed. Like, two people can be talkative, empathetic, and careless but behave and have those traits manifest totally differently. Something super in-depth isn't needed, and tbh my characters usually change somewhat from initial conception to after the rp starts and I have a better feel for them, but you need more to go off of to get an impression of how someone will act because the point of the CS is to understand how a character will fit into a story and provide something for the GM to judge.

Personality sections that tell you how the character comes off to other characters. Like, no, you can't decide for everyone "John is constantly cracking jokes to cope with his low self-esteem and puts off everyone around him." Maybe my character thinks he's hilarious, or maybe they'll take his self-depreciation seriously and try to help him out! You don't know that! It's not the best example, but I've seen personality sections phrased like that before, and sometimes if your character doesn't react in this pre-determined way the player will get mad about it or try to correct you.

Backstories that don't logically bring the character to where they are at with their personality section. Like, there's not always a particular reason someone has anxiety, or is overly optimistic, or double-faced, but it should at least be realistic and your early years, home life, and past very much shape who you are as a person, your motivations, etc. At least, don't have them be direct contradictions.

Alternatively, over-done tragic backstory type stuff. Like, I do love angst so much, but the typical dead parents thing is sooo common and I love to see more creative approaches. An OC with trust issues doesn't need to have been severely abused by multiple different parties. It could just be that their friend group in middle-school made a groupchat without them specifically to make fun of them, or they were too trusting previously and lost a bunch of money to greedy relatives, or something equally mundane.

I don't mind likes/dislikes lists as long as they don't require a whole lot (because sometimes it is hard to think of a bunch at once). Depending on the rp your character isn't always going to be doing super important plot-related things, and they'll need things to do in their downtime, and even if they are always in the midst of action, hobbies and interests might pop up at any time- maybe you were transported to a fantasy land to save it, and are fighting an electric bear, and your hobby of fixing technology gives you an understanding of electricity and an idea that helps you win the fight!

Your likes and dislikes are probably going to be influenced by your personality and history too, and having to think about their mundane daily life can really help you figure out who they are and flesh them out better. Sometimes I end up having a big list of all these really mundane facts too that don't end up on my public CS- for example, an OC I have used to write love letters when away from home, and they were absolutely cheesy poetry. You'd never be able to guess it, and it might never be relevant IC, but it's a little detail I decided that establishes him more solidly in my mind as what type of romantic he might be, how comfortable he'd be with his feelings, and by extension how he might act around those he loves. He likes teas and coffees because they remind him of home, and he doesn't like alcohol because he might've acted out in the past while drunk and doesn't want to say something he'd regret. Those kindsa little things just really make any character feel more real. Obviously if it's something like a CS asking specifically for your character's favorite color, that's kinda different.

User-unfriendly coding. Making the font 75% as big as normal, and then centering everything and leaving a bunch of negative space on the sides so the whole code is only using the very middle of your screen so the whole thing is just so small and neat and impossible to read. Changing the background color and font but they don't contrast enough, very small scroll boxes with a lot of text, having a lot of buttons you have to click to navigate to different parts of the CS that aren't clearly labeled or laid out in a way that makes sense. Codes don't work very well or at all on mobile, or a code that was made for light theme that you can't read on dark and vice versa, etc, etc.

I enjoy a good aesthetic as much as anyone else, but please the point is to write and convey information you're not being graded on your graphic design final. Although, if I'm being honest, maybe taking graphic design classes might help some of these user-unfriendly problems. I don't hate bbcode inherently, and there's plenty of fine codes, but there's also just a lot of ones that aren't so great.

On the opposing side, CSs that have no coding or organization other than (usually big) line breaks, especially when they center-align everything and have full-sized images. They take up so much screen space and it can be a pain trying to find the post you're looking for in a CS thread, and the information you need from it. This isn't nearly as big a deal though and it's just a personal pet peeve.

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

mandatory personality sections are a blight

don't spend a week on your bbcode and a day on the character itself, please

read the other characters first

character sheets are boarding passes, not the ride, don't treat them like the be all end all of your rp experience

whatever tho tbh you do you it's a hobby

 

[the melancholist]

I'm admittedly new to using character sheets (I'm a strictly 1x1 roleplayer). Most of the time I provide basic information, but I've been giving more detailed ones a shot.
That being said, I've been reading many character sheets on various sites to get a better idea as to what people would like.

That being said:
Do you ever notice a trend that drives you crazy?

For me, it's the weird proportions. I think the worst one I've received was a character who was 5'6" and under 100 pounds. That's not healthy. I've also had people insist their character is shorter than mine, to the point where their character was 4'10"! Another odd one was a character that was ~6'10". Just a normal human, but their height wasn't treated as the almost world record height that it was.

So, what makes a good character sheet for you? Do you have any pet peeves?

When someone says they have a weapon from a omnipotent force, yet don't describe where they got it. Or when they barely describe a character, e.g. something like this:

"Orphan, Likes Tacos, Lives on streets".

At least have a slight care of what your describing. This would be a bit better:

"(Name) is an orphan, tossed to the streets by an unforgiving orphanage at age 12. He had to steal to make a living, stealing what he could. His all-time favorite thing to eat are tacos, which he first came by from stealing from a taco stand."

Sorry if that's really weird-

 

[Demonic cupcake]

When people dont fill out the entire thing and every part is less than one sentance! There was this one person who kept joining my roleplays and his characters were fricking jokes. One sentance bios. They were literal jokes. I hate having to put a histoy or being forced to write paragraphs of stuff. Its alao like you will LEARN about my character as i go on

Also the ones with the bbc code. Theyre soooo hard to fill out i dont wanna write my stuff into a big fat thing of pure code

 

[Idea]

When people dont fill out the entire thing and every part is less than one sentance! There was this one person who kept joining my roleplays and his characters were fricking jokes. One sentance bios. They were literal jokes. I hate having to put a histoy or being forced to write paragraphs of stuff.

Oh God I know right? It drives me insane when I even post a CS as an example (as in fully complete) and some people just decide to drop some half-baked CS with barely a couple lines for personality or backstory. It’s like, I wouldn’t have put those there if I wanted something this basic.