Long or Short? Application Process!

catzilla

@Juniper said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

If I have to apply, I’m already gone.

What is an ‘application’ to you?

I probably should have clarified or something my original message.

At least to me, an application is just ‘here is my character’. It could be as simple as a picture (or description) with a 1-3 sentence concept/history. Or as ‘complicated’ as having 20+ stats to keep track of with detailed descriptions of them.

junipersky

I don’t like having to make stats. I like writing a bit of backstrory.

Descriptions can kiss my ass.

Babs

@junipersky said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

Descriptions can kiss my ass.

Just reuse the same description. Chances are no one will notice. I’ve even done it with multiple characters on the same game.

Unsurprisingly, I prefer a shorter application process. Bullet points are my friend. I function best when I can exit chargen with a skeleton of a character that fits the game and spent time playing them to actually flesh them out.

Trashcan

@Babs said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

Just reuse the same description. ~~Chances are no one will notice.~~

Chances are no one will say anything to you.

bear_necessities

Anymore, I like games that offer the quickest avenue to RPing out on the grid. Whether that’s allowing a bullet point background, or offering roster characters that you don’t have to write applications for, or whatever that is - I think it’s important to get people out there and playing vs locked up in chargen for days on end while they are busy working on their 3 paragraph note to try and justify having 3 dots in sportsball that isn’t even going to really come up or offer any sort of mechanical benefit anyway.

I don’t think that application processes stop the worst offenders from coming onto your games. You’ll weed out the trolls (probably) and the characters that don’t fit your game (likely) but the true creeps will look good on paper and not show themselves until they’ve already infiltrated the community.

For roster games, I don’t know how valuable it is to have people write several paragraphs about why they want to take the character and what they want to do with them. Sometimes people don’t really know until they’ve played the character a few times. Sometimes they are BRAND NEW to the game and really, really don’t know whatsoever, they just thought this specific roster looked cool and want to give it a go. The only time I think it’s valuable to apply to a character is if the character could be in high demand and it wouldn’t be fair to give it to someone on a first come, first serve basis, but even then, I think there should be multiple characters like that so there’s enough to go around, I guess.

Pavel

@Trashcan said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

@Babs said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

Just reuse the same description. ~~Chances are no one will notice.~~

Chances are no one will say anything to you.

If there’s a wiki or a place to stick a character image, chances are nobody will even read your description. (yes, yes, sans several very loud exceptions)

MisterBoring

@Babs said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

Chances are no one will notice.

This is the exact phrase that lead my best friend to copy pasta a chili recipe into his US History final essay and still somehow get a B on the assignment.

Trashcan

@Pavel said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

If there’s a wiki or a place to stick a character image, chances are nobody will even read your description. (yes, yes, sans several very loud exceptions)

Yes, let us simply discount and ignore any experience that doesn’t fit within our own.

somasatori

@MisterBoring said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

@Babs said in Long or Short? Application Process!:

Chances are no one will notice.

This is the exact phrase that lead my best friend to copy pasta a chili recipe into his US History final essay and still somehow get a B on the assignment.

To be fair: the inverse - copying and pasting a us history essay into a chili recipe - would match most online chili recipes.

RightMeow

I have done all the types of applications. I tend to think Garou MUSH back in the day was pretty intense. Also, I’m old and losing my sanity, so I could be completely wrong about this.

I prefer short and to the game play for me. Partly, because if I have to keep re-writing or altering, I start to lose my enjoyment because the ‘getting there’ already feels like a lot of work. If I have to wait for approval, my desire to play starts to decrease as well. That’s probably my ADHD.

I hate stats because math. Also, I’m never sure how the game leans in direction and most are vague if I ask. I do like writing backstories because I just tend to prattle on (like now).

In conclusion - the way that gets me to start writing interactive stories with other the quickest. I also have a love for roster as it’s ready made especially if I’m coming onto a game as a new person without connections.

Yam

That new game energy can carry you far, so you really have to ride it before it fizzles out. It can give you the energy to finish an app and even reach out to strangers, which, if you’re lucky, creates a snowball effect.

The only really long apps I can remember are from Transformers 2005 for OCs where you had to dedicate a portion of it to justifying your goofy ass robot name. I don’t know how I got anything through.

MisterBoring

The longest app I can think of was for a Palladium system game (may have been RIFTs, might have been Palladium Fantasy, can’t completely remember) that wanted all manner of hoops jumped through. This may not be 100% accurate to the reality of the game, but if anyone remembers it from this process, chime in:

The application text required the following:

Full Name
Age at the time you entered play (had to be at least 19)
Full & Short Descriptions
Full Typed Out Character Sheet (IN THE PALLADIUM SYSTEM) including full inventory and the stats for any vehicles / power armor / giant robots you owned.
Full prose background, with one paragraph dedicated to each of the following:
- Your character’s life from birth to 18.
- Each year after 18.
- Your characters history within the realm of any faction they may have been a member of.
- Reason your character came to the region described by the grid.
- Relationship history of your PC and any PCs you knew prior to coming to the grid area.
Rough ideas on what your character’s IC goals might be.

Then after typing out all of that mess, you got to sit with the staffer assigned your application and chat about anything they found peculiar for at least an hour as I recall, more if you were trying to be something on the far side of balance. (So for RIFTs, something like an Auto-G or Mega Juicer).

After that, you went into the approval queue. In an effort to have some sort of arbitrary control over the population of the game, the staff would take any approved characters and put them into a queue, and then at certain points each month, they’d let a few people finally go IC.