Guide to Reviewing Characters

[Wes]

Hey everyone! I'm making a guide for GMs and staffers that says how to successfully review a character.

Here's what I have so far: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=wip:reviewing_characters

I'd appreciate any advice or feedback you have to offer.

 

[Immortal Cyan]

2. Don't just dump a list of problems on the player. Especially not in a large series of quote boxes.

This is an amazing directive and I support it 100%. Trust me, I know what happens when certain people do exactly that.

EDIT: Here is an example of a positive character review/session.

 

[Arbitrated]

I've taken a look over this and it seems quite well-made.

I want to know though, what's the difference between the second and fourth questions-they seem quite similar to each other in my opinion, so maybe a light amount of expansion may be for the best?

 

[Wes]

I don't like seeing anyone get called out negativity like that but it's true that players can be driven away by reviews that could be seen as discouraging, and that is an example of a player who left after his character got reviewed.

@Arbs: The second question is "Is this a Star Army character?" as in not a Halo guy or obvious import from some other RP site. The fourth is "does this character's history make sense?" For example Kyoto was built in YE 25, so it's impossible for most adult characters to have born there.

 

[Kim]

@Wes I like it!

It's our job as FM, GM and staff to help guide new players into creating a person that they want to play. There is nothing wrong with being inspired by an anime or video game character- we all had to start somewhere. I remember my first freeform rp character being Cammy from Streetfighter! But I have developed as a writer and roleplayer since then.

I try to be positive and find ways to help people make something that fits with the setting. Some times, errors are relatively minor or are a writing style preference such as passive voice or forgetting to add a comma.

As someone who's day job involves people reading, reviewing and nitpicking things I create down to pixels- I find that it is better to give all the errors at once for someone to correct. Constructive criticism is saying, "I don't think this particular thing would work but we have something like this in the setting that would fit your concept." You should be prepared as someone's first impression of the site, to answer a billion questions and hold hands as appropriate.

Everyone has their own creative voice and the goal of the site is to make them a part of one of our many bands' songs.