Splitting off from this ATT
, there are several character pages on this wiki which are suffering from having lengthy descriptions. Sometimes these descriptions veer into Walkthrough Mode, which is more commonly seen in character pages for video game works. The focus of TVTropes is to document tropes, not to biographize. This applies to both work pages and the character pages split off from them.
The purpose of having a character page is to lighten the load that its corresponding work page has to handle. No work is entitled to have a character page and no specific character is entitled to have their own page. The focus of the page should be on the tropes that apply to each character.
How to Create a Character Page has recently been updated to help clarify what a "good" description is:
What does this mean? Generally, any description that has something that looks like this:
Attack Power: 9/10
Birthday: March 2nd
Blood Type: O+
Farovite Food: Tommy's Pizza
- Obsessed with Food: Bobbie loves Tommy's Pizza so much nearly all of his ambient dialogue references it and when the party reaches the city of Foeville, he immediately splits to go find the nearest Tommy's Pizzeria and the party must search for him.
This also includes descriptions that list a character's abilities or attacks.
- One For the Road: Bobbies pull out a bottle of alcohol and drinks it all, resulting in an increase in his attack speed and power, and also a buff to his strength to the point that he can carry allies out of danger.
If you can pull a characterization trope out of an ability, then it can be added at the appropriate trope. However, make sure it is a characterization trope. Most tropes associated with abilities and attacks should be on the main work page. For example, using the ability Bobbie has listed above, it's possible The Alcoholic could be listed in Bobbie's folder, provided there is move evidence he is an alcoholic.
- The Alcoholic: Bobbie is introduced to the party in a bar, where he is accompanied by seven empty beer bottles and nursing a half-empty one. In every town the party visits, Bobbie will remark on visiting the bar and if the party does visit the bar, he will immediately start ordering drinks. One of his abilities also shows him downing an entire bottle of alcohol with no problem and a "Gods I needed that".
So then, what is "short"? This one's harder to define. It depends a bit on the character: are they part of a Long Runner? Are they a millenia-old recluse? These are both reasons a character may have a longer description but a good rule of thumb is that we don't need a character's entire backstory in their description, nor do we need a description on how this character is acquired in the game. Keep in mind all that's necessary is a summary that familiarizes a reader with the basic information needed to understand a character.
Does a character page have additional issues beyond their description(s)? Try heading over the the Character Page Cleanup
or the Character-Specific Pages Cleanup threads.
Edited by Hello83433 on Oct 27th 2023 at 8:06:45 AM
Captain Cryptic
Submitting Characters.Magia Record Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story for assistance with this kind of cleanup, as while the unneeded fluff is contained to a stats list at the beginning of each character's description, there's also a lot of subpages to go through that all have something like 10 characters each who need this fluff trimmed.
"My job here is done." "But you didn't do anything."
uwu
The Characters.Cookie Run also contain plenty of lengthy paragraphs of each character's gameplay in the descriptions, and there is a lot to go through since there are over a hundred characters in the franchise.
Characters.Arknights Also has a lengthy "attribute list" for every character, and it would take a while to trim them since there are many playable characters.
Playable characters in Characters.Honkai Impact3rd have a list of their battlesuits and signature weapons in the description, which aren't necessary. Descriptions for NPCs also mention their associated Stigmata sets, which are equally unnecessary.
Really, it seems that many gacha games (Characters.Girls Frontline, Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, etc) suffer from this problem.
Edited by Excessive-Menace on Oct 20th 2023 at 4:00:44 AM
THE GOLDEN AGE WILL RETURN AGAIN!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Started from the bottom and got up through the Flame Magical Girl pages, so only the top four remain. As a side note, the pages are all pretty short, so I'm certain we can merge some of them together.
Yeah, I noticed that too — that the problem lies mostly with the Gacha Games, but I think that's mainly because they usually do publish this type of information whereas other games are less likely to note random trivia for their characters.
Edited by Hello83433 on Oct 21st 2023 at 5:45:40 AM
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
Hasn't gotten bad yet, but Characters.Armored Core VI Fires Of Rubicon does feature a similar description thing. Should they be removed and left in the description proper?
Can you I've an example? I tried looking through them but didn't see any that were problematic.
I mainly referring to the:
(example from V.I Freud)
Like, for clarification, this is fine? I think it's a tad redundant given it can easily be placed in the main character description, but if it is fine, then I'll leave that be.
Granted, I can also point at Characters.Guilty Gear (e.g. Characters.Guilty Gear Sol Badguy), and those are pretty lengthy.
Edited by Shadeblade11 on Oct 22nd 2023 at 4:50:34 AM
Does Characters.Trails Series Rean Schwarzer, Characters.Trails Series Crow Armbrust and Characters.Trails Series Erebonia Chancellor Osborne character's descriptions look too long?
She/Her | Currently cleaning N/A
Oh I see now. Yeah any list like that should be removed as that type of information is considered trivia and doesn't actually describe the character as an individual.
Yeah I would consider those too long, but it looks like there's an easy trim for Giliath just removing the part about his debut. Something like this:
An apparent assassination on Osborne by Crow Armbrust would kick-start the Erebonian Civil War; however, it's later revealed that he somehow survived the attempt on his life. Afterwards he orders the Ironbloods to prepare for the annexation of Crossbell State. It's also during this time that he's revealed to be the biological father of Rean Schwarzer.
Me as a Merman
Continuing on from this post, would it be alright to keep notes regarding (voice) actors/actresses as those types of notes appear in most other character pages?
Also, I want to bring-up the Genshin Impact character pages, as most of the playable characters' sheets are quite lengthy.
Edited by MummyGaGa on Oct 25th 2023 at 2:32:04 PM
BTW, please call me Jake.
Yes, actors/voice actors are fine.
uwu
Another gacha game with extra gameplay info is Counter Side, which notes a playable character's role, rarity, subtitle and command skill.
THE GOLDEN AGE WILL RETURN AGAIN!
Me as a Merman
Finally got done with cleaning up the FGO character descriptions btw.
Edit- Edited the Genshin character descriptions for all of the Fontaine characters, and all of the characters with character-specific pages for that game. Will do the other characters sometime later.
Edit 2- Finally, I'm all done with all of the Genshin character descriptions.
Edited by MummyGaGa on Oct 26th 2023 at 7:54:58 AM
BTW, please call me Jake.
For video game character pages, in particular gacha games, some parts of their biodata sections can be retained, albeit restricted to the "essentials" (i.e., the first things players will see on the UI and/or advertised in advance, such as rarity, gameplay role, element, and weapon type). For some such games, release dates can also be retained, especially if their appearances are heavily tied to story and/or event updates.
As for Genshin Impact, there is an ongoing extensive trimming-down of gameplay descriptions, where the names of the playable character's combat abilities are to be described and their names mentioned at least once so any subsequent reference at the tropes sections will be in generic terms whenever possible (e.g., the Anemo Traveler's "Gust Surge" as merely "Burst"), as well as summarize what each ability can do, especially if they have multiple effects that fall under multiple tropes.
Please read the OP of this thread, which includes the updated description rule in How to Create a Character Page.
We do not want any "essentials" that are considered trivia in the description at all. No rarity, no gameplay role, no element type, etc. nothing but the actors and/or voice actors are needed. We also do not want descriptions of anything gameplay related at all. We are not the Genshin Impact wiki, we do not need to walkthrough readers on the mechanics of the game by mentioning a character's abilities at all in their descriptions. The description is meant to describe the character as a person, that is all.
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
uwu
A non-gacha Characters page with lengthy info sections: Characters.Gushing Over Magical Girls has lengthy lists for every character that includes their birthday, power levels, unique powers and weapons.
Edited by Excessive-Menace on Oct 27th 2023 at 1:16:38 AM
THE GOLDEN AGE WILL RETURN AGAIN!
You are also allowed to cleanup the page as well, if you have the time. I don't want to give off the impression that I'm the only one allowed to change the descriptions. ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Just cite Administrivia.How To Create A Character Page (or the OP of this thread) in your edit reason.
I might edit the OP with a list of pages brought up for ease of tracking.
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
uwu
Yep, I'm kinda busy with college studies so I might not be able to help with cleanup now.
Also, Characters.Honkai Star Rail sufers from the same problems as Genshin, so it needs to be cleaned up too.
Characters.Pluto lists the postwar countries and occupations for every robot.
Edited by Excessive-Menace on Oct 27th 2023 at 3:53:24 AM
THE GOLDEN AGE WILL RETURN AGAIN!
With regards to playable characters from both Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, there are also projects to expunge all mentions of ability names from the trope list because they can be covered in generic terms (in the former, "Normal Attack," "Elemental Skill," and "Elemental Burst"; in the latter, "Basic Attack," "Skill," "Ultimate," "Talent," and "Technique"), and some ability names are very long, while others even sound like sentences, hence IMHO they are better off name-dropped once at best at the opening section.
Also, element, weapon type (for Genshin), and combat role (for HSR) have been mentioned in the biodata to avoid the risk of an all-too-brief trope description (e.g., "His/Her element/weapon is X"), to say nothing of the fact that the latter two classifications have their specific terminologies (for elements in Genshin: Anemo [Blow You Away], Geo [Dishing Out Dirt], Electro [Shock and Awe], Dendro [Green Thumb], Hydro [Making a Splash], Pyro [Playing with Fire], and Cryo [An Ice Person]; for combat roles in HSR: Destruction [general damage-dealing], Hunt [single-target damage-dealing], Erudition [crowd-control damage-dealing], Preservation [tank], Nihility [status debuff], Harmony [status buff], and Abundance [healing]).
Failing all that, is my only alternative here putting links to the official HoYoLab and/or Fandom wikis for further details (or maybe even find someone willing to create [a] sister website(s) for TVTropes covering video games [like, say, "genshinimpact.tvtropes.org", "honkaistarrail.tvtropes.org", "arknights.tvtropes.org", or "fategrandorder.tvtropes.org"])?
Edited by zero5889 on Oct 27th 2023 at 10:39:26 PM
Slowly losing my mind, Bocchi-style.So here is my rewrites for Trails Series Rean Schwarzer and Trails Series Crow Armbrust
Rean
During the events of Cold Steel III, he becomes a teacher at the Thors Branch Campus and begins teaching the New Class VII.
Crow
He is later revealed to be C, the leader of the Imperial Liberation Font, who intends on assassinating Chancellor Osborne. That attempt ended causing a Civil War between Nobles and Commoners. He later dies after managing to stop the Vermillion Apocalypse.
He is later brought back to life and brainwashed by the Black Workshop, now going under the name Azure Siegfried. He would later break out of it by end of III and becomes an ally in both IV and Reverie as a way of atoning for his past.
uwu
I've cleaned up the playable character folders for Characters.Honkai Star Rail. I think I'll clean up Characters.Honkai Impact3rd next.
Some character pages for manga list the debut chapters for every character. Would that be okay to remove?
Edited by Excessive-Menace on Oct 27th 2023 at 7:57:58 AM
THE GOLDEN AGE WILL RETURN AGAIN!
No, you shouldn't be doing that either. We should not be directing people away from the site whether that's to wikipedia or a fandom wiki or something else. From Weblinks Are Not Examples'':
Unless its absolutely necessary to name them (such as if a character has two talents or the trope is specifically about the name), you can just use the standard term. (e.g. "His talent...", "Her ultimate..", etc.) This also prevents things such as ZCEs from littering the page since tropers wouldn't be able to just point at the description above or write only the ability's name to get context. Each example would need its context explained, even if it sounds redundant, because each example needs to stand on its own.
If you think the full name is necessary to contextualize the example, you can give its full name the first time it's mentioned or just describe it and after that it can be referred to by its colloquial name. Or, you could exclusively use a shorter name and put the full ability's name in a note (e.g. "His Talentnote ..." or "His Talent, Superiority of Reach,..."). Most of the time the ability's name is not necessary, just a description,
- Critical Hit Class: Players are incentivized to build up Dan Heng's Critical Rate to get a lot of mileage out of his Skill, which is guaranteed to inflict Slow on his target whenever it scores a critical hit, and by extension his Ultimate, which enjoys greater damage against Slowed foes. In addition, his first Eidolon Resonance, The Higher You Fly, the Harder You Fall, increases his Critical Rate by 12% whenever his target's HP is over half.
The name of the Eidolon Resonance is not needed, because it's already been established which one is being talked about. The first one. You'll also see neither the Skill nor the Ultimate are named and yet, there is enough context for a reader who is unfamiliar with the work to know why Dan Heng is an example of Critical Hit Class.
- Critical Hit Class: Players are incentivized to build up Dan Heng's Critical Rate to get a lot of mileage out of his Skill, which is guaranteed to inflict Slow on his target whenever it scores a critical hit, and by extension his Ultimate, which enjoys greater damage against Slowed foes. In addition, his first Eidolon Resonance increases his Critical Rate by 12% whenever his target's HP is over half.
They can have a bit more meat on their bones, but overall are looking good. Here's my proposals:
- Rean
He becomes involved in the Erebonian Civil War, his deeds for which make him known as a national hero to Erebonia as the "Ashen Chevalier". A year and a half later, he becomes a teacher at the Thors Branch Campus and begins teaching the New Class VII.
- Crow
He is later revealed to be "C", the leader of the Imperial Liberation Font, who intends on assassinating Chancellor Osborne. That attempt ended causing a Civil War between Nobles and Commoners. He's also revealed to be the Awakener to the Divine Knight known as Ordine and later dies after managing to stop the Vermillion Apocalypse.
Eventually, Crow is brought back to life and brainwashed by the Black Workshop, now going under the name Azure Siegfried. He would later break out of it by end of III and becomes an ally in both IV and Reverie as a way of atoning for his past.
Noted. Thank you for your efforts. 
Also yes, any debut appearance information (whether chapter, episode, or event date) should be cut.
Edited by Hello83433 on Oct 27th 2023 at 8:06:00 AM
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
The names of Constellation upgrades and Eidolon Resonances are often highly thematic for the character.
So you're implying that I am better off shoehorning the basic gameplay description into a single trope (or multiple tropes if they have multiple effects, even with the risk of sounding redundant).
At this point, though, you might as well tell me to just join and become an editor at specialist websites (e.g., HoYoLab, Discord, the Wikis—be it Fandom or some independent circuit—and KeqingMains [now with its own HSR section]), create my own blog and/or website, or even convince TVTropes admins to create a spinoff game-oriented website (e.g., "GamerTropes" or something like that).
Edited by zero5889 on Oct 28th 2023 at 12:51:17 AM
Slowly losing my mind, Bocchi-style.
if that's where your passion would fit, then maybe?
Excuse me,
I am aware of the recent char description debate and generally agree with trimming it down, but shouldn't at least the characters' general (and I mean laconically) gameplay description be retained?
Something like this, for example
> As a Hunt character, Dan Heng specializes in swiftly dealing high damage onto single targets, with ways to speed himself up and slow his targets down.
No specific skills mentioned, simply as that
Character "biodata/profile" are also pretty essential to character descriptions, not just for games, don't you think? It helps readers figuring the image of the character in question
Splitting off from this ATT
, there are several character pages on this wiki which are suffering from having lengthy descriptions. Sometimes these descriptions veer into Walkthrough Mode, which is more commonly seen in character pages for video game works. The focus of TVTropes is to document tropes, not to biographize. This applies to both work pages and the character pages split off from them.
The purpose of having a character page is to lighten the load that its corresponding work page has to handle. No work is entitled to have a character page and no specific character is entitled to have their own page. The focus of the page should be on the tropes that apply to each character.
How to Create a Character Page has recently been updated to help clarify what a "good" description is:
What does this mean? Generally, any description that has something that looks like this:
Attack Power: 9/10
Birthday: March 2nd
Blood Type: O+
Farovite Food: Tommy's Pizza
This also includes descriptions that list a character's abilities or attacks.
If you can pull a characterization trope out of an ability, then it can be added at the appropriate trope. However, make sure it is a characterization trope. Most tropes associated with abilities and attacks should be on the main work page. For example, using the ability Bobbie has listed above, it's possible The Alcoholic could be listed in Bobbie's folder, provided there is move evidence he is an alcoholic.
So then, what is "short"? This one's harder to define. It depends a bit on the character: are they part of a Long Runner? Are they a millenia-old recluse? These are both reasons a character may have a longer description but a good rule of thumb is that we don't need a character's entire backstory in their description, nor do we need a description on how this character is acquired in the game. Keep in mind all that's necessary is a summary that familiarizes a reader with the basic information needed to understand a character.
Does a character page have additional issues beyond their description(s)? Try heading over the the Character Page Cleanup
Edited by Hello83433 on Oct 27th 2023 at 8:06:45 AM
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors