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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
in case of Genshin, "constellations" are advertised along with the character, so it should be public knowledge
And about gameplay descriptions, imo, they should stay, but only if they're written briefly to describe their unique role/features in a general way. They shouldn't delve into specifics
Discarded and Feeling Blue
So far there's no actual consensus on what should be restored, though. That's why I keep trying to redirect people to the Wiki Talk thread; all Mrph actually said was that things should be relevant to the character's tropes and narrative purpose.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
This is more of a stylization question, but for the Genshin character pages, should the quotes be put after the info (rarity, element)? It looks better below the info in my opinion because the different margins for the quote, the info and the character summary look awkward.
I think this thread needs a reactivation. ~zero5889 decided to restore Purple Proses to character descriptions on Honkai: Star Rail without prompt.
"They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!" — Kazuhira Miller, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
It's not so much purple prose as much as a brief description of character gameplay (though any that may sound like one can be edited), which IMHO is fairly acceptable, so readers can be given a summary of what each ability can do (especially if they have multiple effects which could be divided into individual tropes). Besides, there was already an effort to trim the descriptions by the time of the mass deletions a few months ago.
Besides, some character gameplay descriptions for Honkai: Star Rail are being re-implemented by other tropers besides myself, some of whom I had lively discussions with over the specifics of the aforementioned reforms.
Finally, based on that other thread about character descriptions, IIRC there is already an agreement that these are better off on a case-to-case basis instead of a site-wide rule depending on a given work's needs (i.e., compared to a lot of gacha games, both HSR [as well as Genshin Impact] tend to force players to keep a keen eye on each character's gameplay mechanics, hence the balancing act between being brief and being detailed enough).
Edited by zero5889 on Dec 31st 2023 at 7:50:08 PM
I'm guessing that SMITE's character descriptions would be in need of a trimming, then? For example:
You could bring that up on that particular game's Forum and/or Discussion sections with tropers with intimate knowledge, so you can discuss it with each other.
Right now the prevailing mood seems to be that such issues about trimming and/or reforming character descriptions are better dealt with on a case-to-case basis.
As I've stated before, I don't think constellations should be listed in the Genshin biodata. Not only are they something that non-fans wouldn't exactly understand without doing research, but honestly, I don't find a character's constellation to be an extremely important feature to be noted in the biodata (like it has little to no impact on the story, and knowing the name of a character's constellation doesn't really help much in gameplaynote )
And I don't think we agreed to restore gameplay descriptions. Correct me if I am wrong, but most people seem to believe that it's the biodata that should be partially restored. Not the gameplay descriptions.
Edited by MummyGaGa on Nov 17th 2023 at 10:44:10 AM
BTW, please call me Jake.