Character Categories: a guide
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
The VirtueVerse Wiki has a large number of "Character categories" that help describe the characters. There are quite a lot of categories, and it could be difficult to find all the ones relevant to a particular character. This page lists all the categories in an organized fashion, to make it easier for players to use them and for the admins to keep track of them.
Contents |
[edit] Tagging
Tags are a useful method of organizing your character into different categories. They allow people to find your character based on keywords, groups, and specific traits. They also provide logical organization to the content found within the VirtueVerse Wiki.
Tags are a special wiki code placed at the very bottom of the characters page that help the system identify how to organize and sort your character. In order to add your character to a category, add the following tag to their page:
- [[Category:Category Name]]
[edit] Important Notes
- Do not edit the category page to add your character.
- Make sure you use the correct case (capital letters) for the category's name.
- All Character pages must have [[Category:Character]] defined.
[edit] The Basics
All characters should be tagged as [[Category:Character]], this ensures they will show up under the main Virtue Character listing which includes all player characters posted.
[edit] Affiliation
This is the obvious classification taken directly from the game. But maybe your character is beyond the simple "good guy/bad guy" divide - in which case, there are these categories:
- Vigilante - pursue their own vision of justice regardless of the letter of the law.
- Accidental Hero - you never sought the life of a hero.
- Mercenary - work for whoever pays best and ignore the moral implications.
- Double Agent - a goodie playing a baddie or a baddie playing a goodie.
- Anti-Hero - identifies clearly with neither "good" nor "evil".
- Fallen Hero - fallen from the light...
- Reformed Villain - ...or crawled back towards it?
- Ex-Hero - or maybe you've retired from the cape and cowl gig?
- Monster - not so much evil as a rampaging force of destruction.
[edit] Archetype
Heroes:
Villains:
[edit] Origin
Where does your character derive their powers? This Origin should match the in game origin you selected for your character on creation. For your convenience they are:
[edit] Gender
Most characters fall in one of the three categories listed below. If your character is not specifically female or male it should be listed as [[Category:Genderless]]. (Examples: robots, monsters, aliens, etc)
[edit] The Fun Part
Well, we got the basics out of the way, now it's time to get down to the interesting stuff. The next part is all In-Character: these are not traits that the game tracks in any way. This means two things: 1) The sky's the limit. If you think your character falls into ten or fifteen or more categories, go ahead and add 'em! 2) Try not to clutter. Don't add tags to your character just to have more tags, be sure they are meaningful in some way. For example, don't tag your robot character as "Plant" unless he actually has plants somewhere in his construction.
[edit] Where you came from
First, background traits - things that determine who your character is.
[edit] Species
Often called "race" in fantasy or sci-fi, these are all the humanoid species that aren't humans.
The ones with a modern/sci-fi bent:
- Alien - generic or unspecified aliens... FROM SPAAAACE!
- Kheldian - the CoH-Verse's very own flying Koosh balls.
- Rikti - not actually from space.
- Robot - walking bolt-buckets.
- Android - less mechanical, more human-looking (may even have human parts).
The ones more common in fantasy:
- Elf - the "arrow-slinging long-lived hippies" of fantasy literature.
- Fae - the more traditional "nature sprites".
- Dwarf - small, stout, bearded humanoids. Scottish accent optional, but recommended.
- Dragon
If your character is part human and part other species (half-elf, half-dragon, half-catgirl), it's your call if you want to tag them as their other parent.
[edit] Inborn traits
Maybe they're not quite human, but not quite a different species?
Maybe they have a quirk in their heritage.
Not all heroes are straight.
[edit] Backstory
Maybe they came to Paragon from somewhere far away?
Maybe they're involved in celestial conflicts?
Some characters are just Totally Awesome. It's a fact of life.
But not all characters are much fun at a party.
[edit] What's going on with you
Your character's job, status, or superhero comic archetype.
[edit] Classic archetypes
[edit] Identity status
- Public Identity - everyone knows who they really are.
- Secret Identity - nobody knows who they really are.
- Deceased - doesn't really matter anymore.
[edit] Age and Schooling
[edit] Arcane Arts
- Cursed
- Magical Girl a.k.a. Mahou Shoujo
- Magician
- Avatar
- Sentai
[edit] Different Arcane Arts
[edit] Science!
[edit] Armed forces
[edit] Rogues
[edit] SCA
[edit] Groups
If your character's Supergroup has a large presence on the wiki, they might also have a category to which you can add the character. Supergroup categories (including Villain Groups, of course) aren't classed amongst the Character Categories, instead having have their own parent category, but they're still useful tags for characters.
[edit] In-Game Organizations
The existing in-game groups like Crey or Wyrven or Malta have their own subcategories in the In-Game Organizations category. They can be used for tagging characters in the same way as regular categories.
[edit] Making New Categories
If there is an important aspect of your character that isn't covered by the existing group of character categories, you might find yourself wanting to make a new one. This is fine - a wiki is a group effort, after all - but you should first try to be sure that the category will be useful to the wiki at large, not just to your character. Categories are a way to group characters with similar traits, so a category with only one member isn't very meaningful, even if that trait is very important to your character concept.
A good place to begin is to consider whether or not a category is too specific. Browsing the Character Categories page will give you an idea of how broad a category should be in order to be useful. It will also let you check whether or not there is an existing category which provides an adequate replacement for the category you're thinking of making - there's no reason to add another category if it's effectively a duplicate of an existing one.
Once you've determined that the category is broad enough, you should try to ascertain that it will be useful to more characters than just the one you're making. A good way to get an idea of this is to perform a quick search for the name of the category, and see how many times it appears in other characters' pages (this will also give you an idea of whether or not you have chosen a good title for the category - try to choose an unambiguous or self-explanatory term, if possible). If you get a lot of search results, this is probably a worthwhile category; if you get few or no results, chances are that the category is too narrow to be appropriate.
Once you've made a new category, remember to add a description to the category's page - you can do this by clicking on the link created at the bottom of your character's page. Try to keep the description as informative and factual as possible, and explain clearly which sorts of characters fall into this category.
