The core of the guide covers standard profile topics, but at several points there are more detailed musings on specific techniques which are spoilered. These sections tend to cover specific tips for addressing common critique issues or points of ideology underlying our practices which are even more optional than the already-optional reading represented by the rest of this guide. They're fairly skippable but if you are, say, going to run an AU (or are just interested in seeing how the sausage is made) you may want to give them a read.
Before we dive into the templates, let's talk about what critiques are, their role in the game, and the process we strive for. Character critiques are when a staff member reads your profile, and then either approves your character for play or else requests changes. Once changes are made, a new cycle begins, and the character will be approved or will be subject to further change requests.
Generally speaking, almost every character will have the chance to be approved eventually, though on rare occasions when staff believes a submission has been made in bad faith we reserve the right to permanently deny a profile. This may also happen if, say, a character is erroneously submitted to a game where registrations have closed, though in this case the profile may be reused later. In practice, this option is very rarely exercised.
The primary purposes behind the critique process are to help handlers make their characters the best they can be, to make sure that profiles include important functional information required to interact with the character in question, and to make sure characters are appropriate to the tone and setting of the version they're submitted to.
Improving characters is the most important part of the critique process. When "improving" characters is referred to, this is not a prescriptive process—it usually does not take the form of staff members telling you precisely how to edit each little thing. Instead, we dig into areas that feel ripe with potential but underdeveloped, into contradictions that have eluded the handler's notice, and into places where an idea is clearly present but isn't quite landing how it's intended. Our general process is to figure out what the goal for a character is and then help work towards that end while also encouraging handlers to be flexible and well-rounded in their ideas. We want people to consider angles they might not have, because that's such a core part of the creative process; in a way, the character critique is also the first interaction with the compromise component of a collaborative writing project.
When it comes to the inclusion of important information, the standards are a lot more direct and objective (and this is what the meat of this guide will be focused on). At a bare minimum, profiles should include a good idea of what a character looks like and what the other characters would know about them. We usually also want some idea of who they are as a person and what they're capable of. Someone who reads a profile should be better equipped to interact with the character described by that profile, and also better equipped to understand them as a reader.
Finally, while there's a wide range of tones and styles that are acceptable on the site, there are certain constants and baselines for any given universe, and the critique process helps make sure that all characters feel like believable and authentic denizens of the same world, and that they take their setting into account. This is especially important with those settings that diverge more notably from the real world.
With the whys out of the way, let's jump straight into the traditional profile template:
Example Profile Template wrote:Name:
Gender:
Age:
Grade:
School:
Hobbies and Interests:
Appearance:
Biography:
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
We'll go through this section-by-section.
Name: This can be a very quick part of the critique process, but that is not necessarily the case. Name is not a free space.
Generally speaking, if your character has a relatively normal or common name for the setting, there won't be any questions. As a rule of thumb, if your character's name is a traditional/typical name for either the culture they currently live in or one of their heritage, that's unlikely to raise any eyebrows. This, of course, depends heavily on the specific game. A Japanese-American student in Seattle named Paul Andrews will not need to answer any questions about that. A Japanese student with no foreign ties in Tokyo in the 1850s who is nonetheless named Paul Andrews will have some explaining to do.
There's been a trend in recent years of handlers pushing the envelope on acceptable character names, which isn't strictly speaking a problem—you don't have to look too far to find eccentric names in reality. However, it's important to remember that names have a deep impact on someone's identity and life experience. A character with a strange name will be treated differently because of it, to greater or lesser degrees, and this is something we want to see discussed and reflected in their profile. Are they teased for their name? Do they love having something so unique, or do they resent it and go by a nickname? Just what were their parents thinking, anyways? This should come up in the biography if relevant.
Names that are particularly egregious, either on account of being offensive or problematic (say, John Wayne Gacy Jr. Jr.) or directly lifted from pop culture (Peter Parker) may need to be changed completely.
A great option available to explain an unusual name is for a character to have chosen it on their own. Nicknames may be included in the "Name:" field, and bizarre nicknames are subject to much less scrutiny, as they're not inflicted upon characters by their parents and are not subject to as much oversight from the world at large. Characters of an appropriate age may even seek to legally change their names, though this is much less common.
The name field should include, at a minimum, a first and last name. A middle name may optionally be included; if no middle name is included, handlers are free to invent or add one later, as long as it's not incredibly outrageous. A nickname may also be included, usually in quotation marks. For the overall title of the profile, either the character's given name or their nickname may be used, followed by their surname. For example, a profile may be titled "Tim Douglas" yet may have "Name: Michael Timothy 'Tim' Douglas."
Every name should be searched on Google by staff at the start of critiques. Names should not be direct matches to characters or people at all related to the character in question. Some aspects of similarity/nod/reference are fine, but no more than one name should match. If a character's name matches a completely random person or character, unless it's someone incredibly iconic or unusual, that's probably fine and does not require elaboration. Your character can be named John Adams, and unless he's an insert of the second United States president nobody minds.
Gender: This is a character's gender. Any gender identity is acceptable for characters, as long as it's being presented with appropriate care, research, and good intentions—historically we've been pickier on this front mostly due to handlers doing a poor or offensive job of representing issues related to non-binary or transgender characters, but this hasn't been too much of an issue in some time.
Note that, if a character has changed names when coming out, we do not require anything other than the name the character is currently using unless it would be widely known by the majority of the class (in case of recent transition, say).
If a character is transgender or non-binary, this should receive a brief discussion in the biography section.
Age: A character's age. In the vast majority of games, this will be high school age, probably Juniors or Seniors. Generally speaking, in the US Senior year is age 17-18, Junior year is age 16-17, Sophomore year is age 15-16, and Freshman year is age 14-15.
If you're being really careful about this, characters will be more likely to be towards the younger side of the spectrum earlier in the year, and towards the older end later in the year. It's usually not a huge deal, though, and if handlers feel more comfortable putting their characters on the older end (which is pretty common, especially when it comes to making seniors legal adults) that's perfectly fine.
If characters fall outside the normal age range, it usually isn't a huge deal as long as the difference is only a year—it's common enough for people to skip a grade or be held back. This should be briefly discussed in the biography section, but as long as the rationale and explanation are credible, it doesn't need great elaboration.
Age differences beyond a year require considerably more discussion and vetting, as characters of such different ages will have very different experiences and likely strong feelings about their situations.
In games that fall outside the standard high school setting, the Age field will likely need to be treated differently according to guidelines specific to that game, though generally speaking the wider the range of acceptable ages, the less it will matter in the biography.
Especially young characters should be treated very, very cautiously as there's potential to delve into uncomfortable territory.
A character's age may be written in letters ("eighteen") or numbers ("18"). If a character's birthday is provided in the biography, it should be checked against the character's age and also the date of the game to make sure they line up properly. That said, providing a birthday is optional.
Grade: The Grade field is usually present only in games which allow characters to come from multiple grades. If all characters come from the same grade, this field will typically be skipped.
Unlike most other profile fields, there will normally be a limited number of options for this and no outside choices will be allowed. Grades may be written numerically ("12") or in letters ("twelfth" or "senior").
School: The school field is usually only present in games which feature characters from multiple schools. If all characters come from the same school, this field will typically be omitted.
As with Grade, this will usually be drawn from a limited selection of choices. More so than with Grade, this may imply other details about a character; games featuring multiple schools often draw them from different parts of the country or world, and other details of the profile should sync up accordingly.
Other: This is the most frequent general location for other profile fields specific to their version. These may vary wildly (Country Of Origin, Academic Major, Blood Type, Astrological Sign, etc.) and will have their own expectations based on the game they're for. Pay attention to the guidelines given in the application info if anything unusual pops up here. Generally speaking, such fields skew towards quick and simple responses, but this is not always the case (for example, SOTF: Supers included a very detailed power section, which was often the most involved part of character critiques).
Hobbies and Interests: This is the start of the meat of the profile, the first section that includes information that will definitely require notable elaboration later on.
We want every character to have at least three distinct Hobbies and Interests, at least two of which should not be linked to each other. This means that if your character has, say, reading, writing, and fantasy literature as their Hobbies, they should also have at least one other entry that's not under the same literary umbrella.
Generally speaking, to qualify as a Hobby or Interest, a subject or activity must be something the character actively and consciously pursues. The exact lines can be a little blurry—organized sports almost always count, as do school clubs. Favorite pastimes, social or otherwise, work. Specific genres or broader umbrellas can be fine. Extremely passive or normal functions are not Hobbies or Interests—cooking can count, for example, but eating does not. But if it moves into the realm of culinary criticism, or seeking out specific gourmet experiences as a gastronome, that's back to counting again.
Hobbies and Interests can be fairly specific, but not too specific, and should be a little zoomed-out. "Practical Jokes" would be an acceptable option but "Throwing bricks through his neighbor's window" would not.
Every Hobby and Interest should come up later on in the Biography section, with a decent level of detail. Specifically, we want to know:
- Roughly when did the character become interested in the hobby?
- How does the character engage with the hobby?
- What does the character like about the hobby?
Also of note: if all of your character's hobbies came about later in life, we'd like to get at least a basic idea of what they did prior to picking them up, just so they're not an empty void beforehand.
This section is written in list format, not narrative. Actual information on Hobbies and Interests lives in the Biography.
Appearance: This section gives an idea of what your character looks like. It should be sufficiently detailed to paint a clear mental picture of your character. This is written in full sentences, and is almost always the second longest section in a profile.
While there's a good deal of freedom here, there are a number of things every Appearance section should have somewhere in it, as follows:
- A character's height and weight. If a character is exceptionally tall (6'5" or over) or short (4'10" or under) how this affects them should come up in their Biography. If a character is exceptionally heavy or skinny for their height, this should also come up in their Biography.
- A brief touching on the character's build (lanky, stocky, etc.—this can be quick or detailed, as the handler prefers).
- A character's ethnicity/skin color.
- A character's eye color. If a character wears glasses or contacts, this should be noted. If a character has colored contacts, both natural and altered eye color should be noted.
- A character's hair color and style. Hairstyles should be detailed beyond short/medium/long, including a specific length and/or style, and whether hair is curly or straight. If a character's hair is dyed, both natural and altered color should be noted.
- At least three distinct facial features of the character's. This may be a brief description of overall facial shape, eye shape, nose size and shape, mouth/lip/teeth size and shape, ear size and shape, complexion, facial hair, or anything else of the sort—enough to give at least some idea of what your character's face looks like.
- Any piercings or tattoos your character may have.
- Any makeup your character may be wearing.
- A general description of your character's fashion sense/clothing style.
- The outfit your character was wearing on the day of the game, including at a minimum a top, a bottom, and footwear. Outfits should be described completely, including any accessories, headwear, etc., though exact cuts and brand names are very much optional. Outfits should align with any game-specific guidelines on things like dress code, school uniforms, etc.
The Appearance section may include other information as well. Some handlers note if their characters are or are not considered conventionally attractive. Some handlers note posture and tone of voice. Quick asides about preferences or history as specifically related to Appearance are acceptable (a note on where a scar came from, or how a character's style is now more formal than it once was), but major digressions belong in the Biography.
Biography: This is the core of the character, the real meat, and it is where almost all of the work happens, both for handlers and for those doing their critiques. The Biography tells the narrative of the character's life to this point, while also conveying information about who they are, how they came to be that person, how they act in any given situation, and what their talents and weaknesses are. It's a lot of work!
There are a few ways to organize a Biography, and most of the time there is not a strictly right or wrong choice. Handlers often do a sort of hybrid method, as well, with aspects of one in one place and others in other spots. What's important is that the Biography flows in a manner that is easy to follow as a reader.
The two most common/core styles are:
- Chronological: A chronological Biography flows from the start of a character's story to the present day, laying out events roughly as they come. This makes progressions very easy to follow, and tends to make it quite obvious if portions of a character's backstory have not been fully considered (if, say, we skip from third grade to the sophomore year of high school with nothing in between). On the other hand, sometimes this spreads information around—a hobby a character picks up in passing as a child, devotes serious time to in the middle years of their life, but now only holds to out of routine may be sprinkled all through the Biography in a way that makes tracing the progression difficult. It can also sometimes lead to information being repeated in places where it doesn't change for a while, or else left unspoken in ways that can create vagueness.
- Associative: An associative Biography tackles subjects in thorough detail when they come up. When a character's family is introduced, their development (changes in career, aspects of relationship evolution, etc.) may immediately be described, bringing us some or all of the way to the present day. When a Hobby or Interest is mentioned, it will right then and there be traced from inception to current status. This type of Biography can be very helpful for organizing individual points of a character into discrete units and making sure each is dealt with to an appropriate extent. On the other hand, it can struggle a little when it comes to stringing things together—the connective tissue, if you will—and can also make transitions between subjects feel choppy or arbitrary.
I personally tend to favor a mixed approach that is roughly chronological, but jumps ahead to the present day for detail when that detail is fairly brief or wouldn't fit cleanly into a later section.
Really, what you don't want is a chaotic Biography that jumps all over the place in a confusing fashion and references information before it's properly introduced.
When it comes to content, the Biography can have a lot in it, but it should always have the following:
- Family: The character's core family unit, consisting of parents and siblings. All of these characters should have names, siblings' ages relative to the character should be noted, and each relationship should be briefly touched on with at least one unique trait or aspect to it (if a character's family all watched movies together, that's great, but that doesn't make any of their four brothers stand out in any way).
Note that if a character is raised in an unconventional family situation (by grandparents, aunts and uncles, as part of a hippie commune, etc.) then the characters who fulfill these functions should get this detail. Parents should also have their professions noted, and a general idea of the family's socio-economic status should be conveyed. - Early childhood: The character's formative years, from birth through roughly the end of elementary school (fifth grade/ten years old). This doesn't need to be super in-depth, but we should get a general idea of what the character was like, how they interacted with/felt about the world, any big events that transpired, how they adjusted to school, etc. Some Hobbies and Interests will have their genesis in this stage, as will some relationships or modes of being for characters. This time period may provide the "whys" to questions about how a character is now! On the other hand, for some characters this section will be quite brief, and if there's nothing that really needs explaining, that's fine.
- Middle school: The character's middle school years, including a chunk of time roughly in the ten to fourteen years old range. This is a time of major upheaval for many people, as they change schools, hit puberty, gain slightly more independence from parents, and are given more responsibility and freedom. This is where characters will start having a lot more agency in their interests, opportunities for new friendships, etc. Again, this doesn't have to be incredibly in-depth, but some idea of what this time was like for a character is important.
- Current situation: This gets a lot more involved, but to zoom out a bit for the moment we want a little of how the character got from then to now. The exact specifics of what "now" is are covered in further bullet points.
- Hobbies and Interests: As discussed above, we want to know what these are, where they came from, what place they take in a character's life, and what the character enjoys about them.
- Advantages and Disadvantages: These will be discussed more below, but each Advantage and Disadvantage should come up in the character's Biography to a meaningful degree. This means that they should be present, obvious, and actually impact a character's life in a way that merits mention.
- School situation: We should know how a character is currently doing in school. Generally, their grades, favorite and least favorite classes, how willingly they participate in class, and how they interface with the teachers is a good set of stuff to start with. This all matters because school is the shared common ground all of these characters have, the context in which they know each other. If this critique is for some wild AU far from school, there will likely be an equivalent (office politics, bridge activity on a deep space vessel, etc.).
- Social situation: We want to know the character's social situation. This includes their friends/people they spend time with on a more broad and general level, how they interact with others (friends specifically, but also just other people in general), plus any especially significant individual relationships. Particularly negative relationships also deserve mention. This again informs how characters will see each other/the reputations they will cultivate, and will also offer some good starting points to figure out how other characters will initially view the one being described.
- Family situation: This can be pretty brief, but we should check in on the family in the present and see what the current state of affairs is for the character and their relationships.
- Any major events and their fallout/repercussions: This isn't exclusively for present-day stuff, but fits here in the checklist. Major, life-altering events should be mentioned, and their impact should get appropriate space and explanation. We should generally hear what happened, why it happened, what the impact on the character was, and how they feel about it (and how any of that has changed over time, if significant time has passed). This can be a character's parent going to jail for armed robbery, a character getting dumped by their partner of three years, a character messing up in their parents' workshop and losing some fingers to a circular saw, a character getting a late diagnosis of dyslexia, and so on.
- Hopes/plans/progress for the future: This touches on what your character wants to be when they grow up, where they're going (or hoping to go) for college, and so on. This is most interesting and applicable to seniors in high school, especially in the second semester, as many of them will have already been accepted to schools and have declared their majors. In this case, we should know where they're going and for what. In other circumstances, this is less important and can be vague.
Note that the above is what the Biography should definitely include. There's a whole lot of other stuff that it can include, with varying levels of detail. Most of this is fine, too! If a handler writes about their character's pets, or favorite music, or what roles they play in community theatre productions, that's cool. It gives more insight into the character as a person, and we don't want to discourage that. It also helps telegraph what's important to a handler about their character's concept, which is valuable information.
Sometimes, however, Biographies can be prone to going off on wild tangents. This frequently has to do with secondary characters (siblings, parents, friends, etc.) and their various adventures. If this is mostly fairly brief (a paragraph or less) and more or less grounded, it can slide. If it's more extended or wackier, the key thing is to bring it into perspective, usually by asking why it matters to the character whose Biography this is, and how it impacts their life. If it doesn't, then it should likely be cut. If it does, then what's important is clarifying how it matters and making the details center around the character whose Biography it is.
Advantages: Now we come to Advantages and Disadvantages, which mostly work the same as each other but with a few distinct differences. These are often either a handler's favorite or least favorite part of the profile-writing experience.
Advantages and Disadvantages should flow from the Biography. They should not contain notable amounts of new information, but instead serve as a distillation and summary of how various aspects of a character that we have already heard about will benefit or hinder them in the death game (or other extreme or unusual scenario) they are to be tossed into.
There should be at least two Advantages and Disadvantages each, and they should be reasonably distinct. If a character is too shy to take the lead and is also too shy to say no to being pushed around, those are both great traits but also more or less come from the same place and say the same thing about a character. The reason we harp on the "at least two unique things" angle is that it helps handlers create characters with more nuance and rounded believability. Often in days past, handlers would come up with characters who were rather caricatured, and everything would flow from one key trait—an angry character's Advantages would include being quick to act (because they're angry) and used to fights (picked in anger) and their Disadvantages would be not thinking things through (because of anger) and having lots of enemies (due to being so angry all the time). These characters then tended to really struggle to feel like believable people or engage with the story in interesting ways, because they were effectively a single trait writ large (anger, say).
So what makes a good Advantage? It should be something that actually, distinctly benefits the character in the scenario they're headed for. There are lots of useful traits that do a lot of work in normal life that are not especially helpful in a death game (say, being able to procrastinate until the night before a test but still cram and get an A). If something is totally inapplicable to the game, it does not count as an Advantage.
On the other hand, these can make excellent starting points for very good Advantages. The character who crams all the time is probably used to operating under stress, and to pulling all-nighters. And what just so happens to be a really stressful situation where you might want to stay awake for long spans? The death game!
This is the sort of thinking we want to encourage. Handlers don't have to add ever-more-improbable weapon proficiencies. They just need to think about their characters and find the pieces that are already there that will be useful in this situation. As you critique, keep an eye out for opportunities for these things and maybe note them if a handler is struggling to find enough to fill these sections.
Finally, be wary of negative Advantages (things a character doesn't have going on). This can be stuff like a character having no real enemies, having no mental health problems, having never been significantly injured, etc. Most of these are not actually Advantages, but rather the absence of Disadvantages, and offer little of real use. See if they can be converted into more active Advantages (does the character with no enemies, perhaps, have a wider than average range of casual friends they can make use of?), but otherwise don't be afraid to give them the axe.
Oh, and there are a few things that should always be in the Advantages section if they are true of a character. Combat or weapon experience needs to go here, for anything beyond occasional low-stakes schoolyard scraps (and if those are recent, they probably do belong here anyways). This is something some handlers have historically loved to sneak in, and it can both feel kind of bad to have these traits just quietly retconned into play when these are things other characters put a lot of work into explaining and justifying and also can lead to poor/disruptive handlings of these topics, which absolutely will come up given the premise of the game.
Disadvantages: Disadvantages are like Advantages in most ways, of course, but handlers have a much stronger tendency to try to cop out on this part of the profile. Disadvantages are things that will slow a character down, muddle their plans, or otherwise cause problems for them. A way I like to describe it is that Disadvantages are trouble that your character will get into during the game, and Advantages are the tools they have to try to get back out.
This, of course, means that Disadvantages are probably more important. A story without conflict is usually boring, and a character without flaws gets very old very quickly. We want to read the struggle. It's the whole point!
A few things to watch for with Disadvantages:
- "Might" disclaimers: A very common trick is to state that something "might" cause a character problems, and then completely ignore it. After all, that which might also might not! This is tough because the truth is that almost all Disadvantages may never come into play, but what I'm referring to here is specifically conditional Disadvantages that require some trigger to matter. Some classic examples include a nearsighted character who wears glasses and a character with medication they need to regularly take. So long as the glasses stay on the face and the medicine in the pocket, there's no problem at all!
These aren't the end of the world, and can in some cases lead to very good scenes (or at least to conflict), but a character's Disadvantages shouldn't all be conditional like that. Ideally, I like there to be at least two that aren't; don't make people take this stuff out, but feel free to have them add more. This lets handlers keep the stuff they're excited about while also removing any incentive to use these as a cop-out. - Normalcy: Handlers also sometimes selectively compare their characters to others. Compared to the football star, their character looks scrawny, even though they really just don't go out of their way to work out! Well, that may be true, but that's because the football star has being incredibly buff as an Advantage, not because your character is deficient.
To count as a Disadvantage, a trait should be notably worse than the average character in play/the setting. Physical fitness is the classic here. If a character is not an athlete, that's not a Disadvantage. If a character gets winded going up medium-sized hills, almost failed gym class, and has their parents on their back constantly because it's obvious they're in poor shape, then we're talking.
This is relative, of course. A character who's six inches tall is at a huge disadvantage in a game where most characters are human-sized, but might be a goliath in a world where the typical height is 3.5". - Negative Disadvantages: Yep, it's the same trick as for Advantages, but even more common! The old favorite here is "no fighting or weapon experience" which is not a Disadvantage because any character who does have fighting and weapon experience has a major Advantage. Give anything that a character doesn't have/do pretty serious scrutiny, and encourage handlers to reframe it or explain it. Generally, these are relatively easy to pick out, but they keep cropping up because handlers often reach for them when stumped. They tend to be reasons the character is unsuited to the crazy situation they're headed for, yes, but usually in ways almost everyone is—that's why we tell the story of the crazy situation, to see people unsuited for it struggle with it.
- Extremely specific allergies, phobias, or weaknesses: These are a double whammy. They combine the worst tendencies of the "might" Disadvantages above with a side order of frequently goofy, shoehorned, immersion-breaking appearances in the story. If a character is critically allergic to shellfish, that is a very real problem in their normal life, but they'll have bigger issues in the death game. If a character is terrified of dead insects, that may become inconvenient at surprising (and surprisingly common) times, but how likely is it to matter in a gunfight? These things are often great character traits that can make for neat scenes or personality quirks and definitely can go in a Biography, but they do not rise to the level of Disadvantages and shouldn't turn up in this section.
- Minor caveats to Advantages: If your character, Dracula, has the strength of twenty men, but only when not standing in sunlight, that is not a Disadvantage. Dracula's Advantage is that he has the strength of twenty men when it's dark. Little things that make Advantages conditional, unreliable, or less powerful are not themselves Disadvantages. They're just aspects of Advantages, and should be noted in that section instead. Handlers like to use these to try to even things out, pad them, or make the Advantages section look smaller, but they don't fit here. If the drawback to something is that your character is, at worst, merely average under certain conditions, then it's not a Disadvantage.
Note that this isn't to say that all flipsides to Advantages can't count. If a character has to make a terrible choice or pay some great and disproportionate price, that's fair game. If a character has trained in martial arts, that's an Advantage, and if that training has drilled into them how vital it is to never use it on a person, to never take a life, and they've internalized that message to the point that the idea of hurting someone is wholly abhorrent to them, well, that's a Disadvantage for sure. It just has to matter in a real, substantial way. - Improbable injuries: This usually gets through, and it's not the end of the world, but when stumped it is not uncommon for handlers to decide that their character fell and broke their ankle two days before the trip and is now in a cast and on crutches. This can make for a great scene or story, but just as often it's sort of thrown in and also ends up feeling silly when a number of characters were all improbably injured at the same time.
The key here is to really poke at this in the bio. How did the injury occur? Was it due to some attitude/issue that is itself a Disadvantage? How does the character feel about it? If applicable, why are they even still going on the trip or whatever? These sorts of Disadvantages are fine, but they should never be less work than a normal Disadvantage. They should be something that a handler has to put some thought into because it's a plot element they really want to explore, not just a quick fix.
In general, a thing that can help Advantages and Disadvantages go down smoothly is a bit of explanation. "They only started school at the start of this year" may be a perfectly valid Disadvantage (or not) depending on how it's framed, and may communicate very different things: "They only started school this year, so they haven't had time to get to know all the established social dynamics between their classmates;" "They only started school this year, so they're more reliant than normal on the small group of friends they've made;" and "They only started school this year, so they're unaware of the demon-summoning ritual three years ago that is the cause of the game," are all decidedly different in application. A little explanation goes a long way!
You may notice that "balance" receives no mention in either section above. Long ago, Advantages and Disadvantages were carefully vetted to make sure they roughly equaled each other out. This was a vestige of an era in which the game was often much more competitive in how it was written, and handlers struggled to write around more assertive or aggressive prose. Nowadays, that style is out of fashion and the social norms of the site make forcing kills effectively impossible, so whatever their in-character benefits, Advantages and Disadvantages do nothing to actually improve a character's chances of success in any meaningful way. This makes the concept of balance somewhat obsolete. We still don't want characters who are purely one category or the other, but that's because such characters are boring, one-dimensional, and unbelievable, not because they're too strong (or weak).
Aside from the above, there are a number of other topics that may come up in critiques in a more general way:
The Profile Template: We want the profile as submitted to exactly match the template in terms of spacing, formatting, etc. This is important for creating a uniform look, and also for easing import to the wiki.
If a profile doesn't match the template, the handler should be asked to adjust it such that it does alongside other edits they may make. While once upon a time template edits were required before a critique would even begin, we now roll it all together; bumping a profile to the back of the queue days or weeks after the fact feels terrible for the handler, and the process for staff is not notably eased by doing so.
Spelling And Grammar: Ideally, profiles should be checked for spelling and grammar by their author prior to submission. During the critique process, spelling and grammar changes may be requested, either for flow or, more importantly, in cases where usage renders the intended meaning of a sentence unclear. Staff may also choose to help with further adjustments should they so desire, but a full proofread beyond what's necessary for comprehension is not guaranteed; profiles are some of the less-read pieces of writing on the site, and nobody's going to be proofing IC posts for handlers (unless they get someone to volunteer).
Profile Tone: We ask that profiles be written in a fairly dry/objective tone. The common explanation for years has been "as if a bored minion of the bad guys was assigned to write it" which is useful for describing what we're going for but can be misleading as to why.
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, profiles are not an in-character thing that actually exists in identical form in the game's fiction, and are not actually being written from that sort of perspective. In fact, we ask for things in profiles that would never be known by others in the setting, and that sometimes aren't even known to the character being described in the profile!
The reason we want an objective, detached tone is that it makes it very clear what is true in a profile, which is important information both for staff (in determining if your character is ready for approval or not) and for other handlers (in trying to understand what's going on with your character when reading or interacting with them). There is tons of room in writing for ambiguity, narrative trickiness, and so on, which makes it very important to have one spot where none of that is happening. That spot is the character profile.
This is also why we do not allow most forms of quotation marks in profiles. Quotation marks that either indicate potential sarcasm (He was the "best" player on the team) or attribute something to another character (His dad, the soccer coach, says he's "the very best he's ever seen!") do not actually tell clear and objective truth. They could mean many things, could represent misunderstandings, and so on, and as such they are not suited for profiles.
Critique Tone: This is really important. Critiques should be delivered in a reasonably friendly and chill tone. You'll have to find what works best for you; it's easy to get overly saccharine or come off as patronizing, which is not good. I tend to favor a pretty flat and neutral delivery myself.
Whatever the case, remember that you and the handler are working together to the same purpose, making their character the best possible both as a character and as a fit for the story. You have the same goal: to get the character in awesome shape and approved! You are a team, not in opposition.
Critiques can be frustrating at times. Sometimes handlers mess up. Sometimes they forget to make changes, or they misunderstand, or they go off on a tangent that introduces three new problems while solving an old one. It's okay to get annoyed about that stuff, but don't take it out on the handler. Take a break. Take some breaths. If you really have to, punt the profile to another staffer. But don't get engaged in a slugging match with handlers, and don't take the bait if they get prickly during the process. Critiques have a long history and have at times come off quite adversarial, and we don't want that here.
Cheat Sheet:
The following is a quick walk-through of the profile template asking for the minimum requirements in each section. We're hoping it'll be useful both to handlers writing profiles (if you use this as a checklist, you're well on your way to a painless approval!) and to those critiquing them (if you use this as a checklist, you'll know when a character is ready to be approved).
Name: First/last name?
AND
Normal name?
OR
Abnormal name appropriately explained and justified in bio?
Gender: Gender discussed in bio if necessary?
Age: Character is within typical age range for class?
OR
Character is one year older or younger with brief explanation?
OR
Character falls outside typical age range for reasons well-justified in bio, checked with staff team as a whole?
Grade: Character is in one of the grades appropriate to the game?
School:Character is from one of the schools appropriate to the game?
Hobbies and Interests: Character has at least three Hobbies and Interests?
AND
Character's Hobbies and Interests fall into at least two umbrella categories?
AND
Each Hobby and Interest receives detail in the bio on where the character picked it up, what their relationship with it is like, and what they like about it?
Appearance: Height and Weight included?
AND
[Character is within typical height/weight parameters?
OR
Height under 4'11" or over 6'4" or extreme high or low weight discussed in bio?]
AND
Character's build briefly described?
AND
Character's ethnicity/skin color specified?
AND
Character's hair and eye colors specified (including natural if dyed/colored)?
AND
Character has at least three distinct facial features described?
AND
Tattoos, piercings, makeup, scars, birthmarks, etc. noted?
AND
Character's general fashion sense/style described?
AND
Character's specific outfit at game start (including, at minimum, top, bottom, and footwear) described?
Biography: Character's immediate family (parents and siblings, or functional equivalent) given names, professions (for adults) and age differences (for siblings)?
AND
Each family member has at least one distinct trait to their relationship with character?
AND
Character's socio-economic status established?
AND
Character's formative years (birth through elementary school) briefly addressed?
AND
Character's middle school years briefly addressed?
AND
Progression to high school (or current game state) briefly addressed?
AND
Character's current school situation (grades, favorite/least favorite classes, interactions with teachers, etc.) discussed? (Or equivalent for non-school games)
AND
Character's current social situation (friends, enemies, general demeanor, etc.) discussed?
AND
Character's current family situation (relationships, attitudes, etc.) discussed?
AND
Character's plans for the future (choice of college, major, etc.) discussed?
AND
All Hobbies, Interests, Advantages, and Disadvantages established and detailed appropriately?
AND
All major events given appropriate discussion, consideration, and detail?
AND
Biography flows in logical fashion?
AND
[Extraneous information is kept to a minimum?
OR
Relevance to character's story of information not directly about them is clearly established?]
Advantages: Character has at least two distinct Advantages?
AND
Advantages are supported by Biography and affect character's life?
AND
Advantages are positive (things true about a character) rather than negative (things not true of them)?
AND
Any weapon or combat experience is specifically noted?
Disadvantages: Character has at least two distinct Disadvantages?
AND
Disadvantages are supported by Biography and affect character's life?
AND
Disadvantages are neither highly conditional nor overly specific?
With that, we hope you're feeling better prepared to write and/or critique some profiles! You may also want to check out the profile writing Discord sever hosted by Brackie, or to reach out to staff for any questions or comments you may have—MW is the best point of contact for this guide specifically. This is always subject to edits and improvements, as philosophies and techniques evolve or omissions become evident.
As noted, there may be one of these for abbreviated profiles as well eventually, but for now we're posting this as a toolbox for conventional critiques.