Forum:CT:Articles on RPG character templates revisited

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The result of the debate was Support proposal. TanDivoInsignia-SenateMurders AnilSerifoglu (talk) 14:47, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
An example of an RPG player character template

An example of an RPG player character template

This CT vote intends to repeal the 2008 vote the community had that resulted in us proscribing the treatment of sample, or "template", player characters presented in multiple West End Games' (WEG) Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game sourcebooks, as actual canonical characters - and therefore the creation of separate articles for them. First of all, thanks to jSarek for indirectly letting me know about this prior decision, since by that point I'd already obliviously created a few articles based on these characters (and, full disclosure, was in fact at the time writing up our (as far as I know) first modern, fully fleshed-out article on one such character).

Now, the matter at hand. Pencil-and-paper RPGs in general are all about a group of players each creating their own character per a specific rule system and then playing out various adventures involving them. Frequently, such games (for example, the highly popular Dungeons & Dragons) organize this character creation by presenting the players with possible options of various traits, such as (again, generalizing here) species, occupations, backgrounds, and so on, which the players are then free to combine as they wish. WEG's Star Wars game, however, also utilized a slightly different approach in that it presented the players with a plethora of pre-made character templates that they could then either use as-is, or still create entirely separate, new characters inspired by these templates. You can see an example of such a template, showing the abovelinked bard character, in the image to the right.

These templates (which, for context, the book Heroes & Rogues has a whopping 61 of (including the bard), and I've also seen more of them used in other books as well), represent characters with titles ranging from as generic as "slicer" or "Imperial diplomat" to as evocative as "Barabel shockboxer", "Mon Calamari professor", and "Rodian pacifist". They contain roleplaying game-mechanical stats (seen on the left side in the image), a unique visual depiction, and then a wealth of original background information covering their biography, personality, and starting equipment.

The aforementioned 2008 vote concluded with the decision to not treat these as being actual canonical in-universe characters but rather just abstract ones - and that therefore our coverage of them should be limited to just mentions of "some Bimms being bards" or "some Rodians being pacifists" and so on, and no separate articles for any of these.

I heartily disagree with this decision, which, to put it simply, I consider poorly thought–out and just outdated, and I think we as a community should be ready to repeal it entirely. First of all, I think it is based on the premise of a false dichotomy, i.e., that "sample" game characters for some reason cannot at the same time be actual canonically existing ones. Why is that? We make assumptions that specific roleplaying gameplay choices canonically happened in all kinds of different areas in our articles already, so why should the existence of these characters in-universe be treated differently?

We already have articles on "sample" characters present in other Star Wars roleplaying games, such as Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars Roleplaying lines of products. Here's an example of a random one - hell, one that even went on to be featured in other sources as well. Granted, those were additionally given names, but otherwise they work pretty much the same in that the players can either just use them as is or create different ones, whether based on them or not. I'd argue that the canonicity situation here is comparable, so, aside from the names, why retain this difference in how we treat them?

Additionally, I don't see these characters being any less deserving of articles of their own than so many of our Unidentified characters that also have just one line of dialogue each (TCW TCs, anyone? :P). We have had multiple cases where such characters have so little notability to them that the community was split on whether to keep them - and in many cases they were kept anyway. I'd argue that these template characters have vastly more of unique, notable info to them.

On the original vote it was argued that treating these characters as canonical would somehow lead to difficulties due to RPG game-mechanical stats being involved. This has long since been proven untrue, here are some examples where our status articles, in my opinion, elegantly cover this information. And there are also examples of status articles that demonstrate how we can successfully integrate the information on these characters elsewhere. (I also have to note that the proposed original solution about phrasing this info as "some Bimms" and such would be speculative language anyways - these sources do not in fact give us information about multiple such individuals, after all.)

So, in conclusion, I propose that we allow the creation of articles for these RPG template characters. Note that this vote will require at least 15 votes in total in order for the previous decision to be overturned. (Edit: turns it actually doesn't, so just the regular consensus requirements apply here.)

Allow articles on RPG template characters

  1. As proposer. Imperators II(Talk) 12:30, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  2. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 12:40, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  3. Absolutely. If we count sample stories in RPGs as official, we should count sample individual characters too. OOM 224 (he/him) 13:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  4. Bonzane10 Sabine Starbird (holonet) 13:14, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  5. Zed42 (talk) 13:22, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  6. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 14:06, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  7. I might like those articles to have a template header warning (something like "this character is a template from WEG and may or may not exist), but overall, yeah, I don't mind. Also, ugh, a CT (I mean the original from 2008) not resulting in a policy write up... that's heresy! NanoLuukeCloning Facility 17:06, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  8. I don't have any specific examples on hand but there are already several articles from the current FFG tabletop that technically violate this policy so evidently it wasn't even enforced well to begin with. But even if that wasn't the case, these may be templates but they are characters with pre-existing traits and stories nonetheless. It's not like documenting that renders things the players do with them after the fact canon. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 17:54, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  9. ThrawnChiss7 Mitth symbol Assembly Cupola 18:32, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  10. TanDivoInsignia-SenateMurders Anıl Şerifoğlu (talk) 19:19, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  11. Lewisr (talk) 22:50, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
  12. Fan26 (Talk) 23:22, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
  13. Ayrehead02 (talk) 23:32, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
  14. Where do I meet this Mon Calamari professor? JediMasterMacaroni(Talk) 07:31, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
  15. ℳÅℕ☉❂Ⅎ she/he/zhe/xe/they/them 14:52, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Disallow articles on RPG template characters

  1. I disagree. I definitely think these are meant to be templates. They talk about "You're known..." "You play and verbalize..." that clearly mean the person playing the role of the template character. I believe this goes beyond the "Unidentified person". If they were used in a story or campaign, I could see there being enough collaborating evidence but IMO these are just generic people in the universe.<-Omicron(Leave a message at the BEEP!) 15:27, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
    • Again, that's false dichotomy, though. There's no reason why an IRL player can't be playing a canonically existing IU character - it's just that whatever the player actually does with the character is, for obvious reasons, generally not canonical. Or to express it differently, the templates are canonical characters that the players then sort of spin-off into their own, more fleshed out, versions. So, as far as Wookieepedia's coverage is concerned, unidentified characters that players then, for example, give a specific name. And heavily disagree (as I'd have hoped I've illustrated with the examples above) with the descriptor of these being "generic people". :P Imperators II(Talk) 15:34, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Discuss

  • Does that vote mean to also overturn Forum:TC:Unidentified Iotran bounty hunter (the one article that lead to the original CT)? NanoLuukeCloning Facility 17:06, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
    • I suppose it would work that way, the 2008 vote disallowed all of them so this vote, if it passes, will allow all of them. Imperators II(Talk) 18:12, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
  • I kinda agree with Nano. I don't mind them having pages, but doing so without a template saying 'may or may not exist' isn't optimal imo.—spookywillowwtalk 18:49, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
    • Well, I think an RPG header (as opposed to inline) template is probably overdue anyway, so will have to cook something up, yeah. Imperators II(Talk) 19:01, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
    • Yea, a header template like that is worthwhile. ThrawnChiss7 Mitth symbol Assembly Cupola 18:39, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
  • I don't have voting eligibility, but I do think there is no false dichotomy in claiming that a character whose only appearance is as an RPG template is no more part of canon than rules of that RPG or, say, purchasable costumes in Star Wars: The Old Republic are (until and unless they appear in other sources, of course). Demetrius Viridianus (talk) 17:58, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
    • An in-universe subject that is not player-created (until, per above, they are—in the form of a character spun off the template) is no more canon than the rules of the game? This comparison is a bit baffling to me, I must say. And as for the comparison to SWTOR, I'd counter that the in-universe versions of the player characters of that game are, in fact, technically comparable to this situation. And we do have articles on those, even the ones that aren't really referenced outside of the context of the game, like Voidhound for example. Imperators II(Talk) 18:37, 7 May 2024 (UTC)