[quote=Kestrel]
Only if you want to mix back stories. Everything else can be done through IC interaction and honestly; chemistry comes from interaction. People can tell you George is a great guy, but you won't experience it until you meet him. So basically what you're saying is, if someone's character gets angry over the smallest thing IC, you won't realise they have a short fuse unless it's stated in the CS? 'cause that's pretty much what you're saying but I don't think you believe that. [/quote]

[quote=Brovo]
All it requires is a willingness to communicate in the IC and collaboratively tell the story. You don't have to acquaint yourself with the other characters OOCly to do that, as your character will learn about them by interacting with them. Spotting similarities they can then react appropriately.[/quote]

As I say, in my experience, it works best to brainstorm with other players first. I certainly enjoy the 'plan, then do' approach more than just charging into things. For me, the just charging into things with no plan tends to result in vague characters less connected to one another or the plot because players are firing in all directions. I'm not saying it can't work off-the-cuff, but I don't think it does that often.

[quote=Brovo]Special snowflake I'm filling in the quote because the quote button ate it up because of the coding blah- at its finest? would anyone do this. It would be far more dramatic to start out as a 'normal' or otherwise and then become a lycanthrope over the course of events, whether or not the character is sympathetic towards them. Then it would be actual character growth and not a character whose entire arc has already been partially completed in the background.Remember the golden rule: Show, don't tell. Don't say character X is powerful, display it. Don't say character X is despised, show it, coordinate with the GM because (s)he's the only one who has to know all of this information.[/quote]

Werewolf was just a vague example of a fundamental conflict being decided at CS level. Being a werewolf in a society that rejects him is a core conflict within that character, and while it's presumably a fairly common and vague one in that environment, in the example I'm still giving from a previous RP (intelligent but incompetent outsider dabbles with dark powers in order to compensate for missing skills constantly demonstrated by his peers) is a rather more specific character concept, if not the most original, and one that will (and did, in this case) make multiple characters based upon it feel like re-runs of the other.

Of course the conflict doesn't have to be explicitly stated, but it will be there (or should be).

[quote=Kestrel]Wat? Werewolves can make other people werewolves, so Pete's main conflict of being late for rent turns into that he's becoming a man-eating silver-shunning wolfman. Meanwhile John, already a werewolf, gets shot in his leg with a silver bullet, and rather than spending his pages rejecting the society that doesn't want him; he now has to find a doctor willing to remove the bullet from a werewolf or face death.One single event can change a character's goal and purpose.[/quote] 

It's true that goals change, but some stuff is fundamental. Sure, while John's immediate conflict is getting a doctor, his conflict with society is still the backdrop to the immediate events - and quite possibly the cause of them. For me, that would be the main conflict.

But I think we're getting hung up on werewolves. :P

[quote=Kestrel]Locking yourself into your CS is just silly.[/quote]
Yes and no. Locking superficial details like appearance or whatever is silly (provided they remain consistent once the RP has started), but if people are planning around, leaving things to be picked up on and leaving space for your character - as I would be - , based on how you've presented them in a definitive OoC guide to that character, changing the fundamentals of that character is going to scupper the whole enterprise.

[quote=Brovo]Then what do you care if they read your CS or not? It worked out in the end anyway, naturally, dynamically. 
[/quote]

It worked out [i]badly[/i] because of the reduplication of the same character and story arcs that I feel were basically decided as core ideas of both characters at CS level.