I'm proposing a new character layout: see User:D-day/Character.

Our current guide hasn't been updated to reflect certain changes, and the new should cover most pages in greater details. It doesn't include all possible sections—as usual, if a section should be added on a particular page for some reason, it doesn't have to exactly follow the guide, but it should remain as close as possible to keep character pages consistent.

In addition to sections transcluded from DA:LAYOUT, a couple of things have been changed/added:

• Result: This section has been removed as it's not quite right for characters. "Fate" would have been better, but "Involvement" covers everything needed for that. There is no need to create another section.
• Quests: It's been modified to included any characters particuarly involved with a quest, e.g. Leliana with Faith (quest). It's only been done for major characters, so I don't know if this should be restricted. Note that the involvement section is different.
• Infobox - Location: I believe this is better covered in the lead (where they can be first met)—or just the involvement section depending on the character. For example, it would be a bit ridiculous to list Alistair in all possible places you will first meet him in Dragon Age II. It's also too ambiguous to what this means (the current guide says it's for when you first meet the character, but it could mean where they are generally stationned). For companions in Dragon Age II, their house base should be listed in the lead.

There might be more tweaks to do (format of the guide, further explanations if needed, additional sections), but I think this should cover the bulk of the guide. Further modifications can be proposed at a later time. --D. (talk · contr) 16:24, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I should give credits when due—Asherinka helped with it. :] --D. (talk · contr) 16:31, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

No feedback, at all? I'd like to think I didn't miss anything and I'm completely right, but I think it's mostly because no one actually looked at it. :P Bumping this before I'm taking this silence as an approval of the new character layout guide (leaving this up for another week). --D. (talk · contr) 02:00, April 6, 2012 (UTC)

To clarify on location - are we proposing we get rid of it from the infobox and include the information in the lead or involvement? If so, I'd agree. I also concur with the other revisions King Cousland | Talk   00:21, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I want to remove the location from the infobox. I'll recommend that for other style guides for certain types of pages since it can get quite cumbersome (creatures and codex entries come to mind, but I will elaborate in another discussion). --D. (talk · contr) 00:55, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

This came up in chat, so I'll add something regarding categories and sorting on the guide. It's been done for a lot of pages, though not all of them, that characters would be sorted by default with their last name, then first name (like Wikipedia), e.g., Bhelen Aeducan is sorted as {{DEFAULTSORT:Aeducan, Bhelen}}. The title should be listed last in all case when there is one. --D. (talk · contr) 03:45, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

This sounds like a great idea ;) I like how you are renaming the sections to something that makes more sense such as Quest, Involvement, etc. The only thing I am unsure about is rolling "Fate" into "Involvement". On one hand some character's story end. Duncan. Cailen. But some other's fate are still to be decided. In the end, I don't feel particularly strongly about either so I'd go with what both D-day and Asherinka proposed. -- tierrie talk contr 17:33, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

In cases such as Duncan and Cailan, wouldn't Fate be kind of spoilerish? It certainly suggests a finality to me. King Cousland | Talk   18:09, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

Isn't the whole Category:Deceased very spoilerish already? :) Asherinka (talk) 18:18, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

At this point in time, I believe it is appropriate to just go ahead and write the events as they have already happened. We're done with DA2 and the if past discussions about Secret Companion is any indication, most people are starting to use this wiki as a "review" lookup rather than a "spoiler-hint" lookup.

Plus, once we enter DA3, it would be awkward to use the present continuous tense for characters such as Duncan or Cailan. An example would be the Elder Scrolls Wiki where Skyrim takes place roughly a few decades after Oblivion. It is inconsistent to keep both a present tense for articles of both games, so one of them has to take precendence. I feel the same way for Dragon Age. Moving forward, we should be able to concretely say that Duncan and Cailen are dead.

Should BioWare retcon it, such as in the case of Maric, then the article can be edited at that point to revise history. -- tierrie talk contr 18:19, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Btw, according to the last issue of TSG Maric is indeed dead, or seems to be. Yavana hints at it. Asherinka (talk) 18:23, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

Also agreed. Regarding the deceased category, there was a discussion at the time of its creation where we said that if we consider that to be a spoiler, shouldn't we also start chucking out other categories like abominations or blood magic? Plus, categories are more organizational IMO, and they aren't really looked at to glean information the same way that the article itself is. King Cousland | Talk   18:29, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

The guide has been updated. As stated, we can revisit a few things if there's a need. --D. (talk · contr) 17:51, April 14, 2012 (UTC)