The Vault:Article layout guideline/Character article

	For the general guideline, see The Vault:Article layout guideline.

 

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This page contains The Vault's article layout guideline for characters. It describes the standard layout for articles about player and non-player characters.

Guidelines describe desired etiquette and common practice in the creation, editing and organization of articles on this wiki. Any registered editor is free to edit this page to improve its readability as long as the essence of the article remains unchanged. If you would like to suggest content changes or propose a new policy or guideline, please use the wiki discussion forum. See the policies and guidelines page for an overview of this wiki's policies and guidelines.

Infobox and categories

A few additional pointers regarding the applicable infobox and categories:

• The applicable infobox for character pages is {{Infobox character}}. For details on its usage, please refer to the template page itself.
• A character page is usually categorized in at least two categories:
  • One category for the game it appears in (in case of a character who appears in multiple games, one such category for each game). An example would be Category:Fallout 3 characters for a character in Fallout 3.
  • One category for its "race". An example would be Category:Fallout 3 human characters for a human character.
  • In addition, more categories may be required for the location it is found in (e.g. Category:Citadel characters) or an organization it belongs to (e.g. Category:Reilly's Rangers characters).

Character article layout

The layout is composed of three tables. The top and bottom tables are standard layout items found in every article; they are only included here for completeness and are collapsed by default. The middle table contains the actual specifics for character pages.

• Yes in the "headline" column means that the article should have a headline of that name if you want to include such a layout item.
  No in the "headline" column means that this layout item should not have a headline.
• Yes in the "required" column means that every character article should include this layout item.
  No in the "required" column means that not every character article needs to include this layout item.

Standard layout items (top)
Layout item	Headline	Required	Explanation
Page management boxes	No	No	Page management templates are used if you notice that something is out of order with a certain article or section and want to bring it to the attention of other editors or administrators. If the issue affects the whole article, these boxes should be placed at the very top of an article; if only a section is affected, they should be placed just below the headline of the respective section. The only exception are stub templates; see Stub templates below. For a list of page management boxes, please refer to our template overview or directly to Category:Page management templates.
Project tags	No	No	Projects are joint efforts of editors who work together to improve a set of articles that cover a certain area of interest. Some of these projects have tags or boxes which are placed on the pages which the project affects; these should be placed below the article management boxes.
"For" template	No	No	{{for}} is used to make a reader aware of other articles they may have been looking for when entering the title of the current page.
Infobox	No	Yes	The purpose of infoboxes is to summarize data relating to the article. Infoboxes should appear in the top-right corner of an article. For a list of infobox templates, please refer to our template overview or directly to Category:Infobox templates.
"Games" template	No	Yes	{{Games}} should be placed just below the infobox (if there is one). It produces small icons in the top right corner of an article which allow the reader to see "at a glance" what games or sources the article relates to or is based on. The template should be used in every article; almost no exceptions exist.

Character-specific layout items
Layout item	Headline	Required	Explanation
Lead section	No	Yes	Short summary that usually looks something like this: "{{PAGENAME}} is one of the inhabitants of Megaton in 2277." In general, it should contain: Name of the character (and alternative names) in bold. short description of the character (inhabitant of town XY, member of organization YZ etc) Time when the character lived/is encountered in one of the Fallout games, (i.e. the starting date of the character's respective game). For characters in FO1 this would be 2161, for FO2 2241 and for FO3 2277. Refer to the timeline for the starting time of other games.
Background	Yes	Yes	Background story/history for the character; "who this character is".
Relationships	Yes	No	Relations to other characters (family, friends, partners, enemies etc) if any
Daily schedule	Yes	No	Daily schedule of the character, i.e. what they usually do during the day. This section is only needed if the NPC wanders around during the day.
Interactions with the player character	Yes	Yes	Interactions of this character with the player.
→ Interactions overview	Yes	Yes	Checklist-style table detailing standard interactions for the respective game(s) the character appears in. Please use the standardized interaction tables (i.e. {{Interactions New}}).
→ Quests	Yes	No	The character's involvement in quests or random encounters, if any. Follow the linked quest title with a one or two sentence summary of the character's role in the quest; leave details for the quest article. Use bulleted lists (*).
→ Effects of player actions	Yes	No	Effects of player actions on the character or on the player's interaction with the character. For example, if a player action results in the death of the character or if a certain action prevents the player from interacting "normally" with this character, it should be mentioned here. Use bulleted lists (*).
→ Other interactions	Yes	No	For interactions which are not covered by the other sub-sections of "Interactions". Only include this section when it is necessary and useful for describing significant interactions between the player and the character. Use bulleted lists (*).
Inventory (Variants)	Yes	Yes	Items in possession of the character. Please use {{Inventory}}. For articles which list multiple (usually non-unique) characters on one page, this section should be called "Variants" and contain a table listing the characters with their most important stats and technical data.
Notes	Yes	No	For interesting things about the character which do not fit into the other categories. Try to keep this section to a minimum.
Notable quotes	Yes	No	A selection of notable quotes of the character. General ones that all NPCs say (such as ones used in combat) should not go here. A maximum of five quotes are allowed before a {{Expandable content}} template must be utilized.
→ Non-player character comments	Yes	No	A selection of notable quotes about the character that are from other non-player characters. These quotes have to be specifically scripted for this character. A maximum of five quotes are allowed before a {{Expandable content}} template must be utilized.
Appearances	Yes	Yes	Which games/add-ons does this character appear in.

Standard layout items (bottom)
Layout item	Headline	Required	Explanation
Behind the scenes	Yes	No	"Behind the scenes" is the place for information relating to game development and cultural references. See The Vault:Content policy#Behind the scenes for additional information.
Bugs	Yes	No	Game glitches, short "bugs", relating to the article subject should be here. See The Vault:Content policy#Bugs for additional information.
Gallery	Yes	No	If an article contains a lot of images, it is often better to place them in an own gallery section than to have them clutter the article. Please see Help:Gallery on how to use galleries and our image policy.
Videos	Yes	No	If an article contains embedded videos, they are to be placed here. See our video policy for which kind of videos are eligible to be placed in articles.
See also	Yes	No	The purpose of this section is to list links to related topics on this wiki which may not have been linked within the article content.
External links	Yes	No	Links to external (i.e. off-wiki) sites which are not references should be just above "References".
References	Yes	No	If references have been used in an article, {{references}} should be placed here.
Stub template	No	No	A stub template marks an article as being too short to provide more than rudimentary information about a subject.
Navboxes	No	No	Navboxes are navigational aids which allow easy access to other articles in a group the current article belongs to. They should be placed at the end of an article, just above the categories. The most article-specific navboxes should be highest and the least-specific lowest. A list of navboxes can be found in Category:Navbox templates. New navboxes can be constructed with {{Navbox}}.
Categories and interwiki links	No	Yes	Categories and interwiki links should be added at the very end of an article. A full list of categories can be found on Special:Categories. For additional information, please see our categorization guideline.

See also

• The Vault:Content organization guideline