The importance of character stories...

[Drake]

One of my peeves.. is capships with OORP names and no captains..... just a ship with an odd name floating around killing people.

That is true. The only major story I wrote for any of my characters was the one for Xavier Hackworth and the Daedalus (my only ship larger than a gunboat). A shame he got deleted before I really got the chance to play him.

I'm not that big on writing up long stories myself, but even for a more mundane character, I always know his background in my head... Though often I come up with new elements to his background as I RP the character more. I like things to come out in-play.

And as for the 'most writers don't role-play' comment... Well, most being more than 50% of published writers. ;) Though some of my favorites (Steven Erikson, Jim Butcher, etc.) do actually, or have in the past.