Arelith

A wall of text makes people scroll to get to the aura/stat part of the description = optimal

What i want from a description is the air of the character, and the prose style or aesthetic preferences of the player. i really just want to see some brief, pretty wordplay giving me a thematic introduction to the character, with a roleplay hook or two ("they carry such and such god's talisman"). Otherwise, what i see is what I get.

I usually stay out of these sorts of things, but I did feel like I wanted to say both sides of this debate feel like they may be a little too defensive.

Yes, blank descriptions do basically leave you with very little to go on in terms of IC description, and I think if you get to the point of initiating any sort of antagonistic RP the nice thing to do would be to give people something unique about yourself.

On the other hand, yes, there will be a lot of new players who may find this a bit intimidating/just too much when stepping into the whirlwind of deranged (read: awsome) mechanics Arelith has added to the base game Maybe try to give these people the benefit of the doubt.

All that said, my personal feeling is: if you leave it with a WIP, I'll happily RP with you, but I will feel a bit cheated if you do something horrible to me, and all I can tell my intimidating buddy with the greatsword is that you're one of the 400 "generic brown-haired human males" floating about *Shrugs*... New players, fair play, but I do think if you're a 30-40+ RPR Oldschooler, you should be able to roll up your lvl1 with at least a little something for us

On the other hand, while I do love the effort and time put into some of the lengthy and eloquent descriptions I see out there, they can be nigh impossible to read, or even get useful details from in a short encounter... I'm not your boss, of course, but maybe think about tacking on a little TL;DR version with some key features for those short encounters?

TL;DR: I have opinions, but not going to tell y'all how to RP, all I'd say is take a moment to think how your no-desc/mega-desc might affect other people's fun, in terms of describing you, or if they might simply struggle with a wall of text (which could be for any number of reasons)

PS: FR language in descriptions is something I found difficult when I started playng here, but actually I do think that's a nice way to push people to immerse themselves in the RP world... and in my experience the community is generally very welcoming and helpful here, so a little tell to ask what a thing is would usually get a helpful reply.

Wow that got long :/

Wow...I did not expect this thread to go in this direction; I suppose I should have been much clearer.

I've seen many people over the last year (Arelith 1 year anniversary yesterday, woohoo!) whose description is just "WIP". I understand a blank description, I understand a WYSIWYG description (though believe me, I will likely take the most uncharitable read of these early 2000s polygon heads), but I don't understand why people take the time to set their description to "WIP" rather than just leaving it blank until they've written a description they're happy with.

To be fair, I think your initial post was pretty clear actually, sorry for jumping in on the Big Derail ^^

I've never used a "WIP" desc myself, but the effort involved is as simple as typing "-description WIP" into the chat bar... I'd just see that as an easy OOC way of saying "I know I don't have a desc yet, but I do know how to do it, and it's on the way".

Completely blank descriptions, on the other hand, may potentially indicate a new player who is unaware of the cool desc systems available... or might not

I'd like to chime in that sometimes not having a description at all can be an aesthetic choice for portraying a character. As an example an agent/assassin type character without a description, especially when well portrayed through their speech and emotes adds to the mystery of the character.

Personally I like to write quite detailed descriptions for my characters but that's as much for me as it is for those who like to read long descriptions. Especially after a pause from playing a character I just read the description and I get back into the vibe. But for portraying my character I depend on speech and emotes, not the description.

I also tend to skip long snuggybear descriptions of other characters to keep the rp flowing.

My correlation is that often descriptions suggest a better roleplayer behind the character. ("better" as in, more of an interest in trying to roleplay)

People should write descriptions. Even just one sentence.

"Tall, dark, and walks with a bit of a limp."

"Beautiful, sensuous, with a dazzling smile."

"Gruff, bearded, and likes to drink."

Descriptions, for better or worse, are useful to me because it sends a signal of what the player is interested in. I fall into Aerlyn's camp here and think y'all are just digging for fun.

Write descriptions with me, Ork.

ltlukoziuz wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:17 pm

At least blank descriptions are better than crap like "When you are reading this description, this person has already been staring at you, examining each detail".

Start screaming at characters with this in their profile, tell them to stop staring at you. Do it every time you see them.

Party in the forest at midnight wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 15, 2021 4:52 pm

ltlukoziuz wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:17 pm

At least blank descriptions are better than crap like "When you are reading this description, this person has already been staring at you, examining each detail".

Start screaming at characters with this in their profile, tell them to stop staring at you. Do it every time you see them.

I will.

The moment I see a description that requires me to scroll I stop reading it.

I personally prefer to use and read the following formula (and it definitely shouldnt be longer than this):

Descended from Amnish nobility, Ronald McDonald had the habbit of studying his company in an appraising, often blatant manner. Despite his occasional scrutiny, the merits of his upbringing allowed him to engage others with an easy smile, although it never quite seemed to reach his eyes.

He was probably in his late fourties, black hair starting to grey at the temples. While rather comely, he prefered unadorned, practical attire made for the road.

From time to time he could be caught admiring his ruby insignia ring. Whether it was mere vanity or sentiment that made him fondle the trinket was hard to tell, but, either way, to him it seemed to be his only valuable posession.

I like,

Looks like a karate ninja and tough too.

I am seeing a number of players who seem to be struggling with the automatic application of cover descriptions. Many characters have a normal description, but a blank cover description. The cover description triggers automatically just by wearing a set of normal armor and a helmet.

Cover descriptions are very limited (I believe about 500 characters). My descriptions tend to be fairly short; 1 paragraph of a few sentences followed by faction pins. That is fairly reasonable by my standards - I don't read overly long scrolling descriptions either - but I cannot fit my normal description into that character limit. Since I don't want to maintain two different sets of highly similar descriptions while fighting against a tight character limit (I rarely spend much space to describe face and hair), my description vanishes when my character puts on a helmet.

I feel like descriptions overall have become less common since that mechanic was introduced.

I don't like descriptions that read like dating site infoboxes. Listing height and weight is meaningless to me and often in a measuring system that doesn't pertain to me. Two to three paragraphs of concise, tightly written prose that helps give me a sense of what they look like, how they carry themselves, what they're wearing, and how they speak is far more useful to me than seeing that they're 162cm. I don't have a frame of reference for that in my head, I don't know what that looks like.

But also everyone's free to do whatever. That being said, if I see a woman's chest described as "perky" or "ample" or worse one more time I'm going to start adding paragraphs about codpieces to my male characters.

mash wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 15, 2021 5:41 pm

I am seeing a number of players who seem to be struggling with the automatic application of cover descriptions. Many characters have a normal description, but a blank cover description. The cover description triggers automatically just by wearing a set of normal armor and a helmet.

Absolutely true. I have to leave my neck piece blank on Uri otherwise I lose my description. Just because he's 'covered' doesn't mean he's not functionally wearing a supervillain costume - he's readily identifiable by anyone familiar with him. I'd say his mask is more a visual cue of him than if he had his face uncovered. I'd suggest the cover description mechanic be toggleable.

NWN 2 developers must have gleamed into the future and seen this thread, because in the sequel you get to add eye colors to your characters.

Even without a description, you still have a lot to go by. Hair color, hair length based on the model, facial hair for male characters, skin tones, and so on. With examine showing physical ability scores, you can tell exactly what body type they are, attractiveness, and so on.
While you don't know their exact height, if you are the same race as them, you can compare your own height to theirs (though it might differ on genders).
Their clothing/armor is an excellent descriptor to remember. Speech mannerisms is another thing to jot down, if you're lucky enough to hear them talk.

Even basic behavior like walking vs running. Do they run everywhere, or do they walk like a sane person? Write that down in your notes.

While it is unfortunate that your character can't tell their eye color, you can brush it off with excuses like, you didn't get a close look, the lighting was off, or their eyes seemed generic.

The point is, you have plenty to work with even with a completely blank description =)

MissEvelyn wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 25, 2021 2:22 am

NWN 2 developers must have gleamed into the future and seen this thread, because in the sequel you get to add eye colors to your characters.

NWN2 uses more advanced rendering,. where head is composed out of pieces. So you could alter face, haircut, on top of that change skin color, eye color, hair color (I think eyebrow was a separate one), and then wear a hat of your choice on top, which may also be colorable if an addon is installed on the server.

In comparison in nwn1 the whole head is a single model, and is only affected by hair and skin color. And if it is a helmet, it'll be the same on everyone, although it can be a colored helmet.

Interestingly, out of the box nwn1 allows much more advanced customization of armor compared to nwn2, because models are composed from pieces, and you can alter every single one of them. While in nwn2 the whole armor is one solid block, and while you can alter attachments (again, if an addon is installed), the level of customization is not the same.

I find descriptions to be very useful if and when they give a hook for interaction. Things like holy symbols, style of clothing, accent of speech, mannerisms and notable items (be it weapons, jewelry or any other big or small item that stand out).

Makes conversations a bit easier to start if there is something visible about the character that you can comment.

The more detail a description has, the more accurate rendering of the simulation can be achieved.

My go-to approach for descriptions is a TL:DR non-prosaic summary of physical qualities, armament and symbols of allegiance (faith, faction)

Then a paragraph for the body, a paragraph for the face/hair/voice, a paragraph for clothing, a paragraph for jewellery (focus on holy symbols).

And a paragraph for each visible weapon. I like to nerd out about medieval weapons. Sideswords are cool.

I like if others follow this style. It helps minimize the probability of us imagining different smells/sounds/visuals.

LovelyLightningWitch wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 25, 2021 1:49 pm

And a paragraph for each visible weapon.

Would be great to have a (optional?) system that added descriptions of some equipped visible items and armor automatically to the character description. All stuff my character wears has descriptions. Almost no one ever sees those.