Rules For Descriptions...

[Suno_Regin]

I\'ve read a lot of descriptions, and a few of them are good, and describe what a person looks like. Others say what the person did, does, or is doing. Yet, some describe how strong and powerful a person is.

Now, if you\'d read some descriptions, it would say \"You evaluate that X is immortal\" and right below it, it says \"You evaluate that X is a mere resistance for you...\"

There should be rules against godmoding your character in your description, because fake evaluations do take some of the fun away from RP.

Just like naming rules, before hitting the edit button on your description, it should say rules for what is accepted and what is not.

[LigH]

In general, I would agree that several kinds of descriptions are not quite suitable; but about your example:

Originally posted by Suno_Regin
Now, if you\'d read some descriptions, it would say \"You evaluate that X is immortal\" and right below it, it says \"You evaluate that X is a mere resistance for you...\"

Slightly experienced players will soon see that only the very last one is the evaluated strength, and any above is faked.

And to be true... I only read descriptions if I want to know the real race behind the model, or if someone tells me he has important information there. I am not used to read everyone.

[Suno_Regin]

Well, not only that, but some descriptions say you do something when looking at the character.

Mostly Fenkis, a few say \"She looks up to you, her eyes telling you to come closer\" or something...Which really isn\'t suitable if there is another Fenki reading the description. Too much is faked.

[Merak]

Originally posted by Suno_Regin
Well, not only that, but some descriptions say you do something when looking at the character.
Mostly Fenkis, a few say \"She looks up to you, her eyes telling you to come closer\" or something...Which really isn\'t suitable if there is another Fenki reading the description. Too much is faked.

As soon as I met someone (and not only the first time), I read his description because I expect finding there his appearance (for new ones) and his mood (for already known ones). It is a very powerful way to enrich the game and roleplay, especially because devs do not have hundreds fingers to each hand, and hardware is limited too (but words are not).

I have proposed once a system to separate 4 levels of description, one of them being hidden until you win a roll of perception :
http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=15765&boardid=11&sid=de44d27398acc846f7f3e34ff43a712f

I do not think that it would be a good thing if there were 23 descriptions fields : for male klyros, for female klyros, for menki, for fenki, etc... Too heavy. Unpleasant.

I appreciate the description of your dashing fenki acquaintance because it gives me an idea of its personality.
 - If I am male, I think it\'s for me.
 - If I am female, I think it isn\'t for me and that the oafish xacha over there will be fooled.
 - If I am female, but interested in fenki, I think it\'s perhaps for me too.

So, no problem with this description. I prefer this to those empty description, or never varying one, with \"guilty nights on roofs\", and \"born during dark crystal eclipse\" (there two things shouldn\'t be in description form, but in background one !)

[Zan]

There should be rules for descriptions indeed ... it is a place where you can write what you want and that makes it very open to abuse. So far I haven\'t really seen anyone abuse theirs yet. Sure some people do things like described in the top post here but that\'s just their idea of a joke.

Another thing I\'d like to see is \'forcing\' everyone to fill in their description when they create a character. The rules and an example could also be shown at the same time. This will at least get rid of the generic or empty descriptions.

[Merak]

Originally posted by Zan
1) There should be rules for descriptions indeed ...
2) Another thing I\'d like to see is \'forcing\' everyone to fill in their description when they create a character.
This will at least get rid of the generic or empty descriptions.

As NPC\'s speech recognition don\'t even work, how to you automatically check if one\'s description is valid or not.  By giving this task to somebody? Then, I take pity on him and his eyes.  Also, it would mean that when you create your character, you must wait the Checker-man gives his agreement before being able to play? Heavy & clumsy.

Also, what prevent a joker to modify its description once he is accepted in the game.  Then, you cannot make someone check all the descriptions changes made during the game.

Rules would blame only good players, and would limit the way they feel their character.  For example, today, with the \"no adjective for firstname\" rule, no one could be named Felix (which means \"happy\" / \"lucky\" ) ...
What would these rules be for a description?


Moreover, when you play for the first time to PS (or any paper-RPG), the most tiresome thing is always the creation of your character.  Also, at this time, most do not have a clear idea of what is their character.  If you impose background creation at this time, for sure you will have hollow generic descriptions!

A thing that I do ingame, when I meet someone and chat with him, is to look to its description (often empty) and try to give him hints to fill it according to the personality I feel while speaking with him.  Often, the player do not really know how to fill it, or do not know what to write.

So I think that an easy-to-find example of charater creation in the manual would be much more efficient than a coercitive rule.  And when you see someone with a hollow description, chat with him to help him flesh it out

[Merak]

Background : guilty nights on roofs.
Description : walks with a limp.

Background: very keen on reading books.
Description: wear glasses, bent back and has a book in his pocket.

Background: blacksmith apprentice, and 7 siblings.
Description: Small burns on his hands.

Background: run with a gang.
Description: wear glasses, bent back and has a book in his pocket.  (do you have an objection? Description is not directly linked with background, as in the three first simple samples!)


In a nutshell:
 - background is for the player (and must not be seen by other players). It is to flesh out his character.
 - description is for others, and is the way the character appears to others.

If an extra-field was created in the database for description (as current one is more a background field), it would be interesting to have at the same time two more fields:

- immediate description (short, to show current mood and apperance)
- hidden description (displayed only if a perception test succeeds)

The regular \'description\' field would be a \"full description\", deeper and more exhaustive than \"immediate description\" (which would be 2 or 3 short sentences at most)
cf. http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=15765&boardid=11&sid=de44d27398acc846f7f3e34ff43a712f

\"Short description\" could replace name and guild name over the head of the characters when mouse is pointing them ... Then, a character could recongnize someone else. Besides, it would prevent to know someone\'s guild and name before speaking to him. (Guild could be guessed through brooch, cape or other tiny thing described in \"short description\")

[darkw00t]

I\'ve seen a description *stares at Slupor* that fully offended and insulted a guild, it was totally inappropiate and almost made me withdraw my application to DC.. anything like this should have a severe warning to it because the guild they insulted i had a great time with, so this should definetly  be disallowed

[Clayzekiel]

And what\'s with the opponent evaluation in the end of the description anyway? It doesn\'t do any good for the RP. How can one evaluate one\'s experience and combat readiness just by giving a brief look? I don\'t know surely what this is based on, but I think it\'s just the experience one has gained. Age can give some hint of experience but that isn\'t enough.

Evaluation could be done by looking the persons weapons, armors or muscles. There could also be a skill with you could watch the targets movements. If you were very skillful, you could tell that someone is actually quite an opponent even if he acts to be clumsy and inexperienced. There\'s no way to measure a magicians skills though.

I think they should get rid of the whole description system for good. At least when you will be able to equip your character with detailed equipment (heavy armors, rock pick in your bag, guild cape and such) and hopefully make some day expressions too (smiling, grinning, sobbing etc).

[Xordan]

As long as the description isn\'t racist or abusive in any way then people can do what they like. If you don\'t like it then don\'t read it

[Waylander]

Long live the boundless wisedom of Xordan.

I agree a discription should be just that, a discription.
But, if the person has a bad one then just ignore it completely, after a while the roleplaying atmosphere will influence him or her to change it.

[Clayzekiel]

Yet that doesn\'t solve that you can see one\'s experience in the description.

Monster\'s evaluation is pointless too. Surely everyone can see that a rat is harder to kill than a tefusang, although small size can sometimes be misleading. And if your character is a dumb one, he can always give it a try and jump into the mouth of a consumer.

This isn\'t quite what the thread is originally about, but close enough.

[Draklar]

Originally posted by Xordan
As long as the description isn\'t racist or abusive in any way then people can do what they like. If you don\'t like it then don\'t read it :)

Well people could put there all the junk they wanted. And others eventually stop reading the descriptions. But what\'s the point in implementing those then?

There\'s no way to measure a magicians skills though.

A feeling of magic radiating from a character?
Wisdom shown just by the expression of their face and look of their eyes?
Changes in physical look caused by influence of magic?
Unusual moves and general behaviour?

[Darkblade]

I personally dislike the description at the bottom about how powerful a person is compared to you.
Yes, it does help decide if that character would make a formidable opponent or ally, but what about those who wish to hide how skilled they are...?

Even more so, how can you judge that a person would be better than you in combat, crafting, magic, etc... unless you actually witness that happening, or an example of their work?

I understand that just by looking at someone, you can guess how strong they are, or charming, but other than that, you have no base to judge their skills.

Even a magician\'s skills would be hard to judge.
Consider this: A character would have to be able to either feel the magic about the mage and even then, it may just be a general feeling, not a specific thing you can mesure unless you\'ve been around the person for a long time.

[Draklar]

Originally posted by Darkblade
Even a magician\'s skills would be hard to judge.
Consider this: A character would have to be able to either feel the magic about the mage and even then, it may just be a general feeling, not a specific thing you can mesure unless you\'ve been around the person for a long time.

Keep in mind dumb characters aren\'t able to evaluate power of observed ones...
It\'s logical that highly intelligent being would be able to evaluate such things.