ROFL Timmothy...
@ Ceraline: I'm not really sure I do understand what do you mean, but I will try to reply none the less (and make my point clear
mostly using my main character as an example (which doesn't mean it's an example
to follow, just how do I deal with it and an easy way for me to put it down).
However equally unusual is finding people wearing the same clothes and adornments, day in and day out, no matter what their environment. I guess we should not always point at the nearest dwarf for the strange odours 
.
That's why I don't describe blouse and skirt in detail and remark she
usually wears them, nobody said they are the same blouse and the same skirt every day.
Besides that, it's usually handy to have a "Current status" bit in a description to include things that are happening at the time other chars see yours. If you check in events or any other parties, Lhaa is almost always wearing a gown instead of her usual garments (forget now what mechanics allow you to do now, this will likely change in the future and maybe we will no longer need to write it down).
You can also use this to explain that your character is carrying a heavy bag, or has a bruised eye, whatever.
Whilst it is correct that I should not see you brandishing your weapon in public, the only people who will know your favoured weapon are people who already know you or have seen you fight. Unless I am put into a situation or intend seeing your weapon in action I have no real interest in knowing about it in any detail. This can be easily catered for with a simple shortcut whenever you brandish the weapon, rather than in the description.
Not really. Any character should easily be able to tell Lhaa carries a couple of galkards (unless it's a blind one
, but you could be next to my char for days, weeks, maybe months, and you would never see her unsheath them. So unless I include her belt and sheathes in the description there is no way you would know she carries them so obviously.
However it is not my intention to criticise anyone in particular for employing such descriptions though be aware that any long and over-elaborate description can be equally as tedious and irrelevant to read for others as you may find character backgrounds.
That's a good point, and I'm probably guilty of making a too long description for some of my characters. I sometimes find myself skimming through a long description myself and trying to find where the relevant things are. But that mostly happens when I'm too busy typing to read it. Sometimes I have nothing better to do to go around checking people's descriptions and I enjoy reading them no matter how long they are.
But it's not that I find character backgrounds tedious to read. I just think the description is not the place to put them in. First, because there is no way my character will know any of this thus yes, for me it's irrelevant when it comes to
playing. Second, it's much better to read one here or in a guild forum, where it can be expanded far better than in the small description window and made a good read. See this thread for a good example:
Zephan and Calluna's tale.
I still don't understand why a lifestory is better for you but let me go back to the bruise example above to try to explain why I (we?) don't think it is.
Let's say your character got in a bar brawl the last night because somebody spilt his/her/kras drink. He/she/kra was smacked and got that bruised eye and you include it in your "current status" bit of the description.
Now, why would you want to tell people there that the bruise came from a tavern brawl when a drink was spilt? There is no way any character would know where's it come from (unless they were witnessing it) and they could think it's because of any other reason like I don't know, having falled down a staircase, having a very possessive husband (or wife :p), a brothers fight, a fight for a man/woman, etc. What's good of cutting down people's imagination (thus almost unavoidably narrowing the character's one) telling them where did the bruise come from?
You can try to do this and see how do other characters react to it. The ones who care for your character will
ask what happened. Some others (like your character sounded like) will shy away, some others will simply ignore it. You can get plenty of different reactions from this other than the
"Who split your drink last night?" you expect or nothing at all.
About the 20 questions thing, there is no need of that. You can talk to somebody for hours and get to know nothing about their past or their lives other than their superficial personality. You aren't forced to have a curious character, shying away from people is just as legit as running to them eagerly as long as that fits your character. But to find out if a character is the type of person your char would hang out with, your char needs to interact with it first, be it by watching him/her/kra or by talking. And I'm sure you can tell what kind of person is it after the first 10 lines, even if there is none of the 20 questions involved or a long background story that tells
nothing to your
character about the person it is in front of.
