Non-objective short descs

[wizturbo]

I've recently seen the word "Beautiful" in someone's short-desc, and i recall many times where non-objective words like this aren't weeded out in the application process.

I thought this wasn't allowed?  Or do these particular characters have some mindbending power that makes them all considered to be beautiful by anyone who see's them?  Is this just an oversight that managed to slip through the application process?

[jstorrie]

Odds are it was just an oversight.

[Larrath]

Personally, I would just not treat them as beautiful.  Or rather, not more than their main description would say.  Someone of the same race may or may not find them beautiful (depending on their taste), people of different races (other than half-elves for humans or humans) will be much less likely to find them that.

I suggest you ask the staff whether it's a good idea to typo their sdesc, since I'm really uncertain about that.

Or you can just make fun of them somehow, but that's a bad thing that you should avoid.


To me, anyway, an sdesc is just another bunch of descriptors.  If I see 'the hirsute, long-nosed man', I don't immediately go "Damn that guy is hairy!".  I might not even notice that he's particularly hairy unless, say, I saw them without a vest or something.

Beautiful is a subjective term that should not be used on PCs unless it's a silt nymph or whatever.  It should not be used, but I find it very easy to ignore these things.

[Anonymous]

What's the big deal?

Just consider that sdesc to mean that the PC reflects the common view of what beauty is, not that your PC or you have to think they are beautiful.  I've never made a desc like that, but I don't see why people have such a hard time just letting go when it comes to sdescs.

There are a lot of super models I see that I consider far less attractive than some of the girl-next-door types I knew in school.  Your PC isn't required to be drooling all over themselves when they see a PC with pretty, beautiful, handsome, etc, in their sdesc, so just let it go, man, let it go.

[spawnloser]

CRW, the reason there is a stink being raised is because the docs say "DON'T USE SUBJECTIVE TERMS."

I think this is reason enough not to use subjective terms.

[Larrath]

Nobody's defending the people who are using subjective adjectives.  We're just saying that it's not such a dreadful, unignorable thing.

[Anonymous]

CRW, the reason there is a stink being raised is because the docs say "DON'T USE SUBJECTIVE TERMS."

I think this is reason enough not to use subjective terms.

Where?

Quick, someone tell Sanvean to recant on 'the degenerate freak' since freak and degenerate are subjective terms.

[Naiona]

The following is my own opinion and does not represent the staff or any official rules:


A good rule of thumb to remember for sdescs is the simple roleplay rule:

Show me. Don't tell me.

A good example of this might be:

bad: the harsh, black-haired man
good: the harshly-scarred, black-haired man

The first tells us the man is harsh, when we would have no way of knowing that from a glimpse.  The second tell us that he has some bad-ass scars. He appears harsh.

Sdescs that claim character traits or assume other's reactions are on the iffy side, in my opinion.

[flurry]

CRW, the reason there is a stink being raised is because the docs say "DON'T USE SUBJECTIVE TERMS."

I think this is reason enough not to use subjective terms.

Where?

Right here is pretty close.

The second most important thing to bear in mind is to not include anything subjective.

[spawnloser]

the docs say "DON'T USE SUBJECTIVE TERMS."

I think this is reason enough not to use subjective terms.

Where?

here

I think flurry said it all.

[Sir Diealot]

Too bad the docs then go on and disprove themselves..

For example, you shouldn't write "the jovial man" but you may get away with "the jovial-looking man"

I might have a different opinion of what looks jovial bub! and even though 95% of the world agrees I disagree!

Which, really, is all CRW was saying.. without being as abrasive/sarcastic as I was.

[Bestatte]

It's jarring. Once upon a time, there was a "handsome blue-skinned man." Now, my character thought he really was handsome. But he was handsome in spite of his blue skin.

But c'mon - he had blue skin! Don't you think the general public would have found him strange looking and not handsome at all?

It seems a waste of a word in an sdesc if everyone is supposed to just ignore it. Plus it makes it hard to describe them to someone else. Example:

A dwarf sees "the beautiful brown-skinned woman" a block away, casting a magick spell. He goes to report it to the templar.

"So what did this magicker look like?"
"Uh - she has dark skin. Brown."
"Anything else?"
"Not really - looks like the typical ugly human."
think So I'm looking for scars, filthy hair, dirt and grime on her face, skinny as a stick.

The degenerate freak doesn't bother me at all. It -can- be subjective, if it is used subjectively. But those words can -also- be "not" subjective, and that's how I see it. Freak to me isn't subjective at all unless it's used in a specific context. Then again, I grew up when traveling circuses had freak shows. Freak definitely described what a person LOOKED like - and didn't have much to do with the viewer's perception of it.

Beautiful can only be subjective. It can't be anything else. That, I think, is where the line should be drawn. If something can be subjective, but isn't always, then sure - let it stand. If it can only be subjective, reject it and try again.

Personally I'd rather see the staff pay closer attention to typos and -really- bad grammar errors in sdescs and main descs. Every newbie I've seen in the past few months shows up in the game loaded with them. Not correcting them before approving the character does no one any favors. It makes the newbie look bad, and it makes the staff members look incompetent. And we know they're not incompetent...but think about it. This game is known for its quality. It's a HIGH quality game, and lowering standards to be "nice" to newbies isn't being nice at all. It just devalues the game.

Newbie shows up with a REALLY badly written desc - typos and missing periods at the ends of sentences, extra spaces, misspellings galore, metaphors that make no sense in the game world (as black as the Nile river), and it passes. Newbie character dies - and learns what? He learns that he can continue writing really bad descriptions. If he's corrected the second time around he'll think "Hey - they had no problem with the first one - WTF is up with this!"

No need for perfection, typos slip through and that's understandable. But really - a PC who gets passed with his name in his description? How is that overlooked? Why is it overlooked? A dwarf with a beard? A guy whose description reads as though both of his arms are sticking out of the left side of his neck? And he isn't roleplaying a mutant..he just made an error in his sentence structure. One word change and a single comma would have fixed it. If this only happened every so often - no biggie. But it seems to happen mostly when a new player comes into the game. I'd like to see more of these types of glaring errors be fixed by the imm who's looking over the application, and approved with a comment letting the player know that the correction was made. No need for rejection and request to rewrite. Just fix that kinda stuff and let them know it was fixed.

[Kankman]

Something nobody has brought up yet is the fact that it very well could have been someone's first PC. Chances are if someone gets rejected with their first character because "some bastard immortal" told them they aren't allowed to be beautiful, they wouldn't come back.

Just something to ponder, on this particular occasion.

[Anonymous]

The fact of the matter is that people don't, in my experience, read through an entire desc, so something like this makes sense to me.

There are beautiful people in this world, at least as would be viewed by the majority.  I just don't see the harm or how it is jarring.  You are free to decide whether or not your PC finds the other PC truly beautiful just as you are in real life.

Muscular is a relative term.  Tall is a relative term.  Does a Half-Giant PC -really- have to consider whether or not the tall, muscular man is bigger than the Half-Giant?  No.  It's the same thing here, but what the term beautiful is relative to is the generally accepted norm, IMHO, and it doesn't hurt the game at all.

What I hate most about these threads is that they put one person on the spot, or any person with a similar desc, even though these people have had their PC's approved by the staff.

If you have that much of a problem with it, then you should email the staff, not essentially point the finger at one PC and bitch about it.

If this thread had been about subjective terms in general that would be one thing.

[Modest Mouth]

Rock. I myself don't see a large problem with someone calling themselves beautiful or handsome. I'm going to draw a comparison here, and yes, the salty Armplayers are all going to hate it:

In Lord of the Rings, Gimli the dwarf was crazy in love with that elven queen-chick. Although the dwarven culture probably has a different idea of what beauty is, esp. considering their women are bearded, hers was a universal form of hottie that transcended dwarfie-conventions.

Now, before I get crucified for making a comparision between LOTR and Arm, hear me out for two more seconds. The point is that there are some levels of beauty that are subject to the rules of society, and there are others that are not.

So, I'm cool for someone calling themselves beautiful, handsome, good-looking, ect. *qualifier* as long as they back it up in their ldesc. If they don't convince me that they possess the rarer sort of beauty, then I tend to ignore that part of their sdesc.

[Marauder Moe]

I saw a show once where some scientists developed a mathematical model for the proportions of a beautiful face (both male and female).  This was expressed in a sort of mask that you can overlay on someone's picture and see how well their face matches up.  Turns out that this mask fit beautiful people from all races/cultures around the world.  So my point is that there is evidence to suggests that there are universal (among humans) perceptions of beauty.

[Lazloth]

First of all, the "golden ratio" purportedly is true for all people, not "beautiful" or "ugly."

Secondly, take a picture of your face.  Cut it in half and align the sides with mirrors of each.  Neither side will match the other; no face has symmetrical proportion.

[Marauder Moe]

Parts of it were based off the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci Ratios, yes, but thats not the same thing I saw.  Perhaps someone else saw this same show?  It was hosted by John Cleese.

[Modest Mouth]

http://www.canoe.ca/TelevisionShowsH/thehumanface.html

Link to a short blurb about the Human Face with John Cleese if anyone's interested.

[Incognito]

Something nobody has brought up yet is the fact that it very well could have been someone's first PC. Chances are if someone gets rejected with their first character because "some bastard immortal" told them they aren't allowed to be beautiful, they wouldn't come back.

Just something to ponder, on this particular occasion.

I agree with Kankman whole-heartedly.

I can recall when I started out as a newbie and had the word "dashing" in my sdesc. My PC was approved for play initially without a rejection. After 2 days of play time, an IMM msged me that the word "dashing" isnt something that should be used normally in game, and asked if I would like to have it changed. I declined at that time, not knowing better. But have learnt since then. Chances are, I would probably have been peeved had my initial application been rejected.