What did they look like?

[EvilRoeSlade]

I use both if I can.  But I am also fine with using just the short desc. Lets say we are looking for bony, black haired man. Well.. you are looking for half the known world.

But.. In a conversation, if I said.. Well, he was bony, real thin like and I'm pretty sure his hair was black... Dunno remember what color his eyes were. Then I have given a few points to identify that person.  They just happen to be the short desc ones.

How do three indistinct, common features give you the ability to identify someone?

The look command is used to get a good look at someone.  If you don't have time to use the look command then the game is probably simulating real life fairly well when it tells you that you don't really have a good idea of what the someone in question looks like.

To me, it doesn't seem that this attitude is compensating for the limitations of a text-based environment in order to give you a reasonable ability to identify people.  It seems that it is abusing the limitations of a text-based environment to give you an unreasonable ability to identify people.

[spawnloser]

I look at short descs as the quick imprint of you on my mind. We are playing a text game, so I can't pick up on other things in a short glance like I could if we were playing real life.

This, I think, is the important part of sarahjc's post.

You glanced at the character's sdesc, but the person ran past.  You didn't get the time to type 'l hirsute' to get anything else.  In walks someone and asks if someone just ran past, you say, "Some hairy guy with one eye?" (For the sdesc of 'the hirsute, one-eyed man')  I have no problem with this.

[Folker]

plus, look at it this way.

You can either do A and look at every single character you know to be a PC to get their full description and be a twink.

Or you can do B, and identify the people by the characteristics you got by a mere glanace, Aka ... their mdesc and be a twink.

[Rindan]

plus, look at it this way.

You can either do A and look at every single character you know to be a PC to get their full description and be a twink.

Or you can do B, and identify the people by the characteristics you got by a mere glanace, Aka ... their mdesc and be a twink.

If you lived in a small town of say 5000, you would be dealing with a population 1% of Allanak.  If someone told you that they saw a blue eyed man with black hair, a large build, and bushy eyebrows, then gathered the entire town into a single location, you still would not be able to find that person.  It is damn near impossible to give any physical description that another person could use to find another person.  Now, put yourself in Allanak with 500,000 people and consider the possibility of someone being identified by physical description alone.  Short of drawing a picture, unless that person has very very unique features, they are pretty much lost.

This isn't a bad thing.

This doesn't mean that you can't find people.  It just means that you might have to expand a little beyond throwing out the sdesc and then listing off a few details from the mdesc.  If someone told you that they saw a blue eyed man with black hair, a large build, and bushy eyebrows, and he was wearing a cops uniform in a local bar, you would probably be much better equipped to find said person.  Even then, you might engage them in conversation before deciding that this is your man.

As to how you personally identify people; a sdesc is plenty fine.  The human mind (and I assume elven, dwarf, exc) has an entire rather large section of the brain devoted to recognizing faces based upon things that you don't consciously take note of.  It is pretty safe to assume that once you have met a person, chances are you will recognize them again.

This how I play and it really isn't a big deal and is how I play.  The only thing I do differently is instead of jumping to the conclusion that I have found someone that I was told about, I engage them in conversation or observe them for a little while.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I look at short descs as the quick imprint of you on my mind. We are playing a text game, so I can't pick up on other things in a short glance like I could if we were playing real life.

This, I think, is the important part of sarahjc's post.

You glanced at the character's sdesc, but the person ran past.  You didn't get the time to type 'l hirsute' to get anything else.  In walks someone and asks if someone just ran past, you say, "Some hairy guy with one eye?" (For the sdesc of 'the hirsute, one-eyed man')  I have no problem with this.

Is there still no problem when the person who is looking for the hirsute, one-eyed man immediately grabs him out of a bar three days later?

I would say that a good place to start taking responsibility is at the beginning.

[Folker]

I'm puzzled why Rindan quoted my post. His reply was mostly on the point, but as far as I understood it, completely unrelated to the quote he used.

I mean I understand your point, I even agree with it, and you're not the first one to mention it here. But the point doesnt disagree or agree with the text you quoted in the beginning.

[Malifaxis]

Personally, I think it's kinda ridiculous when you can't get some sort of better factor for identification because some player decided his character was going to remain 'anonymous' and took the tall, blonde man or some bullshit.

To support my case, I'll use spawnloser, who always references me and never gives credit (like for the sandwich thing, bastard!)  Anyway.

SL looks pretty normal IRL.  Pretty freakishly normal except for his ferret chin.  There are a number of ways to describe him.  Here's three examples:

The blonde-haired, lanky man
The pierced, sinewy man
The ferret-chinned frenchman

ALL of these describe, accurately, spawnloser.  The first time I met him I can remember vividly.  Because he stood out?  No.  Because he, while still looking normal, isn't somehow a faceless mass.  I use these as an example because one of them is CLEARLY more memorable from a short desc standpoint.  Yet they're all the same person.

I swear I get murderous when I see 'tall, muscular men' and 'brown-eyed, dark-skinned women.'  All I want to do is make those screens go 'beep' after beating the PC repeatedly with a sword made of common fucking sense.

Your short desc is here to provide *SOME* measure of rapid identification from a distance.  That is what it is supposed to do.  I consider the anonymous desc bullshit to be borderline twinking.  Sure, great, you're normal looking... know what, that limp of yours is rememerable.  There are a hundred thousand factors that can not be transmitted by a short desc that still make your 'every day anonymous joe' into a perfectly recognizable person.

[sarahjc]

I use both if I can.  But I am also fine with using just the short desc. Lets say we are looking for bony, black haired man. Well.. you are looking for half the known world.

But.. In a conversation, if I said.. Well, he was bony, real thin like and I'm pretty sure his hair was black... Dunno remember what color his eyes were. Then I have given a few points to identify that person.  They just happen to be the short desc ones.

How do three indistinct, common features give you the ability to identify someone?

They don't, but I would have picked up more than that just by noticing him come into the bar. I may emote glancing down the bar to someone and not do a Look <person>. Does this mean that I have missed every other feature they have on them? Does that mean that if I see them suddenly go up in a puff of smoke and disappear, that I wouldn't be able to identify them again, should I see them?

The point is that the short desc identifies you. To me, it is a quick glance at your face and me picking up your most notable features/attributes.

I look at short descs as the quick imprint of you on my mind. We are playing a text game, so I can't pick up on other things in a short glance like I could if we were playing real life.

This, I think, is the important part of sarahjc's post.

Yes. That –I- could identify you if I saw you again. Now for an example, lets say I see  the tall, bland described man floating into a bar.  I call a templars head and say, There is this bland described guy floating around in the bar.  By the time the templar gets there Mr. Bland has left and the templar asks me what he looked like.

I say well, I don't really know all to well, he was sort of bland and tall, real plain looking, I didn't get that good a look. Templar says Ok, goes out and then finds a tall, bland described guy sitting at a bar down the street and arrests him.

I don't think that is wrong at all, but I would expect the templar to at least call me in to identify him, because my description of that fella was so vague.  

So in short, I think that a short desc is enough for me to point a finger at you, but unless it's a really extraordinary one, I don't think it's enough to identify a person second hand.

[Agent_137]

I like this train of thought. I'll sum it up for my own uses, and anyone else can take or comment as they like.

1. If you see some one's sdesc, you are allowed to recognize them in the future if you see their sdesc again, regardless if you saw the mdesc or if they have no distuingishing features. This is due to the innate human ability to recognize faces.

2. Unless they have wildly distuingishable features, one should not finger somebody out of a crowd based purely on a second-hand description. Bring in the original person to identify the guy (like a line up) or have better information. So if some one tells you there's a tall man with green eye's who's a magicker, and then that person dies, you might be suspiscious of every tall man with green eyes, but you sure as fuck won't be arresting and killing every tall man with green eyes. There are too many virtually.

3. Thus, in the future when asked to describe somebody, if all you have is an sdesc, you'll be the only one who can actually finger the person.

I like it! Very realistic and appropriate. Gives criminals a fair shake, and realistic, and doesn't hurt playability overall. Fantastic.

[Rindan]

They don't, but I would have picked up more than that just by noticing him come into the bar. I may emote glancing down the bar to someone and not do a Look <person>. Does this mean that I have missed every other feature they have on them? Does that mean that if I see them suddenly go up in a puff of smoke and disappear, that I wouldn't be able to identify them again, should I see them?

The point is that the short desc identifies you. To me, it is a quick glance at your face and me picking up your most notable features/attributes.

I think people are arguing in parallel.  I don't think anyone is really suggesting that if you see a person's sdesc, you can't recognize them again by their sdesc.  

Humans are simply good at recognizing faces they have seen before.  There is an entire section of the brain devoted entirely to recognizing people you have seen before.  There is a reason why you can utterly forget what someone looks like and be completely unable to describe them, but still instantly recognize them if see them.  Recognize people you know however you want, sdesc, mdesc, whatever.  For this reason, it is nice when people have something distinct about their key words so that you can recognize them from the other tall dark, haired men.

Yes. That –I- could identify you if I saw you again. Now for an example, lets say I see  the tall, bland described man floating into a bar.  I call a templars head and say, There is this bland described guy floating around in the bar.  By the time the templar gets there Mr. Bland has left and the templar asks me what he looked like.

I say well, I don't really know all to well, he was sort of bland and tall, real plain looking, I didn't get that good a look. Templar says Ok, goes out and then finds a tall, bland described guy sitting at a bar down the street and arrests him.

I don't think that is wrong at all, but I would expect the templar to at least call me in to identify him, because my description of that fella was so vague.

I personally find this a little irritating.  Having a Templar pile into a tavern with a dozen half-giants and subduing the one poor bastard non-descript elf is overkill.  It is one thing if the victim is with the Templar and can point the poor bastard out.  It is another to simply spam walk between the only two places in a city where PCs can expect interaction and doing a key word search.

Honestly people, it really and truly is okay to ignore someone you know OOCly is the man you want.  RPing a little bit of investigative skills isn't going to result in the end of the world.  You live in a city of a few hundred thousand.  The Gaj probably has over a hundred people in it at any one time.  If you really want to find someone, do more then enter the room, do an sdesc check, and then spam subdue.

So in short, I think that a short desc is enough for me to point a finger at you, but unless it's a really extraordinary one, I don't think it's enough to identify a person second hand.

Amen.

[marko]

All of this is fine and dandy but we're still stuck within the confines of a text-based game.  An sdesc is more than just a three word description of someone it is the encompassing description of someone as best we can decide within the limitations of a text environment.

An sdesc covers all aspects of the prominent features of a character including those not necessarily stated.  We play within the limitations of text and thus we make allowances.

Some people may not want to use sdescs to identify people.  That's fine.  That's your call.  But, please, do not start thinking that this is the only "right" way to play.

If you want a templar to verify that so and so is the right mark - that's great.  Kudos to the templars that do that.  And, conversely, kudos to the templars that don't bother and indiscriminately pick anyone that resembles the description - that is a templar's prerogative.

For whatever reasons and purposes of my own characters there will always be a chance of being able to point someone out in a crowd based on a second-hand description.  This is not a bad thing, this is not improper play, this is not wrong.  This is working within the limitations of a text based environment and making acceptable allowances without going to an extreme.

If someone is said to be the green-eyed man that means this person's green eyes are the major feature.  There may be thousands of green-eyed men but there aren't thousands of them who's eyes are their most distinguishing feature.

There may be thousands of tanned individuals but, again, there are not thousands of individuals who's tanned skinned in the _prominent_ and distinguishing feature.

I commend those who wish to introduce uncertainties to describing people.  That's great.  That's fine.  That's wonderful... when it makes sense.  But do not begin to look down or fault others who include the adjectives in their retelling of a description or those who act on such information.

Let's not move to an extreme when the middle ground is so much nicer and enjoyable.  Live and let live.

[spawnloser]

Everything marko said is good.

Also, to expound on the point I was trying to make that didn't seem to get across...

If I saw you, I'd notice a LOT more about you than just that you are a 'tall, blue-eyed man' or whatnot.  There's so much more I would see, but when playing this game, things can move by fast enough that you don't get the chance to look at someone's mdesc...which still won't mention all that there is to notice about that character, just what was included by the player of that character.

Since we work within the confines of limited information, we must use the information given to us by the players around us.

[Angela Christine]

If you lived in a small town of say 5000, you would be dealing with a population 1% of Allanak.  If someone told you that they saw a blue eyed man with black hair, a large build, and bushy eyebrows, then gathered the entire town into a single location, you still would not be able to find that person.  It is damn near impossible to give any physical description that another person could use to find another person.  Now, put yourself in Allanak with 500,000 people and consider the possibility of someone being identified by physical description alone.  Short of drawing a picture, unless that person has very very unique features, they are pretty much lost.

You have a good point, but the 500,000 figure is misleading though.  

According to the documentation about half of the population is slaves, and most slaves are clearly marked as slaves.  Sure, a slave could be dressed as a freeman or vice versa, but that doesn't happen much.  So just on the slave or nonslave axis you've reduced your suspect pool to 250,000.

According to general wisdom (I can't find the population doc at the moment) aproximately half of the population is human, with elves, dwarves, half-giants, half-elves, and muls filling out the other half.  So if can tell the race of the suspect, which is usually obvious except in the case of some half-elves, then you have reduced the suspect pool by at least half.  Assuming it was a non-slave human, then the suspect pool drops to about 125,000.  If it was a non-slave dwarf the pool might be less than 30,000.

You can usually tell if it was male or female, despite the fact that males and females are statistically identical.  Even from an obscured figure you usually get the information that the voice was male or female.  So it is probably safe to assume that you can tell if your suspect was a man, a woman, or a child.  If it was a non-slave adult male human the suspect pool is down to about 50,000 (even smaller for other races).

The crime is most likely to have taken place in the public part commoner's quarter or merchant's quarter.  Many non-slaves (and probably even more slaves) never leave the noble's quarter, never leave the templar's quarter, never leave the 'rinth, never leave the farming communities, or never leave private estates -- they are part of the total population of Allanak, but they aren't going to be in the commoner's quarter commiting crimes.  How many exactly?  I don't know, some thousands at least.

He either was, or was not a person with an obvious mutation, disfigurement, or disability.

His eithnic/cultural background will further narrow down the pool, and is fairly difficult to completely disguise.  Most nobles will stand out even when dressed as commoners, because they have a tendency to stand and move confidently, completely unafraid of attracting attention or inadvertantly catching the attention of a soldier, templar or noble.  A 'rinther is going to have to work long and hard to act like a normal commoner, even if he is wearing a normal commoner's clothes.  A person from Red Storm (quite close to Allanak) has different habits and preferences in clothing from a born and bred 'nakki.  These are difference that the code doesn't impose (except for the accent code) but they nevertheless exist.

Was he relatively prosperous for a commoner, or not.  This would show up in build, weight, apparent health and so on.  It would also show up in clothing, both in the quality of cloathing and the total amount of cloathing.  Was he wearing armor, clothing, or a combination of both?  Most commoners just wear clothing, not armor.   How many layers and accessories was he wearing?  Was he wearing a cloak, and a backpack, and a sash, and a belt, and a quiver, and pants, and sleeves, and bangles on his forearms, and wristwraps on his wrists, and gloves, and anklewraps, and boots, etc.?  Most commoners wear a few items, an aba, some leggings, sandals, maybe a belt with a knife (as much a tool as a weapon), perhaps a headwrap -- possibly a few cheap adornments in the form of bone jewelry or tattoos.  They don't need more than that, and they can't afford more than that, anything more is just unnecessary weight and expense.  A guy that is wearing enough crap to open a small clothing booth is obviously prosperous, even if he happens to be down on his luck today.  Likewise a guy that is wearing much less than usually, perhaps just a loincloth and some thin sandals, is going to stand out from the average.  A person who has recently switched from barely an inch of skin visible to practicly nothing but a loincloth will stand out more than either, because of the visible tan lines or sunburn on his newly exposed skin.

Most of these factors will be visible even if you didn't have time to closely examine him.  You may not have gotten a good enough look to tell if he had two eyebrows or a unibrow, but you could probably tell if he was naked or not.  So if you were the most common type of PC, an average male human commoner, there are going to be thousands other people like you but not hundreds of thousands.  If you were a truely unusual kind of PC, perhaps a female half-giant with an obvious tentical-related mutation, then there are probably less than ten people in the entire city like you.  It is like a huge game of Guess Who?  With just a few facts you can narrow down your suspect list immensely.  

It should not be easy to track down your suspect, but it shouldn't be virtually impossible either.


Angela Christine

[flurry]

I commend those who wish to introduce uncertainties to describing people. That's great. That's fine. That's wonderful... when it makes sense. But do not begin to look down or fault others who include the adjectives in their retelling of a description or those who act on such information.

Let's not move to an extreme when the middle ground is so much nicer and enjoyable. Live and let live.

Okay, I can definitely agree with this.   Although I personally don't like people repeating sdescs verbatim in-game, I'm not going to think less of them as a roleplayer or be less inclined to interact with them.  

However, one example you used before really does strike me as carrying things to the extreme.

I had the experience of having to describe a chocolate person once in the game.  That was interesting.  

After going on about how the person was brown and kinda sweet looking my char ended up shrugging and saying,
   "Well, I guess I'd say he was chocolate... but don't ask me what that really means.  That's just the word that comes to mind."

If this wasn't a real example and was written in jest, nevermind.  But I really think this isn't a reasonable way of roleplaying at all, and is taking things to a ridiculous extreme in a way that breaks the roleplay environment.   If I saw that in game, I would think the other person was breaking character to try to make some point, because how could that possibly be a realistic thing to say?  

Again if it was a joke and I misunderstood, my bad.  It didn't look that way, though.   Not to pick on you, marko, because usually I think you make a lot of good points, but that example really didn't sit well with me.

[Angela Christine]

Personally, I think it's kinda ridiculous when you can't get some sort of better factor for identification because some player decided his character was going to remain 'anonymous' and took the tall, blonde man or some bullshit.

To support my case, I'll use spawnloser, who always references me and never gives credit (like for the sandwich thing, bastard!)  Anyway.

SL looks pretty normal IRL.  Pretty freakishly normal except for his ferret chin.  There are a number of ways to describe him.  Here's three examples:

The blonde-haired, lanky man
The pierced, sinewy man
The ferret-chinned frenchman

ALL of these describe, accurately, spawnloser.  The first time I met him I can remember vividly.  Because he stood out?  No.  Because he, while still looking normal, isn't somehow a faceless mass.  I use these as an example because one of them is CLEARLY more memorable from a short desc standpoint.  Yet they're all the same person.

I swear I get murderous when I see 'tall, muscular men' and 'brown-eyed, dark-skinned women.'  All I want to do is make those screens go 'beep' after beating the PC repeatedly with a sword made of common fucking sense.

I don't think "the ferret-chinned frenchman" would make it through the application process.  

Frenchman:  How can you tell he's a frenchman just from looking at him?  Does he wear a berret, have a cigarette dangling from his lips, a glass of wine in one hand and a baguette in the other all the time?

Ferret-chinned:  The apparent lack of ferrets in the known world is the least of the trouble.  What does this even mean?  Does he have a chin like a ferret's chin, a chin like an entire ferret (soft, furry, cute, and smelly?), or has his jaw been removed and surgically replaced with a ferret?

"The ferret-chinned frenchman" may be descriptive and memorable from an OOC viewpoint, but it isn't very useful for your character.  If you saw him doing something, but only saw his sdesc, how would you describe him to anyone?  "Uh, well he had a sort of smallish chin, and I think he might have been, er . . . pale, I guess."

The sdesc standards discourage really unique or descriptive decriptions.  All those tall, muscular men are practically unavoidable.


Angela Christine

[spawnloser]

No, really, I do look French.  Not like I'm carrying around french stuff.  I just am...French.

[Lazloth]

No, really, I do look French.  Not like I'm carrying around french stuff.  I just am...French.

Don't mean to derail, but the line is too cute:  spawn resembles a cheese-eating surrender monkey.

[spawnloser]

A cheese-eating surrender monkey?  I rather thought I resembled a spider monkey more.

[Akaramu]

If someone is said to be the green-eyed man that means this person's green eyes are the major feature.  There may be thousands of green-eyed men but there aren't thousands of them who's eyes are their most distinguishing feature.

What about those people who look so plain and common that they really dont have a distinguishing feature at all? Say, a thin Allanaki human of average height, brown eyes, tanned skin, matted dark hair. There ARE thousands who look extremely similar. Maybe scars could be used as a distinguishing feature, but not all scars are openly visible.

[spawnloser]

As someone already said, in all seriousness now, we are creating a story...playing the main characters, all few hundred or so.  We are the main characters...the ones that get noticed.  This person you're talking about, Akaramu, would be so plain as to be remarkably plain...remarkable...noticeably plain.

[Larrath]

We are the main characters...the ones that get noticed.  This person you're talking about, Akaramu, would be so plain as to be remarkably plain...remarkable...noticeably plain.

What?
Sorry, but no.  If you can justify someone going to a templar and saying that the killer was 'very plain-looking', I think that there is a problem with your perception.  There's no such thing as 'remarkably unremarkable' - if you're plain, you look like at least ten thousand others.

We are the main characters, not the only characters.  A main character can blend into the crowd.  These people aren't followed by giant spotlights - this is part of the reason why so many NPC sdescs are identical to PC sdescs.  There should be a blur between which real, live Zalanthan is played by a player and which one isn't.

[spawnloser]

Larrath, the point is that saying, "MY character is so bland that you wouldn't notice him," is a cop out.

Picking common keywords for your sdesc is seeking a coded advantage where none should be (the opposite of taking gortok-faced, scrab tattooed) is twinky...not the reverse of using the information.  Your sdesc is the most noticeable things about your character...the things that make your character unique.  If you tell me your character's only outstanding feature is that s/he's plain, don't yell at me for using that information.

[Larrath]

Larrath, the point is that saying, "MY character is so bland that you wouldn't notice him," is a cop out.

This isn't a cop out.  Allanak has maybe ten commoners with ivory skin and long, rich sable manes and kank tattoos.  Allanak has perhaps four thousand commoners with dark sunburnt skin and short, tangled black hair and dark brown eyes.
Some people's faces are simply not memorable and not special.

Picking common keywords for your sdesc is seeking a coded advantage where none should be (the opposite of taking gortok-faced, scrab tattooed) is twinky...not the reverse of using the information.

Picking a character whose looks are plain (and by that, probably very realistic) isn't twinky at all.  How can it even be twinky?  Twinky means taking advantage of the code or relying on very cheap and obvious 'IC' justifications in order to accomplish an OOC goal, or using IC information.  It's twinky to copy a notable PC's sdesc verbatim and start making demands over the Way.  It's twinky to purposely plant keywords in your PC to fool people into giving you objects.
Picking a plain sdesc isn't twinky nor is it seeking an advantage.  Picking a plain sdesc makes it harder on some players to seek an advantage by manipulating the sdesc and pretending it is a name - some people are actually capable of getting overlooked in a crowd, and this attitude takes away this natural and realistic ability.  That is a cop-out.

Your sdesc is the most noticeable things about your character...the things that make your character unique.  If you tell me your character's only outstanding feature is that s/he's plain, don't yell at me for using that information.

Your sdesc isn't really the most noticeable thing about your character.  Your sdesc is a couple of adjectives that gives a rough idea of what your character looks like - your sdesc could be, for example, "the gaunt, six-fingered man".  This same gaunt man can have ankle-long hair and a burnt face, and the sdesc would still be good.
I will yell at you for using a character's sdesc in order to identify him in a sea of tens of thousands, because that is simply twinkery.

"I didn't really get a good look, but he was sort of plain-featured and had a mop of brown hair" is absolutely ridiculous and if someone actually takes this 'description' and uses it to find a single suspect in a city where half of the populace fits the description, then they are beinig twinky by completely neglecting the VNPC populace to avoid being hindered by the worthless description given to them by the informant.

Sdescs are not names - this is why we have sdescs instead of a system that lets us pick which alias of ours will be shown to everyone.

[Seeker]

Larrath, the point is that saying, "MY character is so bland that you wouldn't notice him," is a cop out.

This isn't a cop out.  Allanak has maybe ten commoners with ivory skin and long, rich sable manes and kank tattoos.

Bullshit.

"I didn't really get a good look, but he was sort of plain-featured and had a mop of brown hair" is absolutely ridiculous....

Bullshit again.  If a PC has designed his mdesc and sdesc to give only that carefully calibrated decription to the world, then to use those general terms to try to define him is absolutely legit.  It's all you have.

...if someone actually takes this 'description' and uses it to find a single suspect in a city where half of the populace fits the description, then they are beinig twinky by completely neglecting the VNPC populace to avoid being hindered by the worthless description given to them by the informant.

Spawnloser was not speaking about a second-hand identification by a third person from such a description, and to use that as a support argument for your claim is disingenuous.  

I don't care if he is of average height, average weight, average hair-color, average sex, the average race for his city and only wearing the average type of regional clothing for his ethno-centric class.  He is an individual of a -particular- race, sex, height, weight, facial structure, hair color, and either was or was NOT wearing certain items of clothing.

I'm surprised, Larrath, that you seem to be claiming that a player can deliberately design their character's appearance, through careful blandness in their ldesc and sdesc, to be nondescript, and yet, when anyone else uses these plain, average, general, bland adjectives in their attempt to convey this self-same image of that character that they are somehow out of line.


Seeker
(one edit... misread one of Larrath's statements.)

[Akaramu]

I am starting to understand why many PCs always have their hoods up. It sounds like a good idea.