What did they look like?

[LauraMars]

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

Agreeed!  

>raise hood - FOREVER.

[bloodfromstone]

I have to say that the idea of describing someone with words that your character doesn't know just because they are in a PC's sdesc is ridiculous. I also would like to say that calling twink on any PC who's sdesc doesn't make it easy to describe them in full, arrestable detail is silly as well. So someone wants to play the tall, dark-haired man. Or they want to play the height-gifted, midnight-no-moon-tressed man... Fine. That's why you get to create your own character. Would we rather just have everyone's sdesc be their names?

At the same time, there has to be a level of understanding regarding the mass of vNPCs and the PC population. I have been subdued and arrested (to a very unpleasant end) while wearing a cloak that notes its ability to conceal the wearer's appearance and while facing away from the subduer. Did it irk me? At the time, yes, but the more I think about it, the more I would rather have this happen than people take the virtual population too seriously. Otherwise I'm going to get a job in a virtual clan, because what are the odds of me ending up in a tangible one? I also drink in virtual bars, with my virtual clanmates of course. I'm not joking, though. I've done this a number of times, except it was in notepad and I was writing a story. When I play a mud, I want to play with other people. Pure and simple. If the vNPC population was really taken into full consideration, this would never happen.

[Anonymous]

(on describing the muscular, oleaginous man)

PC 1: Yeah, he was a real strong-looking fella. Kinda greasy, though. Also, I once heard someone say he was real oleaginous.

PC 2: Th' fuck does 'oleaginous' mean?

PC 1: Fuck if I know.

[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.

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.

First of all, I was only talking about the sdesc, not mdesc.  Second, why is this bullshit?  Try going to a poor, violent slum neighbourhood, and then walk up a street.  You're going to have a far easier time finding a supermodel in that alley than a particular bum.  This is because that street is likely to only have one supermodel in it and at least two dozen bums.
If you had to report a crime to the police in this setting, saying "the attacker looked like a bum" is very unhelpful.  But if you say the attacker looked like a supermodel, they have a good shot at finding her.

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.

I think that some people are relatively nondescript, and I don't see anything not legitimate in using the adjective "plain" in an sdesc.  I am not saying that I believe it's fine to engineer the mdesc in order to have no features that can be described.  I do think that some people look bland enough, though, to be very difficult to describe if someone didn't get a good look at them.
What I am against is that people using sdescs verbatim, and I do believe this has been touched on, several times, in this thread.

I also don't like the concept that all PCs must always be the ones targetted.  If my character is a more or less average elf and a templar is told that An Elf has been seen consorting with a defiler, I would be upset if this templar went into the Barrel (where there are at least a dozen elves at nearly all times) and immediately zoom in on me because I am the only PC elf.
Why is my elf, who is sitting in the back and enjoying an ale, more suspicious than the ten other elves in the tavern?

Or let's say it's an Elkran gemmer.  The second the Templarate is told that some gemmed Elkran was causing trouble somewhere, no matter who, where or why, and even if the trouble was in the 'rinth and the single PC Elkran gemmer is a bigtime Oash aide that shits 'sids, this Elkran is going to be called for questioning and probably suffer torture.

Why?  There are dozens of Elkran gemmers, and many of those are probably much more frightening than my mild-mannered rich-boy mage.

The obvious answer is, "because you're a PC and they're not".  I don't think that this is a legitimate answer, however.  If you want to pick someone out of the crowd, that's fine.  But if you're going to use your OOC knowledge that there are very few PC elves that hang around the Barrel in order to unfailingly determine that the PC elf in the Barrel right now is without doubt the defiler's friend, and then use this OOC certainty in order to justify torturing/questioning/killing that elf...  That's simply not good.

[Cale_Knight]

Why?  There are dozens of Elkran gemmers, and many of those are probably much more frightening than my mild-mannered rich-boy mage.

The obvious answer is, "because you're a PC and they're not".  I don't think that this is a legitimate answer, however.  

Sure it's legitimate. You see, all the dozens of vNPC Elkrans are being questioned and tortured by all the vNPC templars. Probably in the cell right next to yours, no less!

[Akaramu]

Sure it's legitimate. You see, all the dozens of vNPC Elkrans are being questioned and tortured by all the vNPC templars. Probably in the cell right next to yours, no less!

If it is possible to be recognized through a third-hand description based on a quick glance in passing, x-rayed through a hood and facewrap, one month after the actual event, then we will simply have more paranoid PCs who stick to themselves and are hardly seen in public at all, and instead live a loner life.

That improves the MUD how?

You made no such example, but others seem to think its fine to pass down exact sdescs with words their characters dont even know. If that is fine for the sake of targeting a PC, it is a small step to having x-ray-vision through facewraps as well as having perfect super memories that never forget anything even after one ingame month of never seeing said person again.

[Rindan]

Sure it's legitimate. You see, all the dozens of vNPC Elkrans are being questioned and tortured by all the vNPC templars. Probably in the cell right next to yours, no less!

I find it pretty doubtful that they grab every single gemmed of a certain temple off of the street and torture them.  I would call that seriously shitty role play to go snag the one PC.  If every single person of a single temple is dragged off the streets, it better be because a black robed Templar ordered it and old Tekkie thinks it is absolutely vital for the city, otherwise it would never happen.

[Agent_137]

I've never seen this happen, this passing of an exact sdesc, ICly. I've seen a couple of advertisements on the OOC boards saying, "i'm a crafter! come to me! I look like this!" but that's about it.

Am I just missing this huge well of twinkdom, or what? I mean, sure, my play experience is mostly limited to the Byn and Kurac, but still.

[Larrath]

I've never seen this happen, this passing of an exact sdesc, ICly. I've seen a couple of advertisements on the OOC boards saying, "i'm a crafter! come to me! I look like this!" but that's about it.

Am I just missing this huge well of twinkdom, or what? I mean, sure, my play experience is mostly limited to the Byn and Kurac, but still.

You're missing it.  It happens most commonly around the Militia clans - people report a crime and say that "a green-eyed, squat young man" did it.
It's pretty common.  Sometimes it's abused, sometimes it's disregarded.

[Marauder Moe]

I see it happen all the time.  Well, very seldom with an exact copy of the sdesc.  Something like you're told about the sapphire-eyed, barrel-chested man and someone well say "Well, he's got a barrel-shaped chest, and he's got eyes that look like sapphires".

[joyofdiscord]

There's lots of sdesc shenanigans going on.  I once saw a PC elf described and subsequently captured by mentioning two traits (their sdesc traits) that should be common to virtually -all- elves.  The player doing the describing was something of a PC superior, but I still reported him to MUD.

[Lazloth]

I've never seen this happen, this passing of an exact sdesc, ICly.

It's extremely common.

All that aside, we as players can behave according to whatever principles we've adopted and feel like championing.  If I as a militia grunt have been told that "a tall, lanky elf" just threw dung at a noble and I was to treat this as a high priority to mitigate, if in the course of some investigation I run across three elves together - the green-eyed ugly elf, the toothless elven woman, the tall, lanky elf - I'm going to probably cart off the bunch and not zero on the obvious.