The DEFINITIVE list of nouns that can be used in sdescs

[Sokotra]

And that it describes how they look, physically, rather than their forced state of mental maturity in a harsh world.

...no, it doesn't.

"Boy" and "girl" tells you nothing that a more specific, allowable term could. In modern English, a "boy" and a "girl" can be between 3 and 25 years old. How does that describe anything?

Not to mention, since we're getting into semantics, "boy" and "girl" in a modern sense is almost an entirely mental term. Great, you've told me your character's gender. You've told me nothing else. At all. You're obviously trying to refer to your character's age, because otherwise you would have used "male" or "female." The problem is that they don't in any way at all help specify the character's age. Youth, teen and teenager are all much better words when it comes to that respect. If you think "boy" and "girl" are synonyms to "teen," you've again fallen into the trap of sloppy OOC assumptions.

Hmm.. Yeah, I see how - in modern english - that "boy" or "girl" is only describing gender, but still that is only in certain circumstances if you really think about it.  Honestly, I think that when used in a sdesc in Zalanthas that it is almost 100% of the time going to be leading one to think of someone in their early teens or younger.   And I'm pretty sure that is how it is and was meant to be used.

[Marauder Moe]

Not sure if this has been brought up before in this thread or not... but I believe one reason the staff took away "boy" and "girl" is the same reason why they disallowed characters under 13.  These characters (those under 13 or with "boy" or "girl" in their sdesc) were often being played like spoiled, immature, helpless Earth children.  I think that's much harder to get away with when your emotes always echo "man" or "woman".

[Angela Christine]

What about guy and girl? To me this insinuates the same as young man and young woman but is not so character demanding.

I can't see allowing "guy" either. 

The tall, muscular guy
The brown-haired, blue-eyed guy
The gaunt, pale guy

Is there any example where "guy" would be more appropriate than "man"? 





I hope some of the races in A2 have masculine and feminine forms, like man and woman, at least for races where anyone would care about the sex.  It has always irked me that if you say dwarf, elf, giant, etc., without mentioning gender many players will assume that the character is male by default.  So a male charcter can be "the <> elf" but a female character has to be "the <> female elf".  It isn't fair that females should need to waste extra sdesc space, while males do not.

The inequity could easily be solved with something like:

Elf = any elf, an unknown elf, an androgynous elf
Elfo = a male elf
Elfa = a female elf.

Simple, easy, fair.

[Maso]

I think people misplaying 13-16 yr old 'children' is no different from people misplaying ANY type of character. Which is always possible. I personally met plenty of young girl/boy characters before the 'ban' and I didn't meet any that were played like helpless young earth children. However the mentality of a 13 yr old is always going to be less immature than a 21 yr old. However, the difference I believe between Earth and Zalanthian kids is that the Zalanthian ones feel the need to ACT like adults.

However, a 13 yr old girl is definately NOT a young woman. A 13 yr old female is a girl and there is no question in my mind about that. Despite how worldly, mature and hardworking she may be she is still a GIRL. She probably hasn't finished puberty, she probably doesn't even have breasts.

I recently met a few times with a character who I now believe was only 13/14. However the sdesc said 'young man' and for the entirety of the time I was playing with him I assumed him to be about 20, right up until he said how old he was. Now, I had read his mdesc and it probably did hint, but I tend to scan and build an image in my head quite quickly. I also had assessed, but because my character was quite old this did not help very much. After that I found his sdesc to be jarring to me, because it kept telling me he was a young man, and I had to keep reminding myself he was a 13 yr old boy.

[Angela Christine]

We only get a limited number of sdesc changes (2 or so?) so it isn't great to put your age in your sdesc anyway.  Unless you are one of those players (like me) who has trouble keeping a PC alive for more than a month or two.

[Maso]

I'm sure if you lived long enough to span boy to man to old man then the staff would probably let you get away with a third.

[Sokotra]

Yeah.. so.. a lot of us think "girl" and "boy" (for teens and younger) works better in zalanthas than "young man" or "young woman".  I think "teen" is a little jarring myself, as well.   I still don't see the problem.   Like Maso said, people misplaying 13-16 yr old "children" is no different from people misplaying ANY other type of character.

[NoteworthyFellow]

We only get a limited number of sdesc changes (2 or so?) so it isn't great to put your age in your sdesc anyway.  Unless you are one of those players (like me) who has trouble keeping a PC alive for more than a month or two.

Oooh!  Me!  Me!  That's me!  She's talking about me!

Most of my players tend to be of an age where "young <gendered pronoun>" would be the appropriate noun for their sdescs, mostly because I always find it tricky to rationalize an older character being so damn inept.  Any mature/old characters I make tend to be the type to not rely on coded skills as a result.  So, I'm getting used to using "young man" and "young woman" in my sdescs.  For characters age 13-16 or so, I tend to use "youth," but that being gender neutral sometimes provides a slight issue.  Then again, "half-elf," "elf," "dwarf," and so on are also gender neutral, so I suppose that's not a huge deal.

Younger than 13 (which is, of course, special app) should absolutely be "boy" or "girl," though.  And I'd personally be okay with characters younger than 15 or so having those pronouns as well.

Speaking of sdesc changes, why the arbitrary limit?  If there has to be one, I'd like maybe one or two more changes allowed, just to allow for massive, physically-altering events that might not be foreseeable.  I mean, what is one to do if, say, one has changed sdesc (and mdesc) twice already, to reflect a character's aging, and then that character, say, is burned all over in a horrible fire with no magickal healing to make them 100% new?  Covering them in coded burn scars is one thing, but it should definitely be reflected in their descriptions.  It isn't as though players can do this at will, anyway--it always has to go through the staff.  A limit on how often it can be done could help avoid a flood of such requests, as well, just like with special apps.

[Tisiphone]

Speaking of sdesc changes, why the arbitrary limit?

The reason for the limit is to help lessen the load on staff, specifically Highlords, who have a lot of work to do already. The reason for it being two is that over the life of a character you're unlikely to need more than that.

...just to allow for massive, physically-altering events that might not be foreseeable.  I mean, what is one to do if, say, one has changed sdesc (and mdesc) twice already, to reflect a character's aging, and then that character, say, is burned all over...

Exceptional circumstances are yet another reason why we have human staff taking care of tasks like this; judgement calls can be made for those exceptions.

[FantasyWriter]

Isn't the short description length 35 characters?

Is it?  I would like to know, please.

[Archbaron]

Isn't the short description length 35 characters?

Is it?  I would like to know, please.

Yes. It is 35 characters.