Emotive Styles

[Shalooonsh]

Greetings, I hope the day finds you all well.

Because, I am, unfortunately, about to 'cramp your style.'

I've noticed a growing trend lately in emotive styles that troubles me.  While it can be amusing at times to bend the emotive rules, the game actually suffers in the long run if this becomes the norm.

Here's a few examples (taken directly from the game) of things I (as a member of staff, and not speaking from the perspective of the entirety of the staff) would like to see never, ever happen again:

** Crossing her ankles to be sure her (something) is visible, the (sdesc) opts to shut the hell up and watch.

** Obviously embarrassed, (sdesc) facepalms.

** Angrily resisting, (sdesc) rips her arm back as if starting a lawn mower.

At first I had noticed a player, or two, doing this kind of thing.  Not anything big, and they mostly kept it to very private situations in which some additional OOC humor would be appreciated.  Lately, however, it has grown more and more public, and widespread.

I'm not an emotive nazi.  I don't care if you emote 'loosely' when you can't actually reference an object using ~.  An example of this would be while in a shop, and gesturing to the massive towershield (instead of writing out the absolutely immense, tortoiseshell and steel banded hoplite shield from hell).  Since you can't target it, and there's only one really huge shield in the seller's list, it's fine to be a bit loose with your descriptors.

The problem arises when you start making emotes like this on a scene-by-scene basis.  When it doesn't end.  And -especially- when it starts influencing newbies to emote in the same manner.

Please, people, be a bit more delicate with your use of loose and humorous emotes.  It is getting extremely heavy handed, and common, and this brings displeasure to the brainz eaters.

I've put this in the general discussion thread because I would also like to hear your thoughts on it.  I don't want apologies, I don't want finger pointing.  I wan't opinions, reasoning, and intelligent questions.

Thanks much!

[bardbard#4]

** Obviously embarrassed, (sdesc) facepalms.

I think that's ok.  I've used the 'facepalm' verb for years because it's shorter than typing out 'slaps a palm against his face'.  Same thing.  It's kinda funny actually, since when I use 'facepalm' in real life, no one seems to know what I'm talking about.  I don't know when or where I picked this one up in my mudding career, but somehow it seems contained to that.

I can't imagine 'obviously embarrassed' is bad either.  It's pretty obvious when someone is embarrassed, you know?  You can just tell.

[Marauder Moe]

Just to be clear, is this just about the real-world references in those emotes or the emotional descriptors too?

[psionic fungus]

I have to agree.  Emotes are not the place for OOC humor.

I even get annoyed when I see things like:

"The man looks at you, his lips curled in obvious distain."

Obvious distain?  What the hell's that?  Why don't you -show- me obvious distain, instead of telling me?  Eh?  HMm?  WHY!?!

Okay, I'm done.  But I agree wholeheartedly, people need to be more serious with their emoting, and please try to keep the language physically descriptive and not so poetically emotional and such.  That annoys the crap out of me.

[Maso]

I personally don't like stuff like....

"opts to shut the hell up and watch." and "(sdesc) rips her arm back as if starting a lawn mower." as I find them jarring and I was a dorky newbie who read all the docs and a lot of the GDB and learnt to expect more from Arm.

However I think emotional descriptors, while should be used with care, are quite difficult to get around. They have been the topic of huge discussion before, however, so I doubt further massive debate about them is really necessary?

Editted to remove silly [/b] and to reply to PF.

Not everyone has the vocabulary, energy, focus to describe 'disdain' 'slight anger' 'shame'. These are things that we have learnt over our lives of interaction to pick up in peoples very very subtle expressions. But how to describe that particular twitch of eye or lips that represents certain emotions is pretty damn difficult.

[Shalooonsh]

Facepalm is an anachronism.  Also, it is not an actual word.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/facepalm

[Marauder Moe]

Obvious distain?  What the hell's that?  Why don't you -show- me obvious distain, instead of telling me?  Eh?  HMm?  WHY!?!

Out of curiousity, how would you show someone obvious disdain?

[Jherlen]

Just to be clear, is this just about the real-world references in those emotes or the emotional descriptors too?

I'd say both.

The lawnmower emote aside, I'd say the others are okay if used sparingly. Humorous and subjective emotes have their place sometimes, in the right situations. They're like spice. They're great to add flavor to a scene, but if you overuse them, you spoil things.

I'd still rather choose to play with someone whose emotes were too flavorful, versus too plain or non-existent, though. I'd likely also choose someone whose emotes were like the above examples over someone who spams 3 line flowerfest emotes at me. I think it's all a matter of taste.


edited because I should have known there would be other replies while I was typing mine

[psionic fungus]

-Really- quickly, and simply, to illustrate from my own example, rather than:

"The man looks at you, his lips curled in obvious distain."

I would vastly prefer to see something like:

"The man looks at you, his lips curled downwards in a sneer."

That's -really- simple and it certainly gets the message across.

Shit, I would prefer to see:

"The man looks at you, frowning."

Even:

"The man looks at you, his lips curled distainfully." or:
"The man looks at you, his lips curled in distain."

The modifier of "obvious" I find to be the real culprit in this emote.  If it's obvious you don't have to tell me that.  Just show me what the character is physically doing.

:/

[Marauder Moe]

To me, though, a sneer implies malicious intent more than it does disdain.  A frown can mean many different things.

In real life, I can pretty easily tell the difference between facial expressions of sadness, maliciousness, and disdain.  I find it pretty hard to describe the differences, though.  Human facial expressions are terribly subtle.

[Xygax]

To extend my post from here, my thoughts on these emotes are the following:

** Crossing her ankles to be sure her (something) is visible, the (sdesc) opts to shut the hell up and watch.

(As a side note, I love Shalooonsh's censorship here, it makes a rather tame emote look very naughty!)  I'm not in love with the "shut the hell up" clause here, and while I'm sure the player won't appreciate having this recent emote be dissected, it's the sort of emote I hope players will turn away from in favor of better, subtler language.  It's not a BAD emote, but it could be improved by erring on the side of objectivity over subjectivity and OOCly conveyed emotion.

** Obviously embarrassed, (sdesc) facepalms.

I'm a bit at-odds with Shalooonsh on this one.  I'm fine with both "obviously embarrassed" and "facepalms."  Again, this emote might have been improved by an objective style, but it can indeed be difficult to objectively describe "embarrassment".  That said, it can be fun to objectively describe the way -your character- reveals embarrassment and let viewers react appropriately.  Perhaps your character's embarrassment is revealed as a facial tick of some sort, or an oddly curled lip -- and perhaps other PCs interpret these reactions as being deceptive or snide.  This can be fun for the whole family, and is the core reason I am such a fan of objectivity.

That said, objectivity can be verbose and finding a nice happy medium between objective descriptions and just getting to the point can be challenging.

** Angrily resisting, (sdesc) rips her arm back as if starting a lawn mower.

The lawn-mower reference is anachronistic and jarring here, though the use of simile here (if sparingly done) might be interesting with a more in-game reference.

-- X

[Rindan]

I have to agree.  Emotes are not the place for OOC humor.

I even get annoyed when I see things like:

"The man looks at you, his lips curled in obvious distain."

Obvious distain?  What the hell's that?  Why don't you -show- me obvious distain, instead of telling me?  Eh?  HMm?  WHY!?!

I actually don't find this to be so bad.  I would probably reword it a little, but some times being blatant is quicker and therefor better then trying to describe just exactly what the expression 'disdain' looks like.  I know what disdain looks like when I see it, but I would be pretty hard pressed to write out an emote on the fly to describe it.  The only thing I would change to this emote would be to switch the word "obvious" with "apparent".  The only reason why I nit pick is because "obvious" implies that disdain is certainly what the character feels, while apparent implies that a look of disdain is what that character is showing on their face and that internally they could feel some other way.  Even then, I rate it as a nit pick and not a great sin.  "Obviously" isn't that bad, just probably not the best wording.

Describing facial expressions is hard, time consuming, and a good way to confuse the hell out of people if you do it poorly.  I don't think that stating clearly what the expression implies is all that great of a sin.  It isn't ideal, but it beats slowing a quick conversation down or confusing what is going on.

[Gimfalisette]

I have not noticed a huge quantity of the OOC humor happening in game. I do know some people who will do it in completely private situations and as long as it's entirely brief and there's a reason for doing it, I really don't mind. The problem with OOC / anachronistic stuff is that it breaks immersion, of course. I can stand to have my immersion broken for like...one or two emotes...but that's my limit, and then we need to get back to the game.

The emotional descriptors...well, it really depends. There are some emotions that would be extremely, extremely difficult to describe in text without sitting and staring at the screen for ten minutes. For example, what if you wanted to indicate that there was a mixture of rage and sorrow on the character's face? I'd rather you take a moment to come up with "his face twisting in a pained mixture of rage and sorrow" than throw down "frowning," or alternately make me wait and wait while you struggle to come up with something that only describes physical movements of the face and still doesn't do the job. It's all about communicating, and all we've got is the text to do that with.

Easier emotions, sure, show those rather than tell them. Simple emotions are fairly simple to show.

[bloodfromstone]

I'm bad about this sometimes. However, sometimes I intentionally don't target items that have obnoxiously long sdescs. Personally, I appreciate it when other players do this. If I want to see what the item is like, I can always look at it without seeing their ebon black pitch negro dark blackened shirt all the time.

[Gimfalisette]

I'm bad about this sometimes. However, sometimes I intentionally don't target items that have obnoxiously long sdescs. Personally, I appreciate it when other players do this. If I want to see what the item is like, I can always look at it without seeing their ebon black pitch negro dark blackened shirt all the time.

I agree with this. And for me, after I've targeted the thing once, I'm not going to target it with every single emote. In fact, I think just typing out "her skirt" is fine (for example), because if another player then wants to "look gimpy's skirt" they can check it out without getting the big-ol' sdesc shoved in their face. Too much sdesc targeting can be wearying and get in the way of the real meaning of emotes, IMO.

[Marauder Moe]

Fair enough.  "Obvious" probably isn't the best word to use when describing externally-visible emotional states, but I'm not sure it's a terrible breach of conduct.  There's no way in hell I'm going to describe the position of every tiny facial muscle instead of typing "disdain" every time I see an elf, though.

There's certainly a line.

GOOD: "emote scowls angrily"
OK: "emote looks angry"
BAD: "emote is angry"
REALLY BAD: "emote is angry because of what ~person just said"


I also certainly agree with the OOC references in emotes, but I think emotive humor meant for the player instead of the character isn't neccesarily all bad.  I once wrote a flowery emote about adding another flavor to the aromatic atmosphere... of the Byn latrines.  ICly it just smells bad, but OOCly I thought it was pretty funny.  It was all plain English free of modern references, however.  Was that still a bad thing?

[Rindan]

I'm bad about this sometimes. However, sometimes I intentionally don't target items that have obnoxiously long sdescs. Personally, I appreciate it when other players do this. If I want to see what the item is like, I can always look at it without seeing their ebon black pitch negro dark blackened shirt all the time.

Maybe the staff might violently disagree with me, but I am 100% a-okay with not referring to items with a ~ or % when attempting to do it for a stylistic reason.  In fact, I think that the compulsion to refer to any object with ~ and % some times leads to some really ugly looking emotes.

:The figure in the dark hood cloak pulls the edge of his cloak tightly around himself.

is better than...

:The figure in the dark hooded cloak pulls the edge of his dark hooded cloak tightly around himself.

As long as it is clear what you are referring too, I don't have an issue with people taking liberties and not using exact sdescs for items.  Only in the case of other PCs do I think you absolutely must use the object commands.

[Gimfalisette]

I also certainly agree with the OOC references in emotes, but I think emotive humor meant for the player instead of the character isn't neccesarily all bad.  I once wrote a flowery emote about adding another flavor to the aromatic atmosphere... of the Byn latrines.  ICly it just smells bad, but OOCly I thought it was pretty funny.  It was all plain English free of modern references, however.  Was that still a bad thing?

Just speaking for myself of course, I don't think that's bad at all. I enjoy it when another player does things like that, because although I'm laughing OOCly, my character is not at all jarred by it. You just used flowery language to indicate that you did something nasty, and to my character, it's perceived as nasty, NOT flowery. But there's no way for me to interpret "lawnmower" as not jarring to my character...if that makes sense.

[psionic fungus]

his face twisting in a mixture of rage and sorrow.

This truthfully doesn't annoy me nearly so much as if there were a word like "obvious" thrown in there.  However, I would still -prefer- to see wholly physical descriptions. Something like:

"Lips set in a quivering line, his face twitches as deep creases appear in his brow."

Doesn't make us mind readers who -know- that he is experiencing a pained mix of sorrow and rage.

While these things are often easily discernable in real life, they are also -often- mis-read.  When I'm concentrating I tend to crease my brow, I cannot count the number of times I've had friends think I was angry with them about something, when I was just trying to remember an address or phone number.  Perhaps Mr. Quivery-Lips DeepBrow just ate something sour, maybe he just found out that his lover was murdered, I really can't say for sure -just- based on his facial expression, especially if it is someone I don't know well.  I would prefer to take the physical description and combine that with the context of the conversation, or with my previous knowledge of the character, and base my conclusions about his emotional state on that.

But really, this is just a personal peeve, on the other hand, jarringly OOC references and OOC humor are just -wrong-.

The "Obviously embarrassed" example is why I threw "obvious" in my own example.  And it's an easy one to fix.  "Face turning a deep shade of crimson" or -whatever-.  Blushing is almost always a sign of embarrassment, utilize it.  If your chracter shows embarrassment another way, use that, people who know you will know you're embarrassed, and if they don't know you, well then it wasn't very "obvious".

Sometimes throwing an emotion in an emote is quicker, easier, and / or appropriate, but I, personally, in almost every situation, would prefer to see emotion shown through physical descriptions as much as possible.

[ale six]

I try to avoid anachronisms whenever possible. However I don't consider "facepalms" an anachronism, and if it may not be an official word, it's one enough people will understand, and it isn't 1337speak in the flavor of "pwns" or anything.

Emotion is a grey area. I think either way people have been saying is fine. Either using a word directly or describing an expression that reflects the emotion. For myself, I tend to like the indirect approach better when someone can do it well, because it makes the scene more interesting when a player doesn't come out straight and tell you their emotions. "emote turns her head away, squeezing her eyes shut and wincing as if struck." is better than "emote turns her head away with a betrayed expression", at least in my book. But sometimes you can't think of anything. So when you can't, better to just use the word.

The time when subjective emotes become REALLY bad is when they stop conveying actions or emotions and start conveying thoughts. For instance, the ever-present example: "emote thinks ~man is really dumb for what he just did." Or, an example that I actually saw a player use once: "emote scoffs derisively at the ridiculousness of your comment."

But barring extreme stuff like that, I think a little subjectivity in emotes can be okay, when it isn't constantly over the top in every scene. I'd rather see there be more emotes in the game, not less.

[Tisiphone]

It is sometimes difficult to tell when you're slipping modern language into emotes. Lawnmowers are obvious, apparently for others facepalming is less obvious.

Not saying this as an excuse, but as a warning. Accidentally including them is as bad as doing it on purpose, so keep your eyes open.

PF, as to your favored style of emoting, I'm partially inclined to agree, though I still throw my baggage on the other side of the fence. Here's why.

While in real life we aren't 'mind readers', there are a lot of subconscious emotional cues on people's faces which we never consciously see. Our analytical pattern machine picks them up and matches them before passing them to our thinker. So you see, explaining in detail whether that's a grimace of distaste, disdain, or terror, without using those emotional words, can in fact become very difficult, and even inaccurate.

[Medena]

To extend my post from here, my thoughts on these emotes are the following:

** Crossing her ankles to be sure her (something) is visible, the (sdesc) opts to shut the hell up and watch.

(As a side note, I love Shalooonsh's censorship here, it makes a rather tame emote look very naughty!)  I'm not in love with the "shut the hell up" clause here, and while I'm sure the player won't appreciate having this recent emote be dissected, it's the sort of emote I hope players will turn away from in favor of better, subtler language.  It's not a BAD emote, but it could be improved by erring on the side of objectivity over subjectivity and OOCly conveyed emotion.

Again, my own apologies for dissecting this emote but I think there is something about this one that has been overlooked which makes it poor.  "opts to shut the hell up" describes the thought process behind the action and not at all what one could physically see.  It would be like emoting:

emote after a mental struggle, @ decides to take the blue pill

instead of something like:

emote after several moments of staring at each of the pills, @ finally reaches out for the blue one

[Adhira]

Medena has managed to find the real issue here, I think.

What I am seeing happening more and more often is people using the emoting system to detail things that are irrelevant and there for 'amusement', or describing things that the viewer wouldn't know.

An emote is a description of an action, and I think this is the paramount item to consider when constructing your emote.

[Hymwen]

I'm guilty of the humorous emotes, but generally only when alone or with one particular player.

I'm a little confused about the direct reference to items - is it prefered that I do ~sword every time instead of "her sword"? If I'm sparring and have just drawn my sparring sword, I just refer to it simply as a/the/her sword, rather than "a bloodied short bone sparring sword" each time.

About the showing of emotions rather than letting the viewer guess, I've always done that and always prefered when others do that. I'd rather see "sends you an angry look" than "frowns and looks at you with a lowered brow" or something to that extent. Not saying that it's appropriate to "looks at you sadly because you killed their best friend", but you can use sadly and I'd have no problems with it.

A thing that I find strange is when people emote something completely redundant. It tends to look like they feel they should emote, but can't think of anything. Not targeting anyone in particular, but I just think it's odd to see, for example, someone doing "emote turns north" before going north. It's not that they're not allowed to emote things like that, but nobody's assuming they teleported to the bar if they don't emote walking there, or that they're walking backwards if they don't emote which way they turn. It's not wrong, but I'd rather see -how- they walk than just the fact that they do it, which I'm already assuming happened if they walk north. Pointless emotes just bother me a little, especially if the same player then doesn't emote an action that should be emoted. Maybe I should worry less about stuff.

Another thing that is often emoted strangely with is eyes. I've seen anything from someone "casting their eyes through the room" to someone's "eye stalking your every movement", or players emoting the exact color of their eyes in every emote that contains the act of observing something. Just gets to me.

On a final note, I wish the original poster would have used some emotes that were fabricated examples made for the post, instead of targeting a specific player by using three of their emotes. I believe the player in question should have been contacted personally about the issue instead.

[alger]

I'm guilty of the "Obviously ~something~" sometimes and do fall into the trap of describing a thought process rather than the action itself though I do consciously try not to.  Thing is I find English to be quite limited in certain aspects.  It has a lot of words for different things but not that many words to fully describe complex/abstract things.  It can be quite annoying when there's this nagging word in your head that describes what you want perfectly but there's just no english substitute for it.

[James de Monet]

One area I think might give a little frame of reference to this topic is when a character is thinking.  People who are thinking don't usually look like they're thinking unless they want you to know that they're thinking (otherwise they tend to look like they're staring).  You all know the look I'm talking about.  The eyes go to the side (or up), we screw up our faces a little, and maybe, for effect, add in a big, "ummm......".  However, if you were to write this as a descriptive emote, people might well think your char just crapped himself.  It doesn't convey well in text.  Vis-a-vis, however, they'd know exactly what that face meant, "give me a minute, I'm thinking."  So, you could write "the nondescript man [looks like he's crapping himself]" or you could write "the nondescript man scratches his chin in thought."  Is it a giveaway?  Sure, but it would be in real life, too.  It's meant to be.

Another one is remembering something.  You can write "the nondescript man snaps his fingers as he gives his head a quick dip, sighing vexedly," but honestly, I think it's unwieldy, and it's a little hard to picture.  "The nondescript mad snaps his fingers as though remembering something" is simpler and more effective.  Again, IRL, eveyone knows what a snap and that weird little noise you make in the back of your throat while exhaling through your nose means, but how do you set it down in text?




P.S. I gotta say about the facepalm thing, though.  That does kind of bother me.  I think it's because honestly, it seems like a modern gesture, like a high five, or the bird.  It isn't a natural gesture (at least, not when you associate it with a recently assigned name, there's the crux).  It has cultural meaning.  If you type, "drops his face into his hand, looking distressed" I probably wouldn't even notice, but "facepalms" is a little jarring.  Plus, I think its presence on UrbanDictionary is bad for your case of the acceptability of its use on Arm.    :wink:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=facepalm

[Lizzie]

I've seen the eye-casting thing too Hymwen. It doesn't really bother me but sometimes when I'm in a mood it makes me snicker because I'm pretty sure the player doesn't really mean their eyeballs aren't really leaving their heads and wandering around the bar. On the other hand I've probably typed that once or twice til I realized how silly it looked. So now I do a "casting a gaze" or "her gaze scanning the crowd" with the occasional reference to the color or shape of her eyes (her cool blue-eyed gaze or something like that).

I've seen a lot of odd emotes lately, but most of them from just a few different characters. It does bother me when emotes become editorials. That's the term I use for it. So-and-so opts to shut the hell up - is an editorial. So and so peers curiously at you, because he thinks you look familiar - is an editorial. I even saw someone add talking to an emote, which I really did find jarring. "The guy looks at you and says "Nice to see you." Or something like that. Talk about breaking through the language barriers.

Basically it gets down to this:

If your emote is telling me why you are doing something, if your emote is telling me how you feel about something, I probably would rather see it worded differently to make me guess how or why. The term "emote" is inaccurate. You're not really displaying your character's emotions. You're acting. In some games that's the actual term: Act. You're telling -what- is going on, and letting the player reading your text discover (or not) the whys and hows of it.

L. Stanson

[flurry]

I think the OP makes a good point about emoting that can cross the line in terms of modern slang or anachronisms.  I haven't seen many of those, but I think it can be a problem.

I just wanted to remark on one thing that has come up a few times in this thread.  People have made reference to this usually happening in "private" situations or among small numbers of players.  I'm not sure that should be a consideration.  It's rare that you're guaranteed to be in private, especially if you include immortals.  Even if you were, I don't think it's a good idea to relax your own standards of roleplay, because it's bound to spill over into more public scenes.

[spawnloser]

If people can "facepalm," what's to stop people from "jumping to his feet fo' reelz biotch?"

[bardbard#4]

If people can "facepalm," what's to stop people from "jumping to his feet fo' reelz biotch?"

Because they aren't at all the same?

Facepalm = palms his/her face.

for reelz biotch = ebonics.

[Marauder Moe]

Facepalm = palms his/her face.

for reelz biotch = ebonics.

And neither is officially part of the English language.

[bardbard#4]

That doesn't mean they are equally jarring.  Ebonics is far, far more egregious than facepalm.

[Marauder Moe]

Where do you draw the line, though?  Some arbitrary border based on what feels jarring, or Websters?

[bardbard#4]

I think in this particular case, facepalm is just a simple truncation of a phrase.  The components of it are two actual words: face and palm.  When you start using words like 'reelz' and 'biotch', you are delving heavily into regional patois, which incidentally leads to words being outlandishly misspelled to accurately depict their pronunciation.  It'd be like having someone speak like Ali G, and that's just silly.

[Marauder Moe]

Facepalm is a modern phrase, even more modern than much of ebonics.

[bardbard#4]

I don't think its modernness can be used as an argument against it.  It may be modern, but its linguistic differentiation from real English is far less than ebonics.  I mean come on....emote palms his face.  emote facepalms himself.  Heck, put in a hyphen to make it a little more appropriate: emote face-palms himself.  It's not THAT much of a departure.  How can you possibly argue that this is on the same level as ebonics?

I think we should consult Noam Chomsky.

[bardbard#4]

Incidentally, I think actually expanding 'facepalm' into its real action looks better and has more stylistic oomph to it, but I don't get terribly upset when I see it.  It's one of those things that I think people don't realize might seem jarring, because it is so close to the actual phrase.

[Marauder Moe]

I put it on the same level because of where I draw the border around acceptable Armageddon language.

"What bardbard#4 feels isn't too jarring" is not a good way to define what's ok and what isn't.

I place "facepalm" and ebonics on the same level because both are neither in the dictionary nor are they Armageddon-specific terms.

[Lizzie]

The words fat, dope, and crib are all in the dictionary. And yet I would find it extremely jarring to see them laced in the following sentence:

Your clothes are fat, they make you look dope and I want to take you to my crib.

It's modern slang, and doesn't belong, even though it -is- in the dictionary.

As for facepalm, from what I understand it is more of a cartoon/chat convention than a word used in real life. I mean, how many of you have used the word facepalm in daily conversation at work or with your buddies at the beer hall? I have -never- heard the word said out loud, by anyone, anywhere, in any circumstance. I have, however, seen it written in comic books and in chat rooms.

Chat speak doesn't belong in any RPI, though I'm sure plenty of hack-n-slashes are fine with it.

L. Stanson

[Marauder Moe]

To assume that when I say "a word that is not in the dictionary and isn't an Armageddon term isn't acceptable for use in the game" I am implying "a word that is in the dictionary is also acceptable for use in the game" would be faulty logic.

[Lizzie]

One can only hope the general population would realize that Moe. I was just making sure to include it so that semantics freaks and nitpickers would be headed off at the pass, so to speak.

L. Stanson

[ale six]

Eyes are a thing that get overemoted a lot. I used to do this myself, reading back through logs of my first couple PCs I shiver at how many times my crystal-blue eyes or light-flecked hazel eyes did this or that. Plus, when you're talking with someone in a bar or somewhere, unless you are REALLY paying attention to them (i.e. watch), are you going to notice every little thing their eyes do? Luckily, now we have the wonderful hemote command, and I encourage everyone to use that for small gestures like eye movements and facial twitches.

And before I get back on the topic, let me just say... eyes are eyes. They are not "orbs". Just like hair is hair and not string.

Sorry for going there, but since the thread is about emote pet peeves, I had to get it off my chest.


Anyway! I still don't see any more problem with facepalm than I would with, say, giving someone a thumbs-up or a handshake or flipping the bird. I guess that doesn't jar me as much as reading ebonics or seeing someone talk like they're playing Counterstrike would.

Beyond that I mostly agree with what Lizzie said, so I'll opt to shut the hell up and watch.

[spawnloser]

:lol:

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You horrendously slash the carru in the neck.
The carru falls to the ground.
The guy in green armor slashes the carru in the neck really hard.

[BEEP]

> say gg good buddy gg
The guy in red armor says, over his head-set:
  "gg good buddy gg"

The guy in green armor says, over his head-set:
  "yeah gg gg"I can see it now. :twisted:

More seriously, though, the point I was making about 'facepalm' and ebonics is that they both aren't English that everyone is going to know, being slang.  I'd prefer to err on the side of encouraging people NOT to do it for others' comprehension.

[Nao]

Facepalm is pretty self-explanatory, even I got a good image of it when I first heard this.

[Maso]

I had never seen/heard the term 'facepalm' until someone used it in an emote on Arm.  :shock:

[Hot_Dancer]

Save the funny emotes for the mudsex.

[a strange shadow]

Save the funny emotes for the mudsex.

QFMFT.

[psionic fungus]

The nondescript mad snaps his fingers as though remembering something

I just want to point out that I find this to be much less irksome than:

"The nondescript man snaps his fingers, remembering something."

The use of "as though" helps establish that this is detailing the way he snaps his fingers.  The alternative "remembering something" simply tells us that he is remembering something.  The type of emote that -really- gets on my nerves, using this example, would be:

"The nondescript man snaps his fingers, obviously remembering something."

Now not only are you simply telling me that he is remembering something, you're telling me that it is obvious as well.  I could see an emote like that from across the room while in the middle of another conversation. I would prefer to see good use of physically descriptive words coupled with the use of the hemote command.

This is the way I would -prefer- to see the emote:

"You notice: Biting his cracked lower lip as he looks towards the silt-caked ceiling,  the nondescript man snaps his fingers and nods, expression shifting to a wry grin."

[Folker]

About the showing of emotions rather than letting the viewer guess, I've always done that and always prefered when others do that. I'd rather see "sends you an angry look" than "frowns and looks at you with a lowered brow" or something to that extent. Not saying that it's appropriate to "looks at you sadly because you killed their best friend", but you can use sadly and I'd have no problems with it.

I agree with this one. "frowns and looks at you with a lowered brow" may mean so many things. It may mean that they're worried, ponderious, puzzled, tense, angered, or just plain hungry. While in RL, you would in most cases deduce the body language immediately, from context, and dozens if not hundreds of subtle things which would require one and a half of screen length to fully describe. It 'is' much easier to just glance angrilly, because well ... you understand it, you can 'imagine' it in your head, and it does 'not' break the atmosphere apart. You do not think your character would've understood the facial expression? Then dont let your chara understand it, inquire about the odd face they're giving you, or just plain ignore it.


And just to leap onto the bandwagon. The most funniest and most jarring emote I've seen was something of that sort:

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So and so leans on the bar, watching the show of the two men arguing, it looks like the only thing she's lacking is a bowl of popcorn

Something like that, I soo wanted to backstab that character.

[ale six]

"frowns and looks at you with a lowered brow" may mean so many things. It may mean that they're worried, ponderious, puzzled, tense, angered, or just plain hungry. While in RL, you would in most cases deduce the body language immediately, from context, and dozens if not hundreds of subtle things which would require one and a half of screen length to fully describe. It 'is' much easier to just glance angrilly, because well ... you understand it, you can 'imagine' it in your head, and it does 'not' break the atmosphere apart. You do not think your character would've understood the facial expression? Then dont let your chara understand it, inquire about the odd face they're giving you, or just plain ignore it.

You hit on precisely why I prefer emotes like the one you described not liking, Folker: they can mean many different things, and you don't know right away. I don't WANT to know exactly what that expression means, it's more interesting and intriguing for me when I have to get inside a character's head and make some guesses. In most cases the context of the scene should be enough for you to figure out, or else you can always ask the PC what's up. A good emote will be able to -show- you what a PC is doing or feeling without having to explicitly -tell- you.

[Xio]

You hit on precisely why I prefer emotes like the one you described not liking, Folker: they can mean many different things, and you don't know right away. I don't WANT to know exactly what that expression means, it's more interesting and intriguing for me when I have to get inside a character's head and make some guesses. In most cases the context of the scene should be enough for you to figure out, or else you can always ask the PC what's up. A good emote will be able to -show- you what a PC is doing or feeling without having to explicitly -tell- you.

While normally in the context you can guess what this expression means, but you, as a player, are not seeing all the subtle movements your character would pick up on and either know or assume the meaning of the face/gesture etc. I think a compromise between the two, a bit descriptive with an emotion-link adjective added in would just help the entire situation. Someone could be giving you an angry look and your character could just go > Zeus says, crinkling his brow is apparent confusion "Whats the matter, need to take a shit?" < The other character could take the brow crinkle as a look of disgust and not confusion if they really wanted to. But if Zeus just crinkled his brow it could be taken as -anything- when it is obviously or leaning towards confusion.

[Jherlen]

People's expressions get misread in real life all the time, too. If you want to tell someone straight up what your PC feels, fine, but I don't think they are absolutely entitled to know, and I don't think the more vague style is wrong.

[spawnloser]

For those saying that "pem brow knits together and his eyes narrow as they turn to ~man." could have too many meanings...well, yeah, that's the point.  You could misinterpret it in real life, so why not in the MUD?

As others have said in this thread and many people have said on many threads in the past that have been about how people and actions are described:  SHOW, DON'T TELL.  This goes for emotes as well as descriptions.

Don't tell me your character is mad, sad, happy, pretty, gorgeous, ugly or sleeping.  Emote the flush of the cheeks as you grit your teeth, a single tear on an expressionless face, a broad smile and twinkling eyes...describe your characters appearance, picture your character in your head and describe every detail until you think I could see that same image in my head...use the sleep command and emote sucking on your thumb and cuddling with your blankey.

[Fathi]

.use the sleep command and emote sucking on your thumb and cuddling with your blankey.

People who emote while their characters are sleeping or unconscious make my damn day.

ALSO. Time for my emoting pet peeve.

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The tall, soandso dude gives you a look.

I've gotten that more than once, from more than one character... if you're going to look at my character in an obvious fashion that they would notice, why not add some sort of modifier so I, the player, know how to interpret exactly what your look looks like? You're not just using the 'look' command, you're emoting the action, which to me, the other player says that this action must have some sort of significance or else you'd just 'look ____.'

Bad: The tall, soandso dude gives you a look.
Slightly Better: The tall, soandso dude gives you a mean look.
Good: The tall, soandso dude shoots you a glare.
Best: Narrowing his eyes, the tall, soandso dude shoots you a glare.

My character would react differently to someone staring at them depending on the manner of the expression. Sure, there are contextual ways you can tell what the expression might be--in the middle of a heated argument, someone's not gonna look at the person they're yelling at all sweet and doe-eyed--but 'gives you a look' is just... ugh.

Anyway, done.

[Anael]

I have to admit sometimes (very rarely) I see 'bad' emotes used in such a hilarious way that I don't mind them at all.

ie, during a major dressdown of a whole unit:

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The angry sergeant glares at the men standing here, fists clenched and fuming.

The wee recruit makes an attempt to look like he's not here.


[Tisiphone]

Actually, Anael, because of the context, I don't think that's a bad emote. Because of the way the player worded it, we know:

a) The character is shitting-his-pants scared. We can visualize this however, but I'm sure in the back of your mind everyone here knows what they think abject terror looks like.
b) He's doing something to avoid being seen. He's also failing, so he's probably doing something *obvious* to avoid being unseen. Be that crouching down in formation, shuffling backwards, or standing really really really still but letting his eyes go wild, doesn't quite matter at this point.

But maybe that's just me.

[LoD]

Most of these issues seem to revolve around: Don't tell me, show me.[/i]

:arrow: The lanky, red haired man gives you an angry look.

Don't tell me you're angry, show me.

Children can recognize certain expressions at a very early age because they have similar cues.  Flushed features, furrowed brows, clenched jaw, quick or more drastic hand movements, increase in vocal pitch and volume, quivering or shaking, pressed lips, flaring nostrils.  Why would you want to take the easy way out instead of using many of the fun and easily recognizeable visual cues available to you with the English language?

:arrow: The lanky, red haired man tries not to be noticed.

Don't tell me what you're doing, show me.

Are you shrinking in your body posture, taking a step toward the shadows, lowering your head to avoid eye contact, trying to blend into a crowd, or pulling your cloak tighter about yourself?  There are many ways to show how your character is doing something rather than telling uswhat they are doing.

:arrow: The lanky, red haired man sighs, frustrated at losing again.

Don't tell me how you feel, show me.

Humans convey emotions and feelings through facial expression, vocal quality, and body language.  If it was this simple to realize how someone feels, men would have a much easier time in their marriages.  However, they don't and missed cues can create plenty of issues out of nothing.  Don't tell the players that you are "frustrated at losing again" - show us.

Slam your hand on the table, mutter some curse words, add a line into the dialogue to help emphasize the point, stammer over words in anger, gesture sharply, grit your teeth, shake your head, snort, run your hand over your head in a gesture expelling energy or rage, but SHOW us what you are doing rather than TELL us.

That's the easiest way for me to approach emotes.  Don't tell me, show me.

-LoD

[Agent_137]

I agree "showing" is better than "telling," as a rule.

Sometimes, though, for practical reasons, like not having the presence of mind to type out a two line emote, I'll be faced with two options: giving a "telling" emote, or no emote at all.

In those scenarios, I'm going to facepalm, or glower angrily.

You can cry about it on the forums, but it gets the point across ICly.

That said, I sure as hell won't want to make a habit of it.

p.s.

:facepalms.
:palms his face.

Seriously? That's an issue? Sounds like somebody has a major case of the cares!

[psionic fungus]

I have to comment. I have -never- heard of "facepalming" before this thread. I'm not even entirely sure what this action is.  When I initially saw it, I thought of someone slapping their brow with a hand.  This isn't really "palming" however, and the brow is not the face.  When I think about it, "facepalms" seems to describe someone grabbing their own -face- with one hand, which is pretty absurd, in my opinion.  I think this action is better off being described as slapping the forehead with the palm of a hand, wiping a hand over the face, or burying the head into the hands (or masking the face with the hands if you want to by literal).  Anything besides this weird non-word that vaguely describes -some- action involving a palm and a face.

:roll:

[Morfeus]

Facepalm = palms his/her face.

for reelz biotch = ebonics.

And neither is officially part of the English language.

Derail:

I didn't read the whole thread, I have to admit. But I'd like to point out something: as someone who is not a native speaker and who learned English mostly from net and books, I realize that I sometime unintentionally use words which are "not official part of the English language", which are mispelled, which are wrongly used or which are simply wrong. Hey, help me to improve and use correct words which are existing, give me a good example! I already have to struggle with my poor grammar, troubles how to describe what I mean and understanding of very-educational speeches.  :twisted:

[Djarjak]

Personally, I'm a bit middle of the road here.

I don't mind the occasional "So-and-so grimaces with disgust" or "So-and-so gives you a look" because, while they are not as descriptive as "So-and-so grimaces, his nose wrinkling, his mouth pinching together, and his eyes squinting", you don't necessarily NEED a six line emote to get the point across.  There are certain cases where a more subtle approach is more rewarding (a character whose motivations aren't crystal clear tends to be more compelling to me, personally), but that needn't be every character for the game to be fun.

Further, if using a real-life analogy is the best way to quickly convey a gesture or an expression, I'm generally OK with that, too.

However, seeing things like "Even though so-and-so didn't mention that she put her arm around you before, she did, and she now sets it back down in her lap" is a type of meta-commentary that distracts me in a negative way. Likewise "So-and-so gets the hell out of dodge! (followed by a flee self)" or "Feeling ridiculous, so-and-so does something" may be funny in context, but may not be appreciated by all present.

I think there's a real risk of taking the game -too- seriously and missing out on some of the highly entertaining and truly hilarious moments that some of these emotes can provide. However, a general rule is, when an emote makes me think more about real life than about the game ('even though so-and-so didn't mention that she put her arm around you before...') or is completely unrealistic in context, I personally find it jarring rather than appealing.  But, if everyone were to come to regard their character as a cartoon-character and portray them as such, Arm would be a vastly different game. Just keep it in mind when you're choosing which style to use.

The kids are watching.

[joyofdiscord]

I have to comment. I have -never- heard of "facepalming" before this thread.

Seconding this.  People have mentioned it being used in chats and comics, which hints at it being some cutesy cartoony term which turns me off.  I'm a descriptivist so I'm not going to complain about whether something is found in dictionaries, but this particular term I looked for, and wikipedia gave two very different definitions: what would commonly be called burying one's face in one's hands, and smacking one's forehead with their hand.  Very different actions that could best be described on their own.


I definitely see no problem with "in apparent disgust" or "in confusion" or "angrily" or whatever.  A really nice physical emote that instantly provokes the right image and conveys the mental state in question is obviously fantastic, and you better believe I'll do it every time I can come up with one, but sometimes it just takes too long to try to puzzle out exactly what facial creases would reflect confusion in my character and come up with all the right words that fit into a gramatically correct sentence using the emote code.  The scene needs to move on.  If you're a quick and descriptive writer, great for you, but I've had way too many times where I sat trying to cast some basic emotion in physical terms before finally giving up and going with "shakes his head, looking confused."  So now other players have waited a minute or two for the original simple emote.  Sometimes confusion is just confusion.

The fact is, most of the time, when someone is outwardly expressing some emotion, you can read it.  We naturally do this in our social interactions every single day without ever noticing it.  Of course misreadings happen, but we notice those because they are the exception among the countless correct assessments we make constantly.  

People that consistently misread others either are autistic, a specific ingrained inability to perform these automatic assessments to function normally in a social situation, or are displaying some basically normal social awkwardness or obliviousness of varying degrees.  If your character falls in one of these categories, it's easy enough to roleplay that your character isn't picking up social cues or isn't acting on them.  However, I'm going to assume that most characters have basic social skills and can distinguish major emotions on a level at least that of an elementary school student.  Even the classic clueless sitcom husband knows his wife is upset or sad or angry.  He just doesn't know why.

[Folker]

To be honest. I 'suspect' that facepalm is one of those precoded emotes that some muds have. Armageddon still have some amount of them left like grin <target> or nod <target> and so on. Some muds have hundreds of these precoded emotes.

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facepalm (command)
You slap your palm on your forehead, slowly sliding it down across your pained, exasperated face(echo)



[LiquidShell]

Why oh god Shalooonsh would you start a thread like this.  It's like tossing a baby tregil into a pit of gortoks, and hoping something constructive comes from it.  No you're just inciting a riot, with a lot of nagging about who got the last bite.

[flurry]

I don't think I ever saw 'facepalm' before, either.  Personally, I idealike and  intend to dictionarydiscard and truly potentialtap this approach. :wink:

[Folker]

I don't think I ever saw 'facepalm' before, either.  Personally, I idealike and  intend to dictionarydiscard and truly potentialtap this approach. :wink:

Next we're going to say 'this is a plus plus idea'.

[Hymwen]

I've heard of facepalm before!

[rufus]

Hymwen, you pickpocket, quit palming my face!

[Folker]

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Steal nose templar
OK!
Slip nose pack
You put an aquiline nose in your bone-studded pack.
Templar looks at you wide eyed, his face oddly misshaped, a glaring bloodied stump where the nose usually is.
You think:
            Aw crap, I failed my sleight of hand roll *facepalm*


[psionic fungus]

The fact is, most of the time, when someone is outwardly expressing some emotion, you can read it.

I just don't know how true this is.  Individuals do have particulars, and once you have known someone for awhile it certainly becomes easier to read them. As I have said, people -constantly- misread my facial expressions IRL. So... Does that make -me- autistic or -everyone else-?  

Seriously.  If reading body language was as easy as some people claim I don't think our divorce rate would be as high as it is... Or maybe verbal communication in relationships wouldn't be quite so important... I don't know, but I do know that reading people's faces is -not- so simple that everyone will always know what everyone else is thinking.  One person's look of anger is another's look of confusion; while one person might be trying to look sexy someone else might just be sleepy...

People mis-read body language nearly as often as they properly interpret it, in my person experience.  It is definitely easier to read body language when someone is -trying- to express themselves through it, and I'm sure that can be taken into account when emoting, but I will always -prefer- ambiguity in emotes, which are descriptions of physical actions.  The simple fact is that solely physical descriptions are also interpreted based on prior interaction with the character and the context of the situation, and that's the way it should be, IMO, of course.

[Anael]

Facepalming aside.

I am sorry, but I always thought of roleplay more as -story-telling than anything else. For this very reason, I'll have my characters nod their head gratefully, scowl angrily or twist their faces into disgusted grimaces, because it simply helps to get the point across smoothly. If you think your character might mis- interprete the expression, feel free to do so. Likewise, when I want my character's feelings to remain obscure, I'll adjust my emotes appropriately. I just didn't come to Armageddon to contemplate the fine details of human (let alone elven or dwarf) body language, but to roleplay a story of a character who plots someone's murder, is corrupt, or faces the unpleasant consequences of being betrayed.


This is how I always interpreted the sentence I have in my signature, even tough I might be twisting Vanth's real thoughts, for which I apologize.

Just my two sids.